Summer Reading: Join the Club!

Now is the time to start thinking about summer reading — and the Summer Reading Club!

Oh, I'm sure you have been pondering your bookish possibilities, sorting the stacks in your head when you look at your shelves (or those in your local library). However, now it's time to get serious.

Some books cry out to be read in the sunshine. Others are more subtle, encouraging you consider the possibilities.

Some you've been saving for this very purpose. Maybe it's a trilogy that the author finally finished (or has announced the publication date of the final book in the series). You knew it would be in July, so you planned your Independence Day weekend accordingly.

There's the one that is set in winter. You tried to start it last December, but the chill was too biting. Skip the parka, bask in the sun.

Some books are safe only in the sunshine. (Yes, that one.)

So, start stacking them up: we have less than a week before the frenzy begins.

If you own them already, find a table or shelf on which you can stack your booty to remain inspired and motivated.

If you'll borrow any or all of them from the library, start timing your reservations now. (Some libraries allow you to schedule your loans; ask your librarian if you are not sure.)

Does your library system have an "instant gratification" section with hot bestsellers? Scope it out and see if your books are quickly snagged.

If you plan to buy them, make sure your local bookstore has them, or can order them. Don't wait until the last minute just to discover that you have to wait that much longer.

When you've made your list, join this special Summer Reading Club! It's like the library-sponsored ones of your youth, only with less pizza (or not). What does it take to join? Enhusiasm! Send me your list and I will share it with the rest of the group. At the end of the season, we'll count up the books we've read. The one who reads the most wins a new book.

The reading period is from Memorial Day through the end of summer. This year, let's choose Friday, May 23 through Sunday, September 28. Send me your list any time you're ready. I'll publish mine by the end of May (and we can compare how many books from last year's list are contenders again this year!).

Ready? Set... Go get your books!

Poetry Wednesday: Translator’s Confession, 3 a.m.

Translator’s Confession, 3 a.m.

Dear C, I dropped

your sentence in hot water.

I talked to the boil. I said Here

is my thumb for you to burn.

Here is the soft heart

of my hand and my arm and

the nape of my wreck.

I said vapor, just take me.

I’m done burning

with these pages. Being invisible

doesn’t mean a person

won’t blister, doesn’t mean

the blisters won’t fill

with pockets of water

or when lanced the rawest flesh

won’t emerge. First the word

then the murky leak

begins—what another mind

may scrape against

but never skin.

By Idra Novey

Courtesy poets.org

About this Poem: 

“I wrote this poem as a way to settle some unfinished business I had with Clarice Lispector, a Brazilian writer whose work I’d been reading intensely for nearly a decade and whose novel I’d recently translated. As is the nature of unfinished business, once I wrote one letter to her, I needed to write another, and on it went for some time.”

A Birthday, A Poem

Today is a holiday: it's my husband David's birthday. It truly is a great day!

A Birthday

My heart is like a singing bird

                  Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

                  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

                  That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

                  Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;

                  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

                  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,

                  In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

                  Is come, my love is come to me. 

- by Christina Rossetti 
Courtesy The Poetry Foundation

A Birthday

  by Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird   
  Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;   
My heart is like an apple-tree   
  Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;   
My heart is like a rainbow shell 
  That paddles in a halcyon sea;   
My heart is gladder than all these,   
  Because my love is come to me.   
  
Raise me a daïs of silk and down;   
  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,   
  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;   
Work it in gold and silver grapes,   
  In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;   
Because the birthday of my life
  Is come, my love is come to me.

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19440#sthash.pQSi0Pw9.dpuf

Grief Puppet — Poetry Wednesday

Grief Puppet

 

In the nearby plaza, musicians would often gather.

The eternal flame was fueled by propane tank.

An old man sold chive dumplings from a rolling cart,

while another grilled skewers of paprika beef.

Male turtledoves would puff their breasts, woo-ing,

and for a few coins, we each bought an hour with

the grief puppet. It had two eyes, enough teeth,

a black tangle of something like hair or fur,

a flexible spine that ran the length of your arm.

Flick your wrist, and at the end of long rods

it raised its hands as if conducting the weather.

Tilt the other wrist, and it nodded. No effort

was ever lost on its waiting face. It never

needed a nap or was too hungry to think straight.

You could have your conversation over and over,

past dusk when old men doused their charcoal,

into rising day when they warmed their skillets.

The puppet only asked what we could answer.

Some towns had their wall, others their well;

we never gave the stupid thing a name, nor

asked the name of the woman who took our coins.

But later, we could all remember that dank felt,

and how the last of grief’s flock lifted from our chests.

by Sandra Beasley

courtesy poets.org

One for the Road: Lullaby For The Cat — National Poetry Month

One for the road!

Lullaby For The Cat

Minnow, go to sleep and dream,

Close your great big eyes;

Round your bed Events prepare

The pleasantest surprise.

Darling Minnow, drop that frown,

Just cooperate,

Not a kitten shall be drowned

In the Marxist State.

Joy and Love will both be yours,

Minnow, don't be glum.

Happy days are coming soon--

Sleep, and let them come...

by Elizabeth Bishop

Courtesy Famous Poets and Poems

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight — National Poetry Month

As National Poetry Month comes to a close, let's not let it rest until next year. Let's seek poetry as if it matters in our everyday lives, which it does. I have posted on this blog some poetry resources to help you keep a poem in your heart and on your mind, and I'll continue to post poems regularly.

 

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight

(In Springfield, Illinois)

It is portentous, and a thing of state

That here at midnight, in our little town

A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,

Near the old court-house pacing up and down.

Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards

He lingers where his children used to play,

Or through the market, on the well-worn stones

He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.

A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,

A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl

Make him the quaint great figure that men love,

The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.

He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.

He is among us:—as in times before!

And we who toss and lie awake for long

Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.

His head is bowed. He thinks on men and kings.

Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?

Too many peasants fight, they know not why,

Too many homesteads in black terror weep.

The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.

He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.

He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now

The bitterness, the folly and the pain.

He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn

Shall come;—the shining hope of Europe free;

The league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth,

Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.

It breaks his heart that kings must murder still,

That all his hours of travail here for men

Seem yet in vain.   And who will bring white peace

That he may sleep upon his hill again?

 

By Vachel Lindsay
courtesy Poetry Out Loud

 

Pete Seeger Performs English is Crazy! — National Poetry Month

Here's another performance of a slightly different version of "English is Crazy," this time by the late, great, legendary Pete Seeger.