Summer Reads: Chapter & Verse (Darius & Twig)

On Friday, I announced a new series of posts called "Summer Reads: Chapter & Verse." Thanks for all of your comments and interest! I'm still looking for guest bloggers to share novels they have read this summer, paired with a poem that complements the book.

If you'd like more information, you can find a full explanation of the series and a sample Chapter & Verse pairing at this post.

When Walter Dean Myers passed away a few weeks ago, I was in the middle of one of his recent novels, DARIUS & TWIG.

Local indie bookstore Politics & Prose has it!

Teenagers Darius and Twig are best friends with big dreams. Darius is a gifted writer. Twig burns up the sidewalk, training to be a runner. Both boys know their gifts could be a ticket to college and out of their Harlem neighborhood. But they struggle against discouraging teachers, shootings and racism, and classmates who don't seem to want anyone to succeed.

DARIUS & TWIG was released in 2013 (Amistad Press). I had to look up the date of my poem match, "We Real Cool," by Gwendolyn Brooks. Though Brooks' poem was first published in 1959, she speaks in the voice of Darius and Twig's modern-day classmates.

We Real Cool

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

The Pool Players.
        Seven at the Golden Shovel.

            We real cool. We   

            Left school. We

            Lurk late. We

            Strike straight. We

            Sing sin. 

Read the poem's conclusion and listen to a recording at the Poetry Foundation.

Reading the novel and revisiting this poem has me thinking about the culture of urban poverty. Looking at the two side by side makes me wonder how much, if anything, has changed in the 50 plus years since "We Real Cool" was written. In Walter Dean Myers' novel, Darius and Twig hear the voices and feel the pull of characters like Brooks' pool players. Going to college means leaving home and an entire culture behind -- the kind elders and close friendships as well as the violence and sense of hopelessness.

Walter Dean Myers obituary at CNN.

Do you have a Chapter & Verse to contribute? Let me know. Instructions are in this post.

Just following along? Here's how you can use the Chapter & Verse series:

Recommended Reads -- If you're on a summer reading binge (I am!), and you're looking for something new and different to take to the beach, look no further.

Back to School -- Already planning lessons for the school year? Add some poetry to your reading units. The pairings in this series are perfect for jump-starting classroom discussion.

Next up: Janet Wong's Chapter & Verse is a double dose of Spinelli. Look for Janet's guest post on Poetry Friday.

Poetry Postcard 11

Descansando en una Palapa en la Playa Gaviotas.
Relaxing in a grass-hut at ‘La Gaviotas’ Beach.
Mazatlán, Sinaloa, México.

Nonchalant (Senryu)

Turquoise suit, tanned thigh

lashes curled as a wave's crest

I do not see them

by Laura Shovan

This was one of the first antique postcards I bought for the project. I found it in an antique shop in historic Ellicott City, which is just up the road.

Could not resist this card. It has a built in story. The girl in the hammock with her blank expression. The boy and girl in the background, holding hands on the beach. I knew I wanted to write about them.

But when it came time to write, I felt stuck. The story was already on the card. Adding anything seemed too -- what? heavy? distracting?

That's why I went with a senryu for this postcard. (Read about senryu form here.) While I'm not in love with this poem, it's kind of fun. The card so perfectly (in my imagination) captures teen angst, it doesn't really need a poem.

I also committed a haiku/senryu foul. Similes are frowned upon. In haiku, subtle metaphor is the aim.

Speaking of teen angst, my daughter turns thirteen today. (A birthday poem/card for her is coming up!) Which means I am officially the mother of two teenagers. So far -- knock wood -- the teens have been more fun than angst-inducing.

Additional postcard information: 

Tarjeta Postal
“Vista Color”
Lito en Meixco

©Litografica Turmex, S. A., Apdo. 53-060, Mexico, D. F.

“¡Coleccione Tarjetas Postales!”

It's another gray, rainy day in Maryland.
Here's some eye candy!
La Gaviotas Beach at www.tripadvisor.com

Non-Spanish speakers, La Gaviotas translates as "the seagull." Probably a reference to the bird and not the play by Anton Chekhov.

Prose Poem

Prose poem or flash fiction? Is there a difference? Opinions welcome in the comments.

Night Sounds

by Laura Shovan

Petula was fourteen, lanky and bony-kneed. Her husband, twelve years older, sent her to summer camp. She moved in short bursts of energy, like the crickets we caught between our palms on the grassy hill. Their legs tickled. We wanted tiny bamboo cages to hold them. I was seventeen and had a boyfriend. I wondered: what is it to be a wife at fourteen? Petula could not be like my mother, keeping the house, the kids, the meals while Father worked. When I was a younger, watching my parents kiss, I couldn’t squeeze myself between their legs. In love, at least, they were equals. Now, folded into my summer cot after lights out, I listened to the night sounds of the cabin. Girls breathed, sleeping, all around me. When I thought about my boyfriend, I envied Petula. Then I thought, "Does he make her?"

I saw him once. He was brown haired and bearded, soft. He watched his wife bounding between her friends like a worried father. Petula’s parents lived in the Virginia hills, had a house filled with children. She had been plucked, with their blessing, from her home. I thought, "His house is like a bamboo cage." But now, I say he gave her the summer. That was a burst of kindness.

"Night Sounds" first appeared in the Jewish Women's Literary Annual. It was subsequently published in Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, CityLit Press (2010).