Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Yeah, I’m one of those dirty freakin’ hippies who acknowledges Buy Nothing Day every November 23rd. Black Friday just ain’t my thing. If you’re one of those people who wakes up at 5 a.m. to get in line for sales at Wal-Mart or Sears on the day after Thanksgiving and you shop all day long, I hope you’ll still have respect for me for celebrating the alternative here and I hope we can try to understand one another when I say: I just. don’t. get. it.

And, this is a bit of a stretch, but as I was looking at Adbusters’ Buy Nothing Day site, I got to thinking about over-consumption. And that got me thinking about one of my favorite poems ever (which I happen to have matted and framed on one of the walls of my home in a lovely Thomas Merton poster I once found in the cobwebbed corner of an old used bookstore, but I digress). It’s called “The Harmonies of Excess,” written by Trappist monk/acclaimed Catholic spiritual writer/poet/author/social activist Thomas Merton, pictured above (his autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain, is a fabulous read).

So, sure, this has nothing to do with the over-consumption which Buy Nothing Day addresses. And, sure, I just thought of it ’cause of the word “excess,” but it’s always been one of my favorite poems. Just humor me.

“The Harmonies of Excess” by Thomas Merton

* * * * * * *

The hidden lovers in the soil
Become green plants and gardens tomorrow
When they are ordered to re-appear
In the wet sun’s poem

Then they force the delighted
Power of buds to laugh louder
They scatter all the cries of light
Like shadow rain and make their bed
Over and over in the hollow flower
The violet bonfire

They spin the senses of the mute morning
In an abandoned river
Love’s wreckage is then left to lie
All around the breathless shores
Of my voice
Which on the coasts of larking meadows
Invented all these children and their mischievous noises

I found someone who posted the poem in its entirety here, so you can read the rest there if you’re interested. You really don’t want to miss the last stanza.

Whether you’re out shopping today (shudder) or kicking your feet up and buying not-a-damn-thing, happy Poetry Friday!

In case you missed this on Sunday, where we first mentioned it, the Poetry Foundation feature Eisha and I wrote has been posted. To read it, go here and click on “Lunchbox Poems.” We got a huge kick out of writing for the Poetry Foundation, and we hope you enjoy reading it, if you’re so inclined to do so.

I’m posting that particular lunchbox image just for Eisha, who I’m pretty sure was a Monkees fan as a wee one.

Eisha and I want to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. I posted these words last year, but I’m sorry, they’re the most kickin’, most supreme thanksgiving words there could ever be. Maybe I’ll just post them every year, for that reason. These are the words of Thoreau, writing to H.G.O. Blake, once a Unitarian minister, in December of 1856:

“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite — only a sense of existence. My breath is sweet to me. O how I laugh when I think of my vague indefinite riches. No run on my bank can drain it, for my wealth is not possession but enjoyment.

If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance, like flowers and sweet-scented herbs — is more elastic, starry, and immortal — that is your success.”

Now go and eat — like Harold — nine kinds of pie that you like best.

Just a quick post (that is probably shorter than this massive image, but isn’t it purty?) to say that Cybils nominations close at midnight Chicago time on Wednesday, November 21. Yes, that is today, friends. So, if you haven’t already nominated your favorite title from this year in every category, go do so!

We will each soon have our final lists of books-nominated in our respective categories — Eisha, Nonfiction Picture Books; Jules, Fiction Picture Books — and we’ll try to share them with you later. Keep checking the Cybils blog, too, where nominations in every category will be posted soon after nominations close.

That’s it for now. Until later . . .

Today we’re happy to be featuring an interview with podcaster Mark Blevis of Just One More Book!! If you missed the interview with Andrea — his JOMB co-podcaster and his wife — last week, then here’s the link if you want to read all the reasons we here at 7-Imp enjoy the book reviews and author and illustrator interviews over there and if you want to know everything that great site has to offer.

What you might not know about Mark is that he produces a whole slew of other podcasts: Electric Sky (interviews and documentaries) and Canadian Podcast Buffet (which supports the Canadian Podcast community) are just two of them. If you visit his web site, you can read some of the others he produces (in the left sidebar under “Produces”). In fact, the “About” page at Mark’s site includes text that we think sums him up pretty well; rather, you can tell from his podcasts at JOMB that he most certainly fits the following profile he wrote about himself: Read the rest of this entry »

The Blogging for a Cure effort for Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure is complete! I think it went well. Wahoo! Yesterday was the final day of illustrator/snowflake features. Since I know of at least two more new ’07 snowflakes which were not featured by a blogger, I’m showing them to you here. These are the last snowflakes I’ll be featuring, as auctions begin today. Above is “Golden Snowflake” by Inga Poslitur (who, as I understand it, has not illustrated any children’s books, though she’s otherwise very busy), which you can bid on today in Auction 1. The bottom snowflake, “Swept Away,” is by Linda Bronson and can be bidded on in Auction 3. Linda’s most recent illustrated book is My First Nutcracker by Stephanie True Peters (Dutton Juvenile; September 2007).

I think this entire Blogging for a Cure effort has been wonderful on many levels, and it wouldn’t have been the success it was if it weren’t for all the bloggers (over 65 bloggers — not to mention all the others in the sidelines who helped promote the cause) who wrote the snowflake/illustrator features to which we’ve been treated for over a month now. Read the rest of this entry »

Jules: Many thanks to author/illustrator David Ezra Stein, who sent us a 7-Imp exclusive this weekend, an image from his forthcoming picture book, How to Be Nice. It will be released in Fall ’08 from Putnam.

Read the rest of this entry »

Below is today’s Robert’s Snow schedule.

Pictured here is an ’07 snowflake, entitled “Cupid and Psyche,” which was not on the initial list and so not covered by a blogger in the Blogging for a Cure effort. I’m happy to be able to feature it. It was created by Rebecca Guay and can be bidded upon in Auction 3. Guay’s most recent illustrated book, I believe, is Muti’s Necklace: The Oldest Story in the World (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), written by Louise Hawes and described by School Library Journal as “an original fairy tale about familial love and its power to thwart even the majesty of Pharaoh,” the adaptation of and expansion of an ancient Egyptian story. She also illustrated Jane Yolen and Heidi E. Y. Stemple’s The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories, published in 2004.

And, just because I know of at least three more snowflakes that are new but not snagged by a blogger to feature, I’ll show you one more today (and can show you the other two tomorrow when I wrap up Blogging for a Cure and everyone starts bidding on snowflakes). This one (below) was created by Kathy Jakobsen, one of America’s premier folk artists. Having lived once before near D.C., I like that there’s a snowflake out there for us cherry-blossom lovers. Kathy’s most recent illustrated title is My New York: New Anniversary Edition (Little, Brown Young Readers, 2003).

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Below is today’s Robert’s Snow schedule.

Pictured here is an ’07 snowflake, entitled “Wishing,” which was not on the initial list and so not covered by a blogger in the Blogging for a Cure effort. I’m happy to be able to feature it. It was created by Jui Ishida and will be sold in Auction 3. Jui illustrated Janet Buell’s wonderful Sail Away, Little Boat (Carolrhoda Books, 2006). A web search reveals that Ishida will be illustrating Good Night, Little One: Bedtime Around the World by Chris Matsuda next year (Rising Moon) as well.

If you missed them, you can read yesterday’s features here. If you collect dolls or know someone who does, here’s a snowflake for you. Read the rest of this entry »

Congratulations to Robert Hass, winner of the 2007 National Book Award in Poetry, for his book Time and Materials.

Here’s an excerpt of a very cool poem of his, “Interrupted Meditation:”

Little green involute fronds of fern at creekside.
And the sinewy clear water rushing over creekstone
of the palest amber, veined with a darker gold,
thinnest lines of gold rivering through the amber
like—ah, now we come to it. We were not put on earth,
the old man said, he was hacking into the crust
of a sourdough half loaf in his vehement, impatient way
with an old horn-handled knife, to express ourselves.
I knew he had seen whole cities leveled: also
that there had been a time of shame for him, outskirts
of a ruined town, half Baroque, half Greek Revival,
pediments of Flora and Hygeia from a brief eighteenth-century
health spa boom lying on the streets in broken chunks
and dogs scavenging among them. His one act of courage
then had been to drop pieces of bread or chocolate,
as others did, where a fugitive family of Jews
was rumored to be hiding. I never raised my voice,
of course, none of us did. He sliced wedges of cheese
after the bread, spooned out dollops of sour jam
from some Hungarian plum, purple and faintly gingered.

Click here to read the rest.

I love the way the poem jumps around in a very stream-of-consciousness way, just like the title implies. And I love the little hidden daggers of emotional poignancy, like the image of the whitened chocolate, or the heaving his wife’s rib cage as she sobs. It’s like he keeps getting sideswiped by his own heart. Beautiful, powerful, and clever without being cloying. That’s what I like in a poem.

Congrats to the other NBA winners as well, particularly Sherman Alexie – I’m reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian right now, and I’m totally digging it.

Below is today’s Robert’s Snow schedule.

Pictured here is an ’07 snowflake which was not on the initial list and so not covered by a blogger in the Blogging for a Cure effort. I’m happy to be able to feature it. It was created by multi-media artist and illustrator and animator and comic book artist (whew, busy man) Brian Biggs, and it’s entitled “Ice Skater’s Waltz” (for sale in Auction 2). The auction site states: “{Brian’s} past lives include those of an art director, professor, competitive accordion player, and television personality.” Brian most recently illustrated One Beastly Beast: Two Aliens, Three Inventors, Four Fantastic Tales by Garth Nix (Eos) and Camp Out!: The Ultimate Kids’ Guide by Lynn Brunelle (Workman Publishing Company), both published this past summer. How did I miss that first one? It looks particularly interesting.

If you missed them, you can read yesterday’s features here. My fun fact for the day was learning that illustrator Mary Newell DePalma, as featured by Elaine Magliaro, used to work as a sign language interpreter, as did I. Who knew?

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