Jane Yolen's Blog, page 14

Dec 18-March 8, 2012-2013:

No, I didn’t die in the intersticies, though three of my old friends did, two of them quite suddenly and unexpectedly. And to say I am embarrassed by the length of time since I last posted is to understate the obvious. But as there is no way I can adequately catch up, I will do it in shorthand, with a poem or two to ease the pain.

There were holiday family visits, of course, and a fancy dress New Year’s eve party at Holly and Theo Black’s that we all attended. There has been snow–both one huge storm and a lot of light stuff. I had another plumbing disaster but nowhere near as expensive or debilitating or prolonged as the last. Am having a few minor medical adjustments and a cholesterol overhaul. I have given both well-attended readings and speeches, and miserable ones. Well-attended–always better.

I caught that sinus/cough/sore throat thing making the rounds, the not-flu (and yes! I had my flu shot, thanks very much!) It has lasted over three weeks. So I had to miss doing the narration for two violin poems (from the Chagall book) and my Johnny Appleseed set to music by Jerry Noble and performed at Smith but went to hear Jerry’s wife Cara nobly stepping in at the last moment, and loved it though all the while I was trying to suck on enough cough drops not to disrupt the performance.

But mostly the almost-three month hiatus from my journal has been about writing, editing, rewriting, and being surprised by stories, poems, and editorial decisions.

Quickly: the children and I finished up the complete draft (and then I edited, and Heidi will be doing the second edit) of our book of true animal stories for National Geographic. I wrote and–within days–sold a Holocaust picture book set first in Paris, then in the forest with partisans, finally in England where the family escapes–to Philomel. It’s called The Stone Angel. Almost as quickly I sold a picture book about a beached whale to Candlewick, The Stranded Whale. I finished the revision on the centaur novel, now called Centaur Rising. I sold a short story that ties into my novel Except the Queen, a bunch of poems, continued my poem-a-day project, this year bringing on subscribers who get each day’s poem by mail, the only proviso being they buy a book of mine or borrow one from the library.

I wrote another picture book about Abigail and John Adams moving into the White House, which is about to get sent out. Adam and I have gotten to chapter 8 of our second Seelie Wars novel. I am working on several speeches. Have sold four adult poetry collections. Three are short–approxmately twelve poems in each–for “envelope” books on Maiden/Mother/Crone theme as well as The Trees Commit, a book of poems on writing. It’s been a whirlwind.

A poem of mine will be featured on a sign board at a Pennsylvania park at the duck pond. A ballet of Owl Moon is being performed this week and the next two weeks as well in a Minneapolis suburb. A stage production of Devil’s Arithmetic is being prepared. Some great reviews on the new books: Bad Girls, Jewish Fairy Tales Feasts, Curse of the Thirteenth Fey, B.U.G., Wee Rhymes, and Grumbles from the Forest. Lots of interviews, especially on the first two books.

Not much to write about for three months absence? Well, that’s because all the writing has gone into the book and stories and poems.

I beg your forgiveness, dear readers, and your indulgence.

 

Interstitial Moment addendum:

Because I am basically computer illiterate and can’t fix or add to what is already published in my journal, here is an addedum:

Austin (see above) Hackney’s blog:  omniscrit.com

 

Interstitial Moment:

I have been writing a poem a day for three years. Sometimes I get a little help from my friends. My writers’ group has workshopped a number of my poems (the ones I consider salvageable, that is. You write that many poems in a year and unless you are Emily Dickinson, the majority of them are duds)

And sometimes I get help from unexpected places.

Many of my poems have been prompted by things that are in Terri Windling’s blog, once called “The Drawing Board” and now called “Myth and Moor.” Terri is a longtime friend, editor (of my book BRIAR ROSE, among other things), artist, author herself. She is a myth goddess, one of the originators of the Interstitial Arts movement.

Recently in one of her postings I wrote this:

Between

See the space between mountains,

the moment between drops of water,

the instant between bird foot touching sand

and the track it leaves behind.

Watch the hesitation between beats

of hummingbird’s wings,

the infinity between earthquake

and aftershock. See the space

between brush and painting,

between word and story,

between bullet and the beating heart.

And while several people on the blog liked it, I was troubled with a couple of lines. I addressed the problem after one fellow, Austin Hackney (assume nothing from his last name, he is smart and a good writer and a Commedia del Arts guy) wrote this to me: “Jane, your poem is a nugget. And that last line really packed a punch, jolting me out of meditation into awakening. Great stuff.

I answered him this way and a conversation about revision was born: “Thanks, Austin, I have three thoughts about this poem: first it’s a kind of antiphonal response to your piece yesterday. Second, I really have to figure out a way not to have “beats” and “beating” in the same poem. Awake quite a bit this night trying to decide if “timid heart” or “living heart” or some other adjective might serve the poem as well or even better. Third: isn’t it strange the way a poem you think is going in one direction suddenly veers off in another. This became a different creature when the last line leaked out of my fingertips onto the keys.”  We didn’t have to reference the Newtown tragedy. It was only a week old at the time.

He responded: “Jane,I have one or perhaps two thoughts in response to your three thoughts…If one of the beats has to beat it, then I’d make it the beat of the hummingbird’s wings and leave the beating heart. Much of the punch in the phrase comes through the resonance between its rational meaning and the punctuation the alliteration gives to the rhythm, if that makes sense.

I’m really no poet, no poet at all – but might tentatively suggest an alternative to the wing beat…’Watch the hesitation on the turn of a hummingbird’s wing.’ If there’s any hesitation in hummingbird flight then it is on that moment that barely exists on the turn of the wing – as they don’t properly beat but gyrate their wings in a figure of eight pattern.”

Wow, I immediately thanked him. I mean, it was lightbulb time. I’d known that about hummingbirds, but checked it out in one of my bird books just to be sure. Then I told him thanks, adding: “Haven’t workshopped this poem with my writers group since we won’t be meeting again until January. You have helped a LOT. (I had been considering doing something with hummingbird’s wing but hadn’t gotten as far along as you have led me. Thanks for being a spirit guide.”

And then I began to wrestle with the line. I didn’t want to do it exactly as he had suggested, but close. I went through iterations, including mentioning that a figure eight is also the scientific sign for infinity. Even tried using the word infinity but liked it better in the next line where it is the key between earthquake and aftershock. Then I realized I could get a sneaky backdraft from the word which scientists and birdlovers and poet fanciers could understand with an extra frisson of recognition. And in the end, the poem goes like this, with thanks to Austin. And as someone else noted on the blog, “Just realised the happy coincidence of your combined names.”

See the space between mountains,

the moment between drops of water,

the instant between bird foot touching sand

and the track it leaves behind.

Watch the stutter in the turn

of a hummingbird’s wings,

the infinity between earthquake

and aftershock. See the space

between brush and painting,

between word and story,

between bullet and the beating heart.

©2012 Jane Yolen, all rights reserved

 

Interstitial Moment:

I am currently mired in a revision of a novel and it is giving me the gip. Actually, as I recall, every revision of a novel does this. Only when I’mtruly and horrible in the mire, when I can feel the Peat Hag hanging onto my heels and pulling me under, do I know I;m having trouble with a book. I think this is related to childbirth. Once it is over and the gorgeous new miracle is in your arms, you forget all about the pain and blood and muck and mire. You coo at the infant and think about having another.

So here I am, up to my knees in a peat bog and sinking fast. And the trouble is the editor’s notes and what she sees as problem places. The first go round through, I have treated each of her points with care, fixing this, shoring up that, giving a character who has had too little to do/say a bit more business.

But as I work this way, the entire world shifts. I mean the entire world of the book does a 90 degree or more turn off its axis. That’s because as I tend to her notes, I have forgotten gravity or some other important law of the book’s universe. I have forgotten that every change changes everything.

So now I am in the next iteration of the novel and I am seeing how offkilter the whole thing is, and I despair. I do the hand on brow, falling on the fainting couch, head in the oven thing. Nothing goes together any longer. There are no interstices. There are too many holes. The whole is holey when I want it to be holy. It is a mess. I am not a writer, I am a messenger of doom, gloom, badness, madness and. . .

You get the picture. I am in the middle of a muddle.

Yes,, yes, I have said it before. I even said similar things in the birthing room or whatever we called it back in the Eocene. “How did I get in this blankety-blank mess?” EVen though I know how and now who to blame.

So I shut the computer off. Watch Cake Boss and the Bourne Legacy. Fiddle with some poetry. Play Boggle. The usual distractions. I even (gasp) went grocery shopping. And cleaned the kitchen. (You can always tell a writer is eschewing the revision process when her kitchen is clean!)

And now it’s time for bed. “Ah well,” I say to my best friend, Scarlett, “I’ll think about that revision tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day”

 

October 19-December 17, 2012

Okay, this is the longest I have gone without posting in this journal for well over ten years. I have many excuses–work, play, fear, happiness/unhappiness, travel, overwhelming numbers of Things To Do. But I could have found the time. And when I did I rationalized myself out of writing in this journal. So no excuses.

 

Awards, Prizes Or Oh-What A Life I Lead:

Really, not that many. The biggest thing was flying off to Scotland to give the Andrew Lang lecture at St Andrews University. The lecture series had started back in 1927 and had included such luminaries as J.R.R. Tolkien and John Buchan. There have been 22 lectures in all  (I was the 22nd) , and I WAS THE FIRST WOMAN TO EVER GIVE ONE! So it was a big deal. They had put out fifty chairs, the number of people they normally get at free college-wide lectures. Then had to scramble to set out about 70 more! I was interviewed twice by the BBC, had my photo in the Scotsman. The speech itself will be seen in part in the Horn Book next year and in whole as part of the conference proceedings whenever they come out.

As big a deal was my actually getting there, a saga I won’t repeat here. But I was to leave the weekend before the huge Storm of the Century. I was booked for SundayHartford-Newark-Edinburgh and of course everything got canceled that morning. I finally talked my way onto an Air Canada plane from Hartford to Toronto and from there to London and managed to get up to Edinburgh only three hours later than I would have if my scheduled planes had been running. Whew.

Other Travels:

Minnesota to give a major talk about religion in children’s book, a signing in Minneapolis, a visit with Adam and family. Many bookstore events in South Hadley, Florence MA. Rochester Book Fair. Ashfield MA poetry and song performance with Lui Collins, Stamford CT book fair, New Canaan Ct Library. South Carolina to visit Jason and family and an impromptu overnight in NYC when five (5!!!) planes were cancelled that I was on for the trip home, AND they lost my suitcase (though it showed up the next day.)

 

Writing:

Plus a whole lot of writing, which included totally reworking my book of adult poems about the writing life, organizing and sending off my book of adult poems about politics, revising CENTAURFIELD, writing a poem a day (and occasionally two), revising the first chapter of the new Seelie Wars Trilogy, revising the story “Dog Boy” and sending it off, doing several interviews by email, rewriting and sending off the picture book THE STRANDED WHALE. Doing three more of the pieces for the National Geographic book that the kids and I are working on.

 

Books and Stories and Poems, Oh My!:

And I sold a number of things: Poems: one to Asimov’s, several to Weird Tales, one to Goblin Fruit, several to Silver Blade. Two essays to Horn Book. The Stranded Whale picture book to Candlewick. The picture book Song of Seasons to Creative Editions. Books on several Best of the Year lists: Last Laughs, Bug Off, Curse of the Thirteenth Fey.

 

And my guy was re-elected president. My health is pretty good for my age, (Could always be better.) My kids and grandkids are reasonably healthy and doing wonderfully well in school.

 

And I will try to do better with this journal, but no hard-and-fast promises.

 

Happy holidays all.

September 30-October 18, 2012:

Book and Writing News:

What an up-and-down three weeks, consisting of some writing, some signings and readings, and a book I thought sold come loose from its moorings and float away into the Land of Unpublished. At the same time the weather has alternated sun and rain in such dazzling succession, that we are all feeling quite bipolar. Meaning hot and cold. Received the copies of Ekaterinoslav, and the very first early copies of Bad Girls.

I continue to write a poem a day, have been consolidating some of the poems I actually like into possible collections. Been working on two new pieces for the National Geographic book on true animal stories–did Balto the dog who lead the team that brought the serum to save the children of Nome, and Hoover the seal that could talk. Am beginning on a very short novel called Sea Dragon of Fife, based on my short story of (right now) the same name,. Wrote a pretty good song lyric that I may be in the process of ruining. Worked on the second scene in the first chapter of my Holocaust novel House of Candy (this section takes place in the Lodz Ghetto.) Working a bit on a proposal for a historical (though snarky) look at nursery rhymes. My usual patchwork quilt of projects.

Heidi and I had a really great signing at the Conway Festival of the Hills where, this year,  the rain held off until fifteen minutes before we were packing up to go. As it was, we’d overstayed our signing time by an hour and a half anyway (it was going that well!).

I was also one of the main readers/speakers and a judge for the Literary Death Match at the Brattleboro Literary Festival and had a super time. Didn’t sell that many books, but made some new good friends and had tea with my old friend Crescent Dragonwagon as a lovely finish to the three days.

I had a brunch with old friends Jane and Steven Schoenberg, talking about writing a musical together. Went to a Kids Lit Drinks Night in Northampton (just four of us.) Went to Forbes Library for Leslea Newman’s very moving reading of poems from her new book about the Matthew Shepard murder, October Mourning. Did several interviews for online magazines and blogs. Hosted my writer friend Steve Gould here to see his Smith college daughter and do some college visits with his other daughter, including Smith

 

Health news:

Ugh. Two huge cavities which needed filling at the same time. Many blood tests showing little, but a bit of plaque in my carotid artery so am now on something called Red Rice Yeast pills or maybe Red Yeast Rice pills to lower cholesterol. I can’t do statins.

Too many friends in cancer treatments right now, or failing and frailing in other ways.A constant reminder of End of Days.

 

Politics and Other Stuff:

My Obama signs are on the lawn. Elizabeth Warren signs ordered. I watched the debates and therefore stayed up much too late and my stomach in a twist from them all.

Still reading the Hilary Mantel Bring Up the Bodies.(Did I get it right this time, Marcel????)  Finished another William Alexander middle grade novel which was delicious and gorgously written.

Saw  “Marigold Hotel” which I only sort-of liked. Went to the Three County Fairgrounds for the Paradise Crafts and Artisan Fair. Went to a star-studded party at Mo Willems house.

But mostly kept my head down and trying to be sensible about getting enough sleep. HArd to do when I wake up every four hours on the dot!

 

Erratum:

My picky picky friend Marcel Sislowitz caught an error in my last post. The Hilary Mantel book is called Bring Up the Bodies. (I hope I have it right. otherwise, just go Google it!

September 28-29, 2012:

Two days filled with writing, reading, movies, and more writing.

I have continued my poem a day, though on Sunday I actually worked on three poems occasioned by some lines in the new (and brilliant) Hilary Mantel novel about Thomas Cromwell, Bring Up the Dead. My God, the woman can write–lyrically, intelligently, compellingly. I am not only learning much about Henry VIII’s England, about the culture and mind set of the time, but enormous amounts about the look and smell of the place.

I also worked on my new piece for the National Geographic book the children and I are doing, this one, about Balto who was lead dog for the final dogsled team into Nome in 1925 with the diphtheria serum  that saved the lives of the sick children of the town. Then did a couple of re-drafts, trying to get it down near the 850 word count.

Movie Bob and I went to see “Loopers,” a noir sf picture that worked brilliantly for 9/10 of the time but fell down in the final looped ending which raised questions that shattered (for me, at least) the time travel elements of the film. We both would have preferred going to see “The Master” but it wasn’t playing in the area.

Sunday, Heidi and I went off to the Conway, MA.  Autumn Festival to sign books along with Jeff Mack, Holly Hobby, and others. We did very well indeed, and the forecasted rain held off until fifteen minutes before the end of the signing times. We’d stayed into the second time frame–we were to sign from 11-1 (1 was when all the weather forecasts said there would be rain) and at 2:45 when we were already packing up, down it came. So all was copacetic. A lot of old friends from our days living in Conway (Heidi and Adam were both born there) stopped by to visit. At home, I watched the lovely (though a bit sappily romantic) “Exotic Marigold Hotel” movie on the tv, but it was just right for my mood.

 

And so to bed. . .hoping for some good news this week bookwise.

 

 

August 24-September 28, 2012

Another month shot by, mostly because of work and travel. So that’s what I want to talk about.

First travel:

On September 15, I flew from Edinburgh to Newark on what must have been the easiest flight of my life. There was not a bump or bounce in the entire trip. I read, watched two (forgettable) movies, got through customs in record time, caught the early train I’d hoped for to New Haven, crossed the platform and there was the train to Springfield waiting for us. It came in on time, Heidi was waiting for me, and I got home where I promptly crashed. But the crash was expected. Jetlag took two days. If all my travels were that easy, I would never worry or panic ahead of time.

My last days in Scotland were a dance round of dates. Friends came to visit, my dear poetry editor Jim Perlman and his terrific wife stayed for several days (and we did the the Royal Mile in Edinburgh in the teeth of a huge downpour). I went to the theater with friend Claire (which was, alas, a huge disappointment–the performance, not Claire who as always a joy to be with). Watched a couple of movies with Debby and Bob–”Thor” and “Captain America.” We laughed, we cheered. We parked our brains at the door and enjoyed. Went to see a fun performance of “Pirates of Penzance” with Janie Douglas. Had an Edwardian Afternoon Tea at an Edwardian manor house with Elaine and Ann. Dinner at Vanessa’s. Lunch with Marianna. Held a birthday party with presents and poems for Christine. Went to see “Dredd”with Nora and we both agreed to leave because it was vastly too unrelievedly bloody and boorish for us. Etc. The last two weeks were wild! But it is always thus.

And then I was home in Massachusetts, into the maelstrom of a huge plumbing disaster that had been ably handled by Heidi but at such a cost–a truly astronomical cost–that I had to have meetings with town offiicials and insurance investigators and my bank manager and it’s not over yet.

And of course into the even larger maelstrom of the political season which I’d managed to avoid more or less by being in Scotland with a tv that didn’t work.

In the first two weeks I went to a concert by my sometimes-collaborator Jerry Noble at Smith College which was a lot of fun, ran a writers’ meeting at my house, had tea with neighbors Forest and Amy, a drop-over visit with neighbors Nina and Annie Dayton, another such visit with neighbors Jan and Don, went to a farewell party for a friend who was moving to Minneapolis, an illustrator’s meeting, dinner with friends Bob and Mira one night in Amherst–we talked up a storm–and another dinner with Bob and neighbors which was supposed to end with a movie but a storm brought tree branches down onto wires and a section of the town went dark. Their section. My house was just fine.

Most of the rest of my time was concerned with doctors appointments–nothing life-threatening, but a lot of annoyances and disagnoses and tests. Gave a LOT of blood, and. . .um. . .other bodily fluids. And worst of all, the dentist found two cavities which will have to be filled next week.

 

Writing:

Well, yes, I did a lot of writing as well. A poem a day continued. I worked on rewriting the speech for Duluth, finishing the first draft of the Andrew Lang speech for St Andrews University. Both speeches running well over 40 pages, so a lot of prose there. I also rewrote and added to (and thought through some characters) for the first chapter and a bit of the second for the next Seelie Wars book and sent it off to Adam.

I wrote a sample piece on “The Elephant Whisperer” for a book the kids and I are writing for National Geographic, which the editor said moved the art director to tears (a good thing) and so we have a prototype now for the other pieces which the kids and I are writing. I have already started my next piece, on Balto and the other dogs who brought the serum from Anchorage to Nome through a winter blizzard in 1925.

And I surprised myself with a revision of a picture book called Doggie Dreams that enlarged the story and gave it a whole new feel.

Ah yes, and I got several rejections from the same editor, only one of which surprised and hurt.

 

I will not promise I will do better this next month. I am into Book Tour season and things might get a bit worse. But I will try.

 

 

 

July 28-August 23, 2012:

Almost a month shot by while I struggled with Centaur Field. Quite a struggle it was for a short (37,000 words) middle grade novel that was already a published short story with a plot and characters intact. It taught me two lessons I already knew, having made novels out of short stories before and two things that I learned the hard way and for the first time. Oh, my stars and garters, I was not happy.

1. A short story is not a novel. Its compression and singular focus, its lyricism and leaps as dazzling as Margot Fontaine’s jetes can’t be counted to work a novel length. Even short novel length.

2. What can be suggested in a short story needs spelling out in a novel and that can change everything, including pacing, plot, characterization, and even necessitates new characters.

Fine, I knew those things already. I was prepared. I was sailing along and had gotten all the way to the end of the book, one (or two) chapters and a coda left to do. I even knew how it was supposed to finish and. . .

Spit happens! as a grandchild’s bib put it.

3. I learned not to count chickens or books till they were completely hatched, in the chicken house, and busy laying their own eggs. In other words, the rooster crowed before the fat lady sang. I was wrong. But I wouldn’t admit it and kept on going. And going. And going. Showed it to my beta reader, Debby, when I could not longer keep the knowledge that there was something radically wrong with the book, and she went through it and pointed out every single thing I already knew deep in my heart was a problem. Yep I had to start from scratch. And the novel’s due date was less than a month away.

Debby suggested NOT killing off the baby brother in the first chapter but letting him live and grow up, disabled as he would have been which solved one of he biggest problems in the book–the older sister had no other kids talk to or interact with, not in school and not at their horse farm. Only adults. (It had been the biggest problem that I would admit to. . . at first.) I resisted. It was too  big a change not to resist it. After all, much of the book hinged on the child being dead and the suggestion that the father–who ran off soon after–might have had a hand in his death.

The other big problem was the there is a major secret at the heart of the book–that a centaur has been born in a modern Massachusetts riding stables the girl’s mother owns. Now when I published the original story, some fifteen-twenty  years or so ago, we didn’t have twitter and tweeter and all these internet social groups or cameras in our cell phones, etc. That secret could be held then by the few folks who knew it. But not now. I said to Debby that I had to move the entire story back in time.

4. The jigsaw worked. I should have trusted the magic. The minute I decided (as I was talking with Debby) to move everything back to 1965, everything fell into place. I’d been pregnant in 1965 with my first child. My husband and I were wandering around Europe and the Middle East in a VW bus. (Of course!) And when I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified to take any pills the European and Middle Eastern doctors were offering because this was just at the tail end of the big and horrible international thalidomide scandal where doctors had prescribed the drug for women with morning sickness (as I was having) and it crossed what was considered the “placental barrier” (which it turns out is no barrier at all!) and some 20,000 babies in 46 countries were born deformed, disabled, and maimed. It became the reason in my book the father leaves, and why the boy (now 6-8 in the book) bonds so immediately with the centaur child because thalidomide children were known as “seal children” because so many of them were born with hands and/or feet that were flipper-like. It gives him the chance to be the one his sister talks to, and the one who is the first to become part of their horse therapy program. It all works. Also, I love the kid–he’s smart, sassy, writes instant songs (as I do) and the dual nature of both kids (and the wolfish nature of the father who returns smelling money to do with selling the ponyboy into the entertainment business) all dovetail together.

But oy! Getting there was tough, and I should have remembered I can do this. I can. Only–guess what. I never do remember!

 

Oh yes, lots of other stuff occurred this last month: two starred reviews for Last Laughs–PW and Booklist–I saw “Brave” which I liked a lot, and “Captain America” ditto, and re-saw “John Carter of Mars” and again wonder why it wasn’t a hit. I read three Michael Morpurgo books including War Horse and marveled how such a simple, straightforward stylist is so extraordinarily popular with kids, but then he is a grand storyteller.

I managed to also complete a poem a day since the beginning of the year, did a first draft of one of the two major speeches  I’m giving in October and November. Heidi and I finished up the draft of First Day at Monster K, a picture book Dan Yaccarino wants to illustrate. Got to see the first copies of The Emily Sonnets and the jacket for The Hostage Prince Book 1 of The Seelie Wars.

I spent 3 days in Aberdeenshire with my friends Mike and Susan, a bit fraught because of some serious medical issues they were wrestling with, went to the St Andrews Highland games with Debby and antiquing on another day with her, had lunch with Eleanor Livingston head of STanza the big poetry fest in St Andrews, a lunch with friend Marianna, lunch several times with Christine, did two days a the Edinburgh Fringe with friends Elizabeth and Steven, staying over at their house which is a ten minute train ride from the city (and included a Neil Gaiman/Amanda Palmer concert, and an Alan Reid/Rob Van Sante gig and several other things including some street performers. So I was not neglecting fun.

But mostly it was about the novel. And as of this morning it is DONE. (Unless Debby hates it anew at which point I shall simply shoot myself. Oh wait–I don’t own a gun and hate pain.)

Two poems in celebration:

 

Thought

Sometimes a verse, like a coat, needs refining–

reworking, rezippered, re-buttoned, relining.

 

The Trials

 

Seven bens and seven glens and seven mountain moors,

the Scottish storyteller counts his hero’s trials.

I write that way, crossing the fevered landscape,

sometimes stuck where the peat hags reign,

I am not pulled down easily. I will not fail.

 

Seven bens and seven glens and seven mountain moors,

the hero does not blanch, staunch his wounds,

nor stop to eat or drink. He moves over bogs, through forests.

He has no map, no outline, contract, editor, or plan,

only his horse, his  hawk, his sword,  his heart, his hand.

 

Seven bens and seven glens and seven mountain moors,

Seven visions, seven revisions, seven opening doors.

 

Both poems © 2012 Jane Yolen, all rights reserved