Poetry Friday: Books Around the Table

I want to let readers of THE DRIFT RECORD and contributors to POETRY FRIDAY know that I'll be posting occasionally (once a month) over at a new blog put together by my writing critique group and called BOOKS AROUND THE TABLE. My introductory post went up there today, and it joins the initial posts of fellow children's book writers Laura Kvasnosky, Julie Paschkis and Margaret Chodos-Irvine (all three of them are talented artists - and I struggle making stick figures!) 

I spend some time in my post contemplating poetry, metaphorical thinking, postillons, brass horns, people at the gates to the city, magicians, sleight of hand, doves, indirection, introductions, the Postal Museum in Prague, champagne and writer burn-out. Here's a teaser:

As a poet, I like metaphorical thinking and the sneaky way it makes its point via indirection, in the same way a magician performs sleight-of-hand, making people look at one hand while the other does the actual trick. Look, a dove!

Head over there to get a picture of how BOOKS AROUND THE TABLE came about.

In honor of Poetry Friday, I'm going to post the following poem by Laurie Lee. It continues to be one of my all-time favorites: 

APPLES 

Behold the apples' rounded worlds:
juice-green of July rain,
the black polestar of flowers, the rind
mapped with its crimson stain.

The russet, crab and cottage red
burn to the sun's hot brass,
then drop like sweat from every branch
and bubble in the grass.

They lie as wanton as they fall,
and where they fall and break,
the stallion clamps his crunching jaws,
the starling stabs his beak.

In each plump gourd the cidery bite
of boys' teeth tears the skin;
the waltzing wasp consumes his share,
the bent worm enters in.

I, with as easy hunger, take
entire my season's dole;
welcome the ripe, the sweet, the sour,
the hollow and the whole. 

                            Laurie Lee

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by lovely Laura Purdie Salas at writing the world for kids.  Head over to her blog to see what other people are posting.