What I'm Reading #99

A new volume of Poems from Randall Mann has entered by collection.

These are smart, engaging explorations of contemporary life with an understated accessibility.  I have been reading them slowly the way I choose to enjoy each cherry off of the tree.  Lolling the fruit around and savoring every nuance that I can taste from the flesh of the fruit before moving on to the next one.

For example:

PROPRIETY

In a precisely lighted room, the CFO speaks
of start-to-start dependencies.
Says let me loop back with you.

Says please cascade as appropriate.
It's that time of morning; we all can smell
the doughnut factory. If scent were white

noise, doughnuts would be that scent.
The factory won't sell at any price.
The building next to it burns the animals

we experiment on. I have worked
on a few preclinical reports in my time.
The rhesus monkeys become

so desperate that they attempt suicide,
over and over again. I am legally obligated
to spare you the particulars.

How could things be any different?
Here many choice molecules have been born.
Here. This pill will dissolve like sugar.

Your last five months will be good ones.

~ Randall Mann, 1972 -

What I'm Reading #98

Had the opportunity to read this wonderfully retold and illustrated story to a class of 4th graders today.  I don't know who enjoyed it more: me or them!

And did you know that today was national read aloud day?

What I'm Reading #97: Winter Bear Book #2

On the theme of Bear Hibernation in Children's Books versus Thanksgiving, I offer you this second selection. "Time To Sleep" by Denise Fleming is not just a story of a change in seasons, but also of a community that takes care of its members no matter how different they are.

Bear realizes that it's time for Winter and tells Snail. Snail tells Skunk. Skunk tells Turtle, Turtle tells Ground Hog, Ground Hog tells Lady Bug, and Lady Bug tells Bear! But bear has already begun her sleep...

Besides amazingly beautifully illustrations, it's a cornucopia of diversity and teaching about community that is inclusive of the "other".

What I'm Reading #96: Winter Bear Book #1

I confess that I really don't like most children's books about Thanksgiving. Especially those that attempt to tell it's "history". They're just so lacking. They never mention that one of the first acts of the first Pilgrims was to ransack a Native American Village, dig up and steal their winter provisions and desecrate and rob a few graves for good measure all in the name of their God's providence! I dunno why, but they always seem to miss that part.

So instead, I turn to nature and there are a surprising number of books that deal with bears going into hibernation! A topic I am especially fond of these short, cold November days. This one is by Jim Arnosky and is called "Every Autumn Comes The Bear". It's a very simply told tale of a bear that lives on a wooded mountain behind the author's farm and this bear's encounters with the other animals on the mountain on his way to his winter's nap. The medium is watercolor and the images are just luscious! Here are just a few.

What I'm Reading #95

 A new book of poems by W. S. Merwin.  This alone is all the reason you need to buy this book.  Glorious!

A Favorite Children's Book

From time to time I have shared excerpts from a favorite children's book with you. Here is one by possibly my favorite illustrator Trina Schart Hyman (1939-2004). While one of the most beloved and classic tales of childhood, in her hands "Little Red Riding Hood" becomes both the quintessential retelling and a beautifully layered and carefully crafted story rich with psychological complexity to delight both children and adults alike. Her attention to the most minute details of setting fascinate. And her tender and insightful portrayal of the character's countenances bring a level depth to the story that imprints it upon your thoughts in a nearly haunting way. So intriguing are the images and so cohesive, they not only stand alone as impressive works of art, she also uses them to tell a sub-plot all her own. Hint: watch the cats!

 The first main illustration shows our heroine sitting on a bench and reading a copy of this book!--delightful joke. And here you see the cats. Which one's the Tom? Bet you can guess!

 The commission to go to grandma's and not dawdle. What is she thinking? A little child alone in the woods...a nervous pinky?

 Hey, who's that watching out for Little Red Riding Hood?

 Look at this!--Dogtooth Lily, Pink Trillium, Wood Phlox, and Queen Anne's Lace--no wonder the wolf could convince her to pick a bouquet!

 From the shelf fungus to the ground squirrel--a feast for the eyes!

 Isn't the wolf magnificently depicted amid such an array of flowers?

 The hot water bottle! such details!

 Who's the "other" hero?

 After being in the wolf's stomach (and I'm only sharing about half of the full-page illustrations and none of the smaller ones) notice Red's expression--like the lyric from "Into The Woods"

Once his teeth were bared,
Though, I really got scared-
Well, excited and scared-
But he drew me close
And he swallowed me down,
Down a dark slimy path
Where lie secrets that I never want to know
And when everything familiar seems to disappear forever
At the end of the path was granny once again
As we lie in the dark till you came and set us free
And you brought us to the light

And I know things now,
Many valuable things,
That I hadn't known before:
Do not put your faith
In a cape and a hood,
They will not protect you
The way that they should.
And take extra care with strangers,
Even flowers have their dangers.

~ Stephen Sondheim

All's well that ends well...

In Johnny Crow's Garden!

One of my favorite books from Childhood.

How Our World Becomes A Better Place 101

A post-script as a preamble to today's Theater adventure.  Going to so many theaters for the first time requires some imaginative planning and whenever possible the use of the Metro.  Today's decision to take the Green Line in from West Hyattsville to Columbia Heights was pitch perfect!  And I had a book along to read, never leave home without one.  Usually I take a collection of poems, or sometimes--like today--essays.  Having almost finished them, I had with me "The Fire This Time" collection of essays, edited by Jesmyn Ward.

On the way back out, with just one station to go, I finished a excellent essay by Carol Anderson titled "White Rage".  Sitting across from me were two young men, one black and one white, in redskins T-shirts who had been talking football since I embarked on the train at Columbia Heights.  No sooner had I closed the book than the black man asked, "Good book?"  I assumed by asking he was familiar with it, or at least "The Fire Next Time".  He denied knowing about either, and so I gave him a very brief overview of Baldwin's progenitor, and then shared the premise of Anderson's essay on white rage with him.  He listened intently and said, "I'm gonna have to get that one."  In hindsight, I wish I had just given him my copy--I can always buy another...

What I'm Reading #94

"The Fire This Time" is a modern response to James Baldwin's seminal work, "The Fire Next Time" which EVERYONE AMERICAN SHOULD BE EXPECTED TO READ, in my humble opinion.  Like it's inspiration, this is a collection of essays on the state of Black/White Race Relations in America.  Unlike it's progenitor, it's authors represent a wide range of contemporary African American writers.  From the very beginning where it opens with a poem by one of my favorite contemporary black poets, Jericho Brown all the way to the end with another amazing poem by another favorite of mine, Natasha Trethewey.  You experience the power and the confusion, the hopes and the disappoints of a new generation of African American voices.  It's the sort of collective dialogue that the vast majority of white people never come close to, and it's dangerous.  Dangerous like a fire that burns away the dross and refines the heart.  This collection will change you, my white brothers and sisters, if only you'll let it.

What I'm Reading #93

Just finished Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History". I can't recommend it enough. You will leave the pages of this book with such an appreciation for our natural world and the amazing great good fortune we have of living in this time and place... Very soon the world will be a different place, a far more barren place. In the lifetime of the children being born today Coral Reefs will become a memory. It just isn't possible to reverse the damage we have already wrought upon the oceans and seas of our world. And the trajectory of large mammal extinctions, coupled with the introduction of pathogenic organisms will see such a loss of other species from Rhinos and Elephants, to Tigers and Bears--yes, Bears. Presently Amphibians are disappearing to the point of being completely absent from large swaths of Central, South and even western North America--and bats, precious bats are racing toward extinction by the thousand upon thousands all across North America. It's not an easy book to read. But it's profoundly important to have an understanding of the crisis our world is in from a scientific vantage point. And paradoxically, it renewed my utter amazement at LIFE itself and our planet home in particular. Because while we are not the first species to destroy the balance of life on it (mosses seem to have accomplished this 440 million years ago or so!); the planet is resilient. And the next chapter may take it 50 million years to set right again (the average recover interval), but until the sun implodes there will be a next chapter.

If you don't read another book this summer, please read this one.

What I'm Reading #92

This is a tour du force of not only the evolutionary history of our species, how we left our humanoid cousins in the dust, destroyed ecosystems and came into our dominance of the planet through a series of discoveries, understandings, meanings for life's successful advancements.  As dense as it is with information and ideas, it's also immensely easy to read...and re-read.

What I'm Reading #91

I just finished "When Breath Becomes Air". I saved the last 50 pages for a quiet space. It's the story of Neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi's rise to becoming one of the Pre-eminent doctor's in the field to his untimely diagnosis of lung cancer and his decline to a death as a young man. With decrees in English literature proceeding his entry into medicine, he was uniquely positioned to tell his story with uncanny skill, a surgeon's skill. It is written in a stream of consciousness style that you come to realize feels more like an epic poem than a chronological narrative. The theme that propelled Paul into med school was his desire to understand the meaning of life at a level that literature left him unsatisfied with, and he carries it well throughout the memoir. However, I came to see his message of meaning in a spiral that repeated itself time and again however beautifully and with what new anecdote he had chosen to preserve. At only one point did he leave me confused. Toward the very end of his story when he engaged in a discussion of metaphysical realties pitting religion against science. He seemed to be unable to see that there isn't a dichotomy between them in discovering meaning in the universe and this disappointed me a little bit for his sake. In the end the end is left to his wife Lucy to tie up in an epilogue of her own. Beautiful book, I only wish there had never been a reason for it to have been written.

Something Old: Races of Mankind

I love books and history and vintage stuff. And sometimes all of these things come together. I have this duo of tomes by no one less that H. G. Wells (or the War of the Worlds fame, right?) called "The Outline of History". It was published in 1920...with updates added in 1931 and 1940. So you have these ideas being taken seriously between the two world wars and it says a lot about why World War II was possible.

The books cover a lot of information, much of which is just outmoded, much of which is also still relevant. It's chapter XI of Volume 1 called "The Races of Mankind" that I really marvel at. Here's my favorite passage and to be fair Well's credits this information to Elliot Smith--he didn't think it up, he just agrees with it, right? It also comes (and the books are full of these) with beautifully executed illustrations that just punctuate the horror of these ideas. So, what's NOT to LOVE!? Enjoy!

What I'm Reading #90

Apropos of my recent post on the Pike Place Market in Seattle, I share this volume of poetry by a northwestern poet and which I purchased at a little bookshop at the Pike Place Market.  Tom Crawford was a new poet to me, and in a freakishly sweet turn of events--this copy was signed by the poet.  The inscription reads "For Tom from Tom, Good Meeting You".  And thus I met Tom via his poems through which he explores a deeper understanding of himself and his place in the world.  Stellar.

Here's a sample:

RAIN

Rain in Chongqing is pretty much

like rain in Portland--

it comes down wet from Heaven

and when it's sudden,

without warning

in both cities people shriek

and scatter.  Newspapers double

for umbrellas,

dirty sidewalks glisten,

a mother runs out

to pull in her little boy.

Flags go up everywhere

in excitement-- "We surrender,

we surrender."

~ Tom Crawford, 1939 -

I feel completely at ease in recommending this poet to one and all.

What I'm Reading #89

This view of the lives and legacies of there two men, Michael Cullen and Essex Hemphill, is compelling reading and has rehabilitated my view of the author, Martin Duberman.  Years ago I read his memoir "Cures" and was left completely frustrated by the contradiction between his obvious intelligence and his deeply held self-loathing that allowed him to subject himself to such self-deprecating abuses.  I was unfamiliar with Michael Cullen, but have been a longtime fan of Essex Hemphill.  The book has given me both men as intimates in my mind.

"Seven Candles For Kwanzaa"

Tonight's holiday children's book is "Seven Candles For Kwanzaa" by Andrea Davis Pinkney and illustrated by her husband Brian Pinkney. His illustrations are lush and magnificent. Like most books on the topic of Kwanzaa this one is a sort of tutorial describing the origins and meanings of the rituals that define Kwanzaa. It's a wonderful way to learn about the holiday with friends and family. Published in 1993.

"Winter Poems"

Tonight's holiday book for children is a collection of poems called "Winter Poems" selected by Barbara Rogasky and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. The book is intentionally nonsectarian. You will find poems by Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay among the many. I will label each illustration I include here with the title and author of the poem it goes together with to further this point.

 "Something Told The Wild Geese" by Rachel Feild

"A Merry Note" by William Shakespeare 

"A Winter Piece" by William Cullen Bryant 

"Laughing Boy" by Richard Wilbur 

"Waiting For Birds" by David Kherdian