friday april 04
Categories
Poetry
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April is National Poetry Month; Earth Day 2008 is April 22. There are lots of poetry books that celebrate Spring and the Earth on the library bookshelves.
The 2006 Caldecott Honor book Song of the Water Boatman & Other Pond Poems (2005) by Joyce Sidman makes a lovely connection between Earth Day and Poetry Month. Beckie Prange's gorgeous hand colored woodcuts pull together the poetry and scientific information on pond life.
Pat Mora and Steve Jenkins' This Big Sky (1998) brings us to the desert Southwest in words and pictures. Katharine Boling's New Year Be Coming!: A Gullah Year (2002) is illustrated with Daniel Minter's fascinating linoleum block prints illustrating the Gullah life of the Southeast coast, so closely tied to the earth and seasons.
Marilyn Singer's Turtle in July (1989) is a collection of poems about animals, stunningly illustrated by the great Jerry Pinkney. Fireflies at Midnight (2003) by Marilyn Singer, illustrated by Ken Robbins, also celebrates animals and insects.
Pause and enjoy these charming tributes to our Earth. The simplicity and uncomplicated joy will refresh you, and make you realize how universally appealing "Children's" poetry can be.
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monday february 25
Categories
Poetry
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The On The Same Page 2008 title selection for Teens - as chosen by a group of eleven very cool teen readers - is Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes. Named a Coretta Scott King Award Winner in 2003, Ms. Grimes’ novel portrays a high school English class as they discover ways to express themselves through 'Open Mic' poetry. For the next several weeks, branch libraries will hold Open Mic sessions for teens; some will be led by the dynamic performance poet Benjamin Hughes.
Participating in this year's program are classes from Northwest High School, LaSalle, St. Teresa in Covedale, Mt. Notre Dame, Aiken HS, and Ursuline Academy, to name a few. Leading in to National Poetry Month in April, teachers can continue to request book collections for use in their classrooms.
Anyone who has a creative streak would have to admire author Nikki Grimes, as she expresses herself via many art forms: writing, fiber arts, music, and jewelry-making. Fans of all ages can meet her at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in the Rookwood Pavilion on Wednesday March 26 from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m.
wednesday february 06
Categories
Poetry
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First, watch and listen to this audio file. If you’re at work, depending on your office, you’ll either want to stick in the earbuds or crank it up really loud. If you’re reading this while waiting for the security guys to escort you to the bus stop, set it up as a loop. (Email me, if you have time before they find your cube, and I’ll tell you how to make the loop hard to stop.)
For all these years, I’ve thought about Gertrude Stein’s comparison between Napoleon and Picasso as having to do with a physical resemblance and with the nagging question of whether the experimental ideas of Picasso, like the Napoleonic empire, might someday come crumbling down. Then I read Anton Neumayr’s 1995 Dictators In the Mirror of Medicine, which purports to be a psychological and physical portrait of Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin.
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friday january 18
Winter...sheer and utter cold, thoughts rising sluggishly like sap through the veins of a maple. What a great time to read a poem and let the images in it dance over the surface of your nearly hibernating brain! John Ashbery is a favorite of mine for cold days like these. His strange peekaboo glimpses of image after image make even familiar items and ideas seem strange and new. Beyond that, I've got a special kind of respect for a poet who can write a sestina about Popeye.
On the new books shelf recently, I noticed an Ashbery collection I'd not yet seen. Notes from the Air is a selection of poems from the last 20 years of Ashbery's work, mostly written during his middle-age and beyond. Perhaps that's part of what makes this collection so suitable for my winter days. Like all Ashbery poems there's a certain surreal confusion to the style, however, when one lets the images flow past, there's a sense of longing, disconnection and regret in many of the poems that speaks to the season.
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monday april 23
Categories
Poetry
,
In a recent post, I wrote about ways in which people can actively partcipate in poetry, reading and reciting with friends and family. Now, take that idea to another level: Chicago, 1987, a place called the Green Mill Tavern. Marc Kelly Smith starts a small revolution which becomes known as the Poetry Slam. It differs from a 'poetry reading' event because it is competitive and the audience plays an active role. Slams are held virtually everywhere, and there is even a national championship that will be held this summer in Austin, Texas.
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tuesday april 17
Categories
Poetry
,
National Poetry Month is a celebration which has caught on in schools, coffee houses, and public spaces everywhere. The Main Library will be hosting poetry readings featuring local poets each Wednesday night during April at 7:00 p.m.
For many people, poetry may seem to be an introspective and solitary event - it's not necessarily so! You too can host a poetry night with friends and family of all ages. Break out the camcorder and have some fun - here are some sources of inspiration:
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wednesday april 11
Categories
Poetry
,
National Poetry Month (NPM) is a celebration of poetry first introduced in 1996 by the
Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. NPM brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry through readings, festivals, book displays, workshops, and other events.
The library is no exception! April is packed with poetry events for teens and adults. And we’ve got several new poetry books perfect for youngest poets in your family.
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tuesday april 10
Categories
Poetry
,
When I was a small girl, my brother made me angry for one reason or another and I decided to run away. I grabbed a jacket and my favorite stuffed animals, and then got together the books that I absolutely couldn't live without. When I was finally ready to leave, there was one small problem; I couldn't lift the pile of books.
It's difficult as a book lover to narrow down your collection of essentials. It took me many years and several occasions of moving house before I minimized my own collection. I love books, but having now lived in a variety of places, most with lots of stairs, my back finally overruled my brain.
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tuesday march 27
Categories
Poetry
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No “Irish History Month” would be complete without a tribute to the Easter Rising, the 1916 rebellion against Great Britain that failed, but sparked the astonishing victory of the War of Independence (1919-1921). William Butler Yeats, a contemporary, was the first writer to make great literature of the story. His poem “Easter, 1916” commemorates the 16 rebel leaders whose executions roused the country to revolution:
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Among recent literary accounts are two superb novels by award-winning writers: Jamie O'Neill’s At Swim, Two Boys (2001) and Roddy Doyle’s A Star Called Henry (1999), which follows the story through the revolution and the subsequent civil war. The approaches of these native Dubliners couldn’t be less similar.
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monday march 19
Categories
Poetry
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The Vernal Equinox comes every year in the Northern Hemisphere around March 20. Spring arrives! Day and night, for one 24-hour period, are equal.
I find that springtime light brings a lifting of moods and a deep contentment that never fails to brighten my spirits. I have dug up a variety of books from a variety of subject areas, all about spring:
Chasing Spring: an American Journey Through a Changing Season Bruce Stutz writes about following spring from the Gulf of Mexico to the Alaskan arctic, experiencing renewal and joy at the beauty of the awakening season.
Boys of Spring: Timeless Portraits from the Grapefruit League, 1947-2005 Ozzie Sweet is a renowned photographer, and this book of baseball photographs will get you in the mood for a game.
Everything for Spring: A Complete Activity Book for Teachers of Young Children: Activities for March, April, and May Spring fever is especially rampant in classrooms. These activities will help keep our youngest students busy.
The beautiful symphonic works of Aaron Copeland's Appalachian Spring and The Tender Land cannot fail to move you; available on CD or cassette.
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monday december 18
Categories
Poetry
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(1) Those who would marry Leonard Cohen in a heartbeat and those (2) like my daughter, who says, "Everybody in the sixth grade hates Leonard Cohen," and when she's really mad, "Leonard Cohen doesn't love you."
The gateway song to Leonard Cohen is usually "Suzanne." Albums I'd recommend are Tower of Song (1995); The Future (1992); The Essential Leonard Cohen (2002). Cohen's least popular album (aside perhaps from his most recent one) is Death of a Ladies Man," which was produced by Phil Spector and definitely has that Wall of Sound thing going on. I like it a lot. Also, for cool cover versions, I'm Your Fan, a tribute album (Version #1) is a lot of fun.
There are biographies of Leonard Cohen, none completely up to date. The most recent is Leonard Cohen, by David Sheppard, published in 2000. While satisfying as far as Cohen's early days are concerned, Sheppard's record stops before Cohen's departure from Mount Baldy, near Los Angeles, where he was a Buddhist monk for five years.
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monday september 18
Categories
Poetry
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I found Unleashed: Poems by Writers’ Dogs more than ten years ago, when it first came out. Yesterday I found a scrap of paper with a quote from it stuck to my refrigerator door (which I clearly don’t clean often enough), and it reminded me how much I adored this little volume.
Editors Amy Hempel and Jim Shepard claim that the collection came about after a drunken campfire verse-making session, when their fishing buddy, Bob Shacochis, composed this one-line poem, “Wind,” in the voice of his Irish setter, Frank:
Leaves—I thought they were birds.
It inspired them to solicit poems from famous writers, all the poems written as though from the dogs’ point of view.
The result is irresistible, a charming, surprisingly varied collection of poems in all genres, on all kinds of doggish subjects.
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friday june 16
Categories
Poetry
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Seventy-seven-year-old Donald Hall has been named the U.S.'s fourteenth poet laureate, succeeding Ted Kooser, who held the position since 2004. While the position holds no specific duties or requirements, most poets have used the job, which pays $35,000 a year, to advance the cause of poetry among a population that sometimes seems to find contemporary poetry increasingly irrelevant to their lives.
Hall is known for being very outspoken about politics and the arts, and as a very prolific poet, having published 19 collections of poetry and 22 collections of prose over the course of the last 60 years, as well as plays and books for children. His most recent collection is White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems 1946-2006. In part because he has lived in rural New Hampshire for most of his life, he is often compared to Robert Frost, and his poetry certainly reflects a sense of place. "Ox-Cart Man," for example, begins" In October of the year / he counts potatoes dug from the brown field / counting the seed, counting / the cellar's portion out / and bags the rest on the cart's floor.
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wednesday june 07
I'm afraid this book is going to get lost in the shuffle, because it's so physically tiny, and because there are probably a lot of people not intrinsically interested in reading haiku about motherhood. This new book by Kari Anne Roy is awfully funny, though, as she uses haiku to document her baby's growth from infancy to toddlerhood. The first poem, for example:
Sniffing newborn's head,
a primal urge takes over--
try not to eat him.
This would make a great baby-shower gift for a hipster mom-to-be. (Actually, you'd need to buy your own copy: giving library books as gifts is considered bad form at baby showers.)
