Hope is like a road in the country . . .

@TAPS4America: Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. -Lin Yutang

I think that's my new favorite quote. And it reminded me that I wanted to tell you about Paul McCollom. Or rather, to let Paul tell you about himself. To tell you why he and many, many others are walking/running/striving to make one particular road come into existence: the road to recovery for wounded warriors and their families.

As he says: "I will be 61 this year but on October 25th I will be in Washington DC again running (mostly) 26.2 miles in the Marine Corps Marathon for Fisher House and military families. I am driven by the young men and women serving today; they are my brothers and sisters and my sons and daughters and I have an obligation to support them as long as I can put one foot in front of the other."

I supported Paul last year in his quest, and blogged about it in this post: Paychecks and Great Battles. I'm doing it again this year. He's the real deal.

Here's more about Paul and Fisher Houses:

I’m a Vietnam Vet, Army Medic, 1969-'70. My daughter is a Naval Academy Grad and US Marine Captain who has deployed to Iraq twice and her husband, also a Marine Captain, has deployed 4 times. She returned safely from her last deployment and she and her husband are serving at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia and should not be deployable until 2011.

Because our wounded are rarely treated at a facility near their home, a Fisher House provides a sanctuary where they can have their family with them during treatment. Along with other military families in similar circumstances, they stay free of charge to provide support and encouragement to each other. Here are just a couple of examples of how important Fisher Houses have been for families:

· The Mother of a badly wounded Marine could not afford a hotel so she slept in the back of her car in the hospital parking lot until someone found out and sent her to the local Fisher House.

· The family of a badly burned soldier was able to be with their son through much of his treatment and the many surgeries that took place. Not only did they stay at Fisher Houses but the Fisher Foundation paid for the airfare that they could not afford.

· A Marine Reservist who participated in the invasion of Iraq watched a year later as his Marine son deployed and was wounded in the Battle of Fallujah. For the next six months he and his wife literally passed each other in the air as one flew to the Naval Hospital in San Diego as the other was returning home to Michigan.

43 Fisher Houses have now been constructed across the country and more than 120,000 families have been guests, saving them more than $120 million in housing expenses. Currently Fisher Houses can care for about 12,000 families a year but the need continues to grow and 7 more houses are under construction with 11 more under planning for 2010 and beyond.

I know things are tough this year but if you are able to make a donation please go to this site: http://www.active.com/donate/FisherHouse2009MCM/McCollom

Making the Emotional Argument

"When faced with potential cuts [in arts programs], the response is often rational: Quoting studies and statistics, for example. But this recent post by Steven Tennen on the ARTSblog made me think that there’s a better approach. Maybe a connection on an emotional level would have more impact." --- from What do you remember?, a post at the Theaterfolk Weblog.

After I read the Theaterfolk post, I read the one by Steven on the ARTSblog, too. And I agree: we need to make the emotional argument.  So here are a few of my memories, cued by my editor's questions in preparation for our Twitter Chat last week:

• Cheryl: Ideas about theatre and improv are very important to OPERATION YES. What's your theatrical background? Favorite production you participated in?

Sara: I discovered drama much later than the sixth-graders do in OPERATION YES---I was already in high school. Some of my favorite roles were:

Alice in You Can't Take It With You---as one of the few "normal" characters in the play, it was challenging to hold my own against the wild antics of the other actors. And I kissed a boy on stage.

Rosalind in a scene with Orlando from As You Like It. We took that to state drama competition, and I believe it was the first time high schoolers had taken Shakespeare to a state-level competition in Tennessee. What I remember most was the sheer delight of saying Shakespeare's witty and intricate words---and the fact that I had to learn to do a cartwheel to enter the scene.   (And now I have a necklace with words "Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?" I wore it to the National Book Festival.) More in my post here.

Queen Elizabeth I: One of my favorite moments was being in a reader's theater production about the queens of England. I got to give a knock-em dead speech by the Queen to her troops, and as I said in my earlier post about it, "Every time I delivered it, I found my heart exploding."

• Cheryl: Did you have a teacher who changed your life as Ms. Loupe did?

Sara: My mother was a first grade teacher and she taught me to read, so that was life-changing!

Also, my high school drama teacher, Ms. Linda Lyle. She let me try anything---Shakespeare, a one-woman Emily Dickinson show, portraying Queen Elizabeth, directing other students, stage managing...

I remember her taking me for a private session with a professional actor at a stage company in Knoxville, too. The actor's name was Lucien Douglas, and yes, it was as amazing as it sounds. I could hardly breathe.

Also, I remember very distinctly that in her "space"--she didn't tape it like Ms. Loupe in OPERATION YES does, but she definitely owned her space---everyone in the school was welcome and no one was allowed to be cliquish or put in a certain box like jock or nerd. We were ALL theater people.

Theater taught me to take risks, and that creating trust among members of a group is at least as much fun and hard work as creating the play itself. But most importantly for me as a writer, theater taught me to reach for a deep, emotional connection with other people---and that words, even when delivered by a lone character on a bare stage, can change the world. 


Don't our kids today also deserve to have a deep connection to the arts and to each other? 

• For one last memory, that of my introduction to improvisation, I'm directing you to this post at the Operation Yes site:  They Called Me Pricklebutt 

Poetry Friday: From the Poetry Pavilion at the National Book Festival

Before I jump into my Poetry Friday post,  a reminder of the Jody Call Contest to win a signed copy of Operation Yes. (Jody calls are poetry, too!)  I already have my first entry, and promises (dares, teases, hopes) from several others who say you're trying it.  Boo-yah!

Also, don't forget to nominate your favorite book in the Poetry category for the Cybils. (I'm a second round judge and I can't wait to see what entries are going to knock me down with their brilliance this year.)

Okay, on to my notes from the Poetry and Prose Pavilion at the National Book Festival, which I deferred from my main Book Festival post on Sunday.

I scrambled into my seat late for Edward Hirsch, who was reading from his own work before taking questions about poetry in general.  I'm a huge fan of his book, How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry, so it was the Q&A that most rocked my world.

First off, Hirsch is hilarious.  If a questioner asked: "How can you use line lengths to convey meaning in poetry?"  Hirsch would repeat the question at his microphone, garbling it to a put-down of his own poems: "The kind gentleman asked: How come the line lengths in your poetry make no sense?"

After the laughter, he would give a beautifully reasoned answer.  For the line length question, he explained that the norm for spoken English is the five beat length of iambic pentameter---that's what sounds natural to our ears.  So, if a poet uses lines longer than that----Walt Whitman, for example---we hear it as something beyond the everyday, entering into the visionary or prophetic realm.  If a poet uses shorter lines---William Carlos Williams in The Red Wheelbarrow---we hear a focus on the concrete, physical world, perhaps with a sense of loss.

He also said these wise things, which I tweeted (that sounds blasphemous, somehow):

"A poem must have something at stake."

and in response to a question about religion in his poems:

"Poetry is unauthorized testimony."

Wow. I could write all day on those answers.

I have more from the Poetry Pavilion, but that's all I have time to write up today.

Here's an Edward Hirsch poem for you, and if you follow the link, there's a recording of him reading it, so you can pretend you're in the pavilion, listening:

Wild Gratitude
by Edward Hirsch

Tonight when I knelt down next to our cat, Zooey,
And put my fingers into her clean cat's mouth,
And rubbed her swollen belly that will never know kittens,
And watched her wriggle onto her side, pawing the air,
And listened to her solemn little squeals of delight,
I was thinking about the poet, Christopher Smart,
Who wanted to kneel down and pray without ceasing
In every one of the splintered London streets,

Read the rest here.

Poetry Friday is hosted today by Kelly at Crossover.