NPM 50 State Tour -- "While I Breathe, I Hope"

The East Coast has let us down, with four of the seven original states lacking poets laureate. But #8 is great! South Carolina became the eighth state on May 23, 1788.

South Carolina has one of the most beautiful state mottos I've found, "Dum spiro spero." While I breathe, I hope.

Marjory Heath Wentworth is SC's state poet laureate. She's a fellow NYU grad (go Violets! Unfortunately, yes, that really is our NYU nickname.)

And I just love this fact, from the SC Governor's website, "Ms. Wentworth teaches poetry in an arts and healing program for cancer patients and their families at Roper Hospital in Charleston, S.C."

Wentworth is a working mom, as you'll see in her poem, "A Normal Life."

A Normal Life
*****
Whatever that is.
I don't pretend to know.

Don't think I haven't
tried to fold the socks

in neat pairs and stacked
the chipped blue rimmed bowls

and matching plates
inside the cupboard.

For years I have fed
the black and white dog

who barks whenever
the doorbell rings.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Tomorrow we're continuing National Poetry Month 50 State Tour in New Hampshire.

Their state motto is, "Live Free or Die." I know because my friend Jennie lives in Concord, NH where they make New Hampshire shaped chocolate that says "Live Free or Die." Which doesn't sound as tough when you bite off the "Live Free" part.

Should make for some interesting poetry.

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!

National Poetry Month 50 State Tour -- Connecticut

Connecticut -- the fifth state -- joined the union on 1/9/1788. That means we've got a lousy 2 for 5 record on state poets laureate, people. Because Connecticut (like PA and NJ) doesn't have one.

The "Constitution State" had a P.L. from 1985 until 2009. Their most recent state poet laureate was John Hollander.

And then Connecticut just kind of forgot. I'm guessing somewhere in Hartford, someone's got "Hire New Poet Laureate" on the bottom their to do list.

But "Vacant"? That makes the Poet Laureate position sound as appealing as an airplane bathroom.

J. D. McClatchy is a worthy Connecticut poet. His book Hazmat was nominated for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize.

Before I get too depressed about the East Coast's lack of poets laureate, here is a poem by John Hollander.

An Old Fashioned Song
by John Hollander

No more walks in the wood:
The trees have all been cut
Down, and where once they stood
Not even a wagon rut
Appears along the path
Low brush is taking over.

No more walks in the wood;
This is the aftermath
Of afternoons in the clover
Fields where we once made love
Then wandered home together
Where the trees arched above,
Where we made our own weather
When branches were the sky.

Read or listen to the rest of the poem here.

Let's drive north to Massachusetts next on our National Poetry Month 50 State Tour.

No poet laureate position, so Mass joins Connecticut on my wall of shame. But we'll stop by for a visit with Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

National Poetry Month 50 State Tour -- Georgia

The fourth stop on our 50 state tour of poets laureate is Georgia. The Peach State (official fruit since 1995) joined the union on January 2, 1778.

Fun facts about Georgia include that its State Possum is Pogo Possum. Which makes me wonder whether any other states have an official possum. And how many state animals are not actual animals, but cartoons.

Are you a fan of the Weird States series of books (which started with the magazine, Weird New Jersey, natch)? Take the "Weird Georgia" quiz.

Georgia is on *my* mind because it has had a state poet laureate since 1925. No breaks or break-ups. No dumping poetry over politics (yes, I mean you, New Jersey).

David Bottoms has been Georgia's poet laureate since 2000. James Dickey said, "One cannot read him without being nerve-touched by his sardonic yet compassionate countryman's voice, his hunter's irony."

As long as we're visiting, let's see for ourselves.

My Daughter at the Gymnastics Party by David Bottoms  When I sat for a moment in the bleachers of the lower-school gym to watch, one by one, the girls of my daughter’s kindergarten climb the fat rope hung over the Styrofoam pit, I remembered my sweet exasperated mother and those shifting faces of injury that followed me like an odor to ball games and practices, playgrounds of monkey bars and trampolines, those wilted children sprouting daily in that garden of trauma behind her eyes. Then Rachel’s turn, the smallest child in class, and up she went, legs twined on the rope, ponytail swinging, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five feet, the pink tendrils of her leotard climbing without effort until she’d cleared the lower rafters. She looked down, then up, hanging in that balance of pride and fear
Read what Bottoms does with "those wilted children sprouting daily in that garden of trauma" he remembers in his mother's eyes  -- the rest of the poem is here.

Let's pack some fried chicken for the car ride back up the east coast. (Another Georgia fun fact -- Gainesville is reportedly the chicken capital of the world.) 

We'll continue our National Poetry Month state tour in Connecticut. I heard they need someone to fill their vacant State Poet Laureate position.

This road sign is so funny, I may just forgive you Connecticut.

National Poetry Month 50 State Tour: The Real Poets of New Jersey

Full disclosure as we head into New Jersey, third state on our National Poetry Month tour. I was born in Teaneck, in the shadow of New York, NY. (That's a photo of Farleigh Dickinson University, where my dad used to teach when I was little).

I may not have the big hair, or the accent, but I'll always be a Jersey Girl.

We've got awesome diners, Walt Whitman (who has his own rest stop), the Shore, William Carlos Williams, the Boss and Bon Jovi, the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, the Jersey Devil, Allen Ginsberg, Renee Ashley and...no poet laureate.

We're like an All-Star Poetry Team with no captain.

Jersey -- you're breaking my heart here.

We used to have a poet laureate position. The last one was Amiri Baraka. His anti-semitic rant at the 2002 Dodge Poetry Festival was hurtful and stupid (the Dodge crowd is typically P.C. -- Poetically Correct leaning greenly left.)

But, New Jersey, you hired a political poet for the job and you got one. Baraka has never been P.C. Truth in advertising, is all I'm saying. Read the whole tale of woe here (and Baraka's rebuttal, to be fair.)

Here is Amiri Baraka reading his Ode to Obama.

New Jersey -- I hope you give the whole poet laureate thing another try. There are plenty of poets to choose from. Just one piece of advice -- one I give my 13-year-old every night -- "Do your homework!" I'm sorry to do this to you, but you're going on my Wall of Shame.


We're off to Georgia and Connecticut tomorrow. After all that drama, I need a rest!

Poetry Month National Tour!

National Poetry Month is almost here, y'all!

Buds are on the trees. The air is spring spicy and I've got linguistic wanderlust. It's time for a poetry road trip. Virtual, of course.

During the 30 days of April, we'll visit each of our country's great states and their poets laureate. Okay -- some states are not great. I'm talking about the ones with a state candy and a state tree, but no state poet.

Look for my State of Poetry Wall of Shame on April 15. That's right, Tax Day. If you pay taxes (and I know you do), you deserve to have your own Poet Laureate.

We'll drive through each state as they were admitted to the union, starting in nearby Delaware and working our way to lovely Hawaii (Wall of Shame member. Seriously, Hawaii. Joy Harjo is right there!) Expect some surprises and April Fool's fun.

Pack your haiku-ing gear. I'm filling the tanka with gas. Meet you bright and early Thursday morning.