Sunday Salon---March 10th

Ian in his toy box.

Weather: Gorgeous. Sunny with blue skies. Children were outside playing which is so weird since it snowed early in the week.

Yard work: Last weekend  Don and I braved the cold windy weather and deadheaded and pruned the hydrangea bushes...no easy task since our bushes are so huge. This weekend we pruned the Japanese willow tree which is next to our deck and was growing too large for the space. The contrast in the weather couldn't have been sharper. I even took off my jacket, working in a t-shirt. Don also drained the hot tub and cleaned it out. After our work today we had a nice soak.

The Wisdom of Ian: Try new things and delight in them. Throw your head back while swinging and marvel at the sky.

Join me in a reading challenge: 'My Own Books' reading challenge will give you the opportunity to read books on your own shelves. Please follow the link for the details and to sign up.

Lent: This year for Lent I am doing two things. 1) Read the daily devotional designed for the season of preparation, and  2) Use less plastic. I know I won't be perfect. In fact, the very first day, at the church sponsored soup dinner, I used a plastic spoon. But I figure if I and everyone uses one less plastic thing a day, we can make a significant difference. See the photo above for some of the tools I will use to reduce my addiction to plastic:

a. wax-covered clothes to cover food in the fridge

b. wax paper instead of plastic wrap

c. a hard plastic cup that I can reuse every time I order a venti cold drink at Starbucks (which is pretty often) 

d. a metal straw 

e. chopsticks which I wash and reuse

f. glass containers for leftovers, a reusable plastic lid

g. flexible, reusable plastic covers for leftovers

h. aluminum cans instead of plastic bottles, or the obvious, of course, my own water bottle (not shown)

i. silverware,  I plan on keeping a set in car for emergencies

Not shown: recyclable shopping bags, silicone lid covers

Ideas: Help me out. Can you think of other things I can do?

Join me!

Today in church: God called me through a song. The first four verses of the song "The Summons" by Iona Community, are God calling his people. The sixth verse is man answering God's call. Below are verses four and five:

(God asks: )

Will you love the "you" you hide

If I but call your name?

Will you quell the fear inside

And never be the same?

Will you use the faith you've found

To reshape the world around,

Through my sight and touch and sound

In you and you in me?

(Mankind answers: )

Lord, your summons echoes true

When you but call my name.

Let me turn and follow you

And never be the same.

In your company I'll go

Where your love and footsteps show.

Thus I'll move and live and grow

In you and you in me.

Feel good story: Honeys and Bears, a senior synchronized swim team in Harlam. Watch it. It is only 1.45 min.

Books: 

• I finished one book this week---Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver. Audiobook read by the author. The book has settled well in my brain. It gave me a lot to think about concerning both climate change and politics. 
• Currently reading: Great House by Nicole Krauss---print, 69%, reading as part of my own challenge to read National Book Award titles. 
• Currently listening: The Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa---audio, 6%, a book club selection.

Review and quotes: UNSHELTERED

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56.

Review, of sorts, to follow.
This is the book I'm highlighting right now---

Title: Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver

Book Beginning:

"The simplest thing would be to tear it down," the man said. "The house is a shambles."

Friday 56:

Iano detached from her and vanished. Willa held her vigil over Tig, the child she'd lately forgotten to worry about. For all the years her daughter had been bouncing like a molecule through an unstable universe, anxiety was Willa's steady state.

Summary: Iano and Willa were forced to move from their home in Virginia when Iano's teaching job fell through. Fortunately, Willa's aunt had willed her house in Vineland, N.J. to them before her death, so they had a place to land. Unfortunately, both of their adult children have to move in with them after situations in their own lives required it. Plus Iano is taking his turn caring for his curmudgeonly father whose health is failing rapidly. Additionally, the new home is any thing but new. It is old and literally falling apart. Willa feels like her life is spinning out of control, not a position she expected to be in at this stage in her marriage.

Jump back in time 150 years in Vineland and meet the then owners of the same house, Thatcher Greenwood, a young science teacher, his wife, Rose, and a mother-in-law and sister-in-law. Thatcher is trying to teach science in his high school which has a hostile environment to anything new especially having to do with discovery and scientific methods. And he is not allowed to say anything about Charles Darwin's thoughts on evolution. Also, meet Mary Treat (a real historic figure), a 19th century biologist, and Charles Landis, the historical founder of Vineland, a man who attempted to create a Utopian community until he committed the crime of the century!

Told in alternating chapters, the house is the anchor of the story in two different centuries.

Review: My book club decided to not read Unsheltered as a club selection because one of the gals had heard it was preachy. I hadn't read enough about the book to have much to say to counter the opposition. Since I had the word "preachy" in my head as I started reading, I looked for instances to confirm or deny it. Actually, I think that readers who attend conservative churches or don't believe in evolution, would find the book does promote issues in opposition to those beliefs. But since I am not in either of those camps, I didn't feel preached at.

My favorite parts of the book involved the discussions about issues of the day..."evolution" as a new theory in the nineteenth century and "climate change and overuse of resources" in the twenty-first century. The book's title, Unsheltered, also formed a theme which was fun to think about. What is shelter and who defines it? At one point in the book, Thatcher is reflecting on a time during the Civil War when he slept in a tree for several nights. He slept well and deeply on those nights. Willa thinks back on where she and Iano lived while in college, an apartment above a garage. Her memories of the time spent in that tiny apartment with its cast-off furniture were all happy ones. The house in Vineland was falling apart in 1870, and it was still falling apart in 2016. It sheltered families, but just barely and probably not very happily. It gave me a lot to think about in terms of what I consider shelter and got me thinking about my huge house in which my husband and I rattle around. Time to downscale, perhaps.

Barbara Kingsolver read the audiobook. She is a favorite author and this book, like all her other works, got me thinking in a new way. Unbelievably, this time my ah-ha moments had something to do with President Trump and a new way to think about him and leaders of his generation. Did I love the book like I've loved so many of her books? No, but I liked it a lot. Unsheltered gave me a lot to think about and a new way of thinking of tough issues. That is worth the time it took me to read it!

A few more quotes I want to include, just so I won't forget them:

"Tig gently took the scrap of paper from Willa and read aloud. 'I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.' "(The quote within the quote was taken from the book My Antonia by Willa Cather.)

 "Nor did he tell Mary now that he could see her soul. It was a giant redwood: oldest and youngest of all living things, the tree that stood past one eon into the next."

Join Me: in a two month limited reading challenge to read your own books. Check out the details and sign up here: 'My Own Books' Reading Challenge.

Poetry review: Incarnadine by Mary Szybist

Okay. True confession. Most of the time I don't "get" poetry. I often like poetry but usually only pieces or bits of a poem sing out to me. Those songs, however, usually speak directly to my heart so I am swept away with the sound of the words and the emotions that are generated. That is what happened when I read the poems in Incarnadine by Mary Szybist. Most of the poems didn't make any sense to me but bits and pieces transported me to some other place for a while, long enough for me ruminate on a word or phrase before returning to reality.

So let's see if I did "get" anything from this slim volume of poems. First the cover illustration is a copy of a Botticelli painting of the Virgin Mary being visited by angel Gabriel titled the "Annunciation." It just so happens that nine of the poems in the collection have annunciation in their titles. So my first clue is that I should look for some grand announcements, like those when Gabriel told Mary that she was going to be the mother of our savior. Though I am dubious since these titles don't quite evoke that big event: "Annunciation (from the grass beneath them)", "Annunciation with Nabakov and Starr", "Annunciation as Fender's Blue Butterfly with Kincaid's Lupine", "Annunciation Under Erasure" and five others. My favorite among them is the last, Under Erasure. Imagine the scripture, Luke 1:26-38, but with important words erased. That is this poem: The Lord is/troubled/ in  mind/ be afraid Mary. Clever. Some annunciations just don't live up to the original.

The second thing I noticed was the title. Incarnadine sounds a lot like another holy word, "incarnate", which means "embodied in human form (usually referring to deity or spirit.)" So now my senses are open to poems which will mention something about God or Christ among us, as one of us. Perhaps I missed all the mentions but one poem, a concrete poem titled "How (Not) to Speak to God" stands out for it's uniqueness drawn in the shape of a sun with rays. "who saw the the world incarnadined, the current flowing/whose face is electrified by its own light/ who could be a piece of flame, a piece of mind shimmering." This poem chased me to the dictionary where I learned that incarnadine is actually a word all its own. It means a bright crimson or pinkish-red color. Hmm. Guess that explains the red color on the cover. Learned something new.

Another theme I noticed may have been the actual point, a play on the author's first name, Mary. I couldn't decide if I was supposed to think of the mother of God or the woman who wrote the poems  as I tried to understand the meaning behind the words. Perhaps that was the what I was supposed to grapple with because scripture tells us that Mary of Biblical fame, was just a girl, like anyone else except she was special. The poem "Hail" really does seem like a poem from Mary, the poet, to her namesake. In another poem titled "Update on Mary" one has to wonder if Mary, the poet, is giving us an update on herself. It begins, "Mary always thinks that as soon as she gets a few more things done and finishes the dishes, she will open herself to God." Oh boy, can I ever relate to that phrase.

Many of the poems seemed to be pulled from the headlines or directly from Mary's life. In "On a Spring Day in Baltimore, the Art Teacher Asks the Class to Draw Flowers" one gets the creepy feeling that the art teacher is a lech...he is always around with his sketchbook drawing the girl. Just when I am ready to skip to the next poem I come upon this line, "I closed my eyes, felt the sunlight on my thighs. To be beheld like that --- it felt like glittering."  I know what it feel like to glitter in God's sight, I'm guessing that Mary does, too, and she knows what it feels like to not experience the feeling any longer. We see it in the poem "Holy" which is about the illness and eventual death of her mother. In this time and space Mary can no longer feel the Holy Spirit and is bereft. "Fragile mother, impossible spirit, will you fall so far/ from me, will you leave me/ to me?"

And finally I had fun with the poem "Happy Ideas." It was inspired by a Duchamp quote "I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and watch it turn." Szybist expands on this idea and names many happy ideas which got me thinking about happy ideas. I even got my husband to play along. I had a happy idea, as a matter of fact, to include him in on the fun. Try it...I had a happy idea to play fetch with the dog. I had a happy idea to call a long-lost friend.  I hope your happy ideas are just as happy.

I decided to read Incarnadine as part of my personal challenge to read National Book Award winners. This one won the poetry category in 2013. I'm glad I found it!

National Book Award Personal Challenge selection.

TTT: Characters I Admire

Top Ten Tuesday: The topic is supposed to be characters I'd like to change places with. I couldn't even put my brain on that task. If I replaced a character, the book wouldn't be the same! Duh! So I changed my prompt to be: Characters I Really Admire

1. Levi in Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell---he is just the best boyfriend and not a typical male character usually found in YA lit.

2. Elinor Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen--- she single-handedly holds her family together in the face of financial demise, and unfair prejudice against her sister and her for their poverty.

3. April May in An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green---April is the protagonist in the part Sci-Fi novel who discovers and names the Carls. She becomes famous overnight and has to grapple with what fame means.

4.  Leni in The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah--- Leni is a teenager when her parents move her to the bush of Alaska and she learns a whole new way of life among other Alaskan characters and how to cope with a father who is seriously mentally ill.

5. Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter books by JK Rowling--- Hermione is such a model student and friend, smart and capable.

6. Werner Pfennig in All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr---Werner was a German orphan forced to serve the Third Reich because of his radio skills. In the end, he is true to his nature and saves another character I admire, Marie-Laure. He is a hero.

7.  Vascilisa in The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden--- She believes the fairy tales told by her nurse and she helps protect her home in Northern Russia as she placates the household spirits.
(I haven't read the other two books in the series, yet.)

8. Zelie in The Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi---I love this story set in Nigeria which includes Nigerian folklore. Zelie learns to use her magic for good.

9. Wade Watts in Ready, Player One by Ernest Cline--- Wade is just a kick-ass character who solves a puzzle and does the right thing along the way, hitting "the man" where it hurts.

10. Lireal in the Abhorrsen series by Garth Nix--- she saves the kingdom and remains humble.

Join me in my new Reading Challenge to read books you own. Check out the link for the details.

Sunday Salon, March 3rd

Is he Captain Kirk or Kermit the frog?

Weather: Lovely. Blue skies, perfect dog-walking weather.

The wisdom of Ian: give hugs when your grandma falls down and sit and cuddle her until all is right with the world again. (The photo above was taken after everyone got righted. You can see he'd been crying, too.)

Snow cones: Over a month ago we had our first snow of the season and it was a whopper. Today our last pile of snow (now ice) will likely melt and that will be a record: one month of standing snow on the ground. Our dog, Bingley, treats the diminishing piles like his own personal snow-cones. He begs to go outside to gnaw on the ice.

Join me in a reading challenge: 'My Own Books' reading challenge will give you the opportunity to read books on your own shelves. Please follow the link for the details and to sign up.

Movies: Don and I have been working our way through the Academy Award nominees and winners. So far we've seen: 1. The Green Book (loved it); 2. Bohemian Rhapsody (loved it, too); 3. A Star is Born (such talent!); 4. First Reformed (very disturbing); 5. The Favourite (I think I'll stop comparing myself to Queen Anne); 6. Can you Ever Forgive Me (Melissa McCarthy was amazing.) We still want to see Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk, and Black Klansman.

Prayers for:

• D- her sister died suddenly on Friday
• J- is having a mastectomy on Wednesday
• R- her father died on Thursday
• J- he and his girlfriend are having issues related to housing 
• C- recovering from a mastectomy last month
• D- issues related to health insurance coverage

Books --- recently finished and currently reading

• Incarnadine by Mary Szybist---National Book Award winner for poetry in 2013. Finished.
• Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose --- National Book Award winner for Young People's Literature in 2009. Finished.
• Great House by Nicole Krauss--- National Book Award finalist for literature in 2010. 33% complete.
• Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver---audiobook. A favorite author, not a favorite book, 30%.
• Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward--- e-book; 40%. I am plodding along on this one.
• There There by Tommy Orange--- a NYT top ten book of 2018 and a book club selection. Don and I both listened to the audiobook which is so well-done. Finished.
• The BFG by Roald Dahl---this children's classic is a must-read. Finished.
• Lighthead by Terrance Hayes---another National Book Award winner (2010) for poetry. Finished.
• Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins--- her adventure series that preceded Hunger Games. Audiobook. Finished.

Don't forget to check out my 'My Own Books' Reading challenge. I hope you want to join me.

'My Own Books' Reading challenge list

Here is the sign-up post.

This is my list for 'My Own Books' Challenge:

1. La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith
2. Redeployment by Phil Kay
3. Ten Windows by Jane Hirshfield
4. The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom
5. The Four Things that Matter Most by Ian Byock, M.D.
6. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
7. The Confessions of Fitzwilliam Darcy by Mary Street
8. Small Wonders by Barbara Kingsolver
9. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
10. The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka

In addition I plan to finish two books I own which I am currently reading: Fear by Bob Woodward (e-book) and Great House by Nicole Krauss (print.)

I'm ready to start reading from my own shelves!

Join me!

The LINKY is dead...Oh well. I will hyperlink my reviews.

'My Own Books' Reading Challenge

Today I am announcing a new reading challenge and I welcome your participation.

Goal: To read one to ten books that you own by May 15th.The books can be on an e-reader, audio CDs or already downloaded audiobooks, or good old print editions.

How to get started:

1. Select up to ten books that you own.
2. Write their titles on slips of paper. Draw out one paper at a time to create your reading order. (This will help eliminate you choosing the newest editions, the shortest, the ones you want to read the most, etc. first. It will randomize the selection.)
3. Publish that list in an intro blogpost or on Facebook, linking back to this post.
4. Sign up on the linky below.

Once the challenge has started:

1. Every time you finish a book, add that title to the linky with the specific URL.
2. Visit others' links and hopefully they will visit yours.

Then what?

• Once you have finished a book, decide what you want to do with it.
• Keep it and return it to your shelf.
• Donate it to a charity like the public library for their annual book sale.
• Give it away to a friend or relative you think may like it.
• Sell it, if you can find a buyer.
• Toss it in the trash, it was that bad! Ha!

Will there be prizes?

      Of course there will. Everyone is a a winner. Your prize will be the good feeling that comes from completing books that have been languishing on your shelves for months or years. Isn't that the best prize of all?

Sign up and get ready to READ!

TTT: Ten places I enjoyed visiting in books

Reposting: I originally made this post on 10/13/14.

Places I have enjoyed visiting via books (and would love to visit in person.)

1. Savannah, Georgia thanks to the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt. Written in 1994 this nonfiction book has the quirkiest cast of characters and highlights special places in town.

2. Venice, Italy. Admittedly who wouldn't want to visit this exotic location? However, John Berendt's second book The City of Falling Angels made me even more excited about my visit to the city. It is another nonfiction book, this one was published in 2005.

3. Australia. Bill Bryson's fun nonfiction book In a Sunburned Country made me want to drop everything and hop on a plane headed to Australia. I do realize that I am not only talking about a country here but also a continent but I do hope to take a very long visit to this sunny country some day so I will have lots of time to explore it.

4. and  5. Madagascar to see the huge baobab trees and the old camphor tree at the shrine in Atami, Japan. I learned about these huge, ancient trees because of the book Remarkable Trees of the World by Thomas Pakenham. In fact, after I read the book I decided I'd to try to visit all the trees listed in it.

6. Salem, Massachusetts. I never even thought about going to this historic American town until I read The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe set in modern times and in the past.

7. Lithuania. I love it when a book opens my mind to new information and places.  That is the case with Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys whose amazing book about how the Russian government tortured and moved thousands of families out of Lithuania to Siberia.

8. St. Petersburg, Russia. After reading The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean I decided that I HAD to visit its huge art gallery, The Hermitage Museum.

9. Paris, France. Of course I want to go to Paris and, of course, I want my husband with me, but if I could I would love to time travel to Paris in the 1920s. Then I could witness first hand what it was like to be around all the authors who made up the lost generation. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway is a first-hand account of those days.

10. Amsterdam. I want to go back now that I've read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

11. The island of Thisby from the Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. Okay, I know it is a fictional location but I love the descriptions of it in the book and can picture every blade of grass.

12. Prince Edward Island from Anne of Green Gables. My mom visited the island and was charmed.

Audiobook Review: There There by Tommy Orange

I am reeling. I just got done listening to There There by Tommy Orange and I don't know what to think and what to feel.

There There was one of the top ten books of 2018 and won the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. And it is a simply astonishing audiobook utilizing four narrators to cover the twelve main characters we meet in the novel.  Orange wanted to write a book about urban Indians, similar to those he knew growing up in Oakland himself. These Indians “came to know the downtown Oakland skyline better than we did any sacred mountain range, the redwoods in the Oakland hills better than any other deep wild forest.” The title of the book comes from a Gertrude Stein quote about Oakland, "there is no there there."

Each of the characters in There There are American Indians who come to life in their own chapters but soon we see that they are almost dancing around each other as the circle dance draws closer and closer to the final event, the Big Oakland Powwow. Some of the characters will come to dance in their regalia, others will come to fulfill work commitments, while others will come with mischief in their hearts.

The first character we meet is Tony, a kid with fetal alcohol syndrome that he calls "Drome." He scores low on the intelligence test but he knows what he knows and he loves his grandma who is raising him. He gets mixed up with some petty criminals who sell drugs and make plastic guns and plan to rob the powwow of the prize money. Right from the start we know to dread what will happen at the powwow. Other characters' stories emerge, too. Jacquie Red Feather and her half sister Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield who we meet the day, in 1969, that their mother takes them to Alcatraz Island to participate in takeover of the island by indigenous people. Later, after their mother's death, the sisters drift apart but plan to reunite at the powwow. Another character, Dene Oxendene wins a grant from the city to collect stories from the urban Indians living in Oakland. He plans to set up a sound-booth at the powwow to collect as many stories as he can, like the Story Corps project. Honestly there are so many characters and their stories intertwine so much, I can only imagine that my friends Jane and Betty, if they were reading the book, would need to take notes and to draw a character map. (I say this with love. We are in book club together and both of them are famous for taking scrupulous notes on much less complicated books than this one.)

What really sets the stage for this fantastic book, however, is the heartbreaking prologue, a ten-page riff of sorts on the 500-year history of the American Indian with all its genocide, dislocations, and racism. He begins the prologue with a description that only old people like me remember...the Indian head test pattern on TVs at the end of each night's programming. We revisit this test pattern later in the book when a character sees it and is struck by the wrongness of it. Orange concludes the prologue with this tongue-in-cheek comment:

Our heads are on flags, jerseys, and coins. Our heads were on the penny first, of course, the Indian cent, and then on the buffalo nickel, both before we could even vote as a people — which, like the truth of what happened in history all over the world, and like all that spilled blood from slaughter, are now out of circulation.

Throughout the novel, Orange steps in several times for interludes and digressions, to remind the reader that yes this book is a work of fiction but it is also true.

Why was I reeling by the end of the book? Because the story broke my heart but also stitched it back together. I didn't know if I should cry or cheer. One character, I think his name was Tommy (hmm?) really spoke to me about the importance of culture. His while life was adrift and almost completely wrecked by alcohol when he found drumming. In drumming he could finally hear his own heartbeat and in the process reclaimed himself. It breaks my heart to think about so many citizens of this country who don't want anyone to celebrate heritage unless it "their" heritage.

About the audiobook, I stumbled upon an interview conducted for BOT (Books on Tape) with the producer, Sarah Jaffre. I thought this question and answer were especially revealing about how special this book is in the audio format:

Did you have a clear vision from the beginning that this would be a multi-voice narration?

Absolutely. This explosive, gorgeously realized, utterly unique book is told by a kaleidoscopic range of voices, and it felt important that the audiobook stay true to the rich, clamorous sense of texture and vitality that’s so propulsive on the page, and capture the same messy, human window into a community pulsing with a wide variety of experiences, motivations, and perspectives that Tommy Orange has so beautifully crafted.

One more thing. I understand that Sherman Alexie, a favorite author who is much maligned right now for personal boundary issues, helped Tommy Orange as he prepared this book. Orange gave Alexie a shout-out, which I think is such a kind thing to do. So many people run away when someone is in trouble and Orange didn't do that.

I'll close with quotes found on bumper stickers at the Big Oakland Powwow...

 "My Other Vehicle Is a War Pony" 

and 

"Fighting Terrorism Since 1492."

RHS Book Club- April 2019

Review and quotes: Lighthead

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56.

Review, of sorts, to follow.

This is the book I'm highlighting right now---

Title: Lighthead by Terrance Hayes

Book Beginning: from the poem, "Lighthead's Guide to the Galaxy"

Ladies and Gentlemen, ghosts and children of the state, I am here because I could never get a hang of Time.

Friday 56: from the poem, "Satchmo Returns to New Orleans"

You are the greasy Daddy of Jazz. Peasy Daddy.
You are the brassy Mother of Jazz, the bellowing bastard of jazz,
Sweet-trumpting strupet of jazz. Easy Daddy;
A hankie full of toots and zooting, Mister Sadmo. 

Summary and review: Lighthead won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010. I am reading it as part of a personal reading challenge to read at least two per year of the National Book Award winners for the last ten years. There are four, now five categories of awards: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people's literature, and now a work in translation. I wanted to read a volume of award winning poetry and this thin volume seemed to fit the bill.

The first poem, "Lighthead's Guide to the Galaxy", was an homage to a favorite book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, though I didn't figure it out myself from the verses. I did like a few other lines from this poem. This one speaks to my need to read poetry--- "Maybe Art's only purpose is to preserve the Self."  And this quote seems like good advice---"Brothers and sisters, when you spend your nights out on a limb, there's a chance you'll fall in your sleep."

The second poem I highlighted from 56% on my Kindle, "Satchmo Returns to New Orleans" was very fun. Satchmo is a nickname for Louis Armstrong and the poem is full of titles of many of his famous songs. The mention of all the songs chased me to YouTube to listen to some of them, played by the master himself.
Here is one of my favorites:


Though I liked a few poems in the collection, most of them confused me, some even left me feeling flat. I didn't figure out why until I read the Author's Notes at the end. Apparently Mr. Hayes was playing around with poetic and other written forms and styles. One is called pecha kucha, a Japanese business presentation format where the presenter narrates or riffs on twenty images connected to a single theme for twenty seconds of time.  No wonder I didn't get it.

I leave you with this snippet. Though it references an elephant I related to the sentiment:

"...everything is punctured by the tusks of Nostalgia." 

from "The Elegant Tongue"

National Book Award Personal Challenge selection.