ARTSY, AND GLAD OF IT

I'm so very proud and pleased to share with everyone that my prose poems about Texas in wildflower season won the JudithHeartSong Artsy Essay contest this month.  I consider this a real honor, and I am humbled to be among the illustrious winners of this award.  I am now the proud owner of the graphic award, in my "About Me" sidebar.  And soon I will have the biggest honor of all, the prize!  A painting by Judith herself.  Thank you all for your kind and overwhelming comments.  I am a happy girl.

I didn't know about the above until this morning, computer problems having kept me offline for longer than I like.  My health has recovered to the point of being able to go back to work, although the weather itself has kept us out of the classroom entirely too much.  We had yet another late opening day today, and that leaves me only an hour of a two hour class to try to accomplish reviewing two chapters for a test.  We seem to be moving in slow motion this semester.  The weekend snow was gorgeous, turning every bush and tree into an ice sculpture.  Any patch of woodland or brush was a marvel and a joy to behold.  However, we were without phone lines for much of the weekend, so that was not such a joy. 

Over the weekend we watched two John Sayles films I've never seen, one much older and one rather new.  "Brother from Another Planet" was the older one.  I've been trying to find it for years, and now that we finally are getting our DVD's online it's possible to catch up with all the films that were never to be found on the shelves at Blockbuster.  I loved this film, am so happy to finally have seen it.  Then we saw "Casa de los Babys," which is a 2003 film that never came anywhere near us.  Nor to our puny Blockbuster.  I might have to order it again, or even buy it.  It haunts me, two days later it remains alive and kicking in my mind.  I dreamed about it.  His movies are often kind of like dreams to me, certainly "Brother" was a whole lot like a dream.  I've got several others on order now, notably "Silver City," which is the most recent Sayles opus.  And didn't come here while it was out on the big screen.  I've been an ardent fan of his film work since the very first one I saw, which was of course, "The Secaucus Seven."  Any other fans out there?

I'm reading a delicious book, The Last Kashmiri Rose:  Murder and Mystery in the Final Days of the Raj, by Barbara Cleverly.  This is a period that intrigues me, The Raj Quartet remains one of my favorite literary works and my alltime favorite Masterpiece Theatre.  This takes place in the same world and time, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

SICKBED READING

 I've been sick since Friday, still am pretty damn sick in fact, so when I've been able to read I've been reading junk novels.  But we like junk novels AND junk food, to everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven - right?  Right.  I finished The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett, which I think is actually a notch or two above "junk."  This is the first of multiple novels in a fantasy series called Discworld, and I will have to begin soon searching out the next volume.  Discworld is "...a flat, circular planet that rests on the backs of four elephants, which in turn are standing on the back of a giant turtle."  The things that happen there resemble things that happen here on our equally absurd planet, but are quite a bit different and quite a bit funnier.  Pratchett seems to write in the spirit of all my favorite British satirists and humorists: Beyond the Fringe, Kingsley Amis, Douglas Adams,  Monty Python, whoever it was wrote Cold Comfort Farm (can't remember the name right now,  TheraFlu is eating into the brain cells).  Wild adventures in this first one, of a bumbling wizard, a  tourist and his Luggage both visiting Ankh-Morpork. 

Next came California Girl, by T. Jefferson Parker.  This writer is new to me, though he has quite a list of published novels.  I read a review of this, his most recent, and got it and his first one from the library for snow weekend.  It's a mystery about California in the 1960's, though it begins a little earlier.  Demise of the orange groves, influx of people from all over the country, housing boom, drug culture, hippies, FBI, Nixon (it's Orange County, after all), the birth of Sunday drive-in church services.  Told more or less from the vantage point of a family of brothers, one of whom dies early on in Viet Nam, we have the Cop Brother, the Reporter Brother and the Preacher Brother.  It's kind of the poor woman's John Gregory Dunne, except in Dunne it would be the Priest Brother.  If you've read any of his books you know what I mean. I myself have not read  his last one, and need to remedy that.  Dunne is a better writer, but this was pretty good.  It kept me involved and turning pages, even though it's occasionally grittier than I prefer.

Just finished the most charming little book of retold fairy tales by Gregory Maguire.  This is a brandnew book, Leaping Beauty - and all the characters in the stories are animals.  I'm going to recommend this one to every child I know.  Some story titles:  Leaping Beauty,  Goldiefox and the Three Chickens,  Hamster and Gerbil (my personal favorite),  So What and the Seven Giraffes,  Little Red Robin Hood.  If you read these to your kids you will have a very good time, and perhaps even enjoy them more than they do. 

What next?  Not sure.  But I'll let you know when I figure it out.

JUDI'S ARTSY ESSAY ENTRY

These are two impressionist prose poems, both about wild-flower season in the state of Texas. The first actual place is the backyard of a house I used to own. It is still alive and real in my memory/imagination, I go visit it sometimes in my mind when I need a hit of the magic that lived there. The second piece is a weekend in a place that continues to exist in reality, and can be visited with only a small amount of effort – the Hill Country of Texas. I was born there, and my ashes will be scattered there, and my heart returns there often. Here is the link to Judi's entry with topic and rules for the essay

Trees in full leaf now, still tendergreen
but thick and soft, providing
shelter, casting shade.
The wild red climbing roses on
porch and fence have run amok,
rioting in blossoms –
the house is full of them,
roses in every room.

In the backyard weed and honeysuckle
jungle of green, the goldfinches
fill the air with darts of light.
The tree with the feeders is full of them
arriving departing eating jostling,
and the small trees by the waterpan
are a way station for the feeder.
All the morning air is zipped through
with their constant zigging, zagging.

I guess the cardinals have finished
nest building back in the honeysuckle,
I don’t see them anymore
flashing in and out
with grass and twigs.
Perhaps now they are settled in on eggs.
I hope they will be safe from all the cats
marauding through the yard.

April in Texas is the Holy Time,
the High Holy Days of Spring.
An almost unbearable physical beauty,
miracles everywhere,
surrounding us – even here in these mean streets.
In our little slum there are irises and roses,
yards full of wild primrose carpets,
birds busy on life-errands,
nestbuilding and migration.
This is the time of miracle and wonder,
time to be a creature alive in green and leaf.

**************************************

This past weekend a pilgrimageto the hills,
the rocks and flowers.
A short trip Home to the HIll Country.
Two days by the Medina River,
strange grey foggy days of wind and drizzle.
This place is my heart’s home, it is my cradle,
it was my beginning, it will be my end.
We had a simple time, two long country walks,
one along the river, then up a bluff exploring
an abandoned ruin: sprawling compound
of fieldstone walls, Mexican tilework, small outbuildings,
and what was clearly once a garden.

Next day we hiked the Hill Country Natural Area,
a park kept primitive, untouched. Through hills,
washes, cedars, liveoak trees,
cold clean-smelling wind blowing hard around us.
Wildlife roams these bluffs and woods (rangers say
even a wildcat), but we saw only rabbits, whitetailed deer.

Sunday evening we took a wildflower drive from Castroville,
into enchantment, wonder, miracles.
Primroses  pink white and yellow
Poppies  white and every shade of pink through burgundy,
so tall and loose and dainty,
wild abandonment to beauty.
Blooming by small forgotten roads
through fields and farms
gardens of the Goddess,
pleasure for the hawks and deer.
Wild phlox and bluebonnets, paintbrushes,
winecup and yellowwave,
flowers whose names I do not know.
Around every curve of road a burst of color,
a carpet endlessly changing,
weaving through the fences, cactus,
cows, ramshackle barns.
Blooming just because they are,
blooming for joy for beauty for the glory of the sun,
the rain, the soil, the shining of their faces,
the miracle of life and color: Spring.

January 31 - I'm overjoyed to announce that this entry won the contest for this month.  I'm proud as can be to have this award to  display. 

A NOTE ON CURRENT READING

I just read The Rule of Four, by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, and all I really have to say about it is: ho hum.  It's a best-seller right now, so you can find lots of info about it otherwhere.  The story involves four male Princeton suitemates who all become caught up in trying to solve the puzzles contained in a lengthy novel from the 15th century.  Are Princeton students really anything like this?  Any of you out there know the answer to this?  These people bear no resemblance to anyone I went to school with at any of the various schools I attended.  The historical mystery was the best part of the book, following the riddles and clues.  The end was a big cop-out, IMHO.  The book seems to want to follow the path laid out by Dan Brown in the DaVinci Code, but the results here are far less gripping. 

Right now I'm reading the first in Terry Pratchett's Disc World series, The Color of Magic.  Yep, back to fantasy fiction.  I've wanted to read this series for quite a while (ever since I read Good Omens, in fact) but couldn't find the first one.  I finally found it in D.C. over Christmas, so...here I go.  I can't read this series exclusively, it would be like a diet of nothing but Twinkies.  Still, Twinkies have their place in my cosmology.  And so does Disc World. 

WICKED? OR...MAYBE, NOT?

Yesterday evening I regretfully closed the cover on the final page of Gregory Maguire's first novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. He has written several more since this one, which was written in 1995, so I await several more such delights. This is one amazing book, as so august a presence as John Updike is quoted as saying, on the cover: " 'Amazing novel.' John Updike, in The New Yorker."

From the cover copy also this "When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West...we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?" It was evidently these questions that got Maguire musing deeply on this story, and upon the nature of good and evil. This is Elphaba's story, her family, birth, college years, her years as a revolutionary firebrand trying to overthrow the Wizard's government as it becomes more and more despotic. Elphaba is the Witch's given name, she is called Elfie by those close to her, Fabala by her father, Fae is her code name in her anarchist cell. I give you her names because they are part of what makes her so real a personage. Like all of us she has many facets, and many names for different sides of her personality. It is an intense psychological study of an independent, troubled, lonely, deeply intelligent woman, an undeniably human personage.

This is a long, dense novel, it is a fantasy of course, but it is a fable full of philosophic and spiritual discussion and thought. The place of religion in society is a large feature of this story. Politics is yet another aspect, in fact the New York Newsday review calls it "a political cautionary tale." This is a book that continues to reinforce my growing conviction that fantasy (and science) fiction is ever more the best vehicle for exploring the large issues of our times: moral ambiguity, the nature of good and of evil, political power, the diversity of human society, the diversity of our beliefs. Most of the books in the past year which have made me really think, really ponder anything more than plot and story, have been fantasy fiction. Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Louise Erdrich (yes, Louise Erdrich - her growing body of novels about an inter-related group of Ojibwe Indian characters is growing more Magical-Realism in its tone with every book), Terry Pratchett, and now Gregory Maguire.

Dense, philosophical, political - yuck, who would ever want to read this book for fun? At this point in my life, fun - recreation, relaxation, brain-draining - is the only reason I read the books I speak of here. It's a great story, just on surface elements. It's fun to follow the threads, the places where it coincides, with Baum's Oz books, it's fun to live in an alternative world. For instance, in my favorite section of the book, that dealing with Elfie's college years, her room-mate is a young society girl named Galinda, who chooses sorcery as her major, and whose name in later years gets shortened to "Glinda."

Last, but far from least, it's lyrically lovely writing. Here is the Witch, on her first long-distance ride after learning that her cherished broom was also a means of transportation:

" She slept by daylight in the shadows of barns, the overhand of eaves, the lee of chimneys. She traveled by night. in the gloom, Oz spread out below - she hovered above it at about eighty feet, near as she could reckon - and the country side made its geographical transformations with the ease of a vaudeville backdrop on rollers. The hardest passage was down the steep flanks of the Great Kells. once free of the mountains, however, she saw Oz level out into the rich alluvial plain of the Gillikin River.

She flew along the waterway, above trading vessels and islands, until it fed at last into Restwater, Oz's largest lake. She kept to its southern edge, and took a whole night to traverse it, as it endlessly lapped in black oily silk waves, into sedge and swamp. She had trouble finding the mouth of the Munchkin River, which drained into Restwater from the eastern direction. Once she did, though, it was easy to locate the Yellow Brick Road. The farmland beyond grew even more lush. The effects of the d rough, so drastic in her childhood, had been eradicated, and dairy farms and small villages seemed to prosper, happy as a child's toy town set, cunning and cozy in the wrinkled, nappy land of arable soil and accommodating climate."

Since this book is ten years old, I may be speaking to the converted, and I am just late tothe party. But if you too have missed it, attach it now to your reading list.

LETTER FROM SAM HAMILL

I have been a reader, a contributor to and a supporter of, Poets Against the War since the day I first heard about it, soon after it formed.  They have published one book of poems, and have a website with all the poems that have been submitted in the past couple of years (it's on my sidebar of Favorite Sites).  Today this letter from the poet Sam Hamill was in my email.  Be sure to read it to the end, so that you can read the poems there, by Soufie, an Iranian boy.

An Open Letter from Sam Hamill

New Years Day, 2005

Dear Friends:

The war drags on. Fallujah has been destroyed in order to save it, shades of Vietnam. A man who presented the argument in favor of ignoring the Geneva accords, a man who would authorize torture, is now our Attorney General. More than 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, many times more wounded, homeless… And American soldiers who have served their tours of duty are being post facto drafted to remain in combat.

We can look forward to Bush’s new secretary of state continuing to… who knows what? And there will be supreme and other high court appointments, and of course a Patriot Act II, with attendant incursions into our constitutional rights. Tax cuts for the rich? Permanent. The environment? The worst policies in our history. What a ghastly litany.

Four more years, indeed.

A number of organizations are encouraging January 20 demonstrations and teach-ins and contra-Bush celebrations aroundthe world. I hope you will all join me in joining them.
Check out <www.turnyourbackonbush.com> and please post any events scheduled for that day. The more we can reach out and work with other organizations, the broader the audience for poetry and the broader our message of peace.

We’d like to post a list of host organizations working in cooperation with Poets Against the War to make that day memorable.

As of January 1st, I am leaving Copper Canyon Press. Over the coming months, I will devote a lot more time to working with PAW board members to build a sound infrastructure and strengthen our organization. Like kindred organizations in countries around the world, we have reminded millions of people of the noble traditions of poetry, of its role in every culture. I have seen time and again tears of gratitude in the eyes of the Italians, French, Lithuanians, etc, and have received innumerable messages of hope, support and kinship from all over the world. These people are grateful to be reminded that (at least) half of the U.S. objects to the direction this country’s taken, and that we are eager to listen to and work
cooperatively with them so that all of our voices (and various positions) may be heard while we stand together.

In the ecology of the soul, thrift is ruinous. We look forward to a
productive new year filled with mindful actions, generosity of spirit, heartfelt compassion, and of course a lot of good poetry.

This winter solstice I will close with a handful of poems by Soufie, who is 12 years old and lives in Tehran and likes haiku and wants to learn Japanese and live in Japan. The translations are by the Iranian editor Ali Samavati (with a little help from me).

Namaste.

Sam Hamill
poetsagainstthewar.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soufie’s poems (no titles):

How poor are the children!
All the time,
they have to learn
they have to be careful not to be blamed
and they have to fear God’s punishment
Even on Fridays when nobody works
children have to work
they have so much to do
that they don’t realize
when they are dreaming
or when they are awake

Lucky are the trees
who have nothing to do
but to turn yellow and green

At night, they are not afraid of the dark
They don’t die like grandfathers
and they have many good friends
like the wind, rain and sunshine

And a friend like the dew
who always puts its head
on the shoulder of their leaves.

Sometimes I get a chocolate
and sometimes I get a beating
and I never know
when I’m asleep or awake

But now I’m very depressed
And I wish I were like angels
or I didn’t exist at all
then I wouldn’t always need to say "Hello."

***
I wish we would never lose each other
but could be lost in one another.

***
In children’s eyes
a park is nothing but a green lawn.

In old men’s eyes
a park is nothing but a few yellow benches.

Children should run in the parks
so the trees would not see the canes
and leaves
would not fall from their eyes.

***
God, with all his light,
walks in the darkness!

On the trail of his shoes,
trees grow.

And on the trail of his thoughts,
autumn appears.

***
On the streets
You see eyes with clouds inside
of wrinkled faces

And the faces of the mournful
are full of heavenly tears.

And those black, heartless clothes
that have nothing to do with poems.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Publish your poem against the war. Since August 1st, over a thousand new antiwar poems have been added to the Poets Against the War web site. Go to http://poetsagainstthewar.org/submitpoem.asp.

PEARL, A NOVEL - By Mary Gordon

Any other Mary Gordon fans among my exquisite, though tiny, group of readers?  As someone of about Gordon's age, who grew up with the same Irish Catholic strangeness, I have read everything of hers from the beginning.  I heard her read in a wonderful series held by the Dallas Public Library when we spent our winters there.  Here in the hinterlands I miss things like that - in order to reach Cultchah, we have to travel to Baltimore, Philadelphia or D.C., all well over two hours away.  But, my point here is - Gordon has a new book coming out next week.  It has a horrible advance review on Powells.com, but maybe the reviewer is a young, male atheist?  And just doesn't get it?  In any case, I'll have to put in on my list at the library, eventually I'll give you my review.  Don't hold your breath, though.  Miles to go before I get to the bottom of my TBR pile.  Now that grammar quizzes and class papers are back in the mix.

WHAT BREED OF CAT ARE YOU?

You are a Sphinx! You are mocked for your unusual
appearance, but you are very loving and
devoted. People just need to give you a
chance!

What breed of cat are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Is this an ugly little feller, or what?  So, this is my fate if I come back as a cat?  Surely no, it's far too skinny.  And no, this has absolutely nothing to do with books.  I saw it on Cynthia's journal and just wanted to know.  So, now, I do.  And maybe I'm sorry! 

BOOKS WE LIKE, TRY IT AGAIN

The Books We Like site seems to be working just fine now, come check it out.  If you join via the link to my page, I'll get credit for recommending you.  This seems cool, though I don't know why.  Not like a Plenary Indulgence or anything.  My link is gypsymoth, and I've been having a ton of fun recommending books for my page.  If you join, let me know your name and link.  Lots of interesting suggestions there from all kinds of folks. 

Later:  Ok, I lied, now it's not working.  Well, sometimes it works.  They'll get it up and running eventually, testing time now.

JOHN M. SCALZI, AUTHOR

 I've been reading a lot of fantasy fiction in the past year, not so much science fiction - though it's a genre I have read a lot of in the past.  It's a time, somehow, when escape is usually what I crave in my personal reading.  "Reality" is so fantastical, in a horrible sort of way, that reading fantasy and science fiction seems actually like a better reality.  If you see what I mean.  Anyway, what this is about is the book that has recently been published by our own BlogFather, John Scalzi.  Called Old Man's War, it is a sci fi novel, and according to the reviews is pretty damn good.  You know Scalzi's AOL journal, but you may not yet know his internet blog, Whatever.  He himself journaled the publication of his book here, on AOL, but has also posted several reviews on the Whatever blog, here and here.  Pre-pub he also gave us the Publisher's Weekly (bible of the booktrade, as I know from my years with Doubleday) advance review here.  You may think you know our boy Scalzi (and I can call him "boy" because he is the age of my younger stepson, and thus, to me - a youngster) if you read By the Way, but you don't, really, until you spend some time on Whatever.  It's a great read, his thoughts on writing, current events, the Confederacy and those who are determined to perpetuate it (one of his subjects I quite enjoy), other blogs, his own writing, etc. 

Anyway, my point IS, not yet having read any of Our Blogmeister's efforts between hardboard covers, I'm going to actually buy this one and read it.  I looked for it while I was in Dallas, at a couple of Borders, and didn't find it.  Here in the hinterlands there are few bookstores, so I'm heading to an online site to purchase it.  And, rest assured, I'll post my thoughts once I've read it.  It will have to take its place in the queue, of course.  Have any of all two or three of my bookblog readers yet picked it up?

VACATION READING

Well, as Cherie says in her comment to the post before this one - the  Books We Like site does seem to be having problems.  I have notified them about it; we'll see if I get any answer.  It's a beta site, so they're working out kinks as they go.  It's such a great idea - I really hope they stick with it and get it up and going. 

In the weeks of vacation I have read:  The Huntsman's Tale (by Margaret Frazer), the latest in the series of medieval mysteries with a nun, Dame Frevisse, as sleuth.  The Dame is Chaucer's niece, and was raised by him, so she saw a good deal of the world before she went into the cloister.  These are wonderful books, full of historical detail, rich as tapestries in their settings of place, people, food, life in a convent, a manor, a castle, a peasant's hovel.  This one was perhaps the 13th in the series, and I actually think it may have been one of the best.  I don't know how she continues to write these with so much enthusiasm - it's never the same story twice.  There is another one coming out this month, according to this one's jacket.  AND she has started another medieval series with a player in a troupe of traveling performers, Joliffe, assuming the role of sleuth.  He has appeared in the Dame Frevisse books, so is not a total stranger.  It's an entire world that Frazer has created in these books, and if you love the medieval period as I do, I can't recommend them too highly.

I also read the horrible Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs, on the plane going to and coming from Dallas at the start of the winter break.  Much has been written about this book, and everyone else has seemed quite taken with it.  I, however, really hated it.  I can identify with a memor of a childhood with a crazy mother, you bet, but this one was written in such a way (others found it "humorous") that I found it held at a distance, unbelievable, totally phony.  Okay, that's me, and that's really the extant of my desire to talk about this book.  Feelfree to differ.

Next came Smoke and Mirrors, by my current favorite writer, Neil Gaiman.  I thought I had read everything of his except the graphic novels, but in a Borders in Dallas I found this on the shelf.  It was like manna from heaven.  Pretty soon I really will have read all his books and then life will become waiting periods for his next efforts.  This one was short stories, I guess.  It's hard at times to put a genre name on his work.  "Short pieces" is better.  Some are poems, some are rewrites (beware!) of folk or fairy stories.  They are mostly all wonderful, though I confess to liking some more than others.  What could it be like to live inside this man's mind?  Strange and wonderful, in equal proportions, I guess. 

Last night I finished the latest Tony Hillerman, Skeleton Man.  If you read his southwestern mysteries with the Navajo detectives, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, you will want to grab this one right away.  Joe features in it quite a bit, called from his retirement by a pal still in law enforcement, to help with a case that seems to tie a past cold case into a present robbery/homicide.  There is some new territory covered here (literally), as the heart of the mystery takes everyone into the Grand Canyon in Arizona - out of the usual Navajo lands.  I loved the part in the Grand Canyon, not your usual tourist view of the Canyon.  Some of these novels have been made into PBS Mystery episodes, are available on DVD too.  Robert Redford directed them, and he did quite a good job at capturing the soul of both characters and setting.  As a huge fan of the southwest landscape, I have been reading these novels from the very first one, which I discovered in The Tattered Cover in Dever.

Not sure what I'm going to read next - I've got a nice pile from the library, and some I bought while giftshopping for others over the holidays.  It's an embarras de richesse, and I love it.