ONE COAST TO ANOTHER AND BACK AGAIN

This week I traveled with my mom alongside Tropical Storm Debby as she marched across Florida.

Here is the Gulf Coast, at Bradenton Beach. The waves were hungry lions, and the salt and sand needling as a quilter on a quiet Sunday afternoon. But I still got that soaring feeling inside my soul as I was wind-whipped on that shore.

Now, cross-state: the Atlantic at sunset, on Vero Beach. Calm and lovely as a sleeping child's cheek. I couldn't believe the bevy of shells. Yes, I brought some home. And a little sand too!

My next trip to Florida will be in September for SIBA Trade Show in Naples. Can't wait!

And now for a beach poem! This one is one of my father's all-time favorites. It's also one of my all-time favorites. Love how wave-like its rhythm... and how it makes me feel. More great poetry for Roundup with Marjorie at Paper Tigers! 

THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE FALLS
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore.
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Readers, do you have a favorite beach poem? Please share!

THE STATE WITH THE PRETTIEST NAME

Hello, and happy Poetry Friday! Be sure to visit amazing, delightful Amy at the Poem Farm for lots of great Roundup links.

This weekend I'm heading to central Florida on a research mission for my work-in-progress.

Florida. Which, according to Elizabeth Bishop is the state with the prettiest name. See the poem below.

But first, here's few of my childhood memories from the years we lived in Florida:

walking to school
Ft. Meade, FL was the only place I ever lived where I was close enough to the school to walk there. My sister and I took the same route every day. Some days on the way home, we would knock on a stranger's door and ask to use the bathroom. :) I remember how sweet the people always were, how we were never frightened, not once. Some folks even fed us milk and cookies! 


playing in my grandparents' orange grove
I have such magical memories of this place -- and this weekend I'm going back! My siblings and I invented all sorts of games... we climbed and ran and cavorted. But the memory that is most vivid in my mind is stretching out on my back and looking up through the branches. I remember the sweet citrus smell combined with the earthy smell of leftover fruit rotting on the ground. It was such a delicious combination.

finding out the truth about Santa Claus
Many times in my life I've been a little too curious for my own good. This story involves a stealthy tour of our off-limits garage one late December night. If I could re-do that experience, I totally would.

Mrs. Fattig, my third grade teacher at Padgett Elementary in Lakeland, FL, whose husband was a plumber, so she had a reading bathtub in her classroom
I remember we had to learn the fifty states, and we got to sit in the bathtub to recite them. I memorized them geographically, starting with Florida and working my way across the country.

Note to students: this is NOT the best way to learn states, apparently. Everyone else in my class learned them alphabetically and didn't miss Alaska and Hawaii the way I did. (Curse my left-handness/right-brainedness)

So that's it for now. I'm sure this trip will unlock even more memories, especially as I am traveling with my mother, who grew up there and has all sorts of stories to tell!

And now for the poem by Elizabeth Bishop:

Florida

The state with the prettiest name,
the state that floats in brackish water,
held together by mangrave roots
that bear while living oysters in clusters,
and when dead strew white swamps with skeletons,
dotted as if bombarded, with green hummocks
like ancient cannon-balls sprouting grass.
The state full of long S-shaped birds, blue and white,
and unseen hysterical birds who rush up the scale
every time in a tantrum.
Tanagers embarrassed by their flashiness,
and pelicans whose delight it is to clown;
who coast for fun on the strong tidal currents
in and out among the mangrove islands

rest of poem here

SEE GEE'S BEND QUILTS IN NASHVILLE!

Creation Story: Gee's Bend Quilts and the Art of Thornton Dial at the Frist Museum in Nashville. TN now through September 3!

You don't want to miss this exhibit. It's powerful.

I had the opportunity this past weekend to experience it with some friends and my 15-year-old son. I gave a little informal gallery talk about the Gee's Bend quilts -- and learned along with my group about Thornton Dial.

Thanks, y'all! It was fun! Amazing, inspiring art is even MORE amazing and inspiring when shared with amazing, inspiring people.

When we visited the gift shop afterward, I told them about LEAVING GEE'S BEND, and they said they would order it. Good folks, those. Thank you!

For those of you in the area, I invite you to join me for another informal gallery talk, sometime in August -- probably a Saturday afternoon sometime before the kids go back to school Aug. 20. Let me hear from you, if you are interested! irene (at) irenelatham (dot) com.

FOR THE LOVE OF JUNE

What a giving month June is!

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to hang out with amazing author-friend Ginger Rue, author of BRAND NEW EMILY and JUMP -- and her daughters -- at Alabama School Library Association conference.

It was so great to see familiar faces of those wonderful librarians I've already had the great fortune to work with and to meet so many new and fascinating folks too!

Here's me with Ginger:

Also this week I attended a meeting of a book club who had chosen LEAVING GEE'S BEND as their monthly pick. Hostess Lisa Ramsey is such a generous, creative spirit... check out this centerpiece of the books the group has read:

...and here is a close-up of the branch that Ludelphia now perches upon:

And that's not all! Book arts lovers, wait till you see the lovely I got to take home with me:

It's made from book pages! NOT from LEAVING GEE'S BEND. No, that would be hard to do to a hardcover! Lisa bought a book at the dollar store. She said it had "leaving" in the tile. HOW COOL IS THAT?!

For dessert, Lisa served a fresh-from-the-book recipe:

Then I told the group lots of behind-the-scenes stuff about writing and my experiences since the release of LEAVING GEE'S BEND. They were a wonderful audience. Here I am with some of them:

Finally, here's the sweet young person who's kind of the reason for it all: it was because of Hope that Lisa (her mom) chose LEAVING GEE'S BEND. (Hope's teacher read it to the class.) What a sweetheart! And she's a great assistant, too:

Thanks to ALL! May our paths cross again very soon. xo

ZOO ART!

We are back from a lovely little trip to the North Georgia mountains where art was in the air. Allow me to introduce some of my new friends:

GIGI

 JAKARI

RANEE 

ROBERTA

...and here are some of my favorite humans, enjoying some natural art at Anna Ruby Falls:

Thanks, guys, for a great trip!

p.s. One of the most fun things about writing a zoo book was naming all the animals. Three of the names above actually appear in DON'T FEED THE BOY!

RAY BRADBURY, THE POET

It seems every writer has a Ray Bradbury story. Mine includes one of my favorite people on this world, Jim Reed, who was for a time President of the Ray Bradbury fan club. Really.

Jim is also a collector of quotes. When he shared this one with me years and years ago, I felt like Ray Bradbury had written it just for me. I had it printed on the back of my business cards:

“Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.”

YES, Ray, yes! And thank you, Jim, for also introducing me to Ray Bradbury the poet:

A poem written on learning
that Shakespeare and Cervantes
both died on the same day
by
Ray Bradbury

Great Shakespeare lost, Cervantes gone
The sun at noon goes down. The dawn
Refuses light. Time holds its breath
At this coincidence of death
Then can it be? and is it so
That these twin gods to darkness go
All in a day! and none to stop
The harvesting of this fell crop
Each in its field, and each so bright
They, burning, hurled away the night.
Yet night returns to seize its due,
One Spirit Spout? No! Death takes two.
First one. The world goes wry from lack
Then two! tips world to balance back.
Two Comet strikes within a week,
First Spain, then dumbstruck England's cheek.
The world grinds mute in dreads and fears
Antarctica melts down to tears,
And Caesars ghosts erupted, rise
All bleeding Amazons from eyes,
An age has ended, yet must stay
As witness to a brutal day
When witless God left us alone
By deathing Will, then Spanish clone.
Who dares to try and gauge each pen
We shall not see such twins again.
Shakespeare is lost, Cervantes dead?
The conduits of God are bled
rest of poem here

And now, don't forget to visit one of the sweetest bloggers on the net, Jama Rattigan for Poetry Friday Roundup!

ONE BOOK EVERY HUMAN SHOULD READ

TRUE LOVE: Stories told to and by Robert Fulghum

.

Love stories. Of all types.

 It's out of print, but well worth your effort to find a copy.

Read it, and then we'll compare favorites. :)

FROM THE SAUDI ARABIA FILES

Yesterday I posted at Smack Dab in the Middle about vacations as inspiration.

One of the things I mentioned in that posted was the not-quite-coincidence that Whit's favorite animal in DON'T FEED THE BOY is the giraffe --- and in a letter my mother wrote to her mother, she said that my favorite animal was also the giraffe!

Here's the actual text, from a letter titled "Dear Mama & Ray" on January 18, 1975:

"After naps when we returned to the Alshaik Hotel, we went with some friends to the Riyadh zoo. Friday is the only day you can go in mixed company, and then only from 2-4 pm. It closes at 4 and we arrived around 4:30 when everyone was leaving. Our friend, who is Egyptian and speaks Arabic, was able to get us in any way. We had the whole place to ourselves and got to see all the animals being fed. The zoo was as everything else here - Dirty! Irene had wanted to go ever since we have been here so she was especially happy. The one thing she wanted to see was the giraffe."

Thank you, Mama, for writing home to your mama... and for sharing these letters with me!

POETRY AS APOCALYPSE. OH, AND PEACHES.

Sharing today one of my favorite poems, because I have just eaten the first peach of the season...  and I am feeling grateful.

Peaches seem to have that affect on me. I wrote a poem for my husband that includes a peach called "Anniversary." (It appears in my book WHAT CAME BEFORE.)

But oh, read this one by Li-Young Lee:

 

From Blossoms

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

- Li-Young Lee

 

And now a quote from Mr. Lee:

 "There’s eclipse, covering, and there's apocalypse, uncovering. I think poetry provides a very important service. It uncovers our deepest identity. When we read a poem, that’s what we get – our deepest identity."

 - Li-Young Lee, A GOD IN THE HOUSE:Poets Talk about Faith 

For more poetic goodness, please visit Carol at Carol's Corner for Poetry Friday Roundup! 

WHERE'S THE MADNESS, ROSE?

So I was reading in Smithsonian Magazine the other day this profile on Roseanne Cash by Ron Rosenbaum.

That's Roseanne, daughter of Johnny.

It's a great article about love and physics and songmaking. Which means it's about me and you and what it means to live and create in this world.

One of my favorite parts in the article really speaks to me right now, when I am working working working to get a story just right:

Then she remembers something her mentor told her about songwriting. John Stewart "always said, 'Where's the madness?' You know, if I would try to write a perfect song. 'Where's the madness, Rose?'"

Wishing all you your own brand of madness, whatever your creative endeavors!

HOMESCHOOLING: BEST & WORST

As many of you know, I've spent the last calendar year homeschooling my youngest son.

Educating him has been an adventure from the start: he spent K-3 in public school and 4-5 in a Montessori school. When we became aware of his passion for percussion (about 3rd grade), we set our sights on Alabama School of Fine Arts, a specialty public school for grades 7-12 that requires an extensive audition process and only accepts about 1/3 of applicants into their music department.  With that as our goal, we chose to spend this last year, 6th grade, homeschooling.

I've homeschooled in the past, so I wasn't fearful about the legalities or curricula. I learned the first go-around that unschooling is the best approach for our family. While I did print out the Alabama curriculum standards for 6th grade, I did not worry one iota about testing. That's right: Eric has not taken a single test the entire last year. Our goal has been learning. And given Eric's interests, it should come as no surprise that the majority of his learning has been in the area of music.

Great news: he auditioned for ASFA and was accepted into their program for next year!

For his final homeschool assignment, I asked him to write a paper about the best and the worst parts of his homeschool year.

On his worst list: "no friends"

On his best list: "being able to triple my abilities music-wise"

And here is my most favorite part of his paper:

"Otherwise, I have created myself into me."

He went on to explain all the things he learned about himself. The paper sounds like it was written by a college student. This has been a year of self-discovery for him. And how thrilled am I to have been such a big part of that??

For me, the best part has been spending time with my kid, getting to know him better, all the great talks while driving in the car. The worst part has been feeling like I haven't quite been able to give him everything he needs. He's beyond me in so many ways. And I worry some about how he will adjust as he moves back to a traditional school setting after all the mad freedom of this year.

He loves music so much, I have to trust he'll be just fine.

I know this for sure: I wouldn't trade this past year with him for anything.

PROFOUND THOUGHT FOR MEMORIAL DAY

Most Memorial Days we are on family vacation.

Last year we were in Washington, D.C.

It was hot.

It was crowded.

We were miserable.


Did I mention it was hot?


We were so miserable we cut our trip short and went home a day early.


Which is why, I guess, that this year it feels like a vacation not to be on vacation.

It's quiet.

Even Hwy. 280 is relatively empty.

I've had like 14 naps.

Everyone seems happy.


This may be our new Memorial Day tradition! Hope whatever this day holds for you is exactly what you want. xo

ECLECTIC BLOGGERS UNITE!

The other day lovely, gracious, talented Lori Degman honored me with a "Versatile Blogger Award."

Thank you, Lori! (sweeping bow here) I'm honored. and I'm so pleased to know you. Readers, you'll want to know her too. She's awesome. And she too wrote a zoo book! That's right: the award-wining picture book 1 ZANY ZOO.

And the whole thing got me pondering that word "versatile." According to the Free Online Dictionary, it means  
"1. Capable of doing many things competently. 2. Having varied uses or serving many functions"

I like it. It's about what one is able to offer the world.

It seems closely related to another word I like even better: ECLECTIC.

Again, according to the Free Online dictionary, it means
 "Selecting or employing individual elements from a variety of sources, systems, or styles"

 I don't know why I like this word better. Maybe because it's more artsy, less utilitarian-sounding? Eclectic, to me, feels like getting to the source of things.

Eclectic feels like a centerpiece whereas versatile feels like something you store in the kitchen drawer and pull out from time to time.

 And as I was having this conversation with myself about the difference between the two words, I thought, hmmm. Lori is exactly the kind of person who would appreciate the difference. And there are a number of other bloggers I can think of who would too.

So in honor of that, I hereby take the liberty of altering this award. I'm giving it a new name and altering the "rules" ever so slightly. Because that's what we versatile/eclectic bloggers do!

The new rules:

•  Thank the person who gave you this award. That’s common courtesy. 
•  Include a link to their blog. That’s also common courtesy — if you can figure out how to do it.  
•  Next, select 5 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly. 
•  Nominate those 5 bloggers for the Eclectic Blogger Award — you might include a link to this site. 
•  Finally, tell the person who nominated you 5 things about yourself. 

 For those of you who care about such things: the original rules said to select "15" bloggers and tell "7" things about yourself. Ummmm, I'm introverted, okay? Even "5" (of either thing) is a bit of a challenge for me.

So. Here's the five bloggers I would like to recognize for their amazing eclectic-ness:

Pat Weaver at Writer on a Horse: Pat writes about gardening and getting older and horses and chicken hawks and you just never know what! She makes me laugh and cry.

Tabatha Yeatts at The Opposite of Indifference: Tabatha's blog is an artsy feast of music and visuals and written words. I always leave inspired.

Linda Baie at Teacher Dance: Linda has got to be one of the most gracious, generous spirits in the blogosphere. I love the real-life things she chooses to write about... teaching, living, saying goodbyes, bullying... really good stuff.

Team Swagger: Okay, to be fair, it's easier to be eclectic when you're a team. I love all the voices here and suspect you will too!

Another blog I want to mention even though it's food-centric, so not exactly eclectic, but the person who's writing it certainly seems to be and I have enjoyed the heck out of it since discovering a short while ago:

So Delushious!: Here's the tagline: "personal random ramblings from a girl who loves bacon and can't be fat." This blog is written by model Chrissy Teigen. There's something about that contradiction: model who loves to eat and also love spicy language and Pilates and taking up-close pics of food that really appeals to me. Warning: SPICY LANGUAGE.And try the chipotle marinade. Yum!

And now: FIVE THINGS ABOUT ME YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW

1. Once upon a time I gardened. Not anymore.That's because I realized I don't really like it. I don't like the sun, the heat, the weeds, chiggers.... so if you've got extra veggies, I am happy to give them a plate to momentarily rest upon!

2.  I'm thinking about taking a comedy/improv class. It scares me. Which is the biggest reason I want to take it.

3. I'm also thinking about taking an iron casting class at Sloss Furnace.

4. I dream about a country road like this one:

5. I love to rearrange the furniture.

.

YOU SCHMOOZE, YOU MUSE

Lucky me: the past two weeks I have gotten to hang out with traveling authors!

First, Vicky Alvear Schecter, author of CLEOPATRA'S MOON.

Pat Weaver, Vicky & me, on my back deck

Vicky with Drag Queen Cleo at Little Professor Books

Everyone listening to Vicky talk about her book

Book Club: Lori, Jaime, Phyllis, Vicky, Martha & Carol

Two things especially stand out to me from Vicky's talk:

1. Characters need agency. What the heck is agency? It has to do with action, forward motion. It's the character doing something to move the story, not something happening to the character. (Right, Vicky?) Vicky learned this from working with her editor, Cheryl Klein.

2. If you have a manuscript ready to go and you're looking for an agent, consider asking your published SCBWI friends to provide for you an email introduction to their agent. (This is NOT a referral or recommendation. Simply an introduction.) This is how Vicky "met" her agent.

Next up, Sarah Frances Hardy, author of PUZZLED BY PINK:

Sarah Frances with a young reader at Little Professor Books. In the background Lori Nichols, whose first picture book will be published next year!

me, Pat Weaver, Sarah Frances & all the way from California, Tina Coury, author of newly-released HANGING OFF JEFFERSON'S NOSE. Yep, that's how popular Sarah Frances is. :)

Pat & Sarah Frances on the overlook at Vulcan, Birmingham's monument to the god of forge

Sarah Frances is so cool, she presented her talk on her ipad. My favorite part was when she talked about an encounter with one of Maurice Sendak's people, who looked at her work, and said it was TERRIBLE. But Sarah Frances kept on going, kept working, kept getting better. And now here she is!

Also, Sarah Frances sings the praises of Doni Kay, southeastern sales rep for Penguin -- a sentiment I share! Doni was great to work with when scheduling book signings for LEAVING GEE'S BEND. And it's a great reminder to all you authors out there: get to know your regional sales rep. These people are passionate, hard-working and know this industry.

And now we are just days away from summer vacation here at Casa Latham. I am super-excited about the abundant white space on my calendar. Perhaps I can use the inspiration generated by these schmoozes to address, improve, complete some of my works-in-progress ??

And it's a longgggg summer... thanks to a new Alabama state law, kids won't go back until August 20!

What does your summer look like?

LAST SCHOOL VISIT OF THE YEAR

...and at one of my favorite schools with some of my favorite teachers!

Thank you, Inverness Elementary students, Mrs. Bramlett, Mrs. Young, Mrs. Beavers and Mrs. Price for reading LEAVING GEE'S BEND to the kids year after year. Thanks also for the lovely gift. I appreciate you!  (here I am with Mrs. Bramlett's class)

FIVE FOR POETRY FRIDAY

1. Welcome to Poetry Friday Roundup! Thanks so much for stopping by. Please leave your link and name with description (there is only one space to put all the info you'd like us to know) in the handy dandy inlinkz form below.

2. Tonight is Book Club, at my house. We've been reading CLEOPATRA'S MOON by Vicky Alvear Schecter. And Vicky will be joining us for our discussion!

For those of you who don't know about this book, it's about Cleopatra's only daughter Selene. Imagine having a mother like Cleopatra -- a mother who chose the love of Egypt over everything (and everyone) else.

Haven't I said before that the mother-daughter relationship is the most complicated one ever?

Yep.

3. I've added tabs to ye olde blog. Now our Progressive Poem has its own resting place. If you haven't had a chance to see how it turned out -- including a wonderful title provided by Kate Coombs, please read!

4. Also check out the "How to Live Your Poem" tab. This is something I'm working on. Basically, it's a list of personal and resonant-to-me directives pulled from poems. I'd love your suggestions for additions to the list!

5. Finally, allow me to share one of a gazillion quotes I'd like to share from A GOD IN THE HOUSE:  Poets Talk about Faith from Tupelo Press:

"So I discovered poetry is an amoeba: It has an eye for witnessing, a foot for leaving traces, and a flexible form.”

-- Dunya Mikhail

MY SECRET WEAPON IN THE KITCHEN

Tony Chachere's ORIGINAL CREOLE SEASONING.

We put this on EVERYTHING: meat, veggies (toss with olive oil and roast in the oven), mac-n-cheese, everything!

Try it. You will NOT be sorry.

And hey, if you have a secret weapon in the kitchen, do tell! I love to eat, love to cook, love to try new things...

I'VE STARTED WEARING A WATCH AGAIN.

For a number of years now, I have used my cell phone as a watch.

Except it's awkward, digging around in my purse to find the darn thing. (Imagine the time I have wasted, doing just that?)

For speaking engagements, I bought a cheap-o bracelet-style "Grandma" watch at Walmart. It's nothing fancy. But it works to help me find the "I'll take two more questions, and then our time is up" moment at the end of presentation.

A few months ago I spied in Sundance catalog the bold, inspiring watch that appears beside these words.

 But I don't NEED a watch. I've got the cell phone, remember? And the Grandma watch. So I've resisted the splurge.

And then I was dusting, looking at this family photo, circa 2002:

Do you see that watch on my wrist? (Hard to see at this size, but I promise you, it's there.) It was a gift from my husband. I wore it ALL THE TIME.

I couldn't remember what happened to it. Was it broken? Lost?

I found it in my jewelry box. As I held it in my hand I remembered all the reason I loved it. It's flat, light-weight, silver AND gold. Not flashy, but nice.

So I took it to the jeweler, and for five dollars and a quarter, fitted it with a new battery. And I've been wearing it ever since. And I love it! No more digging around in my purse!

And it feels so rebellious, so retro, like I am going my own way in a techno-world.

I like it. And it's validated other choices I've made, like no smart phone, no tablet, no Facebook. I feel so self-sufficient, so in-the-moment.

Sometimes all it takes is a tiny little thing to change your life. (Isn't that a lesson we have to learn and learn and learn again? Sigh.)

PARENTS AND WRITING WORDS THAT HURT

Today I've posted over at Smack Dab in the Middle "On the Importance of Parents in Middle Grade Fiction."

In honor of that, I wanted to share a picture (circa 1991, and yes the bride is me!) of my parents, whom I have always considered one of my biggest blessings. I mean, you don't get to choose who you're born to. I was lucky.

But my relationships with them hasn't always been peaches and cream. I was reminded of this on the panel last Saturday in Monroeville when someone asked a question about what do you do when you've written about real people in your life, how do you handle hurting their feelings?

My answer is simple: DON'T DO IT. I've written many poems about my parents that will never be seen by anyone. That's because I value the relationships with them over the desire to get published.

It's not worth it to hurt them.

Truth is not the most important thing.

And truth is relative anyway.

Only the writer can decide. But, please, remember this: despite what the old playground rhyme says, words CAN hurt. And often those wounds never go away. Especially when they're in print somewhere to haunt forever and ever.

Good luck!

And thank you to my wonderful, amazing, inspiring, supportive parents, who have given me a life worth writing about.

PROGRESSIVE POEM ENDS HERE

Dear Friends,

What a wonderful journey we've shared with our Progressive Poem! I have enjoyed so much watching this poem grow little by little, all the bold strokes and gentle touches, how each line adds a new layer, a new voice.

One of you commented about how it's been a lovely way to experience delayed gratification in our current sound-byte, instantaneous, rapid-fire world. I love that!

I don't know what exactly I was expecting, but I think I imagined a more haphazard result, a poem less cohesive. And now I read it, and I think, OF COURSE. Because that's the kind of community this is: loving, inspiring, supportive. Thank you, all of you, for sharing in this experience. I totally want to do it again next year!

And now for what I've done with the poem, as a way to wind up our adventure. I've used a technique that works for me again and again as I try to find the heart of my own poems. I've gone line by line and pulled out one word or one phrase and recrafted them, in order, to kind of distill the essence of the poem.  And then I've added my own bit at the end to provide some closure.

You can use this technique on your own poems, or on famous poems. In a way, it's a form of "found" poetry. It's also just an excellent self-editing exercise. And what's interesting here is that if each of us was to address this particular poem, we'd wind up with 29 similar but different poems, as we each are drawn to different words and phrases for different reasons.

Here's my take:

Note to Self

If you are hungry,

kick off a spell.

Dry your glass

secrets. Spill

out, breathe in.

Now, wish:

inside,

unfold a waltz.

How do broken veils

feed your heart?

Soul of coriander

and moonshine,

beware of too much

cushion. Trust

silver-tipped poetry.

Here: speckle

your life. Feast

on dream-dust.

And here's the uncut version, still title-less (suggestions, anyone?), but with a few adjustments to punctuation. Also, I tried the poem in triplets, and I really like the result:

ETA: Title courtesy of Kate Coombs!

Advice for a Dark Day

If you are reading this,                                                            

you must be hungry.

Kick off your silver slippers,

come sit with us a spell.

A hanky, here, now dry your tears

and fill your glass with wine.

Now, pour. The parchment has secrets,

smells of a Moroccan market spill-out.

You have come to the right place, just breathe in.

Honey, mint, cinnamon, sorrow. Now, breathe out

last week’s dreams. Take a wish from the jar.

Inside, deep inside, is the answer…

Unfold it, and let us riddle it together,

…Strains of a waltz. How do frozen fingers play?

How do fennel, ginger, saffron blend in the tagine?

Like broken strangers bound by time, they sisterdance…

their veils of sorrow encircle, embrace.

Feed your heart with waltzes and spices.

Feed your soul with wine and dreams.

Humble dust of coriander scents your feet, coaxing

seascapes, crystal sighs and moonshine from your melody.

Beware of dangers along the path of truth

and beware, my friend, of too much bewaring–

strong hands cushion you, sweet scents surround you—now leap

without looking, guided by trust. And when you land

on silver-tipped toes, buoyed by joy– you’ll know

you are amazing, you are love, you are poetry—

here, you rest.

Muse. Up ahead, stepping stones speckle the stream, sturdy now.

May your words roar against the banks, your life a flood of dreams.

by 

1 Irene at Live Your Poem

2 Doraine at Dori Reads

3 Jeannine at View from a Window Seat

4 Robyn at Read, Write, Howl

5 Susan at Susan Taylor Brown

6 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

7 Penny at A Penny and her Jots
8 Jone at Deo Writer

9 Gina at Swagger Writer's

10 Julie at The Drift Record

11 Kate at Book Aunt

12 Anastasia Suen at Booktalking

13 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

14 Diane at Random Noodling

15 Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town

16 Natalie at Wading Through Words

17 Tara at A Teaching Life

18 Amy at The Poem Farm

19 Lori at Habitual Rhymer

20 Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe

21 Myra at Gathering Books

22 Pat at Writer on a Horse

23 Miranda at Miranda Paul Books

24 Linda at TeacherDance

25 Greg at Gotta Book

26 Renee at No Water River

27 Linda at Write Time
28 Caroline at Caroline by Line
29 Sheri at Sheri Doyle
30 Irene at Live Your Poem

Oh, and if you get a chance, I'm a guest over at Katie Davis's blog, talking about 5 reasons why you should write poetry. Stop by!