9 posts tagged “poetry”
So my standard format has been to recap my books monthly, but it's beginning to be a bit of a drag for me. I've been reading a lot (for me) and recapping 3-8 books a month is becoming cumbersome. And I don't do a proper review anyway, just spout off about my impressions and opinions about it. (hmmm, maybe that is a review? ;)
So I'm thinking a change is in the air, blog about books when I feel like it, not just because the calendar indicates a month's end.
Except for today, because there's all of April still to cover.
Therefore:
As I mentioned last month, I finished the Yada Yada Prayer Group Series. April saw me read the last 3.
But before that, I read a lovely book of poetry that was highlighted in a back issue of BC's Bookworld mag called Duet for Wings and Earth by Barbara Colebrook Peace. I had a hold for it from my public library for months before they finally got it in and then read it in one sitting one evening when we were in Victoria, the hometown of the poet. In fact, this series of poems originally composed in part for her church's celebration of Advent isn't far from my alma mater and I routinly ran by during my workouts. Small world.
The poems examine the incarnation (Christ coming to earth - God becoming man) through the perseptives of different players in the Christmas story: God, Mary, Joseph, the Innkeeper, the Sheep, the Donkey who carried Mary and even one "for Judas not yet born." It was a delightful read. I recommend it. In fact, it's one I want to add to my own collection for future Advent celebrations for my own family.
An excerpt to carry with you:
All things were before me:
my own necessary death
determined my design for sunlight.
And I loved it.
Not with reservation, sadly. The first part is rough; I had to stop, sob and then return to the novel once the purge was done. There were theological points I didn't agree with, but I didn't find them to really be outside the pall of orthodoxy either. Mind you, I didn't think too hard, either. After all, though allegoric, it is fiction, not a systematic theology text. I wouldn't recommend on derive their entire theology from it, but goodness can be gleaned.
Some small examples in my case, for example: I found myself challenged about how I view God, (as in, do I even take time to consider God's character, or just what he might be like in relation to me) and out of the read grew a longing to spend more time with and get to know Jesus again. My awe of the mysery of threeness and oneness of the Trinity was renewed and deepened.
Out of The Shack and in to... Pakistan, but firs to Russia.
I remember feeling cold and shocked when, in 2004, a school was taken over by Chechnyan forces in Beslan, Russia. The result of that seige was the death of children, teachers and other adults. Unlike a lot of tragedy over the world, it took me a long time to shake this one. I believe it had to do with the fact it happened when I was in the middle of obtaining my own teaching certification. While teaching is really a low-risk occupation here in the West, in war-torn places, teachers are targets. Teachers are that powerful.
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time by Greg Moretenson and David Oliver Relin was given to me my by brother for Christmas. (Astute choice, JT. Thanks.) This book chronicles Mortenson's life from a climber to a humanitarian who devotes his life to raising funds for and building schools (and other community centres) in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The story itself is engaging and inspiring to boot. I appreciated the history of the region, especially given the fall out in terms of terrorism and 'counter-terrorism' in the wake of 9/11. I also enjoyed getting to know about real people who live such lives so far removed from my own.
However, what stayed with me when reflecting on thisbook was the importance - the necessity even - of a balanced education the world over. Part of the rise of fundamentalist Islam took place when madrasses, or religious schools, were built where Pakistan's government had failed to provide adequate schools. (No, I'm not blaming, just saying.) In the abscence of public schools, boys were sent to obtain what education was available to them which began feeding fundamentalism in those regions. Mortenson emphasizes the importance of education for girls, as well. Historically, studies have shown that education girls to at least a grade 5 level will not only improve the lives of those girls, but a whole community helping to alleviate poverty and improving health and infant mortality rates.
This book reminded me that schools are important. It reminded me of that cold feeling I got when I considered my colleagues in Beslan who went to school one day to work, didn't make it home. What if, in all sorts of places in the world, kids had adequate schools to attend and opportunities to learn and dream instead of poverty and despair driving them? What if? I'm reminded that teachers and teaching really matter. Teaching can help save lives and improve lives, build relationships and communities. Teachers are that powerful.
[Ahem. Steps off soapbox.]
Sighs. I've got to take a break. Maybe go read a book or something. Later.
{For 50 in 365, #18 - 23]
The ceremony inaugurating the 44th President of the United States just completed and I find I am elated.
There are a few reasons for this. The most obvious one, a reason I'm sure many, many people share, is the significance of a bi-racial individual holding this office.
The second reason: President Obama opted to have poetry shared as part of this occasion.
Wow.
Elizabeth Alexander wrote and read a wonderful poem. Sure I am an English teacher and take particular joy in a good poem, but there are also poems that touch me as a person, not just an teacher, and this was one of them.
This morning has already started well.
Water will drown you,
fire burn, air escape you,
earth bury you alive. Danger
lurks in the streets.
~S. Sinclair
Here's how things have to work so that Gus will let me brush his teeth! Usually he's content with just holding it, or trying to stick it in his own mouth, but now he wants to brush (another's) teeth, too!
I'm around. And kicking. Most days. Things are humming along and I've been mentally composing posts and never getting to the computer on time. In fact, I'm procrastinating from marking, right now.
We're in the middle of a poetry unit at school so poems have been on the brain. In lieu of 'real' content, I'll share on of my favourites.
Poem
The poem wants to be an extra bone
in the boy. Lonely,
it wants the day to come back for it:
a jacket left at the coat check,
the dance floor deserted.
There is no wisdom in the poem,
but it repeats its small ife as many times
as we ask. The poem is everybody's
mother, remembering what can't be found,
remembering who you are, remembering
what hasn't even happened yet.
-S. Sinclair.
After devouring The Deathly Hallows on the first go, I had to reread it slowly and thoroughly enjoyed it. I also did go back and reread parts of Goblet of Fire and found some passing remarks that came to fruition later (like why the barman at the Hog's Head looked familiar to Harry when he first saw him.)
Had heard much of Rankin and was looking forward to a mystery. A worthwhile read. I actually read it from a three-in-one collection of the Rebus mysteries and may go back one day.
I've had an interest in baby signing but just hadn't gotten much information on it. So I read this book. And I'm slowly trying to get signs to my kiddo, but I it's a long process and frankly, I'm not sure I'm a consistent enough person to keep it up!
Carson's Short Talks was my other poetic endeavor of the summer and I found many interesting and some not so much... though reading them while tired wouldn't help! I have heard that this collection has made its way onto many a syllabus at our country's universities.
And I do wish I was able to be at her reading. I knew Jill only by name for a long time - a friend of a friend, lived in the next town over. But we learned how to sew together one summer. And a few summers later we worked together. That was just before she had her first baby. The same summer was my last in the Fort. Sadly, I haven't seen her since, though we catch snippets of our lives through my mother.
I read her poems - her first full collection, though she's published a chapbook before (yes, I have a signed copy of that, too) - and I love the sense of place because many of her places are mine, too. She lived in the town of the river,and I grew up on the lake, but she knows them both. And when I read these poems, I do feel I am there in spirit.
When I returned to my hometown two months ago for a few days, I noticed the smell of the place, especially the smell of the lake which for me is a odd composite of water, fish guts and cottonwood trees.
And I can smell these things through her verse, though she does not mention them directly. But I understand completely how "the water's yellow with pollen after the weather / and it coats your legs." And when the speaker says "I never knew a lake that wants to kill you so bad" I remember that last summer, looking up the lake with her when things weren't busy and watching the huge dark clouds roll down bringing with it wind and whitecaps and Jill talked about the lives that lake has taken, whether you're on it or not. And suddenly the lake rose up in my imagination and grew a character, a malevolent one, though I still love it. But I see how she's right: death seemed to happen too often around there. I tell myself it's just because it's a small town and it's easier to know about the lives of others in small towns instead of cities. Statistically, I think, we're no different that the cities. That's it. (isn't it?)
I know the bridges, the muddy water, the geese, the wind, the cottonwood, the red-plagued pine, the Carrier, (among other things) that she brings to the page. These poems prompt in me a longing for a place that I miss, for senses responding to the familiar, and a bit of sadness that I don't have that sense of place in my new home. Not yet anyway.
That (and a bit more) just from reading some poems.
And people wonder why poetry is worthwhile.
small-town girl grow, then come home when it moves you, move
with the current and come back by the way of that feeling in your
arm when you sleep on it, follow the voices in your head, that
goodbye goose, goodbye song, the pull of the river in september,
its scaly rib cage showing, breathe deep that full feeling of push
and pull the salmon feel spawning, throwing their used bodies
upstream against the current - small girl, blue-eyed and born
in the north, there's no escaping the feeling of freedom coming
upriver home, rock over rock, wind current, whorl, small townor not, the river moves you.
from the poem Small Town Canada Goose Flyway by Gillian Wigmore.
I'm awake and I shouldn't be. It is far too late. I've been exceptionally worn out these days and when the kids started crying tonight, I could tell it took me out of a dead sleep. And now... well, now I can' t fall back asleep and I'm trying really hard at not being angry about it. After all, what would be the point in that? Who can I be angry with? It's not like it's the kid's fault...
God has given me great energy and strength given how often I've been up at night these past (almost) 10 months; I get through most days without needing to keel over and sleep. But some days, it catches up. Hopefully C. doesn't have to work this weekend (he's on call in case they need support for the flood watches) because on those days I can usually get in some extra hours. I'm really not looking forward to his trip to San Diego - 6 nights and 7 days on my own - *sigh.*
YAWN.
In other news - I know where I'm working once I get off of mat leave in the fall. The school wasn't the closest option but I'm glad it's the smaller one (700 students instead of 1700!!!!) and the kid's daycare is en route - we may even be able to bike there. There were no hassles in establishing my half time assignment either and I'll get to teach classes I've taught before which is great: I have classes that could definitely use some streamlining and reorganizing and for some I just want it to work out better than last time!
The Rivers are rising still, though I've heard rumours that they should be peaking tonight. It's amazing to see how much space the water fills in the river bed, slowly submerging small cottonwood trees, picking up and carrying dead fall and debris, foam floating quickly down looking like something belched up from the river's muddy water. And to think that in two months it will be a slow, smooth, smaller river, perfect for tubing.
I realized that living near the coast I missed this seasonal ebb and flow. C. (a coastal boy) still sometimes refers to the 'high tide'. "It's high water, dear. Rivers and lakes don't have tides."
I wish I could see my Lake this year - I expect it will be higher than normal - the rivers to the east and west of it are making the news because of floods and evacuations. Houses at the south end will be sandbagged and the water will spill across the road near the marina, into the ditch on the other side, making those people walking The Loop come home with squishy socks in their shoes.
wow- I miss that place some times...
I received a book of poetry from my mom, written by a local area poet who I know. She writes about my Lake, the rivers in the area and I cried reading about things I had forgotten, things so familiar to me.
I hope that my kid has a sense of place like that as he grows up. That is one thing we hope for in living near the river - space to play in bushes (meager as they may be) and watersides and room to explore. Do kids get much of that these days? I see some children down at the water's edge (not now, with it's dangerous currents) and I'm glad that they are there, seeing the River's ragged edges and not the manicured ones downtown. Getting to know this place.
I'm going to try and sleep again now.
I'm not going to proofread this. Forgive a tired English teacher her spelling and grammatical errors. You know what I mean.
I discovered swap-bot a few weeks back and have been doing stuff with it ever since. I like playing with paper and collaging but I like it even better if I have direction or goal. In this case, it heads off in the mail to some one for them ot (hopefully) enjoy. And then the return pleasure is two-fold: I get cool stuff and I get cool stuff in the mail! (It's fun to see that someone else besides my credit card company loves me!) I also like picking up the pretty new stamps.
One swap I was just a part of was a Shakespeare themed - in honour of the Bard's birthday this month. Here were the offerings I gave to Canada Post last week:
<--- This one was inspired by some words of Friar Laurence in Romeo & Juliet: "These violent delights have violent ends, / And in their triumps die like fire and powder / Which as they kiss, consume...
Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so."
I find that when I teach this play I like to highlight this quotation. So much of love to many teens is based on this sense of unbridled passion portrayed, well, almost everywhere in our society and there is something to be said for the 'slow-burning' kind of love, the kind that sticks around and doesn't scorch you heart.
This one is based on one of my favourite of Shakespeare's sonnets, #73. In fact, when were were offered bonus points on the final exam of my Shakespearean play class by memorizing one of the sonnets, this is the one I chose - I already had pieces of it in my head.) You can read the sonnet here. In this poem, the speaker comments on his own impending death using images of ash, a setting sun and falling leaves and then praises the one who still loves them, despite their death. The ending couplet goes like this: "This thou perceiv'st which makes thy love more strong, / To love that well which thou must leave 'ere long.
Hmmm, I'm just realizing the common denominator here! What I love in this sonnet is that is praises love that sticks around, even in death.
Is commitment really that rare these days? *sigh*
And now, off to do some knitting for my next swap...
The Mystery
Can't talk about it,
don't know if anybody else even feels it,
animals live in it, maybe they don't know it's there,
little kids the same;
grownups act oblivious - situation normal.
Half the time I just mooch along, then I laugh too loud.
But it catches me late at night, or in winter when
branches glow with snow against the bark, or some dumb old
song cracks me up and I want to go
howl in the city, or smash windows, or make my
life sheer shine in this miracle ache of a world.
-Dennis Lee
from
