Peg Duthie's Blog, page 43
March 25, 2014
picture books and poetry readings
In the most recent batch of picture books from the library, the one I like best is Hena Khan's Night of the Moon: A Muslim Holiday Story (Chronicle, 2008), beautifully iluustrated by Julie Paschkis with lots of blue, green, and gold. I especially like how Yasmeen's Eid present at the end ties in with the overall storyline of her gazing at the moon.
In other goings-on:
fourteen takes on Hopkins's "The Windhover", including mine
a reading of Traci Brimhall's The Labyrinth
a reading of Uma Gowrishankar's At the Moment of Death: Bardo 1
comments
In other goings-on:
fourteen takes on Hopkins's "The Windhover", including mine
a reading of Traci Brimhall's The Labyrinth
a reading of Uma Gowrishankar's At the Moment of Death: Bardo 1
comments
March 22, 2014
coming home late/early
When I got home from my overnight shift this morning, the flowers were still closed-up for the night:
I look forward to seeing them later in the day...
From the clippings pile: David M. Shribman's NYT piece on journalist Wendell Smith, "Hall of Famer Whose Pen Charted Path for Jackie Robinson." Shribman quotes Brian Carroll: "Acknowledged as the most skilled writer of his time, 'Smitty' has been overlooked simply because he was black."
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I look forward to seeing them later in the day...
From the clippings pile: David M. Shribman's NYT piece on journalist Wendell Smith, "Hall of Famer Whose Pen Charted Path for Jackie Robinson." Shribman quotes Brian Carroll: "Acknowledged as the most skilled writer of his time, 'Smitty' has been overlooked simply because he was black."
comments
March 21, 2014
right on cue!
Last fall, my friend Knight handed me a handful of bulbs. I dug a wide, nine-inch-deep hole next to the Kentucky Colonel mint and plunked them in.
Look what showed up today!
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Look what showed up today!
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March 20, 2014
happy things
1. My poem Spelling "For Worse" is up at Goblin Fruit, in both text and audio formats.
1a. I am keeping right fine company on that TOC. :-)
2. Merrie Haskell wrote a novel called Castle behind Thorns. It's about to emerge, it has earned a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, and it will be a Junior Literary Guild selection. (Her second published novel has been collecting recommendations and awards, too, including "the 2014 Schneider Family Book Award winner for middle school for its depiction of a person with a disability.")
3. The Velveteen Rabbi will be reading her poetry in Jerusalem. I am so excited for her!
4. Making manuscripts reader-friendlier. Go me!
4a. Having the chops and experience to recognize typos (especially in Spanish) I wouldn't have caught five years ago.
5. Ripe cantaloupe and canned quail eggs. For when one works flat through dinner and then needs something that doesn't require cooking (i.e., stink up the kitchen) right before bedtime.
6. The sumo tangerine I picked up at a store last week. It was an indulgence, but it was also a great conversation piece, and I am about to candy the peel.
7. Having a dog that gleefully hoovers up vegetable scraps. (I am less enamored of her fondness for snacking on potting soil, but that's because it makes her wheeze.)
8. It is sunny and 55 F here right now. I'll be spending most of the day with spreadsheets, but I think I'll first sneak out for a walk.
9. Particle Fever! (And yes, I wore my CERN jacket to the showing.)
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1a. I am keeping right fine company on that TOC. :-)
2. Merrie Haskell wrote a novel called Castle behind Thorns. It's about to emerge, it has earned a starred review in Publisher's Weekly, and it will be a Junior Literary Guild selection. (Her second published novel has been collecting recommendations and awards, too, including "the 2014 Schneider Family Book Award winner for middle school for its depiction of a person with a disability.")
3. The Velveteen Rabbi will be reading her poetry in Jerusalem. I am so excited for her!
4. Making manuscripts reader-friendlier. Go me!
4a. Having the chops and experience to recognize typos (especially in Spanish) I wouldn't have caught five years ago.
5. Ripe cantaloupe and canned quail eggs. For when one works flat through dinner and then needs something that doesn't require cooking (i.e., stink up the kitchen) right before bedtime.
6. The sumo tangerine I picked up at a store last week. It was an indulgence, but it was also a great conversation piece, and I am about to candy the peel.
7. Having a dog that gleefully hoovers up vegetable scraps. (I am less enamored of her fondness for snacking on potting soil, but that's because it makes her wheeze.)
8. It is sunny and 55 F here right now. I'll be spending most of the day with spreadsheets, but I think I'll first sneak out for a walk.
9. Particle Fever! (And yes, I wore my CERN jacket to the showing.)
comments
March 15, 2014
when tulips go rogue
I've joked all winter about the yo-yo weather confusing my tulips. There's confused, though, and then there's outright wandering afield.
For context, here's a glimpse of my front yard from the front porch:
See that blue circle?
Close-up:
Meanwhile, back near the porch, the rest of the tulips are smirking and shouting tulip-smack across the yard ("Jajaja, look what came out of the squirrel's butt!"):
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For context, here's a glimpse of my front yard from the front porch:
See that blue circle?
Close-up:
Meanwhile, back near the porch, the rest of the tulips are smirking and shouting tulip-smack across the yard ("Jajaja, look what came out of the squirrel's butt!"):
comments
March 12, 2014
from the picture book section of my library
Virtual: Hena Khan's Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns: A Muslim Book of Colors, illustrated by Mehrdokht Amini. While I prefer picture books on paper, I do like checking them out (so to speak) via my library's online lending program, especially when said program recommends books to me that might not otherwise show up on my radar, like this one. It's a beautiful book, and I now want to look up the other books the author and artist have produced.
Physical: Elisabeth Kushner's The Purim Superhero, illustrated by Mike Byrne. This one was brought to my attention by someone on my Twitter feed, who pointed to an essay expressing disappointment with PJ Library's decision to make it an opt-in selection (rather than an automatic delivery, as all its other selections have been) because the dads in the story are gay. I didn't save the link to that column, but these comments are in a like vein, and Keshet reports that subscribers opted in in droves.
This Tablet article covers a lot about what I like about the book, including the line that made me stop and sniffle: the hero of the story is feeling pressured to choose a superhero costume for Purim, even though, left to his own devices, he would rather be an alien.
Do you ever just want to be like everybody else? Oh. Oh, my heart.
Also? The cast includes a dad who sews and a woman rabbi. Yes!
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Physical: Elisabeth Kushner's The Purim Superhero, illustrated by Mike Byrne. This one was brought to my attention by someone on my Twitter feed, who pointed to an essay expressing disappointment with PJ Library's decision to make it an opt-in selection (rather than an automatic delivery, as all its other selections have been) because the dads in the story are gay. I didn't save the link to that column, but these comments are in a like vein, and Keshet reports that subscribers opted in in droves.
This Tablet article covers a lot about what I like about the book, including the line that made me stop and sniffle: the hero of the story is feeling pressured to choose a superhero costume for Purim, even though, left to his own devices, he would rather be an alien.
"Max said I need to pick a superhero."
"Is Max your boss?" Abba said.
"All the boys are going to be superheroes," said Nate.
"You know," Abby said, "not all boys have to be the same thing."
Max thought about how most kids had a mom and dad, not a Daddy and an Abba.
"Abba?" Nate asked. "Do you ever just want to be like everybody else?"
Do you ever just want to be like everybody else? Oh. Oh, my heart.
Also? The cast includes a dad who sews and a woman rabbi. Yes!
comments
March 4, 2014
rough-cut sestina
I was trying to string together something to do with garnets and gannets, thanks to this thread over at M'ris's LJ. But there was also this...
... so I'll have to give the gannets their due some other night. No, I don't understand my brain either. But stuff like this does have a history of happening after I eavesdrop on M'ris and Elise. (I will also add that some years ago Elise sent me some garnets as part of a gift from Dichroic, the other part being this poem. The world, it teems with treasure...)
The month has started under water --
a sense of too much to shove at or swallow:
sprawling projects, tax returns ...
To wield a spear like an Amazon,
to hammer antique fears into a gleaming bow ---
these aren't skills I can list on my present
résumé, but what's needed at present
is something like. To get out of the water --
to haul my soggy rear back into the bow,
spluttering out what I couldn't help but swallow --
it isn't pretty, training to be an Amazon.
I'm told such pangs will yield happy returns
but some days I think of all the sad returns
I boxed up back in the warehouse -- this unwanted present,
that unhelped self. My wishlist at Amazon
changes by the week, like flavors of water
from a sportsdrink sales rep's cooler. Swallow
this magic pill. Now take your bow
on the Wonderland stage. in the Wonderland court. Tied up with a bow,
neatly wrapped -- low risk, low returns.
I know that, but the truth's still tough to swallow
when the press of my weariness outweighs the present.
I have to remember how petrels pierce the water,
scaring off sharks with the skill of an Amazon.
I've never longed to sail down the Amazon
but then I never expected each night to bow
my head with such thanks for running water,
schooled by floods and droughts. The returns
of every field, I now regard as a present.
I've watched dying people, how they can't even swallow
the thinnest dribble of water. Oh, when the swallow
nests again by the bell, will we see the Amazon
gliding into harbor as well? Will it present
a dazzlement of gems -- the gold-bright bow,
a garnet-studded scabbard? What returns
isn't always what was cast upon the water --
in some of my dreams, men in swallow-tails bow
to Amazons as their equals. But waking returns
me back to the present. I plunge back into the water.
- pld
ETA 8:40 pm: It never fails -- an edit making itself obvious after I press "post"...
comments
Nobody ever talks about the Amazons returning to Capistrano. Hmph.
— Marissa Lingen (@MarissaLingen) 4 Mars 2014
... so I'll have to give the gannets their due some other night. No, I don't understand my brain either. But stuff like this does have a history of happening after I eavesdrop on M'ris and Elise. (I will also add that some years ago Elise sent me some garnets as part of a gift from Dichroic, the other part being this poem. The world, it teems with treasure...)
The month has started under water --
a sense of too much to shove at or swallow:
sprawling projects, tax returns ...
To wield a spear like an Amazon,
to hammer antique fears into a gleaming bow ---
these aren't skills I can list on my present
résumé, but what's needed at present
is something like. To get out of the water --
to haul my soggy rear back into the bow,
spluttering out what I couldn't help but swallow --
it isn't pretty, training to be an Amazon.
I'm told such pangs will yield happy returns
but some days I think of all the sad returns
I boxed up back in the warehouse -- this unwanted present,
that unhelped self. My wishlist at Amazon
changes by the week, like flavors of water
from a sportsdrink sales rep's cooler. Swallow
this magic pill. Now take your bow
on the Wonderland stage. in the Wonderland court. Tied up with a bow,
neatly wrapped -- low risk, low returns.
I know that, but the truth's still tough to swallow
when the press of my weariness outweighs the present.
I have to remember how petrels pierce the water,
scaring off sharks with the skill of an Amazon.
I've never longed to sail down the Amazon
but then I never expected each night to bow
my head with such thanks for running water,
schooled by floods and droughts. The returns
of every field, I now regard as a present.
I've watched dying people, how they can't even swallow
the thinnest dribble of water. Oh, when the swallow
nests again by the bell, will we see the Amazon
gliding into harbor as well? Will it present
a dazzlement of gems -- the gold-bright bow,
a garnet-studded scabbard? What returns
isn't always what was cast upon the water --
in some of my dreams, men in swallow-tails bow
to Amazons as their equals. But waking returns
me back to the present. I plunge back into the water.
- pld
ETA 8:40 pm: It never fails -- an edit making itself obvious after I press "post"...
comments
pennies, pinecones, and picture books
We have a bit of snow right now. Last week, there was a lot of wind. It flung penny-sized pinecones from a neighbor's tree into my driveway and front yard. They are adorable (but I have in turn been flinging them into the compost pile).
I wanted some short comfort reads last week, so I brought home a stack of picture books. I ended up discussing a couple of passages from Tomie dePaola's Christmas Remembered with an Italian American friend ("have you ever eaten scungilli?"). Of the rest of the books, the two I enjoyed most were Karen Hesse's Come On, Rain! (1999) and Kathryn Lasky's Georgia Rises: A Day in the Life of Georgia O'Keeffe (2009), respectively illustrated by Jon J. Muth and Ora Eitan.
Come On, Rain! -- Muth's watercolors are terrific, and what's more, the book features a diverse cast without making a big deal of it: Tessie, the narrator, is African American; Jackie-Joyce is maybe black or Latina; Rosemary is white, and Liz is Asian. Also, city!
Georgia Rises -- Eitan's style is interesting. Her choices of when to be precise (as in her spot illlustration of Georgia tugging on a stocking) and when to leave things rough-edged or blurry (as in many of the main paintings) could occupy me for days. (That's not an adequate description, actually -- it's clear that when Eitan decided to let the paper or lower layers of paint show through the upper layers, that was every bit as deliberate as the placement of a crescent moon or the half-circles delineating a dog bowl.) I liked that the illustrator was not attempting to ape O'Keeffe, and -- this is unusual for me -- that the paintings had a folky, somewhat primitive feel to them. Kind of 2.5-D - not quite flat, but not full-bore perspective.
Speaking of artistic choices, Jessi Graustein (whose press, Folded Word, has published some of my micropieces from time to time, has been posting some photos of her calligraphy practice/work on her Flickr photostream now and then. The glimpses of her playing with an Icelandic greeting are nifty.
comments
I wanted some short comfort reads last week, so I brought home a stack of picture books. I ended up discussing a couple of passages from Tomie dePaola's Christmas Remembered with an Italian American friend ("have you ever eaten scungilli?"). Of the rest of the books, the two I enjoyed most were Karen Hesse's Come On, Rain! (1999) and Kathryn Lasky's Georgia Rises: A Day in the Life of Georgia O'Keeffe (2009), respectively illustrated by Jon J. Muth and Ora Eitan.
Come On, Rain! -- Muth's watercolors are terrific, and what's more, the book features a diverse cast without making a big deal of it: Tessie, the narrator, is African American; Jackie-Joyce is maybe black or Latina; Rosemary is white, and Liz is Asian. Also, city!
Georgia Rises -- Eitan's style is interesting. Her choices of when to be precise (as in her spot illlustration of Georgia tugging on a stocking) and when to leave things rough-edged or blurry (as in many of the main paintings) could occupy me for days. (That's not an adequate description, actually -- it's clear that when Eitan decided to let the paper or lower layers of paint show through the upper layers, that was every bit as deliberate as the placement of a crescent moon or the half-circles delineating a dog bowl.) I liked that the illustrator was not attempting to ape O'Keeffe, and -- this is unusual for me -- that the paintings had a folky, somewhat primitive feel to them. Kind of 2.5-D - not quite flat, but not full-bore perspective.
Speaking of artistic choices, Jessi Graustein (whose press, Folded Word, has published some of my micropieces from time to time, has been posting some photos of her calligraphy practice/work on her Flickr photostream now and then. The glimpses of her playing with an Icelandic greeting are nifty.
comments
February 24, 2014
inventory
1. My sonnet "The Bed I Haven't Made Yet" has been nominated for a Rhysling Award. My first nomination ever! Thank you, mystery nominator!
2. Rejections received within last 8 days: 2
3. Poems submitted within last 8 days: 8
4. Clothing items to return to Coldwater Creek: 2 *sigh*
5. Ratty nightgowns binned within the last month: 2
6. Picture books on loan from the library: 11 print, 1 electronic
7. Requested edits: 1
8. Ml of mustard seed oil remaining in my pantry: approximately 250
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2. Rejections received within last 8 days: 2
3. Poems submitted within last 8 days: 8
4. Clothing items to return to Coldwater Creek: 2 *sigh*
5. Ratty nightgowns binned within the last month: 2
6. Picture books on loan from the library: 11 print, 1 electronic
7. Requested edits: 1
8. Ml of mustard seed oil remaining in my pantry: approximately 250
comments
February 20, 2014
in my neighborhood
1. Today: a free wine tasting at Woodland Wine Merchant, from 5:30 pm - 7 pm. The five wines to be served sound scrumptious. (If you go, please tell me how they were!)
2. The wind knocking over a half-empty deck-rail planter, scattering Christmas pine cones here and there.
3. In a yoga class: "This is J's last class with us. He is moving across two states with a hive of bees in his truck..."
4. A heavy-duty traveling case for a harp, parked next to a lace-lined storm door.
5. A very loud band rehearsal at 7:45 pm. Fortunately, they were good.
6. Blackberries -- $2.29 per 6 oz -- at the Turnip Truck.
7. A man sawing off the upper branches of a tree too close to wires with one of those broom-handled saws.
8. The wind knocking over standing ashtrays, shooing flurries of brown leaves down the block, and whipping porch flags up and over themselves.
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2. The wind knocking over a half-empty deck-rail planter, scattering Christmas pine cones here and there.
3. In a yoga class: "This is J's last class with us. He is moving across two states with a hive of bees in his truck..."
4. A heavy-duty traveling case for a harp, parked next to a lace-lined storm door.
5. A very loud band rehearsal at 7:45 pm. Fortunately, they were good.
6. Blackberries -- $2.29 per 6 oz -- at the Turnip Truck.
7. A man sawing off the upper branches of a tree too close to wires with one of those broom-handled saws.
8. The wind knocking over standing ashtrays, shooing flurries of brown leaves down the block, and whipping porch flags up and over themselves.
comments
