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.

National Poetry Month 50 State Tour: Wall of Shame

It's Tax Day.

If you pay taxes, and I know you do, demand your poetic rights!

If you live in a Wall of Shame state, wouldn't today be the *perfect* day to tell your governor you want a poet laureate of your very own?

Here it is...your poetic Wall of Shame. These are the 10 states who do not have a poet laureate. (Notice the bench in front of the Wall of Shame is empty. Vacant. No one is in the bench position. Kind of like these states and poetry.)

National Poetry Month 50 State Tour

Wall of Shame

1. Poo on Pennsylvania! You have great gifts in Gerald Stern and Sonia Sanchez, but no poet laureate. That's just plain lazy.

2. Naughty New Jersey your poetry community is thriving and you're home to the largest poetry festival in the country. So, you were burned by a bad poet laureate experience. Get over it.

3. Cankerous Connecticut, saying your poet laureate position is vacant makes it sound about as appealing as an airplane toilet.

4. Miserly Massachusetts lists its poet laureate as: Position does not exist. Like, "We can't be bothered."

5. Oh, no! Ohio, like Mass, just can't be bothered to have an official state poet.

6. Mad-brained Michigan has had one poet laureate in its history. Edgar Guest was the only worthy poet your state has ever produced? Seriously?

7. No way, Nevada. You haven't had a poet laureate since 2007. What gives?

8. Noisome New Mexico. I'm getting tired of these states with "Position does not exist." Actually, poet laureates do exist. In 40 other states. What's your problem?

9. Artless Arizona -- artless is a good word for a state that doesn't honor poetry through a poet laureate position.

10. Hapless Hawaii, just because you were the last state on board, I'm not forgiving you. Joy Harjo is a resident of your state. Give her a call, would ya?!

Thanks to Pete Levin's page for some of these great, Shakespeare inspired insults.

As long as I'm venting, I'd like to have a word with the Poetry Foundation and the Academy of American Poets.

You'd be shocked at how many state poets laureate are not represented on these important websites. I, for one, was flabbergasted

If a poet has been deemed worthy by an entire state, that person deserves a bio on your venerated site. Discuss amongst yourselves while we get back on the road. Our National Poetry Month 50 State Tour continues.

NPM 50 State Tour: Louisiana

We're visiting Louisiana, 18th state (4/30/1812) on the National Poetry Month tour. We'll stop and do a writing exercise today.

Check out Louisiana Poetry for a list of literary groups, reading series, and other poetry related goodies. And here is a discussion of Walt Whitman's poem, "I Saw in Louisiana a Live Oak Growing."

Louisiana poet laureate Darrell Bourque writes ekphrastic poetry. At this site, you'll find poems in response to works by Vermeer, Durer and de Hooch.

But in the poem "My Father at Grand Isle," it's a family photograph Bourque parses with the eye of an art-lover.

MY FATHER AT GRAND ISLE

by Darrell Bourque

Whoever took this picture of my father loved him. 

He is a boy still, but barely.He has separated himself 

from all others he came here with at this watery retreat 

his mother takes her family and friends and her priest 

to in the summers.That is, everyone except this one 

who gazes up at him leaning into the world, held back 

by the railings on the balcony. Everything behind him 

is a blur so that we cannot see details in the structures. 

What we can see though are the edges of the wide gulf, 

placidity itself objectified in this captured light. It is 

                        mostly this broad blankness this boy will grow toward. 


Read the rest of the poem here.

Writing Prompt: "My Father at Grand Isle" begins with an observer's eye -- listing the things the poet sees in a photograph. The shift happens when Bourque steps out of the photo and into the future.

Begin with a family photograph, a familiar one. Write what you see with an outsider's eye first. What details had you overlooked? Then, write something you know that the photograph doesn't.

We're racing off to Indiana. See you there.

NPM 50 State Tour: Ohio

Ohio does not have a poet laureate. Never has.

That makes me cranky. Especially when the Buckeye State proudly claims former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove as one of its own. No wonder she wants to take a vacation.

A writing prompt follows the poem.

Vacation
by Rita Dove
I love the hour before takeoff, that stretch of no time, no home but the gray vinyl seats linked like unfolding paper dolls. Soon we shall be summoned to the gate, soon enough there’ll be the clumsy procedure of row numbers and perforated stubs—but for now I can look at these ragtag nuclear families with their cooing and bickering or the heeled bachelorette trying to ignore a baby’s wail and the baby’s exhausted mother waiting to be called up early while the athlete, one monstrous hand asleep on his duffel bag, listens, perched like a seal trained for the plunge. The rest of the poem is here.   Look for Ohio on my Wall of Shame tomorrow, 4/15. I will be urging Ohioans, on Tax Day, to demand their poetic rights and get themselves a poet laureate.   But first, we'll visit Louisiana.   While we're traveling south, try this writing prompt based on Dove's poem.     Writing prompt: In the poem "Vacation," by Rita Dove, the poet juxtaposes our positive connotations about the title word, "vacation," with reality.   Try it out. Choose a word for your title about which readers will have  strong assumptions, beliefs and feelings. Use observed details to show that those connotations don't jibe with reality.

NPM 50 State Tour: Tennessee

It's the Sweet Sixteen post of our National Poetry Mont 50 State Tour. Pucker up, I'm spinning the bottle and the lucky state is...

Tennessee. The guitar on your state quarter is so cool! How long have you been a musician?

Tennessee became the 16th state on June 1, 1796. I love it's nickname, The Volunteer State. My 50 State Fandex tells me it is the country's largest producer of Bibles.

It has an interesting Civil War history (on my mind because of Virginia's kerfluffle over Confederate History Month). Because portions of the state were pro-Union and anti-slavery, Tennessee was the last state to join the Confederacy and the first to rejoin the Union.

According to Fandex, it's also "the only Southern state ever to free the slaves by popular vote."

Tennesee's poet laureate, Margaret Britton Vaughn, has held the position since 1995. It is a lifetime post.

Britton Vaughn wrote "Who We Are" for Tennessee's Bicentennial. It's a rich list poem. I love details like "Wilma Rudolph's run for the gold."

"Who We Are"
The Bicentennial of Tennessee
1796-1996
by Margaret Britton Vaughn

The fertile soil of Tennessee
Grew more than corn, tobacco, and cotton,
It grew a crop of people who are
Trailblazers, child raisers, flag wavers, soul savers.
Like the roots of the tulip poplar,
Our feet are planted deeply
Into good living, neighbor giving, God fearing.
Like the iris, buttercup and wild daisies,
Our towns have sprung up
In valleys, basins, mountains, plains and plateaus
That house cabins, mansions and hillside chateaus.
We're the one-room schoolhouse in the hollow;
We're the university grad and the front-porch scholar.
We're Davy Crockett at the Alamo,
Sergeant York, World War I hero.
We're Cordell Hull who served Roosevelt;
We're Chief Sequoyah and his Cherokee alphabet.
We're W.C. Handy and the Memphis Blues;
We're Ida B. Wells and Civil Rights news,
And Grand Ole Opry with old wooden pews.
We're "Rocky Top" and "Tennessee Waltz" the same;
We're "Star Spangled Banner" before the game.
We're mockingbirds singing Appalachian folk songs;
We're country church sing-alongs.
We're hand clappers, toe tappers, knee slappers
And Mama's lap lullaby nappers.
We're Jackson, Johnson and James K. Polk;
We're city slickers and poor hill folk;
We're Anne Dallas Dudley and the Suffrage Vote.
We're John Sevier, Don Sundquist and governors galore;
We're congressmen, mayors and Vice President Gore.
We're Wilma Rudolph's run for the gold
And Sunday golfers' eighteenth hole.
We're Christmas Eve and the Fourth of July;
We're 4-H and homemade chess pie.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Ohio would be our next stop, but it's a Wall of Shame state -- no poet laureate. If poet Rita Dove invites us over, maybe we'll make a pit stop.

NPM 50 State Tour: Kentucky

Today on our tour of state poets laureate, I've got a writing prompt to share. But first...

Kentucky is the 15th state (as of June 1, 1792). The state takes its name from an Iroquoian word meaning "land of tomorrow." (Here's the source.) Its nickname is the Bluegrass State.

You might like this website: Dumb & Stupid Laws of Kentucky. Just make sure your bees get a physical before you visit this state.

Here's an article about the history of poets laureate in Kentucky, a program which dates back to 1926. Kentucky's poet laureate is traditionally inducted on April 24, birthday of Kentuckian and first U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Penn Warren.

There's a fascinating interview with current poet laureate Gurney Norman here, in which he discussing growing up in Appalachia during WWII.

He is the author of "Old Wounds, New Words: Poems from the Appalachian Poetry Project." It's a collection of poems by 90 poets from the Southern Appalachian Region.

I wasn't able to find any of Norman's poetry online, so I'm sharing a poem by Kentuckian Wendell Berry and a related writing prompt.

How To Be a Poet

by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

i   

Make a place to sit down.   

Sit down. Be quiet.   

You must depend upon   

affection, reading, knowledge,   

skill—more of each   

than you have—inspiration,   

work, growing older, patience,   

for patience joins time   

to eternity. Any readers   

who like your poems,   

doubt their judgment.   

ii   

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Read the rest of the poem here.

Writing prompt: Wendell Berry's poem, "How to Be a Poet," begins with an epigraph: (to remind myself). Try writing a poem borrowing Berry's. What do you need to remind yourself of?

Listen to some Bluegrass music while I wash the car. We're on our way to Tennessee, sixteenth state on our National Poetry Month tour.

NPM 50 State Tour: Vermont

What is the 14th state? Vermont, Naturally. Or, you may prefer the slogan, "What happens here, stays here (but nothing really happens here)."

Vermont is known for its skiing, but it's just gorgeous in the warmer months. And yes, there is a Ben and Jerry's Factory that you can tour. The tour guide who turned us away (we missed the last tour) said there's nothing more delicious than ice cream fresh from the production line. Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Vermont was admitted to the Union on March 3, 1791. It has the lowest violent crime rate of all 50 states and boasts the only state capital without a McDonalds. But before we all decide to move there, let's check out the Green Mountain State's poetic heritage.

Robert Frost was Vermont's first poet laureate when the position was created in 1961. But the state had no poet laureate from Frost's death in 1963 to 1988. Galway Kinnell was the next PL, followed by Louise Gluck, Ellen Bryant Voigt and Grace Paley.

Multi award-winning Ruth Stone is Vermont's current poet laureate. At 95, Stone writes bravely and eloquently about the region of latter age. I found "The Question" at the Poetry Foundation, where you can read several of Stone's poems.

The Question

by Ruth Stone

While needles of the evergreen

practice a windy chaos,

heads of snarled hair;

something in the tree

longs for old age;

bald brown knobs of skull

without subterfuge;

but it continues with its greedy

resinous sexual odors. 

 

The poem concludes here.

Join me in Kentucky next. I'm a big fan of Wendell Berry's poetry, so we'll be sure to pay him a virtual visit on our National Poetry Month 50 State Tour.