NPM 2015: What Are You Wearing, Tabatha Yeatts?

Find the official NPM 2015 poster
at the Academy of American Poets

It's the first Friday of National Poetry Month. You know what that means ... a super celebratory Poetry Friday. 

This week's round-up is at Amy Ludwig VanDerwater's The Poem Farm. Want more? Jama Rattigan has a list of kids' lit National Poetry Month projects and celebrations at Alphabet Soup.

All this month, guest bloggers are putting on their finery here at Author Amok. We're doing a month-long feature on poetry about clothes. In addition to the guest posts, every Friday in April I'll post a round-up of original clothing poems. (Send those via email to laurashovan at gmail dot com or leave them in the comments). You'll find a writing prompt at the bottom of this post.

Meet today's guest blogger, poet Tabatha Yeatts. 

Thanks for having me on Author Amok, Laura! I'm sharing poems by the inimitable Greg Pincus. "Greg Pincus" is an interesting poet, don't you think? I mean, have you ever wondered how a man who is always in such a rush that he's "gottabook" somehow manages to write poems on every topic imaginable? Or how "Pincus" abbreviates to "K."? Or how a person who claims to be an "adult" gets into the head of kids so easily? Well, what do you expect from a man who fibs every chance he gets?

“Is this really Greg Pincus?”

Here are some of Greg’s weatherproof, tailor-made, pre-shrunk clothing poems:

My Method For Tying Shoes
by Greg Pincus

Keep your "Bunny Ears" and "loop-de-loops" -
I'll tie shoes with the method I've got.
Oh, sure, it's a mess
Yet there's often success...
So I call it the "Probably Knot."

I Put Each Carrot In a Suit
by Greg Pincus

I put each carrot in a suit.
The lettuce in a scarf (how cute!).
Tomatoes? Ribbons in their hair.
The celery's in underwear.
Sneakers for the kidney beans.
The cucumber's in new blue jeans.
The avocado wore a dress.
The onion's in a tux (oh, yes!).
The jicama's in high-heeled shoes.
The mushroom? Any belt I choose.
The apple is a naked guy.
The olive's in a shirt and tie.
I put the radish in a vest.
There, I think the salad's dressed.

My Favorite Shirt

By Greg Pincus

This shirt is great - the best I’ve worn.

Who cares if it’s all frayed and torn

Or that it’s old, and I’ve been growing

And when I stretch my belly’s showing?

The words it showed in blue and red

Are gone (though I know what they said).

I know it’s stained. That’s good for me:

Each splotch contains a memory.

I love this shirt with all my heart.

I’ll wear it 'til it falls apart.

So wash it, please, with love and caring...

To make it last for one more wearing.

Hat Head

By Gregory K.

I've got hat head really bad.

You say I shouldn't care?

Well, maybe hat head's fine for you,

But me? I have no hair!

Tabatha is a mysterious figure whose home may or may not have a secret room with a tea fountain. There's a rumor she trained under Madam Pomfrey. She probably didn't raise a Golden Snidget from a snidgling. She has been known to write poems about "imaginary" places. You'll find her blogging at The Opposite of Indifference.

Thanks for visiting, Tabatha. Greg, I will never look at my apple the same way again.

ICYMI: In this series...

Introductory Post

Jane Elkin looks in her childhood closet. Poems by Mark Irwin and Ron Koertge.

*Your suggested clothing poem prompt for Friday, April 3: Storage.

Where and how do you keep your clothes? Do they hang in your closet, organized by color? Are they crumpled on the bedroom floor? Are you an organized packer, or do you toss things into a suitcase and hope for the best. I still remember the name of the long-ago camp counselor (Janice) who taught us how to roll our clothes up tight to maximize space.

Send your poems any time. I'll post original work throughout the weekend.

Earlier this week, guest blogger Jane Elkin shared some poems where clothing was a metaphor for a parent/child relationship. That theme appears again in the Paul Hopper sent in. It's by Marc Kelly Smith. Thanks, Paul. I love how Smith uses repetition and plain language to add power to the poem.

My Father's Coat
by Marc Kelly Smith

I'm wearing my father's coat. He has died. I didn't like him, But I wear the coat. I'm wearing the coat of my father, Who is dead. I didn't like him, But I wear the coat just the same. A younger man, stopping me on the street, Has asked, "Where did you get a coat like that?" I answer that it was my father's Who is now gone, passed away. The younger man shuts up. It's not that I'm trying now to be proud of my father. I didn't like him. He was a narrow man. There was more of everything he should have done. More of what he should have tried to understand. The coat fit him well. It fits me now. I didn't love him, But I wear the coat.

Read the rest at SlamPapi.com.

Parrish Lantern left the gift of a poem this morning. I'll have to learn more about French poet Valerie Rouzeau.

I put on my walking shoes

by Valérie Rouzeau 

I put on my walking shoes 
I had shown you with the soles retreaded 
from old tires.
In pilgrim boats I floated to you
petals stuck to the leather as proofs
of my wishes on the way.

If anyone can find a link to the rest of the poem, please let me know and I will post it.

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.

30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets #20: Tabatha Yeatts-Lonske on Seeing Patterns

Happy Poetry Friday! To celebrate National Poetry Month, poets have been visiting Author Amok to talk about their favorite writing habits -- the things that help them get the job done. You can find the full schedule of guest bloggers here.

Not only is today's guest blogger, Tabatha Yeatts-Lonske, a poet, but her entire post is poetic.

We all gather bric-a-brac, threads, driftwood and moss from our lives to write poems. However, it's the thread of smoke and the bright fire of ideas that follows which turn every day stuff into gather-round-worthy verse. In Tabatha's lovely metaphor, the fire of ideas is as grand as the stars. What matters is the pattern we see in the sky.

physics.unlv.edu

Here is Tabatha:

"His head is made of stars, but not yet arranged into constellations."
~ Elias Canetti

When we write, it can feel like that. Like we are trying to arrange our stars into constellations as best we can.

It takes a lot of imagination, making a constellation. Let’s say you’ve got a few stars and they're kind of close together. Some bright, some a bit pale. You watch them a while, maybe until you lose focus and can't see them any more. And suddenly, there’s a lion, a bear, a man in a chariot soaring across the sky. Just a few stars, but somehow they can make a whole story. A whole world.

Where do they come from, these visions? How can you take the words in your head and shape them into something you can share, something other people can see too?

Here's what helps me:

I need lots of creative fuel (great art, music, stories, ideas, conversations) and time to let ideas ripen. For me, words have to brew a while before a picture emerges.

(Photo by Michael McDonough http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikemcd/1572189529/ ) 

I need a chunk of uninterrupted time with few distractions. I like to write in the car. Waiting to pick up my kids is a great time for me to write (as long as I don’t turn on NPR). For convenience’s sake, I put together a binder that I can grab when I know there might be time to sit. The binder contains ideas I can use as starting places, contest and magazine deadlines that I’d like to keep in mind, and lined paper.

I need to be willing to write that first awful version, and then not give up on it. Move the pieces around and around until it turns into a recognizable picture.

I need editors, people who I can ask to read drafts and find weak spots. I am lucky to have several excellent readers that I can turn to for help.

Right now, my poetry group is having a poetry idea month, similar to Tara Lazar's Picture Book Idea Month. We are trying to come up with an idea a day to give us springboards for future poems. Ideas are so much easier than actual poems that it doesn't feel like a chore. It's fun and useful. The list will go in my binder when it’s done.
Everybody has their own ways to venture into their stars and create constellations. Be willing to play, to learn, to listen. Trust yourself.

Thanks, Tabatha. Beautiful advice. You can visit Tabatha at her blog, The Opposite of Indifference.

Today's Poetry Friday host is Diane Mayr of Random Noodling. (If you'd like to read Diane's contribution to "30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets," click here. 

And here is a poem, "The Constellations," by William Cullen Bryant.

The Constellations

O constellations of the early night,
That sparkled brighter as the twilight died,
And made the darkness glorious! I have seen
Your rays grow dim upon the horizon's edge,
And sink behind the mountains. I have seen
The great Orion, with his jewelled belt,
That large-limbed warrior of the skies, go down
Into the gloom. Beside him sank a crowd
Of shining ones. I look in vain to find
The group of sister-stars, which mothers love
To show their wondering babes, the gentle Seven.
Along the desert space mine eyes in vain
Seek the resplendent cressets which the Twins
Uplifted in their ever-youthful hands.
The streaming tresses of the Egyptian Queen
Spangle the heavens no more. The Virgin trails
No more her glittering garments through the blue.
Gone! all are gone! and the forsaken Night,
With all her winds, in all her dreary wastes,
Sighs that they shine upon her face no more.
No only here and there a little star
Looks forth alone. Ah me! I know them not,
Those dim successors of the numberless host
That filled the heavenly fields, and flung to earth
Their guivering fires. And now the middle watch
Betwixt the eve and morn is past, and still
The darkness gains upon the sky, and still
It closes round my way. Shall, then, the Night,
Grow starless in her later hours? Have these
No train of flaming watchers, that shall mark
Their coming and farewell? O Sons of Light!
Have ye then left me ere the dawn of day
To grope along my journey sad and faint?
Thus I complained, and from the darkness round
A voice replied--was it indeed a voice,
Or seeming accents of a waking dream
Heard by the inner ear? But thus it said:
O Traveller of the Night! thine eyes are dim
With watching; and the mists, that chill the vale
Down which thy feet are passing, hide from view
The ever-burning stars. It is thy sight
That is so dark, and not the heaens. Thine eyes,
Were they but clear, would see a fiery host
Above thee; Hercules, with flashing mace,
The Lyre with silver cords, the Swan uppoised
On gleaming wings, the Dolphin gliding on
With glistening scales, and that poetic steed,
With beamy mane, whose hoof struck out from earth
The fount of Hippocrene, and many more,
Fair clustered splendors, with whose rays the Night
Shall close her march in glory, ere she yield,
To the young Day, the great earth steeped in dew.
So spake the monitor, and I perceived
How vain were my repinings, and my thought
Went backward to the vanished years and all
The good and great who came and passed with them,
And knew that ever would the years to come
Bring with them, in their course, the good and great,
Lights of the world, though, to my clouded sight,
Their rays might seem but dim, or reach me not.

William Cullen Bryant

Poetry Friday: Clarinet

It's been a music-filled week at the Shovan house.

Saturday, our son's high school marching band won third place at their national competition. He is a percussionist, currently on vibes.

This is me wearing the band-mom hat I knitted in my son's school colors.

Once a band geek, always a band geek. I was a flautist. Now I'm a band mom.

This week was our daughter's first middle school band concert. She plays clarinet. We've talked a few times about adding a second instrument (sax -- not for her, the deep tone kept making her laugh) but she is devoted to her clarinet.

My daughter spotted this early clarinet at the Smithsonian Museum of American History and pronounced it "weird."

Lately, I've been writing poems about my daughter. The fact that she is in middle school has triggered memories of my days at Dwight D. Eisenhower Middle, but also has me on parental alert as she transitions from 'tween to young adult.

I was looking for a clarinet poem for her and found one by Terrance Hayes. I don't think she's ready for this poem yet. It's a  very gentle love poem, but more suited for the teen side of 'tween. Teachers -- I'd recommend this poem for eighth grade and up.

All of these instruments are in the clarinet family. My daughter plays the "traditional" B flat clarinet.

Clarinet

by Terrance Hayes

I am sometimes the clarinet

your parents bought

your first year in band,

my whole body alive

in your fingers, my one ear

warmed by the music

you breathe into it.

I hear your shy laugh

among the girls at practice.

I am not your small wrist

rising & falling as you turn

the sheet music,

but I want to be.

Or pinky bone, clavicle.

When you walk home   

from school, birds call

to you in a language

only clarinets decipher. 

Read the rest at Poetry Foundation.

Hayes visited our area last month. He is a powerful poet (National Book Award winner) and a great speaker. I love the metaphor at work in "Clarinet." It is never spoken, but the clarinet and its music are deeply loved by the girl in the poem. It's soul love. The speaker's hint of sexual love is quiet -- the girl in the poem isn't there yet.

Fellow PF blogger Tabatha Yeatts (The Opposite of Indifference) and I  had a long talk about our kids and music over lunch recently. Kids who are musicians associate strongly with their chosen instruments. It's part of who they are and can define how they see themselves.

If I tell you that my son is a percussionist, my daughter a clarinetist and Tabatha's daughter is a French horn player, you begin to form an image of each child. Interesting. 

Musicians out there, what do you think about  how choice of instrument can define a person? Why did Hayes choose a clarinetist for this poem -- rather than a girl who plays the trombone?

This week's Poetry Friday host is Tabatha herself. But before you check out more poetry, check out this musical "Clarinet Poem."

Contest Winner and a New Summer Read

Congratulations to Tabatha Yeatts-Lonske!

Tabatha's name was unscientifically but randomly chosen from among everyone who commented on my upcoming blog-lift. She gets a signed copy of my poetry chapbook, Mountain, Log, Salt and Stone.

I kicked off the summer with a visit to ALA, where I picked up more ARCs than I could carry.

One of my favorites was the middle grade novel The Kneebone Boy By Ellen Potter. It comes out next month from Feiwel & Friends (Macmillan).

Here is my review of The Kneebone Boy, recommended for ages 9-12.

What was your overall impression of the book?
The Kneebone Boy has Gothic elements (“orphaned” English children on the run, a family mystery), but the adventures of the Hardscrabble children never veer into fantasy or horror and the children are never really in danger. While the book’s cover art looks foreboding, the narrator’s voice is full of light ‘tween sarcasm that gives the novel humor and heart.

The story in one sentence?
When their father takes off unexpectedly, the three Hardscrabble children fend for themselves in London, track down a long-last aunt, and try to solve the mystery of the mysterious Kneebone Boy.

Who were your favorite characters and why?
My favorite characters were Lucia Hardscrabble and Great Aunt Haddie. One of the originalities of this book is that one siblings is acting as author/narrator on behalf of all three. The reader is invited to guess which one. My guess was Lucia (she’s the only girl in the family -- I could relate). Since I found her voice to be funny, sweet and a little cynical, I liked Lucia.

Great Aunt Haddie is a fun supporting character. You can feel this wild, careless and caring young woman growing on the Hardscrabble kids. Her American oddities – like eating PB&J sandwiches for dinner – are endearing to the kids. She is a complex, interesting character you’d want to know in real life. And hooray! she doesn’t step in and rescue the children, but lets them work things out for themselves.

What were your favorite parts of the story?
One of my favorite parts of the book is the setting of its second half. Great Aunt Haddie lives in a castle folly. I’d never heard of castle follies before. The castle folly takes a Gothic element that is normally sinister – a dark and dreary castle with a dungeon for the children to sleep in – and turns it on its head, making it fun. I could say that of most of the novel.

Here is a castle folly in England that you can rent for your next vacation:

What did you like about the graphics/cover?
Here’s the problem: the cover is gorgeous.

It made me want to pick up the book. There are three ominous, steely eyed children standing in front of a threatening forest. One (the eldest Hardscrabble) is holding a black cat. It reads Gothic, maybe fantasy. That's the problem.

The Kneebone Boy is closer in tone to Jeanne Birdsall's Penderwick novels. Even the dark school uniforms the children wear on the cover disappear before Chapter 3. Is this cover a fair representation of what you’re about to read? I’m not so sure.

Would you recommend to a friend? What would you say?
I've already handed the book to my 10-year-old. The Kneebone Boy is a fun book, with a family story both sad and heart-warming at its center. It straddles several genres and styles, most of the time successfully. Middle grade readers who haven’t yet encountered Gothic novels probably won’t be expecting to see Gothic tropes here, but I was. That's why it gets...

Three Scoops

Summer Reading  Score
Empty Cone – Didn’t like it.
One Scoop – It was okay.
Two Scoops – Pretty good.
Three Scoops – Great book.
Sundae – I want to read the whole series. Now.