A Poem and 3 Reviews

National Poetry Month:

My friend Mary mentioned that one of her favorite poets was Sylvia Plath, which reminded me of this riddle:

           Metaphors by Sylvia Plath

I’m a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising.
Money’s new-minted in this fat purse.
I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I’ve eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there’s no getting off.

 Can you guess the answer to Plath's riddle?  (answer at bottom of post)

National Letter Writing Month:

I've been working on postcards for NLM and Write_On challenges.  So far, April has seen 13 postcards or letters hit the mail.  If you are interested in receiving a postcard for NLM, let me know.  :)

Disappointing Finales:  

Etched in Bone by Anne Bishop.  I've loved the first four books in this series, but sadly, I did not love this one.  The villain was a dumkopf who would have been suitable for one nefarious episode, but not to carry an entire book.  A disproportionately large part of the book dealt with what people were eating and where. 

The first four books were so engrossing, full of suspense and well-developed characters that I couldn't turn the pages fast enough--so plodding through this final entry was a surprise. 

To have this series end with so little tension and without wrapping up some of the most interesting sidelines left me frustrated and unsatisfied.

Library copy.

Fantasy.  2017.  407 pages.

The Fate of Tearling by Erika Johansen.  The final installment in the Tearling trilogy was also a disappointment, however, at least it was captivating reading up until the last two chapters which boggled my mind.

The origin of Tearling was a problem I could overlook in previous books, but couldn't avoid in this one.  That aspect of the novels didn't work for me, but the problems in Tearling's present were always fascinating.  

Social and religious quandaries are the same throughout history, and it is always interesting to read in fantasy the problems that society faces in real life.  It is sometimes more illuminating to look at these problems in fiction and get another perspective.  

Library copy.

Fantasy.  2016.  496 pages.

A Very Strange Mystery by John Scalzi


The Dispatcher  I didn't realize this was a novella when I requested it from NetGalley, and I usually don't choose novellas, but I'm glad I did this time because The Dispatcher is such a singular mystery.  

Set in the near future, a paradigm shift alters expectations about the finality death.  People still die, but in 999 out of 1,000 cases, people who are killed intentionally --come back to life.

There is no  scientific explanation for this phenomenon, and those who die from suicide, illness, old age, or accident will remain dead, but anyone who is deliberately killed has a 99.9% chance of coming back to life.  This requires some new rules, regulations, and uh, career paths.

Tony Valdez is a Dispatcher, and usually his work involves observing dangerous operations where the risk of death is high.  If the operation goes wrong and the patient is on the verge of death, the dispatcher steps in and dispatches the individual as painlessly as possible.  So...killing the patient before a natural death occurs means that the patient will awake in his or her own bed at home, naked, but very much alive.  

There are, of course, some ethical dilemmas involved, and dispatchers have been known to venture into grey areas.  Yep, it is really difficult to determine the ways a "miracle" can be exploited.  

When Tony's colleague Jimmy Albert disappears, Tony works with Chicago PD's Nona Langdon to discover what happened to the missing dispatcher.

Originally released only in audio format, it is now available as an e-book.

Short and absorbing!

NetGalley/Subterranean Press

Mystery/SiF/Fantasy.  2016, audio; May 31, 2017 e-book. Print length:  136 pages. 
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Did you get the answer to Plath's riddle? Highlight for the answer:  She is pregnant--love that last line, "Boarded the train there's no getting off."

Poetry as Social Comment

On my other blog, I wrote about some fun poems, children's poems that can make you smile or laugh outright.  The following poem is a sad comment about the way culture and media can be an invidious influence on self-image.

Barbie Doll

This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker's cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn't she look pretty? everyone said.

Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

Marge Piercy

Here is a link to an article Piercy wrote about a problem that still exists, the importance placed on body image, especially for women.  I'm glad Piercy also mentions the problem of aging (again, especially for women).   Piercy is correct, the problem is even worse today than it was when she wrote the poem.  People seem to have the freedom to say things online that perhaps they would not, otherwise.   It is difficult to understand  how fat old men feel no contradiction about making crude comments about a woman's body, whether "positive" or negative.  Not that women are excused, because women are equally judgmental in many cases.  Such a strange disconnect!

Piercy's article is a good one, but it is an angry one.  Barbie Doll is an angry poem.  And despairing.  Because things have actually gotten worse.  We are all susceptible--old, young, fat, thin, pretty, plain, male, female.  

A Side Trip to Poetry

The other day, my Kindle failed to connect to the internet, and I was unable to download some recent books that I was eager to read.  In response, I turned to one of my Norton anthologies of contemporary poetry published nearly 50 years ago--so--hardly contemporary by today's standards.  I found this one at a library sale decades ago when another edition was published.

I read through Hardy and enjoyed reading the poems I've read many times and tackling a few that in the past I'd only skimmed through.  Hardy has never been a favorite, but he does have some wonderful lines that would make excellent book titles.  In spite of Hardy's rather bleak outlook, he occasionally reveals a wryly humorous  vein, and rereading The Ruined Maid gives me the same pleasure as the first time.

On through Robert Bridges--mostly skimmed.  I did try once again to appreciate Bridges, but failed.  His work doesn't engage me.  

Through Houseman, who though preoccupied with lost youth and wistful looks at times gone by, also has such memorable lines.  I do like many of his poems, and I always smile a little at the first lines of  'Terence This Is Stupid Stuff -- 

‘TERENCE, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,	5
It gives a chap the belly-ache.

And then to Yeats.  I love Yeats' poetry, at least the ones I understand.  This anthology includes 89 of his poems, and I reread some of my favorites and worked at some of the ones that leave me bewildered.  Since this is my own copy, I added more underlining and marginalia to those I've added previously in many readings.  When I taught, I read all of my poetry books frequently, both for my own pleasure and for insights into teaching--so my anthologies are all marked up with thoughts, underlining, questions, and comparisons. With Yeats, my thoughts are both appreciative of poems and lines that I find amazing--and puzzled over those lines and poems that continue to baffle and perplex.

When I got about half way through the 89 poems, I decided I wanted to know more about the period before and after the Easter Rising, partly to know more about some of the people involved.  In Easter, 1916, Yeats mentions, among others, John MacBride, Maude Gonne's abusive husband from whom she was separated.   Below is an excerpt from the second verse:

This other man I had dreamed 

A drunken, vainglorious lout. 

He had done most bitter wrong 

To some who are near my heart,   

Yet I number him in the song; 

He, too, has resigned his part 

In the casual comedy; 

He, too, has been changed in his turn,   

Transformed utterly: 

A terrible beauty is born. 

and the final lines:

  

I write it out in a verse— 

MacDonagh and MacBride   

And Connolly and Pearse 

Now and in time to be, 

Wherever green is worn, 

Are changed, changed utterly:   

A terrible beauty is born.  

I don't think Yeats entirely forgives MacBride, but he acknowledges his commitment to the Irish cause in which Yeats himself believes.

source

Yeats' love of Maude Gonne resulted in her presence in many of his most loved poems.

Anyway, on my library trip Monday, I checked out The Apprentice Mage, without realizing that this is the first (huge) volume of a two volume set, which unfortunately ends in 1914 just when my interest picks up.  Yes, now I see the I in the title, but at the time with my arms full of books....

I'm giving it a try, and while not impressed with the writing, I have found some great bits embedded in the tedious detail. 

A section in the introduction says that one has to look at so many aspects of Yeats' life to gain insight into the man and his work; Foster calls it a "palimpsest of Irishness" that Yeats continued to develop, question, and change throughout his life. Not just for Yeats, but for all of us, our development is overwritten again and again by experience, even if the original is still there in large or small portions.  For Yeats, because of the times in which he lived and his own creative genius, the layers are more interesting and more important.

And yet...the author almost loses purpose in the extraneous detail.  The book is over 500 pages with another 200 pages of end-notes (to which I've already had to refer several times); the print is very small, and the line spacing very narrow (another element that makes for less pleasant reading), and it doesn't even cover the period I'm most curious about.  I may have to skim this one and look for another biography with a cleaner, more efficient style.

I've only been through about 1/2 the poems (so I have many favorites left--including The Second Coming, which once again seems prophetic), but I want more historical context, especially about the Home Rule crisis and the effects of WWI on Yeats' poetry.  (Not that I'm not interested in his love affairs, his fascination with spiritualism, automatic writing, and Honor Bright--I do love me some gossip.)  

Fairy Tale Imaginings

I love fairy tales, artists' take on fairy tales, and poems inspired by fairy tales.  Shaun Tan's sculptures based on the tales of the Brothers Grimm are wonderful illustrations of the paths creativity can take.

Little Red Riding Hood

 Source:  Grimm fairy tales you can touch

All-Kinds-of-Fur

Source: Grimm fairy tales you can touch

The Frog King

same source

Several years ago, I wrote a post about the following poem, an example of a contemporary imagining of a fairy tale.  It remains a favorite.

How to Change a Frog into a Prince

Anna Denise
  

  

Start with the underwear. Sit him down.
Hopping on one leg may stir unpleasant memories.
If he gets his tights on, even backwards, praise him.
Fingers, formerly webbed, struggle over buttons.
Arms and legs, lengthened out of proportion, wait,
as you do, for the rest of him to catch up.
This body, so recently reformed, reclaimed,
still carries the marks of its time as a frog. Be gentle.
Avoid the words awkward and gawky.
Do not use tadpole as a term of endearment.
His body, like his clothing, may seem one size too big.
Relax. There's time enough for crowns. He'll grow into it.

Some poems are difficult to understand and require multiple readings, and I love poems like that, poems that require intuition and effort. But I love poems like this one - poems that are instantly accessible, a bit silly and a bit serious. I love poems that "connect," as this one does to something that I'm reading or thinking about.

An easy poem, "How to Change a Frog into a Prince" is about transformation, and we are all transforming, but it is also about patience and kindness. It is tongue-in-cheek and perceptive - a gentle blend. It seems to say that love of all kinds requires acceptance and that princes, children, friends, lovers, and spouses are all subject to growth, to change, and that we have a role in these transitions. And humor helps. "Relax. There's time enough for crowns. He'll grow into it." Maybe we will, too.

Say You're Sorry and Jade Dragon Mountain

Say You're Sorry by Michael Robotham is, as usual, a worthy addition to his Joe O'Loughlin series.  I've read 7 of his Joe O'Loughlin books and one excellent stand-alone:  Life or Death.  The books are generally pretty dark, and this one is no exception.  Two young girls disappear and are never found.  Three years later, Joe and his daughter are visiting Oxford and he is called in on the vicious murder of a man and his wife.  In the same time frame, a young woman's body is discovered frozen in a local lake.  

Robotham keeps the suspense palpable.  There are so many things I like about this series:  the protagonist has Parkinson's, his sidekick -Vincent Ruiz, the suspense, the pacing.  What I like less: the brutal and bizarre nature of many of the crimes.  

I'm quite committed to Robotham's books, but I could do with a little less malicious evil.

Library book.

Crime/Police Procedural.  2012.  433 pages.  


Jade Dragon Mountain by Elsa Hart is a debut novel set in China in 1708.  Li Du, formerly an imperial librarian in The Forbidden City, is now an exile making his way through the provinces.  He finds himself in Dayan, an outpost on the Tibetan border, where his cousin is the magistrate.  Li Du's  purpose is to get his papers checked before crossing into Tibet.  His cousin the magistrate also wants Li Du to move on quickly as Li Du's exile has caused the entire family to lose face.  

The city is in the midst of preparations for a ceremony in which the Emperor is to summon an eclipse.  The magistrate wants Li Du gone before the Emperor and his retinue arrive; Li Du's eagerness to leave is also evident.  

However, when a Jesuit astronomer is found murdered, both the magistrate and Li Du must adjust their plans.

The pace is leisurely.  Li Du investigates the murder without any modern methods.   His great skills in listening and observation lead him closer to a solution, but the method is slow and precarious. Everyone has secrets, most turn out to be unimportant, but some secrets are potentially disastrous.

Hart has introduced  a compelling character in Li Du and placed him in the fascinating milieu of the Qing Dynasty, an important transitional era.  The Kanxi emperor's initial fondness for the Jesuits, the conflict between Jesuits and Dominicans, the greedy eagerness of the East India Company to gain a foothold in China (unsuccessfully at the time) all add interesting elements to the story.

The language is often rich and poetic in a manner reminiscent of Chinese poetry and paintings:

"The Lady Chen's family wine is famous.  Plums...tasting of poetry."

A line from the description of the mountain mists:  "The next break in the cloud framed a waterfall, a still, silver column too distant for him to perceive its tumbling energy."

Lid Du accidently knocks a basket with his foot, spilling some peppers to the ground "where they glowed like setting suns."

As the first in a projected series, Hart has done a fine job. The ambience of the setting is vividly imagined; the characters of Li Du and Hamza are deftly handled and ready for further development and backstories; the historical elements are fascinating.

Library book.

Historical Mystery.  2015.  321 pages.
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The most important tribute any human being can pay to a poem or a piece of prose he or she really loves is to learn it by heart. Not by brain, by heart; the expression is vital. George Steiner

This and That

Tolkien reading from The Hobbit.

Two books I'd like to read.

A new Lisbeth Salander book by David Lagercrantz continues Stieg Larsson's series!  I'm in for this one.  The Girl in the Spider's Web.

National Poetry Month

A murmuration of starlings!  

I've seen other amazing videos like this, but since seeing the birds always reminds me of John Updike's poem, and it is National Poetry Month...

The Great Scarf of Birds -- John Updike

Playing golf on Cape Ann in October,
I saw something to remember.

Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets
of their branches. The maples
were colored like apples,
part orange and red, part green.
The elms, already transparent trees,
seemed swaying vases full of sky. The sky
was dramatic with great straggling V’s
of geese streaming south, mare’s-tails above them.
Their trumpeting made us look up and around.
The course sloped into salt marshes,
and this seemed to cause the abundance of birds.

As if out of the Bible
or science fiction,
a cloud appeared, a cloud of dots
like iron fillings which a magnet
underneath the paper undulates.
It dartingly darkened in spots,
paled, pulsed, compressed, distended, yet
held an identity firm: a flock
of starlings, as much one thing as a rock.
One will moved above the tress
the liquid and hesitant drift.

Come nearer, it became less marvelous,
more legible, and merely huge.
“I never saw so many birds!” my friend exclaimed.
We returned our eyes to the game.
Later, as Lot’s wife must have done,
in a pause of walking, not thinking
of calling down a consequence,
I lazily looked around.

The rise of the fairway above was tinted,
so evenly tinted I might not have noticed
but that at the rim of the delicate shadow
the starlings were thicker and outlined the flock
as an inkstain in drying pronounces its edges.
The gradual rise of green was vastly covered;
I had thought nothing in nature could be so broad
but grass.

And as
I watched, one bird,
prompted by accident or will to lead,
ceased resting; and, lifting in a casual billow,
the flock ascended as a lady’s scarf,
transparent, of gray, might be twitched
by one corner, drawn upward and then,
decided against, negligently tossed toward a chair:
the southward cloud withdrew into the air.

Long had it been since my heart
Had been lifted as it was by the lifting of that great
scarf.

And another video of a starling murmuration....

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I'm continuing to work on fidget quilts.  I'm hand quilting # 8, which is taking forever, but these quilts are as much for me as for the eventual recipients, so I do what I enjoy doing.

Fidget quilt #7 was machine quilted and took little time and saved my finger tips from the frequent punctures of hand quilting.  Raw edges will ravel and add a little texture as well.

Some manipulative details

National Poetry Month

Poem in Your Pocket Day

Wow!  What a great day with so many people involved!  Love the restaurant that included a poem with each day and the school children who participated!  Kudos to the Charlottesville library that initiated this event.

National Poetry Month

Doll God - poems by Luanne Castle

I love poetry and always have.  I have slim volumes and huge anthologies on my shelves.  When asked to be a part of this blog tour, I was reminded that for some time, I've been neglecting my poetry reading.  And I rarely read anything new; returning time and time again to my favorite poems and favorite poets (John Donne, Dylan Thomas, T.S. Eliot, Marge Piercy, Gerard Manly Hopkins).  Poems about fairy tales are an exception--I love reading a re-interpretation of a fairy tale in poetic language. My favorites "fairy tale poets" are Anne Sexton and Jane Yolen.

Doll God

Book Description:

Consistently on Amazon's Hot New Releases in Poetry
Luanne Castle's debut poetry collection, Doll God, studies traces of the spirit world in human-made and natural objects--a Japanese doll, a Palo Verde tree, a hummingbird. Her exploration leads the reader between the twin poles of nature and creations of the imagination in dolls, myth, and art.

Although most reviewers have been pleased with this little volume, I only found a few poems that spoke to me. Again, it is a matter of taste, just like in novels.  Or perhaps, I just wasn't in the right mood.

Since all the reviews I read were 4-5 stars, I recommend that you read the poems yourself.  The fact that they did not resonate with me is of little importance--they may speak to you.

The Doll God Book Tour

Tour Stops:
Feb. 9: Patricia’s Wisdom (review)
Feb. 10: Everything Distills Into Reading (review)
Feb. 13: Bell, Book & Candle (review)
Feb. 14: Book Dilettante (review)
Feb. 19: Peeking Between the Pages (Author Guest Post)
Feb. 20: Peeking Between the Pages (review)
Feb. 22: Regular Rumination (review)
Feb. 23:  A Garden Carried in the Pocket (review)
Feb. 24: Bookgirl’s Nightstand (review)
March 1: Tea Leaves (review)
March 4: Diary of an Eccentric (review)
March 6: Savvy Verse & Wit (review)

Poetry.  2015.  86 pages.

On the Dark Path: An Anthology of Fairy Tale Poetry

On the Dark Path is very descriptive of the poems in this anthology.  Edited by Anita M. Barnard, most of the poems are quite dark and have a modern, psychological take on the tales.  


I found the little volume disappointing because of the lack of balance and the persistent negativity.  Perhaps I would have appreciated some of the darker poems if there had been a better balance.  Had they been mixed in with poems that were beautiful because of the language, that were whimsical, or that were humorous, reading the darker poems would not have become so onerous.  Might even have been more appreciated.

As it was, the poems began to sound affected, pretentious, kind of pompously psychological.  There were maybe 3 or 4 of the 50+ poems, that caught my imagination.

Several good quotes were placed before the first poem.  I really like the following quote.

Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.  -- G.K. Chesterton, as quoted in Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

The poems in the anthology, however, do not, for the most part, carry the same message. 

Here is one of the few poems that I liked:

Snow White's Dream

the light passing through the glass
seemed distorted     slightly skewed
she feigned sleep     eyes pinched
in prayer     flushed lips
relishing the single bite
still
in her bright box
she wished to be remembered
not for her beauty
nor her sweet manner
but for how she mastered 
her own escape

---Gail Comorant


And another that is dark, but thought provoking:

Hansel and Gretel

When mother read me
Hansel and Gretel I could not believe
even a witch would bake a child.

Even as we read
thousands of children
were tossed into ovens,
small shoes, shirts, 
dresses, pants,
stripped away, piled up
and the last toy 
to which small hands clung for comfort 
pried from reluctant 
fingers.

---Wilda Morris

Poetry/Fairy Tales.  2013.  85 pages.

Grumbles from the Forest: Fairy-Tale Voices with a Twist by Jane Yolen and Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Grumbles from the Forest features poems by Jane Yolen and Rebecca Kai Dotlich, with lovely illustrations by Matt Mahurin.  

Fairy tales and poetry, a perfect mix.  Yolen and Dotlich give voice to the many inhabitants of fairy tales: prince or princess, fairy or witch, the gentle, the jealous, the greedy, to the major characters and to the minor characters whose opinions we rarely consider.

As an example, the following two are from the tale of Sleeping Beauty;  the first the lament of the wicked fairy, the second the (ahem) omniscient voice of reason:




Words of the Wicked Fairy

Beauty wakes!
My fun is through.
What's a wicked fairy to do?

I blame myself.
This didn't go well.
Big mistake.
Wrong spell.

I should have given her 
crooked ears,
a runny nose,
chapped lips.
Should've read 
that page on TIPS.

Spell's over.
Imagine this!
All because of a stupid kiss.

-Rebecca Kai Dotlich

Beauty Sleep

Wake up, princess, time to rise.
Open up your dreamy eyes.
Never mind the prince or kiss.
By no means were you raised for this.
Take the plot back from the witch.
Kick her spindle in the ditch!

-Jane Yolen


I liked that there were so many different voices imagined to tell the tales from unique points of view, but the quality of the poems varies.  Some of these poems are very good; some are less so;  all of the illustrations are beautiful.

While I wasn't as delighted with all of the poems as I'd hoped to be, I'll hold final judgement until after the grands give an opinion.  I'm not sure that the book quite knows its target audience.  

Another one for the Once Upon a Time Challenge.

Fairy Tale/Poetry.  2013.   40 pages.