Month: October 2009

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October 30, 2009

11:11 am

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Glasgow Uni D 510

Happy Poetry Friday!

I’ve finally written a new poem. The Poetry Princesses are gently flinging down gauntlets in the form of a villanelle, and since we all acknowledge that our sestinas were slowed by the sheer difficulty of the form, we needed a fresher challenge. This villanelle, which is a tricky nineteen line form with only two rhyme sounds, means I have to come out of my non-writing funk and actually see something through from beginning to end. This is very good, as lately I’ve been mostly a.) reading other people’s work and sighing and b.) poking at mine with the Ugly Stick instead of working to finish it.

Tricia introduced us to a new rhyme form this week, the zeno, which is both simpler and harder than a villanelle. I felt challenged just thinking about it, so I whipped one out for Poetry Friday.

On Intentions to Speak to Richard Peck at a Writer’s Conference

He’s standing right there but I choke.
Breathless. Eyes meet,
I duck,
Flush.
He smiles, walks on…
And I’m
mush.
Come on! Work, brain!
Fangirl
Crush.

You know it’s poetry when you can render your most humiliating moments into something that has form and structure and yet no power to further embarrass you. Have a look at the other zenos from this week, and happy Poetry Friday. Round up is at Bibliophile this week. Cheers!

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

The Fangirling Reply I Did Not Write to Meg Burden When She Emailed To Ask Me If I Would Like To Preview and Blurb Her New Book

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October 29, 2009

11:14 am

4 Comments on The Fangirling Reply I Did Not Write to Meg Burden When She Emailed To Ask Me If I Would Like To Preview and Blurb Her New Book

Random Notes and Errata

Dear Ms. Burden:

ME??? REALLY???

Oh, My GOSH! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Cordially, T. Davis

We now return you to your previously mature and well-balanced author blog and pretending that said author is not a big old book geek.

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

I Am In Awe of Phillip Pullman

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October 24, 2009

5:47 pm

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Random Notes and Errata

Lynedoch Crescent D 189

Yes, these are weird things to grow in basically the British rainforest, which is honestly what Glasgow must be. But, I don’t care. I’ve declared the front room the desert.

Looking up from my Cybils reading: I know — we all know the Sally Lockhart series and the His Dark Materials novels, but I hadn’t a clue that there were other Pullman YA stories. THERE ARE. I just read a novel called The Broken Bridge that I can’t wait to write up… at some other point… when I’m not neck-deep in the reading I’m supposed to be doing. But – even without a review, you know you should just go find it and read it, because it is quite good. It was published in 1990, which makes me feel like a right eejit to not have realized he wouldn’t have done the two series and stopped writing anything else at all. Duh. Anyway: you know you should go out and find it, because Phillip Pullman is an amazing writer, and you know you want to.

That is all.

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

If You Were Having A Good Day…

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October 21, 2009

8:40 am

6 Comments on If You Were Having A Good Day…

Soapbox

…I’m maybe going to ruin it.

“And yet on the other hand unless warinesse be us’d, as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image, but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye.”— John Milton, Areopagitica, 1644.

THIS IS OFFICIALLY A RANT. If you are having a nice day, you may just want to steer clear of me just now. I am NOT feeling the love. ‘Kthnx.

Awesome SFF author John Scalzi calls them “Leviticans,” those people who claim Christianity, but who obviously have only read Genesis – so they can have a firm opinion about evolution – Exodus, so they can be upset about the Ten Commandments not being posted in public places, – and Leviticus, so they can be homophobic and tell gay and lesbian people that God hates them. Whatever way you look at it, the opinions of people on that lunatic fringe, no matter how embarrassing, are, well… lunatic.

We know this, right? And, okay, this is fourteen people in North Carolina who are going to burn books, and it’s only fourteen, and I shouldn’t get all hung up over fourteen people burning books for what is probably a PR stunt, to boot. These are nutters: we can’t take them seriously. But the problem is, I get hung up on anyone burning books for any reason. It’s just. Not. Right. You cannot attempt to eradicate ideas and concepts if they scare you. You cannot think to conceal evidence with fire. You cannot seriously think this is Christian behavior… can you?

Thing is, this isn’t about Christianity. It’s about control, and once again we have people who would like to control what everyone reads and thinks and even, since they’re burning “heretical” versions of the Bible, even how people perceive God.

I am SO all about freedom of speech and religion and these people are well within their rights to burn all these books and negatively affect the air quality of a little corner of North Carolina. It is SO much their right. But wow, do I wish they wouldn’t exercise this particular right. I truly believe the statement of exiled German essayist Heinrich Hein (1797 – 1856) who wrote,

Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings. (Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen) – From Almansor (1821)

Especially because this is taking place in a small Southern town, I think this has more to do with a need to go back to an alleged state of “good old days”-dom than any actual theological debate. It just bothers me so much; it seems that if they could get away with burning women who they considered to be witches, or other people they just considered unsavory — Jewish people, African Americans, gay people, gypsies — they would. And it’d be Nazi Germany all over again.

The actions of fourteen people shouldn’t be that big of a deal, though. Right?

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

Poetry Friday: ¡Viva la inesperada!

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October 16, 2009

8:42 am

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Poetry Friday

Not what you expected from the accordion, is it?

Inspiration lurks in unexpected places. A single red leaf in a forest of green. A bit of tamarind sharpness in the middle of a sugary sweet. I recall the Yoruban chicken poem M.T. Anderson discovered while doing the painful and often depressing research for Octavian Nothing — an unexpected little something that made him smile. I imagine that same smile was present when translators found the riddles in The Exeter Book.

For those of you who think Exeter is a place near Irvine (and it is!) The Exeter Book has nothing to do with L.A., but is a 10th century codex of Old English poetry. Copied in about the year 975 and gifted to the Exeter Cathedral by its first bishop, it’s a book that was closely guarded and carefully kept, so that most of it survives to this day. It’s considered a “large” manuscript at 123 pages.

Imagine the whole Benedictine monk thing — tonsures, hair shirts, the works — and …poetry? Okay, yeah. Religious poetry. But, riddles? …Why?

Books were rare in the tenth century — a whole city’s “library” could be bound up in a single collection of illuminated pages, bound together between thin leaves of birch (which in German apparently is very close to the English word “book,” thus the name). Obviously the people of great learning had them — monks — and people of great wealth owned and shared them — the bishops, and the works included were meant to be representative of the people. It’s balanced, when you think of it that way. A little religious instruction, and then a bit of riddling, to keep the mind sharp.

See if you can solve this one:

A moth, I thought, munching a word.
How marvellously weird! a worm
Digesting a man’s sayings –
A sneakthief nibbling in the shadows
At the shape of a poet’s thunderous phrases –
How unutterably strange!
And the pilfering parasite none the wiser
For the words he has swallowed.

They didn’t write really deep riddles back then… you know the answer!

Happy Poetry Friday! poet and author, Laura Purdie Salas, whose birthday was yesterday, is hosting other little gems of poetic inspiration this week. And for the deliciously unexpected, don’t miss Denise Doyen at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Happy Autumn.

Glasgow Uni D 504
All content (unless otherwise attributed) is © Copyright Tanita S. Davis and may not be reproduced in any form.

The Post-Snoopy Dance Dance Party

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October 8, 2009

5:58 pm

3 Comments on The Post-Snoopy Dance Dance Party

Web Wanderings

Lynedoch Crescent D 195 HDR

I’m getting better! Thanks for everyone’s good wishes; I’m left with just a few coughs from my brush with Incandescence, just in time to attend a dance party with Eisha and Jules of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, and Adrienne of What Adrienne Thinks About That (I had to write that out — I love the name of her blog, and while everyone knows the “7-Imps” we just don’t often say Adrienne’s whole blog name).

The guests at the party are all of you, of course, and Sara Lewis Holmes and I have the honor of being lead dancers. Sara talks about her new and awesome book, OPERATION YES and all the bits she stole from her real life, and her kids’ life, while doing some free form pirouettes. I talk about the road-tripping in my life, and the bad karma that is Houston while I do The Swim. We have a few laughs, learn about each other’s books, and overall have a good time. Drop by!

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

Take A Quiet Moment for a Snoopy Dance…

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October 6, 2009

3:09 pm

21 Comments on Take A Quiet Moment for a Snoopy Dance…

Writing Daze


Snoopy Dance!

We interrupt this sick day to proclaim that MARE’s WAR has been nominated and is under consideration for the ALA Best Books for Young Adults 2010 list!

This is exciting, and will mean a lot more exposure for the story of the 6888th Postal Battalion, as librarians from all over the country will be able to at least see the title of the book and wonder to themselves, “Hm. Wonder if my readers will like that one?”

I am *so* brainfuddled from five days and nights of bouts of intense high fever (I’m calling them Days of Intermittent Incandescence. Frankly, if you can name catastrophic weather systems, my fevers also deserve a name) that I can barely type straight, but this is the kind of news that at least makes me feel guilty about malingering in bed. I shall get up! I shall write…another novel! I shall…

…when I am more coherent.

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