Child’s Play

February 1, 2010

by Neal Whitman, Poetry Prof

Last month, this feature got a comment from Charles Ghigna, known as Father Goose. Since then I learned how to pronounce his name: with a hard G, Geen-ya. I also visited the two blogs he posted. On charlesghigna.blogspot.com I found a new poem each week for teachers, librarians, parents, and kids. On bald-ego.blogspot.com I found quips and quote for authors and arists. On his inaurgural page, December 9, 2009, he wrote: “Be Mused”

The art and craft of poetry
Are not so far apart;
The craft comes from the cunning,
The rest comes from the heart.

A former high school teacher, Ghigna has made a career writing and reading poetry for children: “My office is in the attic. I call it my ‘tree house.’ When I look out the window I see the tops of trees: elm, oak, pine, hackberry and sweet gum. My writing desk faces out that window. I have been writing poems here in my tree house for more than 30 years.”

I don’t know if he will be the next Childrens Poet Laureate, but it would not surprise me. Childrens Poet Laureate? When I first heard of it, I thought of a 1975 skit from Saturday Night Live where Laraine Newman plays a child psychiatrist. Yes, she is a child and a board-certified psychiatrist.

In 2006, childrens poetry got a little respect when the Poetry Foundation established a $25,000 prize and a two-year post, Childrens Poet Laureate, with hopes to raise awareness that children have a natural receptivity to poetry and are an appreciative audience, though their first choice admitted that he once hated poetry. The first Childrens Poet Laureate, Jack Prelutsky, says that his elementary school teacher gave him the impression that “poetry was the literary equivalent of chopped liver.” Hmmm… I admit that I like chopped liver on a slice of crusty pumpernickel. Plus, let me put in a plug for the legion of teachers who bring poetry alive in the school classroom.

Now, you may not believe me, but after writing this intro, I went to Jack’s website jackprelutsky.com and there is his excerpt from “Bleezer’s Ice Cream”

Butter Brickle Pepper Pickle
Pomegranate Pumpernickel
Peach Pimento Pizza Plum
Peanut Pumpkin Bubblegum

The second Children Poet Laureate, chosen in 2008, is Mary Ann Hoberman. She has spent a lifetime teaching writing and literature to children and adults, but since her first book was published in 1957, All My Shoes Come in Two’s, her profession has been to write poetry for children. Her website, like Jack’s, offers much to delight maryannhoberman.com.

In making this appointment, the Poetry Foundation noted that she is “a consummate channeler of children’s sensibilities.” What I loved about this choice is that Hoberman reminds us that children’s poetry need not be funny and may even handle subjects that parents are terrified to introduce to their children, such as death. All of us in the Getting Something Read family are dealing with the sudden loss of our senior editor, Cleo George. Gone? How can that be? In “Mayfly,” Hoberman shows the reader the life of this insect as it unfolds in only one day. She concludes:

The daylight dies and darkness grows
A single day
How fast it flies
A mayfly’s life
How fast it goes.

Her poem gives me cause to pause — as the Poetry Foundation promises: “The grace and taste and wit of a good children’s poem can provide a genuine frisson for those of us over 10.” I was delighted with her selection, and, of course, so was Mary: “During this time I will be doing what I’ve been doing for over fifty years, but more so and with a much wider forum! As I see it, my mission is to spread the delight of children’s poetry and poetry in general, to be a sort of Pied Piper for children’s poetry.”

In additon to the honor and cash, the Childrens Poet Laureate gets a secret decoder ring. No, only kidding. But, there is a medallion with the inscription taken from Emily Dickinson: “Permit a child to join.” I profess my belief that poetry written for any age should be an invitation. I abhor contemp(t) poetry that makes an offer I can’t understand. Whether it is the Godfather or Father Goose, no need to dumb it down for me. Just, do not dumbfound me. As promised by an “invitational” poet, Kenneth Koch, “When you first read a good poet’s work, it’s like meeting a strange and interesting friend. Discovering a new friend — or a new kind of poetry — is like is a pleasure.” And, make a note: I’ve got two bucks on Ghigna to win, place, and show: Childrens Poet Laureate in 2010.

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Global Economy

February 1, 2010

by Sally George

One day, for no particular reason, Deborah noticed that she didn’t really like her clothes. Not the ones she was wearing, or the ones she could think of in her closet. She tried to remember how they had looked when she bought them, what she had liked about them. Had they all been on sale, was that it? That was probably the reason for the pale green pants. But what about all the black pants, why had she bought them, and why didn’t she like them anymore? Even the expensive ones. She could see why they were more expensive, how they were better made, of fabric that felt softer, or heavier, somehow more costly. But there was nothing about them that gave her pleasure any more. She tried thinking about other categories; her furniture, for instance. There were a couple of things she didn’t mind, but those had generally been hand-me-downs. The things she had bought she didn’t really care for. Or worse, really didn’t care for. [keep reading…]

Originally posted 2008-09-13 19:19:08.

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In the Temple of Whispers

February 1, 2010

by Joseph Milosch

The pine window frames shrunk in the cold.
Snow, the poor man’s insulation, drifted
between the storm and our permanent windows.
Dad left the house at 6:30 am.

He’d return fifteen hours later
with frozen pastures smooth
in his face lines, a bull’s
butt to the wind in his right eye.

Fifteen hours of coffee, cigarettes,
two lane roads, paved or dirt and selling.
Reheated meatloaf and mashed potato dinners.
A few words with mom.

When a father has his hands
crossed, will his belt
forget its looped past
and become a belt?

Finding my chisel on the work bench,
I took a bite of the dog that bit me;
unwrapped the memory of the whipping I received
the day dad found his chisel where I left it
on his work bench.
[keep reading…]

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Signs of a Middle Age

January 25, 2010

by Persis M. Karim

It isn’t the dark circles
that underscore the eyes
or lines that break out
in latticework at temples

not the deep
grooves that signal
the constancy of smile
or frown

resting on the face,
or heaviness
of chin
bearing the weight
of difficult decades

but the pinch of skin
just below the ears,
like the apricot

whose golden, taut skin
settles into softness
after too much ripening.

Listen to: Signs of Middle Age

Originally posted 2008-09-15 19:07:10.

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American Life in Poetry

January 25, 2010

By Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006

Animals are incapable of reason, or so we’ve been told, but we imaginative humans keep talking to our dogs and cats as if they could do algebra. In this poem, Ann Struthers looks into the mystery of instinctive behavior.

Not Knowing Why

Adolescent white pelicans squawk, rustle, flap their wings,
lift off in a ragged spiral at imaginary danger.
What danger on this island in the middle
of Marble Lake? They’re off to feel
the lift of wind under their iridescent wings,
because they were born to fly,
because they have nothing else to do,
because wind and water are their elements,
their Bach, their Homer, Shakespeare,
and Spielberg. They wheel over the lake,
the little farms, the tourist village with their camera eyes.

In autumn something urges
them toward Texas marshes. They follow
their appetites and instincts, unlike the small beetles
creeping along geometric roads, going toward small boxes,
toward lives as narrow or as wide as the pond,
as glistening or as gray as the sky.
They do not know why. They fly, they fly.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2009 by Ann Struthers, whose most recent book of poems is What You Try to Tame, The Coe Review Press, 2004. Poem reprinted from the Coe Review, Vol. 39, no. 1, Fall 2008, by permission of Ann Struthers and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

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Distance

January 19, 2010

by Ag Synclair

red river desert
accipitridae seek food
the spoils of war

accipitridae

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Excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, April 3, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. The full text of this speech can be read here.

…  something is happening in our world. And you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of taking a kind of general and panoramic view of the whole of human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, “Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?” I would take my mental flight by Egypt and I would watch God’s children in their magnificent trek from the dark dungeons of Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn’t stop there.

•••

I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating President by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn’t stop there.

I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but “fear itself.” But I wouldn’t stop there.

Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, “If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy.”

Now that’s a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land; confusion all around. That’s a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding.

Something is happening in our world.

•••

Now we’re going to march again, and we’ve got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be — and force everybody to see … God’s children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That’s the issue. And we’ve got to say to the nation: We know how it’s coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.

•••

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.

•••

Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop.

And I don’t mind.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968)

© The Estate of Martin Luther King Jr.

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Ancestral

January 17, 2010

by Margarita Engle

Descending
into the land
of childhood

a yellow-walled town
on the coast
of light

memory’s
turbulent landing

each rediscovery
of time flow
and place love
always new.

Originally posted 2008-04-27 10:41:05.

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Snow-Birds Settling

January 17, 2010

by Dretta Grace White

Snow-Birds settling
Made all the difference

She thought of their
Settling

And of the light they gave

And became in her way

As grey
As they

snow-bird

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Panopticism

January 16, 2010

by James Eric Watkins

embracing wind
encircles the universe
swirls the planet

consumes my senses
panoptically caresses the tall grasses
that sway
all around me

and night lies quietly against my skin

“panopticism” was published in Shemomin April of 2008

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