Amok in Announcements (Again)

News! My family adventure article is finally up at Baltimore's Child online. http://www.baltimoreschild.com/articles/index.cfm?fuse1=detail&ArticleID=1024 Look for a "shout out" to Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series.

Just got news my children's poem "Alphabet Soup" sold to Shoofly Audio magazine. It should be published in 2009-2010. I love this magazine's concept. No print copies -- you get an MP3 file or a CD. A great option for LD kids or those with sensory issues. Visit the magazine at http://www.shooflyaudio.com/ A poem I posted a few weeks ago, "Driving Home from the Poetry Festival, 1996," will be appearing in the next issue of Little Patuxent Review. The theme is "Turning Points." You still have time to submit work to this beautiful journal. The deadline for "Turning Points" in November 1. More info at http://www.littlepatuxentreview.org/. There are usually a few (wonderful) group readings when the issue is launched. Look for those announcements in a few months. Save the date: I just scheduled a group reading for 3/31/09 at Howard County's Central Library. A group of contributors from the Maryland Writers Association anthology, "New Lines from the Old Line State" will do a short reading and panel discussion. We'll also be selling the book. If you can't get to the reading, you can buy the book here: http://marylandwriters.org/publications.html. Two of my poems are among the entries. Last, a great writing opportunity for kids. Last November, I participated in my first NaNoWriMo (that's National Novel Writing Month, an annual event). I crossed the finish line with my YA suspense novel clocking in at 50,000 words -- about 75% of a complete draft. Woohoo! It felt like a real accomplishment. NaNoWriMo has an awesome program for young writers. Less focus on word count, more on, "Just write it!" Here's a blurb from the very kid-friendly website: "The Young Writers Program of National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a novel by midnight, November 30. The word-count goal for our adult program is 50,000 words, but our Young Writers Program allows participants who are 17 years old and younger to set reasonable, yet challenging, word-count goals. The only thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly." This is a great idea for kids who love to read, but hate school-writing (the dreaded BCRs come to mind). There's a ton of online encouragement and support during NaNo month, November. Check it out at http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/ywp I promise to get back to the Dodge Poetry Festival soon. Festival Assistant Michael Murphy will be on the hot seat, giving us a behind-the-scenes view of the event.

It's Poetry Friday

On with the Poetry Sampler from last week’s Dodge Poetry Festival! Friday afternoon. We are about halfway through a 21 poet, 3 hour sampler. I had to agree with Edward Hirsch, who joked with the audience, “I’m very over stimulated.!” Jane Hirshfield is a longtime Dodge headliner. She has a soothing voice. Her poetry (and manner?) is influenced by her study of Zen. Hirshfield’s calm isn’t lulling – it actually calls you to pay attention to the words. Hirshfield shared a beautiful elegy, “Letter to C,” for poet Czeslaw Milosz’s wife. I was struck by these lines from her poem, “Vilnius,” If you lived higher up on the mountain,

I find myself thinking, what you would see is

more of everything else, but not the mountain. Another Dodge veteran, Sharon Olds, was one of several poets who brought up Pablo Neruda’s “Odes to Simple Things.” She read an ode to toilets. Another: “Ode to a Tampon.” In keeping with the form, she elevated these objects with her choice of language and descriptions. But Olds also had us laughing about our own discomfort with bodily functions.

I begin school poetry residencies talking to children about how all subject matter is fair game in poetry. Olds is a poet who explores the “unmentionable” parts of our existence -- our bodies & how they operate. I’d never heard Ted Kooser read before. He completed his term as U.S. Poet Laureate this summer. People cheered before, during, and after his reading. Kooser read a poem about his mother’s death that made me cry (softie!) In "Pearl," he describes visiting an elderly aunt to deliver the news. In the poem, he knocks on the door and says, “It’s Vera’s boy,” realizing that the death has taken him back to childhood. You can hear Kooser read the poem, “Pearl,” here: http://www.poetrypoetry.com/Features/TedKooser/TedKooser.php Linda Pastan is a fellow Marylander. Her subject matter -- marriage, family, parenting – appeals to me. She read a list poem, “Because.” It describes the reasons why she said “yes” when her husband asked her to marry him. It’s a theme she also explores in “I Married You”: I married you for all the wrong reasons, charmed by your dangerous family history, by the innocent muscles, bulging like hidden weapons under your shirt, by your naive ties, the colors of painted scraps of sunset. Read the rest of Pastan’s poem here: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19483 Whew! What a marathon. Poets sometimes say that the Dodge Festival elevates them to rock-star status: the lights, thousands of seats filled with cheering fans. But fame is different for great poets than it is for musicians, actors, athletes. Poets aren’t disposable as they age. If the Dodge crowd is any indication, we want our poets to combine wisdom and a sense of humor about the human experience.

More to come…including What poetry books for kids can you find at the Dodge Poetry Festival’s book tent?

Head over to Two Writing Teachers for more Poetry Friday. They're hosting today: http://twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/were-hosting-poetry-friday-today/#comment-5238

Writing Exercise: Billy Collins

Recommended for all ages. During Friday's Poetry Sampler, Billy Collins read a poem about an exhibit of Greek and Roman statuary. There is a long tradition in poetry of writing in response to art. It's sometimes called "ekphrastic" poetry. But Collins' focus wasn't the art itself. It was the missing parts. In this case, limbs, noses, eyes that --over time -- have changed the piece of art. Let's write about a beloved object -- something you own or a famous work of art -- which we know has been broken or damaged. How does the damage change your view of and feelings about the object? Fiction writers, this is a character sketch exercise. If one of your characters breaks or loses something important, how does he or she react?

Amok at the Dodge Poetry Festival: Friday's Poetry Sampler Part I

There are pockets of down-time at the poetry festival. Thousands of people attend, yet you bump into friends, acquaintances, school buddies. On my way to the Poetry Sampler, I found author Lisa Greenberg. We know each other through our regional SCBWI list-serv, but had never met before. Lisa and I shared a grilled veggie wrap (delish). She told me about her work, writing children’s fiction and non-fiction about the Middle East. For about 30 years, she has lived much of the year in Saudi Arabia. We were serenaded by the musical troupe Yarina. They’ve been part of the festival for years, dance-walking throughout Waterloo Village playing panpipe, guitar and drum. The group plays indigenous music from Ecuador (http://www.yarinamusic.com/). I picked up an Ecuadoran percussion instrument -- a beautifully decorated gourd with beans or pebbles inside -- for my 11-year-old drummer at home. Made a stop at the Borders tent. More on that later. Then it was on to the big tent/main stage for a two hour poetry sampler. 21 big names – each reading 1-3 poems. Alphabetical order. The sampler started with a bang. Poet/novelist Chris Abani read a poem about being beaten in his native Nigeria, where he is considered a political dissident. He’s now teaching at University of California at Riverside. Abani was funny, gracious, and powerful. The poem was deceptively simple: Reflexology Beatings: To the top of the head Elicit and idiot’s smile. To the ears and nape Affect your balance, Tipping you dangerously close to insanity. You can find the rest of the poem in the Dodge Festival Teacher Packet or Abani’s book “Kalakuta Republic.” His website is http://www.chrisabani.com/ Another discovery for me was Mexican poet Coral Bracho. She and her translator read a beautiful, sensory list poem describing water. Billy Collins had a response poem to an exhibit of Greek and Roman Statuary at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It focused on the absurdity of the lost limbs, noses, heads. I’ve heard Mark Doty read, “Messiah,” before. It’s a wonderful narrative poem about the power of art (Handel’s Messiah) to elevate us and create a sense of community. I love Doty’s reading style. His ennunciation makes every single word count, and builds the sense of story in this poem. We were about halfway through the sampler – that’s when the rain started pouring. This is the view from inside the tent. Coming up: Friday's Poetry Sampler Part II Jane Hirshfield, Ted Kooser, Linda Pastan and more

Writing Exercise: Joy Harjo

Recommended for advanced middle school and up.

At the Dodge Poetry Festival, Joy Harjo talked about the difference between everyday language ("Please pass the salt") and sacred langauge. That got me thinking about everyday language. Is it really that ordinary?

This is a listening exercise as much as it is for writing. Plan to spend one day walking around with a notepad or tape recorder. Keep a record -- best you can -- of the words you say and the words you hear. You might make two columns: "everyday words," "surprising/sacred words."

Poets -- you can go all Dr. Seuss (Cat in the Hat) and write a poem using only the words in your columns or on your tape.

Fiction writers -- this is an exercise in dialogue. Did someone use a word that surprised you because it was out of character? Did he/she say a word that no one else you know would use?

My surprise today (now that Harjo tuned my ears to everyday/sacred words) -- my 8-year-old daughter used the word "vortex." As in, "That black cloud up ahead is like a vortex pulling us in."

Amok at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival: II

This was the view on the way to the Dodge Poetry Festival last weekend: There's a reason it's called "driving rain"... Where is the rain driving us? Round the bend. Crazy. Over the hills and through the woods. To an early grave. What is the rain driving? Blue P.T. Cruiser, droplets on fresh wax. Gray VW bug, fat as a raindrop, smooth as sharkskin. How does the rain hold the steering wheel? Press the gas, hit the brakes, turn on its windshield wipers? Can rain see through the rain? Does the rain drive with the radio on? Does it get a rush every time a rock station plays "Riders on the Storm?" How bad does the rain have to be before rain pulls over, turns off the engine, waits until it can bear the sound of its own pounding heart. I parked in a muddy field about a ten minute walk from Waterloo Village. By 10:30 AM -- despite the rain -- the main lots were full. It was Teacher Day. I headed to the registration tent for my free (whoopee!) teacher admission bracelet and free (double whoopee!) Teacher Packet. The packet is one of the amazing ways Dodge supports poetry in the schools. It's filled with poems -- a double sided page for each poet at the festival. These are intended for the high school classroom. We also get a few pages of teaching ideas. The Sawmill I checked my program on the fly and set out for the Sawmill Tent & Joy Harjo, whose work I've long admired. (I read her beautiful "Eagle Poem" at Jason & Bethany's wedding.) Harjo calls herself a reluctant poet. She wanted to be an artist, but her love of music and her mother's songwriting drew her to poetry. You can hear those elements in Harjo's poems. She uses chant, repetition, animal totems and Native American stories in her poetry. Her work is often sensory, like the poem she read, "It's Raining in Honolulu." It begins, "There is a small mist at the brow of the mountain,/each leaf of flower, of taro, tree and bush shivers with ecstasy." The rest of the poem is here: http://www.poetrymagazine.com/archives/2003/March03/harjo.htm Harjo, who wore a black cowboy hat and henna decorations on her right hand, remembered reading Emily Dickinson and Louis Untermeyer's "Poetry for Children" as a child. One of four siblings, she tucked herself into a closet to find a quiet place to read and draw. A member of the Mvskoko/Creek Nation, she was sent to "Indian" school and experienced discrimination there even as Native American culture was beginning to earn respect in the U.S. She told us about her adventures canoeing on the Pacific Ocean. The experience has taught her to listen to the "Wise Self" -- the inner voice that warns you about danger. Harjo is working on a play about a woman who ignores her Wise Self. The main character, Red Bird, leaves her family to take up with the wrong guy. The sections Harjo read from the play were powerful -- particularly how spouses can shift from love to a pattern of abuse. The play premieres in March (NYC?) A teacher in the audience asked how students can connect with the mythological/ancestral family stories in their writing. This would help them learn about themselves. Harjo recommended music (which has ancestral roots) or a symbolic image (an animal) that takes students beyond everyday language. Take a look at the puddle outside the Sawmill Tent. I felt awful for the people in flip-flops. BTW: Joy Harjo is reading in Howard County, MD this weekend, 10/5/08. Info is at http://www.hocopolitso.org/. Look for her children's book, "The Good Luck Cat." She has another one for kids coming out soon, "Poem for a Girl Becoming." Next up: Friday's Poetry Sampler with Jane Hirshfield, Edward Hirsch, Sharon Olds, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ted Kooser, Linda Pastan, Mark Doty and more.

Amok in Announcements

A quick break from the “poetry postcards” about the Dodge Festival to bring you some announcements.

1. "CityLit Project’s popular “Write Here, Write Now” workshops makes its debut in Howard County with a six-session workshop on freelance writing. Led by instructor Laura Shovan at the Howard County Center for the Arts." When I stopped freelancing for the Baltimore Sun this summer and put some feelers out about teaching adult writing classes, I never expected to that I'd be WHWN’s first instructor in the ‘burbs. I would never say, "I'm stoked!" but I totally am. The class is called “Rookie Reporting: Breaking Into Freelance Writing.” The focus is on breaking into the non-fiction market by targeting local and specialty publications (online and print). Children’s writers looking to earn clips in the magazine market are very welcome! Send me an email if you’d like more info, the official flyer, or to receive the registration form. But do it today – we’re short on time. 6 Thursdays 7-8:30pm October 16 – November 20, 2008 Howard County Center for the Arts Registration Fee: $125 2. Speaking of Joy Harjo (see the last post), she’s coming to Howard County, MD for a reading this Sunday. Visit http://www.hocopolitso.org/events.htm for more information. Harjo is a wonderful poet, a powerful reader. If you do any animal work in your writing, she’s a must see. 3. Another reading in the Baltimore region soon. Poet Valzhyna Mort will be at University of Balitmore Monday, October 6 at 7 PM. The reading is free. 4. Tons of writing opportunities for Baltimore area kids this fall! This one from the Sun: "Students in kindergarten through 12th grade are invited to illustrate the theme, 'What Maryland Means to Me,' in creative writing or art. Creative-writing entries include essay, narrative, short story, poem or song; art entries include drawing, painting, photography, photo-collage, sculpture or computer-generated art. Entries can relate to Maryland's history, people or landmarks, or to personal experiences, the environment, animals, business, commerce, etc." http://www.highlandmd.org/Arts&Letters.html. A few months ago, the Sun posted a note that it was seeking children to write restaurant reviews. I'm looking for the information. If anyone knows where to find details, post a comment please. "There's no greater reward for a young writer than seeing his or her work in print. Baltimore's Child and the City Lit Project have teamed up to encourage student authors by presenting the Maryland Young Writers' Contest. Winners will have their work published in Baltimore's Child and will receive additional prizes to be announced soon. Visit http://www.baltimoreschild.com/ for information. " Publishing work makes kids feel great about writing. Encourage a child or teen to try one of these contests.

Amok at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival: I

Dodge expected 5,000 high schoolers from around the country at this year’s Student Day.

The energy on Student Day (Thursday -- it’s free for preregistered students and teachers) is crazy. 5,000 creative, lit mag geeks, song-writers, book worms, would-be graphic novelists gathered up with teens just like them.

Meeting the Heroes of Poetry for the first time: Sharon Olds, Billy Collins, Charles Simic, Lucille Clifton. It’s like getting a tour of the Poetic Super Friends’ Hall of Literary Justice. Sometimes it feels like the big green tent over the main stage is going to levitate.

I missed Student Day this year. My friend, poet and teacher Michael Z Murphy, is a Festival Assistant. He’s going to fill us in as soon as he dries his clothes – it rained all four festival days. To whet your appetite…

I was a high school senior in October, 1986. My wild, weird creative writing teacher took us on a field trip to the very first Dodge Poetry Festival. I still have my journal.

Here’s what 17-year-old me wrote as I was listening to the poets (two found poems?):

notes on sonia sanchez tie up your thoughts, subject with what’s going on real business, honesty and truth can’t bring dishonesty into poetry (white horse in background) perfume around america – east coast subtle racism day is not real…waking up dark and going into light extra words thrown in also etcetera whatever you know notes on galway kinnell in a country church “the spinning girl” feeling liquid the naked fat girl use of size to describe poe, whitman & emily dickinson understanding your subject fully within self on feeling small mortal acts and mortal words things you know no pure description And stuck between some love angst about my boyfriend (now husband), I found this: “the festival was brilliant. I adore sonia sanchez and a dozen other new names who are more than names to me. it’s as if their faces were magic wands that immediately brought me upward.”

It’s 22-years later. I woke up at 4:30 AM Friday to make the rainy, four-hour drive to Stanhope, NJ. I was listening to Joy Harjo read by 10:30. Worth it? Harjo had my answer. She said, “Each sound makes a path back to the place of origin.”

More from my place of origin – northern NJ/physical birthplace, Dodge Festival/poetic birthplace – tomorrow.

Poet Joy Harjo’s blog: http://www.joyharjo.com/news/ Website: http://www.joyharjo.com/

Here’s a taste of Harjo's wonderful chant/poem: “She Had Some Horses.”

She had some horses. She had horses who were bodies of sand.

She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.

She had horses who were skins of ocean water.

She had horses who were the blue air of sky.

She had horses who were fur and teeth.

Read the rest of the poem here: http://www.renaissanceindian.com/Joy%20Harjo.asp

Kids’ Lit friends – Harjo has a children’s book coming out soon. “Poems for a Girl Becoming”