Summer Reads: Chapter & Verse (The Book of the Maidservant)

It's Poetry Friday. The leaves aren't falling yet in Maryland. Here at Author Amok, we are still enjoying some late-summer reading. Poetry Friday regular Tabatha Yeats-Lonske is here to share her Chapter and Verse selection.

I'm also guest-posting this week. You can find my Today's Little Ditty rant against rhyme (at least in the elementary classroom) at Michelle H. Barnes' blog.

This week's host is
Renee LaTulippe
at No Water River!

Tabatha's pairing of a novel and poem is the ninth post in a series called "Summer Reads: Chapter and Verse." Guest bloggers and I have matched books we read this summer with a poem that complements the novel.

So far, we've paired:

THE GIRLS AT THE KINGFISHER CLUB (Historical YA)

with Edna St. Vincent Millay's "First Fig"

DARIUS & TWIG (Contemporary Urban YA)

with Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool"

STARGIRL (Contemporary YA)

with Eileen Spinelli's, "Poem for a Bully" and "Advice to Rapunzel"

Shared by guest blogger Janet Wong

THE IMPOSSIBLE KNIFE OF MEMORY (Contemporary YA)

with W.M. Rivera's "The You That's Left"

THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN (YA Urban Fantasy)

with Sarah Beasley's "Grief Puppet"

WALK TWO MOONS (Classic contemporary MG)

with blackberry poems by Galway Kinnell, Sylvia Plath, and Crescent Dragonwagon

ENTHUSIASM (YA Romance)

with Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet III"
Shared by guest blogger Kathy MacMillan

WE WERE LIARS (YA Suspense)

with Margaret Atwood's "This Is a Photograph of Me"

Welcome back to Author Amok, Tabatha!

Tabatha reading with Penelopeep
(Peep for short).

My match-up pairs the poem "Listen" by Barbara Crooker with MG historical fiction The Book of the Maidservant by Rebecca Barnhouse. The Book of the Maidservant traces the journey of Johanna, servant to holy woman Dame Margery Kempe, as they travel from England to Rome in the 1400s. (Read a review here.)

Note: Dame Margery Kemp was a real person. You can read about her at the Online Reference Book (ORB) for Medieval Studies.

Available at ABE Books.

You can see how tough life is for servants, how easy it would be to give up, but Johanna never does. When she finally finds a field of blankness before her, she takes advantage of it. And as much trouble as other people can be, one of the toughest things Johanna has to do is make peace with is herself. Like the moon, though, people get the chance to bloom again.

The poem: 

Listen,

I want to tell you something. This morning
is bright after all the steady rain, and every iris,
peony, rose, opens its mouth, rejoicing.
I want to say, wake up, open your eyes, there’s
a snow-covered road ahead, a field of blankness,
a sheet of paper, an empty screen. Even
the smallest insects are singing, vibrating
their entire bodies, tiny violins of longing
and desire. We were made for song.
I can’t tell you what prayer is, but I can take
the breath of the meadow into my mouth,
and I can release it for the leaves’ green need.
I want to tell you your life is a blue coal, a slice
of orange in the mouth, cut hay in the nostrils.
The cardinals’ red song dances in your blood.
Look, every month the moon blossoms
into a peony, then shrinks to a sliver of garlic.
And then it blooms again.

Barbara Crooker, from Line Dance

I read this poem on Poetry Friday blogger's Margaret Simon's blog, Reflections on the Teche. 

Here's the link for author Rebecca Barnhouse's website: http://www.rebeccabarnhouse.com/book-of-the-maidservant.html

Tabatha is enamored of words and fascinated with the world. Her blog The Opposite of Indifference showcases her love for art, music, and poetry. She is working on a project involving another of her interests, botanical medicine. Her book about Holocaust survivors has just been released as a Kindle edition. 

Tabatha, I have some favorite books set in the same time period: CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY by Karen Cushman and Kevin Crossley-Holland’s MG series that begins with THE SEEING STONE. Thanks for recommending THE BOOK OF THE MAIDSERVANT. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Readers, I am proud to say that Barbara Crooker—isn’t the poem Tabatha shared beautiful?—has published work in the journal I edit, Little Patuxent Review. Crooker's poem “Rufous-Sided Towhee” appeared in our science-themed issue. We are reading submissions *right now* for an issue about food. Please send your poems through Submittable, but be sure to read LPR’s guidelines first. 

To get an idea of the work we publish, check out LPR's YouTube channel, where you will see contributors reading their work. The deadline is November 1. The Food issue will go on sale in January.

Do you have an idea for Summer Reads: Chapter and Verse? I'm still looking for guest bloggers. The series will continue until summer ends on Monday, September 22. For more information, find a full explanation of this series and a sample Chapter and Verse pairing at this post.

Where You'll Find Me... Guest Blogging

I'm having a Pisces kind of day today ... swimming in two directions.

From Communityhealing.net

This is in my writing life. Add kids, work, the usual stuff of momness, and I feel more like an octopus than a fish.

So: Two directions. (Not to be confused with boy band.)

Really?

Today, you will find me elsewhere.

Direction #1

Children's author me is thrilled to be visiting Brenda Drake's blog today. Brenda interviewed me and my good friend/writing mentor Joy McCullough-Carranza for her Pitch Wars Success Stories series.

I think our story is like Cinderella. Joy is the fairy book-mother who helped get my manuscript ready for the ball. It felt like everyone wanted to dance with my book, but midnight came with the end of the Pitch Wars contest, and my book went home with no agent to love. Until that glass slipper moment when Stephen Barbara returned. As an agent, he's been a perfect fit.

How to make these mirrored platform shoes:
DYI "The Fairest of Them All"

Click to read the Pitch Wars Success Story interview with Brenda Drake here.

Direction #2

Poet and editor me is blogging at Little Patuxent Review's website today. Submissions for our Winter 2015 issue, Food, open on August 1. To warm up your taste buds, I am sharing what I call "Pesto: A Love Story."

Pesto from The Italian Dish.

It's about falling in love with a guy, a culture, and a green pasta sauce all in the same summer. Now -- when your basil plant is full of leaves -- is the perfect time  to try my recipe for pesto sauce. Great on pasta, but also delicious to top chicken or salmon on the grill.

I'll be back at AuthorAmok for Poetry Friday. Meanwhile, keep swimming!

National Poetry Month 2013: Organizing Your Poetry Manuscript with Scrivener

Twice a year, I sit on the living room floor, surrounded by print-outs of poems, short stories and essays. It's part of my  job at the editor of a literary magazine. Once our short list of selections for Little Patuxent Review are made, this is how I order--and reorder--each issue, until I'm happy with the journal's flow.

My intrepid helper, Sam, peruses the Winter 2013 issue of LPR.

Is there an easier way? Baltimore author B. Morrison says, "Yes!"

Scrivener: I'm a Believer

I confess I thought writer's software packages were just flashy toys. Having started my writing career using a typewriter, the ability to copy and paste still seemed like a luxury, and I couldn't imagine wanting more than word processing software. However, trying to restructure my WIP for n^th time, I kept getting lost in my large file. I needed a map. I needed to see the whole thing at a glance. I needed, as I was informed by several trusted writing friends, Scrivener.

Scrivener is writing software for Mac and Windows.

In Scrivener, the center of the screen is the Editor in which you type or past text just as in any word processing software. On the left you can elect to show the Binder, which is an outline view of your document. You can create folders within folders to reflect your desired structure and fill them with separate chunks of text. The chunks act as virtual index cards on the folder's cork board, which appears in the Editor when you click on a folder. Then you rearrange the chunks by dragging and dropping the index card on the cork board or the title in the Binder. When you click on a chunk, you see the text in the Editor.

Scrivener screen capture from Spellbound Scribes.

Scrivener automates my old process of laying out index cards on the carpet. I imported my existing file, separated each poem into its own chunk, and created a hierarchy of sections. Moving poems and whole sections around so easily made me positively giddy--I had to force myself to stop and export a portion of the manuscript to see how it looked when assembled.

Although you can construct your own project, Scrivener offers a poetry manuscript template. The customizable template sets up the front page and the header for the remaining pages. I decided to make each poem a separate chunk and created section folders in which to organize them. If you've ever put together a poetry collection, you know how much rearranging goes into getting just the right order. Scrivener makes it easy to move poems around, while the Binder gives you the map of the overall project.

Scrivener screen capture from OrganizingCreativity.Com

You can also elect to show the Inspector, which appears on the right side of the screen. The Inspector lets you make notes about each card and select options for the way that text is included in the compiled document. For example, in the Inspector I selected to have each chunk--each poem--start on a new page.

Compiling is how you create the finished document, and represents a whole other level of value. You can compile your manuscript as a Word document, Rich Text (rtf), PDF or a number of other formats. You can even compile it as HTML. Best of all, you can compile it as an ebook in multiple formats: ePub, Kindle, iBooks. Zing! Hit one button and there's your ebook!

I've only just begun to explore Scrivener's features, but I'm already a convert.

For contrast, Barbara is sharing a technology-free poem about writing.

The Poet

I find the world too

much sometimes.

Just give me

a table to write on

a little quiet

and a view of trees.

by Barbara Morrison

Posted with permission of the author

Barbara Morrison, who writes under the name B. Morrison, is the author of two poetry collections, Terrarium (2013) and Here at Least (2006), and a memoir, Innocent: Confessions of a Welfare Mother.  Her award-winning work has been published in anthologies and magazines. She conducts writing workshops and speaks on women's and poverty-related issues. She is also the owner of a small press and speaks about publishing and marketing. She has maintained her Monday Morning Books blog since 2006 and tweets regularly about poetry @bmorrison9. For more information, visit her website and blog at www.bmorrison.com.

Available at Amazon.

Thanks, Barbara. You've made a believer out of me, too. I'm going to give Scrivener a try for Little Patuxent Review, but also for my own writing. Looks like Sam is out of a job.

Poetry Friday: 5 Questions for Christy Hale

One of the best parts about working on an art and literary journal is stretching my limited knowledge of visual art. Little Patuxent Review, the journal I edit, is lucky to have a brilliant art critic, collector (and poet) as our art editor, Michael Salcman.

I often recommend fine-arts related picture books with Michael, knowing he'd like to share them with his  young grandchildren. My latest recommendation is Christy Hale's Dreaming Up. 

Go to Christy's website.

Hale deftly combines original concrete poetry with her illustrations of children engaged in building play. The book's WOW-factor is that each of these poem/illustration combos are paired with a photograph of a famous building.

Christy visited us in 2010 to talk about her picture book, The East West House. (Read the post here.)

Please welcome Christy Hale back to Author Amok!

AA: In your backflap bio for Dreaming Up, you mention being inspired by a visit to La Sagrada Familía, the unfinished cathedral in Spain. Tell us about that visit. How did you make the connection to children building sandcastles?

CH: In 1993 I joined others from the School of Visual Arts for a summer painting program in Barcelona. Each morning thirty students—adults of all ages from around the world—painted in the studios at Escola Massana. Afternoons and evenings we explored the capital of Catalonia. Our group toured many [Antoni] Gaudi buildings including La Sagrada Familia. I remember a sense of awe as I climbed the spiral staircases, surrounded by Gaudi's playful, joyous work. The fluid forms were the color of sand and unlike anything I'd seen, except well, maybe a sand castle.

Pages from Dreaming Up posted with permission.
Copyright Christy Hale. All rights reserved.

AA: What came first as you developed the concept for Dreaming Up:  the architectural structures, a list of child’s play that involves building, or the poems themselves?

CH: Often what I see reminds me of something else. I make lots of connections; I think in patterns. During the eighteen years I lived in New York City I frequented the museums on 5th Avenue. The Guggenheim's concentric circular forms had always looked like stacking rings to me. 

Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum houses modern art.

In a Modern Architecture art history class I took in grad school, I'd learned that Frank Lloyd Wright's mother had decided her son would be an architect before he was even born. She bought him wooden blocks and steered his course. Fallingwater seemed the perfect evolution of block play.

1) La Sagrada Familia/sand castles

2) NYC Guggenheim/stacking rings

3) Fallingwater/blocks

I had three ideas, and we all know that three's a charm. I was sure I could find other comparisons. There are many amazing structures around the world, but it was important to me in Dreaming Up that my choices could all be linked to children's building play. I made a list of ways children build and then looked for modern architecture with similar design and engineering. The concrete poems came last—another type of visual patterning. The first poem I wrote was the stacking cups one. I increased the syllable count with each line to mimic the graduating cups. Next I wrote the mud pie poem. I wanted to convey something about sustainable building, so I focused on the four elements.

AA:   The children in your illustrations are multi-ethnic, engaging in individual and cooperative play. The buildings featured are from all over the globe. Why was it important to you that the book have a global focus?

CH:  All children like to create spaces and places, yet traditionally white men have dominated the field of architecture. I wanted my readers to find themselves pictured in the diverse children engaged in building play and also to see architects of many races and both genders as a further inspiration. This book is an invitation for everyone to participate and celebrate building.

(Note from AA: In the back of Dreaming Up, you will find illustrated portraits and brief bios of each of the architects featured in the book.)

AA:      Let’s talk about concrete poetry. Kids are always excited when a poem has the extra dimension of a concrete shape, but it’s a challenge to make a concrete poem work both visually and lyrically. What did you like about working in concrete poems? What were some of the difficulties you faced?

The poems in Dreaming Up mirror both building play
and actual buildings like the Vitra Fire Station in Germany.

CH: My father was a mechanical engineer and an artist in countless ways. My mother read me poetry. I like the engineering of poetry. I'm interested in form. I like counting meter. I'm also a graphic designer and I enjoy playing with type. Concrete poetry seemed the perfect match for a building-themed book. My challenge was to make architectural concepts clear while keeping simple, fun language. I studied the buildings and architects in hopes of getting at the essence of what made each structure and person unique.

AA: One of my favorite spreads is Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. The poem is beautifully written and visually pleasing.

You can visit Fallingwater, located in Western Pennsylvania.

These pages display the richness of Dreaming Up. The photograph of Fallingwater, your illustration of a child playing with blocks, the shape of the poem and the words themselves allow a child to experience Wright’s architecture on many levels. How were you able to create the layered quality of the book without overwhelming young readers?

CH: Thank you, Laura! Fallingwater is a stunning building. One look at those hanging terraces and it's easy to see how important Froebel blocks were in Wright's development. In Dreaming Up I hope to convey that children employ the same engineering and design thinking as architects. When they rig up a blanket fort, they demonstrate their grasp of suspension architecture. I wanted a strong visual link between the building play I illustrated and the architecture in the photos. I did all the photo research and acquired these images prior to beginning the art. I tried to echo the compositional lines, perspective, and colors of the photographs in my neighboring illustrations.

For each new illustration project I experiment to find my approach for the finished art. Dreaming Up was particularly challenging because I needed to balance three elements: illustrations, poems, and photographs. I didn't want my art to steal attention away from the photos. The concrete poems are really a second type of illustration. I wanted to offer variety in the typography, so there would be discovery in the forms of the poems, just like in the buildings. My editor suggested placing the illustrations and poems on light colored backgrounds that picked up on colors in the photographs. I had not originally imagined this approach, but this proved to be one way I could unify each spread.

In an earlier mock-up, I included building names and descriptions near the photos. My editor wisely suggested placing all the descriptions with the biographies in the end of the book. The main part of Dreaming Up invites readers to make connections. The back part of the book allows them to find out more about the buildings and the architects who created them. 

Thank you so much for your insights into the book, Christy!

Christy Hale is the author and illustrator of The East-West House: Noguchi’s Childhood in Japan, a Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year selection. She illustrated The Forgiveness Garden by Lauren Thompson (Fiewel and Friends, 2012) and Our School Garden! by Rick Swann (Readers to Eaters, 2012), plus several award-winning picture books, including Elizabeti’s Doll and its two sequels. 

Hale has taught art to all ages and has written about artists for Instructor magazine’s Masterpiece of the Month feature and workshops. Hale lives with her family in Palo Alto, California. Visit her online at christyhale.com.

It's the last Poetry Friday before National Poetry Month! My 2013 project is "Welcome to the Technoverse." I have an exciting line up of guest bloggers stopping by in April. They will be talking about the ways in which poetry and technology intersect.

The super-talented Mary Lee Hahn is doing the blog-roll honors today. Stop by her blog, A Year of Reading, for links to more poetry posts.

Poetry Friday: Poetry Postcard 29

Greetings, poets and postcards lovers. It's Poetry Friday. Today, Linda Baie is hosting the blog roll at Teacher Dance. Linda has been a huge supporter of my poetry postcard project, even donating the lovely vintage Valentine postcard you see at the top of this post.

Not my Valentine. But he is here for a reason. Read on.

I have a new postcard poem today (#29 in the 44 Postcard Project) and a craft!

I am taking a poetry road trip this weekend, but not with a Yeti.

Last March, three poets from North Carolina visited us here in Maryland. We had readings, a workshop, and one fabulous meal at a Greek restaurant. (You can the NC poets' work on my blog: Richard Krawiec, Debra Kaufman and Stephanie Levin.)

Now, it's our turn to travel south. Poet Fred Foote and fiction authors Danuta Hinc and Jen Grow -- all Little Patuxent Review staffers -- are joining me in the mommy van known to my kids as The Mars Rover.

We leave around lunchtime, so please forgive any delays posting your comments. We'll be leading some workshops and an evening reading (details here). If you're near Cary, NC on Saturday, I hope you'll drop by.

We'll be stopping for at least one meal along the way, I  hope it's not here:

Bit of Sweden, 9051 Sunset Blvd.
Hollywood, Cal.

"The World's Most Unique Restaurant"

World's most unique restaurant,  you say? I can only guess what's on the menu.

The World’s Most Unique Restaurant

Starters

Fingernails of white lipped snails
baked in their tangy goo.

Underwater salad dressed

with phytoplankton stew.

Main Course

Fractal cauliflower over
gojiberry mash.

Yeti-hair spaghetti with
green pollen – just a dash.

            Desserts

Rubber bark and lemon shark,
our chef’s signature pie.

Layer cake with scale of snake

frosted with phorid fly.

            From the Owner

Come brave our culinary treats,

from gorsebush wine to pickled meats!

We are unique down to our seats.
It is our joy to serve you.

Laura Shovan

Did you spot the Yeti?

Imagining what is served at the world's most unique restaurant was too delicious a challenge to turn down.

Try the prompt with your students. What do they think might be served at the world's most unique restaurant? I promise, they will never forget the definition of "unique" after trying this prompt.

On to the craft. What to do with all of those Valentine cards you received yesterday? After a grace period -- we don't want to break any loving hearts -- we can make postcards from them.

This is a great project for recyclers. Take an old card,

Here's an interesting card I've been saving.

I can always save the note inside.

 cut off the front, the part with the picture.

Now I have two pieces.

Use a postcard you already have to help you trim the front of the card to postcard size.

I used a standard postcard as a guide.

Voila! Postcard. Add it to your collection or send to a friend. Remember, postcards stamps just went up to thirty-three cents.

Poetry Postcard #29 Information:

Back:

Bit of Sweden

9051 Sunset Blvd.

Hollywood, Cal.

Phone: Bradshaw 2-2800

The World’s Most Unique Restaurant Featuring the largest Smorgasboard, fine foods and liqueurs.

A “Colourpicture” Publication, Boston 15, Mass., L.S. Office 2143 So. Alsace

Poetry Postcard 18

It was a busy poetry weekend. The latest issue of Little Patuxent Review went on sale Saturday, launched with a fabulous contributors' reading. I love these events. As editor, I get to stay behind the scenes and cheer on all of the readers.

The Winter 2013 issue, Doubt, features
a Renaissance masterpiece on the cover.

This issue is tight (apologies for the slang). And it includes a piece Poetry Friday by blogger Irene Latham. You can purchase a copy at the LPR website.

Sunday, it was my turn to read. About seven of us were featured at Baltimore's Watermark Gallery, there was prose and poetry. Thanks to Eric Goodman, Manzar (who owns the gallery) and co-host Nitin Jagdish (fellow NYU grad -- go Violets!) for putting together such a great variety of readers.

My love of purple teams goes back
to my NYU days. (Go Ravens!)

Although I'd printed poems for the reading -- two from my book, several postcard poems -- Manzar mentioned the poet Rumi in her art-talk. I had a postcard poem "after Rumi" sitting in my Dropbox folder. Which meant it was on my phone. I've never read from my phone before. I leave that to younger, hipper folks like the Word Pimp. But it went pretty well.

The postcard poems were well received. It's great to get so much positive feedback on the project.

Today, I have an antique tourist postcard:

I have never been to Germany, so I had to do a little research. The Drosselhof is a wine tavern on the Drosselstrasse, a street well-known to tourists for its music and taverns. You can pay a virtual visit to the Drosselhof, which has a website.

Still, I didn't have enough to go on. Until I learned that one translation for Drosselstrasse is "Thrush Lane."

I'd had an encounter with a little bird, maybe a thrush, in the early fall. At the time, it seemed too ordinary an experience to write about. Birds often crashed into my grandmother's glass breezeway when I was a child. Some survived, some didn't.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Song_Thrush_on_Flickr.jpg

I don't know why the postcard made this bird-story work as a poem. Perhaps what is working is the habit of writing a poem nearly every day. Or not  feeling like I have to knock one out of the ballpark every time I sit down to write.

As you will see, it's apropos to post this poem after such a busy weekend. 

Thrush Lane

That thump

on our glass door –

a thrush. It let me

scoop it whole

into my palm,

stroke its

dappled breast,

make it calm.

I spoke to it

of taverns

crowding

the Drosselgasse

with song.

The thrush replied,

Tut-tut,

oh-lay oh-lee,

chortling

to the quiet

afternoon.
by Laura Shovan

Postcard Information:

Rüdesheim – Drosselhof

Reproduction und Druck: Wödicke & Gemberg, Berlin

Verlag C. A. Stachelscheid – Düseeldorf, Pressehaus – Bestell-Nr. 010

I sent this card and poem to Poetry Friday blogger, Susan Taylor Brown. Susan is a bird-lover and photographer, so she's talented all around. Several weeks ago, Susan sent me two original photo-postcards of birds for the project. I thought she'd enjoy "Thrush Lane."

I have used a bird-call website for a couple of poems now. It's a cool site for bird enthusiasts. You can find it at Birdjam.com.


We had another bird encounter this fall. My husband, Rob, discovered a little bird, maybe a wren, stuck in our bathroom fan. 

Can you see the bird's tail on the left?

The bird was so wedged in the fan blades, we were sure it was dead. But my handy husband removed the fan from the ceiling and the little thing was alive, just very squished. 

Almost free!

We had to break the fan to get the bird loose, expecting its wing to be broken. But the bird flew for the evergreens the moment we popped the fan apart. Now I know what it means to make a beeline for something.

Tabatha (The Opposite of Indifference) and I were supposed to meet for lunch today, but Mother Nature had other plans. Still, I know Tabatha is thinking of me. She's featuring music-themed postcards at her blog today, including a band of creepy clowns.