Just a Girl Who Makes MISTAKES

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday. Roundup is here at Live Your Poem! YAY!

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Of course I want to share just a little about The Mistakes That Made Us: Confessions from Twenty Poets, selected by Irene Latham and Charles Waters, illus. by Mercè López (Carolrhoda/Lerner Publishing), as it releases next Tuesday, October 1! So many thanks to those who have shared about it already. :)

This poetry anthology is the first to hit the market, but it's actually the second one Charles and I have curated. It just got its second  ★ STARRED REVIEW... this time from Booklist. Thank you, Booklist!

Charming and insightful...A gentle reminder of the stepping stones making up the path to growth, discovery, and creativity."

We're super-excited about sharing it with all of you! I mean, what brave poets...I could go on and on about all of the poets and poems and how special I think this book is. Today I shall contain myself and share just two things:

1. Mercè López is pretty amazing. You may remember her gorgeous work on Lion of the Sky by Laura Purdie Salas. 

For this book, since the poems are autobiographical, she asked for reference photos of the poets as children. And then she included ALL of us on the cover! 

See below for a labeled (by first name) version of the cover. I've listed the full names of all the contributors below the photo so that you can match them up!

Contributors (clockwise, starting with wee me - just right of center, blondie with a chickadee on her shoulder) : Irene Latham, Linda Sue Park, Allan Wolf, David Elliott, Vikram Madan, Tabatha Yeatts, Naomi Shihab Nye, Lacresha Berry, Jaime Adoff, Jorge Argueta, Matt Esenwine (upside down!), Darren Sardelli, George Ella Lyon, Jane Yolen, Douglas Florian, Margarita Engle, Kim Rogers, JaNay Brown-Wood, Charles Waters, April Halprin Wayland (with whom I am enjoying a lovely conversation -- friends, this is true in real life, and Mercè had no way of knowing it...kismet)! 

 2. The only poem cut from the collection was mine.

Charles and I divided the book into four categories of mistakes:

OOPSIE-DAISY! - those embarrassing public mistakes 

STUFF HAPPENS - mistakes that hurt ourselves

BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE - mistakes with silver linings

WHAT HAVE I DONE - mistakes that hurt other people

 

I could have written multiple poems for every section! But what I felt most called to write about was a mistake that hurt someone else. The poem that appears in the book is called “Shattered” and I hope you will read it! But today I'd like to share the poem I wrote for our proposal, but it ended up being cut from the book.

 

Cuts are always hard…and this topic of what to leave in/what to cull from a poetry collection deserves its own post! 

Building an anthology is kind of like building a banana split. You want a mix of flavors. You need savory AND sweet. Smooth creamy ribbons of flavor…and also some crunch. Don't forget the whipped cream and perky little cherry on top!

In this case, a poem came in from Margarita Engle that was quite similar to my own, in that it involved scissors and the cutting of hair…we didn't want to cut (ha!) Margarita's beautiful poem, so I got to write a new poem (with a new flavor)! 

 

Here's the poem that was cut. 

 

STOLEN

reference photo of me with
my siblings (l-r): Ken, Stan,
Lynn, Irene, MicaJon

by Irene Latham

 

My brother Ken

wore his hair long

in back—a rat tail

perfect for tugging.

I didn't dare do that.

He was bigger

than me, and meaner.

Yet somehow

every girl I ever

brought home

fell in love with him.

I hated him

for stealing my friends.

So one night

Mercè's art on "Shattered"
by Irene Latham page

I snuck into his room,

heart full

of fireworks,

scissors scalding

my hand.

Snip! Snip!

Rat tail gone.

I slipped that long

silky hair into my pocket

where I stroked it

all night long—

first gleeful,

then frightened—

finally sorry.

 

 

This event happened when I was 11 or 12 (and Ken was 12 or 13). My brother was heartbroken (and livid!) when he woke to discover his missing rat tail—and I was filled with shame and regret. I apologized, and was grounded by our parents. Eventually Ken forgave me. It took even longer for me to forgive myself.

 

Interestingly, the poem that replaced this one, titled “Shattered,” also involves my brother Ken…and ALL my siblings, actually. I'm super-grateful for having had siblings and am super-aware of how much I've learned from them about life and relationships.

And now I'm excited to share my latest ArtSpeak: FOLK ART poem. It's a tricube inspired by a piece by Georgia artist Cornbread. I've left a few process notes below the poem. Thanks so much for reading.

Poem Found in a Ditch at Dusk

Little fawn

made of twigs

and moonspots

you haven't 

yet learned to

twitch or flee—

nearby, masked

by trees, your 

mother waits.

-Irene Latham

Some process notes: I was short on time writing this poem, so I chose my stress-response form: tricube! I mean three stanzas of three lines with three syllables per line...how hard can it be? HA! 

I was cruising along through the first two stanzas, but then I really struggled with the final stanza. 

Because the second stanza brings up the issue of innocence and safety -- and we all know a fawn alone isn't safe at all! -- but how could I leave children with that potentially ominous conclusion? I couldn't. 

So I tried all sorts of moves in the final stanza. I played with wonder, awe, and play. I brought the poem back to me, the human. But none of it worked. 

At which point my son Eric who's visiting walked into the room. I read him the first two stanzas, and he said, "well, the fawn is not really alone, is it?"

 Indeed! With those words I was off and running, feeling tremendous relief for this little fawn, and I knew I needed to give child-readers the fawn's moment of freedom/innocence/curiosity but with a watchful mother, too. xo