Poetry Friday: California's Poet Laureate

Happy Poetry Friday, everyone!

I know National Poetry Month is over, but I'm still finishing up my project. Today's stop on my 50 State Tour of poets laureate is California (state #31, 9/8/1850). There's a writing prompt at the end of the post.

The Golden State has had a poet laureate program since 1915. Current P.L  Carol Muske-Dukes' most recent book of poetry, Sparrow was a National Book Award finalist. It's about the her relationship with her late husband, David Dukes.

Through Muske-Dukes' website, you can access information on The Magic Poetry Bus. It's her P.L. project. Teachers, you'll want to check out the "techniques for learning and loving poems."

I love how her poem, "Twin Cities," begins with place and shifts into a portrait poem of a "wild funny girl" remembered from childhood.

Twin Cities
by Carol Muske-Dukes

It was the river that made them two—
The mills on one side,
The cathedral on the other.

We watched its swift currents:
If we stared long enough, maybe
It would stop cold and let us


Skate across to the other side.
It never froze in place—though
I once knew a kid, a wild funny

Girl who built a raft from branches
(Which promptly sank a few feet out
From the elbow bend off Dayton’s Bluff)

Who made it seem easy to believe.
We’d tried to break into Carver’s Cave,
Where bootleggers hid their hot stash

Years after the Dakota drew their snakes
And bears on the rock walls and canoed
Inside the caverns. We knew there were

Other openings in the cliffs, mirroring
Those same rock faces on the other shore—
And below them the caves, the subterranean

Pathways underlying the talk and commerce,
The big shot churches, undermining the false
Maidenliness of the convent school from which

My friend was eventually expelled for being
Too smart and standing up for her own smartness.
Too late, I salute you, Katy McNally. I think

That the river returned then to two-sidedness—
An overhung history of bottle-flash and hopelessness.
I see you still—laughing

Read the poem's conclusion at the New Yorker.

Writing exercise -- recommended for middle school and up.

Carol Muske-Dukes' poem "Twin Cities" begins by describing a specific place. The poets' feelings about this place are wrapped up in memories of a person, Katy McNally. Let's use Muske-Dukes form to write a portrait poem.

1. Begin with a visual description of a place.
2. Who do you associate with that place? Show what that person is doing there. (An action that reveals his/her character.)
3. Return to describing the place and its history
4. but end the poem with a reflection about the person.

Can't get enough poetry prompts? Poets Online is a poem from my book with a related prompt!

Our Poetry Friday host is Diane at Random Noodling. So heat up some ramen noodles and dig into today's poetry posts!

50 State Tour: Wisconsin, Part II

We're visiting with Wisconsin Poet Laureate, Marilyn L. Taylor.

Marilyn, how has the region you live in affected your poetry?

Well, to put it very frankly, I'm not sure that it has. I simply can't claim that there is a distinctive Wisconsin "voice" or a typically Wisconsin supply of subject matter for poetry -- although I suppose there are a certain number of poets in this state who have indeed written about cheese and cows and the Green Bay Packers.

But for those of us who take our poetry very seriously and who publish both here and elsewhere, I would say that "regionalism" is a secondary element in our work.

Speaking for myself, I'd much rather write a poem about, say, the unpredictability of human nature than one about bucolic rural Wisconsin scenery. It's more a matter of the individual poet's motivations, I think -- and less a matter of where that poet lives.

Does Wisconsin have a poet-in-the-schools program?

Although many communities and organizations in Wisconsin support programs that bring poets to their schools, I am not aware of a state-wide Poet-in-the-Schools Program.

 Thanks for joining us on the 50 State Tour, Marilyn. You're a great ambassador for poetry!

Here is Marilyn L. Taylor's sonnet, "Reading the Obituaries." If you work in schools, you've thought about the issue Marilyn raises in the poem -- the death of once-popular names.

Reading the Obituaries

by  Marilyn L. Taylor

Now the Barbaras have begun to die,
trailing their older sisters to the grave,
the Helens, Margies, Nans -- who said goodbye
just days ago, it seems, taking their leave
a step or two behind the hooded girls
who bloomed and withered with the century --
the Dorotheas, Eleanors and Pearls
now swaying on the edge of memory.
Soon, soon, the scythe will sweep for Jeanne
and Angela, Patricia and Diane --
pause and return for Karen and Christine
while Susan spends a sleepless night again.
     Ah, Debra, how can you be growing old?
     Jennifer, Michelle, your hands are cold.

 Posted with permission of the author.

What a chilling final line. My gratitude to Marilyn L. Taylor for sharing such powerful sonnet with us.

California, here we come! You're up next on the 50 State Tour of poets laureate.

50 State Tour: Wisconsin

Lit lovers -- I'm so excited. We have a visitor on the 50 State Tour today.

Stop #30 is Wisconsin. Please welcome the Badger State's poet laureate, Marilyn L. Taylor to Author Amok!

Marilyn and I "met" through United Poets Laureate -- a blog set up by several of the state poets laureate, including our special guest.

Marilyn, as Wisconsin's state poet laureate, do you have a project?

Yes, I do have a project. When I applied for the two-year Wisconsin Poet Laureateship, I described it like this:

"My first priority as Wisconsin Poet Laureate will be to help spread the joys of reading, writing and listening to poetry through the state and beyond, directing it especially to those who may never have heard a Wisconsin poet read, never purchased a poetry collection that was written by one of  our own.

"My strategy to attract such people will involve creating events in which they could comfortably take part, both as participants and as listeners."

With that in mind, I have visited libraries, bookshops, centers for the arts, colleges, retirement communities, clubhouses, high school, middle schools and book clubs -- both in tiny little towns in the Wisconsin boondocks to the larger cities like Milwaukee and Madison. To date...50 different venues. I have about twenty more already scheduled for 2010.

What are the duties of a poet laureate in your state?

The position of Poet Laureate in Wisconsin is pretty open-ended, actually, concerning what we're "required" to do. The minimum expectation is that we present four readings or presentations in four different parts of the state each year. My two predecessors and I have all vastly exceeded that minimum.

Our visit to Wisconsin continues in the next post. I'll have more questions for Marilyn and a sonnet that I  know all of you teachers out there will relate to.

Something Else is Alive -- free writing workshop!

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.
-- from "The Thought Fox" by Ted Hughes

Are you free as a bird Monday evening? Good!

The Little Patuxent Review has invited me to lead one of their wonderful literary salons. It's at the Columbia Association Art Center -- Monday, May 10, 7:30-8:30 PM.

My workshop is "Something Else is Alive": The Power of Animal Metaphors.

Here's the description:

What makes animal  metaphors an enduring and powerful part of literature?

Some fictional villains slither like a snake or prowl like a wolf. Conflicts can make a novel's protagonist retreat into her shell like a turtle. Authors as varied as children's novelist Kate DiCamillo, fantasy author J.K. Rowling, John Updike and poet Ted Hughes use animals in their work to express deeper truths.

Bring an animal totem, a favorite animal poem or a related piece of prose to share and discuss. Be prepared to write. Teens are welcome!

I'll be signing my chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, (here's a review) after the salon.

The C/A Arts Center is located at 6100 Foreland Garth, Columbia, MD 21045.