We spent a lot of time outdoors today — it’s that time of year here. We potted some pretty spring plants (with a bias toward pink zinnias), dyed Easter eggs in a friend’s backyard, and walked the dog more than once. (Which is unnecessary since she’s fifteen, but who could resist?)
Most of what I notice right now is the smell of grape hyacinth in the air, the almost-perfect non-tempature and the birds, nesting. But today there was also a little something in the air…
Haikus Three 4/3/2010
Try to catch your breath, the air yellowed with pollen and heavy with spring.
Again this morning, oak droppings on the front stoop; I reach for my broom.
Trees reproducing with sticky vigor and lust; blatant and straight-up.
We are lucky to live in a neighborhood where, when the weather’s right, everyone spills out of their houses into the street. Dogs being taken on supposed walks lie down in each other’s yards while their folks talk. Kids push their scooters and their chalk right down the middle of the pavement, and there are a couple of basketball hoops in frequent use.
This afternoon, my Small One and I were out there in the midst of it all when something flew overhead — so close we all ducked a little bit. It is spring here, the season of bright surprises.
Haiku 2 April 2, 2010
hawk floats overhead — mistaken for a vulture it reveals itself
Hi. I’m Liz. You may remember me — I used to blog here.
Life has gotten pretty crazy at our house of late. My husband’s been recently diagnosed with a serious illness, and he’s had to succumb to endless tests and a really gnarly surgery — all just to prepare him for treatment.
As his right hand gal in the midst of all this, I’ve had to let all the nonessentials slip away
That said, today is April 1st, the kick-off of National Poetry Month. Last year I celebrated by writing (and posting) at least one haiku every day — a practice that ended up being a highlight of my year. This year I am committing to do the same. It feels a little illogical, seeing as how I can’t seem to get to an ordinary blog post to save my life, but I really want to do it.
Writing a haiku everyday for a month teaches me a lot about poetry. It teaches me a lot about my writing practice. It teaches me a lot about birds and leaves and wind and sky. And it teaches me a lot about noticing each sublime moment each day has to offer. Which is just about the opposite of nonessential, if you ask me.
So, without further ado, welcome, I’ve missed you and happy poetry month…
long train whistling as I cut this morning’s fruit — to warn or beckon?
I just got the sweetest little packet of thank you cards from one of the schools I visited recently. We’d worked and played with metaphors and then, to our great delight, it started snowing outside! (Afterwhich all bets were off. This is Austin, Texas, after all.)
Here are a few of my favorites (and imagine, if you will, these words bedecked with hearts, stars and other magic markered embellishments):
Dear Mrs. Liz Garton, I saw you like my poem even the one that said I am goofy like a moose with clothing on my horns and you laugh. Even the bat one too. We both had fun. From Breanna
Dear Liz Garton Scanlon, Thank you for coming to ar school even if it was snowing. I am bilingual so Muchos Gracias!!! Sincerely Jesua
Thank you Liz Garton Scanlon Your the best like a Best Friend Your sweet like a lollipop Your pretty like a princess Sincearly Gruselda
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been compared to a princess before, being all curly-haired and blue-jeaned. Lucky me!
Well, the poetry sisters have been back at our old tricks. Throwing down dares and taking ’em up. Dread and drudgery. Self-flaggelation.
And, now, willingly sharing it all in public. It’s as close as we come to reality TV, folks.
Some of you have been witness to our previous antics (see here and here), but if you’re new, it goes like this:
One of us gets a wild hare that has something to do with form poetry and a deadline. The rest of us temporarily lose all sense of reason and say yes. A few weeks (or months) later we all agree to post the results of the process. Which brings us to today.
This time, it was the inestimable Ms. Kelly Fineman who suggested the form — The Roundeau. And because it’s Kelly, it couldn’t just be the regular old run-of-the-mill Roundeau. It had to be the Roundeau Redouble. (There’s supposed to be an accent on that e and I can’t make my computer do that right now… sorry.)
Kelly does her typically brilliant job of explaining the form here, and it does help (even while calling it "somewhat twisted"). But I’m willing to admit that this is the hardest form I’ve ever tried to wrangle, and I’m afraid it wrangled me.
Along with the set parameters of the form, we also agreed that there’d be an overall theme of fresh starts or resolutions. (We originally hoped to post around the New Year, then Chinese New Year and now, um, spring?) But one of the wild things that happens when writing in form is that you have to give up some control over content. You may start with a sort of plan and a whole lot of best intentions, but the form tells you what goes where and what can and cannot be said and before long, voila, a voice and narrative you didn’t know you had. There’s something liberating about it and, well, terrifying, too.
So, here’s mine (which I thought I’d lost to a nasty computer virus yesterday. Convenient, huh? But no.Thanks to Google docs, everything’s forever now. Oy.)
What’s old is new
All that’s old is new, the slate is clean;
this morning puts to bed the night before.
Sun spills nascent light through hash-marked screen
upon the clothes left hollow on the floor.
My grievances are gone, I don’t keep score.
Your chill thawed out in hours slept, unseen.
We’re through with silent treatments, slamming doors –
all that’s old is new, the slate is clean.
You pour my coffee, slip into routine.
We quietly agree to just ignore
the words we’d uttered merely to be mean.
This morning puts to bed the night before.
I want to ask if I’m whom you adore still and true, as if we were sixteen –
you in my heart and me so sweet in yours,
sunshine pouring through the hash-marked screen.
But we’re not there, we’re somewhere in between
giving nothing and afraid to ask for more.
All we can drop are hints like seeds of green
upon the clothes left hollow on the floor.
If they send roots into our rocky core
and blossom like tomato, squash or bean,
we will be fine and flush again with stores.
If something less, or few? Still us, serene.
All that’s old is new.
— Liz Garton Scanlon, 3/2010
Now what I’d love for you to do is zip on over to my beloved Princesses’ palaces and check out their awesome efforts. (We are flying without Tricia today and we miss her.)
I am, as always, in awe of what these women can do with a pen and a piece of paper, and feeling wild with luck that I get to play with them and call them my friends…
Today was Dr. Seuss’ Birthday.
He’d have been 106 and frankly, considering what we know of the guy, I’m kind of surprised he didn’t make it ’til at least 111.
Anyway, Happy Birthday, Good Man.
I celebrated with a group of 3rd graders at a school here in Austin.
We talked rhyme and reading and revision (my three r’s) and it was swell.
#1. It snowed. I am not kidding you. It wasn’t kind of whiteish sleet. It was big fat flakes and they fell for a long time. Most of it melted pretty quickly but there were snowballs thrown and everyone was laughing. Everyone. Not just kids but teachers and postmen and people at the grocery store.
And #2. I did writing workshops with 4th and 5th graders at a very sweet Young Author’s Day. There were quite a few high points, including the fact that we were given beautiful handthrown pottery bowls in appreciation of our participation. But naturally, the real shine was the kids and their work.
We talked about metaphors and how our job was to create a real image in our readers’ minds. And lo and behold. Kids are so original, unencumbered by the cliches that both tempt and haunt the rest of us.
Two boys, in particular, really blew me away. The first was not pleased to be there. He wouldn’t open his notebook and his arms were tightly crossed — until I checked in with him and he revealed that his puppy had died two days ago and he was "just having a bad day." The next thing you know, his arms unwrapped and he wrote about being:
"as thin as a penny/I could slip through cracks/I could be easily lost."
Mercy. I could hardly breathe.
Then, there was another little guy who had really severe dyslexia and disgraphia. I realized it quickly and I’m ashamed to say that I immediately went to worst case scenario. I worried that it was going to be really hard on me (to tend to him and all the others) and really hard on him (I imagined he’d be frustrated and maybe embarrassed.) Boy oh man was I wrong. I got the others started and squatted down next to him to see if he’d be willing to dictate a piece to me. Um, yeah. How about this?
"I am as funny as a comic/or a cartoon character./I am as funny as a bug on a cane."
And that was only the first one. I think if I’d been willing to carry on, we might still be there. And he followed up by asking if he could share it aloud with the class. Like I said, blew me away.
Almost as much as the snow. What sweet surprises….
In the past few weeks, I’ve spoken at two university children’s literature classes… three elementary schools… two conferences… two bookstores… and a juvenile detention center. Tomorrow I do a Young Author’s Day at another school.
Ordinarily, I blog right after talks and school visits — there’s always so much humour and poignancy — but this month I’ve found it all a bit dizzying. The schedule, yes, but also just the intense shifting of gears — from college students to troubled youth to toddlers with sippy cups.
I think I do okay when I’m on, but I drive home in a daze and my family often catches me later, staring off into the middle distance. This was never more true than last Friday when I spoke to two groups at the Williamson County Juvenile Academy in Georgetown, Texas.
It’s hard to know how to sum up the visit except to say these are kids who are not disengaged. Or disenchanted. Or hopeless.
They are in a tough spot, to be sure, but they were not afraid to raise their hands to say they liked poetry or kept journals, they were not afraid to call out suggestions when we wrote as a group, and they were not afraid to cheer what we came up with.
In honor of that fearlessness, their poems. With my gratitude for their words and their attention…
I was pregnant with my second daughter, and both filled up and utterly exhausted after a weekend full of words. So it’s no surprise that I cried as she read.
There was something about her poems that just split my heart open and then something about her voice that offered comfort. She did not shy away from darkness in the least, but she herself was awash in light.
Lucille Clifton died this week. It is a terrific loss to the poetry world and, I’d go out on a limb and say, to the human world, too.
I’ve been thinking of her a little every day since then, mostly during moments of goodness and joy, but also yesterday when a man flew a plane into a building here in Austin, Texas — out of anger and futility. And I’m thinking of her again this morning as I head off to speak to young people at a local juvenile detention center — young people who must have their own anger and futility simmering. it’s everywhere, really. It’s just a matter of what you do with it. Lucille Clifton turned it into words.
My Small One came home so excited about her homework yesterday. And people, I have to tell you, this is not a child who gets "excited" about homework. She’s a bit of an eye roller sometimes. OK, often.
But yesterday? Yesterday she was asked to use half of her spelling words in a poem. "It’s like a puzzle," she declared, and got to work.
And you guys? THIS is what she wrote. I know I’m her mom and totally and completely biased, but seriously. It’s pretty sweet. Don’t you think?
When at the park you might start to stare at an open plot with open air. The longer you stare into the night the more you think you’re wanting light. And then right then before your eyes a little tiny insect flies. Not just one, about fifteen! A very glorious wonder seen. But the quick odd fellows ended the show. Now they’re black insects on the go. You pull your coat over your head and squeeze back home ready for bed. In a second you’re on Viking Lane with thoughts of fireflies on your brain.
