I love haiku, and not for the same reason some of my students do (i.e. they’re super short and you can pull one out in a pinch just before class).

I love them because of how pure they are, how evocative and complete, in so spare a frame. 

I love the implicit connection they make between the natural world and, well, everything. 

I love that they remind us, as poets, to be attentive to each and every word, every sound, every connotation.

Basho and the Fox, by Tim Myers and illustrated by Oki S. Han is a lovely little picture book about the great haiku artist and his relationship with a rascally fox, but also his relationship to his work. 
(http://www.amazon.com/Basho-Fox-Tim-Myers/dp/0761451900/sr=8-1/qid=1170420520/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-8343462-8780968?ie=UTF8&s=books)

The very idea that the dramatic conflict is the constant striving to write a better poem! Isn’t that delicious? 

Myers grapples with all sorts of abstractions — the muse, revision, patronage, and writing a poem for its own sake — with humour and, dare I say, suspense. 

My girls love the trickster and the struggle to Get It Right. 

I love the reminder that our best work “flows into (us) and out of (us)” and that all the effort in the world won’t impress a fox (or an editor or the madding crowds) unless the act of creation is that natural, that inevitable, even. 

Like the moon blooming
or a deep breath, in and out
words take their places. 

• Short story anthologies (preferably with some Alice Munro, Annie Proulx and Jim Harrison)
• The summer fiction issue of the New Yorker
• An episodic novel or two, to be read in fits and starts if necessary (maybe Willa Cather’s Death Comes to the Archbishop and the new Black Swan Green by David Mitchell)

• A few meaty classics (The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, Fagles’ translation of The Odyssey, and something by both Dickens and Austen)
• Some humour (Essays by David Sedaris, poetry by Billy Collins and maybe a Tom Robbins novel or two)
• Some wilderness reading (Thoreau, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey)  

• Beautiful poetry (by Mary Oliver, William Stafford, Louise Gluck, Marie Howe, Jane Kenyon, Dickinson, Whitman, Basho. How many am I allowed to pick?)
• Beautiful picture books (by Cynthia Rylant, Patricia Polacco, Maurice Sendek, Peter H. Reynolds, Jane Yolen. I can’t stop!!!)

1. As a teen, I got a perm. You have to know me to fully appreciate the absurdity of this. Hello, Medusa. There was no need, I assure you. But it was the ‘80s and I was trying to follow that old “When in Rome…” adage to the letter. Fortunately there’s scanty photographic evidence that this took place. (I also tried a Dorothy Hammill haircut once. Ditto everything above except it was the 70’s rather than 80’s. Trends should have gatekeepers, don’t you think?)
2. In 5^th grade, I wanted to play the drums but the band teacher told me, “Girls don’t play drums; you can choose the flute or clarinet.” I choose flute, polished it a bunch and got the only solid F of my academic career. These days I mostly clap and hum. 
3. I read Love Story every summer from age 11 ‘til age 16 and each time I thought Jennifer might not die this time. Oliver thought so, too.
4. My lucky number is 4. To note: my birthday (4/4); number of people in my family (4); number of people in the family I grew up in (4); the terminal number of many of my addresses over the years (674, 124, 324, 604 and two Apt. #4s); not to mention elements on earth, arrows on a compass, quarters to a dollar and seasons in a year. OK, maybe not in Texas. But technically, right?
5. Once, I pulled away from the gas pump without taking the nozzle out of my tank and I pulled the hose off with me. Did you know that those hoses are designed to disconnect? Still, I’ve been trying to pay better attention since then…

That’s what they say about half marathons, even though it really doesn’t feel like half of anything. 

Quibbles aside, 13.1 miles is the perfect middle distance — far surpassing your average 5- or 10K, in training regimen and sense of accomplishment, but without a marathon’s joint torture or Saturday suck. 

I cannot imagine the wife mother writer teacher sleeper getter-upper driver neighbor citizen I’d be without the fresh air, exercise and endorphines of a good run. I mean, really. Duck and cover. It’s a bad day without exercise.

Yesterday was Austin’s 3M Half Marathon, my hands-down favorite run of the year. (Okay, mine’s more like a jog than a run, but who’s timing?) 

Here are highlights:

The good folks at Embassy Suites taking pity as we waited at the start in the cold, cold dark. They seemed not-at-all frazzled by the thousand-some runners stretching hamstrings in their lobby and lining up to use a bathroom that wasn’t a bright blue tippable box. 

Turning the corner at mile 2 so that headwinds became tailwinds.

Friends and family at mile 8 with a big ole’ sign, hugs, whoops and hollers. Even my running partner (who’s benched with a hip injury) braved the morning chill to cheer me on. Talk about a second wind. Some folks suck on a little tube of goo to recharge, but who needs it when you get a dose of love this palpable?

The perfect playlist my husband built for my iPod (aptly titled Run Liz, Run). Warmed up to Elaine Elias, Zap Mama and Culture; moved onto a podcast of This American Life; and finished out with Fountains of Wayne, ABBA, Jane’s Addiction and other delicious stuff. One particular strong spot had me singing I Am Woman (out loud) with Helen Reddy — while running downhill, no less. Crossing the finish line to Passionate Kisses wadn’t bad either. 

Meditating (or hallunicating — I’m not sure which) from mile 9 to mile 11. “I love this. This feels good. I’m so happy. I’m so lucky.” Repeat. “I love this. This feels good. I’m so happy. I’m so lucky.” To those who weren’t in my altered state it may have looked as if speedier folk were passing me by but I know better. I was flying…

The bagpipe player, jugglers, cowbell ringers, brass band and steel drum afficianado scattered along the course. On a cold morning, for no good reason but the joy of it.

Finishing up — a few minutes quicker than I’d hoped for, with a few songs left on my playlist. (Actually, just finishing, period, felt dang good. Like putting the final touches on a final draft.) 

Nothing could dampen the spirits, not even the sinewy soul who said to me, right after the race, “That was so short and easy compared to the ultra marathons I’ve been doing!” 

Short and easy? Mmm hmmm. Kind of like writing literature for kids. Who’s hallucinating now?

For those of you still suffering the chills of winter, a little ditty from our old pal A.A. Milne:

If I were a bear
And a big bear too,
I shouldn’t much care
If it froze or snew;
I shouldn’t much mind
If it snowed or friz —
I’d be all fur-lined
With a coat like his!

See — it’s fun!

Today I received a really smashing little packet of thank you notes from some of the students I worked with recently at an Austin elementary school. 

Here are some excerpts from their letters, which lay to rest the ridiculous notion that children hate — or are afraid of — writing (especially poetry):

You’re always talking about how to use your senses.

You have opened up another job possibility for me when I get older. Thank you.

I learned so much. Like what vivid meant.

I am as brown as bark. Good one huh?

Now I know how to be a great writer. So keep writing your books and I’ll keep writing my best.

Can’t you just feel them buzzing? The kids I engage with consistently love working with words, find endless possibility in the world of metaphor, and proudly read their writing aloud. 

I truly believe that creative work is a necessary counter-balance (or even an antidote) to the more circumscribed academic challenges these kids face everyday. 

My manifesto: Art belongs in the schools. Vivid enough for ya?

My very astute husband discovered this weekend, while poring through some of my research material for that budding work-in-progress, that the acknowledged expert in the field LIVES IN AUSTIN, TEXAS, as do we. Is that lovely serendipity, or what? 

Now I just need to load up on enough knowledge and courage to give him a buzz.

… puts me in the mood to read Seven Silly Eaters, by Mary Ann Hoberman. 

I often tell my students that when editors say they don’t want rhyme, they mean they don’t want BAD rhyme. THIS kind of rhyme is delicious.

I love reading this book aloud; it’s another gutbuster.

“…Creamy oatmeal, pots of it!
Homemade bread and lots of it!
Peeling apples by the peck,
Mrs. Peters was a wreck!

She wiped her brow and heaved a sigh;
Another year was passing by. 
In fact, she realized with sorrow,
Her birthday would arrive tomorrow!
Drearily she shook her head
And wearily went up to bed.

She thought the children had forgot
Her special day — but they had not!
At crack of dawn they all began
To carry out their secret plan:
Mrs. Peters would be fed 
A birthday breakfast in her bed!
A breakfast made of all the food
That kept them in such happy moods…”

And that’s when things really get crazy.