NPM 50 State Tour -- A Pit Stop

Great road trips aren't just about cool destinations. They're also about unexpected pit stops.

No state poet laureate visits today. I'm pulling into this rest stop to savor the moment -- it's Baltimore's CityLit Festival tomorrow (here's the schedule -- I'm on with Stanley Plumly at 1:30). My new poetry chapbook gets its debut.

Totally jazzed to be reading in legendary Enoch Free Pratt Library's Poe Room, where this portrait hangs. Poe is one of my literary heroes.

I decided to try a voice coach. Thinking I'd show up at the reading sounding like Lauren Bacall. Not so fast, Shovan.

Talk about taking the scenic route. Mary Naden had me lying on the floor, dancing around the room and singing like an opera star. Somewhere along the way, I slowed down, stopped worrying about sounding throaty and alluring, and reconnected with the images in my poems. Wow.

Here is a poem from the chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone. It's about unexpected pit stops.

Tomorrow is Going to Be Normal
by Laura Shovan

Walking home from the school bus, my son says,
“Tomorrow is going to be normal.”
He speaks with the confidence of relief.
When every day is the same, he can breathe.

Each morning, I tell myself,
Today, is the day
I wait for the remarkable to land on my shoulder
or call me on the phone.

Sometimes it is a fortune written on the tag of my tea.
Sometimes it is a bird. Other days
I miss the quiet calling to attention.
I go to bed tired.

My son knows there is comfort in monotony.
Do I really want the phone to ring? It could be the lottery
or a hospital calling. He thinks my life is enough:
the mildness of the room when I am the only thing moving in it.

No. I must begin each day
wanting the next few hours to jolt me out of sameness.
He shakes his head. That we could be so different
we both find remarkable.

 Thank you for helping me celebrate one of those remarkable days. Stop by CityLit Festival tomorrow and say "hi!"

Today's Poetry Friday is brought to you by the letter "J"! Remarkable Jules at 7 Impossible Things is hosting the poetry blog roll.

NPM 50 State Tour -- Maryland, My Maryland

Please come in and welcome to my neighborhood, Maryland!

We've lived in the Baltimore 'burbs for ten years and I admit, I still feel land-locked. (New Jerseyans get anxious if we're more than 45 minutes from the ocean). Remind me to tell you that funny story about crossing the Mason-Dixon line some other time.

Maryland welcomed me with open arms. I've been a poet-in-the-schools for the Maryland State Arts Council for eight years. And Baltimore's CityLit Project is publishing my new chapbook for National Poetry Month. More exciting news on that in a second.

Some Maryland facts: 7th state, joined the union 4/28/1788, home of the very awesome Berger Cookie (it's a black and white cookie without the white) and the Baltimore Honfest.

Another reason I've proudly adopted Maryland? Unlike my home state of NJ, *we* have a poet laureate -- Stanley Plumly, a professor at the University of Maryland. Go Terps!

To help you celebrate spring, I'm sharing Plumly's poem, "Wildflower."

Wildflower
by Stanley Plumly
Some--the ones with fish names--grow so north they last a month, six weeks at most. Some others, named for the fields they look like, last longer, smaller. And these, in particular, whether trout or corn lily, onion or bellwort, just cut this morning and standing open in tapwater in the kitchen, will close with the sun. It is June, wildflowers on the table. They are fresh an hour ago, like sliced lemons, with the whole day ahead of them. They could be common mayflower lilies of the valley, day lilies, or the clustering Canada, large, gold, long-stemmed as pasture roses, belled out over the vase-- or maybe Solomon's seal, the petals ranged in small toy pairs or starry, tipped at the head like weeds. They could be anonymous as weeds. They are, in fact, the several names of the same thing, lilies of the field, butter-and-eggs, toadflax almost, the way the whites and yellows juxtapose, and have "the look of flowers that are looked at," rooted as they are in water, glass, and air. I remember the summer I picked everything, flower and wildflower, singled them out in jars with a name attached.

Read the rest of the poem here.

The exciting news? SAVE THE DATE! April 17 is CityLit Festival at the Enoch Free Pratt Library in Baltimore. I'll be reading with Stanley Plumly, 1:30 PM, and signing the new book. Hope you can make it!

Tomorrow morning, we'll continue our National Poetry Month tour of the 50 states. We're leaving bright and early for South Carolina. No Wall of Shame for them.

National Poetry Month 50 State Tour -- Massachusetts

Massachusetts, the 6th state (2/6/1788), lists their Poet Laureate as "No Position." As in, when it comes to poetry, we don't care enough to have an opinion.

Fie on you, Bay State. (BTW Marylanders, I think we should take over that nickname.)

With a poetic heritage like yours  -- check out this list of Mass. poets -- poetry should be honored in your state. You claim Ralph Waldo Emerson, e.e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Mark Doty, Mary Oliver, Anne Sexton, Louise Gluck. Show poetry some love!

I promised a visit with Emerson today. Since his home state has given us the cold shoulder, here is Emerson describing a Massachusetts winter.

The Snow Storm
by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm. Come see the north wind's masonry. Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he For number or proportion.

You'll find the rest of the poem here. And you'll find Massachusetts on my poetic Wall of Shame.

Put aside that goopy New England Crab Chowder and get ready for the good stuff, Maryland Crab Soup. We're off to my stomping grounds later today, visiting Maryland, My Maryland Poet Laureate Stanley Plumly -- and I have an exciting announcement!

Poetry Friday: A Chapbook!

Poetry Friday friends, I'm so excited to share my news with you!

My chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone, has won the Clarinda Harriss Poetry Prize, sponsored by Baltimore's CityLit Project.

The book comes out for National Poetry Month. Here is the press release, which includes the ISBN.

The final judge was poet, physician and all-around Renaissance man Michael Salcman. After the contest was over, Michael generously helped me to fine tune my manuscript. I feel blessed to call him a mentor. What a gift!

Michael is a master of ekphrastic poetry. Today, I'm sharing one of his "Eight Eakins Portraits" -- "Portrait of Walt Whitman." It appears in Michael's book, The Clock Made of Confetti (which has a lovely series of ekphrastic poems).

PORTRAIT OF WALT WHITMAN (1887-1888)

You see me now as the fierce friend of my final years
saw me; though he painted me resting, I'm  not at rest
my brain whirls with continents. My eyes are open,
thought death is limned in me like sweet drunkenness
and my cheeks remain ruddy. Around my head
and lips the gray hairs billow like wisps of smoke
or a final breath. On my shoulder, a flat collar flares
a white epaulet -- none owned by Falstaff nor painted
by Hals was ever finer though I'm hardly a gay toper
like them. Sorely vexed when first we met, he wrote
"My honors are misunderstanding, persecution and neglect,
enhanced because unsought." I think he caught me dreaming
of his resignation and bitterness; I never liked this likeness
much (not that I told him).

Posted with permission of the poet.

Don't you love how Whitman's "brain whirls with continents"?

If you're in the Baltimore area, mark April 17 on your calendar. It's the CityLit Festival  -- a day long, free event -- at the Enoch Free Pratt Library.

There are readings by poets, novelists, children's author Patrick O'Brien, and spoken word performers. The full line-up is here. In the afternoon, Michael Salcman is hosting a reading with me and Maryland Poet Laureate Stanley Plumly.

I hope you can make it! I'll need a big cheering section to calm my nerves.

Have a wonderful Poetry Friday, everyone. Our host is Becky at Becky's Book Reviews. Enjoy!