Great Crested Flycatcher

Poetry and Tree Climbing

2012-02-16T13:03:00.006-05:00

It all makes sense! A neuroscientist writes HERE that poetry comes from our tree-climbing ancestors. It's all about synesthesia: about the connection between the mental map of branches we need to be able to see, and the mental map of branches that we need to be able to feel. And here is my grandmother, not too many years before she died.

Things in my Neighborhood

2012-02-15T15:06:00.009-05:00

I love walking. I love walking in new places, and I love walking in my own neighborhood. Here are a few things I saw today:

Color when you need it. We love northern cardinals here in Michigan.

And seed hearts.

And snug, cozy places.

Old Poems on a New Blog

2012-02-09T15:26:00.007-05:00

Two of my poems that originally appeared in Sugar House Review are now featured online. Daniel Luevano created his blog to give poems from the printed page a new home in the virtual world. I like what he's doing and I'm delighted to have "The Ringmaster" and "The Pawnbroker" included on the site. You can find them here.

Vaclav & Lena & Childhood Friends

2012-02-09T14:47:00.008-05:00

This book is full of quietly powerful moments. I finished it a couple of days ago, but the deep friendship between Vaclav and Lena keeps floating to the surface of my thoughts, bumping into other thoughts. V&L are children (for most of the book) in a Brooklyn neighborhood full of Russian immigrants. Their story, though wildly different in many ways from my own story, has in it something familiar: unending friendship. It's a story about what it means to have (as the inside jacket says), "an everlasting connection with someone else." Childhood friendship, at its best, can feel like that, can become that. My friend Maureen at Rose Water & Orange Blossoms wrote about it today, and I have carried her post close to my heart on this sunny, snowless, winterless winter day.

Books and Weather

2012-01-03T13:29:00.006-05:00

An update. Where does one begin after long silence? Weather and books?

It’s 21 degrees and sunny and I am thinking of ice. It was hard and smooth at the cottage, and magical, as always. I shoveled and skated and shoveled and skated. And I read, beginning with Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station (Coffee House Press). Good for Schuler’s for stocking small press books! It’s a great book, comic and sad and thoughtful. Here’s a passage:

“…in the ensuing silence I tried hard to imagine my poem’s relation to Franco’s mass graves, how my poems could be said meaningfully to bear on the deliberate and systematic destruction of a people or a planet, the abolition of classes, or in any sense constitute a significant political intervention. I tried hard to imagine my poems or any poems as machines that could make things happen, changing the government or the economy or even their language, the body or its sensorium, but I could not imagine this, could not even imagine imagining it. And yet when I imagined the total victory of those other things over poetry, when I imagined, with a sinking feeling, a world without even the terrible excuses for poems that kept faith with the virtual possibilities of the medium, without the sort of absurd ritual I’d participated in that evening, then I intuited an inestimable loss, a loss not of artworks but of art, and therefore infinite, the total triumph of the actual, and I realized that, in such a world, I would swallow a bottle of white pills.”

Those white pills are rather prevalent in the book, and by the time I was halfway into the novel I hardly wanted to swallow my daily vitamin.

After Lerner’s book, I moved to The Story of Charlotte’s Web, by Michael Sims. Strange transition indeed, but it worked. Then I began Haruki Murakami’s new book, 1Q84. It’s good, but I’m not yet halfway into it. It’s more than 900 pages.

I love these quiet months ahead. Days of sunshine and snow and cold weather and books. Happy New Year!

September Morning

2011-09-20T15:08:00.008-04:00

This morning was beautifully soft: damp and fuzzy, with the promise of sunshine. Gibson and I went for a walk and visited the gardens on campus. There were spider webs everywhere, thick and intricate. Look at the top of the first picture...don't those silky horizontal lines look like telephone wires after rain?

What I Want to Read

2011-09-19T14:42:00.014-04:00

I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but come on, this is cool: it's Thomas Hart Benton! I hope those Farrar, Straus & Giroux publicists are sending out lots of posters and bookmarks with this one.

To be fair to myself, my interest in this novella started with what I read in yesterday's New York Times Book Review, which does not even feature an image of the book cover. For reviewer Anthony Doerr, part of what makes the book so compelling is its length: 116 pages. "One airplane flight, or one shady afternoon in a chair somewhere, and you'll have passed through the entire thing." O.K. That's not a ringing endorsement. The "Don't worry! It will all be over soon!" bit (no, I'm not quoting Doerr there) sounds more like what your dentist says before filling a cavity. But Doerr is onto something. Here's more about that in his review:

In an 1842 review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales," Edgar Allan Poe said that apart from poetry, the form most advantageous for the exertion of "highest genius" was the "short prose narrative," whose length he defined as taking "from a half-hour to one or two hours in its perusal." Novels, Poe argued, were objectionable because they required a reader to take breaks. "Worldy interests intervening during the pauses of perusal," he wrote, "modify, annul or counteract, in a greater or less degree, the impression of the book." Because you have to stop reading novels every now and then -- to shower, to eat, to check your Twitter feed -- their power weakens.

All of that aside, Train Dreams sounds like a book I'd love. It has biplanes, six-horse teams, wolves, coyotes, logging gangs, and, of course, trains.

Also, for those who are interested in this sort of comparison, Doerr's review is fun to read just before or just after Ann Patchett's introduction to The All Of It (see blog post below). Doerr first read Train Dreams in a 2002 issue of The Paris Review. He has a proprietary feeling about Johnson's book and is reluctant to share it with the masses. ("Because who wants to see her sacred meadow flattened by the sandals of tourists?") Patchett is more generous in her account, and is elated to know the little gem of The All Of It, first published in 1986, has been reissued and is out in the world for all to find.

What I am Reading

2011-08-29T18:28:00.007-04:00

What I am re-reading, really. This chapbook is a thing of beauty, written by Vermont Poet Karin Gottshall and published by Argos Books. Read it from beginning to end in one sitting, because there is a gentle but perfect narrative arc, a cumulative intensity that poetry manuscripts don't always have. Read it soon, while NPR is sharing news about Hurricane Irene's staggering damage in Vermont. Read it later, when those stories aren't being told. Read it in the bathtub by candlelight (I did). Read it in the sunshine (I am). It's sad and it's haunting, but it's hopeful too.

Here is where you can order it: http://argosbooks.org

The All of It, or Why I Love Bookstores

2011-08-04T20:36:00.006-04:00

At what point does a recipe become yours? You know that recipe you got from your neighbor when you lived in some other state? Then you moved, and the recipe came with you, and you made the dish for a potluck in your new neighborhood. That night, the recipe became yours, right? Everyone asked you for it, and they came to know it and speak of it as your recipe. But then there’s my (my?) Apple Nut Coffee Cake. It is my mom’s recipe. Within my family, it will always be my mom’s recipe. Outside of my family, it has become mine. But who really ought to get the thanks when someone eats a slice and wants a second slice…and the recipe? What name do I write on the top of the recipe card when I hand it to a friend who has never met my mother? Mine or my mother’s? (My mom says I should put mine, because she's generous like that.) And who did my mother get the recipe from?

I’m thinking along those lines as I try to figure out who to thank for the pleasure of the book I just finished, Jeannette Haien’s The All of It. Do I owe the pleasure of the meal (because every book is a meal) to the author (well, yes!) or to Schuler Books & Music, where it was displayed, and where I discovered it? Or do I owe the pleasure to Ann Patchett, who wrote a forward to the novel? Her name is printed on the cover of the book: “Forward by Ann Patchett,” and that, really, is why I picked it up. I trust her, I believe in her, I’ll read whatever she recommends, and when she writes a forward to a book she loves, I want to read the book…especially when this is part of the endorsement: “I want this book to have a second life because it deserves to be read by many generations to come, but selfishly, I want it back in bookstores because I’m going to need more copies of it. There are so many people who will love it the way I do. It is the surest sign of a great book; the overwhelming desire to give it away.”

For the sake of bookstores everywhere, especially independent ones, let’s thank Schuler’s. I found the book because I was there, and it was there, and I walked by it and wanted to hold it and flip it over and read the back of it and feel it and bring it home and read the all of it. Thank you, Schuler Books & Music. Thank you bookstores everywhere.

Art Lives Here

2011-07-25T13:38:00.012-04:00

Earlier in July, I visited my friend Karin at Interlochen Center for the Arts. It's a really wonderful place, and I love wandering around and listening to all of the fantastic sounds floating out of practice huts and windows. I also love this place, Braeside Recreation Hall.

Hot List for Summer

2011-07-15T19:42:00.006-04:00

Today's New York Times features short profiles from NYT arts critics about their "must do" summer activities. Ben Ratliff wants to listen to bird song, Allan Kozinn needs to hear the annual Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, Jon Caramanica wants to go for a drive with the windows down and listen to loud music, and A.O. Scott wants to watch "Zazie Dans le Metro" again. Me? The top item on my summer hot list is the same every year: I have to get to the cottage. Long enough to spread my books out, unpack my clothes, and settle in. Here are three pictures from this summer:

The Michigan Poet

2011-07-12T20:43:00.007-04:00

The Michigan Poet featured my poem "Hay Season" in the July broadside. They make some beautiful posters, and I'm delighted to be included in the line-up.

City Living. For the Birds.

2011-06-23T10:16:00.003-04:00

This is featured in The New York Times today. Interesting, but the birds are still pecking from a trough. I think it should come with a table and chairs and swanky modern light fixtures.

June

2011-06-18T11:52:00.005-04:00

It's strawberry time here in Michigan, and since Tommy and I picked about 15 pounds yesterday, it also now feels like summer time. I will try to pick more next week.

I'm also reading this:

My aunt in St. Paul loaned this to me last summer, but for some reason I am finally reading it now. It is set (mostly) in Sweden, and I have a peculiar fascination with Sweden. I may not get there, but if I did I think I'd feel at home. And, yes, there is a strawberry patch in the book. But there is a lot more than strawberries growing in the story. I'm halfway into it and have reached that stage of a tale when I carry it around somewhere inside me... penny in my pocket, sweet candy in my mouth, something to savor.

Mackinac Island

2011-06-16T11:37:00.011-04:00

We celebrated my parents' 50th anniversary last weekend on Mackinac Island. What a special occasion, and what a special place.

A cappella Zoo

2011-05-27T10:10:00.008-04:00

Yesterday's New York Times had an article about light bulbs. Confused about new energy laws, some people are stockpiling incandescents. Which made me think of the cover on the current issue of A cappella Zoo. It's odd and weird and wonderful: a man in bed, screwing on a silver-bottomed bulb/head. The issue is full of good stuff inside too. And I'll have a poem in the next issue! Thanks, A cappella Zoo!

Greenfield Village

2011-05-14T13:51:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I accompanied Tommy and his classmates on a trip to Greenfield Village. We'd been there on a cold December night a few years ago, which was neat, and I'd been there as a girl, but it was nice to be back on a warm day in May.

The Round House:

Cotswold Cottage:

Robert Frost's House:

Charleston

2011-05-10T13:02:00.008-04:00

Photography by Paolo Ventura

Spring is here, but it was slow to come. I was particularly glad to get a sneak peek of sunshine and blossoms in Charleston, and now I find myself visiting Charleston Daily Photo with some regularity. I love that city. I picked up this year's guide to the Spoleto Festival while I was there, and was surprised and delighted to find an announcement for an exhibit of work by Italian miniaturist and photographer Paolo Ventura. It runs May 26 - July 15 at the College of Charleston. I have Ventura's beautiful, haunting book, Winter Stories, and this exhibit will feature the miniatures he photographed for that. I was so excited to learn about this, but then so disappointed not to be there at the right time for it!

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T19:56:00.004-04:00

Gibson (Chocolate Lab) tried to eat this when I hid it in the scilla. Poor egg. Poor scilla. He still thinks it's there, and won't give up looking for it. Maybe I should read aloud to him more often.

What I Want to See

2011-03-20T11:12:00.008-04:00

In today's New York Times, A.O. Scott writes about what the animals in "Rango" and other recent films tell us about ourselves. He reviews (briefly), this film:

Here is what he says, "Its four chapters, proceeding without dialogue and using methods that combine documentary objectivity with Keatonesque sight gags, are miniature biographies of a man, a goat, a tree and some charcoal. Each has its season, its fate, its place in a cosmos whose ordering principles are at once manifest and manifestly unknowable."

A.O. Scott calls it more sublime than "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," which I'd also like to see. The review in Slate Magazine is not so favorable. Still, I'm intrigued.

Sugar House Review

2011-02-08T18:01:00.006-05:00

Sugar House Review accepted two of my poems for the Spring/Summer 2011 issue (due out in April). Thanks, SHR!

Poetry and Snow

2011-02-01T12:36:00.004-05:00

A blizzard is on its way and I just learned that Weave Magazine has accepted two of my poems for the summer issue. It's a fantastic combination, imminent snow and forthcoming poems. I have lots of tea and a stack of new library books and there is Hopslam in the garage.

(I love the cover art on this current issue. David Pohl is the artist. When you go to his website, the snow in the picture is animated. Very cool...graceful and whimsical.)

Skittles & Ice

2011-01-07T15:35:00.010-05:00

Here is what the end of December looked like:

My dad made this for me when I was in eighth grade. The board is cherry, the pins and the top are walnut. Inspired after a trip to Berea, Kentucky, when we stayed at an inn with a skittles game in the lobby.

There was also beautiful ice:

John Cage

2010-11-21T14:36:00.013-05:00

Today's New York Times Book Review includes a review of Kenneth Silverman's biography of John Cage, Begin Again. I'd like to read it, and I'd like to read Cage's own collection of essays and anecdotes, Silence. John Adams wrote the review and concludes it with this observation: "What emerges most powerfuly in Begin Again is Cage's enormous capacity for work, together with his exceptional self-discipline as an artist (something learned from Schoenberg) and his willingness to approach every new challenge with a beginner's mind."

That idea of using a "beginner's mind" for every artistic challenge is key to Cage, and key to any creative process. Curiosity, imagination, and a willingness to believe in unconventional conclusions are assets of the "beginner's mind." They're innate -- they're part of the "beginner's mind" -- and yet, oddly or interestingly, they are not always or automatically transferred to the "experienced brain." Art is impossible without them.

What Matters in the End

2010-10-01T09:18:00.004-04:00

In Wednesday's New York Times, there was a story about a small pocket of Switzerland where Romansh is spoken. The number of Romansh speakers peaked in the early 19th century, but the peak amounted to about 2.2 percent of the total Swiss population.

Bookseller Elisabeth Maranta owns a store in that small pocket of Switzerland. When she was asked why most of the books in Romansh she sells are poetry, she said, "When a patient is dying, he writes only poetry."

Living with Emerson's Ghost

2010-09-28T14:50:00.020-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I saw an article in The New York Times about a young couple who recently became the new caretakers of the Ralph Waldo Emerson House in Concord. They are both 27-years-old and, until recently, knew little about Emerson. The opportunity to live rent-free in a very cool place held obvious appeal, and now they are responsible for a household full of history: china, 127 mirrors, paintings, photographs, candlesticks, clocks, pin cushions, gardens, hedges, grapevines. It's a museum, but when the tourists leave, they get to have friends over! They drink wine in Emerson's house! They read and talk and laugh in the rooms where Emerson read and talked and laughed. They use his furniture!

About ten years ago, we were in Boston at the same time my mom and dad happened to be in Boston. They were visiting friends, and they were headed to Naulakha, Rudyard Kipling's house in Vermont. The home is owned by Landmark Trust USA, an organization that saves and protects historic properties. It's modeled after Landmark Trust in Great Britain, and it allows people to stay in these historic properties, surrounded by antiques and original furnishings. We wound up staying at Naulakha too, and it was wild and fantastic to sleep in that house, to eat there, to sit in Kipling's chair and read. Like the new caretakers of Emerson's house, we were trusted with that house. We were unsupervised, and had the the home to ourselves. We cooked, we explored, we read, we played pool on the third floor, we slept, and we left feeling as though we had acquired a strange new understanding of Kipling -- an intimacy I would not, previously, have thought possible. Landmark's founder seemed to recognize the appeal (and the advantage) of this opportunity when he said, "We believe that by using buildings in this way--where possible combined with ordinary public access--the maximum number of people get the most from them; and that many visitors who go just for a holiday come back with their interest aroused in what they have found there."

Andrea Lieberg, one of the new caretakers of the Emerson house, documents her experiences in a blog, afarmerinthedell.wordpress.com, which is worth checking out. (I can't seem to create the direct link.)

And here, because I can't resist posting this too, is a picture of Naulakha:

Improvements

2010-07-14T20:44:00.012-04:00

Tommy added two logs to his raft, giving him a bit more floatation. And he drops an anchor and fishes from it now.

Gibson loves the river. (We had to coax him in last summer.)

And the sun keeps perfecting its slant.

Summer

2010-06-25T09:16:00.015-04:00

Summer, so far, has included a few homemade banana shakes, a few trips to Tasty Twist, a little bit of baseball, and some good books. We've also visited my sister, who flew in from Austin; watched freighters in the St. Clair River from the dock at The River Crab; picked strawberries; and camped in our special place, the land in Oceana County which was my great-grandfather's.

Here are a few pictures from the camping trip.

And here are a few pictures from the morning we picked strawberries. We stopped at Sweetie-licious first for muffins.

First Camping Trip of 2010

2010-06-01T10:10:00.006-04:00

We had a fantastic trip over to Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area last weekend. We hiked in and camped and had a fine site with a beautiful view, which we shared with friends who drove up from Chesterton, Indiana. There were so many good things about the trip: friends, pie irons over the campfire, morning coffee, middle-of-the-night loon calls, good wine, sound of waves, sound of wind, and good books. Last week, as I was packing for the trip, a package arrived from my friend Karin with a copy of The Cosmopolitan, poems by Donna Stonecipher. It's strange and wonderful and quite compelling -- and really fantastic to read in a tent! Stonecipher includes this note to the reader, which is an interesting (and helpful) introduction to the book:

These poems were written while I was thinking about my generation's relationship to quotation and collage. After a visit to the Metropolitan Museum's furniture collection, during which I looked at the inlaid furniture, followed by an encounter in another museum with one of Joseph Cornell's boxes, in which a postcard was hung by a pin, the first Inlay was born. As with these relationships, the inlaid quotes here are (mostly) autonomous within the surrounding poems; the quotes are from books I happened to be reading during the period the poems were written, when I was living in Berlin.

Several years ago, I read Michael Redhill's Martin Sloane, a novel rooted in the art of Joseph Cornell. I am finding extra pleasure in Stonecipher's book because of that experience.

Here is the view from inside the tent:

And our little fire the first night there:

Jim the Boy

2010-05-25T09:36:00.007-04:00

Tommy called me from school yesterday with a stomach ache, wondering if I could come get him. That's a rare call -- I don't think I've gotten one this year -- and I went right away. He never actually got sick, but he felt miserable enough that all he wanted to do was lie in bed and listen to me read. I was happy to do that, and it was a treat to have him home and have that time to read. We started Jim the Boy, by Tony Earley. It's about a boy in rural North Carolina in the first half of the 20th Century. The boy's father died a week before he was born, and he is being raised by his mother and her three brothers (one a farmer, one a cotton gin operator, and one a storekeeper...though they all help with the farm work). It's also about a time and a world that is not entirely gone, but is certainly more than endangered. It's a time and a world that I want Tommy to carry somewhere inside him, and I think he does, and I think he will. He loves the book, and I don't think he'd love it if he didn't already have some of that world in him.

This morning I read an op-ed piece by David Brooks in The New York Times. Midway through, there is this: "Burke, a participant in the British Enlightenment, had a different vision of change. He believed that each generation is a small part of a long chain of history. We serve as trustees for the wisdom of the ages and are obliged to pass it down..." Yes. And Tommy is getting some of that wisdom from Tony Earley and Jim the Boy.

A Modest Proposal

2010-05-22T12:23:00.004-04:00

I love libraries. I think I’ve made that clear in previous posts. I love libraries in general and I love, specifically, those libraries that feel like home to me. I love the East Lansing Public Library, and I love the people who work there: a fantastic staff of children’s librarians who are kind, patient, generous, and funny; several friendly, approachable reference librarians who are smart and curious and helpful; and all of the people who greet me with smiles when I walk in, who help me check-out my selections when I am ready to leave, and who accept my payments for overdue books with grace and diplomacy and never make me feel embarrassed for my irresponsibility.

I don’t, generally, feel too bad about giving money to the library. It goes to a good cause! I’m still getting a tremendous value! (I have, on several occasions, checked out my maximum of 30 books; and librarians have, on several occasions, purchased books they did not have when I requested them.) But sometimes I discover a New Release Book, which can only, legally, be checked out for two weeks. And sometimes two weeks is not long enough with something you love. And sometimes I keep things longer than I am supposed to, and then it becomes rather more like renting books than borrowing books. So it is, or so it will soon be, with John McPhee’s Silk Parachute. I’m a huge McPhee fan. I own at least one copy of most of his books, and in some cases I have duplicates so I can loan them out without fear. When I saw Silk Parachute on the New Release Shelf I had to have it, which is to say I had to borrow it, which is to say I am now renting it. It is overdue, and I really need to get it turned in and settle up my account. But this time I’m battling a new sort of agitation and guilt. By borrowing (renting) this book from the library, I’ve had a chance to read it and am now less inclined to purchase it. When I pay my fines, I will be paying, in part, for the pleasure of reading the book, and I feel as though some of that should go to the author. I know: the library purchased his book. They can collect the overdue fines. BUT… shouldn’t authors of Books Too Good to Return on Time get a cut too? What a fantastic poster that would make: 20 Percent Of All Overdue Fines Go Directly To The Author! It could add up…

Quiet, Please

2010-05-21T09:48:00.005-04:00

On Tuesday, this article appeared in The New York Times. It is titled "Meditations on Noise," and subtitled, "Three Explorations of a Cacophonous World." In it, Dwight Garner reviews three books about silence and noise. I read it with some interest because, as Garner writes, "noise is among the thorniest class issues of our time." True.

For years, I have (silently) resented the intrusion of noise in our neighborhood. I notice it most in the summer, when the windows are open and when long days of heat and languor are frequently disrupted by an invasion of industrial-size lawn mowers and weed whackers. Our lots are small in this neighborhood, and yet all day trucks pull in and out, pulling trailers with equipment designed for big places. There is no efficiency in this outsourcing: people hire all different landscaping companies to perform this work, which means the jobs are spread out not just throughout the day, but throughout each week. I keep thinking it would be great if those who use these services could somehow organize them, or organize themselves, so that people on one street contracted with one company. In this scenario, one designated bid-winning company could come out on one day of the week and consolidate those jobs into one afternoon. It would seem that one extended but consolidated time of sonic disruption would be less annoying than many.

Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that many of those who use landscaping crews are not home when these crews show up. The noise isn't affecting them. And it's not just the big mowers that are noisy. Any two-cycle engine is. Add to this the reality that when people are busy, they mow when it is convenient for them...Sunday mornings and weekend evenings. The city's noise ordinance prohibits "construction noises" on Sundays, and there is some mention of engine exhaust, but two-cycle engines are not specifically addressed. It surprises me, a bit, to wish this, but in the (growing) absence of neighborly consideration, I think it would help to impose some formal regulations on the use of two-cycle engines. As in, here are the hours of the day during which a two-cycle engine can be operated. If you operate a two-cycle engine outside of these hours, you may be fined. "Construction noises" are limited to the hours between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. Fair enough: when you're getting a new roof and you've got one sunny day to get it on, you need a crew to start early and finish late. But I don't want to hear a lawn mower at 7:30 a.m. when I'm drinking coffee, and I don't want to hear a lawn mower at 6:30 p.m. when I'm eating dinner, and I don't want to hear a lawn mower every 45 minutes throughout the day.

I know this is an awfully grumpy post. It just seems that, come summertime, it ought to be quiet enough to hear what I like to think are the true sounds of the neighborhood: a toddler crying a few houses down, somebody playing a piano, cicadas, birds, silverware clinking on a patio at dinnertime.

Moon Pie and Sunshine

2010-05-21T09:01:00.005-04:00

Today is a lovely rainy day, but we've had some real sun too. I've weeded and planted and run, and now it's a good morning to spend at the computer, drinking coffee. Coffee, though, is making me want something more than toast, and I can't stop thinking about Zingerman's Moon Pie, which I finally tried on Wednesday. I see them every time I go to the Co-op, but I usually buy something on the savory spectrum...focaccia with cheese and tomatoes. Wednesday I bought a moon pie, which I brought home and ate in the sunshine. Two days later, I'm still thinking about cake and butter cream dipped in dark chocolate. I even wrote a poem about the moon.

Good News

2010-04-29T13:22:00.008-04:00

It's April, National Poetry Month, and though I didn't commit to the poem-a-day production schedule which I managed last year, my friend Karin and I did swap work, which is immensely satisfying. And I've received good news! A couple of weeks ago, The Literary Bohemian accepted three poems, and today I learned The Vermont Literary Review accepted two!

Good Things of Campus

2010-04-28T15:21:00.013-04:00

I'm on the MSU campus a lot -- we use it like a big park -- and every time I run there, I see interesting things...someone kayaking the rapids in late winter after the thaw; someone stretched on the grass, drawing; someone reading on the river bank. Today I saw these hanging from the pines behind Kresge Art Museum. (No, I don't run with my camera! I went back and got it today.)

I went inside the museum too, and found some fantastic exhibits, including this (windblown?) house.

Then I decided to find the Center for Poetry at MSU's Residential College in the Arts and Humanities. I met two very friendly people there, one an undergraduate and one an MFA student. They were changing the "Poem of the Day" posted on the bulletin board, so I also came home with a copy of yesterday's: William Kloefkorn's "My Love for All Things Warm and Breathing." It seemed especially appropriate to read in a university hallway.

All of this, just after hearing John Corigliano talk last week in a studio on campus. He was in town for a full week with the MSU College of Music.

Scherenschnitte

2010-04-13T10:29:00.010-04:00

Scherenschnitte is a German word which means "scissor cuts." It's the art of papercutting, and I think it's very cool. A few weeks ago, I found this book at the library. Last week, when Tommy and I went to see my parents, I took the book with me. It was the perfect place to begin a new project. I had tea on the porch with my dad, and while he read, I started cutting. It worked! When my eyes got tired, I rested them on the river. When my fingers got tired, I held a warm tea cup. I copied some of the patterns in the book, and the first design I cut was this folded paper cut ("Two Sisters," as my mom titled it).

I also found a great blog, www.papercutting.blogspot.com, which features many free templates (including a pattern for the first picture I posted, with tall mushrooms and a small rabbit). This is Cindy Ferguson's blog, and, as it happens, Cindy Ferguson contributed several of the patterns featured in my library book, including "Two Sisters" (which she calls "The Twins").

Here is another of Ferguson's designs, which I cut yesterday:

Goodbye Hopslam, Goodbye Winter

2010-03-25T17:07:00.007-04:00

I love this, but I can't find it anywhere. I even bought new glasses -- brandy snifters! -- because it was served in a snifter the first time I had it. The snifters are in the fruit cellar. The beer, I'm afraid, is gone for the season. There are many things I will miss about winter. Snow, at a certain depth, buries some expectations of the day. It's o.k. not to run, it's o.k. to abandon the laundry (Smartwool can be worn for days!), it's o.k. to work on a poem all day (sunshine inside the house on a February afternoon is almost as glorious as sunshine outside). So I'll miss that about winter. It's a time of year when, even though the days are shorter, they almost feel longer. And, apparently, it's the time of year when you can find Hopslam.

Fairy Doors

2010-03-03T18:15:00.008-05:00

Several weeks ago, Tommy and I went to Ann Arbor for the day to eat good food, look for some carving supplies at Hollander's, go ice skating, eat more good food, and look for fairy doors. We didn't find the carving supplies, but we met a very nice man when we were skating who happens to be friends with the Hollanders. Here is how we know that: We commenced to chat, as my mom would say, and he found out we live in East Lansing. He asked us what else we were doing in Ann Arbor, and I told him we went to Hollander's. He asked if we saw Tom and Cindy. I had not told him our names. We were outside and the scrape of blades on ice made it a little hard to hear when someone who started talking also started skating away at the same time. And so the conversation became quite confusing. I heard, "Tom and Cindy," and I said, "Pardon?" He said "Tom and Cindy!" and I said "Pardon?" This went on for some time until we stopped skating and he said, "Tom and Cindy Hollander! They own the place!" I apologized and then I introduced ourselves and it was all quite funny. We did find fairy doors. They're wonderful!

Gardens of America

2010-02-09T10:32:00.005-05:00

We are getting snow, and will get more. It's lovely and I'm glad it's here and glad more is coming, and yet the allure of humidity is strong. I checked this book out of the library and have spent cold afternoons staring intently at the pictures, trying to enter a verdant world. Now it's time to return the book and I'm having a hard time parting company. It's full of quiet pools and terraced gardens and crushed gravel paths and flagged walks and brick walls and fountains and courtyards and clipped ivy and lilacs and camellias and Japanese pavilions and wrought iron gates and statues and secrets. Oh thank you, East Lansing Public Library.

Ficts

2010-01-29T09:38:00.007-05:00

Did I mean Facts? One would think this book has been properly vetted, but some of these facts seem outrageous. So I am calling them Ficts, which has the same number of letters as Facts but suggests a certain... Fictive quality.

Here is a sampling. (For the record, I believe the ficts about Kingsley Amis, Starbucks, and Thoureau. And Disneyland.)

In Paraguay, dueling is legal if both participants are registered blood donors.
-- The Guardian World Cup 2006 Guide

The poet laureate of the United Kingdom is entitled to "a butt of sack per annum" -- 110 gallons of Spanish sherry, or about 630 bottles, each year.
-- Prospect Research

By the late 1970's, Kingsley Amis was spending 1,000 pounds a month on scotch.
-- Bookforum, February/March 2008

Starbucks bought 37 percent of Costa Rica's entire coffee crop in the 2004-05 season.
-- The Economist, April 1, 2006

Henry David Thoreau once burned down three hundred acres of forest trying to cook a fish he had caught for supper.
-- The Times, April 17, 2003

The length of time from invention to application of the ballpoint pen was fifty-eight years; for the zipper, it was thirty-two years.
-- U.K. Department of Trade and Industry

In the UK, the most effective musical deterrents to loiterers and vandals are anything sung by Pavarotti or written by Mozart.
-- The Economist, January 8, 2005

Until the late 1960s, men with long hair were not allowed to enter Disneyland.
-- Prospect Research

The Week in Review

2010-01-15T18:27:00.009-05:00

Here, in no particular order, is a list of good things about the week:

Pesto pizza from Georgio's.

Watching The Brothers Bloom with Thad.

Walking in the Baker Wood Lot with Shanna and Gumbo and Gibson.

Watching Gibson and Gumbo chase each other around a beech tree.

Listening to Tommy play with Legos in the hallway upstairs. Hearing his knees shuffle across the floor, hearing bits of his narration and his various sound effects for helicopters and motercycles, hearing small wheels roll across the floor...

Listening to three boys play with Legos in the hallway upstairs. Listening to them plot, organize, compromise.

Eavesdropping on Tommy's piano lesson.

Watching 4th grade basketball.

Sealing up envelopes stuffed with poetry submissions. Dropping envelopes into the mail box.

Reading to Tommy before bed.

Baking scones for the teachers' luncheon.

Reading Greg Rappleye's poems in the new issue of Shenandoah.

Sunshine.

Snow.

Shoveling.

Dust motes.

Smell of coffee.

Creaks in the floorboards.

Turquoise Smartwool socks.

Winter

2010-01-06T14:14:00.006-05:00

Turgenev

2009-12-15T14:39:00.006-05:00

O.K. One more: a short film adaptation of Ivan Turgenev's "Mumu." The palette of colors is beautiful...muted but rich. Again, thanks to Karin for hooking me on Russian animation....

Russian Animation

2009-12-14T21:49:00.005-05:00

My friend Karin has a history of posting links to wonderful Russian animation films. Her latest link ("The Insects' Christmas," made in 1913) led me on a search to find more treasures. Here is one that is magic. Magic. Thank you, Karin!

A Visit to Hazel Ridge Farm

2009-12-11T09:33:00.007-05:00

Tommy and I had a special outing after school yesterday. I picked him up and we went directly to Hazel Ridge Farm, home of Robbyn Smith van Frankenhuyzen and Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen, for a holiday open house. Gijsbert has illustrated many children's books and Tommy has always liked his work, and always wanted to visit the farm.

The workshop is a wonderful place, full of bookshelves and windows and paint and bits of our natural world. We also walked most of their 40-acre farm, a blend of prairie, ponds, woods, and gardens. Here is the little cabin pictured in Kelly of Hazel Ridge:

Woldumar

2009-12-05T16:48:00.008-05:00

We have our first cold weather of the season. The skim ice is forming on the ponds in Woldumar, but it is not too cold to climb trees.

Woldumar is a beautiful place, with a nice mix of habitat -- wetlands, hardwoods, ponds, and old fields. Bluebirds like the fields, and we saw about five! I took several pictures, but this is probably the best:

Ken Burns

2009-12-03T09:36:00.007-05:00

Last night I heard Ken Burns speak at the Wharton Center. His prepared portion of the evening was really polished, in a rather too polished sort of way, but the Q&A was (naturally) more spontaneous, revealing, and invigorating. He's invigorating because his enthusiasm for his work is visceral and contagious, and his interest in and love for this world is so pure. He has such fiery ambition, he has a record of relentless achievement, and yet he has this great gentleness about him, this calm sort of spirituality that pervades his work. He has defined his work (or others have defined his work...the attribution is sketchy in my head) as "emotional archeology." That's a wonderful description, and it was great to hear him talk about it last night.

Late November

2009-11-30T10:34:00.007-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-24T17:05:00.003-05:00

Glee

2009-11-24T16:05:00.009-05:00

I still have not seen "Glee," the new Fox television series that everyone seems to love. I don't generally watch television, which is why, I suppose, I have not seen "Glee." And I do not generally trust public opinion about television. But something about the dialogue about "Glee" is different -- maybe because "Glee" is different -- and I really want to settle down with a bowl of popcorn and turn on the T.V.

Sunday's New York Times featured an article (a "mashup") by Charles Isherwood about Barbara Cook and "Glee." Here is an excerpt:

"The process by which a gifted singer evolves into a real artist is probably impossible to delineate clearly. It may well be a mystery even to the artists themselves and probably has much to do with age and endurance and learning not to escape into music or stand outside it, judging the performance as they give it, but to live more fully in it. Great singers fold into their songs the scars that life's inevitable setbacks leave upon everyone (and the satisfactions too) without turning singing into raw, formless confessional."

One could substitute "poet" for "singer" and "poems" for "songs" and it would still make good sense.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

2009-11-19T11:47:00.004-05:00

Last year, I bought Lawrence Ferlinghett's Poetry as Insurgent Art at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. It's full of statements that feel like aphorisms, some of which seem a little too simple. But they are fun to read, and the book is the sort of thing one can pick up and consume quickly in one sitting, or, as I sometimes do, pick up and browse one or two pages at a time. Last night, unable to commit to a new book, I read it all again. It's also been several days (oh let's not count) since I've started a new poem, and so I feel restless and unsatisfied. Ferlinghetti's book is the just the thing for these times. Here are some highlights, all quoted directly from the book:

Your language must sing, with or without rhyme, to justify it being in the typography of poetry.

Your life is your poetry. If you have no heart, you'll write heartless poems.

Can you imagine Shelley attending a poetry workshop?

Pursue the White Whale but don't harpoon it. Catch its song instead.

Write short poems in the voice of birds.

And this, from the section titled, "What is Poetry?"

It is private solitude made public.

Memphis or Nebraska

2009-11-05T10:27:00.010-05:00

I started my morning with a walk and I came home to a sunny kitchen, which spurred me, somehow, to clear old newspapers from the table. I can't do this without flipping through each section and making sure I didn't miss something good. "Something good" often means something from Verlyn Klinkenborg, who often contributes a short editorial at the back of section A in The New York Times. I found one of his pieces in Monday's paper. Most of his editorials concern "The Rural Life," but Monday's is titled "Memphis" and falls into the miscellaneous category. It begins with this statement, "If I had to name the best short story in the form of a song lyric, I suspect the winner would be Chuck Berry's "Memphis, Tennessee," first released as a B-side in 1959."

This might be my first disagreement with Verlyn Klinkenbourg. Berry's lyrics reveal a desperate man, and they are sad and haunting. But in the genre of the two-minute song (give or take), the 10 songs on Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska tell some of the finest, and saddest, tales. It's hard to pick a favorite among them. "Highway Patrolman," "Used Cars," "Open all Night," "My Father's House, " "Reason to Believe"....these songs straddle hopelessness and hope so deftly that one can sink into a deep meditative funk during one listening.

I listened to Nebraska over and over in my senior year of high school, and despite the violence, loneliness and despair depicted on that album, I did not depart for the badlands with a sawed off .410 or mess with the gamblin' commission in Atlantic City. I smiled at customers when I scooped their ice cream and I headed off to college with a sunny take on life. I think this will be a useful memory to keep in mind in the years ahead, when Tom will, most likely, slink off to his room to sink into that deep, ruminative space we all sometimes need when we listen to music. And I think I'll always feel fiercely loyal to Bruce Springsteen and Nebraska.

What I Want To Read

2009-11-02T09:34:00.006-05:00

I don't have either of these yet, but they are on my list.

West Branch

2009-11-01T10:26:00.005-05:00

Coffee and eggs and good news! The fall/winter issue of West Branch is out, featuring my poem, "Isle Royle, 1928," AND two poems by my friend, Karin Gottshall, "Operative" and "Household Gods."

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-10-21T16:59:00.004-04:00

Yesterday's New York Times included an excellent piece by David Brooks, Where the Wild Things Are. In this he discusses the competing views of conduct and character, using Spike Jonze's new film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are to explore the differences. It is such a thoughtful analysis of behavior, willpower, weakness and virtue. "There is no easy way to command all the wild things jostling inside," he writes. "But it is possible to achieve momentary harmony through creative work. Max has all the Wild Things at peace when he is immersed in building a fort or when he is giving another his complete attention..."

I am nearing the end of another month of a (modified) poetry collaboration with my friend Karin, and am keenly aware that my "momentary harmony" is achieved when I'm working on a poem. This time around we've only committed to sending each other three poems each week for the month of October. It's a nice pace, and it's a lot of fun to find her poems in my inbox.

David Brooks is always worth reading. So is Where the Wild Things Are.

New York

2009-10-13T10:11:00.011-04:00

New York, how do I love thee? Let me count the (10) ways.

The Carousal in Central Park. It’s like riding a lollipop stuck into a cloud.

The Brooklyn Bridge foot path. I hummed all the way across.

The Savoy. Intimate.

Cinnamon Raisin Twists at Amy’s Bread. Perfect.

Lobster rolls at Mary’s Fish Camp. Greenwich Village.

The Rose Reading Room in the New York Public Library. Sunshine slanting in across those great tables...

Bryant Park. Boules and coffee.

The elf owl in the display case at the Museum of Natural History. Smaller than my hand.

Astor Court (Chinese Scholar's Garden) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Elegance and Serenity.

The Strand. Oh, the Strand!

What I'm Reading

2009-09-21T14:46:00.005-04:00

City of Thieves, by David Benioff. Oh, it's good. Russia. Winter. Leningrad, circa World War II. It's quite a story.

And Tommy is reading this:

Caesar: The Life Story of a Panda Leopard, by Patrick O'Brian. My parents got this in London at Heywood Hill. Patrick O'Brian won the Heywood Hill Literary Prize several years ago. Pretty neat.

Caesar was O'Brian's first novel. He wrote it when he was 14 and it was published when he was 15! In 1999, O'Brian wrote a Forward for the book, which appears in the edition Tommy has. Here is the final paragraph of that:

"It may seem absurd and pretentious, above all apropos of this piece of juvenilia, to say that writers, once they have experienced this intense delight, live fully only when they are writing fast, at the top of their being: the rest of the time only the lacklustre shell of the man is present, often ill-tempered (deprived of his drug), rarely good company."

Poetry and Movies

2009-09-12T11:52:00.003-04:00

I’ve had a strange concentration of Japanese culture in the last month or so. Yes, Tommy and I saw Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo, but I also recently read Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog, mostly set in a bourgeois building in an upscale neighborhood in Paris. The concierge in that building is fascinated by Japanese culture, reads Tolstoy, listens to Mozart, and shares a kindred spirit and a wonderful friendship with a new resident, the wealthy Japanese filmmaker Kakuro Ozu. Last week, I rented Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story. I have not seen that yet. I was going to watch it last night, but the evening was too nice to sit in a dark basement, so I walked up to Wells Hall to see Departures, presented by the East Lansing Film Society. This was directed by Yojiro Takita and won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

If you haven’t seen the film but intend to do so, skip on ahead to the next paragraph but don’t read anymore of this one. I’m heading straight to the end of the film here. It’s the endings, in part, that differentiate so many films from so many poems. (Among other things, of course. Cinematography. Popcorn. Soundtracks.) Is it fair to compare two genres? Maybe not, but I can’t stop considering the differences. That scene at the end of the film, in which Daigo is kneeling beside his dead father, preparing the body for departure, is incredibly sentimental. On my walk home last night, I kept thinking how this sort of sentimentality works in a film, but wrecks a poem. I knew when Daigo was trying to unclench his father’s hand what was inside the fist. There was this sudden swell of knowledge, which maybe every viewer felt and registered as a private knowledge. But when the stone drops out of the fist, it is not a surprise. We know it’s coming. And that is one difference between a film and a poem.

A film can still be good even when it is predictable and sentimental, but a poem must surprise the reader. There are so many ways of describing what a poem is, or what a poem does. Yeats said a finished poem makes a sound like the click of the lid on a perfectly made box. I read a review of Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist in Thursday’s New York Times. Here are the last three sentences of that: “An essay, he says, is a glass of water. But if a few drops of that water fall on a hot frying pan and sizzle? Then you have a poem.”

I think, in a good poem, one cannot read the first half of it and figure out what happens in the second half. If there is a clenched fist in a poem, one cannot guess what is inside it. If one can guess what is inside the clenched fist, the poem has probably failed. I’m not saying a poem has to end with fireworks…or even sizzle. Fireworks can be pretty predictable. But when a poem clicks shut it ought to leave the reader feeling a little… unbalanced. Poetry is not yoga. It’s not intended to relax us or help us sleep well. It’s also, usually, not terribly cathartic. Which means it often stops short of making us cry. The thing with poems is, they will often make you ache without delivering, or inducing, the full relief of tears. Films are good for tears, and that is why I’d classify most films as entertainment. Poems, like much of life, leave us aching.

Goodbye Summer

2009-09-05T10:29:00.006-04:00

Kettlecorn at the farmer's market, peaches, bouquets of zinnias and snapdragons, scent of basil, clarity of sunshine, last swim... it all feels unbearably poignant. If we are lucky, we have 80 or 90 or maybe 100 summers, 80 or 90 or maybe 100 autumns. I remember standing outside with my grandma on a spring day when she said this of spring. Of all the numbers out there in this world, 80, 90 and 100 are not big numbers.

I have worked on a few poems this summer, but it is not a productive time of year for me, generally. I feel the long absence of writing and am excited to return to my work.

Summer

2009-08-18T12:35:00.012-04:00

Finally! A few days of heat and languor, sunshine and swimming.

We introduced Gibson to the Au Sable. I settled him, gently, into a still, shallow spot by the bank, but he squirmed away and scampered right out. Hopefully this will change. He preferred walking in the woods and resting on the cool concrete of the porch. It is a fine porch, with a view of the lake and a little wood stove waiting for cool fall mornings. I set up a table in the path of a breeze and carved two stamps. The little brown job is supposed to be a wood thrush.

The kingfisher is a bit more recognizable.

I used this book for a reference, which I brought home from my grandpa's house last fall. It was published by the National Geographic Society in 1927.

The Eagle and the Owl

2009-08-12T11:17:00.003-04:00

Two stamps I've carved recently:

Brick Factory

2009-08-10T13:33:00.007-04:00

Sunday we hiked around Lincoln Brick Park, just north of Grand Ledge off of Tallman Road. We saw a scarlet tanager dip over the old quarry, walked along the river, and felt the odd fascination of a place where the remains of an old industry are crumbling among meadows and woods. The park has 6,000 feet of river frontage and the trails are interesting. We looked for one letterbox but could not find it.

Walks with Gibson

2009-08-07T14:56:00.016-04:00

On our way home from the Bruce Peninsula, we stopped and brought home Gibson, an eight-week-old Chocolate Lab. That was at the end of July, and I greeted August with some understanding that the itinerant days of summer had passed, and the dog days were ahead. It's true that it's not a good time to travel very far, but we are getting out for short adventures with Gibson near home. Last Saturday, Tommy and I took him to Lake Lansing Park North. Gibson trotted cheerfully along the longer loop trail and rested, occasionally, when we stopped to find a letterbox. On Wednesday we walked through the meadows and woods of Woldumar Nature Center with our friend Julie and her kids. Yesterday we took Gibson for a long walk on campus, and today we took him to The Ledges at Fitzgerald Park and to Hawk Meadow Park along Delta River Drive. He's a good woods walker, and his little legs go like a wind-up toy. We've letterboxed nearly everywhere we've gone. The stamps hidden at the Ledges are impressive: intricate, hand-carved, and relevant to local history. The first stamp we found at Hawk Meadow was not homemade, and though it was fun to find we did not bother stamping it into our book.

Here's a stamp from the Ledges:

J.S. Mudge built his folly in the late 1800's on one of the small islands in Grand Ledge. He designed the tower to have rotating levels topped by a centrifugal swing out over the river. A flood damaged it in 1893 and it was never completed.

Here is Tommy retrieving a hidden letterbox:

It was a fun walk. I have not been out there since I was a girl, and it is still fascinating to see those rocky outcroppings along the banks of the Grand River.

The Bruce Peninsula

2009-07-29T14:03:00.009-04:00

We left early Saturday morning, drove through rain to the Blue Water Bridge, and crossed over the bridge as boats in the Port Huron to Mackinac Race passed beneath us. Then we headed north to Goderich, had lunch at Bailey's, and headed to the Benmiller Inn. We hiked along the Maitland River, swam, had a great dinner at the Inn, and read in the top floor of the old Woolen Mill as rain pattered on our windows. In the morning we had breakfast beside the river and headed north again, up to Wiarton and then along the curvy, narrow road to Cabot Head. That is a wonderful drive. We explored the old light house and wandered down to the rocky shore, where we saw FOUR Eastern Rat Snakes in about four minutes. Then we searched for a letterbox hidden along a side trail and headed north again to camp in the Bruce Peninsula National Park. It's a fantastic stretch of country. The Niagara Escarpment bulges up through there, and there are beautiful cliffs, streams, hills, and wildlife habitat. UNESCO has recognized it as a World Biosphere Reserve.

This hike was beautiful.

Among many fine moments: Reading the latest issue of the New England Review at the camp ground.

The road to Cabot Head:

Poet House

2009-07-20T17:32:00.010-04:00

Sometimes, in stretches when I am not writing, it's hard to think about how to start again. I suppose it's like trying to time your entrance into or under an already skipping rope. Whole rotations swing by and still you stand there, trying to figure out how to jump in. Well, you just have to jump. And I just need to write. My poem-a-day partnership with Karin in April was fantastic. I didn't think about timing. I didn't think about tripping or getting tangled. I just wrote. Yes, Tommy was in school. Yes, I had whole chunks of the day when I could isolate myself from interruptions. And yet, I wrote on weekends. I did not let any activity stall me. I wrote almost anywhere. Something has changed, and I have a thousand excuses why I can't squeeze in writing. Last week, I canoed the North Branch of the Au Sable from Dam Four to Kellogg Bridge. (Exactly. One cannot paddle and write at the same time.) It's a pretty stretch, and along the way I spotted this little screened hut on a small island. I can't stop daydreaming about it. It's enough to get me writing.

More Letterboxing

2009-07-08T13:33:00.012-04:00

I wrote earlier about letterboxing, and now I write about it with actual experience.

Here is the stamp I carved today. This was my first attempt at carving, and I'll look forward to doing it again, and making more stamps. My friend Julie joined me, which made the process very satisfying. I also baked scones, so the kitchen is full of flour and rubber shavings.

We have gone letterboxing too, and collected two stamps: one in the Baker Wood Lot on campus, and one at a local park. Here is the first one, collected in the Baker Wood Lot:

The Woods 40

2009-07-05T12:16:00.016-04:00

Last weekend, my family gathered at "The Woods 40," a chunk of land in Oceana County that was once my great-grandfather's. My great-grandpa cut wood there, taking along his dog and, often, my grandma. She loved it. It was a couple of miles from their farm -- close enough to visit with some frequency, but just far enough from daily life that it must, always, have felt special to be there. She missed it when she went away to college, and as much as she loved the farm she created with my grandpa, I think she needed the Woods 40, and Oceana County, in her life. We camped there every summer when I was a girl, in a meadow by the edge of the woods, up the hill from a creek where we waded, swam, and collected clay. They were wonderful trips, full of cousins and aunts and uncles, and, always, my grandma and grandpa. We returned there last weekend, without my grandma or grandpa. We missed their physical presence, but it was easy to feel near them, easy to believe they knew we were there. We had such fun bushwacking and bird watching and wading and exploring. It makes me happy to think how satisfied my grandma would be to know we were there together, watching bats and fireflies, cooking pie irons in the camp fire, and looking for wild flowers.

Here is the result of a mud fight.

Here is the meadow.

Strawberry Picking

2009-06-23T13:03:00.005-04:00

We picked strawberries this morning with friends. We didn't have to drive too far, just far enough that we, maybe especially Tommy, could appreciate the shift in the landscape, the sense of country that, fortunately, is not all that far from us.

The Raft

2009-06-22T09:09:00.007-04:00

Last weekend my dad and Tom built a raft. Tom is nine, so this summer it's time to light out for the territory...

Wandering Poet

2009-06-16T16:33:00.002-04:00

We had a quick trip to Charlevoix last weekend, and I wandered around Esperance looking at nuts and tea and wine and chocolate and cheese. I was tempted to get this bottle of sake, but didn't.

Letterboxing

2009-06-15T09:23:00.007-04:00

Last Friday, I had a picnic with a friend who told me about letterboxing. It sounds like a low-tech, artful version of geocaching. I googled it, told Tommy about it, and am now thinking about our own stamp-making project. Here is the summary, as I understand it: you carve your own stamp (ideally...though you could purchase one too), get a notebook, and find clues online. These clues will direct you to woods or gardens or parks, with specific clues about where to find a hidden "letterbox." In that letterbox, you will find a stamp and a notebook. You use that stamp to imprint a new image in your notebook, and you use your own stamp to share your inked carving in the hidden notebook, which you return to the hidden waterproof container for someone else to find. I'm excited to do this but skeptical about my stamp-making skills.

Better than a Backpack

2009-06-11T09:48:00.004-04:00

This new bike accessory has already carried 11 books to the library and seven books home. I really like it! The books are good too. Among them: Jim Harrison's In Search of Small Gods, which I am savoring.

Out

2009-06-08T14:47:00.010-04:00

School is out, frogs are out, poppies are out, and we are out.

Quick Trip

2009-06-03T10:37:00.010-04:00

A quick trip to Nordhouse Dunes for one night of camping seemed to cure the aches that were left in me. I drove over on Saturday afternoon and met Thad and Tommy and friends Erik and Emma. Tommy had a birthday party to get to at 3:30 on Sunday, so we didn't have much time to linger, but we did have coffee by the fire and a chance to use pie irons. We got on the road at about 12:30. I learned, later, that a room at the Ludington Area Arts Center was dedicated to poet Judith Minty at 3 p.m. It would have been nice to attend that ceremony.

Erik and Emma

Emma: a delightful and confident young aviator, without goggles. Or a plane.

Tommy: Tree Dweller.

Me, Thad, and Tommy

Other Worlds

2009-05-28T15:00:00.005-04:00

My friend Karin sent a wonderful card with a picture of a faerie house, built with stones, roofed with moss, bordered by a little stone walkway near a little stone bench. I would like, so much, to fit inside that house, and inside so many others that must certainly contain miniature tea pots and wonderful books. Here is a picture of my neighbor's homestead, a favorite little garden spot on the corner of two quiet streets in our neighborhood.

Afterglow

2009-05-27T10:28:00.009-04:00

I had a fine day yesterday full of surprises and good wishes. Here is a photo swatch of some pajama bottoms my sister sent. Birthdays are a good occasion to be thankful for family and good friends, and I am grateful for both. I also had a great surprise in the mail: the latest issue of Bateau arrived, with my poem, "The Musician," included in it. That was an extra birthday treat!

Carmen

2009-05-21T10:22:00.009-04:00

"Carmen" tonight at the Wharton Center! I'm very excited. Michigan Opera Theatre brings everything in -- sets, costumes, orchestra, everything. I don't think MOT is doing anything here next season, and I'm sort of surprised this production wasn't canceled. Last October, I read an article in The New York Times about MOT's budget cuts. They canceled a performance scheduled during the Final Four tournament because they thought they could make more money renting out their parking lot to basketball fans than selling opera tickets (and incurring the expense of a production).

Good Things

2009-05-18T22:20:00.004-04:00

The East Lansing Art Festival was last weekend, my birthday is coming up soon, and this frog is back in the garden.

Ann Patchett

2009-05-14T22:12:00.006-04:00

I went with a group of friends to hear Ann Patchett speak tonight. The Capital Area District Library brought her in as part of the 2009 Spring Author Series. She was fantastic! She shared hilarious stories and talked of her reluctance to tell people that she is a novelist. On some recent occasion -- a gathering of people in Tennessee who share the same (long and odd) last name as her husband -- she did tell someone she was a novelist. The woman said, "We are all novelists. We all have a novel inside us." Patchett said, "Oh Really? Are we all mathematicians? Do we all have an algebraic equation in us?" She mentioned the much-discussed rule of 10,000 hours and did not hesitate to emphasize how hard she has worked, how many hours she has logged. She also shared the story of her friendship with Renee Fleming. After Bel Canto was published, Patchett found out that all of the arias her fictional character sang happened to be all of the arias Fleming sings. People started saying Patchett had written a book about Renee Fleming. One day, Renee Fleming called Patchett and invited her to lunch. Patchett hadn't known anything about opera before she wrote the book, and still didn't know much about it when she met Fleming. Now they are great friends. I came home and pulled out my copy of Fleming's The Inner Voice, which I have not read, just to check when it was published. Yes...it was published after Bel Canto, and among the many acknowledgments printed at the beginning of the book, the first listed is a tribute of thanks to Ann Patchett. Ha!

Lilacs

2009-05-08T16:57:00.009-04:00

In the waning days of NaPoWriMo, I got sick. I kept writing, but on the last day, my doctor said, enough, and put me in the hospital. So NaPoWriMo ended, for me, on April 29 instead of April 30. But I think I fulfilled the spirit of the mission, and I will return to my 29 poems in the days ahead and tinker with some of them. I was in the hospital two nights -- long enough, this time of year, for leaves and blossoms and yards to change. And long enough to weep when I returned to leaves and blossoms and yards. Our lilacs are blooming, and they scent the neighborhood with something that for me will forever be associated with hope and excitement. It's graduation time, and my head returns to those spring days when I was 21 and felt like I had so much poetry ahead of me. I still feel that way, especially when I smell lilacs.

Poetry and Weather

2009-04-22T14:19:00.007-04:00

It's April, a month of poetry and strange weather. In March, my friend Karin invited me to be her NaPoWriMo partner. I agreed without hesitation, mostly because I admire her a great deal and I was honored that she asked me, and also because the 30 poems in 30 days challenge is a fantastic excuse to get a lot of writing done. I had almost two weeks to worry about my commitment before the month began, and during that time I felt a wonderful surge of adrenaline, a strange excitement I have not felt for some time...pre-race jitters. I woke up to my own sort of shotgun blast start on April 1, and felt something like a great caffeine rush for a fews days. It was fun. That feeling has settled down some as I have discovered that writing a poem a day is possible. A big reason it is working is because of Karin. It means a great deal to know she is there in Vermont, working on her poems and checking her email, waiting for my poems. Her invitation was a gift. She is a wonderful poet, and when May arrives I will miss this month of daily contact.

As for strange weather, here is a good reminder that April has always been mixed up.

From "Two Tramps in Mud Time," by Robert Frost:

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

April

2009-04-10T16:48:00.006-04:00

It's April. The sun knows it, and I know it. The air is hard to convince, but the sun will charm that soon enough.

Hopping streams is a pretty good way to spend spring break.

I love these.

A Word from Lego

2009-03-31T17:34:00.005-04:00

Rajma Masala, basmati, and naan... is that good fuel for NaPoWriMo? It smells wonderful right now. NaPoWriMo sounds like its own dish, really....something with tofu and brown garlic sauce?

Happy (early) National Poetry Month.

A Poem a Day

2009-03-27T09:56:00.004-04:00

For those considering the poem-a-day challenge for NaPoWriMo, here is an argument in favor of quantity.

From Art and Fear, by David Bayles and Ted Orland:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pound of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot -- albeit a perfect one -- to get an "A". Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work - and learning from their mistakes -- the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

Note: I have not read the book, but I may look for it today when I walk into town.

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-03-26T17:04:00.006-04:00

This has promise (and hope and fear and something wild).

The Man in the Red Shoes

2009-03-25T21:58:00.005-04:00

We saw this documentary about Garrison Keillor (narrated, mostly, by Garrison Keillor) tonight at the Hannah Community Center. The auditorium was packed! The film was produced and directed by Peter Rosen, who was in attendance tonight and who answered questions after the film. We stayed for about four or five Q&A's, then snuck out because it was approaching 9:30 p.m. and Tommy needed to get to bed. The questions were interesting, or at least the answers were interesting. Sometimes you get good answers from bad questions. Sometimes you get bad answers from good questions. I'd like to think there is some correlation between the quality of questions and the quality of answers....but I don't always think that's the case either. One guy asked about the title, Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes. Peter Rosen said the title was originally Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Tennis Shoes. Keillor asked them to delete "Tennis." Rosen shrugged a bit at this, as though it was easy enough to accommodate, but sort of quirky. I get this completely. For one thing, Tennis shoes are for tennis. All other sneakers, which I do not call sneakers because I am in my 40's not my 70's, are Tenna shoes. Tenna. Tenna. Not Tennis. Enunciation is good, but it has its limits. Rosen said that request was G.K.'s only edit. The film is fantastic.

What I Missed

2009-03-24T17:36:00.003-04:00

The 12th Annual East Lansing Film Festival is mostly over, and though I had a few minutes of pleasure reading the schedule, I didn't make it to Wells Hall for popcorn and movies. I missed A Plumm Summer (set in 1968 Montana), The Music Lesson (a documentary about ten classically trained musicians from the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestra who travel to Kenya for a cultural exchange with a group of African students), Fresh (a documentary about farmers, philosophers, and business people who are re-thinking approaches to raising and distributing food), and Mining Madness, Water Wars (a documentary about a proposal to blast a sulfide mine beneath a trout stream in the Upper Peninsula). I missed a lot more, of course, but those were four I really wanted to see.

Dreams

2009-03-16T10:31:00.003-04:00

Pure whimsy from The Fortune-Telling Book of Dreams, published by Chronicle Books. A few samples:

CONVICT:
A career in the arts, particularly music, is in your future if you dream of being a convict.

FROST:
A most fortunate dream. Frost on a window augurs a unique and enriching experience.

JAZZ:
To dream of listening to jazz is a warning that you should start to live within your means.

NOVOCAIN:
You will finally come to a resolution regarding a current problem if you dream of being under the effects of Novocain.

PANCAKES:
If you make pancakes in a dream, you will soon make a new friend.

TOMATOES:
To dream of tomatoes foretells travel and success.

XYLOPHONE:
Beware if a xylophone is played out of tune. This is the prediction of an accident.

Natasha Trethewey at Albion College

2009-03-04T09:08:00.008-05:00

Last night I heard Natasha Trethewey read at Albion College. I had read Native Guard and have heard Trethewey on NPR, but it is great to fill out those experiences. Thad and I drove down, and though he accompanied me primarily out of kindness I think he enjoyed it too. I bought Domestic Work there at the reading, and read Rita Dove's introduction to it this morning. It's a good introduction, though I found one comment odd. Trethewey, writes Dove, "resists the lure of autobiography and is careful to avoid such narrow identification, weaving no less than a tapestry of ancestors..." It is true that this poet's work is not limited to or by autobiography. It is not solipsistic. It is relevant and meaningful, and it is poetry, not memoir. But history, as Dove does acknowledge, is a part of Thethewey's poetry, as is personal history. There is something of autobiography in Trethewey's work. One does not feel mired in it, but the lure of it is clear. What is important is that she has transcended it: she has created art, in her case poetry, out of autobiography.

It was good to return to Albion, and as I watched a group of students interact with Trethewey I was reminded of the benefits of learning in the intimate environment of a small college. Trethewey had met with many of these students and one sensed that they had all enjoyed the chance to get to know each other. At one point, she stepped back from the podium and smiled at one student, mentioning that student's fondness for and knowledge of a particular poem. Then she invited that student up to read that poem, and the student did so with obvious delight. Trethewey listened with appreciation and said, after the student finished, "That is just what a poet hopes. You hope that if you get the words down on the page in the right way, somebody can read it aloud just like that."

It was a good evening. We had sandwiches and coffee in the car, and I really enjoy that drive between Eaton Rapids and Albion. After the reading, I had a chance to talk with one of my old poetry professors.

Ottawa

2009-02-20T09:14:00.007-05:00

More pictures...

Parliament:

One of the many wonderful images carved in the facade of Parliament:

Skaters on the Rideau Canal:

Our hotel:

More skaters:

Art and Ice

2009-02-17T16:46:00.009-05:00

Art: "Shooting the Rapids," by Frances Anne Hopkins
People in Picture: Unknown

We just returned from Ottawa, which is a fantastic city. The drive there from the airport feels nothing like the approach to Washington D.C. Ottawa feels like a northern outpost, and it has some of the magic associated with such a place. People USE winter there, and everywhere one walks one sees people dressed for the outdoors. I have long wanted to skate the Rideau Canal, and the experience exceeded my expectations. I can't stop thinking about it. It was a grand and glorious trip, full of delightful, unexpected things. We skated each day, and it was such a surprise, that first day, to reach the Bank Street bridge and find framed art from the Portrait Gallery of Canada hanging on the cement walls underneath the bridge. Reproductions, yes, but ART...hanging there for people in hockey skates to discover outside in February. It was a wonderful intersection of art and outdoor sports, and everyone, it seemed, appeared to appreciate it -- to pause and linger and study the pictures.

Elsewhere

2009-02-11T17:32:00.004-05:00

It has been a fine, wet day of English rain. Mist has hovered in low places and settled on my cheek and delivered me to strange new lands. I brought home this train station from my grandpa's house today, ostensibly for Tommy (who thinks it is sweet). I like crouching beside it and staring at the platform and entering an older world. I like thinking about Glendale.

25 Things

2009-02-01T21:20:00.004-05:00

1. I am an introverted extrovert. Or an extroverted introvert. I’m not sure which, but because I was an English major I believe in the difference.

2. It bothers me when I hear someone use the phrase, “kill some time.”

3. I played the ukulele in elementary school. My son started playing the guitar in kindergarten. One always wants more for one’s child than one had….

4. When I was a girl, I wanted to be a professional cross-country skier. I skied most every night, usually in my grandparents’ orchard. There was also a time I wanted to be a geologist. I readied myself for this by pulling all of the clothes out of my closet and moving in a chair, a small chest, my rock collection, a magnifying glass, and several field guides.

5. My inner life is a big part of my life.

6. I broke my collarbone when I was in fourth grade. I was riding my bike (fast) down our street and tried to pop a wheelie. My front tire hit a rock, my handlebars kicked out, and I landed next to the curb.

7. I have had two reconstructive knee surgeries. I tore the ACL in my left knee in 1989 when I was in Scotland. Five years later, I tore the ACL in my right knee.

8. I love the weird, looping logic created in sestinas.

9. I miss my grandma fiercely.

10. I grew up working and playing in my grandparents’ apple orchard. I ate apple-something (fried apples, cinnamon apples, baked apples…) every day of my life for a very long time.

11. I don’t have much use for Red Delicious apples.

12. I like shoveling snow.

13. When I was 21, I spent the night on a cliff in the Peloponnese above the Mediterranean Sea. I hiked there with my friend Lori because we could not find a place to stay in town (Koroni). We huddled on a rocky outcropping all night, listening to Greek men shout unknown things somewhere off down the hill, and hoping -- really really hoping --they did not climb up the hill to drink ouzo and kill us. They did not.

14. There was not a train that served that little village in the Peloponnese, so in the morning we found a ride with a man who needed to deliver some chickens to a friend. We rode in the back seat with the chickens.

15. I misplace keys frequently. Duke Ellington’s granddaughter once found a set I had been missing for more than a year.

16. I love children’s books. I love reading to children.

17. Galway Kinnell visited Albion College the semester I was in Scotland. I was so disappointed to miss him that, a year or so later, I took a train to St. Paul to hear him read at The Hungry Mind.

18. I like trains. I took one to Austin, Texas to see my sister. I could have flown for $2 less, but I had books to read, strangers to meet, poems to write….

19. I miss doing things with my sister.

20. I don’t like butterscotch.

21. I love cilantro.

22. I want a unicycle.

23. I don’t care about the Super Bowl (ever), but I watched Bruce Springsteen at half-time tonight.

24. I like climbing trees.

25. I am a tent camper, though I sometimes skip the tent. I have slept under the stars in many special places. Maybe the best was Isle Royale, where I woke in the night and heard wolves.

Perfection Wasted

2009-01-31T19:20:00.002-05:00

Garrison Keillor just read Updike's poem, "Perfection Wasted," on PHC. Of course, it's the perfect selection. My friend Julie Stivers beat him to it, though. She posted it earlier this week, and so I have had fine reminders of it twice in one week.

Perfection Wasted

And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market--
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, these loved ones nearest
the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,

their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,

their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.

--John Updike

Spent

2009-01-28T17:16:00.011-05:00

I worked beside these today. So many love the tight buds of early blossoms, but I love the spent, and the nearly spent, just as much.

John Updike

2009-01-27T23:23:00.010-05:00

John Updike
March 18, 1932 - January 27, 2009

Just checking news, a bit randomly, which I don't tend to do online. I wait for the morning paper, and I listen to the radio, and I do not, generally, do either at 11:30 p.m. I stumbled on Updike's obituary just now and felt some sorrow, maybe more so because of the unexpected fashion in which I discovered the announcement.

William Kurelek

2009-01-20T12:22:00.005-05:00

A few year's ago I discovered William Kurelek's A Prairie Boy's Summer at the library. Then I discovered A Prairie Boy's Winter. We now have our own copy of the "summer" book, and this morning I ordered the "winter" book. In February, we're going to Ottawa to skate the Rideau Canal. I just learned that the National Gallery of Canada (in Ottawa) has some of Kurelek's work. I am excited to see it.

Sunshine

2009-01-20T12:01:00.005-05:00

More beauty today, and some of it is just in sunlit corners of the house.

Winter

2009-01-16T11:40:00.003-05:00

It is cold, yes, but it is also beautiful. Sunshine and icicles are a fine combination, but moonshine and icicles are brilliant. The other night the house was dark and I walked upstairs in that darkness and reached the top and looked up and out the window near the landing and there was the moon, and there was a collection of icicles glistening in the moonlight. This was just before I went to bed, which is when monsters are most active, and I looked at the icicles and thought, "Fangs. Magnificent fangs." And so I went to bed thinking of monsters and fangs but I slept very well and the dreams I dreamed were concocted of good things. This morning I got up and the house was dark and I walked down the hallway and paused at the window near the top of the stairs and looked out at the icicles and thought, "Teeth! Long, pointy, brittle teeth!" And I came downstairs and got my keys and went to the dentist. I am back from the dentist and the sun is shining on our neighbors' icicles and I can't seem to stop staring at them. They do not look like fangs. They are beautiful and surreal and they make me glad, so very glad, to be a creature of winter.

Hooked

2009-01-13T10:29:00.002-05:00

On this:From this place: