Irene Latham's Blog, page 115

When in Germany...

... buy German books!


Oh my goodness, I have so much to say about our trip across Austria, Germany and Switzerland! But I want to start with books. Here's where we shopped in Vienna, Austria (where they also speak German):


...and here is the children's bookshelf:

I chose  to carry home UNSER ZOO because it has pictures, which makes it much easier to translate. So far I've learned that a giraffe is a giraffe, a tiger is a tiger, a panda is a panda. But an hippo is a flusspferd, a penguine is a pinguine, and a leopard is a gepard. 
See? Picture books are awesome. :)
The Eric Carle book is going to take me a bit more time -- unless I cave and buy the English version!
Other highlights of my European adventure:
Castles! Neuschwanstein Castle (Germany), after which Walt Disney
modeled Cinderella's castle in Orlando!
Markets! fruit! chocolate! bread! art! and lots of dyed Easter eggs!
Postcard-cities!
Heidelberg, Germany


...and so much more! I loved discovering it all with my niece JuliAnna (and the whole group), and I will be sharing more about this trip in the coming days. Meanwhile, as wonderful as travel is, is there anything better than coming home? I think not. Happy day, all!

Let Us Now Praise Old Things

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Laura at Author Amok for Roundup (and all sorts of other poetic goodness!). Big thanks to everyone who signed up for our 2015 Progressive Poem. Our roster is FULL! Poets who signed up, I will be in touch the last week of March with more information. So happy to have you join us -- it's going to be fun!

This week I had the great fortune to spend some time with my dear friend Pat in Cullman, Alabama, where we shopped the thrift stores and treated ourselves to lunch. We also visited Deb's Bookstore. And the whole day I was thinking how much I love old things. AND THEN, lo and behold, posted on the wall at one of the junk shops was a poem called "I Love Old Things" by Wilson MacDonald. 
Turns out Mr. MacDonald was a pretty prolific Canadian poet, so beloved, there's even a museum named after him! What joy to discover a new (old) poetic voice! And extra-appropriate, as I will soon travel to Austria, Germany and Switzerland to experience all sorts of old (new to me!) things! So here's the poem, with a shout-out to one Amy LV, who did that amazing series of Thrift Shop poems for National Poetry Month last year!:
I LOVE OLD THINGSby Wilson MacDonald
I love old things:Streets of old citiesCrowded with ghostsAnd banked with oranges,Gay scarfs and shawlsThat flow like red water.
I love old abbeysWith high, carved portalsAnd dim, cool cornersWhere tired hearts pray:I join them in the silenceAnd repair my soul.
I love old innsWhere floors creak eerilyAnd doors blow openOn windless nights,Where heavy curtainsDance a slow waltz.
I love old treesThat lift up their voicesHigh above the grasses.They do not singAt the light wind's bidding:They chant alone to storms.
I love old china,Knowing well the flavourOf great, strong menAnd fair, sweet womenLurks at the rimOf each deep brown bowl.
I love old booksFrayed from the searchingOf truth-hungry fingers:Their warm, soft vellumLeads me up through sorrowLike a dear friend's hand.
I love old menAnd old, dear womenwho keep red cheeksAs the snows of winterKeep the round red berryOf the wintergreen.
I love old things:Weather-beaten, worn things,Cracked, broken, torn things,The old sun, the old moon,The old earth's face,Old wine in dim flagonsOld ships and old wagons...Old coin and old lace,Rare old lace.

"Poem for Oprah Winfrey" + 2015 Progressive Poem Sign up!

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Please visit Robyn Campbell for Roundup.

So it's March. Still winter, doggone it. Though I must say, I am enjoying this School Lite schedule -- each week we've had late starts and a Snow Day or Ice Day or No-Snow Day. Like the rest of the country, I am really, really, really longing for sunshine and warm breezes. Bring it!

This week I discovered a post on Oprah Winfrey's website called "How to Write a Poem. Basically it's a list of 12 prompts, and then a shorter list of instructions about how to turn the raw list into a poem. Kind of like Paint-by-Numbers or Dot-to-Dot -- except with more opportunity for inspired splashes and U-turns.

Sample from my notebook:
1. 5 things you did today, in order: 
Answered the phone
put on fuzzy socksturned up heatput dog outmorning pagespoured cereal in bowl
2. name 3 colors real quickpurplehyacinthsilver
You get the idea! So, I made my list, and below is the poem that emerged. I don't know what it means, if anything... but kind of a fun no-snow-day exercise. Try it and see!

Poem for Oprah Winfrey
Was it worth it?You put on your fuzzy socks,feed the swans as silver raindropspelt the once-cheery daffodils.As you sing, so shall you shriek.You're a fish thrashing a salt-slickboat deck, hook sinking sinkingsunk. You'll feel better in the morning.Slip out of your hyacinth slicker.Kiss the pain. Whatever you do,
don't pick up the phone.
- Irene Latham

And now: It's that time again! National Poetry Month (April) will soon be upon us, which means it is time again to sign up for our annual KIDLITOSPHERE PROGRESSIVE POEM, I invite you to choose your day and add your information to this Google Spreadsheet!Here's how it works:
Poetry Friday Friends and other poetry lovers are invited to join in a community writing experience during National Poetry Month (April).
What is it? a poem that travels daily from blog to blog, with each host adding a line, beginning April 1. Anyone who wants to join in the fun can sign up on the Google Spreadsheet!

Once we have a schedule, I will be send via email the HTML code to include in your post and/or sidebar so that readers might follow along/look back/look forward. And feel free to snag the above graphic!
Can't wait to see where our poem will take us this year! (To view poems from previous years, click on the Progressive Poem tab above.)
Happy Poetry Friday, everyone!

#EveryBrilliantThing February Roundup

umbrella gardenThis year I am keeping a virtual gratitude list, inspired by the play Every Brilliant Thing. Here's my post about it. And here's my February list:

Sunday afternoon siesta.Live streaming when you can't be there. [Newbery Awards!]When someone compliments my outfit.Daily conversations with my father who is ill and lives 1500 miles away.Sisters.Mama's roast beef.Scrapbooking!King cake.Bumper stickers.Morning conversations with Eric on the drive to school.Mrs. Fattig. 3RdGrade.Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate brownie dough.Books hand-picked for me by my father.Skype visits.Plaid.Lighthouses.Breakfast for supper.Stuffed animals.Cooking with an iron skillet.Umbrellas.Movie trailers.#Oscars2015 pajama party.Chapstick.This cookie from Whole Foods.“A broken heart is an open heart.” -@jandynelson, I'LL GIVE YOU THE SUNYesterday's no-Snow Day and today's snow-dusted delay.Poetry Friday.
@billyjoel tonight at @philipsarena!

BLUE BIRDS by Caroline Starr Rose

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe for Roundup.

I'm excited to share with you BLUE BIRDS by Caroline Starr Rose. It's Caroline's second historical verse novel (first was MAY B.), and it is a lovely story of an unlikely friendship between English Alis and native Kimi in 1587 Lost Colony of Roanoke.

The book releases March 10, which is coming up shortly! I was lucky enough to score an ARC -- and now I am giving it away! Leave a comment to enter. Winner will be randomly drawn Sunday night (March 1).

Before I share a few excerpts from the book, you should know that Caroline and I have a few things in common: We love historical fiction. We both lived in Saudi Arabia. We share an editor. We've both written in voices of characters from cultures not our own. And more! Anything Caroline writes, I know I will savor and cherish and delight in.

So, first, allow me to share with you Caroline's responses to a few short prompts:

the difficult:
There are a lot of opinions and strong, strong feelings as to who has permission to write certain books. I’m a non-Native American author. What gives me the right to try and speak for a thirteen-year-old Roanoke girl?
I’m still not sure. But I’ve been a girl. And I know how profoundly friendship can shape a person. I’ve been in new cultural settings and have learned to see the foreign as familiar and the familiar as foreign. This answer won’t be enough for some readers. I understand that. But I’ve gone ahead and written BLUE BIRDS anyway.
the delicious:
BLUE BIRDS hinges on a forbidden friendship, and if that’s not delicious, I don’t know what is!When I first started drafting, I thought the story would come from one character, Alis, my English girl. But the more time I spent in her world, the more I realized the story didn’t belong to Alis alone.
Back in my teaching days, I loved to tell my students in order to most fully enjoy poetry, it must be seen and heard. A poet communicates with language, yes, but she also speaks to the reader through line breaks, stanza breaks, and the placement of words on a page.
My favorite passages in the book come from the poems Kimi and Alis share together. Here are two girls from two entirely different worlds, and yet they are drawn together. It was essential the structure of these dual-voice poems communicated as much as the words they contained.
the unexpected:
Having heard so much about the dreaded sophomore novel, I was relieved to sell a picture book between MAY B. and BLUE BIRDS. With an entirely different kind of book scheduled to release next, I felt freed up to set aside my worries of comparison between the two novels. But guess what? Though BLUE BIRDS sold a year and a half after my picture book, it will release four months before. Both novels are historicals written in verse. The comparisons will probably come. I’m grateful, though, I was able to shut the door on this hangup during the creative process, that I could write without this burden in mind.

-----------------------------------------... and now, my favorite poem in the book. It's told in both girls' voices -- which makes it just about impossible to format on this blog! So I'm giving you a photograph instead:

Now, a favorite KIMI poem:
My mother and my auntswork side by side,their backs bendas they tend the crops.
Like the corn,a womanspreads her roots wide,like the bean,a womansettles her roots deep.
The English plans have been made plain:Women mean they'll stay.
If we hope to rid ourselves of them,push them from usonce and for all, we must do itbefore their roots take hold.
- Caroline Starr Rose
.................................
Finally, one from ALIS :
All night,our home is cuffed by violent windsand waves of rain,a hurricane.This settlement will fly apart,will be ripped like weeds,until each board is stripped away.
This village is as fragile as an eggunprotected in its nest.
I pray for peaceand silence,for just an hour of rest.
- Caroline Starr Rose-----------------------------------------------------

Movie Monday: #OSCARS2015 Top 7 Moments

We were pretty excited when we cozied up in our pajamas last night to watch the annual Academy Awards show. Paul and I love going to the movies -- for nearly 25 years now we have kept a Saturday night date that more often than not, includes going to the movies. This year it seemed like we'd seen more nominated movies than usual, which made the show extra-fun. See all the winners here!

Here are my top 7 moments:

On the Red Carpet, Reese Witherspoon talking about her mission to produce films with strong parts for women... and her campaign for women actors to be asked about something other than what they're wearing.

J.K. Simmons, in his acceptance speech, urging viewers to call (not text!) their parents, to talk as long as those parents want to talk, if they are lucky enough to have parents on this planet.

Patricia Arquette, in her acceptance speech, calling for wage equality for women.

Neil Patrick Harris taking the stage ala Birdman only in his tidy (or is it "tighty" ?) whities.

Graham Moore, who won for Best Adapted Screenplay for THE IMITATION GAME, expressing his gratitude for life, urging young people to hang in there, and to "stay weird."

Common and John Legend and a stage full of people walking a Hollywood Edmund Pettus Bridge for an incredibly moving rendition of "Glory," which then won the award for Best Song.

Eddie Redmayne's boylike enthusiam when he won his award -- I mean, I felt just felt so happy watching him! And he deserved the award. Amazing performance in THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.

And here's a little Bonus:

Creeper Moment of the Night: John Travolta and his big hands in inappropriate places. Come on, man.

Movie I want to see after watching the awards: STILL ALICE, with Julianne Moore's Oscar winning performance as a woman struggling with Alzheimer's.

What were your favorite moments??

To Tremble

Today's precept in 365 DAYS OF WONDER comes from Auguste Rodin:

"The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live."

Yes!

2 things that have made me tremble in the past 24 hours:


I'LL GIVE YOU THE SUN by Jandy Nelson. More on this when I've finished the book!

...and the movie WHIPLASH. (Might be my favorite of Oscar Best Picture nominations, though it's very hard to rank! Probably should say it's my favorite
today.) It's about a young jazz drummer who wants to be great and his teacher who uses questionable/cruel methods to bring out that greatness. Husband's comment: "for a movie about drumming, there was a lot of blood." Can you imagine practicing so hard and so long, you make yourself bleed? I've been thinking a lot about the movie since I saw it, which, for me, is a good sign. I love movies that make me feel and think. Go see!

THE RED PENCIL by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illus. by Shane W. Evans

Hello, and happy Poetry Friday! Please visit Cathy at Merely Day by Day for Roundup.

I'm in with a favorite verse novel from 2014: THE RED PENCIL by Andrea Davis Pinkney, illus by Shane W. Evans. Set in Sudan, THE RED PENCIL is a verse novel that chronicles Amira's life before, during and after the Janjaweed attack her family's village.

Here are three poems I especially love:

HAND, TWIG, SPARROW

When I draw, it's not me doing it.
It's my hand.
And my twig.
And my sparrow.

My hand
and my twig
and my sparrow
make the lines.

My hand and my twig
and my sparrow
do the dance
on the sand.

I never know
what my hand
and my twig
and my sparrow
             will create.

My hand
holds my twig.

But my twig goes
on its own.

My sparrow - that's what's inside me:

             flight.

- Andrea Davis Pinkney
--------------------------------
I am in love with this "sparrow." I think Amira and I share the same sparrow, actually. Beautiful thought!
-------------------------------

POSSIBILITIES

Dando and I have a favorite game called
What Else Is Possible?

The only real rule for our game
is that answers to the question
What else is possible?
can only be good.

Dando goes first.

"If you wake to find your sandals gone, do you worry?"
Dando answers his own question.
This is how the game works.

He says,
"Worrying, that is a waste of time.
Better to ask, 'What else is possible?'"

Dando peels off his own sandal, waves it.

He insists, "Your sandals may not be gone at all,
only missing, while a generous hand mends
their worn edges."

Now it's my turn.
"If two days pass, then five, then seven,
and still no sandals, do you worry?"

I shake my head fast, ready to answer.

I tell Dando,
"It could be those generous mending hands
have stitched you a whole new pair of sandals."

"Made of gold!" Dando adds.
Dando wave both his sandals.

I wave my sandals, too,
one right, one left.

"Lift them high," Dando says. "High!
They are new, and glistening, our sandals."

What Else Is Possible?
is the game about looking at things
in shiny ways.

- Andrea Davis Pinkney
----------------------------
How brilliant is this for staying positive and being creative?? And it reminds me of a game I play with myself all the time as a writer when brainstorming analogies... What Else does it look like? What Else?
---------------------------
FAVORITE

Of all the funny-bug letters I know,
the letter O
is my favorite shape.

Ya, O!

Open.
Unbroken.
Eternal.

Ya, O!

- Andrea Davis Pinkney
------------------------------
I have never before thought about my favorite letter -- favorite word, yes -- but letter? And now I can't stop thinking about O. :)
-----------------------------

3 Apps That Are Helping Me Learn to Play a Musical Instrument

Last month I started cello lessons.

Even though I took a few months of fiddle lessons in late 2014, the cello has humbled and challenged me in ways I didn't think possible.

Oh how confidently I called the teacher who once taught my son to play cello! I had been playing fiddle, after all... how hard could it be to switch to cello?

For those of you who missed my earlier musings on switching to cello, I just kept having this niggling feeling I picked the wrong instrument. I enjoyed the fiddle, but ultimately I chose it for convenience -- it's small enough to include easily in my travels.

But the cello. THE CELLO. Oh, my soul! That instrument speaks to me and always has. It's sound is deeper, moodier. More me.

After the first lesson, I wasn't sure I wanted to start over again. I practiced both fiddle and cello for two weeks.

It was too much. I couldn't get the bow hold for cello -- and it kept creeping into my bow hold for fiddle. I decided to put the fiddle away for a while and solely concentrate on the cello.

After the second lesson when my instructor had to manhandle the stiffness out of my wrists and constantly rearrange my hand on the bow, I wanted to cry in frustration.

But dadgumit, I still wanted to produce a beautiful sound out of the instrument! So I kept going. I ordered a CelloPhant to aid my grip and waited in desperation for it to arrive.

When it came, I experienced instant relief. My fingers relaxed. My hand eased. I practiced bow stroke on open strings and thought maybe maybe I could do this.

When I went back for my third lesson, my instructor and I celebrated. It was a breakthrough. I was on my way.

Since then I have discovered 3 (Android) apps that make my continued learning even more awesome:

1. Gstrings Tuner: oh my goodness, with what hesitation I first tuned those strings! But the tuner helped bunches. I DID IT. All on my own! FREE

2. Mobile Metronome: No more clunky machines on the tabletop. Just tap tap, and voila! FREE

3. Smart Voice recorder: one thing I learned from learning the fiddle was that it really helps me to play WITH music. Somehow I am forced to keep going instead of constantly correcting my fingers to get the best pitch. So at my lesson, my instructor plays the songs I am supposed to play, and I record them! It's brilliant. I can incorporate that into my practice time at home. I can feel my confidence building already. FREE

And so, now 4 lessons in, I am loving ye ol' cello. Nothing quite so humbling as learning an instrument when middle-aged. Never too late!!!

This Picture of My Parents Probably Explains A Lot About Me

Mary & Ken with baby #5 (Saudi Arabia, 1975)