Poetry Friday: The Gift Shift 2

Today's host is Buffy Silverman.
Pass the latkes and head on
over to Buffy's blog
for some delicious poetic treats.

Last week, I started a brief holiday series on gift giving. Instead of presents under the tree or gelt beside the menorah, I'm "buying" for some wonderful literary non-profits.

I love this stackable travel menorah from Traditions.
Menorahs are in the news: The New York Post ran this
 adorable article on celebrity's and their menorahs.

We have already looked at two organizations committed to social justice in the literary world and beyond. You can read about Split This Rock and We Need Diverse Books here.

Today, my focus is store-front literary centers. I picked one in Baltimore and one closer to Washington, D.C. Full disclosure: I am a member of both organizations.

What makes a great literary center? Things I look for are:

• Provides a venue for literary readings.
• Sponsors events such as literary gatherings, book signings, and plays.
• A library or bookshop including member's books and/or literary magazines.
• Writing classes focused on craft.
• Programs for young writers.
• Bonus: Workspace available for writers.

LITMORE

New on the local scene is Baltimore's LitMore. Poet Julie Fisher and company took over an unused rectory in Baltimore a little over two years ago. LitMore does all of the above, providing a cozy home for the sometimes scattered literary scene in our city. They also offer retreats and book discussion groups. Poet Christophe Cassamassima is in charge of the library. When my bookshelves get overcrowded, I like sending literary magazines and poetry chapbooks to Chris at LitMore.

Here is LitMore's schedule of upcoming events.
Interested in donating/becoming a member? Click here.

THE WRITER'S CENTER

Based in the DC suburb of Bethesda, The Writer's Center has been around forever. They are huge supporters of their members, who can share news in the center's regular publication, which also includes their extensive list of courses taught -- and attended -- by fine local authors. Every weekend, you'll find top-notch authors and members with new books reading their work at TWC. The library is a great place to browse regional and national literary magazines if you're looking for places to submit your work to. They also offer craft classes in Alexandria, Virginia and Annapolis, Maryland, if you want to avoid commuting. Sue Ellen Thompson, whose work I featured earlier this fall, is a favorite instructor. You can also take classes with children's authors like Mary Quattlebaum.

Donate to The Writer's Center here.

Since it is Poetry Friday, here is a winter poem by Sue Ellen Thompson.

Falling on Ice
by Sue Ellen Thompson

You're in a hurry, rushing
out the door, just as the January sky

begins to pale. You're looking
at the geese that rise

in a consensus from the river so nearby
and for a moment you, too,

leave the earth and fly.
But as their undersides

pass over you, you
drop the way that blossoms

drop, their momentary
weightlessness turned instantly

to weight when their trajectory's
completed. And all day,

as you hold the wrist you hope
is just a sprain, you're thinking

not about the pain and not
about that moment when your weight

was lifted from you, but of the suddenness
with which the earth reclaimed you--

like the husband who relinquished you
six months ago with your assurances

that he should take the job,
that you'd be fine here on your own.

And now you cannot scrub a pot
or hook your bra without him.

Click here to order a copy of They.

Do you have a great literary center in your home town? Tell us about it in the comments.

You Took a Big Chance at the High School Dance

Has everyone settled into the school year?

No?

I hear you, friends. Four weeks in and my teens are still riding the back-to-school roller coaster. "Who will my friends be this year? Which teachers will be my favorites and which classes will be challenging? What colors, shoes, hairstyles are in?"

Thank goodness it's Poetry Friday. It gives us a chance to talk about one of the pinnacles of high school drama: School Dances.

I'm heading to North Carolina
today for the Electric Run.
While I'm running around Raleigh
in my Poetry Friday Day-Glo T-shirt,
stop by Amy's Poem Farm.
Amy is hosting Poetry Friday this week.

We are in the world of high school today, readers. The poem I'm sharing this week is appropriate for 8th grade and up.

My daughter and her middle school friends were split up. Their middle school feeds into three separate public high schools and Julia is attending a private school. They are getting together for the homecoming dance at one of the local public schools. My kid was thrilled to be invited. She started planning her outfit for the dance immediately.

And since this isn't her school, Jules is planning to make a splash. She's ditching the dress and instead wearing a very fetching suit: snug pinstripe trousers, fitted jacket, dress shirt, bow tie. I nearly died of shock when she agreed to have her hair done -- as in professionally styled! -- for the occasion.

Read about fashionistas in tuxedos.

Unfortunately, some girls at Julia's all-female school heard she was wearing a suit to a dance. Eyebrows were raised. We had to have one of *those* talks. The one where the parent (dying inside) says, "It's okay to try to fit in if that's what you need to do right now."

Then I added, "It's also okay if you dare to be different. People might judge you. That stinks, but be prepared for it. You get to decide what works best for you."

Seriously, people. I was on the fence. Julia's high school life might be easier if she puts on the metaphorical uniform. But she's staying true to herself, and having a blast planning her outfit.

In a moment of serendipity, I was skimming through poet Sue Ellen Thompson's new book this week.

Sue Ellen Thompson's new book of poems,
They is available at Amazon.

Sue Ellen sent me They, giving me the freedom to choose a poem that would appeal to older students and their teachers. She wrote in an email, "If you're looking for something that would appeal to students, there are many that deal with the whole gender identity issue."

I flipped open the book and came across this gem, "The Paper Dress." It's both a narrative and an ode to those brave teens who would rather stand out than fit it.

The Paper Dress
by Sue Ellen Thompson

She never went to high school proms
and showed no interest in boys. But the night
of the Christmas dance, she came downstairs
wearing a paper Lawn 'n Leaf bag
on which she'd painted the curvaceous body
of the woman she had no intention
of becoming, wearing a snug white dress
with bra-straps showing and an inch-wide zipper
running from her cross-hatched cleavage
to her fishnet knees. The teacher
who was chaperoning wouldn't let her in--
although her friends were wearing strapless,
backless, asymmetric hems that clung
discreetly to one ankle before soaring up
the opposite thigh. My daughter bit
down hard on her own anger, looked
the teacher in the eye and slowly, stiffly,
started walking backwards to the door,
her middle finger raised
behind the paper dress's hourglass waist.

Posted with permission.

Sue Ellen Thompson is the author of four previous books of poetry and the editor of The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry (2005). Her work has been included in the Best American Poetry series, read on National Public Radio by Garrison Keillor, and featured in U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser's national syndicated newspaper column. She has been a mentor to adult poets and an instructor at The Writer's Center in Bethesda and Annapolis. In 2010, she received the Maryland Author Award from the Maryland Library Association. Her website is http://sueellenthompson.com/

National Poetry Month Issue 22

We were driving down a highway -- my father at the wheel, my mother in the passenger seat. I was in the back with my brother, who must have been an infant.

I began to read the advertising Billboards. There were no Bob Books or Dick and Jane Primers. Before that car ride, I understood what letters were, but not what their job was. A magic wand touched my brain. The library fairy visited me. The synapses began to purr. I was reading.

For National Poetry Month, I've been posting a different Maryland poet each day. Here is Maryland poet Margaret S. Mullins with "Kindergarten," a poem that captures the feeling of being new to reading.

Kindergarten
by Margaret S. Mullins


She's five and wears a uniform
of khaki pants and dark blue shirts.
She says she's ten and rides a horse;
her teacher says she talks too much.
She's learned now what those symbols do,
the ones in books and on the sings
and in the Sunday New York Times.
They all mean sounds, and she knows how
to pull them with her mouth into
the sounds that make the magic words
that open up enchanted worlds
where princesses and dragons dwell
and she is ten and rides a horse.

Posted with permission of the author. You can find more of Margaret's work here.

Writing Exercise:
We've been talking about transitions in the last two days. Yesterday, Sue Ellen Thompson's poem "Napping" showed the gentle transition of an elderly parent -- out of routine and into the unknown of late life.

Today, Margaret S. Mullins shows a child transitioning, not just from non-reader to reader, but to a person who has a sense of self and some idea about who she will be in the future.

Both poems are portraits. Both use telling details (the afghan in "Napping," the New York Times in "Kindergarten") to help us know the subject of the portrait.

Let's work with the telling detail today. Write a brief portrait of someone you know. It  might be a good idea to begin with free writing -- a big, lumpy paragraph. The revealing detail will sneak in there. When you read over your work and say, "How did a Beta Fish get in there?" you'll know you're on the right track.

Hosting Poetry Friday today is Kate at Book Aunt. Enjoy! There's only one more NPM Poetry Friday left.

National Poetry Month Issue 21

It's Day 21 of National Poetry Month. I'm blogging from sunny Bradenton, Florida -- spending spring break with my family.

Three generations living in the same house:  my parents, my husband and me, and my children. With a teenager in the mix, and my father about to celebrate his 70th birthday, relationships are in a state of flux.

At last weekend's Baltimore CityLit Festival, we had a panel discussion about our new poetry anthology, Life in Me Like Grass on Fire -- which features love poems by Maryland poets.

Panelist Barbara Westwood Diehl wrote the introduction to the "Friends and Family" section of Life in Me. It was interesting to hear what she had to say -- that family relationships are complicated things.

That is the case in Sue Ellen Thompson's poem, "Napping." She captures a shift in the relationship between mother and daughter.

Napping
 
My mother, who had walked six miles,
six days a week for years, knew
that her life was ending.  One day she smiled
at me and said, “I’m not in the mood
 
for walking today.  I think I’ll take
a nap instead.” She never napped
before lunch.  But how else could she say
it?  All morning she lay wrapped
 
in an afghan on the sofa, her eyes intent
upon a pattern taking shape in the air. 
 
Read the rest of the poem at Sue Ellen's website.

If you're local to Maryland, Sue Ellen is teaching some workshops in May at the Writers' Center's new Annapolis satellite location.

Sue Ellen's poem, "Shaken," is the source of the poetry anthology's title: Life in Me Like Grass on Fire.


Writing Exercise:
Sometimes it is the small moments that signify large changes in people.

For my 14 year-old son, a disappearing act during my high school friend's visit with her kids told me he'd hit the in-betweens -- not comfortable playing with the children, not comfortable chatting with the adults.


In "Napping," the nap itself is the signifier of a shift in the mother.


Can you pinpoint a small moment that marked a change in a family member?