Day: March 14, 2008

Mr. GottaBook, This One's For You

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March 14, 2008

4:30 pm

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Happenings, On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

Happy Pi Day, Matheletes!

Because I did not wish to regale you with my bad high school romance-of-mathematics poetry once again (and the crowd breathed a huge sigh of relief!) I thought I at least owed you a peek at the new mental_floss ‘Fib’ shirt — and this is really for Gregory K, @ Gotta Book, because he’s the original fib guy. (Very original, I might add. Have you read his Oddaptations!?) SO, that’s my two cents for math today – it’s not a pi joke, but enjoy!

Sam had some good points this week about publishing being …kind of a game. Justine Larbalestier seems to concur, talking about the luck factor on her blog. Hat tip to Shrinking Violet Productions.

Don’t Forget to Write: Co-blogger a.fortis mentioned this week why she writes “part of the reason I write for a teen audience is that I think–I hope–that reading my work might someday help someone through a tough time, or distract someone from their own troubles.” Disco Mermaid Jay really brings that home this week, reprinting a couple of notes he’s gotten in response to his book. Now, that’s what we’re here for. Writing. It matters. We’ve all got our Insecure Selves to deal with, but well done you, Jay Asher, for gently shutting I.J. down.

Bay Area Peeps, Save the Date! It’s the 14th Celebration of Children’s Literature at UC Berkeley on Saturday, April 12 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

As part of Cal Day, which is the campus-wide open house, UC Berkeley’s Tolman Hall is putting on a free community celebration, celebrating children’s book. The book fair literati includes Gennifer Choldenko, Marissa Moss, Thacher Hurd, Elisa Kleven, LeUyen Pham, and quite a few more, plus musicians and bookmaking art activities, and storytelling, and more. Do check it out — it sounds like a lot of fun.

Even though I didn’t go to public school, I’m enjoying *my (or, rather, Jen Robinson’s) recent discovery of Public School Insights, which carries an interview with our insane Ambassador, Jon Scieszka. The title? Turning Boys Into Readers. Hmmm! T-June 1st and counting, and GuysLit Wire will be going live. We have some seriously great girls and GUYS who read blogging about the best teen guy reading they can find.

Man, there’s tons of great book stuff getting revved up for warmer, clearer days… Stay tuned!

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Mr. GottaBook, This One’s For You

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March 14, 2008

4:30 pm

2 Comments on Mr. GottaBook, This One’s For You

Happenings, On Writing, Random Notes and Errata

Happy Pi Day, Matheletes!

Because I did not wish to regale you with my bad high school romance-of-mathematics poetry once again (and the crowd breathed a huge sigh of relief!) I thought I at least owed you a peek at the new mental_floss ‘Fib’ shirt — and this is really for Gregory K, @ Gotta Book, because he’s the original fib guy. (Very original, I might add. Have you read his Oddaptations!?) SO, that’s my two cents for math today – it’s not a pi joke, but enjoy!

Sam had some good points this week about publishing being …kind of a game. Justine Larbalestier seems to concur, talking about the luck factor on her blog. Hat tip to Shrinking Violet Productions.

Don’t Forget to Write: Co-blogger a.fortis mentioned this week why she writes “part of the reason I write for a teen audience is that I think–I hope–that reading my work might someday help someone through a tough time, or distract someone from their own troubles.” Disco Mermaid Jay really brings that home this week, reprinting a couple of notes he’s gotten in response to his book. Now, that’s what we’re here for. Writing. It matters. We’ve all got our Insecure Selves to deal with, but well done you, Jay Asher, for gently shutting I.J. down.

Bay Area Peeps, Save the Date! It’s the 14th Celebration of Children’s Literature at UC Berkeley on Saturday, April 12 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

As part of Cal Day, which is the campus-wide open house, UC Berkeley’s Tolman Hall is putting on a free community celebration, celebrating children’s book. The book fair literati includes Gennifer Choldenko, Marissa Moss, Thacher Hurd, Elisa Kleven, LeUyen Pham, and quite a few more, plus musicians and bookmaking art activities, and storytelling, and more. Do check it out — it sounds like a lot of fun.

Even though I didn’t go to public school, I’m enjoying *my (or, rather, Jen Robinson’s) recent discovery of Public School Insights, which carries an interview with our insane Ambassador, Jon Scieszka. The title? Turning Boys Into Readers. Hmmm! T-June 1st and counting, and GuysLit Wire will be going live. We have some seriously great girls and GUYS who read blogging about the best teen guy reading they can find.

Man, there’s tons of great book stuff getting revved up for warmer, clearer days… Stay tuned!

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

Poetry Friday: Ikea’s Not the Only Scary Thing

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March 14, 2008

10:31 am

4 Comments on Poetry Friday: Ikea’s Not the Only Scary Thing

Part and Poetry

In the department store

The women who work at cosmetics

counters terrify me. They seem molded

of superior plastic or light metal.

They could be shot up into orbit

never mussing a hair, make-up intact.

When I walk through, they never pester

me, never attack me with loud perfume,

never wheedle me into a make-over.

Perhaps I scare them too, leaking

some subversive pheromone.

I trot through like a raccoon

in an airport. They see me,

they look and turn away. Perhaps

I am a project they fear to tackle

too wild, too wooly, trailing

electrical impulses from my loose

black hair. They fasten on the throat

of the neat fortyish blond behind me

like stoats, dragging her to their

padded stools. A lost cause,

I sidle past into men’s sporting

gear, safe but bemused, wondering

if they judge me too far gone

to salvage or smell my stubborn

unwillingness like rank musk.

–by Marge Piercy from Colors Passing Through Us (Alfred A. Knopf).

I love the idea of shop clerks as stoats. That’s a keeper.

I read this and just hooted. This put me in mind of both Barry… and Neil…with regard to Ikea… Maybe some people are born to accumulate? And it’s all the prettyshinyplastic preciousssss, and thus we wants it? I don’t know. I love the things they have, but I really have to carefully plan arriving ten minutes after the doors open, go directly to said items of stuff, and run. And egads, I don’t want to go near a makeup counter. Although, it’s true — they don’t chase me. Not since Poison came out in junior high… 1985! I must really look like a lost cause…

I love Marge Piercy; at least she can laugh about being thought of as ‘far gone.’

Poetry Friday: Transitory

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March 14, 2008

10:22 am

15 Comments on Poetry Friday: Transitory

On Writing, Poetry Friday

Permanence

I can’t remember how old I was,
but I used to stand in front
of the bathroom mirror, trying to imagine
what it would be like to be dead.
I thought I’d have some sense of it
if I looked far enough into my own eyes,
as if my gaze, meeting itself, would make
an absence, and exclude me.

It was an experiment, like the time
Michael Smith and I set a fire in his basement
to prove something about chemistry.
It was an idea: who I would
or wouldn’t be at the end of everything,
what kind of permanence I could imagine.

In seventh grade, Michael and I
were just horsing around
when I pushed him up against that window
and we both fell through–
astonished, then afraid. Years later

his father’s heart attack
could have hit at any time,
but the day it did they’d quarreled,
and before Michael walked out
to keep his fury alive, or feel sorry for himself,
he turned and yelled, I wish you were dead!

We weren’t in touch. They’d moved away.
And I’ve forgotten who told me
the story, how ironic it was meant
to sound, or how terrible.

We could have burned down the house.
We could have been killed going through
that window. But each of us
deserves, in a reasonable life,
at least a dozen times when death
doesn’t take us. At the last minute

the driver of the car coming toward us
fights off sleep and stays in his lane.
He makes it home, we make it home.
Most days are like this. You yell
at your father and later you say
you didn’t mean it. And he says, I know.

You look into your own eyes in a mirror
and that’s all you can see.
Until you notice the window
behind you, sunlight on the leaves
of the oak, and then the sky,
and then the clouds passing through it.

— by Lawrence Raab, from Visible Signs © 2003, Penguin Books.

“A good poem, I think, is one that you want, almost immediately, to reread,” according to the poet. I can’t tell you how many times I read this one… thinking of it from different angles, trying to reach for the elusive secondary and tertiary meanings. All poetry can be misinterpreted, says Lawrence Raab. Agree? Disagree? Don’t miss this brief conversation with the poet at The Independent Review Site. And don’t miss more poetry you’ll want to revisit, hosted by Jama Rattigan @ Alphabet Soup, who encourages you to drop by with a Bob Dylan lyric. Since I don’t know any of his songs that weren’t covers of someone else’s, I’m going to have to think about that for awhile!

All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.