Poetry Friday: Oaxaca!

My Poetry Friday contribution is at the end of this post (scroll down for it) but first I want to say that I'm writing this on Sunday the 19th and scheduling it to go live (hopefully) on Friday. My husband and I are on our way to Oaxaca on Tuesday the 22nd, which means that by Poetry Friday on the 25th we will be enjoying our breakfasts at the Encanto Jalatlaco (no cell phone, no television, no computer)...

Fresh fruit, fresh juice, pan dulce, churros....

...and Oaxacan chocolate!

and looking forward to the Day of the Dead celebrations at the end of the month, particularly the visit to the panteon/cemetery...

and watching the comparsas/parades throughout the city, when the skeletons take over....

 

and visiting the archaeological treasures at Atzompa...

and the paper-making factory at San Agustin Etla Center for the Arts....

 

and visiting the weaving workshops of Teotitlan...

and seeing the green pottery...and the painted alejibres...and...and...as much as we can!

In anticipation of our trip, I'll post this poem I wrote about a market I visited with my family in Tepoztlan, Morelos (originally posted on Jama Rattigan's Poetry Potluck Series 4/9/2010. ) Hope you enjoy it:

Market Day

Black avocados, yellow mangos,
bowls of menudo to start the day.
Tall, cold glass of fresh horchata,
green papayas, pink mamey,

pork pozole, pumpkin seeds,
chiltepines, round and red,
coconut juice and gold guayavas,
then the different names for bread:

little shell and little piglet,
little ear and little horn,
now a cup of spiced hot chocolate,
sweet tamal with cream and corn,

pineapple popsicles, sugar cane,
guava jelly, caramel flan,
magic powders, hot tisane, :
Market Day in Tepoztlan.

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 Poetry Friday is being hosted on the 25th by Irene Latham at Live Your Poem. Head over there for links to what other people have posted. And thanks, Irene!
P.S. Go ahead, please, and leave comments. I might not be able to approve them until I'm home on November 5th - we'll see. Thanks in advance to all who visit!

 

Poetry Friday: Edna St. Vincent Millay's Ferry Boat

I spent yesterday flaneur-ing my way through the neighborhoods of West Seattle, just looking around at houses, shops, Lincoln Park, views of Puget Sound. What I like most about that corner of Seattle (residents there feel like it's a little village, independent of the big city) are the views of the Sound, and of the ferry boats crossing from the Fauntleroy Dock over to Vashon Island.

Is there anything in the world more calming than the sight of a ferry boat sailing gracefully across water on a sunny autumn day? And then there's the long, low whistle as the ferry comes into dock - more like a moan than a whistle, really - it seems to come from way down deep. It's melancholy but dignified and industrious, that sound. And West Seattle, especially the neighborhood east of Lincoln Park, is configured perfectly for a view, with it's long, high backbone along 35th Avenue. The hillside drops westward from the there, down to the saltwater shore.

Ferry boats, ferry boats. They look like toys out there on the water, especially if Mount Rainier looms somewhere in the background.

I rode on the Staten Island Ferry once - when it still cost a nickel (it wasn't that long ago - the fare was a nickel until 1975, when it was raised to 25 cents round trip. Since 1997,  passengers ride free!)

That orange - so distinctive!

That boat didn't feel calm, probably because it was filtered through a tourist buzz ("There she is! The Statue of Liberty.") It's the ferry boat Edna St. Vincent Millay refers to in her poem "Recuerdo" - which I offer up here for Poetry Friday, in honor of crisp-as-an-apple days...with a water view. 

Recuerdo

We were very tired, we were very merry—

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable—

But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,

We lay on a hill-top underneath the moon;

And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry—

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;

And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,

From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;

And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,

And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,

We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.

We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,

And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;

And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears,

And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

                                  

                                   by Edna St. Vincent Millay

                                   Published in Poetry Magazine, May, 1919

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted today by Cathy at Merely Day By Day. Head over there to see what other people have posted.

POETRY FRIDAY: Hallelujah, Alice Munro!

Alice Munro - Nobel Laureate

 A shout out to the Nobel Prize committee for bestowing the Prize in Literature this year on Canadian short-story writer Alice Munro, who said the following once about storytelling:

"A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.”

Hooray, Alice Munro, and hooray, Canada! 

In Ms. Munro's honor, I'm going to post the lyrics to the unofficial Canadian national anthem, "Hallelujah," a song of Leonard Cohen's, covered by dozens of other musicians. If you've ever sung it in a group setting (as we did during a lecture once at Vermont College of Fine Arts - that was glorious!!) you'll know how mysterious, hard-hitting, prayerful and haunting it is, just like the stories of Alice Munro. Below are the lyrics, but you need to hear this song as it is sung live (that last stanza of hallelujahs!) so here is a link to k.d. lang singing it. It's my favorite version - gad, gad, gad, seriously right.

And the line in it that speaks to the writing of Alice Munro?
"There's a blaze of light in every word...."


Hallelujah

I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It’s not a cry you can hear at night
It’s not somebody who has seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well, really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah

[P.S. Just want to add, for the record, that there are apparently 28 verses to this song - not sure if anyone has ever recorded all 28...? k.d. lang doesn't sing all the verses I have up in the post - if anyone hears of someone singing a much longer version, please drop me line at the email address above. I'd love to hear. For now, k.d. lang in Montreal is as close to a perfect fit (singer to song) as it gets.] 
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The Poetry Friday round-up is hosted today by Laura Purdie Salas over at her blog, writing the world for kids.  Head over there to see what other people have posted.

Wonderful!!

Brilliant news this morning: Canadian short-story writer Alice Munro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature!!!! She has been one of my favorite authors for years and years. I keep her characters in my head for months after reading one of her stories; they haunt me. Don't know how she does it, but she does it right. Oh, hooray for Ms. Munro, and hooray for the short story, and hooray for Canada.  Scroll down for a few quotations from her work and from interviews.

“A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you.”

Alice Munro with her daughters....

 “Every year, when you're a child, you become a different person.”

 from Too Much Happiness

“The constant happiness is curiosity.”

“People’s lives, in Jubilee as elsewhere, were dull, simple, amazing, and unfathomable – 

deep caves paved with kitchen linoleum.”

               from Lives of Girls and Women

“What she felt was a lighthearted sort of compassion, almost like laughter. A swish of tender hilarity, getting the better of all her sores and hollows, for the time given.”

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

I lie in bed beside my little sister, listening to the singing in the yard. Life is transformed, by these voices, by these presences, by their high spirits and grand esteem, for themselves and each other. My parents, all of us, are on holiday. The mixture of voices and words is so complicated and varied it seems that such confusion, such jolly rivalry, will go on forever, and then to my surprise—for I am surprised, even though I know the pattern of rounds—the song is thinning out, you can hear the two voices striving.

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

Then the one voice alone, one of them singing on, gamely, to the finish. One voice in which there is an unexpected note of entreaty, of warning, as it hangs the five separate words on the air. Life is. Wait. But a. Now, wait. Dream.”

―from The Moons of Jupiter

The Mortimer Minute - My Turn with the Children's Poetry Blog Hop!

It's my turn to answer questions for The Mortimer Minute, the current Children's Poetry Blog Hop. Renee La Tulippe took The Hop last week and tagged me for The Hop today, and I'm tagging poet Diane Mayr for next week (see below.)

Right now, I have to take care of this charming bunny who keeps asking me questions.  Mortimer is sweet, but he's a twitchy guy. I think his whiskers make him curious. That's my theory, anyway (I am curious about where curiosity comes from....) All Mortimer knows is hopping, eating, twitching and poking his nose into interesting places.

[Hmmm. I've had some temporary formatting problems - sorry - a poem by Yeats seems to be haunting Mortimer's first question and ..well, I have no idea why it's there!!! If you see it, try clicking on just the title of this post (not The Drift Record in general) and that will take you to a clean copy of it, minus the ghost of Yeats. Yeats is tricky, you know.  Hard to master him. ]

Here are the rules for The Hop: 

• Answer three short questions, one of them taken from the previous Mortimer Minute.
• Invite another blogger (or two or three) to take part on the following week - writers, teachers, or anyone who loves children's poetry is the perfect choice.
• Link to the previous Mortimer Minute and to your choice for next week. 

That's it. Now let's take care of the curious bunny.

Question #1 (multiple parts):
M: Do you eat grass?
JL: No.
M: Carrots?
JL: Yes.
M: Lettuce?
JL: Yes.
M: Rabbits? (shuddering)
JL: Oh-oh. Well, not often. And never a snuggly one.

Question #2: 
M: Look at me - I am very cute. Why don't you have whiskers? Why don't you have sunshine coming through your ears?
JL: Oh, I have some whiskers - don't look too close! They are cuter on a bunny than they are on me. As for my ears, my grandson will tell you that if you put a little flashlight up behind my ear lobe, light comes through it and makes it shine. Believe me, he and I have tried it many, many, many, many times and it always works and it always gets a laugh.

Question #3:
M: What children's poem do you wish you had written?
JL: Oh, that's a hard one. There are so many! I love "Bell" by Valerie Worth, because I think it describes just exactly what a poet does. And I love "The Stolen Child" by W.B. Yeats, because it's the kind of poem that makes a child fall in love with poetry - it's haunting and hypnotic. But if I could only choose one, it would be this one by John Masefield:

SEA FEVER

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Mortimer:
Yeah. Nice.
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The Mortimer Minute/Children's Blog Hop moves next week to Diane Mayr's Random Noodling. 

You will like Diane, Mortimer - she's curious, too, and she really does have whiskers...

...though I think they are kitty whiskers (as in Diane's other blog, Kurious Kitty's Kurio Kabinet.)

By the way, Mortimer....

Mortimer? 

 

Mortimer is on his way to do some random noodling around....(and I think I need to write a poem about sunshine coming through the ears of a rabbit.)

POETRY FRIDAY: It's October: Time for Yeats

The other day poet Renee LaTulippe asked fellow bloggers on Facebook to suggest scary poems that she might perform for her site, No Water River, as Halloween approaches. Many good poems were suggested - though the best were probably too long (Edgar Allen Poe) for the video she had in mind. I suggested "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti - too long, yes, but it starts so well and gets so creepy! Just this morning, I remembered Yeats's "The Stolen Child" which gives me goosebumps every time I read it. I think it's too late to suggest it to Renee, but I do think it's unnerving. Scary? Well, it scares me! Especially because the fairies who steal this child don't just steal the child, but they convince him or her to leave the world behind because it is "more full of weeping" than can be understood. The poem worries me, it scares me, haunts me, breaks my heart. Oh, to write a poem like this, but for a modern child....that would be a challenge!

THE STOLEN CHILD

 WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berrys And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Over the young streams. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed: He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest. For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19415#sthash.xLQAB7Ox.dpuf

Where dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berrys And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Over the young streams. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand. Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed: He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest. For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19415#sthash.xLQAB7Ox.dpuf

 Here's a link to a beautiful musical rendition of the poem by Loreena McKennitt.

 The Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted today by Dori at DORI READS. Head over there to see what other people have posted.