Just a quick note to share the happy news that my next book, Noodle & Lou, has a release date of March 8th, 2011.

My agent shared the cover image last week on Facebook, but for those of you who aren’t Facebookians, here it is:

I’m completely biased, but I think it’s pretty darn cute.
(And I’ve got all the proofs here on my dining room table — it’s not just the cover!
The other pages hold up pretty well, too. 🙂

I think illustrator Arthur Howard (of Cynthia Rylant’s Mr. Putter and Tabby series) is a master at combining whimsy with heart. I’m so grateful for what he’s done with this funny little tale…

If I were to try to categorize the poems I love, I’d say that my favorites are about how we live, in spite of it all. How we wake up; how we push through and feel love, joy and gratitude; how we struggle to stay here — breathing, and in it.

I mean, I have nothing against poetry about hummingbirds or politics or Grecian urns, but the ones that hit me in the center of my breast bone, the ones that leave me aching and relieved at the same time, are the ones that lay out that fundamental dance between living and dying, struggle and desire, pain and pleasure.

My friend Carrie Fountain writes a lot of those, even when they’re not overtly so. They are historical revelation or contemporary narrative, snapshot or reflection, but almost always with those biggest of curiosities underneath the stories, holding the words on the page.

Carrie’s new book, Burn Lake, was a winner of this year’s National Poetry Prize and it’s no wonder. There is so much there — truth and humor and fight and surrender — to take comfort in, even as we’re put on uncomfortable edges. I read the whole thing fast and furiously, like a beach book, a potboiler, and then went back to take it in more carefully. And not for the last time, either. I’m keeping it on my bedside table.

I would really like for you to have and to read this book.
In the meantime, though, here’s a little taste:

(Please note: It’s called Burn Lake 2 here, but in the book it’s Burn Lake 3)

Burn Lake 2
by Carrie Fountain

We found a duck, a mallard, dead
on the shore, head split, eyes loose,

For a while I’d had a vague idea
I could kill myself by holding my breath.

Yet when I locked myself in my room
and tried it, I fainted, fell face-first

I’d done it…

(Read the rest here…)

(And on an only slightly off-topic tangent, Carrie’s recently become a new mum, which makes that "pressing harder into life" ever keener. Wishing some docile days to them as they wake up to this new world…)

Oh, the things a gal will do when her kids are out of town,
to keep from missing them crazy-fierce.

1. Get a haircut
2. Practice yoga
3. Have coffee with friends
4. Wash the curtains
5. Write letters
6. Practice yoga
7. Try Stand-Up Paddling
8. Finish a picture book manuscript
9. Submit a picture book manuscript
10. Practice yoga

And in between all this, blend food for and take walks with my husband,
who’s getting a little bit well-er and a little bit stronger everyday. 

So. 
There you go. 
Things could be a lot worse…

Namaste.

I’ve just recently started writing in earnest again, after spending much of the last few months being caregiver to my husband.

So now here I am, three different documents open on my desktop, notebook open by my bed, and I’m struck by the word "earnest," aren’t you? 

After stepping away from this work, it can feel really daunting and really, really serious to step back in.
Do I remember what I’m doing?
Do I need to prove it to myself or to my agent/editors/parents/neighbors/friends?
Do I belong in this world?
Does this work matter?

Hello, paging Kierkegaard.
It makes my head hurt.

Last night I went down to our favorite, big, beautiful, spring-fed pool for a swim at about 9 o’clock. It’s free then, for an hour, before they close up, and people pour in and loll around and bring down the day’s body temperatures and stress levels by sitting in 68-degree water and looking at the moon. And last night, there was a full brass band playing, just for kicks. Half of the musicians were standing in the water, including the tuba player. I had a hard time swimming because I was smiling so hard.

At about that same time, my friend Shannon sent me this video clip of The Morning Benders and friends, making music in San Francisco. Which also makes me smile. And I’m left thinking that the common denominator here is the lack of earnestness, right? 

Passion? Sure.
Experimentation? Yep.
Community? For sure.
Utter joy? Absolutely.
Earnestness? Not so much.

Have fun today.
Namaste.
 

 Is it just me or does it seem like the Gulf Coast gets more than its fair share of trouble? 

What must it be like to sit there knowing that hurricanes are coming or, now, balls of crude oil washing up onto the beach? 

What must it be like for the birds and the animals, not knowing?

Thank goodness for the volunteers who rebuild houses and wash oiled birds.

And thank goodness, too, for artists who reveal truths, take stances, crack open possibilities, depict hope.

Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun does all of this — read it. Really.

And now here’s poet Natasha Trethaway adding her part, too.
Look, and listen.
And to this one, too.

Who knows who is writing what today….

It is officially summer vacation here. 

Tall One is off at her first sleep-away camp and I’m here to say that I did not cry
and cling to her ankles when we said goodbye. 

Well, okay, I got a little lumpy in the throat, but all-in-all you would’ve been proud of me.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Small One’s been a bit under the weather again. 
Which does not a jolly vacationer make. 

We have been reading books, snuggling, reading books, watching the Kenneth Branagh-directed Twelfth Night, snuggling, and reading books. Yesterday, in the midst of all this, she declared me "time consuming." Which apparently is a good thing because she appreciates my time-consumptive techniques. Especially the reading books. 

I’m ever-so-grateful to those of you who write really amazing books for Small Ones like mine. 
(In particular, at the moment, Laura Resau, Ruth McNally Barshaw and Rick Riordan.)

As the mother of an almost middle-schooler, I’m happy to report that Judy Blume is alive and well and working her magic at my house.

Nothing against Harry Potter or Percy Jackson, but sometimes a girl just wants to read about a girl not unlike herself, a girl mulling over friendship and religion and bras. And stuff like that.

Having Judy Blume swoop onto the scene with Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret is like having the perfect aunt come to stay — with empathy and understanding, humor and gumption packed in her suitcase. I’m so grateful she’s here…

"… stay aware, listen carefully, and yell for help if you need it…" — Judy Blume

I have a sick Small One home with me today. 
She’s already had tea, a bath, and all varieties of nasty-tasting tinctures.

But still, she’s feeling mad and powerless.
There are only seven days of school left, and she wants to be there for each one. 
(Cue the irony here regarding the many days of school that sounded, um, less than appealing to her…)

"What would you say to those germs if they could hear you?" I asked.
There was quite a pause.
She closed her eyes.
And when she opened them, she said, "Mistress, dispatch you with your safest haste and get you from our court!"

Really, all I could do was nod…

I’m well aware that Friday, May 21st isn’t any sort of new year. 
It is, in fact, the end of the week and nearly the end of both the month and the academic calendar.
(Hallelujah.)
But it’s new for me in that I officially miss blogging and am ready to get back at it.

Today it’s easy — I have a crown sonnet to share!
A few years back, I worked on my first crown with a group of Austin poets called The Brass Tacks.
I said yes before I knew how scary they were.
Since then, as many of you know, I’ve dealt with my Crown Sonnet PTSD by inflicting it upon our very own Poetry Princesses. (Bwah ha ha…)

Now, that first crown has been published in the online journal Poemeleon, and here it is! I wrote the final sonnet for our piece, which means my first line was the last line of the sixth sonnet and my last line was the first line of the whole thing. You’ll see how it works if you give it a read — it’s quite a puzzle. 

To tempt you, here’s some of the first sonnet by the very fine poet and my good friend D’Arcy Randall:

from Rising Water: A Crown of Sonnets

Sometimes you feel it lapping round your knees — 
the life — that life — the one in dreams that lifts
you out to sea. It’s like a bass line riff
perceptible beneath the melodies,
but nothing you can attend. As if set free
again, it tosses back its hair, stiff
with salt, and aims its surfboard toward the cliff,
across the chops of waves. Who could foresee
it could swerve in time? And not allow the swell
to lift it high, then dash to smithereens?

(Read the rest of D’Arcy’s, and 6 more in this crown, here!)

Happy Friday, friends, and namaste.

Today I’m posting my last April haiku.

It has been, as I suspected it would be, a delight to look through this particular lens each day this month.  Honestly, it never ceases to amaze me what an expansive container this teeny tiny form actually is. And, like last year, I have a feeling I won’t step so easily away from it. I’m used to looking around this way now.

I want to thank you all again, those of you who’ve stopped by and, often, left notes. 
I’ve not been good at responding, which I regret because I do so love the conversation.

More soon and in the meantime, namaste.

Haiku 30
4/30/201

Run along the lake
past chess boards, homeless men, gulls.
Where is it I fit?