Ah, Summer!

On birthdays and sunsets, poems and baking, weaving and wishes and more!

July is my birthday month and I’ve always been happy for that. This year on my birthday, July 5, I was gifted the most gorgeous sunset on an evening that seemed too cloudy / maybe rainy, which just goes to show: you don’t know until you know. Also: going to the beach is always a good idea.

Back in the day, I had sleepover parties: the 4th to the 5th. Seems surprising, now, to think that parents were fine with their kids going to a sleepover rather than doing some family thing, but year after year that’s exactly what happened as the girls from my class came over for pizza and badminton/volleyball/something and sparklers and cake. Actually, come to think of it, lots of things that seem like a big deal now (Family Time; The Fourth; etc.) were more low-key when I was growing up.

Over the years, I've tried overalls (without much success), but I guess I thought they looked pretty good in 1982.

Do I still know the names of those girls? Yep. Sure do. That’s Janet in the rainbow shirt and Sandra in red.

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A birthday is a good time for a poem. The assignment might be something like: your birthday (happening now or having just happened or still a ways off) + the weather + an animal or two + your parents + a picture of a memory + whatever else is on your mind as you write the poem, even if that other stuff doesn’t seem to fit + a statement/something you believe (or try to) about life.

Here’s a poem of mine that combines these things. It originally appeared in The Kenyon Review Online. As always, indented lines are just wrap-arounds because of the margins; check out the KR site to see the lines as intended.

I Wasn’t So Sure; I Never Wanted It to End; I Wished It Were Over

Nothing seems quite right so the helicopter, hovering, is more of    
   the same.
Otherwise, a near-perfect day, weather-wise,
and my birthday a month away, where it belongs.
Spider’s web below the hummingbird feeder, so many lives in the  
   garden.
Stillness, longing, or unrest: I look up from the pretty good book.
Now my mother sleeps by day and wakes at night to wait.
My father is coming from heaven to take her downtown. She hopes and 
   so do I.
Looking back, I can understand a little more. The photo albums 
   organize it.
She’s on a beach, at a picnic table, at an overlook. A young woman.
She made the prettiest bulletin boards when she was a teacher:
We are thankful for books; To My Valentine; Minuend minus 
   subtrahend
equals difference. Have you ever even heard those words?
Some poems go on too long and say too little. Others stop short.
Sometimes I can’t quite recall how to get from one moment to the 
   next.
I started out thinking about my marriage, etc.
Should I mention the hummingbirds again? The helicopter? What else…
Same difference plays on a loop in my mind. Any of us is alive for 
   now.

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Another good summer poem assignment is the travel poem. I’ve always loved this one by Elizabeth Bishop. You can also read it here.

Arrival at Santos
BY ELIZABETH BISHOP

Here is a coast; here is a harbor;
here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery;
impractically shaped and—who knows?—self-pitying mountains,
sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery,

with a little church on top of one. And warehouses,
some of them painted a feeble pink, or blue,
and some tall, uncertain palms. Oh, tourist,
is this how this country is going to answer you

and your immodest demands for a different world,
and a better life, and complete comprehension
of both at last, and immediately,
after eighteen days of suspension?

Finish your breakfast. The tender is coming,
a strange and ancient craft, flying a strange and brilliant rag.
So that's the flag. I never saw it before.
I somehow never thought of there being a flag,

but of course there was, all along. And coins, I presume,
and paper money; they remain to be seen.
And gingerly now we climb down the ladder backward,
myself and a fellow passenger named Miss Breen,

descending into the midst of twenty-six freighters
waiting to be loaded with green coffee beans.
Please, boy, do be more careful with that boat hook!
Watch out! Oh! It has caught Miss Breen's

skirt! There! Miss Breen is about seventy,
a retired police lieutenant, six feet tall,
with beautiful bright blue eyes and a kind expression.
Her home, when she is at home, is in Glens Fall

s, New York. There. We are settled.
The customs officials will speak English, we hope,
and leave us our bourbon and cigarettes.
Ports are necessities, like postage stamps, or soap,

but they seldom seem to care what impression they make,
or, like this, only attempt, since it does not matter,
the unassertive colors of soap, or postage stamps—
wasting away like the former, slipping the way the latter

do when we mail the letteres we wrote on the boat,
either because the glue here is very inferior
or because of the heat. We leave Santos at once;
we are driving to the interior.

Your own travel poem could similarly chronicle an arrival (or departure), going moment by moment in that careful Bishop style. Often it seems like she’s not saying anything — just noticing — but! we all know how hard that is to do, and it’s in noticing what’s visible we also see all that isn’t (a la Charles Wright as discussed in my last post). Bishop’s poem is one of my all—time favorites, and I return to it often.

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Last post, I lamented the lack of baking in recent installments of Cake & Poetry. This time I’m happy to share my go-to zucchini bread recipe, which I recently made with zucchini from my garden.

Here’s the recipe, adapted from Food & Wine. Adapted how? Well, I no longer have the original recipe, but cloves and dates are things I especially like, so probably I added those. A delicious bread, if I do say so myself.

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Here are the latest weavings: “Moonshadow Moonshadow” (yes, like the Yusef/Cat Stevens song), “Privately,” and “Applause at Sunset.”

I’m happy with these, especially “Privately,” which turned out even better than I imagined.

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Summer reading updates

War and Peace: I’m approaching page 800 (of 1300) and feeling pretty good about it. The book is not difficult; it just goes on and on. But not in a bad way! And slow reading is my kind of reading. I’m already starting to think about what big book I’ll do next. Any suggestions?

The Sheltering Sky: This book really appealed to me. The clean, elegant sentences. The subtlety and the starkness. The era. I wonder if this book upsets people now——? I don’t hear much talk of Paul Bowles. A writer’s writer, maybe? In any case, I’m not in school (thank goodness!) and don’t have to belabor the answers to these questions.

The Whispering Statue: yes, of course I could just finish this, but I enjoy coming and going so as to savor all that Nancy Drew accomplishes in a single afternoon and just how resilient she is. Page 103: she’s nearly hit on the head when a heavy book falls from a shelf at the antiques store where she is working undercover while on “vacation,” as one does. Given that she’s already been knocked out once in this book (or was that a different book...?), a second blow would not have been ideal.

Reading a Nancy Drew mystery does prompt some questions about life. For example, page 90: “Mrs. Thompson took some smelling salts from her handbag, and tried to revive Mr. Atkin.” Wait — what? Do people routinely carry smelling salts? Is this something I should be doing?? And honestly it’s a bit surprising that Nancy didn’t have her own smelling salts handy.

Also, check this out: Nancy, George, and Bess pretending to be paintings! It’s crazy stuff like this that makes these books worth re-reading. Just imagine writing this scene! “What the heck, why not” would be my thought, pretty sure. And doesn’t the bad guy look like Charles Bronson?

A fun classroom activity would be to give students this picture and ask them to write a scene leading up to it. Chances are, most of them would not be familiar enough (or at all) with Nancy Drew, so the results would be newly hilarious. A good group activity.

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Lastly, I had been searching for a book to read alongside War and Peace, but nothing was catching my attention... until I found these three. I’ve started Christ Stopped at Eboli, which is strange and slow and evocative in a way that appeals to me, especially on a hot summer afternoon.

I hope your summer reading, strange and slow or quick and breezy or somewhere in between, is going well.

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I’m going to end with something a little unexpected, maybe.

When I was playing with my dolls back in the day, I would have been thrilled to happen upon a box like this one:

I had dollhouses that my Dad made and store-bought houses and furniture, but my sisters and I also made furniture, etc. This box with its three alcoves seems just perfect as a piece of doll furniture (a row of open kitchen cupboards maybe?) or maybe it could house a small art installation of made or found objects or maybe the niches should stay empty, remaining would-be repositories for moods or memories. Each one looks like it almost has a small door to one side. Where do such almost-doors go?

I can imagine bringing this box to class for a free writing / brainstorming activity. If you were to fill this triptych, what real or imagined object or feeling would you put in each opening? Or let’s say you get three blue wishes, what would they be? Choose carefully!, I always tell myself.

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I hope you’re having whatever kind of summer you most want and need — with all your wishes, blue and otherwise, coming true.

Thanks for reading. Talk soon.