What's Up Wednesday

Thanks again to Jaime Morrow, host of the What's up Wednesday meme. Each Wednesday the participating bloggers post about their respective week/day using the headings that follow. Chase the link above to join in the fun!

What I'm reading

 

Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art continues to speak to me. I'll probably be mentioning it for many Wednesdays to come...

I'm also picking my way through W.B. Yeats's collected works. The Irish hit a chord within me that others don't (C.S. Lewis is the other culprit). When I read "The Lake Isle of Innisfree," I ache like he does to be transported to a "bee-loud glade." It's a similar feeling to that of Frost's poem, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening." The depth of yearning is there. Last Wednesday I wrote about L'Engle and her positive view on suffering, and these two poets knew suffering. Maybe that's why their poetry has weight.

What I'm writing

 

"Dystopolis," my short story project (most is still posted on my blog - start here), is proving to be more of a challenge to finish and get on Amazon. The more I think about it, the more I want to tinker with the story and add to it. Is this folly? Then there's the part of me that just wants to make it available for purchase so I can wash my hands and move on...

The first draft of my second book is slow in coming, but I'm not fretting. I usually draft by hand and then type the second copy. So instead of pulling my hair out about plot development, I'm simply beginning the typing process early. I'm convinced I don't know my characters enough anyway.

What else I've been up to

 

Trying to get our house well before summer. We're a coughing mess.

What inspires me right now

 

My wife, my children, and spring.

Last night my lovely bride began to sing a hymn as she prepared dinner. My eldest son was drawing at the dining room table, and almost immediately he joined her. I can't describe how full my heart feels when I hear both my wife and my five year old son joyously praising God while going about their day.

I'm full.

All around us creation is waking up. I'm amazed at the glory of it all.

And you? Are you full today? Are you taking in the warm air?

An Outsider's Look at Poetry

Johnny Cade, the quiet greaser from S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, has made me take a fresh look at why poetry - and literature in general - is important. We're reading the novel in most of my classes, and reading a book four times a day has opened me up to things I would have missed otherwise.

This is what jumped out at me today:

"'You know," Johnny said slowly, 'I never noticed colors and clouds and stuff until you kept reminding me about them. It seems like they were never there before.'"

Colors, clouds, and stuff - they may as well have not been there. That is until the poetic Ponyboy observes and shares with his friend. I had a similar experience the first full year out of college; newly married and newly moved to Tennessee, it seemed I had never before seen the trees or flower blossoms, or heard the songs of birds, or the dancing of streams. I was jobless - and I was reading Dante. I'm not sure which actually opened my eyes to everything around me, but Dante sure did make me slow down and search for meaning.

P is for Poetry

is for Poetry - you knew that was coming, didn't you?

At school I'm in the middle of teaching a unit on poetry, and let me tell you my students jumped up and down when I first told them we were going to spend at least two weeks on it!

No really, they threw their books on the floor and jumped on them repeatedly.

And so I had to begin with this statement: everyone likes poetry. The cries of agreement were never stronger. Then I asked them, "How many of you like music?" Only the students who like to disagree with everything said they didn't. Then I said, "You just proved me right - everyone likes poetry because the majority of the world likes music."

That goes for you too - you know you like music, at least some kind of it, therefore you like poetry because music is poetry!

E is for Earth

Flipping the image didn't seem right...

is for earth, that is, the dirt we all came from.

Even now we're shaking off the chill of winter. The gardens are still softening. Rain brings a new smell to things, a smell I've come to equate with a promise of color.

I still can't quite believe what happens when a seed is planted: a dead, dried up plant fragment receives water, light, and warmth, and produces another plant. No matter how many times I see it, the process is thrilling.

The earth embraces what is lifeless and releases what is reborn; it allows the fragile stems of pines and roses to poke their heads through its surface, then supports and grows them as long as they live.

In many ways, the earth is rightfully called mother.

The other day I was driving home and I drove through some dust; it was a huge cloud, and as I was in it, I wondered at our ability to trivialize the amazing - mostly because of our familiarity with it. Within that earth-cloud, I remembered - again - what I was crafted from.

A is for Acrostic

is for acrostic.

Let me start with a bit of a bellyache: the world of poetry has died, and we have killed it. The poet has lost the trust of readers everywhere - I blame free verse. Wait, I mean free prose...

The acrostic may not be the most popular form of poetry, but it is compelling when done well. And, to be honest, I haven't seen any English acrostics that are worth reading. I'm not counting Psalm 119 because it's not an English poem.

Psalm 119 is striking, and when you consider the form and the theme, it becomes more so: an acrostic made up of 22 stanzas, 8 verses each, with every verse beginning with that stanza's letter of the Hebrew alphabet; the theme is God's Law. Wait, God's Law?

Rumors of Spring

Out of death comes life. Sleeping birds awake
And hunker down no more, of the sunlight,
Of the warm air they chatter, believing
Winter gone. With them all creation lifts
Its voice; new light too summons new green, new
Life. Yet we wait for color in earnest,
For the threat of ice to go; even so:
The earth tilts its ear, the sun whispers "Spring!"

An Open Letter to Marilyn Nelson

Dear Ms. Nelson,

Thank you for writing Carver: A Life in Poems. The voice you achieved was incredible; at times I found myself reading as though the Doctor himself wrote the poems. Of course, he would have been capable. As you revealed so skillfully, Carver was a true Renaissance man.

I'm finding that there's something magical about mixing science, good science mind you (as you and Carver know it), and all that's poetic. I have half a mind to say that's what the Lord, the "Great Creator," had in mind all along; beauty dancing with the naked elements of all that's been made. I have half a mind to say that's how "The Lace-Maker" saw things as well. For (as you know), the man of your book could see a flower for its delicate, passing-away appearance as well as its function. Perhaps, he might say, its function contributed to its beauty as much as the way it glimmered in the moonlight.

Winnie the Pooh

The bear necessities...

Oh, that bear with very little brain, that poet-bear, that eater of honey, friend of pigs and donkeys, and companion-comforter of children for decades! Oh bear, we do love you!

My parents gave me the complete collection of Winnie the Pooh on CD for my birthday this year, and the last few days I've been listening to the stories on the way to and from school. I find myself laughing out loud.

As a child, I had a couple cassettes of the same recordings by Peter Dennis, and I all but wore them out. Dennis does such a great job with all the voices, and he has been endorsed by none other than the real Christopher Robin. Check out a sample of his readings here, and I'm pretty sure this is the only place to get the CDs - I haven't been able to find them anywhere else anyway.

Disney doesn't have anything on Peter Dennis - or the original stories for that matter! The whole set also includes When We Were Very Young, and Now We Are Six - 79 poems that are just as compelling as Pooh at their best, and cute and laughable at their "worst." Of the poems, the one that has stuck with me the most is called "The Emperor's Rhyme." The Emperor uses simple math (or not so simple math) to calm himself in sticky situations, such as when the queen misuses the starch.

In The House at Pooh Corner, Pooh finds himself in the middle of a major conundrum; whom shall he go see this morning? Not Owl, because he uses long words - maybe Rabbit, because "he says sensible things like, 'help yourself Pooh.'" A bear with very little brain? I think not!

A Writer Waits: Week Seven

It seems like it was such a long time ago that I first sent my proposal. In fact, it seems like another life now that school is in full swing, and I'm thinking again about lesson plans and my hair is falling out because of classroom management nightmares. Summer was good on so many levels, not to mention a great time to write.

The agency I submitted to said to wait eight weeks before giving up (they didn't say it so bluntly, but they may as well say it that way). So, one more week and I can move on (okay, give up - on them anyway). The frustrating reality is I won't get to any new proposals until a nice break in the school calender. It's hard knowing I have what I think is something good to publish, yet I can't work on it during this season.

Interestingly enough, it's also a reality I'm learning to appreciate. I of the opinion that any writer should read more than write, and this season allows me to read with my students and look forward to coming back to my book with fresh eyes.

I'm reminded of a quote (I can't think of the source): something like, "The best thing that could happen to the craft of poetry is for poets to take a one or two year break from writing."

There's not enough observing, listening, thinking for much good writing to be created. So, I'll take a deep breath and wait. When I come back to my work, I'll be glad for the break.

Thanks for reading.

The Summer Is Upon Us...

...And there will be much reading,
Much sleeping and writing.

And then, there will be silence;
Ah, the silence, the sound of which
Will echo into slumber of the mind,
A slumber bringing back a breeze
Of fluid thoughts, which, flowing
Kindly, chill the burdened forest floor.

And, so, the summer whispers...

The Poetry of C.S. Lewis

I've been a Lewis fan since I was a young boy. I started with The Chronicles of Narnia in my preteen years, only to read and reread them many times since. When I go back to those seven books, I travel not only to Narnia, but also to my childhood. That's the beauty of a book; those experiences you had so long ago roll back under your nose and you breathe them again. I remember well sitting on our front lawn on a sunny day in southern California reading about Prince Caspian and his rebel forces. I remember the rainy days too (as close to winter as we got), curled up in front of a fire, galloping through the air with Fledge. Now I look forward to making those same kinds of memories with my boys. In fact, I just might look forward to those times even more fervently than I look back and long for another day full of reading as a child.

Reflection on Yeats' "Leda and the Swan"

I finished reading my little book of Yeats. It wasn't the first time I had read it, and I didn't realize how much he wrote about mythology, and especially about Troy and Helen. The poem in the title of this post, "Leda and the Swan," is about the rape of Leda by Zeus. In the myth, Zeus takes the form of a Swan and forces himself on the beautiful Leda, who then bares Helen. The poem Yeats wrote about it is short, and if I didn't know the myth I would have been lost.

Yeats mentions Helen and Troy in several of his other poems, such as "No Second Troy," and, "A Prayer for my Daughter." All of these poems got me to thinking about Zeus and how he functioned as the god of gods; "Leda and the Swan," the poem and the myth, make him a father to beautiful Helen.

Zeus the deadbeat.

An English Teacher Confession

Here it is: I'm a horrible speller. I lean on spell check heavily. So heavily in fact that the other day, when I was responding to student letters, I opened a Word document to check myself (this is a normal practice). I just typed the words in and left them there throughout the day.

Well, when I was done with my document, I looked at the words I had checked. And they are:

Butterflies harbor dying succeeded likable similar easier nickname criticize suspenseful? Awful verse sonnets explain nonsense mean description rereading

I'm not sure where the question mark came from, but it fits, doesn't it? Maybe this doesn't make any sense to anyone else, but I thought it was entertaining. Not to mention the "Awful verse...explain nonsense mean...rereading." Ha! I love poetry, but I know there is so much awful verse out there. If you can call it verse at all - does anyone actually try and write verse anymore? And don't tell me free verse is "verse." Gag. That's poetry (poetry?) I rarely read because I find it so lacking.


I recently picked up my lone copy of Yeats. I'm rediscovering a few gems, including lines like, And live alone in the bee-loud glade, ("The Lake Isle of Innisfree") and, Come away, O human child!/For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand, ("The Stolen Child"). And even though I don't like all that I read of his, Yeats has his moments - some very profound. I like what he says about the nobleness of his well-beloved in "The Folly of Being Comforted." Not a quality of a woman that is much praised these days.


My human child is crawling on me, so I'll stop.