Poetry Postcard 20 and a Contest

It is hard to believe that I am the mother of two teenagers. My daughter turned thirteen earlier this month. My son turns sixteen in two weeks.

This is how my odd husband likes to eat his cupcakes.
It's his birthday today -- midway between our kids.
Happy birthday, honey!

So far, we have kept teen drama to a minimum. The biggest point of contention in our family will be familiar to many parents: How much screen time is too much?

My son is obsessed with technology. We held off letting him have video games until he was well into elementary school, but it didn't help. He loves computer games and anime series, participates in the Robotics club, holds study group by Skype and wants to build his own computer. He uses his  laptop to relax, to study, to socialize and to make us crazy.

Until this year, I thought my daughter was less of a technophile. (She loves reading, drawing and musical theater, after all.) But she has come to share her brother's love of anime. She chats with friends on Google and wants to be an Internet scientist when she grows up. (I said, "So you want to be a sociologist who studies the Internet?" She rolled her eyes.)

This is what she meant:



It should be no surprise to parents of likewise techie children that I took one look at the expression on this chickadee's face and thought: Angry Bird.

“Poppiness" by Susan Taylor Brown
http://poppiness.etsy.com
Posted with permission of Susan Taylor Brown

Angry Bird

Take off!

Get lost!

Leave me alone!
While
you watch

I can’t fly home.
A nest
with eggs

must stay unknown.
Chicka
dee dee dee

leave me alone.

by Laura Shovan

In my children's world, Angry Birds is a game you play on your phone. In my world, it is a photograph by the talented Susan Taylor Brown. Thanks again to Susan for donating this postcard (and others) for my project.

Buy the app on Amazon... for your kids.

Those of you following the 44 Postcard Project will note that this is the third bird poem in the series. (Previous avian verse: pelicans for #15 and a thrush #19.) Once again, I visited the website Bird Jam to hear the chickadee's call.

In other postcard news... those of you who write prose and love last minute deadlines, there is a contest for you.

Postcard Story Contest -- Geist Magazine

www.geist.com/articles/postcard-contest

"Send us a postcard along with a story that related to the image. The relationship can be as strong or as tangential as you like, so long as there is a clear connection between the image and the story."

Max 500 words. Deadline: February 1! (Sorry for the late notice.)

The contest fee is $20, with prizes for First ($500), Second ($250) and Third Place ($150). Award winners and honorable mentions will also be published on Geist.com.

Good luck!

UPDATE: Just checked Geist. The deadline has been extended to March 1. Yes, postcard lovers!

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.

Poetry Postcard 10

The 44 Postcard Project has taken me to some strange and unexpected places. One of the most fascinating -- researching the life of MGM dancer and starlet Vera-Ellen.

Children's author (Hugging the Rock) and poet Susan Taylor Brown donated this postcard for my project:

Susan shared that this postcard was
sent to her mother by a pen pal from Holland.

Vera Ellen? I'm a fan of movie musicals, but she didn't look familiar. She should have.

Vera Ellen, who started dancing as a way to gain strength after a childhood illness, partnered with the greatest onscreen dancers. Ever.

She was in:

On the Town, opposite Gene Kelly

White Christmas, opposite Danny Kaye

and Three Little Words,
with the great Fred Astaire.

Inexplicably, Vera Ellen never broke through to the level of fame that her co-stars achieved. Remember this scene from White Christmas?

She had a difficult life, which you can read about here, and died as a recluse.

The postcard Susan sent me is a publicity shot from On the Town. It comes from a lengthy dance number: "Miss Turnstiles."

My poem went out to a Baltimore poet who shares my love for classic musicals. I'll follow it with my favorite Vera Ellen dance routine, also from White Christmas.

Vera Ellen

learned to dance at ten
after an illness made her weak,

took to it, tap danced on her toes
from Ohio to Broadway,
partnered Kelly and Astaire,

the studio loved
her apple blossom appeal,
her tiny waist -- the smallest
in showbiz -- a debt
to anorexia that she
must repay, but not before
vamping on the red carpet
in skintight gold lamé
that shocked reporters,

she quipped, Why not?

Isn’t this what Oscar
always wears?

by Laura Shovan

Just WOW.

Thank you so much for sending the card, Susan. I loved watching the old movie clips. And I feel life my life is a little bit richer because I learned -- and learned to appreciate -- Vera Ellen.

P.S. Project watchers. I went hunting in my basement office for some old art postcards I thought I'd saved. Can you believe I found a stash of over 40 cards, some of them dating back to my 1989 summer at the University of London.

Here's a peek:

I'll post details on my postcard stash later.