Last week I imbibed white peony tea at the Dushanbe Tea House in Boulder. It was constructed in Kajikistan, Boulder's sister city, dismantled, shipped and reconstructed. Perfect atmosphere. I bet the Persian influence inspired me.
Later, I drafted some poems for my Maine collection. I had to write something after hauling my laptop through security! The poems recall the sights and sounds of Maine's State Fair in Skowhegan.
Midway Magic starts like this:
Carousel croons tinny tunes,
bumper cars spark ozone gas.
Barkers babble, “Step right up!
Hit the target. Three balls, a buck!”
I'm still scanning and trying to be true to the form. It's difficult, but it forces me to rethink word choice and I end up with crisper images. Thanks to Marilyn Nelson for shaking the form finger at me!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
children's author K.D. Huxman
I'm in love with public transportation. In Boulder, Colorado for a January thaw week, I've hopped on a regional bus to Longmont and an express to Denver. In Denver, I met with a friend and writing colleague whom I hadn't seen for eight years. Over lunch we caught up with each other's lives and writing projects.
Karin writes for adults and children. Dragon Talk and Grizzelda Gorilla are picture books for young children and published by Kittycat Books. Grizzelda Gorilla won an EPPIE Award in 2008 for best children's ebook. Check out Karin's books at http://kdhuxman.wordpress.com
I've started another poem for my Maine Summer collection while here. It's a state fair poem, complete with cotton candy, Midway rides and heifer showing.
Next week I won't be gazing at the Flatirons, the Rockies or enjoying 60 degree weather. I'll be back to boots, mittens and snow!
Karin writes for adults and children. Dragon Talk and Grizzelda Gorilla are picture books for young children and published by Kittycat Books. Grizzelda Gorilla won an EPPIE Award in 2008 for best children's ebook. Check out Karin's books at http://kdhuxman.wordpress.com
I've started another poem for my Maine Summer collection while here. It's a state fair poem, complete with cotton candy, Midway rides and heifer showing.
Next week I won't be gazing at the Flatirons, the Rockies or enjoying 60 degree weather. I'll be back to boots, mittens and snow!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
YA poetry
If you think young adults won't read poetry, take a look at this book. I just finished reading The Freedom Business by Marilyn Nelson, Wordsong, 2008. Marilyn has written poems in response to the story of Venture Smith, son of a prince from Guinea. Venture was enslaved as a boy in the early 18th century and eventually bought his own freedom and others', also. Opposite the amazing poetry, Venture's own words tell his compelling story in the text, A NARRATIVE of the LIFE AND ADVENTURES of VENTURE, a NATIVE of AFRICA.
The narrative is compelling by itself, but twenty-five poems place the heart-breaking details of Venture's life under a microscope. We see, hear and feel with Venture when he is captured, sails to the New World and learns to serve his masters.
We feel the back-breaking work to purchase his freedom in a brilliant poem, "December Moonrise," that evokes Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:"
"My bones so weary, I could near about weep."
We feel his love for his wife Meg, who he purchases after many years, in a poem named for her:
"This is the hour of stars and of the night, dreaming
where she lies on a hill of clouds, wrapped in a length of milky-way cloth."
The Freedom Business is an historical account opened up for the reader by Nelson's poems and Deborah Dancy's evocative art. It is wonderful!
The narrative is compelling by itself, but twenty-five poems place the heart-breaking details of Venture's life under a microscope. We see, hear and feel with Venture when he is captured, sails to the New World and learns to serve his masters.
We feel the back-breaking work to purchase his freedom in a brilliant poem, "December Moonrise," that evokes Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening:"
"My bones so weary, I could near about weep."
We feel his love for his wife Meg, who he purchases after many years, in a poem named for her:
"This is the hour of stars and of the night, dreaming
where she lies on a hill of clouds, wrapped in a length of milky-way cloth."
The Freedom Business is an historical account opened up for the reader by Nelson's poems and Deborah Dancy's evocative art. It is wonderful!
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
sonnets
Chickadees, finches and titmice are emptying our new feeder daily. It's joy to watch them as I work on summer poems for my children's poetry collection.
I'm creating a September poem now. I want it to reflect the loss of summer's freedom, to contrast with the other poems about a Maine summer. I'm using the Shakespearean sonnet form, which I hope conveys the return to serious endeavors and the rigidity of a school schedule. It also offers an opportunity to use form to contrast how the speaker feels about the end of summer.
It's my first sonnet. I'm trying to master iambic pentameter and create near rhymes instead of perfect rhyme. It's challenge because my natural rhythm seems to be tetrameter. Anna Boll's sonnet worksheet has been helpful. Thanks, Anna.
http://pics.livejournal.com/ajboll/pic/00022k6p
Mary Oliver (Rules of the Dance)writes that a sonnet's thought turns after an eight line statement(the octave)and reflects back on itself or comments on the statement in the last six lines (the sestet). I'm still working on that part! Here's the beginning:
My sneakers pinch like cramped crab shells, and yet
I lace them up. No bagel. I’ll be late.
I scuff down River Road while monarchs flit .
in milkweed fields to summer’s sweet heartbeat.
I'm creating a September poem now. I want it to reflect the loss of summer's freedom, to contrast with the other poems about a Maine summer. I'm using the Shakespearean sonnet form, which I hope conveys the return to serious endeavors and the rigidity of a school schedule. It also offers an opportunity to use form to contrast how the speaker feels about the end of summer.
It's my first sonnet. I'm trying to master iambic pentameter and create near rhymes instead of perfect rhyme. It's challenge because my natural rhythm seems to be tetrameter. Anna Boll's sonnet worksheet has been helpful. Thanks, Anna.
http://pics.livejournal.com/ajboll/pic/00022k6p
Mary Oliver (Rules of the Dance)writes that a sonnet's thought turns after an eight line statement(the octave)and reflects back on itself or comments on the statement in the last six lines (the sestet). I'm still working on that part! Here's the beginning:
My sneakers pinch like cramped crab shells, and yet
I lace them up. No bagel. I’ll be late.
I scuff down River Road while monarchs flit .
in milkweed fields to summer’s sweet heartbeat.
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