Jeannine Atkins's Blog, page 39

Thursday Thoughts and Thanks

I’m honored that Borrowed Names was chosen as a Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books Blue Ribbon for 2010. And thrilled that the good people at Book Links cite Borrowed Names as one of their Lasting Connections of 2010, thirty favorite titles to use in classrooms and libraries.  Wonderful poetry advocate Sylvia Vardell included my book in her Favorite Poetry of 2010. All these lists include books I've loved as well as books I now want to read. 

It's a lot of good news and I'm grateful for every enthusiastic reader. But back at the desk, the plot fairy is unimpressed. Just because I managed to stir up a bit of tension before doesn't mean I can do it again. 

But I’m going to try. Mistake by mistake by mistake. Trying not to take a single word for granted. 

Confidence, Meet Doubt. Doubt, Shake Hands with Confidence

The past few days I’ve heard or read several writers refer to their doubt. They ask: Should I stop writing? Or how can I begin again, wrestling down or past doubt? Will my words ever be good enough to match those of writers I love or the vision in my head? Do I deserve to spend even ten minutes of my day on something I remember loving?

My heart aches when I hear this from writers whose work I’ve loved. I want to jump in and punch Doubt until she weeps. But I know I can’t. Doubt is big and strong and has complicated histories with each of us.

I can only offer my own tricks with Doubt and her nasty language, her snippy habits. As my blog title suggests, I find it helps to let Doubt into the room and personify her, even at the risk of sounding too much like the crazy poet. This gets Doubt out from crawling under my skin, which is not only itchy but cumbersome. I don’t offer her tea and cookies, but she’s around, tending to take the shape of a few almost-lost-to-history-but-not-quite family members and teachers. I like to dress her in really ugly clothes before sending her to the corner to rant and mutter. Which she will. But I start to wonder why I’m listening to someone who’s so sniffly and bad-mannered?

And so there comes the matter of sticking it out. When Doubt slips in, it’s  tempting to leave the room and do something that doesn’t call her up. My Doubt does have some good points after all, things I can’t deny. But if I let her be, her mean spirit and good arguments start to fade. I start to find a few good words on my paper, and I let those give me hope more will come. That hope gets to wear the soft sweater, the sparkly earrings, and maybe curl on a branch of the tree outside my window. Does she wear the pointy glasses I had in fourth grade, or fill notebooks as fast as I did then? No. She knows a bigger world. But I like the way she shakes her head softly at our companion Doubt, drooling in the corner. I can almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

Thank you, Cybils! (and a Bit on Writer Angst)

Yesterday at the brunch to which I brought the bread with cranberries cut in half, I asked a friend about her daughter, who I remember as writing like crazy as a child and teen. Her mom’s brow wrinkled. The girl is now an English major at college and seems to be not writing. More of her focus is on battling anxiety. We talked about how those may connected. I said that, I, too, had loved writing as a child, but got stymied as an English major reading the greats. What did I have to add that Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson hadn’t already written better? Most writers want to connect with others, but we have to do it in solitude, where anxiety loves to swoop. Learning to be a writer is partly learning our own ways to cope with our own angst, with tips and murmurs from the clan.

Things do get easier when we accept that someone will always write better than us, someone will write worse, and many will write just fine, but their work doesn't reach us at the moment. I’m at a point now when writing often actually helps me cope with worry and bad news. But it’s still often fraught, saved for me by falling in love with my subjects, feeling compelled to get out their stories. That’s how I spend most of my time, though there are small parts devoted to what we call marketing, but can really mean just obsessing about the many, many people who will never know my books and can I ever nudge one or two more to the side of readers? I don’t dwell in this place, but it’s lovely when I get kicked out of it by sweet attention from the world.

So I was happy to hear that Borrowed Names is a finalist in poetry for the Cybils 2010 Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Award. 



And what great company to be in. Cyblis finalists include Joyce Sidman, who delighted those of us who love her blend of poetry and science with not one but two books in 2010, both gorgeously illustrated. Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors offers poems with subjects that move through millions of years, tracing evolution. Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night gives us a peek into the lives of creatures (and trees) in the night woods. Both books feature sidebars, author notes, and glossaries that add to our knowledge and amazement.

Mirror, Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer makes you want to stand on your head and read, or at least spin around the book for new takes on fairy tales. I’ve seen peoples’ jaws literally drop when flipping through this book. Scarum Fair by Jessica Swaim is the only finalist I haven’t yet read: apparently it features 29 poems that mix humor and horror as a boy makes his way through a nightmarish carnival.

Two beautiful collections are also on the short list for the prize to be given in February. Sharing the Seasons, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins, offers surprising takes on swings and polliwogs, sandcastles and the summer moon, pumpkins and falling leaves, and snow people and books to curl up with. Switching on the Moon: A Very First Book of Bedtime Poems edited by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters lets us peek into rituals such as brushing teeth, bath time, and star gazing. Like Sharing the Seasons, it includes classic poems as well as new ones, humor as well as poignant moments.

Don’t take my few words for the goodness of these books of poetry, which, of course, are only some of the books that appeared on shelves this year filled with rhyme (sometimes with sounds at the ends of lines, sometimes with images), rhythm, metaphor, flights of fancy, down to earth moments, and other good things. Click to read the beautiful descriptions of the judges. Who I thank for their reading, good-hearted arguments (I’m sure!) and choices with all my heart.

Into the New Year

I’ve been reading with awe other bloggers’ accomplishments and resolutions. I’m not inclined to look at the pile of books by desk, sofa, and bed and list those I’ve yet to read. It’s a bit of downer when you haven’t cracked hardbacks that are now out in paperback. So what can I do but resolve to read more this year. Novels, as well as a re-immersion in picture books, which I start reviewing this month for Shop Talk: Connecting People and Picture Books  at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.  I’ll be filling in with Top of the Shelf recommendations while writer/editor/educator Barbara Elleman takes a winter break. I look forward to keeping blog company with Andy Laties and Eliza Brown who run the well-stocked shop beautifully. Their entries run from fun to pensive, through quizzes, books on themes, children’s book news, and notices of some pretty amazing sales, so it’s a good blog to bookmark.

And I’ve started writing some picture book biography manuscripts again, a form I’ve always loved, but is hard to sell. Then what isn’t? So I resolve to explore this genre as well as poetry. And my husband is urging me to collaborate with him. I kind of think 27 years of marriage is collaboration enough. We have a different aesthetic, and I like working alone, and really could he deal with me? This morning I was making cranberry bread to take to brunch at friends. Peter asked if he could help, and I asked if he’d cut the cranberries in half. After about a cup he asked why they couldn’t go in whole. I said they could, which my niece Tori taught me by making it once in our kitchen. She threw them in and the bread was delicious. But, I explained to Peter, who also suggested a chopper, this is for a holiday with friends and should be as perfect as it can get.

So do you want them cut vertically or horizontally? he asked.

I’m not that obsessive, I said.

Eyebrows were raised.

Okay, not so obsessive about cranberries (and other things, such as centering pictures on this blog). Editing is different.

Anyway, who knows about collaboration. I’ll try to be more open in 2011. And do more yoga, which may or may not be connected.

Happy new year full of joy, creativity, and love from my family to yours!

Listening for the Song

I’m working, as usual, on a manuscript inspired by and dependent upon history, so I’ve collected lots of facts and sorted them into what’s interesting, what gets in the way, what’s interesting but gets in the way, and what order will make sense to readers. Then I pare down, keeping to some chronology, orderly as someone laying bricks. And when I get facts lined up, they seem to have bricks’ weight.

I remind myself then that the point isn’t the walkway, but making a place to look at the sky. Bricks and mortar are necessary, but for a book that wants song as well as a story, there comes a time to put down the tools and call in the ghosts, or if you prefer to call them imagination. It’s time to play with the broken bits of bricks, slosh around the mortar, and let colors or textures remind me of one moment I can hold up to another.

Holding up the broken pieces can take a long time. We might sift through hundreds before finding the right one. They get heavy. They look stupid. The whole project starts looking stupid. This is a time when doubt creeps in, away from the steady brick laying, when I can get nostalgic even for boredom. When we’re purposefully looking to the side, not on the lookout. When we wonder what’s taking us so long, and by the way, why haven’t we heard from that editor about our last piece.

But what might make everything come alive usually comes from rubble, past the ghosts and lack of hope. Perhaps a slight or temporary break from realism or an offbeat angle makes you and everyone else see something in a new way. An impossibly placed ear of a dog. An out of character remark. The odd sound of a window or sunset at the wrong time of day. Look. Then look away.

For the roundup of Poetry Friday posts, please visit Carol’s Corner. 




And happy new year!

The Writer as Bird Watcher

 
My brother-in-law moved from sunroom to kitchen on Christmas, camera in hand, and tried to get a shot of the chickadees and cardinals busy at the feeder. They’re so fast, he said to my husband. How do you get those pictures?

Peter explained his camera has a special setting for movement, but he sits for about ten minutes watching to get the rhythm of particular birds. When they’ll take flight, when they’ll land. Then he tries to match their timing.



Yes, a bird metaphor is coming. And I expect this one has been made before, but I’m flying forward because the words reminded me of quietly watching how characters behave in their daily lives, then diving for the words when something ordinary suggests a moment that might be revelatory. I imagine characters going their rounds just as I do: there’s breakfast, there’s procrastination, there’s a garden to be weeded or snow to shovel off steps. And sometimes I spot the menace of a rhubarb leaf or hear the sound of shovel striking stone and know it can be of use. I try to see and hear through other’s eyes and ears before I worry about the words to hold their rhythms. And while I’m waiting today, hungry birds and snow keep me company.

Ho Ho Ho! or Do You Choose a Quiet Merry Hum?

There are still packages to wrap, cookies to bake, and pans to scrub, but yesterday I decided to get my nails done to mark a line between some of the hand-battering holiday prep and the fantasy of sitting and enjoying music, decorations, and tea with those cookies. While Shawna rubbed something creamy into my hands, she told me this will be her first Christmas with her boyfriend, who was getting introduced to her family’s traditions. The guy’s first clue that he was in for a ride might have been that she’s been watching a holiday movie every night. When he asked why she was making gingerbread and sugar cookies a bit obsessively, Shawna said, I can’t help it, which he should have gotten seeing the street where she lives by parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles houses all lit up like Vegas. She showed me the necklace he gave her last week, causing dirty looks from her the family (you're supposed to wait) such as those given to new girlfriends or wives who suggest that maybe names should be drawn for gifts. And when they drove to see her Grandma at a retirement place, they pulled up to a shared driveway, one apartment with an old wreath of autumn leaves, and the other festooned with brilliant colored lights and Santa. Which one is your Grandma’s, the boyfriend asked. Guess, she said. Which got even easier when a woman ran out in reindeer ears waving a bottle of Scotch.

We’re not quite that wild here, but between my husband and daughter, I’m the one with a quieter shade of the spirit. My husband gears up before Thanksgiving and couldn’t be more generous. Our daughter has a talent I envy for finding gifts perfect for their recipients. I’m just pretty good with the cookies. I love the wave of family and friends I don’t often see, but savor quiet parts of the day. I like feeding the dogs their usual breakfast on Christmas morning, setting out bread to rise, and maybe catching a few minutes of reading by the tree before the festivity begins. I like the broken memories shifting through the day, and angels with chipped wings made by my Grandmere (which my sister has let me keep custody of along with photo albums, rather than split them up: yeah, a shepherd and wiseman for you, but it gets touchy splitting up Mary and Joseph or deciding if you want the childhood or adolescent album).



It’s often moments by the kitchen sink or hanging up a coat, when some few precious words are exchanged, that touch me most. I like songs with lyrics I at least half-know, and trying to get through a poem without thinking of all the stuff I failed to do, and this year giving my grand-nephew a book I loved reading with my daughter: Who is Coming to our House written by Joseph Slate and illustrated by Ashley Wolff.
 


Seeing circles start to come around.

Wishing you happy holidays, and quiet moments within.

How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird by Jacques Prévert illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein

You know how hosts put out chips and dip or bowls of nuts at a party, not just to nibble, but to give people something to talk about? What do you think of this cheese? Want an olive? Etc. Well, it wouldn’t do much for those truly hungry, but putting out some picture books might be just as good for conversation. When I teach children’s literature I often bring picture books I’ve gathered from the library on the front table, books not on the syllabus, and early students often gravitate to them while waiting for class to begin. Knowing this, I brought a few to a creative writing class for adults I taught this fall. How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird was snatched up by two who got rather glowy. 



Mordicai Gerstein, illustrator of many picture books including the Caldecott Medal winning The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, illustrated his translation of a poem about creativity by Jacques Prévert, a French poet and screenwriter.
Here’s some of another translation.

First paint a cage
with an open door
then paint
something pretty
something simple
something beautiful
something useful
for the bird
then place the canvas against a tree
in a garden
in a wood
or in a forest
hide behind the tree
without speaking
without moving...
Sometimes the bird comes quickly
but he can just as well spend long years
before deciding...

(click here to read the whole poem)

Mordicai Gerstein’s picture book, which would make a great present for a creative adult as well as child, brings the theme of imagination to life with its flowing lines, gorgeous colors, and hither-and-yon-flying bird. In this book, the “something pretty and useful” are a golden swing and a heap of seeds and nuts, which take a long while to entice. And waiting is shown as a big part of the creative process. We see mistakes, triumph, the arc of beginning again, and we see the bird in every picture, even when the artist doesn’t. The young painter’s canvas becomes transparent at some points, so there’ no edge between it and the world. I don’t know if this will match anyone’s creative process completely, but I think it will spur many to be on the watch for birds of all kinds, and be ready with a paintbrush or pen.

For some details on Mordicai Gerstein’s process, sometimes a roller coaster ride, sometimes like being a tightrope walker, click on his name  link above to his website where you can read his Caldecott Acceptance speech. What a special gift it was, more than sixty years after he stood before his first easel, and still full of ideas that wanted expressing.

For more Poetry Friday posts, please visit the roundup at the Poem Farm. 

Thursday Thanks and Thoughts

1. I’m happy to hear that Borrowed Names is going into a second printing, and it will have quotes from four starred reviews on the back cover. And so thankful for all of you who’ve bought, borrowed, blogged, talked about,  my book of poems making this second printing possible.

2. Wordswimmer is a great blog about the ins and outs or ups and downs and sidestrokes of writing and publishing. I’m honored by Bruce’s recent review of Borrowed Names. (and I'm thankful to my husband, who just showed me how to make these cleaner looking links -- one thing off my list of things to learn in 2010!)


3. And happy that novelist Sara Zarr included Borrowed Names on her list of books published this year “… that kindled my enthusiasm for craft on some level: language or structure or originality or feats of storytelling wonder and courage.” And how’s this for a blurb: “This is a collection of linked poems in a book that utterly defies the elevator pitch, the three-point query letter, and the market.” Well, maybe we’ll leave that off the jacket, though Sara’s right that this was written more from my own curiosity and obsessions than a sense that this was going to wildly hailed in a marketing department.

4. Our daughter will be here next week! And hopefully some of her friends. Zach? Colleen? Nell? Liz? Deepa? Please, I miss you!

5. And I’m grateful for all who will be joining us for Christmas, as well as those who can’t be here this year. Grateful for all memories, and those who can’t be seen but are beside me singing a wonderful tenor or setting the table, making me laugh and sometimes being a little bit annoying. All of it I miss, but singing will happen and the table will get set and new memories made. I’m grateful for it all and glad it’s not one of those years, which, like most people, I’ve had, when all the festivity seemed to be a room I couldn’t enter. I just read in the newspaper about three local churches holding special services next week for those who feel this season as one of loss. Some of these services will be on the solstice, the darkest day of the year. Sometimes days are just dark, and it’s hard to look back or forward, so I’m thankful sanctuaries are opening for people who don’t particularly want to light candles or sing or smile. But where for one night they don’t have to be alone with that.

Trying to shrug off loneliness was my biggest motivation for writing when I began in my twenties. And the greatest gift from writing all these years is to find out that I never really was alone. None of us are, even if sometimes, I get it, that’s just a really annoying thing to hear.

Witness: The Art of Jerry Pinkney

Peter and I visited the Norman Rockwell Museum http://www.nrm.org/category/current-exhibitions/ to see Witness: The Art of Jerry Pinkney, a wonderful retrospective, which will be there through May of next year. Four rooms were dedicated to Jerry Pinkney's work http://www.jerrypinkneystudio.com/, celebrating 45 years of work on paper.



The show highlights his illustrations for children's books, but also shows work he did in the past for postage stamps and more recent paintings for historic sites such as the African Burial Ground Interpretive Center in New York. The exhibit includes some sketches beside finished paintings, and shows some of his process for coming up with the cover for The Old African by Julius Lester.



I enjoyed the informative signs along the paintings, mostly pen or ink with watercolor, and learned some about Jerry Pinkney's life. Trips to art museums weren't part of his childhood, but he was influenced by story telling, a skill he felt both parents brought with them from the South to Philadelphia. Living with a big family in a small house, his sketchbooks became a place for his private life. His father's work included repairing appliances and houses, and Jerry did some of his early sketches on back of leftover wallpaper. He pays homage to his upbringing in family centered stories, some written by his wife, Gloria Jean Pinkney. We also see illustrations for Home Place, written by Crescent Dragonwagon. For endpapers, Jerry Pinkney painted wallpaper with patterns remembered from childhood.



Jerry Pinkney focused on design and illustration in high school and college. He got first professional job at a greeting card company before going into advertising. He illustrated his first of over a hundred picture books, The Adventures of Spider: West African Folk Tales by Joyce Cooper, in 1964. Inspired by N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle, and Arthur Rackham, he went on to illustrate folk tales, history, both family and public, books about music and the frontier, books by contemporary writers, stories from the Bible, and books by writers of the past, including Charles Dickens, Hans Christian Anderson, Charles Perrault, and Aesop. The nearly wordless The Lion and the Mouse won many awards including the prestigious Caldecott Award last year.



What a wonderful show! Now I'm off to the library for a few of those hundred books I missed.