Poetry Friday: Tortoise or Hare

After a heavy rain, we found this displaced turtle in the street in front of the house yesterday. He was definitely lost. My daughter gathered him up, and despite his toes touching her, managed to get him to the back yard where he plopped himself back into the creek with speed more like a hare than a ponderous amphibian.

Since I have family here this week, I'm slow getting my Poetry Friday post going. Here is an original poem, written several years ago. Our displaced critter made me think of it. For more Poetry Friday, stop by Carol's Corner and enjoy the roundup.

Tortoise or Hare

I would be the tortoise

If I could choose.

Tender parts

Carefully guarded

By a hard green shell.

A portable hiding place

For those awkward moments.

No need to run,

Just pull in the appendages

And breathe slowly

Until the danger passes.

But some pernicious muse

Had other plans

And without consulting me,

Took my secrets

And made iambic feet

For a bunch of mad rabbits

That care nothing for poetry.

Summer Reads: Too Many Books at Once

Today I'm wondering just how many books a person can read at one time without feeling totally schizophrenic. Here's my list.

1. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke is in the car. Audio format red by Lynn Redgrave in her stunning voice. It's so intriguing I keep wanting to go somewhere just so I can listen. I know I'm behind times on this one. I didn't even realize there was a movie. I am looking forward to seeing who played all the dark characters. Will watch when I'm done reading.

2. White Darkness by Geraldine Mccaughrean is on the table beside my bed along with my new word journal, started as a result of the weekend poetry retreat with Rebecca Kai Dotlich. I'm reading slowly, making notes in the margins and recording some of the words that taste good on my tongue.

3. I went to the library on Friday to pick up a requested book, InZanesville by Jo Ann Beard. It's setting is 1971, the same year I graduated from high school and the setting of my own middle-grade novel. But I haven't started that one so it doesn't really count yet. While at the library I picked up a copy of What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell, again to pay attention to how the author incorporates a very distinct time period in American history. It was storming outside, so I sat down and started reading. An hour later, I was completely hooked and brought it home nearly half read. Couldn't sleep that night so I got up and finished it in the wee hours. That's what happens when you're reading too many books at once. So now I can replace What I Saw with Inzanesville in my list.

4. Research book in my office is a compelling read featuring letters from the 1700s. Until Death Do Us Part: The Letters and Travels of Anna and Vitus Bering by Peter Ulf Moller and Natasha Okhotina Lind.

5. Beside my chair in the den is Heaven's Calling: A Memoir of One Soul's Steep Ascent by Leanne Payne, another one to be read slowly and savored.

6. In the basket in the bathroom is Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride about buffalo soldiers in Italy in World War II. Another movie to watch once I finish reading the book.

And then there's the stack I haven't gotten to yet. Sigh.

Poetry Friday: Oven Bird

I'm working on a project for a museum in Tennessee, writing some information panels for them. This cute little ovenbird is in the tree exhibit. He gets his name from the shape of his nest, which looks like a dutch oven. His call is increasingly loud bursts of "teacher-TEAcher-TEACHER." So for Poetry Friday, my contribution is a Robert Frost poem about this little guy.

Photo by Bill Hilton Jr. from  Hilton Pond Center 

The Oven Bird

Robert Frost

There is a singer everyone has heard,

Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,

Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.

He says that leaves are old and that for flowers

Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.

He says the early petal-fall is past

When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers

On sunny days a moment overcast;

And comes that other fall we name the fall.

He says the highway dust is over all.

The bird would cease and be as other birds

But that he knows in singing not to sing.

The question that he frames in all but words

Is what to make of a diminished thing.

More poetry Friday at Check it Out.

Poetry Retreat with Rebecca Kai Dotlich

It was a lovely, jam-packed, exhausting weekend. I felt like I was trying to soak up a lifetime of poetry from the very generous, Rebecca Kai Dotlich.

My very excited friend, Kathy (left) who's new to children's writing, rode up with me to the retreat and kept me from getting lost. Well, almost. We did fine until the very last turn. But what's a road trip without a little adventure? And I was thrilled to have some long conversations with poet and friend, Irene Latham.

My roommade extraordinaire, Gail Karwoski (in blue)! We won't talk about the mice we shared our space with. Mice are some of my favorite characters in children's literature. Ralph on his motorcycle. Reepicheep. Bella and Bean. All delightful until they inhabit the real world of your bathroom.

The intimate setting, about twenty writers ensconced on the side of a mountain in north Georgia, gave us plenty of opportunities to rub elbows with Rebecca. I'm just hoping some of that lyrical magic rubbed off on me.

And of course, blowing bubbles is necessary for writing poetry!

Poetry Friday: Hanging Out with a Bunch of Poets

I'm looking forward to a weekend with a roomful of Southern Breeze poets who will be "Diving into Poetry" with Rebecca Kai Dotlich. And since I still haven't packed, I leave you with a "loaf of poetry."

A Loaf of Poetry

by Naoshi Koriyama

you mix

the dough

of experience

with

the yeast

of inspiration

and knead it well

with love

and pound it

with all your might

and then

Read the rest here.

Anastasia Suen hosts Poetry Friday at Picture Book of the Day.

The Matter of Perspective

This fall I'll be teaching two short classes at our local university's continuing ed center. One is on characterization. The other is on point of view. So I'm mulling over some thoughts, generally while I walk. You'd think I would remember to take my phone or my voice recorder with me to capture all the fantastic thoughts I rehearse with myself as I'm trekking through the neighborhood. Okay, they're probably only fantastic at the moment I think them, sort of like the notes you write down in the middle of the night and throw out in the morning. What on earth was I thinking!?

Anyway I generally don't remember the recorder until I'm about a half mile from home. But I'm rambling.

So, point of view. I took an online class a few years back with the Writers Studio. I highly recommend their classes. They teach the concept of a persona narrator. Instead of saying point of view, they talk about who is telling this story. As the author, I'm not really the storyteller. I create a persona narrator who tells the story from his/her perspective. It really is about perspective. How close is the persona narrator to the story, to the main character.

I had a fun interaction with a couple of my kids this weekend that illustrated the idea of perspective. My son, who lives in Minnesota was down for a few days. It gets hot fast in the Deep South, although I think this year it has been faster than normal. So my son and his Minnesota frame of reference could barely stand to be outside, despite the fact that he was raised here.

I talked with my daughter on the phone later that day. She's in Portland, Oregon. She was freezing.

"We took Stephen to dinner on Sunday night. The bank themometer read 102 at 6:30 in the evening," I told her. "I can't believe it's this hot already and it's not even June yet."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.

"It's 63 degrees in my house right now," she said. "And it's almost June."

Perspective.

When we got off the phone, I sent her this clip I had watched earlier in the day. I'm doing some research on Siberia.

It's all a matter of perspective.

Poetry Friday and a Tadpole Summer

I liked this poem that came today from Your Daily Poem. It's perfect for the last days of school as students, teachers, and parents take a deep breath on "the tadpole end of this adventure."

For more Poetry Friday, swim on over to My Juicy Little Universe where Heidi is hosting the round up.

Streamside, May 2010

by Suzanne Comer Bell

Dear Parents,

Forgive us. We’ve been swept away with your children.

We hope to return when school is over …

only, we don’t know exactly when that will be,

for school never ends, really,

and now that this year is finished (or nearly so!),

your child will be handed safely to another one of us—

passed along like raindrops in this cycle of life learning

that we’re all a part of—

we feel so fortunate, so fat-gilled, to have been on

the tadpole end of this adventure, that

we wanted to take a moment,

before the next wave arrives, and

our legs

Read the rest here.