Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

{Note: Please see the post below this one for today’s Robert’s Snow schedule (and a Poetry Friday snowflake if we ever saw one)}When Jules and I were gestating this little blog idea, we tossed around a few ideas for titles and designs, but we kept coming back to Alice. She’s the perfect symbol for what we’re trying to do here, because we’re adults, reading children’s and adult books; and Lewis Carroll’s books can be enjoyed on different levels by children and adults. Also, Alice is one of those characters that Jules and I (and I know we’re not alone) fell in love with as children, really identified with her – her curiosity, her frustration with pointless rules, her ability to see the pointlessness of a lot of adult behavior – in a way that stayed with us as adults.

And when my husband and I watched Mirrormask the other night, we started talking about something I’m going to call The Alice Motif: that pattern that repeats itself over and over in children’s books, where a girl is transported to another reality, and has to figure out how things work there, forge alliances, and complete some kind of quest before she’s allowed to go back home. I’m pretty sure it began with Alice, and then continues with Dorothy, Meg, Coraline… etc. The male version is different: a boy is transported to another reality and takes on a quest, but usually it’s linked to discovering the secret of his own identity, in a version of the Arthurian/Joseph Campbell/Heroic Epic motif: Frodo, Taran, Will, Harry… and so on. The Narnia Chronicles are a notable hybrid, in that they combine male and female protagonists; and also because of the way they merge the concept of the identity quest with the protagonists being able to go back and forth between the realities. The only “classic” children’s book I’ve been able to think of with a male protagonist following the Alice motif is James and the Giant Peach. Anyone else have a suggestion?

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, Alice is THE icon of children’s literature for a lot of us, and means a lot to me (and Jules) personally for being a gateway drug into literature in general. We pay homage to that with the title and header image here at 7-Imp. So when I saw this posted as a featured poem on the Poetry Foundation’s website, I knew I had my Poetry Friday pick.

“And as in Alice”
by Mary Jo Bang

Alice cannot be in the poem, she says, because
She’s only a metaphor for childhood
And a poem is a metaphor already
So we’d only have a metaphor

Inside a metaphor. Do you see?
They all nod. They see. Except for the girl
With her head in the rabbit hole.

Click here to read the rest.

*Edited to add: The Poetry Friday Roundup for this week is at Mentor Texts, Read Alouds and More, and it is fabulous. Check it out.

Below is today’s Robert’s Snow schedule.

Today’s ’07 snowflake by Alissa Imre Geis, “Hope in Winter,” was already featured this past Monday by Elaine Magliaro at Wild Rose Reader. But, since it’s so beautiful and has some verses by Emily Dickinson on it, I figured it’d be a fitting Poetry Friday snowflake today. Go read Elaine’s feature to learn more about Alissa, the snowflake, and the auction dates for bidding on that beautiful work of art.

Friday, November 2, 2007:

• Tracy McGuinness-Kelly, featured by Sam Riddleburger at his blog
• Sara Kahn, featured by Kate Messner at Kate’s Book Blog
• Sylvia Long, featured by Emily Beeson at Whimsy Books
• Jeremy Tankard, featured by David Elzey at the excelsior file
• Holli Conger, featured by Josephine Cameron at Please Come Flying

Did you see yesterday’s features? I think Elizabeth Burns at her feature of Diana Magnuson’s beautiful snowflake put it well when she wrote:

You know the problem with all these snowflakes? It’s like books. Every time I look at a new one, I go, “oh, THIS one is my favorite! This is the one I must own!”

Probably a lot of you are nodding your head right now. Word, Liz.

Don’t forget this page with the master schedule of all the features thus far.

I’ll close today with Cheryl Klein’s mantra, which she posts at all her snowflake features: FIGHT CANCER! BUY SNOWFLAKES! YEAH!

{Note: Please see the post below this one for today’s Robert’s Snow schedule —
and Amiko Hirao’s ’07 snowflake}

Eisha and I are about to complete our month-long guest-blogging gig for ForeWord Magazine. This week, I wrote a picture book round-up and it’s entitled, “Size Matters -– And So Do Your Friends and Neighbors” (and we’ll be writing for them next week as well). Lately, I’ve had my mind on picture books whose illustrators, in one way or another, play around with the notions of size and perspective, as well as the abundant number of books out and about now which focus on one’s community and circle of friends. So, I chose eight of them to review. It’s posted this morning over at “Shelf Space,” ForeWord’s column where we are guest-blogging until the end of this month (I’ll have to plan on a Monday post with all the great book cover images).

One of the books I reviewed is the fabulous Monster Hug! by David Ezra Stein, whose snowflake is also being featured today at HipWriterMama’s site. I began my review of that book thusly: “I think an up-and-coming picture book illustrator we all can get most excited about this year, other than the obscenely talented Jonathan Bean, is David Ezra Stein.” Yes, my love for Stein’s art work is strong (and fortunately for us and all our readers, he agreed to let us feature some of his illustrations on a Sunday in November. Swoon! Swoon!).

And for this Poetry Friday, since my mind is on monsters and it’s nearly Halloween and since Eisha and I have been doing some writing for the Poetry Foundation and playing around in their archive of children’s poems, I am going to share this Halloween monster poem by Kenn Nesbitt:

When the musical contest for monsters convened,
the Wolfman was howling and played like a fiend.
Then Dracula jammed, but flew into a rage
when Frankenstein’s torch singing lit up the stage.

The Mummy, he rapped with the aid of a band,
but stopped when The Blob ate his microphone stand.
The Blob, by the way, also swallowed The Fly.
(I don’t know why he swallowed The Fly.)

Heh. You can read the rest here. And for another laugh, here’s another Nesbitt poem, “Halloween Party,” at the aforementioned Poetry Foundation site.

Don’t you just want to read those aloud to some late elementary/early middle school students? Enjoy. And happy Poetry Friday (and almost-Halloween)!

{Note: Please see the post below for today’s Robert’s Snow schedule!}

Jules here. Happy Poetry Friday to all!

We’re doing something new here at 7-Imp, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while. My good friend, Mr. Shannon Collins, is taking my place for this Poetry Friday entry today (that’s not him pictured here; that’s poet Bill Brown). ‘Cause I asked Shannon if he’d like to do so. ‘Cause he and Eisha are my True Poetry Friends, my poetry-geek peeps. In fact, we used to have — in pre-blog days — a random email poetry exchange.

And I’ve been runnin’ my mouth about literature and poetry with Shannon, whom I met over ten years ago when I was a beginning sign language interpreter (Shannon is also a hand-flapper, and we met while team interpreting a course at The University of Tennessee), since day one. Our paths have followed a similar arc: We both started out as sign language interpreters (Shannon was also, once upon a time, an AMAZING teacher of language arts in the Tennessee School for the Deaf’s middle school department. In fact, Shannon was once named one of Tennessee’s Outstanding Teachers of the Humanities, though he’s probably cringing as I brag on him). And then we both have found ourselves today working more closely with books and literacy: Shannon is now a professor of literacy in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Tennessee Technological University. He also serves on the editorial review boards for The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy and The English Journal, and he is currently a member of the Promising Young Writers Advisory Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English. And much more. And he’s smart as hell and funny and fun and has a real passion for poetry and children’s and YA lit as well.

Shannon is also a poet himself (and a published one, at that), and if he ever wanted to share one of his poems with us, well . . . he can consider me honored in advance, should he ever find himself inclined to do so. He’s shared a few poems with me before, and they were really, really good. Each time, I felt really blessed (does that sound like a bit much? Well, I mean it) that he shared them with me. Kind of giddy, too, like I was special. Like I was being given a gift just to have the opportunity to see and read them.

So, when I asked if he’d ever like to be my guest at one of my Poetry Friday entries (and I wouldn’t ask just any ‘ol person that) and he agreed, I was thrilled. I gave him no instructions, ’cause I trusted him to deliver with an entry both beautiful and thought-provoking. And deliver he does. Here’s what he has to contribute, and I’d like to thank Shannon, especially since he has the world’s busiest schedule.

* * * * * * *

To begin, I give a huge, appreciative nod to Jules and Eisha for allowing me the opportunity to share a few words and, most importantly, a poem. Poetry, like an occasional pint of Guinness, nearly topples into the basket of items that are necessary for life. Even if “necessity” is not quite the status of poetry, I don’t want to go too long without a poem or two. This has not always been the case. Read the rest of this entry �

I’ve had marriage on my mind lately. B. and I are attending two weddings this weekend. And our own eight-year anniversary is coming up. No, seriously. Eight years. And we started dating six years before that, so we’ve been together over a third of our lives. It always gives me pause when I think about it in those terms. How much have we shaped each other, been cultivated by each other into the adults we’ve become? Who would I be now if I’d never met him?

I also spent time recently with a widow around my own age. And Grace Lin has just started blogging again, after the loss of her husband. And when my aunt passed away in March, she left behind my uncle, her high school sweetheart and husband of 30+ years. I look at these people and think, could I do it? Could I build a new life on my own, if B. were taken away from me? Could I be that strong? Who would I become then?

I don’t know. I really just don’t know. I mean, sure, marriage is hard, and people always tell you that before you get married but you just don’t know how hard until you’re in it. When you get married, your vows should go something like “I promise that no matter how I grow and change and evolve as a person, I’ll keep myself in synch with you while you undergo your own individual growth and evolution.” Not very poetic. But I didn’t marry my husband because I expected a non-stop romantic-movie montage sort of life. I married him because I think I’m a better person with him than without him. We don’t always agree, we often get on each other’s nerves, sometimes we flat out don’t get each other. But he’s so much a part of me now, he’s family, and if something happened to him I can’t even imagine the hole that would leave in the universe.

So, here’s a love poem, in tribute to my husband, and to everone else who’s ever been crazy-brave enough to marry somebody.

from “Colors passing through us” by Marge Piercy:

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Read the rest here.

I love Wallace Stevens, but in a complicated way. I love his imagery, and his intellect, and the way he leaps from thought to thought so effortlessly, like a stone skipping across water.

But I’m not going to pretend that I always understand him.

Reading a Wallace Stevens poem is work, and sometimes it’s frustrating work. But when I’ve read one of his verses for the, oh, seventh or eighth time, and the little threads linking one concept to the next start to show through, weaving the images together into a meaning I can maybe sort of grasp – it is so worth it.

Here’s a stanza from “Le Monocle de Mon Oncle” that I like both on its own, and as part of the entire poem:

This luscious and impeccable fruit of life
Falls, it appears, of its own weight to earth.
When you were Eve, its acrid juice was sweet,
Untasted, in its heavenly, orchard air.
An apple serves as well as any skull
To be the book in which to read a round,
And is as excellent, in that it is composed
Of what, like skulls, comes rotting back to ground.
But it excels in this, that as the fruit
Of love, it is a book too mad to read
Before one merely reads to pass the time.

I do love that last line. For even more of Wallace Stevens’s delicious imagery, read the rest of the poem here.

I think it’s about love, sex, and mortality. I could be wrong, though. It’s complicated. What do you think?

*note – Gina at AmoXcalli is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up. Go see her pretty pretty blog.*

I know I’m going to look insufferably and nerdily overachieving here, but I’m using my turn for this Poetry Friday to highlight three poetry books across the board, so to speak — picture book, middle-grade, and YA (actually, the Grandits book is more squarely aimed at teens, but it’d work just dandy for a middle-school reader as well). That’s because I can’t choose which to highlight today, not to mention I’ve been feeling rather behind on reviews lately. Here goes:

Green as a Bean
by Karla Kuskin
Illustrated by Melissas Iwai
Laura Geringer Books
January 2007
(library copy)

How has it taken me over three-quarters of the year to find this title? It’s wonderful. Portions of it were previously published in 1960, but here it is now with warm, ebullient illustrations from Melissa Iwai. In this rhyming text, Kuskin — winner of the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry, among many other honors — offers the child reader a series of imaginative hypothetical questions: “If you could be green/ would you be a lawn/ or a lean green bean/ and the stalk it’s on?/ Would you be a leaf/ on a leafy tree?/ Tell me, lean green one,/ what would you be?” . . . The other hypothetical questions proposed to the reader involve being square, soft, loud, small, red, fierce, blue, and bright (“Tell me, quite bright one,/ what would you be?”) with a slightly surreal mind-bender proposed at the end. It’s a book to delight and engage in, to share with a group of children at story time, and ponder the world around and the qualities of it. And, as the Booklist review pointed out, Kuskin uses the sound of her words and their meaning to great effect (“If you could be small/ would you be a mouse/ or a mouse’s child/ or a mouse’s house/ or a mouse’s house’s/ front door key?”). Iwai’s imaginative acrylic paintings are soft, fanciful when they need to be and playful-with-perspective in just the right spots. A lively pre-school book, to share either one-on-one or in an interactive story time hour.

Blue Lipstick: Concrete Poems
by John Grandits
Clarion Books
May 2007
(library copy)

This is a follow-up title to Grandits’ 2004 anthology of original concrete poems, entitled Technically, It’s Not My Fault, also published by Clarion Books (which I’ve not read but Eisha enjoyed), this title following Jessie, a high schooler with fervent opinions about her pesky younger brother, Robert (who narrated the first anthology); designing her own clothes; volleyball; her cat; “stupid pep rallies” (“I’m not feeling peppy, and the pep rally isn’t helping”); and much more. Book and magazine designer Grandits scores with these visually-enticing poems whose very shapes echo their subject matter, the words and type and design coming together to make a poem and a picture — an hourglass for “Allergic to Time,” a graph which charts out Jessie’s day in “My Absolutely Bad Cranky Day,” and the spray of a shower in “All My Important Thinking Gets Done in the Shower.” Read the rest of this entry �

I just discovered James Wright, and I’m so enamored of so many of his poems that it’s hard to choose just one to share. But I think I’ll go with one of his happier ones, something lovely and wild. Something with ponies.

“A Blessing”

…We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs…

Read the rest of the poem here. And have a lovely Friday.

Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose
by Leo and Diane Dillon
Harcourt
October 2007
(review copy)

I try to mix things up a lot here at 7-Imp by reviewing library copies as well as review copies, and I try to review titles from a variety of publishers — both big and small. And so I’m sorry that it has almost verged on Harcourt Week here at 7-Imp this week; this title I’m reviewing today is the fifth Harcourt title I’ll be praising this week (though, to be fair, I’ve reviewed fourteen picture books this week, including this one, so it’s not been one publisher all the time). They’ve just got some great new Fall titles out right now. So be it.

And how can I pass up reviewing Leo and Diane Dillon’s new title, which is about Mother Goose, on Poetry Friday during our self-proclaimed Picture Book Week? I mean, it’s Leo and Diane Dillon — the duo who have been illustrating beautiful, award-winning picture books for fifty years. Exclamation mark. Exclamation mark. And it’s Mother Goose, the mama of all poetry for children. And it’s a winner, this book is. Read the rest of this entry �

It’s not only Poetry Friday, a definite cause for celebration in our book any ‘ol week, but today is Eisha’s birthday! Happy birthday to her!

This might be a real stretch, but here’s what I did for her birthday, which happens to fall on the day we celebrate poetry: I wrote a cento! Having been inspired to create one, thanks to a post over at The Miss Rumphius Effect, I decided for my cento (a poem made entirely of pieces from poems by other authors) to be created from lyrics from some of Eisha’s favorite songs. Yes, each line of the cento is from a different song. It was harder than I thought, but I hope she at least gets a kick out of it, recognizing the words from some of her favorite tunes. The songs from which each line comes (and the musicians) are listed below the cento.

Did I, ahem, mention it’s a stretch? And it was too difficult to make a cheery, happy birthday-esque one. But it was fun, and I hope it makes a modicum of sense.

Happy birthday, Eisha! Here’s your birthday cento, pieced together from some of your favorite songs . . . Read the rest of this entry �