Poetry Month Suggestion: Grow Readers

This charity organization allows you to select what project you'd like to sponser in schools. The requests seem rather modest. Search the site for poetry projects and you'll get upwards of a hundred requests from teachers who are trying to bring poetry to the classrooms (and to the streets).

Consider these: ways to help

poetry bloggers x a bit of spare change= more fans of poetry for our future

A bridge too far?

This is proof that simple is beautiful. (and that funny things do occasionally land in one's inbox.



1.go to www.google.com

2.click on maps

3.click on "get directions"

4.go from "new york" to "paris, france"

5.scroll down in the directions to number 23

Dreaming Poetry

So, I don't think I've ever done this before, but working on a review over the last few weeks, I was dreaming about the book and what I found so compelling in it. I acutally got up and went and jotted it down and it still made good sense even when I was awake.

I also dreamed that we were hiring John Montague at my university. Which is odd, since I don't actually have a University right now. Of course, Montague because I've written on his work, but what a joy it was to imagine his office just down the hall in my imagined university.

And not dreaming:

I read for a ladies' group on Tuesday. There were only about 10 in the circle but it was a pleasure to read and have others comment and ask questions about the poems.

And three poems soon in journals: "Troupe Portrait with Unicycle" is forthcoming in Tar River Poetry. "From the Greenhouse" and "The Drowned Girl orders a Cone" from Sojourn.

My husband asks me "What would be enough? Your first book?" I don't think it's possible to set a finish line for poetry. Is it? One goal leads to the next, one hurdle passed prepares you for the next. I want to run forever.

happy poetry month

Aprille

is already here, Poetry Month and all. I'm getting the emails from the poets.org site and I like that the poems are from recent books of poetry. I also am on another list serve that likes to send poems from Tu Fu or Li Po. I think after awhile the combination of the moon and its reflection on the water would get old, but I love these poems translated from the Chinese. I can't explain it. I think it is because I too am in love with the moon. Yesterday, it was early evening and the full moon was almost transparent rising over the prairie. Someone was doing their burn down; which in Kansas means burning off all of the dead prairie grass from the past year so that new can grow. The smoke was drifting in a thin veil. The sunlight was still the color of fresh lemons. I swear the cows were beautiful, in their various colored coats (cream, brown, black, and spotted) in the fresh green of the fields.

Not amusing

With having to give up teaching this semester, I've also lost my access to the library resources and databases. No more OED, no more MLA research, no more reading journals stored electronically. And perhaps, most disappointing, no more inter library loan. Of course, I can go sign up for a community user card and use the library itself and my hope is that some of these resources will be available then. I've also lost the hours of work I'd put into my "online" sites for each of the classes I've taught. Yes, I backed up the documents that were vital. But it still takes hours to upload and tidy and tweak those sites.

On a more amusing note, I recently finished Teacher Man. It was quite an enjoyable read. I especially liked this bit:

They (students) don't like it when Mr. McCourt says, Why was Hamlet mean to
his mother, or why didn't he kill the king when he had the chance.
It's all right to spend the rest of the period going round and round
discussing this, but you'd like to know the answer before the goddam bell
rings. Not with McCourt, man. He's asking questions, throwing out
suggestions, causing confusion,and you know the warning bell is about to
ring and and you get this feeling in your gut. Come on, come on, what's the
answer? and he keeps saying What do you think? What do you
think?

--From Teacher Man by Frank McCourt

I think that next time I step in front of a literature class I'm going to hand them this quote and spend the first day of the semester discussing it. Literature is no fun when other people make the discoveries. I hate cliff notes for this very reason. I like to puzzle it out on my own; I like to leave the class thinking about why.

With treatments every other week, I'm starting to understand a bit what it might be like to be manic-depressive. Last week, I was incredibly depressed and couldn't see my way to this week. This week, I'm wondering how the hell I even had half of the thoughts that went through my brain last week. It's going to get worse before it gets better, but I have to remember that the bad weeks will too pass.

Spring is arriving. The robins are flapping around in huge groups. I'm on the lookout for the pair that nests in the ceder tree.

Be well.

Connections

There is a very readable interview with Gary Snyder at the Poetry Foundation with links to a nice selection of his work. I've always been fond of his "Axe Handles" even though I'm not as certain who's work is shaping me. Pound, yes. Snyder, perhaps. So many that it's impossible to choose. Auden for certain.

I like "The Bath" as well. I like how these poems show a sense of connection between the generations. There's a hope there that I find intensely reassuring.

Settling Back

After the past 8 weeks of chaos, I'm finally settling into a routine that allows time to dedicate to writing and reading. It's strange how the most terrifying news can be eventually absorbed by your life and your thoughts. A few weeks ago, while recovering from the surgery, I was an emotional wreck. But now, I've come to accept this new "normal."

We went to a concert tonight. My son was dressed in the standard black and white. It's amazing to think he's in highschool. I can't imagine how that has happened. It doesn't feel so long ago since it was my highschool band up on the stage. The music was a joy.

tick tock.

Don't blink.