I am five days away from vacation--count 'em--just FIVE! If I can get through 6 candidate interviews, my last class sessions, and final grades, I'll be home free. I am looking forward to the last HP movie and reading until my eyeballs fall out of my head. As Emily said, "There is no Frigate like a Book/To take us Lands away," so let's write about reading and books. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
friggin books
ReplyDeleteI weighed anchor and steamed through libraries
leaping from deck to burning deck
plowing through fogs and squalls and sunny doldrums
(going down with a few ill-wrought ships)
then arrived at safe harbor. Took on cargo.
Now I paddle my little skiff built of stanzas
live for the puff of a poem
steer clear of rocky coasts and cliffs where sirens sing:
cacophony of sinuous voices, calling me
to stop paddling, jettison cargo, fling my yearning soul
into the sea of stories and never surface.
I tie myself to a mast made of a stack of clocks and resist.
A fever dream inspired by Jane Yolen’s Facebook post asking “Can you have too much of a good thing?” and Jack Gantos's quote at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast about the pleasures of reading slowly.
ReplyDeleteSPEED READER
By Steven Withrow
I can read
at impossible
speed—
it’s a gift,
yet it’s worse
than a curse.
I get hooked
on a book,
then I look
up to find
that I’m
legally
blind...
and I frown
’cause my eyes
won’t slow down!
Too soon
I’ve consumed
every word
in my room,
every tome
on my shelf,
every poem
by itself,
every glorious
legible
story
I can,
that I scan
or I skim
on a whim
without plan!
Still hungry,
I run
out my door
to eat more.
In the hallway
I fall
to my knees
and I freeze
at the faces
in frames—
I’ve misplaced
all their names—
pleading
READ ME
(N0, READ ME)
JUST READ!
©2011 Steven Withrow, all rights reserved
Great, Good, Bad
ReplyDeleteA great book is a homing device
For navigating paradise.
A good book somehow makes you care
About the comfort of a chair.
A bad book owed to many trees
A forest of apologies.
J Patrick, I LOVE that! (But I have to ask, did you mean "owes"?)
ReplyDeleteReading
At recess, I'm in the library. Maybe I can read every single book.
In class, my book's on my knees, where the teacher won't notice.
After school, I read at the kitchen table, with a peanut butter sandwich
to keep me company. Everyone wants me to do homework and chores.
They want me to play handball. But I read, I read and I read.
I'm not even there anymore. I'm long gone.
When I do come back, I will be an empress with a bejeweled scepter.
I will be a magic-maker, a botanist, a mountain climber, a waltzer, a dream.
I will be a new me, someone only books have the eyes to see.
—Kate Coombs, 2011, all rights reserved
Ouch. Yes, Kate, I did indeed mean "owes."
ReplyDeleteThank you,
Always lovely to write about reading and books! Have a happy 'reading' vacation!
ReplyDeleteBibliophile
Today I wanted to confess
that I have times of deep distress
deep down real unhappiness
when I have nothing to read.
I have gone to great extremes
often let out wild screams
to others I’m crazy (it often seems)
when I can’t find a book.
Just call me an unreformed bibliophile
My feelings of book-loving have never been mild
I’ve been known to read cereal boxes a while
When I can’t locate a book.
The changes that come over me
are wonderful for all to see
I think it’s terrific just to be
when I am reading a book.
Second time trying to post this. I may have shown you all this one before.
ReplyDeleteThe Best-Selling Author
Getcha red hot metaphors here,
Your poetry stretches line by line.
Yes, you can handle the similes
I think you’ll find they’re rather fine.
Alliteration always sells,
Even in recessions,
But slant rhymes are another kettle
Of fish, of flesh, of fissions.
I’ve got some second-hand paragraphs,
Some small, used punctuations
Suitable for a senior prom
And for most graduations.
And pssst, if you will come back here,
You’ll find that you’re in luck.
I’ve got some first class sentences
That just fell off the truck.
© 2011 Jane Yolen allrights reserved
RHYME
ReplyDeleteWhen my clock begins to chime
I fall asleep in rhyme,
Words fitting together
(like laces to boots of leather,)
I wake up rejuvenated
At what my dreams created.
(c) Charles Waters 2011