Now the real work begins

The editor sent an email today that she's sending edits on Informally Yours. This book was such fun to write. Two years ago Allan Wolf and I thought of the idea on the plane home from IRA -- a book of boy/girl love poems. We had known one another since the 1995 National Poetry Slam where his team beat my team to take first place because I went overtime and we lost by .6. Not that I dwell on such petty trivia, you understand, I barely remember it. Right. It was like missing a lay up in the final moments of a championship game.

Anyway, Allan and I have been friends ever since. Not calling friends, but speaking when we see one another and respectful, feel free to call for advice friends. Now, after writing this book, we REALLY know each other. In order to write our adolescent love poems, we had to talk about all the geeky, paralyzing, heart stopping memories stored in our own experience databanks. Confessions. Revelations. OMG, you've got to be kidding me stories. Like the time I was sitting in the movies with a date and he passed me the sweet tarts and his hand brushed my knee and I almost threw up. I don't think I've ever eaten a sweet-tart since. The first line of the resulting poem is: Do not bolt screaming, clutching all your stuff.

That's the thing about memories. You think you put them to bed and the pesky things keep crawling back down the stairs. Bunch of intruders, memories. Like the time I went overtime on the stage of the National Poetry Slam and . . . STOP IT. GO TO YOUR ROOM!

I'm sitting here waiting for Allan to call so we can discuss the pictures for the book. This is the first time I've sold a book with the artwork. These are photos that Allan and I took and I doctored up on photoshop. The editor said she has made her comments on the manuscript. It's time for the editing to begin. This is the work of writing. The weighing, tossing, pruning, straightening. Something to look forward to.

And the truth about that sweet tart story? I had been widowed once and divorced and was out on my first date and it suddenly occurred to me that there weren't parents at home to set the boundaries. Who said adolescence ends at 18, or 16 or whenever it is supposed to be over?

Maybe adolesence is like the past. It's never really over. Not in my line of work, anyway. It's listening on the staircase, making sure I get it right.

I wonder if the phone will EVER ring?

safer, smafer

In Florida they have a law named for Jessica Lunsford, the poor girl attacked and killed by a neighbor, a repeat offender, a kind of scum lower than whale poop. In response to this attack (which did not take place on school grounds during a busy school day by a school contractor, let's remember) the Florida legislature has created a law requiring anyone who is paid to come to a school to be fingerprinted and have a background check.

Okay, so far. Sounds fair. Sex criminals shouldn't hang with kids. Makes sense.

Except these fingerprints have to be taken in the county where the work is to be done or a certified location elsewhere. Oh, there is NOT ONE certified place to have fingerprints taken in OH and sent to FL. PA either. TX has one, but only in Dallas. And the background checks are country specific, meaning you can't get statewide permission to visit schools, it's on a county by country basis. $85 a print.

Besides, getting a background check in OH is useless since OH can only check OH offenders and FL can only check FL offenders and never the twain databases shall talk to one another. Wasn't Homeland security supposed to do something about this? Pedophiles never move, presumably, to do their dirty work? Oh, there's a federal database, but that only tracks federal crimes, which pedophilia is not (unless the offender crosses state lines with the kid AND gets caught).

And this law only applies to paid contractors of the school. This means if you come in to repair the copy machine or (just say) provide a poetry assembly, you need to have the background check. If you volunteer in the library or to chaperon an overnight trip, you do not.

What?

A person could volunteer to spend the night with a group of kids on a field trip and NOT get a background check, but a different person needs one to do an assembly for 400 kids?

Now every school district has had to hire a full-time person to monitor these background checks on the paid contractors. These employees must have the patience of an acorn or limitless refills on their meds to put up with irate contractors calling to try and figure out complex systems designed by the wonderful folks who brought you the tax laws, complete with commensurate sections and sub-sections. One more salary not going to educate kids.

The good news is that other state legislatures are so worried about being viewed as negligent in protecting kids from dangerous (say) poets who come to deliver programs to large groups of kids that they are in fact racing to put their own state-specific, non-comprehensive background check laws on the books.

None of which would have saved Jessica.

These laws mirror the complex entry systems designed and sold to schools that harried school secretaries bypass with a little buzzer. Think about it. Other than the Chechnyan rebels, has there ever been a school shooting perpetrated by anyone who would have not been buzzed in?

The fact is, danger for kids most often lurks among those they know. A fact that has never stopped private enterprise from making a killing off of systems purchased by nervous institutions. Gee, I'm feeling safer already.

Summer Reading

I was all over the place this summer in books -- Africa, Pakistan, Peru, Chile, colonial America and perhaps the most frightening land of all -- adolescence. I didn't have a summer reading list and I'm not facing a quiz. I can't figure out if this is an advantage to being out of school or a loss because I only read what I want to.

A Long Way Gone, Memoir of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah -- This is an amazing account of a boy recruited into the army in Sierra Leone and his subsequent return to civilization after UNICEF bought him out at 15. The imagery is so strong and the writing poetic -- it's hard to believe it was written by a second language speaker. They kept the boys fighting by getting them addicted to blood and speed. Asked in an interview on the Daily Show if it was harder for him to become a killer or harder to rejoin society and he said the rejoining. Several books I read this summer served as reminders of the violence that lurks under the skin of us all.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini -- This is by the same author who wrote The Kite Runner and is just as spell binding, visual and haunting. It is a girl's story this time. Two young Afghan women overcoming cruelty and death to find friendship. Last year I read three or four books about Afghanistan and finally had to take a break -- the situation there is so desperate, particularly for women and children. What made this novel memorable for me is the intricate descriptions of the places and cultural detail.

Left To Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza Did not like this book. I'm afraid to say that as it is about the Rowandan genocide and the author's survival. By saying I didn't like it I run the risk of sounding pro-genocide. Maybe it was the endorsement by Wayne Dyer. He has this industry of books and tapes which all say "visualize it, pray for it, and it happens." When heartless "other" publishers didn't pick up her story, he did. And he provided her with a translator (whose work was horrendous, putting her story into American slang) who saw to it to inject his "visualize,pray and it happens" philosophy throughout. Frankly, I just saw the book as a vehicle for him to promote his own stuff.

Twisted by Laurie Halsey Anderson I liked this one okay, but I wanted to love it as I did Speak and that didn't happen. This is a young adult novel in a boy's voice and I never quite suspended by disbelief that this was really a guy talking and not Anderson talking like a guy. There are plenty of positive reviews floating around and it wasn't awful, I was just disappointed. I thought it was a little too neat how the protagonist snaps at his abusive dad, dad says "oh sorry I was such a dick for your entire life," and then they are immediately okay. Where are the years of therapy?

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathanial Philbrick Why wasn't my history book in school as engaging as this guy? I don't usually read heavy non-fiction like this -- and this book is heavy in detail, but what a lot to learn about the stubborn souls who chose to venture and stick it out in a brutal environment. This book didn't help my cynicism about human nature one bit. The settlers had arrogance and modern weaponry on their side (along with small pox). Not very appealing to claim as relatives. But the native americans had some ego problems too -- leaders who sold each other out with designs on one another's territories. This book has more detail than you can imagine -- did you know there were two dogs on the Mayflower? A spaniel and a "slobbering mastif." Since Michael's mom raises mastifs, this descriptor made me laugh. That was about the only laugh in the book, but it was a muddy, bloody, sad but glorious read. It makes you wonder what like could have been like for all if alliances were kept and the native people honored, faiths and spirits united to bring community wealth instead of wealth to a few.

Shabanu, Daughter of the Wind by Suzanne Fisher Staples This is also a young adult novel, but one of those that should not just be relegated to school libraries. It follows a young desert girl in Pakistan whose love of freedom, the desert and her camels must be tempered as she learns to obey. There is no neat ending to this one, she is tamed and forced to marry the older man her family has chosen for her. I loved Fisher Staples book Under the Persimmon Tree and this one did not disappoint. Although Shabanu has been out for almost 20 years, it increases in relavancy due to political situations. Now I need to quickly read the sequel Haveli so that I am ready when the third book in the trilogy comes out next month.

Ines of my Soul by Isabel Allende I just love Allende. I love plunging into the mystery and spirit world of her stories. What a story teller she is. But this book really charts new ground for her as she follows the true story of a woman who helped to establish the first spanish settlements in Chile. It begins in Spain, moves to Peru and then across the desert and mountains into Chile. The cruelty to the indigenous peoples is documented in horrific detail right along with the intimate details of her relationships with serial lovers. I remember hearing Allende speak one time in Chicago where she said as she advance in years she has come to regret every man or desert that she passed up. In this book, she passes up nothing. It is fantastic.

Cesar's Way, The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems by Cesar Millan. This is really a spring book that I bought to help in house training Suzi. It didn't help with that, but I loved this book and think that every teacher should read it to help with classroom management. He notes that only humans will follow a neurotic, unstable leader. In the dog world such a leader would be deposed immediately and probably killed. Lesson there. I love the way he describes the "calm, assertive" leader. Every pack needs a leader or they go a little nuts, the idea is to establish yourself as the leader and take the anxiety out of the pack. Now, what teacher couldn't benefit from a reminder on that score? Loved it.

Driving through Somerset County

Coming home from visiting Kelly and family today we hopped off the turnpike to take winding route 30 through PA. Coal country. Laurel Highlands. 2909 elevations. Towns too small to make the map. Whoever heard of Shanksville? That is before September 11 when Flight 93 dropped out of the sky into a field there. At the Coal Miners Tavern we picked up a Somerset County Visitors Guide with a yellow-eyed eagle on the cover. In fact it is titled the Flight 93 Somerset County Visitors Guide, the rest of the sites in the country having been parsed into eight pages in the 32 page booklet. That's what happens when planes fall on your side of the mountain.

I learned from the booklet that flight 93 took off 42 minutes late on that day. I studied the list of names and tried to picture flight attendant Lorraine Bay in her uniform. Wondered how old Andrew was or Honor Elizabeth and who was missing them on this perfect August day -- a day not unlike that day weather wise.

We also passed a fellow walking for peace from Chicago to D.C. The road was narrow and we were passed him before fully absorbing who or what had just whizzed past. Since then we've found the young man on YouTube -- Mario Penalver http://www.funnytv.us/Mario-Penalver--Peace-Walker__bhQoeGuZ6HM.html
Michael said at the time we should turn around and give him some money for his trip, but regrettably we did not test the turning radius of the car and the alertness of oncoming drivers and stop on the narrow road.

Why do we turn off of main highways? To see something different? To get away from it all?

But there is no getting away, is there? Not really. There it all was in Somerset County, somewhere left of nowheresville. Pieces of the whole mess. The downed airplane. The puffed up patriotic eagle brochure asking for donations for a monument. The details, the names, the memories. And the young man walking to end the subsequent war unjustly blamed on the events of September 11. And how many sons and daughters of coal miners are over there now?

That crater in a corn field is as wide as the planet and as deep as a mother's pain -- but instead of healing, it just seems to keep on growing.

This Can't Happen

This cave in, this hurricane, this almond-sized explosive device found in the breast of my daughter Kelly. This can't happen. That's what I said when I heard about the lump, what I said on the phone, what I said to friends, and what I continued to say until 3AM on the morning of her surgery when for one agonizing hour my tired mind wrestled with the possibility that maybe it could happen. Tragedies happen.

But this tragedy did not happen. The surgery was quick and slick as an oil change without the efforts to upsell an air filter and winter wipers. The pathologist called before we got home to tell us that the lump was free of cancer.

The burden of worry that I wouldn't allow to happen was lightened in stages yesterday rather than in one swoosh. The sun kept getting brighter, the music of the day a little more bouncy until relaxing by the swings with the kids last night a moth fluttered by pulling the last of it into the twilight.

Whew.

Nothing but fun

What could bring 3 generations of chicks together for a fun night along with a gender, age, race, economic diverse audience of great music and smiles, dancing in the aisles, albeit somewhat pricey -- joy?

American Idol comes to Cleveland in concert. Okay, okay, I know. But as an event to take a wide-eyed six-year-old (Stephanie) to, it sure beat the skates off Disney on Ice. We sang, we danced in our seats, on the floor, and (in our imaginations) on the big stage. Maybe that's the difference between an Idol concert and say a Bob Seger concert (which may be the last big concert I attended). I think the audience pictures themselves as being part of the act, you can see it in their eyes and smiles.

It has all the trappings of other concerts, products at inflated prices and gold plated popcorn, but it is one of the few events you can take a kid to and know there will be something for everyone. Latisha sang a version of I'll Always Love You that should make Whitney Houston go hide under the bed. Blake nailed Shot Through the Heart and tried to teach everyone how to beat box. Yes, there was Sanjaya. Dressed in white coat and red pants he moonwalked to a Michael Jackson tune, as usual, his personality far outshining his voice. Melinda recreated the magic of Motown for a new generation with Natural Woman and Jordan just can't possibly be only 17 -- what a voice.

A whole new rendition of "This is Entertainment."

National Poetry Slam 2007

Austin is hot -- once again. I mean the thermostat in the car read 108 one day. That's hotter than a match head, as the saying goes.

For the first time in a few years, Cleveland sent a team. They are a young team with lots to learn about reading the audience, but they performed well the first night taking their bout. They took a third place in the second bout, but that was enough to get them into the semi-finals since the new rules allow 25 teams to compete instead of the old 16. Unfortunately, that's where they ended their Slam experience, but everyone was hugging and smiling. I think they'll be back.

For me, there were three poems that made the event worthwhile. Titles are never announced, but the gist of the pieces was this -- Buddy Unicorn's piece about the death of his mother that can be heard here: (rated adult for language and content) http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=88280051
From the same team (NYC Louder Arts) Rachel's piece about being (obviously) pregnant in an uncertain world and her commitment to go down fighting and finally Denver. This is the Denver team that won last year and in my mind had THE most memorable group piece, If you see something, Say Something about immigration. Very powerful. But this year's piece for five voices was even better -- a prayer, a plea to God, voices begging please let it be negative, help me, some humorous, some hideous, all painfully personal. Perfectly executed and choreographed, it was the highlight of the entire 80 team, 400 poet event for me. (not that I saw everyone, no one could have).

Here's the truth. I didn't even go to the indi finals following this match. These pieces moved me so much that I was emotionally spent.

Last year I was featured as a legend at the Slam, this year I just went to listen. Listening is good. Hopeful. No matter how dark the poet's piece is -- some THING has happened to that writer and he/she/they've recorded the happening and are still standing to deliver. That is hopeful.

Hideous

I was browsing blogs, putting off working on taxes and the evil treadmill and I came across this phrase: "Michael Vick and the hideous dog fighting scandal" and thought, great word! Hideous. You don't hear that word so much anymore. The irony here is that there's so much that is hideous in this world. But then the word implies feeling -- and aren't we beyond all that?

Special effects in horror movies have caused many to build up an immunity to blood and gore, maybe we don't need the word anymore. A head explodes, a hand's cut off, skin melts and the audience isn't even supposed to flinch. If we don't feel revulsion, what's the use in a word like hideous except to inject it into something relatively benign? Say, Cher's face.

So along comes real blood and gore. What's more hideous than war? I watched a clip from The Guardian about Iraq -- the U.S. soldiers are clearly being driven mad by their deployment, shooting at everyone/thing that moves. I would, too if snipers were shooting at me. There was a shot of an Iraqi man who'd had his feet blown off, sitting and screaming, frantically looking around for help, his feet, a hand out of the mess. Not reality T.V., but reality. It was too gruesome for the U.S. news. I put in a link to the video above, but brace yourself, it is indeed hideous. Are we too conditioned to horror to flinch, weep, scream?

Hideous: the word itself works on the psyche like a flesh eating disease, ripping away the protective layer to reveal raw emotion. It provokes bad images, but it is a good word. One we need to have in the pocket to pass around to remind us that somethings are beyond acceptable and refuse to be satisfied by a simple shrug.

To quote that AV sage Dr. Phil, you can't change what you don't acknowledge. Hideous is a word of acknowledgment, a feeling word not only standing up to the un-feeling, but backhanding it across its botoxed face.

open door policies

We keep the doors open in the summer. For the dogs. Or that's the excuse. The sliding glass door off of our bedroom, the side kitchen door. When we are home, they are open. I like it that way. Did the same thing at my last house.

Guests helpfully close the doors or comment, "oops, door's open." No oops about it, that's the way we like it. It's my suburban version of camping, experiencing the outdoors with an ice machine and warm running water. And here's a little secret about bugs -- they like it better outside. Sometimes a fly will come in to explore the bathroom or sink, but they take off for open spaces as fast as they can find their way out. Bugs who seem to be expert at finding their ways into houses are complete dunces about finding their way out -- you have to leave the door open.

I could maybe find some glorious metaphor for keeping our doors open in a dangerous world except I also love our 8 foot privacy fence. I can pull weeds in my pajamas, use the hot tub with naked impunity, and walk outside without worrying I will get caught up in scrutiny or conversation with anything but the morning glories. Maybe it's a result of living a semi-public life certain times of the year, times when entire assemblies of kids are invited to ask me anything they want to and I feel strongly that I want to respond with honesty.

Did it hurt to get your ears pierced? Did your dog really die? Why do you want to write? You don't seem that rebellious to me. Are you rich? Do that poem about the dog who ate the homework again. What's your scariest (funniest, saddest, silliest) poem? What kind of car do you drive? How old are you? How do I get my stuff (my kid's poetry, my aunt mildred's religious poetry, my story, my book) published? Do you like Michigan or Ohio State? Do you have any poems about war? Who's your favorite American Idol? Who are you wearing? How much did your shoes cost? Are you married? Why not? Where's your doorknob? I think in the summer my response button needs a little time to heal.

For the past weeks I have pretty much withdrawn while at home. A little writing, a little working on images for the new book, some submissions, limited correspondence about next school year, and lots of alone time. This is my version of putting peaches up in the summer, savory fruit of last year's labor vacuum sealed to carry me through the winds of busy airports next winter. Next week I rejoin the "arterial rush of traffic" to quote Salinger.

I think I'm ready.

Nothing trumps crab grass

I dream about crab grass. What a pathetic confession! Crab grass slinks into my gardens, sending its scouts ahead of each invasion like spacewalkers suspended on life lines. Its tentacles lurk beneath the grass as it races to strangle all growth. I love growing things and have tried to live in harmony with crab grass, but it chokes out the blooms on my lavender, thyme, and yarrow and I hate it.

Night before last I took a break from pulling crab grass and walked around the neighborhood with a letter to our city council about our disgust with the way the developer at the end of the street is mutilating and overdeveloping a small plot of ground he wheedled out of the financially strapped school system without paying them any cash. There is so much wrong with this development, it's hard to articulate without beginning to splutter like Daffy Duck. Anyway, up and down the street I went looking for signatures on my letter. Apparently the developer doesn't read the papers or even look at the ubiquitous FOR SALE OR LEASE signs in the city and doesn't realize the real estate market is depressed, because he keeps gaily ripping down trees and playgrounds to build structures no one needs on not only this, but several sites in town. Deer are committing suicide on the freeway. See what I mean about the spluttering?

So, I approach a neighbor I've never really talked to before who is standing on his lawn with his smiling wife and adorable 18 month old. He is a young guy, overweight in shorts that might have fit him better last summer or the five before. His hair is leaving him. I explain the purpose of the letter, its 6 points including traffic snarls, flooding, lack of classrooms in overcrowded schools for the three story townhouses the developer previously assured us would be populated by retirees (see above on financially strapped schools). This is a lot like purporting that a used car was driven to and from church by a little old lady when in truth it was a rental car. Maybe this young man does in fact sell cars. At any rate, he knows the game and that we're being played. I want his signature.

"Yeah, I'll sign," he says. "I don't want any shines moving in down there."

I haven't heard the label "shine" since I was a kid, before the riots in Detroit. Before MLK professed his dream on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Before Brown vs the Board of Education, the exact same decision that was overturned by the Supreme Court this week, went head to head with the likes of George Wallace. For two days talking heads have been debating on the media whether race is still an issue in our "united" states. I want to introduce the Justices to this young man.

He said, "shines," and he looked at me hard as he said it. Measuring me? Daring me? His wife and child smiling at his side.

I stood silently as he signed the letter. I don't have to agree with him on everything, right? I don't have to make a scene in front of his wife and kid, do I? I can just smile, whisper insults under my breath, and live in harmony with his guy. I don't have to take on every asshole I meet. We can be in agreement on the over-development and disagree on race relations, can't we?

Can we?

The letter feels dirty to me. It sits on the dining room table unsent. Evidence of a compromise that I can't square in my mind.

This neighborhood is being strangled by unseen tentacles, arrogant and bold. Words of hatred uttered by people wearing their patriotism and religiosity on their car bumpers. Uncompromising, bolstered by ignorance and unapologetic greed. It's always there, aggressively trying to choke out what could be beautiful. More than any one pair of hands can pull out.

It gives me nightmares.

The News?

Everyday I read the Huffington Post the way my Dad used to read the Free Press in Detroit. Today I read that some high school scholars took Bush to task for his stance on torture, that politicians take money from big tobacco (like this is news?) and that Murdock is close to firming up his deal to buy the Wall Street Journal, which is just one more reason to get the news on line. I read the business section to see who has been arrested recently and the living section to investigate new ways to relax, which in light of the current news is a hot topic.

But when I saw on the front page today a picture to click to read about Paris Hilton's release from jail, I passed. Not because I wasn't at all interested, the story is like a flat tire on the side of the road, you glace over just because it is there. I didn't click on the story because I know somewhere, someone is counting. The people who choose the news are counting clicks and I don't want to add to the pile. Particularly since I read yesterday the Michael Moore was booted from an interview on Larry King where he was to talk about the health care crisis so that Ms. Hilton can tell all about how hot her prison cell is.

Mostly I get my news from Democracy Now, Huffington Post, Think Progress, BBC, and Alternet. Once in a while MSNBC. And of course, The Daily Show. These are channels my Dad and Walter Cronkite never dreamed of.

And before marketing moguls started counting clicks, measuring the next newsflash against how much interest a related story received the last time. How else can one explain Anna Nicole outplaying troop casualties on the nightly news?

I know, I know. The topic about as welcome as a nasty doormat. But unless we keep hosing it down and occasionally beating the tar out of the doormat, we are just going to keep tracking dirt in.

Beaches

Our family flows toward the Atlantic each summer with our rafts, sunscreen and spawn. We go there to study our familial three R's, to relax, reconnect and recollect. Memories of past trips to the beach are filed in my head going back to when I used to hide True Story magazines under my mattress to be secretly studied with my cousins while the grown-ups drank beer and played cards in the swaying cottages we'd rent in places like Ocean City, Maryland and the Outer Banks.

This year (as in the past 3) we have trekked all the way to Oak Island, NC. I'm not sure how many of us were there in total, the extended family has a lot of extensions. But in our bank of four cottages we had twenty-one sun-toasted surfers.

Beyond celebrating the sun and the sand, we also celebrated my Uncle Bill and Aunt Sophie's 65th wedding anniversary with cake, barbeque, and two cannon blasts that rocked the iced tea right out of my cup.

Scottie (3) learned to ride waves, Steph (6) learned to body surf, Ben (7) learned it takes patience to fish on the pier, Thomas (2) couldn't get enough of the waves running headfirst, getting blasted in the face and popping up with a smile, wanting more. Danny (3) sat in his chair or played putt putt on the par 2 course his mother Kelly made for him. Frank (15) built Frankopolis, the deep sea fishing expedition brought in 200 lbs of fish now in freezers in OH and VA to be retrieved like a warm memory on cold winter nights. Sara Kelly (7 months) just bided her time till next year when the water will come to tickle her newly walking toes. And the grown-ups?

We rode waves of gratitude.

NYC

Everything in NYC is bigger, faster, brighter. After a day's work in Brooklyn, Louisa, Kelly and I supped at a little Italian (yummy) place and went to see Spring Awakening, which would later sweep the Tony Awards. Here's the truth -- I didn't love it. I liked it. But I wanted to LOVE it. One thing for sure, it made me want to return to the city immediately and see 4 more shows.

This picture is of Kelly and Louisa singing at a Karaoke place on Times Square -- what you can't see is that their performance was plastered on one of those mile high neon signs. They did Kelly Clarkson very proud -- and me too.

A Long Way Gone

Just back from a Janet Allen Institute in Florida. The skies were blanketed heavily with what looked to be rain clouds but turned out to be clouds of smoke. Florida is on fire, and you can smell it everywhere, even in the hotel room. Made me add a line to a poem about the environment about Florida catching fire.

I don't know if it was the smoke, the book I am reading (great book about boy soldiers in Sierra Leon, A Long Way Gone, see link above) with its vivid imagery of eyes dripping blood and children lost to bullets and cruelty, my general state of tiredness or staying too much up on the news, but I read too many dark poems in my set. That's twice I've done that this spring, here and in IL. I couldn't sleep last night worrying about it. The set and my state of mind that put me up to it.

At 4AM I was up walking Suzi through the quiet breaking dawn, listening to birds and trying to find my happy place. At this point I think I need a map and a guide to find it. One place I'm certain NOT to find it is on CNN or in a newspaper.

I need to move away from machines and take a shower of sun.

IRA Toronto

Once a year reading teachers from all over gather at the International Reading Association meeting -- this year in an attempt to fulfill its name, the conference was moved across the border to Toronto -- a town with great theater, efficient public transportation and terrific restaurants that just happens to be in Canada. I wish more people would have come, the number of attendees was way down. Was it the passport requirement? The fact that it was later in the year? The fear of the unknown?

Who knows. But I do know that those 200 or so who attended the 11th annual, newly revamped, IRA Poetry Olio were treated to a funny and poignant reading by two leading children's poets, Jane Yolen and Lee Bennett Hopkins. Only two people who have known one another for years could have pulled off the perfectly timed but totally unrehearsed, thoroughly delightful show. Surrounding them were other poets, but it was Jane's and Lee's performances that stole the show.

And I don't think that either one of them would classify themselves as performance poets, thereby confirming what we all know -- or should know -- anytime a poet gets in front of an audience with a poem in hand or in heart and recites it aloud, it is indeed a performance. No news to these two pros who have done more to entice kids into reading than anyone can measure with some 500 books between them.

Allan Wolf and I hosted the event while Micheal stage managed and Ginger West lent muscle and a calming influence. Joining us was Jim Blasingame in cowboy persona, always good for a hoot 'n holler. Them cowboy poets always know how to stir-rup the emotions and then rein them in at just the right time.

Lots of free books and door prizes. It was a grand night for all. See y'all next year in Atlanta where the featured poets will be (hopefully and if the creek don't rise) Ashley Bryant and Naomi Shihab Nye.

Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe, 1870

And sometimes they steal your heart . . .

It's that time of year when every kid, teacher, custodian and fraying folder starts crying RECESS. Summer break is breathing hot and heavy on the other side of June 1st and everyone wants to answer the call. Assemblies are restless, teachers are checking their watches and writing workshops slip (skip?)into silliness without even mentioning underwear.

And then there was James. He looked to be maybe 10, a carrot top neatly trimmed, narrow shoulders and a metronome rock. He sucked his fingers and rocked through the assembly and afterwards slid away from his aid to rush the table and grab my idle microphone. His aid came quickly and kindly, "no, no, James, that's not yours." She held his hand to lead him to the door of the gymnasium, pausing to talk to a teacher. James was straining at her hand, reaching toward the table. Rocking. I took the microphone over and put it in his moist fingers. He felt it all over, not grabbing, but insistent. After a minute, it was time to return to his class. I took the microphone back and he pointed to his heart, two quick taps and then pointed at the microphone, universal sign language for "give to me." The aid said, "you already held the microphone, James." He tapped his heart again and pointed. I held it out for him to stroke again.

His aid finally encouraged him out of the gym as others were coming in for the next show. James followed, lurching and rocking as she held his hand, one more longing look over his shoulder.

Totally non-verbal. Reaching for the magic of that voice maker microphone and taking my heart away in his pocket.

and again . . .

Yesterday at an elementary school came this question from a fifth grader, "have you ever written a poem about the idiot president?"

Excuse me?

He smiled impishly. A few around him proclaimed the Bush to be the greatest president of all time (all time to a nine-year-old is a somewhat limited perspective.) Others laughed madly.

The fact that these elementary school kids even make a connection between poetry and politics is AMAZING given the degree to which all the poetry offered to them is homogenized almost past the point where one can recognize the writing genre. In elementary schools the poetry books are shelved with the joke books.

Today at another elementary when I was grilling the kids to name poets they know, one boy offered up the name Phyllis Wheatley. Accustomed to a constant stream of Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky responses, that one stopped me dead.

Who did you say?

"Phyllis Wheatley. She was a slave . . ."

Sweetheart, I know who she is -- I just can't believe YOU do. Kudos to your teacher!

There are some significant poetry connections being made in Birmingham, MI. Very cool.

Do you write politcal poems?

The eighth graders were restless this afternoon. Every poem inspired a volley of verbal fire with the cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left. Not at all sure that I was connecting with any of the 250 of them crowded onto the library floor. Questions and answers went better than the presentation -- thoughtful questions (maybe they were listening?) and then one student from the way back: Do you ever write political poems?

I was immediately transported back to a conversation I'd had at a polite gathering of poets in Cleveland a couple of weeks ago. Professor One was bemoaning the fact that Nikki Giovanni had actually written a poem for the Virginia Tech family. "I call this Polaroid poetry," he haughtily declared. "What she should have done is find a poem from the past and read that one at the memorial." I questioned this as did another poet standing in attendance at his proclamation. Another professor chimed in, "yes, I don't believe in political poetry at all."

My friend said saomething along the lines of "Eh? You kidding?" She was more polite than that, but direct. "No," he continued -- political poems may possibly be written but not until maybe 100 years after the event. It takes that long to get perspective."

One hundred years later? Who cares 100 years later? No wonder so much poetry is seen as irrelevant if that is the academic attitude toward contemporary commentary in the form of poetry.

I questioned professor #1 citing Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poetry on child labor and how that was read in Parliament and helped to change the laws. He looked at me blankly and then he looked over my head to see who else had entered the room. That was the end of the discussion.

Times of crisis (is a massacre a political event?) are exactly the right time to reach for poetry -- to call on our poets to put attempt to put words to the feelings we share. I thought calling on Nikki Giovanni was EXACTLY the right thing to do and that she was able to offer verbal comfort, encircling the wounded with her verse.

Do I write political poems? Yes. And I will continue to do so. In a world where every activity from schools to bees to peace have become political hot potatoes -- how can any writer not be political? In fact, I have a goal. I want to write a poetry book that gets banned in schools for being politically forthright. I'm bored with getting banned for being satanic and anti-familiy values and some of the other goofy things I've been labeled.

Poets are supposed to stir things up. It's a proud tradition that apparently our eighth graders recognize as being important, if not our "scholars."

Washington Post, NCLB, & Charles Waters

Yesterday, I read an article in the Washington Post that said that the Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of NCLB on allegations of financial conflicts -- meaning people on the committee chose their own programs despite weak or non existant research on the capabilities of those programs (DIBELS among them).

"That sounds like a criminal enterprise to me," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House education committee."

Also in the course of the article (linked above) is this quote: "Despite the controversy surrounding Reading First's management, the percentage of students in the program who are proficient on fluency tests has risen about 15 percent, Education Department officials said. School districts across the country praise the program."

Eh? Which districts? Those who are too scared of having their funding cut off to be honest? In the libraries and halls of our schools, one hears a different story.

NCLB is criminal on so many different levels, it's hard to narrow it down to just the issue of financial gain for the Reading First comittee. Please see the email I received a couple weeks ago from another poet taking the poetry into schools, Charles Waters.


Sara,
I just had to e-mail you to tell you this story that happened to me on Tuesday. So I'm in the library in the poetry section when I meet this 9th grader who is trying to find "Romeo and Juliet" for a book report that's due by Friday. When I asked him why he waited so long to start doing research on the play he said "She gave us the assignment yesterday." I thought immediately to standardized testing I guessed to myself that the teacher is rushing to get through the curriculum so quickly to get ready for the test that there's no time to actually teach the material thoroughly. The kid told me he tried to read the play but found it all to be "jibber jabber." There was no Spark Notes or No Fear Shakespeare or any books in the library that I felt could help him understand the material better and suggested he go to the librarian for help; but he said she was busy and just pointed him in the direction of where a copy of the play was at. I then suggested going to the bookstore to get the Spark Notes or No Fear books (by this time his father arrived on the scene) and by the look on his face he didn't have either the money or inclination to go Barnes and Noble which was practically across the street to get the book or books needed. I asked the kid (whose name I'm sorry I didn't ask) if they do in fact do standardized testing at his school and he said yes they what's called the F-CAT or something like that and he had to take it soon. If I had had the money I would have bought to books for him myself. I was so frustrated that I needed to rant to someone who would understand this and I thought of you because I'm a loyal reader of your blog and know you've seen these kind of things up close and would understand. I'm mad at our current administration for their ignorance knowing that one of the main causes for this, I'm disappointed in the librarian for not helping this child out more with his problem and I'm highly distressed that this poor teacher is having to rush his or her lesson plans and as a result the students are suffering academically and emotionally, it breaks my heart and I don't know what to do about it. Any thoughts? Thanks for reading my rant, I feel better having wrote it and god bless poetry forever.


All the best,
Charles