Month: January 2020

ORDINARY HAZARDS, BY NIKKI GRIMES (and another haiku of a president)

I can’t believe another Friday is here! Thank you, Jone Rush MacCulloh, for hosting Poetry Friday at Deo Writer. A journal give away, don’t miss it!

Last week I posted two novels in verse and one memoir in verse. This week I read another wonderful memoir in verse.

At a Highlights retreat I attended over a year ago, Nikki Grimes, the award winning author of numerous books for young people, talked with attendees about her work in progress, a memoir in verse, about her troubled but fascinating childhood. She spoke with much insight about the challenge of retrieving memories. And in ORDINARY HAZARDS, she writes:

                      THE MYSTERY OF MEMORY #4
                       
                       Where do memories hide?
                          They sneak into
                        Hard-to-reach crevices,
                       and nestle quietly until
                          some random thought
                         or question burrows in,
                          hooks one by the tail
                               and pulls
                       Finally, out into the light
                                it comes,
                               sheepishly.

Nikki Grimes writes so honestly in poems about the struggles she faced beginning in the 1950’s as a very small girl. This includes her mother’s mental illness, a frightening foster care system, poverty, assaults and bullying by local gang members, and sexual abuse by her step-father, to name some of the “hazards” she encountered. And overlying all of this is one of the largest, the ever present racism that she, as black person, faced every day. The setting is New York City.

Nikki moves from home to home, school to school, often feeling like an outsider. She writes in her notebook concerning one of her foster homes:

Notebook

"Don't get comfortable,"
my foster sister Grace tells me.
"You don't belong here."
Thanks a lot! Like I don't know
I don't belong anywhere . . .

She describes her relationship with her mother who was schizophrenic, alcoholic, and unreliable. But it’s clear how important her mother is in these evocative lines.

SIZE DOESN'T MATTER

Four-foot-nine.
Such a tiny person
to have her initials
carved so deeply into
the meat of my soul.

There is a lot of heartbreak in these pages, but this memoir is also full of joy.

She writes about her many blessings, such as her sister’s affection, her faith in God, the comfort she discovers in books, her gift for writing, teachers who encourage, school friends, a father who was there to support her as an artist, amazing mentors, such as James Baldwin, who when she was a teen, asked to see her work, and always, her indomitable spirit. She more than survives.

She meets others who provide a larger, world view. In her notebook is this excerpt:

Notebook

"This too shall pass,"
my teacher tells me.
I'd suck my teeth and turn away,
but I don't because 
Mrs. Wexler told me
she's a Holocaust survivor,
and I read
The Diary of Anne Frank

It’s impossible to do justice to ORDINARY HAZARDS with these few lines. It must be read and it’s well worth the time.

Now, as for a poem of mine to share here at Poetry Friday, I’ll share a fifth “Guess who haiku,” about yet another president.

Does anyone recognize this guy? Read on.

 Soon after the war
 declared Reconstruction done—
 fear ruled the bayous.


 

 #19 RUTHERFORD B. HAYES (1877-1881) This president removed all the troops from the South, ending Reconstruction. He believed in racial equality but wrongly believed Southern whites would treat blacks fairly. A hundred years of lynching and other violence against blacks followed.

Three Novels in Verse (and a tanka about a president)

My thanks to Kathryn Apel for hosting Poetry Friday! My heart aches when I hear about all the fire and loss in her country. I’m so grateful she took the time during this busy time to send us a poem.

I’ve been disturbed this week with politics, but Poetry Friday provides some relief. Briefly here I will mention three great reads I recently read and at the end share another poem, a tanka, of our first president.

When reading a middle grade or YA novel, the reader wants to find out early what the main character desires and not be confused on page twenty wondering, “What does this character want? What’s the story about.” There are many new novels in verse on my reading list, but here are three that hooked me right away and kept me reading..

SOARING EARTH, a memoir in verse by Poet Laureate for Young People, Margarita Engle, opens with a lovely poem narrated in first person by the author as a 13 year old girl.

EARTHBOUND (First Two Stanzas)

Summer visits to the enchanted air of Trinidad de Cuba are
illegal now, transforming my mother's hometown into
a mystery of impossibility, no longer reachable
in real life

My roaming dreams can only ramble through the library,
dancing on flat, shiny pages, across all the countries of
National Geographic magazine, cooing villages
with brilliant sunlight, bright parrots, green jungles,
tropical heat.

She is a curious girl who can only dream of Cuba, her mother’s “enchanted” place of birth, a place illegal for them to visit.

The protagonist, a “bookworm,”is too young to travel anywhere and “can only ramble through the library.” Her longing builds in subsequent poems. She wants to learn, grow up, leave home, and find her voice, a desire which will reach readers no matter what race and nationality.

And in the contemporary novel in verse, ALL OF ME, by Chris Baron, main character, Ari, tells us in the first poem what he wants, to fit in. 

BEFORE SUMMER (first two stanzas of seven)

WHO AM I?

The life in my head seems
so different from the life outside
where I am so big
that everyone stares,
but no one sees the real me.

My name is Ari Rosensweig.
This year, I am the newest seventh grader
at Mill Valley Middle School.
I have sandy-brown hair
and green eyes like my father's.
I'm average height, but

I am a fat kid, and I hate it when
people call me names.

What will Ari do? He is a Californian, a Jewish boy struggling with his weight, bullying, a distant father and a looming Bar Mitzvah. I was hooked and liked him right away, a courageous boy who doesn’t give up. He faces his problem as best he can. The author’s attitude towards body image and weight was understanding and compassionate.

OTHER WORDS FOR HOME by Jasmine Warga, like Engle’s book, is about a girl with a foot in two cultures. After fleeing war torn Syria with her mother to stay with her doctor uncle in America, Jude struggles with this new culture. What does she want? It’s complex. At first, in Syria, she wants her family to be safe and we sense the danger she faces right away. But later, after fleeing to America, she is a teen who wants to be accepted in an often hostile social environment: 

XIII (stanzas 3-7 out of 10)

Back home
food was
rice
lamb
fish
hummus
pita bread
olives
feta cheese
za'atar with olive oil.

Here, 
that food is
Middle Eastern food.
Baguettes are French food.
Spaghetti is Italian food.
Pizza is Both American and Italian
depending on which restaurant you go to.

every food has a label.
It is sorted and assigned.

Just like I am no longer 
a girl. 
I am a Middle Eastern girl.
A Syrian girl.
a Muslim girl.

Americans love labels.
They help them know what to expect.
Sometimes, though,
I think labels stop them from 
thinking.

Yes, America loves labels. They too easily define everything for us. Warga paints colorful images in her free verse poems. Like Ari in ALL OF ME, she is courageous and I cheered as she overcame many struggles.

All of these were stories had strong hooks and I enjoyed every page. Now for the rest of the new novels in verse sitting on my desk!

Before I close, here is a tanka about our first president: 

 GEORGE WASHINGTON

 Indispensable! 
 He patched together ragged,
 hungry men, and won!
 This clever man was a star. 
 Crown and throne? Thank you, but no.
 

 #1 GEORGE WASHINGTON (1789-1797)  Our first President was a warrior, farmer, surveyor, horseman, accomplished dancer, and gentleman, famous even before the American Revolution. His picture hung in every home in America. He was asked to be a king, like George of England, but refused. He wanted to help create a different kind of government.

©Janice Scully 2020

Poet Aileen Fisher: living close to nature and writing for the child you used to be.

Welcome to Poetry Friday, hosted this week at READING TO THE CORE. Here you will find an interesting quote by Flannery O’Connor and a few engaging haiku. Thank you!

The place to begin learning about children’s poet Aileen Fisher(1906-2002) is Renée LaTulippe’s video library at her website No Water River. Here you will find Renée’s interview with Lee Bennett Hopkins about Fisher, the recipient of the 1978 NCTE award for children’t poetry. She authored over 100 books for children.

Aileen Fisher lived close to nature, was someone who would not have had to alter one bit her lifestyle in the face to our global warming crisis. She preferred being home and didn’t fly. For part of her life she lived in a cabin near Flagstaff Arizona with no electricity. She grew her own vegetables. She chose trousers over dresses and was an avid hiker and dog walker, an outdoors woman, always observing nature, the inspiration for so much of her poetry. She was modest, eschewing public recognition and declined traveling even to attend the ceremony, where she received the 1978 NCTE award for children’t poetry.

I began with the 2002 anthology of her work, I HEARD A BLUEBIRD SING, edited by Bernice Cullinan and illustrated by Jennifer Emery. It is a collection of her poems chosen by children. She wrote about nature and also friendship, family and the seasons. Here’s one about our planet:

THE SPINNING EARTH (First and third stanzas) 

The earth, they say,
spins round and round.
It does't look it
from the ground,
and never makes a spinning sound.

And houses don't go whirling by,
or puppies swirl around the sky,
or robins spin instead of fly.

As a child, I remember wondering how the earth could be traveling so fast, yet everything around me appear calm. She did too, apparently.

She wrote about pets. You will notice that her poems are rich with sounds and images:

MY CAT (One of two stanzas)

My cat rubs my leg
and starts to purr
with a soft little rumble,
a soft little Whirr,
as if she had motors
inside of her.

And another humorous one:

CAT BATH (The last two of four stanzas)

I watch and I think
it's better by far
to splash in a tub
with soap in a bar

And washcloth in hand
and towel on the rung
than to have to do all
the work BY TONGUE.

Indeed! A child would enjoy imagining that..

Why am I presenting poems about cats? I chose that topic because my son has a new addition to his household, a cat named Marshmallow. He’s a city cat and quite beautiful. I believe Aileen Fisher might feel a twinge of sadness that he rarely gets to go outdoors.

MARSHMALLOW

So, for this week’s Poetry Friday, I came up with this:

A CONVERSATION WITH MARSHMALLOW

What is it like
to be a posh city cat?
Is it possible you actually
prefer life like that? 

Which mouse do you play with,
which stuffed little prey?
Do you enjoy mischief
or snoozing away?

And do you feel lonely
at home the whole day?
If you could tell me
what would you say?

© Janice Scully 2020

Aileen Fisher said, “Poetry is a rhythmical piece of writing that leaves the reader feeling that life is richer than before.” Lee Bennett Hopkins tell us that she wrote for the child that she used to be. If her inner child liked a poem, she figured her audience would too. In her opinion, to write for kids, “You really don’t have to grow up.”

Thank you, Aileen Fisher!

Poet James S. Tippett

Welcome to Poetry Friday. Our host today is Sally Murphy. Thank you, Sally, for hosting and my thoughts are with her and her country in the struggle against the horrendous fires. Sally has shared a soothing poem about the beach and also the good news that she is busy compiling a list of her favorite novels in verse. I’ll look forward to seeing her recommendations.

My post today is about something I’ve been exploring, that is, the work of the first American children’s poets.

James Sterling Tippett (1985-1958) is an American children’s poet who anyone writing for children can learn from. He saw the world from a child’s perspective and it’s clearly evident in his gentle rhyme and in his subjects, still relevant today. As a boy, he lived on his grandfather’s farm in Missouri, but as a young man he moved to Nashville then New York to teach. He wrote of the country and the city with authority.

Crickety Cricket: The Best-Loved Poems of James S. Tippet, is an anthology of his work illustrated by Mary Chalmers.

This is one of those many books I wish I had read to my boys when they were little. First, a sample of his poems about the country and nature:

FAMILIAR FRIENDS (The first of three Stanzas) 

The horses, the pigs,
And the chickens,
The turkeys, the ducks
And the sheep!
I can see all my friends
From my window
As soon as I waken
from sleep.

Because of copyright restrictions, I’ll stop here, but I will say that the poem continues with images of a cat walking a fence, geese swimming, a pony trotting, Cows switching flies, and a mother dog with a surprise of new pups. There is a lot of action in this simple poem. 

HOUSE FOR BLUEBIRDS (two of four stanzas) 

Bluebirds,
Come to this house
Which we have hung
For you and your young.

We made a little porch
Where you can sit.
Please, bluebirds,
Come and look at it.

The reader feels the longing in the child’s voice. It’s a sweet poem. Unfortunately, for a child, when you have a bird house, immediate occupancy is unlikely.

In contrast to his poems about farm life, he writes poems about city life. He wrote about the subway and he also wrote about the mystery of an apartment buildings:

THE ROOF (two of four stanzas)

At the top of the stairway
We open a door
And there is the roof
Spread out like a floor.

There are little roof-houses
Behind which we hide
And many tall pipes
And a wall at the side.

To a child living in an apartment building or not, the roof must indeed seem like a world apart, a mysterious place.

It helps me in my efforts to write for kids, to look at poets that came before, like Tippett. Their images and vocabulary are still evocative even for kids today, which I find rather comforting.

Here’s a nature poem I wrote that I’ll share. It’s inspired by a walk my husband and I take along a stream that sometimes is full of frogs. It sat at the bottom of this leafy wall of shale. Sorry, no frogs today! You have to imagine them hiding.

MORNIN’, FROGS!
 
 I thump my feet
 as I walk by the stream.
 Hear the frogs fly,
 fleeing from me.
 
 I mean no harm.
 I'd fancy to be them.
 But they hide under rocks,
 and won't let me
 see them.
 
© Janice Scully 2020

Fog by Carl Sandburg

I woke one morning while I was away with my family in Vermont last week. Outside, the sky was white and mist settled down on the streets. It reminded me of one of a poem I love, FOG, by Carl Sandburg, written in 1916. 

FOG

The fog comes in
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

What a perfect metaphor, fog as a living thing, a mysterious cat that creeps in, ever so slowly, opaque, finding a perch, and thinking about who know what. It leaves when it wants.

I wrote the following poem about ten years ago and was my attempt at using metaphor to describe a common winter phenomenon. Have you every lay in bed awake in the early morning when the snow plow passes? 

THE SNOW PLOW

Rattles outside.
Gold lights flicker
in the early morning
like a watchman passing
with a lantern,

The lights circle
my bedroom wall
fade and vanish.
Later, out in the street--
boot prints.

© Janice Scully 2020

Happy New Year Everyone. January first is my favorite holiday, full of possibility and hope. I hope it’s a good year for everyone.

Thank you, Carol, for hosting at Carol’s Corner where you will find a poem that is perfect for the beginning of a new year.