Poetry Friday and Poetry Quote of the Day: Marie Ponsot

Yesterday, for Poem in Your Pocket Day, I carried a poem by Marie Ponsot.

First, a quote from her, gleaned from her bio at Poets. org. When asked why poetry matters, Ponsot replied:

"There's a primitive need for language that works as an instrument of discovery and relief, that can make rich the cold places of our inner worlds with the memorable tunes and dreams poems hold for us."

And now, a poem to make rich the cold places of our inner worlds...

One Is One
by Marie Ponsot


Heart, you bully, you punk, I'm wrecked, I'm shocked
stiff. You? you still try to rule the world---though
I've got you: identified, starving, locked
in a cage you will not leave alive, no
matter how you hate it, pound its walls,
& thrill its corridors with messages.

Brute. Spy. I trusted you. Now you reel & brawl
in your cell but I'm deaf to your rages,

The rest is here.

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Mary Ann at Great Kid Books.

Poetry Quote of the Day: Hugo Williams

"There is more, not less intensity in plainness, because simple stuff operates without the safety net of the poetical"---Hugo Williams, Strong Words, 2000, as compiled by Dennis O'Driscoll in Quote Poet Unquote

Today is Poem in Your Pocket Day. It's a simple thing: take a poem; put it in your pocket. See what happens.

I'll be carrying Marie Ponsot's "One is One," which I'll share with you on Poetry Friday tomorrow. What will you carry?

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

Poetry Quote of the Day: John Keats

"In Poetry I have a few Axioms. 

1st. I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by Singularity—it should strike the Reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a Remembrance—

2nd. Its touches of Beauty should never be half way thereby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural to him—shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the Luxury of twilight—but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it—and this leads me on to another axiom. 

That if Poetry comes not as naturally as the Leaves to a tree it had better not come at all." 

                                                               ---John Keats

Thanks to Jules at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast for pointing me to this quote, which can be found on Knopf's Poem-A-Day web site.

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

Poetry Friday and Shakespeare's Poetry Quote of the Day

“The truest poetry is the most feigning;
and lovers are given to poetry; and what they swear in poetry
may be said, as lovers, they do feign.” ---William Shakespeare, As You Like It, (III.iii.15–17).

What I love most about As You Like It is all the feigning. The pretending. The role-playing. The deception. And yet, despite all that, the truth about love is never clearer. Here's Rosalind and Celia after Rosalind has feigned her way (disguised as a boy) through a mind-twisting duel of words with Orlando:


CELIA

    You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate:
    we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your
    head, and show the world what the bird hath done to
    her own nest.

ROSALIND

    O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou
    didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But
    it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown
    bottom, like the bay of Portugal.

CELIA

    Or rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour
    affection in, it runs out.

ROSALIND

    No, that same wicked bastard of Venus that was begot
    of thought, conceived of spleen and born of madness,
    that blind rascally boy that abuses every one's eyes
    because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I
    am in love. I'll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out
    of the sight of Orlando: I'll go find a shadow and
    sigh till he come.




I'll go find a shadow and sigh . . .  and again we're back to the feigned (shadow) . . . isn't Shakespeare the best at casting light on love?

Poetry Friday is hosted this Shakespeare's birthday by Anastasia at Picture Book of the Day.

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

Poetry Quote of the Day: Dennis O'Driscoll

"In Emily Dickinson's much-cited touchstone for a poem, she feels 'physically as if the top of my head were taken off.' A.E. Housman applies a bristling skin test to poetry, another famous example of a physical criterion for the efficacy of a poem. Goosebumps and decapitation are not the whole story, though. The physical aspect is the one that's easiest to be sure about - it registers on your pulse rate, after all, and is the one that's least embarrassing to talk about. But the deepest reactions to a great poem will - pace Emily Dickinson - actually be over the top. 

I know I am in the grip of a true poem when I can hardly bear to read it calmly at first, so all-embracing and far-reaching is its instantaneous effect on me. I realise I am about to meet with psychic turbulence..."

---Irish poet Dennis O'Driscoll, as interviewed at Ready, Steady, Book

With thanks to J. Patrick Lewis, who recommended Driscoll's book, Quote Poet Unquote: Contemporary Quotations on Poets and Poetry, to me.

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

Poetry Quote of the Day: Thomas Hardy

"My opinion is that a poet should express the emotion of all the ages and the thought of his own."----Thomas Hardy, as quoted in Walking on Alligators, A Book of Meditations for Writers.

Walking on Alligators is filled with quotes like this, and daily intentions such as "Today, I'll release something surprising into my writing."  It would be a great book to take along on a retreat, which I mention because Linda Urban is compiling a list of such books.  Won't that be a handy resource? Go add your own favorites.

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

Poetry Friday: Martín Espada and Yellow Legal Pads

Thursday Evening Previews Scripts: [Untitled] [pencil on yellow legal pad paper with emendations in ink]

 Bernstein, Leonard, 1918-1990, from the Music Division of the Library of Congress

From NPR's feature on the history of yellow legal pads: 

". . . it's just a beautiful object. It's already perfect. It's like the No. 2 pencil. It's a classic. It's cheap and you don't get to use it as a kid. I think it's the grown-up version of the writing paper we use as kids." --- writer Suzanne Snider talking with reporter Madeline Brand

William Gibson claims the word cyberspace "first saw the light in red Sharpie on a yellow legal pad."

Further afield, you can design your own custom legal pad tennis shoe.

But for today, how about this lovely poem, with a title that demanded my attention:

Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper
by Martín Espada

At sixteen, I worked after high school hours
at a printing plant
that manufactured legal pads:
Yellow paper
stacked seven feet high
and leaning
as I slipped cardboard
between the pages,
then brushed red glue
up and down the stack.
No gloves: fingertips required
for the perfection of paper,

The rest is here

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Jules at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Poetry Quote of the Day: Ursula K. Le Guin

"As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achive perception, and compassion, and hope." ---Ursula K. Le Guin, poet and author

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

Bringing Biscuits to the Poetry Potluck

All month, Jama's hosting a Poetry Potluck at her blog, alphabet soup. I've been to several potlucks in my life, and I love 'em. Especially when someone brings deviled eggs, which I cherish eating but hate to make. I love the hodge-podge of my plate after I load it up; the way the sweetness of the cherry jello with marshmallows mixes into the tang of the chopped pork barbecue; the way the stiff bruschetta with olive tapenade cozies up to the puffy pigs-in-a-blanket; the way no one looks at you funny if you sample three kinds of pie and that homemade chocolate truffle-thingie dunked in powdered sugar.

Today, it's my turn to bring a dish and a poem to Jama's potluck. The thing about Jama, though, is whatever you bring---even humble biscuits---she turns it into a feast. She sets a beautiful table and arranges your offering with such grace and style and humor and love that it becomes something that feeds even you, the bringer. Thank you, Jama.

Here's the link to my poem, my recipe, and my "biscuit boys." Don't miss the entries to the Poetry Potluck so far, and don't leave without subscribing to alphabet soup. Why pass up a chance to be fed by Jama every single day?

Poetry Quote of the Day: Rita Dove

"Poetry is a kind of dance already. Technically, there's the play of contemporary speech against the bass-line of the iambic, but there's also the expression of desire that is continually restrained by the limits of the page, the breath, the very architecture of the language--just as dance is limited by the capabilities of our physical bodies as well as by gravity. 

A dancer toils in order to skim the surface of the floor, she develops muscles most of us don't even know we have; but the goal is to appear weightless. A poet struggles to render into words that which is unsayable--the ineffable, that which is deeper than language--in the hopes that whatever words make the final cut will, in turn, strike the reader speechless."

                          ---Rita Dove, as interviewed by Robert McDowell at poets.org

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

KidLit Drinks Night in D.C.: ALA Edition

Librarians, teachers, bloggers, authors, illustrators, editors, agents, publishers, local and traveling SCBWI members...all are welcome to the Kidlit Drinks Night!

I'm posting early so those of you coming to the ALA Annual Conference from out of town can make your plans accordingly. Please note that there is an RSVP email address. This is to get a sense of how many folks plan to attend in case we need to make an overflow plan. The pub, R.F.D., is within walking distance of the Convention Center. Details below.

The Mid-Atlantic region of the SCBWI has generously agreed to sponsor a reserved space at a local D.C. brew pub for a KidLit Drinks Night during ALA.

 Come talk about everything KidLit with us! 

Friday, June 25, 2010

 7:00 to 9:00 PM

 R.F.D. Washington (Regional Food and Drink); 810 7th St. NW; Washington, DC

 (We'll be in the private room, also accessible from the 8th street entrance.)

Directions: http://www.lovethebeer.com/rfd-directions.html

Cost: Free; Cash Bar

Reservations: Recommended. Please RSVP via email by June 20. (scbwiparty@yahoo.com)

Contacts: Tami Lewis Brown and Sara Lewis Holmes (scbwiparty@yahoo.com)

Poetry Friday: Poetry Is. . .

In keeping with my "quotes about poetry" theme for the month, I'm pleased to share this poem by J. Patrick Lewis, who gives us fifteen exquisite and highly quotable definitions of poetry.

Which one speaks to you?


Poetry Is…

the tunnel at the end of the light.
an anagram for “Yo, esprit!”
commotion in the left field stanzas.
the great flywheel of metaphor.
prose, bent out of shape.
the idiom of the djinns.
experience’s armor against oblivion.
the midwife at the birth of the alphabet.
perfect verbs hunting elusive nouns.
an antidote for the adjective-itis bug.
a factual-to-fanciful metric converter.
words on a busman’s holiday.
a ladder to the castle in the air.
a blind date with enchantment.
the sound of silence…amplified.

----J. Patrick Lewis, all rights reserved

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Paper Tigers.

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

Improvising at the Arlington Library's Teen Blog

Miss me? I'm over at the Arlington Library's teen blog, talking improv and all things drama. While you're there, check out their posts for drama week, including a great one on how to score cheap theater tickets as a student. They have a Facebook fan page, too!

Thank you, librarian of awesomeness, Nico Piro, for hosting me!

Poetry Quote of the Day: Billy Collins

 "I try to presume that no one is interested in me." ---poet Billy Collins, as interviewed by Joel Whitney at poets.org 

Ha! Now I know why I love Collins's work so much. The whole interview is wonderful.

I do believe poetry should point to something outside yourself. As should all works of art. Even blog posts.

Which is why I'm sending you to GuysLitWire today. They are rocking the world and "Making a Difference, One Book at a Time - the Guys Lit Wire & Operation Teen Book Drop Event for Navajo & Apache Teens"

I defy you to find a better way live out Billy Collins words than to be interested in someone else today.

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

Poetry Quote of the Day: Sherman Alexie

"A really good stand-up comic is a poet; it's about the use of language"— Sherman Alexie, as interviewed in the Iowa Review

This quote explains why I'm a big fan of both Alexie and Shakespeare: neither poet is afraid to make you laugh. (Here's a professor who apparently agrees with me.)

Furthermore, in a satisfyingly serendipitous moment, I just googled "Alexie" and "Shakespeare," to see if anyone else had mentioned the two online in the same breath--- and found out that Sherman Alexie is accepting his 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award at the Folger Shakespeare Library here in D.C. on May 8th.

P.S. If you want more quotes from Alexie, I also saw this at his website:

"A new book, Conversations with Sherman Alexie, edited by Nancy Peterson, includes interviews - ranging from 1993 to 2007- that feature Alexie speaking candidly about the ideas and themes behind poetry collections, short story collections, novels, and screenplays."

This post is part of a month-long celebration of not-quite-daily quotes about poets, poems, and poetry. For more quotes, see the archive of the Poetry Quote of the Day. There are many more National Poetry Month celebrations across the Kidlitosphere.

Poetry Friday: Francisco X. Stork

"In my grandfather’s house, la casa de mi abuelito, the roof was made of tin and so the rain made sounds that, depending on the force of the rain, resembled anything from dozen ballerinas tip toeing to a million marbles dropping out of a big bag in the sky. Even as a six-year-old, I liked the rain. I liked it when it rained so hard that the noise absorbed all my thoughts and there was this delicious mixture of fear and safety." ---Francisco X. Stork, in his blog entry, Rain

Many of you know Francisco from his novel, Marcelo in the Real World, which I blogged my devotion to here. And you might say that fear and safety are entwined in the choices Marcelo must make to live in the real world.

But today, I'm featuring Francisco's poetry, which also asks us to think about our continual longing to be open, to be unafraid, in a world that urges us to chose safety above all else. He told me that I could share his words as I wished, but I'm only giving you the beginning of The Song here, because I'd like you to read the rest at his blog. So you'll stay over there awhile and browse through his journal. And listen to his thoughts mixed up with the rain. Waiting in Darkness and The Six Perfections of Writing are good places to begin.


The Song

It is not logical to hear such a melody
this late spring
when the rains are still cold.
I had to stop when it first came,
its beckoning unrecognizable
or too familiar.

How can the frozen earth not
crack
to such song?

the rest is here

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Book Aunt.

Poetry Quote of the Day: Edward Young

"We are all born originals---why is it so many of us die copies?" ---Edward Young, poet (1683-1765), as quoted in A Word a Day by Anu Garg.

And should you have time on your hands, don't miss Young's essay "On Lyrick Poetry" which is filled with such gems as

"bad Poets, that is Poets in general, are esteem'd, and really are the most vain, the most irritable, and most ridiculous Set of men upon earth."

 He also calls "the Poetic Clan" "Genus Irritabile among mankind."

However, in my mind, this last quote (which ties into today's admonition against winding up a pale copy of yourself) is the real killer, and it's what I find irresistible in any form of writing, be it novels, poetry or drama:

"It holds true in this Province of writing, as in war, "The more danger, the more honour." lt must be very Enterprising, it must (in Shakespear's Style) have hairbreadth 'Scapes; and often tread the very brink of Error"