Poetry Friday: Cabbage, Friendship and Facebook

My Poetry Friday post this week is posted over at Books Around the Table, the blog I contribute to along with friends and fellow writers Laura Kvasnosky, Julie Paschkis and Margaret Chodos-Irvine. Head over there to see what's up -

It has something to do with this: 

and this: 

and this: 

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The Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted this week by Keri at Keri Recommends.

Poetry Friday: Jack Gilbert

Many years ago, I was in a small workshop led by Jack Gilbert, a lovely poet who died this month at age 87. He was already frail then, and I tremble to think of him living for years with Alzheimer's. Such a lovely man, so spot-on about what did or did not help a poem be at its best. In honor of him, I'm posting this poem for Poetry Friday. You can read more of his work in his critically-celebrated new COLLECTED POEMS, just out this year, and a fine interview with him about "The Art of Poetry" over at THE PARIS REVIEW.

Horses at Midnight Without a Moon
by Jack Gilbert
Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods. Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt. But there's music in us. Hope is pushed down but the angel flies up again taking us with her. The summer mornings begin inch by inch while we sleep, and walk with us later as long-legged beauty through the dirty streets. It is no surprise that danger and suffering surround us. What astonishes is the singing. We know the horses are there in the dark meadow because we can smell them, can hear them breathing. Our spirit persists like a man struggling through the frozen valley who suddenly smells flowers and realizes the snow is melting out of sight on top of the mountain, knows that spring has begun.   -------------------- I've posted a little something about leftovers, longing, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ken Burns, Maria Popova, writing, honesty, usefulness, sandwiches and soup over at my other blog (shared with my writers group) at Books Around the Table. The Poetry Friday round-up is hosted by Mary Lee Hahn over at A Year of Reading. Head over there to see what other people have posted.

Poetry Friday: Mbarka Mint al-Barra'

Artisans from Fez at work constructing the Moroccan Courtyard - Art of Arab Lands, Metropolitan Museum of Art

I got home recently from a wonderful trip to New York City, where I fell head over heels in love with the new Art of Arab Lands galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (under renovation and construction for the last eight years.) You can read all about my trip here (Books Around the Table - the blog I share with my writing group - please do go there to catch the links to the Met website about this project) and what the craftsmanship on exhibit in these galleries did to me...stopped me in my tracks, wowed me, thrilled me, awed me, amazed me,...I'm not sure I've found the right verb for it yet. They certainly made me wish I had another whole week just to take in everything on view. In honor of that experience, I'm posting a poem written originally in Arabic by the poet Mbarka Mint al-Barra' of Mauritania (just south of Morocco in West Africa) for today's Poetry Friday. Not sure how good the translation is, but here is an excerpt from it. The full poem can be found at the link below and at the website of the Poetry Translation Centre. I don't know anything about the poetry of the Arab world - time to learn!

Poetry and I 

The sin is that I wasn't a stone
     And the troubles of the world make me sleepless
And I shield myself with poetry
     And it keeps me company when I'm far from home
And poetry is my satchel that I will always carry with me
     It holds the taste and fragrance of the earth
It holds thickets of prickly branches
     It holds palm fronds loaded with dates
It paints all the stories of love in my language
     Its colours form the spectrum from grape to dawn....

[Read the full poem here....]

Textile Fragment, 14th Century, Nasrid

Mihrab - Prayer Niche

13th Century Astrolabe from Yemen - Brass - Cast, Hammered, Pierced, Chased, Inlaid with Silver

For a gorgeous educators' guide to the galleries (or just to see more of the collection) go here for a PDF that is not to be missed.
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And for more Poetry Friday poems, head over to the round-up at NO WATER RIVER, blog of the wonderful and energetic Renee LaTulippe, who knows a thing or two or three about good poetry.

Idioms, Anyone?

Over at Books Around the Table today, I'm taking a look at idioms in different languages. Head over there to see what the following photos have to do with it all:

The Poetry Friday round-up today is being hosted by Elaine Magliaro at Wild Rose Reader. Head over there to see what other people have posted.

Poetry Friday: A Photo Poem

Happy National Poetry Month! Christopher Fry, the British playwright, once said that poetry “is the language by which man explores his own amazement.” 

I think this photo/poem is amazing, and I write more about amazement today over at BOOKS AROUND THE TABLE.  

Just look at that frozen whistle. Hope you enjoy it. 

Photo by AP photography Robert F. Bukaty: "Maine Cold"

Poetry Friday today is being hosted by Robyn Hood Black over at READ, WRITE, HOWL. head over there to see what other people have posted.

Poetry Friday: Kites, Books and Blogs

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I'm pleased to say that Sylvia Vardell's new book is out, titled The Poetry Teacher's Book of Lists. It contains "155 different poetry bibliographies and research-based strategy lists featuring 1500 poetry books for children and teens (ages 0-18.)" Click here to go to Sylvia's blog, Poetry for Children, where you can learn a little more about the new book.I'm going to get a copy for sure and recommend it to my MFA students. It sounds like a wonderful reference tool.


Hopefully, getting poetry into more teachers hands will help answer Janet Wong's recent call-to-arms over at Friends of the ALSC Poetry Blast (on Facebook):  "If you are in a position of power in ALA, how about asking (again) why there isn't a poetry award? If you are active in IRA, NCTE, or some other group that is planning a big convention/conference, how about suggesting a poet for the keynote or luncheon speaker? Lee Bennett Hopkins or J. Patrick Lewis or Joyce Sidman or Nikki Grimes? We cannot be content with preaching to the choir at our lovely poetry programs (where everyone in the audience knows everyone else); we need to get out and reach those people who haven't heard a poem in 20 years."


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Head over to my juicy little universe to see what other people are sharing for Poetry Friday.

Also, don't miss new posts over at Books Around the Table - Julie Paschkis reflects on Imperfectionism, Margaret-Chodos Irvine on Beauty in Limitations: A Printmaker's Perspective, Laura Kvasnosky on Responding with Wonder, I offer up my choices for the Best Children's Poetry Books of 2011. 

There have been some lovely posts lately by colleagues of mine (in the MFA-Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts) over at Write at Your Own Risk.

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.

Poetry Friday: Atwood, Cats, Dogs, Primroses and Optimism

This poem says just about everything I felt when my husband announced, the other day, "Hey - it's February!" Well, maybe there's a little more Cat to it than would be my way - I prefer Dog. And I might not go for the part about the testicles. Or the part about eating our young. Come to think of it, this poem is a little scary. Atwood is nothing if not fierce and direct. But I'm all for those last couple of lines. One other quick thing: Primroses are showing up outside all the markets. Hooray!!



FEBRUARY 

Winter. Time to eat fat

and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,   

a black fur sausage with yellow

Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries   

to get onto my head. It’s his

way of telling whether or not I’m dead.

If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am   

He’ll think of something. He settles

on my chest, breathing his breath

of burped-up meat and musty sofas,

purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,   

not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,   

declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,   

which are what will finish us off

in the long run. Some cat owners around here   

should snip a few testicles. If we wise   

hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,   

or eat our young, like sharks.

But it’s love that does us in. Over and over   

again, He shoots, he scores! and famine

crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing   

eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits   

thirty below, and pollution pours

out of our chimneys to keep us warm.

February, month of despair,

with a skewered heart in the centre.

I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries   

with a splash of vinegar.

Cat, enough of your greedy whining

and your small pink bumhole.

Off my face! You’re the life principle,

more or less, so get going

on a little optimism around here.

Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.


Quick note for those of you who follow The Drift Record - I am part of another blog that's just started up (it's called Books Around the Table - check it out here) with Julie Paschkis, Laura Kvasnosky and Margaret Chodos-Irvine, all members of my kids book critique group (and all illustrators as well as writers - time for me to go to art school!)  We'll be posting thoughts about writing and illustrating, about critiquing, about kids books in general. Laura, Margaret and Julie P. have all contributed their first posts, and mine will be going up next Friday. Hope you will join us for conversation around the table.

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Poetry Friday today is being hosted by Karissa Knox Sorrell at The Iris Chronicles. Head over there to see what other people have posted.