Irene Latham's Blog, page 141

CRISS CROSS SKY

I was sitting at an intersection about a mile and a half from our home in the suburbs of Birmingham when I saw this sky. I thought, man, that would be a great picture, if not for all the stupid power lines. 

And then I thought, reframe: it's a great picture because of the not-so-stupid power lines.

And then I started thinking about other criss-cross-y things:

criss cross applesauce
the lattice on top of an apple pie
braiding
basketweave
dreamcatcher
spiderweb
the veins on a leaf
palm lines

What does it make you think of?

FIVE FOR POETRY FRIDAY

Happy Poetry Friday! Don't forget to visit amazingly creative and inspiring Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference for Roundup.

1. For the first year ever, I am not on family vacation for the 48 Hour Book Challenge! My e-reader is loaded, and my nightstand is ready, starting with this one:

Sign up at Ms Yingling Reads.

2. Had a lovely time visiting Pat who pampered us, as ever. We visited the Wall, ate yummy vegetables and talked writing. Here's a pic of two of my favorite fellas on the Ranger:

3. Finished edits on DEAR WANDERING WILDEBEEST, my poetry collection for children to be released by Millbrook Press/Lerner in 2014. Special thanks to a very special poet-friend Jeannine who helped me spit and polish. Mwah!

4. Enjoyed corresponding with friends after putting out my email newsletter, in which I shared news about DON'T FEED THE BOY being selected to represent Alabama at the National Book Festival in Washington DC! I also got an invitation to Southern Festival of Books in October, so I'll be heading to Nashville as well. Thank you, friends, for reading! And if you're not on the list but want to be, sign up at my website.

5. Lots of exciting things going on next week, beginning with Alabama School Library Association's summer conference. I'm presenting a session on poetry and how to use The Poetry Friday Anthologies. Yippee!

ADVENTURER-TRAVELERS UNITE!

My father sent me this quote, from THE SHARKS OF LAKE NICARAGUA by Randy Wayne White:

"Adventure-travel is any activity used as a conduit to observe, share, enjoy, suffer, encounter, or experience that which is outside the boundaries of one’s own day-to-day life.  You don’t have to go to Thailand or Central America to be an adventurer-traveler, but you can.  And it’s probably better not to have a specific goal, but there are no requirements about that, either.  'Boundaries' is the operative word here; real, implied, or imagined, if your body or mind crosses a boundary, you are doing it."                                                                         ~Randy Wayne White~
Are you an adventurer-traveler too?

ART AT ALDRIDGE GARDENS

Aldridge Gardens is one of my favorite spots in the Birmingham metro area any time of the year. Add art and it approaches the divine.

Here's some of the natural art:

Hydrangeas, how I love thee!
And here's one of the displays where I found treasure:

That's right: upcycled journals! The artist takes the covers and even some of the pages from these books, adds plain white paper and binds with spiral. I bought a few to give as gifts. :) Here's a close-up of one I considered for myself:


But I wasn't there to buy for myself! Eric and I found things for every person on our list. And it was fun and inspiring and pretty much a perfect Saturday.

"TAKE IT TO THE TREES" POETRY READING

On Saturday it was my joy and honor to join other local poets at Ruffner Mountain Nature Center for a nature-themed poetry reading. We met in a room walled with windows overlooking the spring-green woods. It actually reminded me of the church where Paul and I were married, which also has those giant windows... except on that day (in April) the spring-green was punctuated by dogwood-white and azalea-pink. Gorgeous, both.

So here's the poets:
me, Alicia, Joan, Tabitha, Suzanne, Bob, Jerri, Manny, Robert
On the way out of the center, I noticed a sign announcing a "Full Moon Nature Hike -  Tonight." Paul and I already had a hot date planned, but we did take time out to snap this photo, in honor of my "sky" year:

And now it's Memorial Day. So many folks to remember, so much to be grateful for. Thank you thank you thank you. Hope yours is a happy one!

T-SHIRT QUILT FOR OUR GRADUATE

This is my first-ever t-shirt quilt. I learned that they are harder to create than they look! Since I am the Queen of Shortcuts, I thought, nah, I don't need to use stabilizer... I'll just pin and go really slow. Well. That turned out to be far too time consuming and not nearly as accurate as I wanted. So a-ironing I went! And it took FOREVER. That really was the worst part of the whole project. But look how neat and precise it turned out?! If you look closely you can see that I actually constructed the quilt in blocks. I wanted them to be a little "crazy," so I didn't worry about the blocks being exactly the same size. Then I uses more t-shirt pieces to create a border.

Lots 'o memories preserved here... and maybe a gift more for the mom than the kid, but Daniel seemed pleased. He may be really ready to leave high school behind, but all these things represented here have made him who he is and will continue to impact his life. He did say something about how well-made it is, which amused me -- the interfacing actually gives it a heavier, more professional feel. Love when things work out like that. :)

And now my sister has delivered a box of t-shirts, and my father said his box of t-shirts is on the way. I think I may have started something... good thing I love to quilt!

HAPPILY EVER AFTER SKY

This past Saturday our niece Jenn married Tim in an outdoor wedding by a lake, with a reception in a nearby barn. It was all perfectly wonderful until Jenn mounted the horse that was to carry her to the reception (and provide a wonderful photo op). Something spooked the horse, and it reared, throwing Jenn to the ground! Talk about frightening... she's okay -- probably sore today, and it was enough to shake up everyone present. But now that it's over, and all is well... isn't it a GREAT story to tell the grandkids?! 

                                           Congratulations, Jenn & Tim!

SKY INTERRUPTED

"There are no signposts in the sky to show a man has passed that way before. There are no channels marked. The flier breaks each second into new uncharted seas."

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

... and the flier leaves its mark, at least for a moment or two...

THE MAGIC OF MOTHER-DAUGHTER BOOK CLUBS

I often tell groups about how my very first writings were love poems for my mother -- and that LEAVING GEE'S BEND is also a love poem for my mother. Which is why it's an especially magical thing when I am asked to speak with Mother-Daughter Book Clubs, as I did last night.

Before I get to how amazing these moms and daughters are, let me say again that I believe the mother-daughter relationship is perhaps the most complex of all relationships. I say this only having experience the "daughter" end, but I have enough moms of daughters in my life to have heard the "mom" end as well. I am sure that mother-daughter themes will continue to pop up in my writing for the rest of my life. A mother is that important to a girl.

And I had a delightful time with my friend Mary Leigh, her youngest daughter and all the moms and 6th-grade daughters who read LEAVING GEE'S BEND.

Here's the moms, who make it all possible:
And here's the girls eating a snack (Coke and pound cake, in honor of Ludelphia) and being silly:
And here we are all posed with quilt and Ludelphia and book:
Aren't they gorgeous? And they asked such wonderful questions and made me feel so welcome and sent me home with a treasure or two. THANK YOU, everyone! Great to meet fellow book lovers and moms. Remember what I said about sending me poems and stories -- I am happy to read. xo

POEMS TO LEARN BY HEART

I've just spent some quality time with Caroline Kennedy's POEMS TO LEARN BY HEART, illustrated by Jon Muth.

I'm not a big memoriz-er of poems. In fact I can only think of one 4 line Shel Silverstein that I know by heart... and "The Secret Life" by Stephen Dunn, which I have read so many times in public that I mostly have it memorized (but wouldn't want to be without my paper copy, just in case). Why that poem? For many years writing was my secret life. I often open a poetry reading by sharing that poem and how I've journeyed from a closet poet to an out in the open one.

I guess one reason I'm reluctant to memorize is that memorizing brings to mind all the ways schooling can kill a love of poetry. Being forced to memorize a poem is (to me) one of those things. Now, if students are allowed to CHOOSE the poem they memorize, that's a whole other thing. But still a lot of pressure for the shy ones among us.

ANYHOW. I am always impressed when poets have their own poems memorized. Spoken word poets knock my knickers off. I love the show, the performance. How do they do it?!

Back to the book. There's a nice mix of old and new here, and I was thrilled to find poems by our very own Janet Wong!

The book is divided into sections like Here I Am (poems about self) and It Is the Duty of the Student (school poems).There's even a section called Extra Credit, with longer poems like "Paul Revere's Ride" and "Kubla Khan."

Here's one of my favorites:

Baby Ate a Microchip
by  Neal Levin

Baby ate a microchip,
then grabbed a bottle, took a sip.
He swallowed it and made a beep,
And now he's thinking pretty deep.

He's downloading his ABCs
And calculating 1-2-3s.
He's memorizing useless facts
While doing daddy's income tax.

He's processing, and now he thrives
On feeding his internal drives.
He's throwing fits, and now he fights
With ruthless bits and toothless bytes.

He must be feeling very smug.
But hold on, Baby caught a bug.
Attempting to reboot in haste,
He accidentally got erased!

---
TIP FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO MEMORIZE A POEM: record yourself reading the poem. Play the recording while you are driving or doing mundane household chores. In just a day or two, you'll have it down. Repetition is a powerful thing! (I learned this trick when I first began public speaking and worried I would freeze onstage. Thanks to this technique, I never did.)

Happy Poetry Friday, friends! Anastasia has Roundup at her poetry blog. Yay for May!!!