Tabatha Yeatts: The Opposite of Indifference

A Solid Seed of Ourselves

2012-03-09T01:00:00.002-05:00

"Poetry is like a free bird that knows no boundary, like seeds that are carried along by the wind, that grow, bloom and bear fruit where they find good soil without asking anyone's permission."
~ Ion Codrescu

Adding John Siddique to my list of great voices...

Yew Moon from John Siddique on Vimeo.

Myra at Gathering Books is our Poetry Friday round-up host this week.

Cairns

2012-03-08T01:59:00.002-05:00

True strength is delicate.
~ Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

Making cairns (balanced rock stacks) has many purposes -- it's used as a way to mark territory, a form of meditation, and an art.

Two cairns by Patrick aka the Buddha Collector, Rotterdam, New York

Aviemore Cairn

Cairns Series LX
by Hammer and Coil

Cairn in Ireland
photo by Chad K

from Andy Goldsworthy's Three Cairns
Photo by Phil Walsh

Fungal Rock Balance
by Mark Kelly

Moncrieffe Island, Perth, Scotland
by Murray Barnes

Links:

Helpful notes on building a cairn
The Art of Rock Balancing
Professional rock stackers

Wordy Jewelry

2012-03-06T04:59:00.007-05:00

The Little Chickadee has sweet pendants, such as this Jabberwocky necklace that reads, "Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe."

If you'd like to make your own text-based jewelry, Adrianne Surian shares helpful info on her blog about how she made this Hunger Games Bracelet:

A bracelet like this would also lend itself very well to poetry, maybe something romantic and recognizable ("How do I love thee? Let me count the ways" or "I carry your heart"). Or you could use literary characters (the Wicked Witch and a bunch of flying monkeys, for instance).

George Enescu

2012-03-05T01:03:00.008-05:00

George Enescu, 1881-1955
I heard George Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody #1 performed by Angèle Dubeau and was wowed, so I looked him up.

Enescu was a child prodigy who went to conservatory when he was only eight years old. He wrote the Romanian Rhapsody #1 at age 20. A multi-talented man, Enescu was a violinist, composer, conductor, teacher, and pianist.

In the 1920s and 30s, he made a number of trips to the U.S., where he was a guest conductor for various orchestras, such as the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He died in Paris, where he had resided since World War II.

Enescu is celebrated in his home country (Romania), with towns, airports, and orchestras named in his honor.

Here, the Maestro Stokowski discusses Enescu's Romanian Rhapsody #1:

You can learn more about him at the Enescu Society USA site and on The Remington Site.

Pale Stars

2012-03-02T01:16:00.003-05:00

I've been reading Come Together: Imagine Peace, an anthology edited by Philip Metres, Ann Smith, and Larry Smith. As with Against Forgetting, I've filled my copy with place-markers. Here's one I marked:

All the Way Up
by Lisa Rosen

flowers float like pale stars
in the grass, and at the top
of the hill there’s a plank
of wood hanging from an oak.

I lift myself into its level lap,
a pendulous Sabbath where
branches curve and meet,
framing landscapes.

Blow sweet shadows,
there’s no holding back
the light, it curls
through the leaves
and snapping grasses. It pads

along Queen Anne’s lace.
Someone with faith in roots
and a weathered limb,
cut, carried, measured and

slipped sleeves of rubber
over rope, knotted it so I’m swinging
between hayfield and cloud.
Someone I will never know
is blessing me.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dori Reads has our Poetry Friday round-up this week.

Here Comes The Sun

2012-03-01T01:08:00.001-05:00

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
~ Galileo Galilei

A lot of people long for summer, but it's too hot for me. I enjoy a breezy sunny day, a nice thunderstorm, a bit of snow. I have no heat limitations on representations of the sun, though.

Art is in the air... inspire
Paris

Guadalajara, Mexico

The Sun also Rises
by Martin Dargevics

Apollo's Chariot, Versailles
Sculpted by Tuby, after a drawing by Le Brun
Info about Apollo/Helios, who drove a sun-chariot across the sky

Stained glass window, center of the rose.
Saint-Nicholas basilica, Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, Meurthe-et-Moselle, Lorraine, France.

Ella le Canta al Sol pa Despedirse de El (She Sings The Sun Goodbye)
by Alonso Vargas

Louis XIV dans Le Ballet de la nuit (1653)

The sun photographed by an ultraviolet camera onboard NASA's STEREO spacecraft
Credit: NASA/STEREO
Links:

* Sun-related lesson plans, K-12
* A bunch more sun/solar science lesson plans
* Even more lesson plans
* Still more lesson plans

Where Would You Go?

2012-02-28T01:55:00.000-05:00

The Guardian's Lisa Allardice asks an interesting question -- if literary time travel was a possibility, what writers would you go see?

Read the column and the responses here.

My first thoughts were to visit Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe...must be leaning toward a little suspense today. Then Mark Twain came to mind. J.R.R. Tolkien. Beatrix Potter. The possibilities!

A Rollercoaster of Music

2012-02-27T01:12:00.009-05:00

Wow! Check this out:

ZKO Rollercoaster // GREAT EMOTIONS from virtual republic on Vimeo.

I pulled together previous musical posts and tried to give them a little organization. Browse around as you see fit --

Music education and young musicians:

Music in Our Schools Month (March)
Bobby McFerrin talks about music
Musical pioneers
Musical science projects
Young musicians and more young musicians
Gustavo Dudamel
Music therapy

Composers:

Aaron Copland
Beethoven
A bit of Bach
Cécile Chaminade
Deaf Composers
Bizet's L'Arlesienne
Borodin's Prince Igor
Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition

International Music and Causes:

Music of Tibet
The world's oldest song
Two ethereal singers
International Music Projects
CDs for Creating Communities
Playing for Change
The Estate Project and Fred Hersch
Music Maker Foundation
Playing horn to raise money

Instruments:

Banjo and fiddle
French horn
The Hang
Harmonica
One person bands

Art and Music:

Musical instrument art
To Flute, From Violin, a Storybird
Music-related Tagxedos
A rap about poetry
Kipling's Seal Lullaby set to music
Musical public art (and more of that)
Wuthering Heights in song
Album Writing Month (February)

Airborne Music:

Music in Space
Birdsongs
Aeronautical sheet music

Album covers:

Scheherazade
Handel's Messiah
Vivaldi's Four Seasons
La Boutique Fantasque

An assortment of types:

Kids' Classic CDs
Rock Songs with Choirs
Buddy Holly covers and other covers
Bluegrass tributes
Chaka Khan
Out-of-the-ordinary words used in songs
La Mer/Astaire/Louis and Ella
C.S. Lewis Song by Brooke Fraser
U.S. Military Bands
Comic Adventures in Music
Elijah Rock (Choral music)

Opera:

The Barber of Seville
Joan of Arc
Opera Art (with a song)

Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas:

Danse Macabre
Giving thanks
Christmas songs

Dance and saski-naski:

Miscellany
Barcode Orchestra
Relax or Run?
Dance/choreography
Popping and Locking

Saski-Naski

2012-02-24T01:30:00.005-05:00

Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.
~ Oscar Wilde

Langston Hughes by Brandy Kayzakian-Rowe
Poetic saski-naski for you today (Google Translate says that "saski-naski" means "miscellany" in the Basque language).

* I made an African American Poets word search. Can you find Maya, William Stanley, Gwendolyn, Lucille, Countee, Gayle, Rita, Paul Laurence, Cornelius, James, Nikki, Eloise, Angelina Weld, Yusef, Claude, Marilyn, Ntozake, Charles, Alice, and Phyllis?

* Also, here are resources for teaching African American poetry from the Poetry Foundation.

* Ever thought about trying Storybird? I talked about it earlier this week. Their site is worth a visit.

* And lastly, a bit of healing for you:

Come Healing
by Leonard Cohen

O gather up the brokenness
And bring it to me now
The fragrance of those promises
You never dared to vow

The splinters that you carry
The cross you left behind
Come healing of the body
Come healing of the mind

Read the rest here.

Our Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted by Check It Out.

Felt

2012-02-23T01:25:00.006-05:00

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.
~John Updike

Felt is used in many ways -- in the making of musical instruments, automobiles, and buildings, for instance. But it can also be used for art:

Felt city painting
by Hale Irtem

Snow, a needle felted art doll
by Laurence Bergeot Veréb

Felt Scaled Cuirass
by Lisa Klakulak

Grid 4, felt painting
by Jenne Giles

Millefiori Nuno Felt Scarf
by AVAoriginal

Felt Frida Kahlo Coat, Inimitable Frida, from the "Viva la Vida" Collection
by Lubov Voronina

Links:

* Felt making at the Kurdish Textile Museum
* The making of a felt yurt (part of a Martha Stewart piece on a felt exhibit)
* Amanda Hone shows how to felt

To Flute, From Violin

2012-02-20T01:18:00.002-05:00

I didn't know what to do for Music Monday, so I decided to make a music-inspired Storybird. I'd never made anything on Storybird before, but it was pretty easy. Storybird provides a variety of art that you can browse through and select to go with your text.

Here's my musical poem, To Flute, From Violin with illustrations by BlueDogRose:

Ascending Bird

2012-02-18T06:39:00.001-05:00

Poetry Hunts

2012-02-17T01:56:00.008-05:00

Still wondering what you might do at your school, library, community center, church, or home for National Poetry Month? Ever had a Poetry Hunt?

The idea is this: Post poems --with a little info about the poets-- around your building and then make a list of clues that lead from one to the next. Create a form for participants to fill in the names of the poems and poets as they find them.

For instance, an elementary school Poetry Hunt could begin with:

* Take twenty steps and look to your right to find a poem about a fish with no bones (About the Teeth of Sharks by John Ciardi)
* Back up three yards and you will find a poem about a creature with whiskers (Midnight Stray by Rebecca Kai Dotlich)
* Take ten steps diagonally and find a poem written by a poet who was born in 1909 (W by James Reeves)
* Go around the corner and look for the water fountain, where you will find a weather poem (Sunflakes by Frank Asch)
* Go up the stairs. Outside the doorway, find a poem by a woman who was born in Baltimore, Maryland (A Little Song of Life by Lizette Woodworth Reese)
* Turn around and look for the poem by a Newbery award winner (Wish by Linda Sue Park)

You could have the poems match the location in the school. For example, you could have music-related poetry near the music classroom:
* Find a song that was written on the occasion of President Lincoln's birthday (Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson -- I would only include the first verse)
* Find a poem that was written in a sidewalk (Meadowlark Mending Song by Margaret Hasse -- maybe you could include a little image of the sidewalk, from the Web)

Near the library:
* Find a poem written by a poet who lived to be 99 (Books Fall Open by David McCord)
* Find a poem by the author of The Monsterologist (A Scarcity of Words by Bobbi Katz)
* Find a poem by a poet who likes to raise tadpoles (School Librarian by Kristine O’Connell George)

Outside an English classroom:
* Find a poem written by a Canadian poet (Call the periods Call the commas by Kalli Dakos)
* Find a poem written by a poet who speaks four languages (The Unwritten by W.S. Merwin)

Near the gym:
* Find a poem written by the poet who wrote the shortest poem in the world (Shortstop by Charles Ghigna)

Maybe Things I Don't Eat by Mr. Chompchomp could be by the cafeteria, or As I was walking up the stair by Hughes Mearns could be by the stairs. There are lots of things you could do!

Gathering Books is our Poetry Friday round-up host today.

P.S. Last week I had a request for more poems from Against Forgetting. Here's one, but I'm warning you, it's heartbreaking. (It's the third one down, A Conversation Through The Door). I noticed that this particular poem is the subject of a plethora of essays for cheaters (i.e. unethical writers write papers which they sell to disgusting companies who sell them to dishonorable students.) Ugh.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

2012-02-16T01:39:00.004-05:00

We shall not attempt to give the reader an idea of that tetrahedron nose-that horse-shoe mouth-that small left eye over-shadowed by a red bushy brow, while the right eye disappeared entirely under an enormous wart-of those straggling teeth with breaches here and there like the battlements of a fortress-of that horny lip, over which one of those teeth projected like the tusk of an elephant-of that forked chin-and, above all, of the expression diffused over the whole-that mixture of malice, astonishment, and melancholy. Let the reader, if he can, figure to himself this combination.
~ Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Sharing book covers and posters from Victor Hugo's famous story this week. I have been wondering about what makes a beast a possible love interest and a hunchback an impossible one.

This one is by Arthur Ranson:

Links:

* Hunchback illustrations on Squidoo
* How to draw characters from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame
* A recording of the book
* The 1939 movie version is supposed to be one of the best.
* A biography of Victor Hugo
* The Genesis of Butterflies, a poem by Victor Hugo

Library Lovers

2012-02-14T01:35:00.003-05:00

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island.
~ Walt Disney

February is Library Lovers Month!

One way to celebrate is to proclaim your affection for libraries.

Another is to share your favorite books. As a child, one of my favorites was The Phantom Tollbooth. I adored the world that Norton Juster created.

From Anita Silvey's Children's Book-A-Day Almanac: "As luck would have it, Juster lived in the same apartment building with cartoonist Jules Feiffer in Brooklyn Heights, New York. So as the book was created, Feiffer made drawings of these incredible creatures. The story became a kind of competition between the two creators; the author attempted to describe things that would be difficult for Feiffer to draw. The whole exercise became a game, inventive, free-flowing—a fabulous example of thinking and writing out of the box."

Tock, a Phantom Tollbooth illustration by Jules Feiffer
Here's Lizzie Nichols' imagining of Digitopolis from The Phantom Tollbooth:

* Vintage Phantom Tollbooth covers from around the world
* Phantom Tollbooth games

Everyone Wants Me!

2012-02-13T01:52:00.005-05:00

We have The World's Very Best Opera for Kids...in English! and my kids think this is a pretty funny song (music by Gioachino Rossini/libretto by Cesare Sterbini).

But before you hear the song and read the words, I should point out that in the past "barbers performed surgery, bloodletting and leeching, fire cupping, enemas, and the extraction of teeth; earning them the name 'barber surgeons.'" (wikipedia) The lyrics in English (and a short movie) are beneath this wonderful performance by Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

No better life could a barber wish for,
nothing more noble could ever exist...

Everyone calls me, everyone wants me,
Ladies and young men, old men and maidens:
Where is my wig, sir? Give me a shave, please…
Leeches for bleeding…
Letters for reading…

Everyone calls me, everyone wants me,
Everyone calls me, everyone wants me:
Where is my wig, sir?
Give me a shave, please!
Letters for reading!
Hey! Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!

Oh my, they’re loud!
Oh my, those crowds…
Surround me!
One at a time,
For pity’s sake! For pity’s sake! For pity’s sake!
One at a time, please, One at a time, please, One at a time, please,
For pity’s sake!

Figaro! I’m here.
Hey, Figaro! I’m here.
Figaro here, Figaro there
Figaro up, Figaro down
Faster and faster I fly like a lightning bolt,
I am the barber of Seville.
Of Seville

Ah, bravo Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo, Bravo, bravissimo
All of my luck, All of my luck
All of my luck it will not fade away. La, la, la...

Giving Back

2012-02-11T07:43:00.006-05:00

Horn player Rudolf Diebetsberger decided not to stop performing when he retired from the Stuttgart Philharmonic. Instead, he chose to perform at street festivals, cafés, and private parties to raise money for aid projects in India and Bangladesh. Diebetsberger donated over 50,000 Euros in 2010, so he is doing well with his goal -- giving 100,000 Euros to Anderi-Hilfe. I think he's in the 70,000s now. Once he gets to 100,000, Mr. Diebetsberger will actually retire. I imagine that will be a very satisfying retirement!

Sky to Sing to Me

2012-02-10T01:48:00.001-05:00

I've been reading Against Forgetting: Twentieth Century Poetry of Witness, edited by Carolyn Forché. It was a Christmas present, and I have been sticking little slips of white paper all through it; there are so many I'd like to return to. I'm sharing some excerpts of Prayer before Birth by Louis MacNeice.

This poem was inspired by living in London during the Blitz. I named this post after the line about the sky because it struck me as very poignant that, in a time when bombs were a perpetual threat, MacNeice imagined a gentle sky for children to come.

from Prayer before Birth
by Louis MacNeice

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
   in the back of my mind to guide me...

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
      would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
       one face, a thing, and against all those
          who would dissipate my entirety, would
            blow me like thistledown hither and
              thither or hither and thither
                like water held in the
                  hands would spill me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have a listen:

Laura at Writing the World For Kids is our Poetry Friday round-up host today.

Tentacles Everywhere

2012-02-09T01:12:00.008-05:00

That awkward moment when a sentence doesn't end the way you think it octopus.
~Unknown

I read a fascinating story about giant squid with my tutee last week and it made me want to have a Tentacle Thursday. So here it is...

Stirrup jar with octopus, ca. 1200–1100 b.c.e.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

from 20000 Lieues Sous les Mers (Jules Verne's 20000 Leagues under the Sea)

Octopus Lovecraft
by Calyn W.

A cat dressed as a woman tapping the head of an octopus
by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 1797-1861

Octopus quilt
by Marjan Kluepfel

Coming out of the water
by Rococco LA

Pink Octopus
by Eve Lynch- Kraken Mosaics

"Poulpe Colossal" attacks a merchant ship
Pierre Dénys de Montfort (who heard descriptions of French sailors reportedly attacked by such a creature off the coast of Angola)
1810

Octopus
by Victor Hugo

Links:

* These would make cute octopus valentines
* The making of an octopus lamp
* A fun idea for making inflatable sculptures (one example is a squid)
* A handmade octopus mug
* Working on printable tentacle parts
* Origami squid instructions

Random Acts of Kindness Week

2012-02-07T03:38:00.001-05:00

Foo Foo and Sugar
Random Acts of Kindness Week is coming: February 13th - 19th, 2012.

How to celebrate?

* Downloadable Random Acts of Kindness bookmarks
* Random Acts of Kindness.org also has School Activity Ideas
* Help Others.org has a long list of idea links.
* Gives Me Hope has a random acts of kindness page.
* Pay It Forward Experience will have a SKYPE call with your school or group.
* Free compliments
* The Web is a Random Act of Kindness, a TED talk video.

Prince Igor

2012-02-06T01:15:00.001-05:00

In winter I can only compose when I am too unwell to give my lectures. So my friends, reversing the usual custom, never say to me, ‘I hope you are well’ but ‘I do hope you are ill.’
~ Borodin

I thought I'd featured chemist/composer Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor before, but I couldn't find a Music Monday post about it. So here it is!

Borodin hadn't quite finished work on Prince Igor when he died in 1887, so his friends Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov completed it for him.

Prince Igor links:

* A plot summary
* To buy the DVD
* More about Borodin on Classical.net

Owly Valentines and Googly-Eye Rings

2012-02-04T01:32:00.003-05:00

I showed you my youngest's valentines last year. Here are this year's:

(We got the idea from Larissa Holland)
Need to keep an eye on something? My daughter also made this googly-eye ring:

The pipe cleaner makes it the most comfortable ring around.

March Madness Poetry Tournaments

2012-02-03T01:26:00.001-05:00

by Elena Y.
If you're a teacher and you're wondering how to celebrate National Poetry Month, here's an idea that you can start in March but can take you through April -- a March Madness Poetry Tournament.

The National Council of Teachers of English says:

The idea is to create a basketball tournament-pairing chart like the NCAA does each year in March using poetry and determine a final winner by reading the poems. Choosing the poems and who will read them are the big decisions. Locate 64 poems and pair them off, just like basketball teams. Read two poems each day and let the students vote on the “winner.” Do this until you have a final four and the final winner.

They have helpful info from teachers about how MMPT actually worked for them here.

More suggestions from the NCTE regarding selecting the poems:

Locate poems written by poets found in all four compass directions in the US---East, West, North, and South similiar to the basketball brackets.
If 64 is too many, just start at 32, the second round in the 64 field.
Break it into two sections, representing the two sides of the tournament. Poems that are a little "harder" are on one side and "easier" poems on the other.
Create themes for each day of poetry such as death, humor, love, growing up, sports, and others.

Here's a printable bracket.

What poems would you have in your tournament? What would you pit against each other? For teens, I might use...

* Allow Me to Introduce Myself by Charles R. Smith vs. "I’m A Jazz Singer," She Replied by James A. Emanuel
* Missing by Cynthia Cotten vs. I'm Making You Up by Chrystos
* Did I Miss Anything? by Tom Wayman vs. Totally Like Whatever, You Know? by Taylor Mali
* Prayer to Laughter by Tom Agard vs. If You Had To by Sam Green or Valentine for Ernest Mann by Naomi Shihab Nye
* The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry vs. The Patience of Ordinary Things by Pat Schneider
* I Told You by Ella Wheeler Wilcox vs. The Summer Day by Mary Oliver
* It's all I have to bring today by Emily Dickinson vs. Question by May Swenson
* In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke vs. The Panic Bird by Robert Phillips
* Facing It by Yusef Komunyakaa vs. Here, Bullet by Brian Turner
* Quarantine by Eavan Boland vs. Time Does Not Bring Relief by Edna St. Vincent Millay
* Count That Day Lost by George Eliot vs. When You Go Anywhere by William Stafford

The Iris Chronicles has the Poetry Friday round-up today.

Sara G. Umemoto

2012-02-02T01:34:00.002-05:00

Surrealism was a perception of reality over which reason was denied the opportunity to exercise confining restrictions.
~ John Herbert Matthews

Thank you to Ms. Umemoto for allowing me to share her art today! There are surrealism/conceptual art lesson plan links at the bottom.

Passing Through
by Sara G. Umemoto

Hiatus
by Sara G. Umemoto

Aviary
by Sara G. Umemoto

Blooming
by Sara G. Umemoto

Last Dance
by Sara G. Umemoto

Farewell
by Sara G. Umemoto

Links:

* Dali-centered plans from the Dali Museum
* Surrealistic Pen and Ink Montage (grades 6 and up- I would like to try this myself)
* Alice in Wonderland-centered plans (grades 9 and up)
* Create a surreal postcard (grades 5-7)
* Doodles and Form (grades 6 and up)
* Surreal clay animals (grades 3 and up)
* Introduction to conceptual art (all grades)

2012 Fearless Poetry Exploration Challenge

2012-01-31T05:53:00.004-05:00

I decided to take up the 2012 Fearless Poetry Exploration Challenge.

Which means that I need to either:

a. Read and review up to 2 books of poetry throughout 2012.

b. Participate in at least 3 Virtual Poetry Circles throughout the year.

c. Sign up to feature poetry on your blog for April’s National Poetry Month as part of Savvy Verse & Wit’s Blog Tour.

d. Or some combination of the above.

I think I'll try to do b and c. The deadline is December 31st, so there's plenty of time!

If you'd like to participate, visit Savvy Verse & Wit.

Music of Tibet

2012-01-30T01:14:00.001-05:00

Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion.
~ Dalai Lama XIV

Spotlight on Tibet today.

More music:

* Voice of America's Contemporary Tibetan Music program
* Phurbu T. Namgyal's Tibetan music video collection
* Tibet in Song, the award-winning movie, which you can buy from Amazon
* CD Universe's Tibetan music
* Songs for Tibet: The Art of Peace from The Art of Peace Foundation
* Shining Spirit DVD
* Tibetan Singing Bowls

Other links:

* Anthology of Tibetan Poets in Exile is underway
* Tibet Oral History Project
* The Tibetan and Himalayan Library
* A chronology of Tibet's history (PBS)
* Helping Tibet: An online resource guide
* 17 points of disagreement: 60 years of China's failed policies in Tibet
* March 10th is Tibetan National Uprising Day. People around the world commemorate the 1959 Tibetan uprising and remember the victims of the brutal crackdown on the 2008 mass protests.

I'd Like A Flying Book

2012-01-28T10:27:00.002-05:00

This gorgeous video is up for an Oscar for best animated short film. I look forward to watching the rest of the nominees.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

Moonbot Studios' site

HT: The Kid Should See This

Intersections

2012-01-27T01:34:00.006-05:00

by Elena Y.
I like finding intersections between poetry and other things, such as:

* poetry and movies
* poetry and politics
* poetry and speeches and court documents
* poetry and dance
* poetry and comics
* poetry and songs
* poetry and neuroscience, genetics, and chemistry
* poetry and the blues
* poetry and opera
* poetry and photography
* poetry and t-shirts
* Laura's poetry and football

Recently, I noticed a poetry-theme park connection...

I got a kick out of visiting Seuss Landing in Universal Studios, Orlando last weekend. It's not every day that I get to hang out in a place devoted to one of my favorite poets!

Photos by Ariana Y.
Another intersection that has an ongoing appeal for me is poetry and art. I thought Alisa Burke's idea about creating large paintings full of text was fun. She used "i carry your heart with me(i carry it in" by e.e. cummings for hers. Check it out!

Jim Hill is our Poetry Friday host today.

The Affairs of Dragons

2012-01-26T01:57:00.002-05:00

I'd rather be eaten by a dragon.
~ Famous Last Words

I normally notice the coming of the Chinese New Year, but we were traveling on Monday and would have missed it, had not a sweet neighbor brought us a jar of dried lavender as a new year's gift. Thank you! For Art Thursday, we're celebrating the Year of the Dragon:

Water Dragon: "Art is the Handmaid of Human Good"
a group project made largely of CDs, Lowell Folk Festival
photo by Liz West

Soda Can Dragon
Jardin de Plantes, Paris Zoological Park
photo by Evan Bench

Dragon (Svipdag Transformed)
by John Bauer
St. George and the Dragon
from Red Magic
by Kay Nielsen

Once upon a time there was a book and in the book was a nest and in the nest was an egg and in the egg was a dragon and in the dragon was a story…
by the anonymous book sculptor

Dragon, "Community of St. Eugenia" postcard, 1912
by Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin

Dragon rising to the heavens, also known as Gekko's Sketch, 1897

Links:

* Origami dragons
* How to draw dragons
* Dragon history
* How to make a Chinese Dragon puppet
* Dragonhide Armor Gauntlets
* Dragon eye in clay
* Turtle dragon
* Large origami dragon dog, made of newspapers
* Dragons across cultures from Draconika.com

The post title comes from "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup," which was inspired by Tolkien's "Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."

Ethereal

2012-01-23T01:57:00.001-05:00

Singing is a way of escaping. It's another world. I'm no longer on earth.
~ Edith Piaf

Yasmeen Amina Olya:

Azam Ali:

Tagxedo

2012-01-20T01:05:00.004-05:00

I had fun playing with Tagxedo. Did I hear about that from one of you guys? If so, thanks! I used Tagxedo to make three word clouds (two with my poems and one with Margarita Engle's Memory).

Peace in Poetry City:

Memory
By Margarita Engle

When songs were alive
they needed no mouths
to send them flying...

Check out another memory poem by Ms. Engle.

The poem at the top is one I wrote with Magnetic Poetry! It goes:

Ode to Musicians

Who Music sculpts,
who Music
forces
to make raw worlds,
She
drives mad
with demands.

They must
balance
vivid senses
with ghosts,
mere
impressions,
silhouettes,
to perform whole,
to make a whole world.

Wild Rose Reader has our Poetry Friday round-up today. (I am actually on vacation at the moment. I look forward to checking out the poems when I return.)

The Taj Mahal

2012-01-19T01:21:00.008-05:00

You know Shah Jahan, life and youth, wealth and glory, they all drift away in the current of time. You strove therefore, to perpetuate only the sorrow of your heart? Let the splendor of diamond, pearl and ruby vanish? Only let this one teardrop, this Taj Mahal, glisten spotlessly bright on the cheek of time, forever and ever.
~ Rabindra Nath Tagore

I thought it might be interesting to take a closer look at the Taj Majal, India. It was built in the 1600s by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a memorial to his favorite wife.

Taj Mahal Sunrise
by Christian Haugen

Near view of the Taj Mahal from the river Jumna, Agra
Photo by Robert and Harriet Tytler, 1858
The British Library, Europeana

Visitors at Taj Mahal
by Koshy Koshy

Stereoscopic photograph of the marble screen around the sarcophagus in the Taj Mahal
Photo by James Ricalton, c. 1903
from The Underwood Travel Library: Stereoscopic Views of India.

Watercolour of the interior of the Taj Mahal
by an anonymous artist working in the Agra style, c. 1808-1820

A distant view of the Taj Mahal, Agra
by an unknown photographer, 1870s

Taj Mahal
By Friar's Balsam, Christopher John SSF

Taj Mahal North Gate
by snikrap
Links:

* Google Earth view of Taj Mahal
* The Taj Mahal is a UNESCO World Heritage Site
* Mathematics of the Taj Mahal lesson plan

Take a Whirl

2012-01-16T02:48:00.002-05:00

Surrender your whole being to a note, and gravity disappears...
~ Carlos Santana

Jazz pianist Fred Hersch today. Hersch has been HIV+ since the 1980s and has contributed to The Estate Project, which is our other focus today. The mission of The Estate Project is:

* to provide practical estate planning advice to all artists, especially those living with HIV/AIDS
* to document and offset the immense loss wrought by AIDS in all artistic disciplines
* to preserve the cultural legacy of the AIDS crisis so that future generations can enjoy, study and engage artworks as aesthetic achievements and historical documents

The Estate Project has archives for music, literature, dance, film, video, and visual arts.

More Fred Hersch:

Aslant

2012-01-14T03:18:00.001-05:00

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.
~ Emily Dickinson

My youngest offspring likes to draw family members in unconventional ways. For instance, she once drew each of us as a different kind of candy. (I was a Reese's cup.) I have a fond memory of her drawing us as giraffes, although I'm not sure where that picture is. Somewhere, I have nubby horns and a long neck.

Most recently, she drew me as a Jack (Jill?)-in-the-box:

It's like having a make-over, only less trouble. :-) If you don't have somebody who wants to reinvent you, there are other options:

* On iLibrarian, they offer a list of things to do with your photos that includes making comic strips and photo widgets.

*On PhotoFunia, you can put your face on a coin, in a Klimt artwork, on a billboard, on the Mona Lisa...the list goes on.

* Morph your face on Face of the Future transformative project.

* On Dumpr, you can take a photo and make it into a pencil sketch, which they suggest you can print out and color.

* If you're interested in drawing people as anthropomorphic animals, eHow has instructional videos, such as this one about how to draw an anthropomorphic wolf.

Choosing Counsel

2012-01-13T01:21:00.007-05:00

January 2012 marks the 600th anniversary of the birth of Joan of Arc (Jeanne d'Arc). In her honor, I took a piece of text from her trial to make a poem.

I didn't change any of the words. My hope was to give a little impression of what the trial was like: a peasant teenager, alone, versus a hostile group of educated men who were used to having their authority be unquestioned.

To set the scene:

France and England have been at war for decades. Jeanne, a general for France, is being tried by English-backed French clergy. She had been captured in battle and sold to the English, who turned her over to their allies. Her jailers insist that she admit her guilt and repent. Here, they offer to let her choose any of them to be her lawyer.

The Trial Begins
from The Trial of Jeanne D'Arc

Then the Promoter took oath before us
touching the accusation.

When this was done
we told Jeanne that all the assessors
were ecclesiastical and learned men,
experienced in canon and civil law,
who wished and intended
to proceed with her
in all piety and meekness,
as they had always been disposed,
seeking not vengeance
or corporal punishment,
but her instruction and
her return to the ways
of truth and salvation.

And, since she was not learned
and literate enough
in such arduous matters,
we suggested
that she should choose one
or many of those present,
and if she would not choose,
we would give her some to counsel her
touching what she should do and reply,
provided that in herself
she wished to answer truthfully.
And we required her
to swear
to speak the truth.

To which Jeanne answered:
"First,
for admonishing me
of my salvation and our faith,
I thank you and also all the company.

As for the counsel you offer me,
I thank you for that too;
but
I have no intention
of departing from the counsel of Our Lord.

And the oath you wish me to take
I will willingly swear,
to answer truthfully
on everything which concerns your trial."
And she took oath so,
with her hands on the holy scriptures.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tara at A Teaching Life is our Poetry Friday host today.

Even a Hair Casts a Shadow

2012-01-12T01:29:00.011-05:00

It's not the hair on your head that matters. It's the kind of hair you have inside.
~ Garry Shandling

Hair? As a theme? Well, why not. We've got straight, curly, braided, dreadlocked, red, blond, black, brown, and more...

Portrait of Alice Guérin
by Paul César Helleu (1859–1927)
(he was commissioned to paint her, and two years later they married)

Rasta Contemplation
by Valerio Pirrera

Herodiade (Salome)
by Jean-Jacques Henner (1829–1905)

Portrait de jeune femme tenant un chat
by Bacchiacca (1494–1557)

He led the horse by the bridle, and that way they passed through the forest
by John Bauer

Choctaw Belle
by Phillip Romer, 1850

Edge of Forest Call
by Amanda Nutzman

Portrait of Bindo Altoviti
by Raphael (1483–1520)

Self-Portrait as a younger man
by George Frederic Watts

Head of Medusa
by an unknown Flemish master, 16th century

The Penitent Magdalen
by Georges de La Tour (1593–1652)

Portrait of a Gentleman
by Bartolomeo Veneto (1470–1531)

Links:

* The Creative Museum: accessories of hairdressing around the world and their history
* Barbaraanne's Hair Comb Blog
* A UK Hairdressers.com History of Hair
* African American hairstyles over the years (has a slideshow)
* Hair sculptures by Nagi Noda
* Painting hair/fur in watercolor by Tracy Hall

A Calendar of Posts

2012-01-10T01:22:00.003-05:00

“What if there were no hypothetical questions?”
~ George Carlin

Owl by Ina Hattenhauer,
part of the Owl Lover 2012 printable calendar
I'm sharing a capricious calendar of annual events today. If I had more time, maybe I could cross-reference my posts to figure out everyone's birthdays whom I have ever posted, but...that will have to wait.

The Opposite of Indifference
Calendar Collection
JANUARY

* A free printable calendar by Riki Blanco (with an updated 2012 link at the bottom)
* Joan of Arc's birthday
* YoungArts Week
* Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday
* Free days at the national parks, which start with Martin Luther King weekend
* Edgar Allan Poe's birthday
* Football
* Robbie Burns' birthday

FEBRUARY

* Jules Verne's birthday
* Valentines
* African American History Month
* African American Read In

MARCH

* Read Across America Day
* International Women's Day
* Naomi Shihab Nye's birthday
* Einstein's birthday is the same as Pi Day (3.14, March 14th)
* Chaka Khan's birthday
* Women's History Month
* Music in Our Schools Month

APRIL

* Poem for Your Pocket Day
* Shakespeare's birthday
* National Poetry Month

MAY

* May Day
* Mother's Day
* Kinetic Sculpture Race

JUNE

* Bloomsday
* Father's Day
* All-National Honors Ensembles

JULY

* The 4th of July
* Beatrix Potter's birthday

AUGUST

* Back to School Haiku
* Science projects, for fairs and otherwise
* An admittedly random list of classroom ideas

SEPTEMBER

* Grandparents' Day
* September 11
* 100,000 Poets for Change
* Museum Day

OCTOBER

* John Lennon's birthday
* Halloween

NOVEMBER

* Take a Veteran to School Day
* Thanksgiving
* Winston Churchill's birthday
* National Novel Writing Month

DECEMBER

* Beethoven's birthday
* Winter/Holidays

I'm in Heaven

2012-01-09T01:17:00.001-05:00

Some older songs today. La Mer was written in 1943, and Cheek to Cheek debuted in 1935, sung by Fred Astaire. Let's Call The Whole Thing Off was also from a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie (1937), but I'm sharing the Ella/Louis version from one of my favorite albums in the world (recorded in 1956-57).

Versatile Blogger Award

2012-01-08T07:33:00.012-05:00

I'd like to humbly and sincerely thank Heidi Mordhorst at My Juicy Little Universe for giving me a Versatile Blogger Award. It has crossed my mind that I am a little too all over the place, so it is reassuring to receive an award for versatility!

The Versatile Blogger Award directions manual:

•Thank and link to the blogger who bestowed the award.
•Share seven random facts about yourself.
•Spread the love by passing the award to five other bloggers--and be sure to let them know.

I'm diverging from the manual by only offering five random facts about myself, but if you read them slowly, maybe they will feel like seven:

* A dog bit my eyelid when I was pretty young (eight?). But I still love dogs.
* Our family dog will be seventeen years old this April. We've had her since she was nine months old.
* If there was a community science fair for adults who aren't scientists, I would want to enter it, just for fun. I like science projects.
* Logic was my favorite math class.
* I was an extra in the movie "Dirty Dancing" when I was a teenager.

It's an interesting task, passing this award along! It made me think about what versatility means. My choices for the Versatile Blogger Award are:

* Writing Without Paper, where Maureen shares links and info about art, dance, music, poetry, and philosophy.
* French blogger Delphine offers a wide array of international gardening, design, and art photos and links at Paradis Express.
* On The Kid Should See This, Rion Nakaya and her three-year-old co-curator furnish unexpectedly educational videos.
* Melissa Wiley at Here in the Bonny Glen covers books for all ages, homeschooling, assorted geekery, and occasionally special-needs parenting with a deft, intelligent, good-natured hand.
* I am giving this award to Maria Horvath specifically for her ability to pair poetry with art in the most unexpected but perfect ways. The definition of versatile includes "turning with ease from one thing to another," and she most definitely achieves that.

Congratulations and thank you for your excellent, well-rounded blogs!
Lastly, I'd like to belatedly thank one of my favorite readers, Christina at Rockhound Place, for giving me an Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award.

Connecting the Dots

2012-01-07T07:38:00.005-05:00

Yesterday I posted some centos (poems created with words from another author) and I thought this might be an interesting follow-up. It's a poem composed from bits of a commencement speech by Steve Jobs:

This was uploaded by Brandon Faris. He doesn't say explicitly that he made it, but I am guessing he did.

A Thin Ray of Moonlight

2012-01-06T01:46:00.001-05:00

Daisy and Gatsby (Mia Farrow and Robert Redford)
One of my kids asked me to read Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby so we could discuss it. Reading Gatsby, I noticed some prose poems waiting to be pulled out:

Warm Human Magic
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Daisy began to sing with the music
in a husky, rhythmic whisper,
bringing out a meaning
in each word
that it had never had before
and would never have again.

When the melody rose,
her voice broke up sweetly,
following it,
in a way contralto voices have,
and each change
tipped out
a little of her warm
human
magic
upon the air.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bending
by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Almost the last thing I remember
was standing with Daisy
and watching the moving-picture director
and his Star.

They
were still under
the white-plum tree
and their faces were touching
except for a pale,
thin
ray
of
moonlight
between.

It occurred to me
that he had been very slowly
bending toward her
all evening
to attain this proximity,

and even while I watched
I saw him stoop
one ultimate degree
and kiss at her cheek.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Information about the annual one-day F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference. The conference holds two short story contests which are open to residents of Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C.

* The text of The Great Gatsby at Project Gutenberg Australia

Teaching Authors is hosting the Poetry Friday round-up today.

Snowfall

2012-01-05T01:23:00.002-05:00

Onward through the snow
the gleaming runners of the speeding troika go
though the steppes be wide
though the night wind blows
~ Joel Hayden

Illustration from Die Gartenlaube, 1891 ("The Garden Arbor")
by E. Ravel

Old Prague corners
by Jakub Schikaneder (1855–1924)

Davos in Snow
by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938)

Snowball Fight and Snowman
by Hans Dahl (1849–1937)

Horse
by Kelly Angard

Chimney-sweep
by Frans Wilhelm Odelmark

Nichiren Going into Exile on the Island of Sado
by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861)

Addendum: You can find the song Onward through the Snow, referenced at the top of this post, on Christine Lavin's Christmas album.

Notes in the Sky

2012-01-03T08:08:00.003-05:00

I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.
~ Charles Lindbergh

This should have gone with the birdsongs post. Starting with a photo of birds perched on wires, Jarbas Agnelli turned the wires into a staff and the birds into notes. With his tender care, the bird-music became surprisingly lovely:

Birds on the Wires from Jarbas Agnelli on Vimeo.

A Little Fanfare for Copland

2012-01-02T01:20:00.002-05:00

Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right
~ Joseph Brackett

I love this music! You can learn about Aaron Copland and his work from the Copland House and from the Library of Congress' Aaron Copland Collection. Classical Net also has a list of recommended recordings of Copland's music (scroll down on their page).

Hoedown from Rodeo from Eleanor Stewart on Vimeo.

Click here for a beautiful rendition of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man performed by the U.S. Marine Band.

One more link: Classics for Kids: Aaron Copland

Stand By Me

2011-12-31T01:13:00.000-05:00

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we see
No I won't be afraid
No I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

How many songs have both a washboard AND a cello in them? Also, isn't Roberto Luti's guitar cool? And doesn't Grandpa Elliott have a very smooth voice?

A song sung by artists from around the world...

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Playing for Change has put together two Songs Around the World albums.

The Poets' Corner

2011-12-30T01:07:00.002-05:00

What shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
~ William Blake

On our Christmas travels, we brought two CDs for the car rides. The first, alas, was broken, but the second came through for us. It was John Lithgow's The Poets' Corner. In it, Lithgow talks about his favorite poets and their lives, and his friends (who include Helen Mirren and Billy Connolly) read a poem by each. Lithgow's descriptions of the poets' lives and explanations of what the poems mean to him were very interesting.

The bios are in alphabetical order and we only made it from A-C! (It's 6 cds!) Some of my favorites were Robert Burns, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Lewis Carroll. Having a copy in the car should help with a lot of traffic jams and long car rides.

Language and ideas from poets are part of our culture in ways we don't realize. It was fun during Burns' To A Mouse to see my 16yo recognize the line about "the best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men."

Here's a striking video inspired by William Blake's The Tyger (another poem featured on The Poets' Corner):

The Drift Record is our Poetry Friday host this week.

Hansel and Gretel

2011-12-29T01:48:00.001-05:00

"Nibble, nibble, gnaw,
Who is nibbling at my little house?"

The post about Beauty and the Beast sparked a lot of interest, so I thought maybe another classic tale was in order. The mix of candy and danger in Hansel and Gretel has great appeal for artists, and so does leaving a trail of breadcrumbs:

Roundabout the Witch
by Ana Juan

Hansel and Gretel from My Book of Favourite Fairy Tales, 1921
illustrated by Jennie Harbour

Hansel and Gretel
by Rachel Isadora

Witch House
by Eleanor Davis

Stamp

Little Fawn Hansel
by Tracey Long

Hansel and Gretel
by Derek Stratton

from The Big Book of Fairy Tales, 1911
illustrated by Charles Robinson

Lorenzo Mattotti painted fantastic Hansel and Gretel illustrations:

Links:

* The text of Hansel and Gretel
* Becca Thorne's Hansel and Gretel
* Germany's Hansel and Gretel Foundation to prevent child abuse and their striking posters
* The Magic Circle by Donna Jo Napoli (a retelling from the witch's point-of-view)

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T01:27:00.000-05:00

Ding dong! verily the sky
Is riv'n with angel singing.

Having Music Sunday instead of Monday, in honor of the holiday. We're mixing up the beautiful with the playful.

Wishing you joy and peace!

Bach/From the Top

2011-12-24T01:52:00.001-05:00

Thought I would like to post J.S. Bach's "The Sheep May Safely Graze" sometime, and when I was looking around for a good version of it, I had a hard time finding one that suited me. Finally, I realized that the problem was that there was a particular flautist's rendition in my head, and nothing was living up to it.

My head is cluttered with stuff, so it took a little tracing back before I remembered that version -- it was the one that my older daughter's orchestra played! The principal flautist was phenomenal. Really -- he (and the rest of the teen orchestra) left me with a beautiful aural memory that I was having a hard time matching on YouTube.

Which made me want to point you guys to From the Top, a show about extraordinary young musicians. I believe my daughter mentioned that the flautist's sister had been on From the Top. (They have a musical family.)

Here's the cantata:

Good Father

2011-12-23T01:09:00.002-05:00

Prentice Powell is featured on Verses and Flow, a television poetry project sponsored by Lexus.

This week's Poetry Friday host is Dori Reads.

Gently Smiling Jaws

2011-12-22T01:23:00.004-05:00

Take the crocodile, for example. My favorite animal. There are twenty-three species. Seventeen of those species are rare or endangered. They're on the way out, no matter what anyone does or says, you know.
~ Steve Irwin

Having a reptilian day this Art Thursday:

The Crocodile from the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the four rivers)
by Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), Rome, Italy

Barmaley Fountain (Children's Khorovod)

Tiger striking down a crocodile
Auguste Caïn (1873), Jardin des Tuileries, Paris.

Statue of Buddha
Laos

Lizard
by Jean-Baptiste Debret (1768–1848)

Armsieraad (onderdeel)
Tropenmuseum of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT)

Taishitamonja, the straw serpent
Links:

*What can you do to save reptiles? from Endangered Species International
*International Reptile Conservation Foundation
* Animal Conservation at the National Geographic site
* Other animal posts on The Opposite of Indifference
* The title of this post is from a poem by Lewis Carroll (How doth the little crocodile)

Music Monday Miscellany

2011-12-19T01:58:00.003-05:00

A selection of interesting music bits today:

* The Scrapheap Orchestra was a BBC experiment to see whether instruments made out of junk could be successfully played in concert. (Unfortunately, the video on the BBC site is only available to visitors from the U.K.)

A Guardian article about the Scrapheap Orchestra
A preview video that made me really wish I could see it
Another preview video
A great shot of the French horns

* An article about the best choirs in the world

* An article about the "tweeting section" of concerts by the Cincinnati Symphony

* A Virtual Musical Instrument that people who are quadriplegic can play

* Musical Instrument Museums Online, a database containing the records of over 50,000 museum instruments.

* Links about some historical women composers/musicians

* A very interesting NPR piece on music therapy (I touched on music therapy last Monday.)

Bright Testimonials

2011-12-16T01:50:00.001-05:00

Hollyhock Anchor
The Geniuses Among Us
by Marilyn L. Taylor

They take us by surprise, these tall perennials
that jut like hollyhocks above the canopy
of all the rest of us— bright testimonials
to the scale of human possibility.
They come to bloom for every generation,
blazing with extraordinary notions
from the taproots of imagination—
dazzling us with incandescent visions.
And soon, the things we never thought would happen
start to happen: the solid fences
of reality begin to soften,
crumbling into fables and romances—
and we turn away from where we've been
to a new place, where light is pouring in.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aunt Eudora On Having Outlived All of Her Friends
by Marilyn L. Taylor

What were you thinking, my shortsighted dears—
how harebrained of you, checking out so soon,
leaving this gorgeous world and all its junk
for me to squander in my waning years?
You were so nuts! Take that see-through cloud,
for instance, silvering the evening sky:
you’d have gone to pieces over that,
I’ll bet; or how about a midnight shred
of Brubeck, seeping through a doorway strung
with lights— the city air electrified
and cool— while your surviving sister rolls
a sip of Veuve Clicquot along her tongue?
I could have warned you— taken you to task
for lousy planning. But you didn’t ask.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Posted with permission of the poet.

* Marilyn Taylor on poetry collaborations
* Marilyn Taylor info on Writing Without Paper
* An informative, interesting MLT review at Verse Wisconsin 101

Book Aunt has the Poetry Friday round-up today.

Nutcrackers

2011-12-15T01:27:00.004-05:00

The nutcracker sits under the holiday tree, a guardian of childhood stories. Feed him walnuts and he will crack open a tale...
~ Vera Nazarian

For this Art Thursday, we're looking at some classic nutcrackers, as well as ones that are a bit unexpected:

Cincinnati Pops

Nutcracker
by Maurice Sendak

Wild About Chocolate Nutcracker
by Glenn A. Crider

Jazz Nutcracker

Philadelphia Orchestra

Nutcracker in Seattle
photo by Jacob Metcalf

Nutcracker Poster

Swiss, late 19th century
Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum

Swiss
Leavenworth Nutcracker Museum

* Holiday Nutcracker Art Show
* Nutcracker Ballet Art Projects on Ehow
* Free Nutcracker scores from the International Music Score Library Project

Dolls

2011-12-14T01:29:00.003-05:00

Chaucer by Debbie Ritter
Debbie Ritter makes wooden dolls of all kinds of people. Even Chaucer. Even Ethel Mertz. ALL KINDS!

Some of my favorites are ones with cool hair, like Bob Marley and Beethoven.

There's Marie Antoinette with a ship hat. Diego and Frida together are nice too.

I'll end with poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, whom I noted a while back knew her way around a sonnet.

CDs for Creating Communities

2011-12-13T01:21:00.001-05:00

Often people could use something a little soothing at this time of year (or any time of year, really). Guitarist Rob Levit's CDs could be just the ticket.

Rob Levit will donate 100% of the proceeds of these CD's to the charity he started five year ago called Creating Communities to deliver music, dance, and art programs to economically-disadvantaged youth, adults in addiction recovery, adults with severe mental-illness and the homeless. The cds are:

Asmarandana
Joy of My Life
Songs of Healing
Spiritual Creativity (Motivate to Create)

You can't listen to them on that site, but I found another site that has sound clips of two of the albums:

Songs of Healing/Hospice of the Chesapeake
Asmarandana

Very nice!

Music Therapy

2011-12-12T01:27:00.003-05:00

I've posted about art therapy. I've also talked about the importance of music education, which is, in its own way, therapeutic. Now, it's music therapy's turn.

What is music therapy?

How did music therapy begin as a profession?

Some info from the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA): "The idea of music as a healing influence which could affect health and behavior is as least as old as the writings of Aristotle and Plato. The 20th century discipline began after World War I and World War II when community musicians of all types, both amateur and professional, went to Veterans hospitals around the country to play for the thousands of veterans suffering both physical and emotional trauma from the wars. The patients' notable physical and emotional responses to music led the doctors and nurses to request the hiring of musicians by the hospitals. It was soon evident that the hospital musicians needed some prior training before entering the facility and so the demand grew for a college curriculum. The first music therapy degree program in the world was founded at Michigan State University in 1944."

Who can it help?

The AMTA offers fact sheets on the uses of music therapy for various populations, such as persons in correctional & forensic settings, with Alzheimer's disease, young children, and in response to crisis & trauma. (Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has been using music therapy.)

The World Federation for Music Therapy offers info cards in over a dozen different languages (they are designed for students who want to respond to questions they are frequently asked).

A few books:
* Music as Medicine: The History of Music Therapy Since Antiquity (expensive)
* The Healing Forces of Music: History, Theory, and Practice (not expensive)
* A Comprehensive Guide to Music Therapy: Theory, Clinical Practice, Research and Training

A bonus:
Life. Support. Music.

Poem Ornaments

2011-12-09T01:35:00.002-05:00

As I mentioned before, I've had my heart set on trying to make presents this year. A while back, I wrote a poem for my mom. I took that poem and printed it on "vintage style" paper with Jane Austen font, sliced it into strips, and slid it inside an ornament I'd found at Michael's arts and crafts store. Voilà -- a poem ornament for my mother! Poets.org also has holiday poetry gift/decoration ideas. Anybody else got any poetry present ideas?

Read, Write, Howl has the Poetry Friday round-up today.

La Belle et La Bête

2011-12-08T01:27:00.014-05:00

Disney's version may be the first one that comes to mind these days, but artists have envisioned the Beast in a wide variety of ways:

At last he turned to her and said, "Am I so very ugly?"
by Walter Crane, 1845-1915
New York Public Library

Beauty and the Beast
by Eleanor Vere Boyle

Beauty and the Beast by Marie LePrince de Beaumont (originally published in 1757), translated by Richard Howard
illustrations by Hilary Knight

from Beauty and the Beast by Marianna Mayer
illustrations by Mercer Mayer

Beauty and the Beast
by Arthur Rackham

Beauty being brought to the castle by her father
by Edmund Dulac

And some music:

La Belle et la Bête by Philip Glass

Ravel's Les entretiens de la belle et de la bête (from Ma mère l'oye)

Links:

* Beauty and the Beast: A Fractured Fairy Tale by A.J. Jacobs (as seen on The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle Show), and Cutie and the Beast, also a Fractured Fairy Tale.

* A gender-reversed story: The Mouse-Hole And The Underground Kingdom

* A Beauty and the Beast history by Terri Windling

* Tales of Faerie analyzes the meaning of Beauty and the Beast.

* An annotated version of the fairy tale at Sur La Lune. Sur La Lune also offers a list of tales similar to Beauty and the Beast.

* Beauty escorted by apes and monkeys as pages by Walter Crane

* Beauty in her Prosperous State from Beauty and the Beast or A Rough Outside with a Gentle Heart, 1813

A Little Mystery

2011-12-06T02:40:00.001-05:00

photo by Robert Burdock
I heard about an artist who left mysterious, clever book sculptures in centers of art and learning in Edinburgh, Scotland from Kristin Cashore. I love these wondrous, heartfelt little gifts! Read about it on NPR's site.

Rainy Night in Georgia

2011-12-05T02:50:00.001-05:00

I was looking at the Music Maker site for presents for my dad (don't tell him!) and guitarist Cool John Ferguson caught my ear. Here he is with Captain Luke:

With a $25 membership to the Music Maker Relief Foundation, you get a free Cool John Cool Yule CD. Nice deal!

Neuroscience for Kids Poetry Contest

2011-12-03T01:01:00.001-05:00

From Neuroscience For Kids:

The 2012 NEUROSCIENCE FOR KIDS POETRY WRITING CONTEST is now open to students in kindergarten through high school, college students, teachers and parents. Use your imagination to create a poem, limerick or haiku about the brain and you might win a prize. The complete set of rules and the official entry form for the contest are available.

Here is a summary of the contest rules:

All poems, limericks and haiku must have at least THREE lines and CANNOT be longer than TEN lines. Material that is shorter than three lines or longer than ten lines will not be read. All material must have a neuroscience theme such as brain anatomy (a part of the brain), brain function (memory, language, emotions, movement, the senses, etc.), drug abuse or brain health (helmets, brain disorders, etc.).

- If you are a STUDENT IN KINDERGARTEN TO GRADE 2: write a poem in any style; it doesn't have to rhyme.
- If you are a STUDENT IN GRADE 3 TO GRADE 5: write a poem that rhymes. The rhymes can occur in any pattern. For example, lines one and two can rhyme, lines three and four can rhyme, and lines five and six can rhyme. Or use your imagination and create your own rhyming pattern.
- If you are a STUDENT IN GRADE 6 TO GRADE 8: write a brainy haiku (3 lines only). A haiku MUST use the following pattern: 5 syllables in the first line; 7 syllables in the second line; 5 syllables in the third line.
- If you are a STUDENT IN GRADE 9 TO GRADE 12: write a brainy limerick. A limerick has 5 lines: lines one, two and five rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables; lines three and four rhyme with each other and have the same number of syllables.
- If you are a COLLEGE STUDENT, TEACHER, PARENT OR ANYONE ELSE: write a rhyming poem that explains why it is important to learn about the brain.

Books or other prizes will be awarded to multiple winners in each category.

Entries must be received by February 1, 2012.

Films & Poetry

2011-12-02T01:26:00.005-05:00

For this Poetry Friday, we have poems that have been made into movies (or used in movies). The list of films inspired by poetry is longer than you might guess. For starters: Beowolf, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Night Before Christmas, The Man from Snowy River, Jabberwocky, Mulan, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Howl, El Cid, Troy, and O Brother Where Art Thou?

You can watch the entire The Song of Lunch online:

Watch The Song of Lunch on PBS. See more from MASTERPIECE.

The first time I saw Anthony Hopkins was in The Silence of the Lambs. He is far far far more attractive here, reading Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven. It starts at 1:30.

Makes me want to see Awakenings again:

I can't seem to stop:

* An Angel at My Table about poet Janet Frame looks worth checking out.
* A mention of Bright Star about John Keats.
* Poet of the Wastes, a Persian movie.
* Pandaemonium, a movie about Coleridge and Wordsworth.
* Funeral Blues from Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Carol has today's Poetry Friday round-up.

Putting on a Display

2011-12-01T01:45:00.002-05:00

Let there be many windows to your soul, that all the glory of the world may beautify it.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A little something different this Art Thursday: Store window displays.

Louis Vuitton - Paris, June 2011
from JournalDesVitrines.com

Repetto - Paris, May 2011
from JournalDesVitrines.com

Unsinkable Walker Bean, Quimby's
photo by Nate Beaty

Mad Hatter's Tea Party, Fortnum & Mason
photo by Draconiansleet

Moschino - Paris, October 2010
from JournalDesVitrines.com

Saks 5th Avenue- NYC, Nov 2010
photo by Katie Killary

New Museum - NYC
photo by Maker Bot

Bergdorf Goodman- NYC, 2010
photo by Asterio Tecson

Lord & Taylor- New York City, 2007
photo by Wally Gobetz

Links:

* NYC Christmas displays
* 15 Creative Window Displays
* More Window Displays
* Squidoo's How To Create Window Displays

Citizen Scientists

2011-11-29T01:47:00.001-05:00

Interested in participating in scientific endeavors as a private citizen? There are a wide variety of ways to get involved. For instance, I've heard about amateur astronomers making important contributions to their field. Amateur paleontologists, too. On a more personal level, last year our family did the Great Backyard Bird Count.

On their Citizen Science pages, Scientific American collects information about projects that non-specialists can join. (The projects are not U.S.-specific, so international citizen scientists are encouraged to check them out.)

For instance:

GO Fight against Malaria

There is no reliable cure or vaccine for the prevention and treatment of all forms of malaria—particularly the drug-resistant strains caused by Plasmodium falciparum, which kills more people than any other parasite and is of particular interest to the researchers.

Scripps Research and IBM are encouraging anyone in the world with a personal computer to join World Community Grid, which will crunch numbers and perform simulations for GO Fight against Malaria. World Community Grid, an initiative of the IBM International Foundation, is fed by spare computing power from the nearly two million PCs that have been volunteered so far by 575,000 people in more than 80 countries. It gives each PC small computing assignments to perform when the devices aren't otherwise being used by its owners, then sends the results to scientists seeking a faster way to cure disease, find renewable energy materials, create clean water techniques, or develop healthier food staples.

By tapping into World Community Grid Scripps Research scientists hope to compress 100 years of computations normally necessary for the effort into just one year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, visit SciStarter ("Science We Can Do Together") for more ideas.

A page about great amateurs in science

Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben

2011-11-28T01:04:00.001-05:00

I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results.
~ Johannes Sebastian Bach

"Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben" means "Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life," which seems like a lovely way to describe this song, the 10th movement of Bach's Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben cantata. It's also known as Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring.

For more info on J.S. Bach
For more info on Sissel, who sings in the video

Advent Calendars

2011-11-27T15:44:00.004-05:00

by K.E.Cowderoy,
from the 2010 Vintage Postcards Advent Calendar

Ones to visit:
* A Customs-Around-The-World Advent Calendar
* A French Advent Calendar
* Vintage Postcard Advent Calendar
* Electric December, 24 short films by young filmmakers

Ones to make:
* 16 suggestions from One Pretty Thing
* Make Your Own Online Calendar (can be printed)
* How To Create A Personalized Advent Calendar
* A printable from the toymaker.com

Praying

2011-11-25T01:38:00.002-05:00

common book of prayer
by Chris Clardy

all the ways which women pray
have yet to be forgotten—
the way you fold the shirt (between your hands)
is a folding of your hands,
the way you bow your head over the head of the person
lying fever-small in your bed
is a bowing of the head,
the way when that is done you listen with your eyes closed, wait for dawn,
lift the latch, raise the shade, pour the tea,
and, turning toward the mirror,
see all things coming
because you
are willing to say all things can come and are coming
is a willing of all things—
and all these ways
are pages in your book (your body is the book)
with no words or words inside it
is praying is your body is a book
written
every time you move—
all the ways which women pray with their bodies
have yet to be recalled—
forget words—
this will happen (any way)
and your book of prayer will be praying,
praying in the way
women always
have prayed

~~~~~~~~~~~

Posted with permission of the poet.

My Juicy Little Universe has the Poetry Friday round-up today.

Bells, Bells, Bells

2011-11-24T01:11:00.007-05:00

The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.
~ Matsuo Basho

The Bells
by Rima Staines

Chinese bells from the ancient Warring States
Hubei Provincial Museum, Wuhan, China
photo by Calton

Hanging of the Sigismund bell at the cathedral tower in 1521 in Kraków
by Jan Matejko (1838–1893)

"The Temple Bells" near Kanchanaburi Thailand
by Christopher Beikmann

journal Die Gartenlaube for 1873, pg.101

Illmensee, Landkreis Sigmaringen

Das Abendläuten, Öl auf Leinwand
by Bernhard Stange (1807–1880)

A bonus:

The Craft of Bellringing DVD

Birdsongs

2011-11-21T01:24:00.003-05:00

from an exhibit by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
A little bit of nature for this Music Monday. A pair of songs inspired by birds:

Links:

~ xeno-canto, a community database of bird sounds from around the world
~ Two ways to learn bird songs
~ Bird Songs from PBS's The Life of Birds
~ A bird with a violin-like feather
~ birdsong projects at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology
~ A bio of composer Olivier Messiaen, who integrated bird songs into his music.
~ The Lark Ascending, from a previous post
~ Avian Classical Music
~ I used the nightingale song translator to make a birdsong version of "The Opposite of Indifference." I think of it more as a code than a translation, though, as I expect someone matched nightingale sounds with letters randomly, and there's no bird that would recognize it!

Sports and Art Markets

2011-11-20T03:58:00.003-05:00

Two calls for submissions today. One is for children's poetry and the other is for visual arts.

The first is from Carol-Ann Hoyte & Heidi Bee Roemer, co-editors:

CHILDREN'S POETRY ANTHOLOGY
Submission Deadline: April 30, 2012

On your marks, get set, write!

An independently published ebook anthology of poetry for children dedicated to the wide world of sports is in the works.

We're looking for original, unpublished poems aimed at 5- to 12-year-olds that deal with various aspects of athletics:

Olympics and other major international sports events (i.e., FIFA World Cup)
winter/summer, individual/team sports
winning and losing
amateur/professional athletes
sports fans and those behind the scenes (coaches, refs, etc.)
equipment/uniforms and places where sports are played
sports history and other miscellanea (halls of fame, records, trivia, etc.)
Poets whose work is selected for the collection will receive a small honorarium.

Only adults who write children's poetry are invited to submit their work. Emerging children's poets are strongly encouraged to send their work.

We invite you to submit poems written in a variety of forms including but not limited to the following: couplet, triplet, limerick, haiku, tanka, cinquain, diamante, mask poem, apostrophe poem, list poem, etheree, palindrome, etc.

We will contact you no later than early August 2012 if we plan to include your poem in the anthology.

A portion of the anthology's proceeds will be donated to Right to Play, an organization working with volunteers and partners to use sport and play to enhance child development in areas of disadvantage.

Please email poems to Carol-Ann Hoyte at kidlitfan1972@yahoo.ca.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

U.S. OLYMPIC SPORT AND ART COMPETITION

The 2012 edition of the U.S. Olympic Sport and Art Contest is currently underway with submissions being accepted through Feb. 1, 2012. The theme of the 2012 competition is "Sport and the Olympic Values of Excellence, Friendship and Respect." Winners of the U.S. contest will be entered into the International Olympic Committee Art Competition for a chance to win $30,000 and to have their art displayed at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Submissions will be accepted in the two categories: sculptures and graphic works (paintings, drawings, engravings, etc.). Both categories include abstract art and there are no restrictions on techniques utilized by the artist. All submissions must be free of any third-party rights; works that already belong to a museum or private collection are ineligible.

Sculptures cannot exceed 44 pounds and 4x3x3 feet, including packaging. Graphic works cannot exceed 4x3 feet, including frame.

For detailed information, including the official rules and regulations, click here.

Art submissions must be mailed to:
United States Sports Academy
Attention: ASAMA
One Academy Drive
Daphne, AL 36526

Welcome!

2011-11-18T00:01:00.019-05:00

Poetry Friday is here!

A poem to get today's round-up started:

A Beanstalk for Eva
by Tabatha Yeatts

Jack's little sister Eva
wanted her own magic beans --
green, speckled with brown,
nothing special, not hopping or anything --
just the sort that would boom roots
into the soil, just enough
to hold a house for a giant,
deep enough to bear the sky.

Treasure, for Eva,
didn't involve castles,
or geese that laid golden eggs
every time they sneezed.
The gems she longed for
were a wind no one had ever felt before,
a day that blossomed with surprises.

As she carried water (her own chore),
and fed the pigs (lazy Jack's chore),
Eva pictured herself having an adventure:

her feet pushing off giant stems
as she climbed up to the clouds.
What would she find there?
She relished not knowing.

As she scuffed along the dusty path to town,
on her way at last to find those beans,
Eva considered how amazing it was
that you could tuck something
inside the earth
for the express purpose
of taking you away from it.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Please leave your links in the comments!

For openers, Jone gives us a review of Spinster Goose.

Gregory K is making me a little nervous this morning with his "An Ode to Air Travel." Safe journey, Greg!

Laura shares some great photos (love that hat!) and Terrance Hayes' gentle love poem, "Clarinet," in honor of her middle school daughter, a devoted clarinetist.

Tara offers two cinquains by their inventor, Adelaide Crapsey.

Ruth brings a history lesson for us today and a Wordsworth poem about Haitian hero Toussaint L'Ouverture.

For your Mary Oliver fix, visit Maria, who has Why I Wake Early.

I am impressed that Heidi is doing MyPoPerDayMo. She shares #17: "scaled."

Random Noodling is feeling piggy today.

Kids of the Homefront Army explains what parades are for.

Kurious Kitty's Kurio Kabinet has May Sarton's "Luxury" and Kurious K's Kwotes has a May Sarton quote.

The Write Sisters looks at "November" by W.D. Howells.

Hope is the Word writes about "Goody O'Grumpity" by Carol Ryrie Brink.

November seems to be on our minds today... TeacherDance contributes poets' thoughts on November.

Robyn shares flat tire stories and poetry by Tess Taylor.

Mandy is thinking about one of the most important parts of writing today: revisions.

Marjorie has me sold on Anything But A Grabooberry.

Over at Musings, Joyce Ray posted a treasured Thanksgiving poem written by her daughter.

I like keeping up with poetry news through Poetry Advocates for Children and Young Adults posts. Stephen Withrow encourages everyone to join and take part!

Liz in Ink shares Maria Hummel's "Station" with us today.

Karen Edmisten has Books by Billy Collins.

Teaching Authors gives us new poetic forms to try.

Go to Gathering Books for Joel Toledo’s Other ‘Heart.’ (Sounds mysterious, doesn't it?)

Janet Squires visits our own Heidi M.'s "Pumpkin Butterfly: poems from the other side of nature" today.

Irene is oohing and aahing over poet-she's-just-discovered Anna Akhmatova.

Dave is back on the Poetry Friday horse with a sort of ode to the long-play record.

Jeannine posted about poetry exercises involving shuffling and contrasts.

At On Point, Lorie Ann shares a Jack Frost haiku to make you smile.

ReaderTotz recommends Over and Under the Snow.

Enjoy giving thanks with Amy LV.

Donna has me feeling all illowy with her original poem.

Tanita and C.S. Lewis bring us our daily bread.

Magic 8-Ball says "Yes," you should go to Adrienne's site for an Adrienne Rich poem.

Poetry Friday wouldn't be the same without Mary Lee, who cruises in with Emily Dickinson.

Calligraphy and a Calligram

2011-11-17T02:58:00.003-05:00

We all start out with the same alphabet.
~Robert Cormier

Initial Letter S
East: Notes of Travel in Southern Europe (1877)
From Old Books

Letter T
Old English Country Cottages (1906)
From Old Books

Initial letter “t” as flower in a pot
Magazine of Art Illustrated (1878)
From Old Books

Decorated (Historiated) initial letter D
by Valerio Spada, Italian Etchers of the Renaissance & Baroque (1989)
From Old Books

Decorative initial letter “M” – Roman military standard
South by East: Notes of Travel in Southern Europe (1877)
From Old Books

The letter I
From Old Books

Calligram
by Guillaume Apollinaire

A bonus:

Links:

Learn World Calligraphy
Penmanship lessons
The Boston Calligraphy Trail
A family tree of alphabets and evolution of alphabets
Origami of the alphabet
Mail-Art Across the World

Tell It Your Way

2011-11-15T07:21:00.004-05:00

This contest took place a while ago but my email about it was unopened until this morning. What can I say? Sometimes I'm slow.

Philips Cinema held a film competition with interesting rules. Entries for the Tell It Your Way contest could be in any genre and follow any storyline, but were required to follow an exact six-line dialogue.

That's just SIX lines of dialogue. The entries could not be longer than three minutes either. So they had to tell a complete story in three minutes with pre-set dialogue. What a great challenge! The filmmakers really rose to the occasion. Here are two of the winners (People's Voice and the Grand Prize):

L'Arlésienne

2011-11-14T01:35:00.004-05:00

I like Georges Bizet's score for L'Arlésienne, so I looked for a video for it and I found this Ballet de l'Opéra National de Paris clip. You can either just listen, or watch some very lovely dancers:

A description of the story:

Drawing on a true event that occurred in the family of his friend, the Provençal poet Frédéric Mistral, [Alphonse Daudet's play, L'Arlésienne] tells the story of two brothers, Frédéri and Janet. The former is hopelessly ensnared in an amour fou for a girl from the neighboring town of Arles (hence the work's title L'Arlésienne) who, although she never actually appears on stage, dominates the action like an early precursor of Du Maurier's Rebecca. Janet, nicknamed "L'Innocent" because of his apparent simple-mindedness and arrested development, has an intuitive understanding for the sufferings of his elder brother.

The "Arlésienne" is discovered, however, to be the mistress of a local grandee. Distraught, Frédéri agrees to marry the first eligible young woman appointed by his overbearing mother. On the day of the wedding, however, he chances to meet the grandee; overwhelmed by the onrush of memories, he commits suicide. Janet is jolted by the event to recover his senses: the mother loses one son only to gain another.
~ Bradford Robinson

Speaking of tragedies, did you know that Bizet was only 36 when he died? He died thinking that Carmen was a failure.

Winter/Holiday Collection

2011-11-13T01:03:00.002-05:00

One kind word can warm three winter months.
~Japanese proverb

The Opposite of Indifference
Winter/Holiday Collection
by Tabatha Yeatts
Winter:
* Huddled Masses by Victoria Rivas
* Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel
* The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper
* Snow-Flakes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
* Spellbound by Emily Brontë
* Winter Lights by Anna Grossnickle Hines
* Winter Song by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson

Christmas:
* A Christmas Carol, illustrations by P.J. Lynch
* tangentially about A Christmas Carol
* The Gift of the Magi, plus Giving by Kahlil Gibran
* Handel's Messiah
* Little Tree by e.e. cummings

Any holiday with gifts:
* Gift-making

New Year's:
* 3D calendar of the month club
* The New Year by Dana Gioia
* Wassail

Other Collections: Military/War, Words, Halloween, African-American, Drama, Food, Humor, and Animals.

Military/War Collection

2011-11-12T04:02:00.001-05:00

On the battlefield, the military pledges to leave no soldier behind. As a nation, let it be our pledge that when they return home, we leave no veteran behind.
~ Dan Lipinski

The Opposite of Indifference
Military/War Collection
Landing Zone by John O. Wehrle, 1966
courtesy of the National Museum of the U.S. Army
Artists:
Soldier-Poets
National Veterans Creative Arts Festival
Edward Shanks, WWI poet
Music by U.S. military bands

WWII posts:
Prose Poem and Art: Winston Churchill
Warsaw Ghetto poetry
To My Brother Killed in Battle
Blackout and All Clear
The Holocaust Survivors

Spies:
Wife, Spy
Spy Poems
A Civil War spy movie

Misc:
A Veteran's Day post
Poetry, Politics, and Culture Around the World

Other Collections: Words, Halloween, African-American, Drama, Food, Humor, and Animals.

Poem Flow

2011-11-11T01:47:00.003-05:00

Where was I going? I puzzled and wondered about it til I actually enjoyed the puzzlement and wondering.
~ Carl Sandburg

Poem videos today...

Check out Motion Poems. I really enjoyed Render, Render by Thomas Lux.

Did you know that Carl Sandburg wrote a poem called Adelaide Crapsey? I didn't, until I saw this:

I was also going to post this video also, but both poems would start automatically when you came to my site, and two at once was too much!

So I'll include a little bit of that poem, which is The Day I Saw Barack Obama Reading Derek Walcott's Collected Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa:

Now, he looks as if he wants to eat words,
their sweet, intoxicating flavor. Banana leaf
& animal, being & nonbeing. In fact,
craving wisdom, he bites into memory.

The President of the United States of America
thumbs the pages slowly, moving from reverie
to reverie, learning why one envies the octopus
for its ink, how a man's skin becomes the final page.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

April at Teaching Authors has our Poetry Friday round-up today.

Kay Nielsen

2011-11-10T01:30:00.005-05:00

Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.
~Mark Twain

Danish-American illustrator Kay Nielsen is our focus today. Nielsen, who was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1886, had a pretty tumultuous career. It started out well -- his work was popular. So popular that he had exhibits in other countries and was asked to come to Hollywood, where he worked on various projects, including Disney's Fantasia. When World War II erupted, staying in the U.S. seemed like a good idea...but making a living turned out to be hard. Eventually, a fan helped him land a job making a mural in a junior high school library. He worked three years on it, and it was described as "one of the most beautiful wall paintings in America" by The L.A. Times. The mural was taken down a year later. There's more to his story -- read it here.

She Was Forced to Produce the Key
by Kay Nielsen

Hansel and Gretel
by Kay Nielsen

In the Night, the Dog Came Again
by Kay Nielsen

The Tale of the Fisherman and the Genie
by Kay Nielsen

The Lovers Perish in the Fire
by Kay Nielsen

Tin Soldier and Dancer
by Kay Nielsen

The Man Who Never Laughed
by Kay Nielsen

Links:

* The Unknown Paintings of Kay Nielsen (used copies of an out-of-print book)
* Nielsen's Fairy Tale Illustrations in color (book)
* Another bio of Nielsen

Moby-Dick and Three Robbers

2011-11-09T04:59:00.011-05:00

First, all I can say is-- this is an incredible accomplishment:

Next, I've got a little personal tangent. One of the illustrations from Moby-Dick in Pictures reminded me of a favorite book from my childhood: Tomi Ungerer's The Three Robbers. So I looked it up out of nostalgia, and here are a couple of shots from that:

Does anyone else remember it fondly? When I was little, I thought the word "blunderbuss" was the funniest thing ever.

Freebies, Part Two

2011-11-08T01:13:00.009-05:00

Have you ever tried your hand at making gifts? This year, my family is making each other presents (although we're still giving purchased stuff as well). I'm excited about it. I hope I can keep my excitement through the whole process!

Cathe Holden's Just Something I Made freebies page has tons of printable digital images that you can use for gifts or art projects. For instance, she mentions using this stamp sheet as a cigar box doll bed quilt! Very creative. The stamps also reminded me of the bowl in this post.

Links:

* My first Freebies post has art that you could frame as a gift or use to make a journal cover, among other things.
* Instructables, Craft, and One Pretty Thing have lots of handmade gift suggestions.
* While I'm at it, here's a post about 10 ways to decorate with sheet music, which includes links to printable vintage sheet music. (Some of the decorations would make nice gifts.)
* A post about gift-giving from last year
* Making your own address labels, which could also be a gift

Updated on Nov. 11 to add: The Owl Barn lets you make your own customized owl calendars. Love!

Thank You!

2011-11-07T01:18:00.010-05:00

Even though times got rough,
you never turned away, you were right there,
and I thank you.
~ Boys II Men

Each year our family makes a Thanksgiving Tree poster and everyone writes what they are thankful for on the leaves. Our new one just got started last weekend. This Music Monday seems like a good day to say thank you to all the people traveling down this road with me. Also, Veterans Day is this week, so I'd like to give a tip of the hat to our veterans:

This song is actually called "Kind and Generous":

A thankfulness tree leaf

Alzheimer's and Art

2011-11-05T07:12:00.002-04:00

I saw this touching story on Writing Without Paper and wanted to share it with you:

* Art Boosts Alzheimer Patients at LiveScience
* The Pablo Picasso Alzheimer's Therapy at The New York Times
* Advice about music, art, and pet visit activities from the Alzheimer's Association

Mon Frère, Saint-George

2011-11-04T01:15:00.005-04:00

Have you heard of Joseph de Bologne, the chevalier de Saint-George?

Born in the 1700s to a French gentleman and a Senegalese slave, Joseph de Bologne (a.k.a. Saint-George) could have been a slave himself. Instead, his father made sure Joseph was allowed to develop his gifts – and what gifts he had! American president John Adams described him as the “most accomplished man in Europe in Riding, Running, Shooting, Fencing, Dancing, Music.” Was there anything Saint-George couldn’t do?

Joseph's story captured my interest and I wrote fifteen poems about his life, from the point-of-view of his real-life friend, Antoine de Boëssière. Joseph de Bologne lived with Antoine de Boëssière when Joseph was attending Antoine’s father’s fencing academy and they remained friends their whole lives.

Here is the first poem from the Saint-George series:

1759

Mon père put this journal in one hand
And a foil in the other. You understand
He is the greatest fencing master I can
Imagine; I am a grateful son.

I am a fortunate son as well,
To learn with a boy like Joseph; I tell
Ma mère every day that I excel
More, pushed higher by what he has done.

Higher than I could go with another –
Any other – you might think this brother
Of my heart makes me boast like a mother,
But I make no exaggeration.

His talent for everything he tries defies
The expectations of all Paris, belies
The beliefs that dark skin is like dark skies
When he is bright and warm as the sun.

Joseph hails from the Americas, a hot isle
Where his wealthy French father smiled
Upon finding beauty and gentle style
In the Senegalese slave known as Nanon.

Together they came to Paris, where George
Intended his son’s future would be forged
By his education, propelling him toward
A noble life – someone whom no one could shun.

Signed:
Antoine

I always include a little glossary with the poems (père – father, mère – mother, George – Joseph’s father). The rest of the series discusses Joseph's fencing, various duels, romances, musical career, and the Revolution, among other things. You can hear one of his compositions here:

Thanks for letting me share my Joseph de Bologne fascination with you!

Today's Poetry Friday round-up is being hosted by Laura at Writing the World for Kids.

Perfume

2011-11-03T01:32:00.006-04:00

If the perfume is an art, the object, which contains it, must be a masterpiece, the masterpiece of a craftsman.
~ Robert Ricci

Jean Paul Gaultier butterfly lady perfume bottle
www.free-images.org.uk
Ambre de Delhi
a perfume bottle for Babani, circa 1920

Peacock Perfum Bottle
by Robert Held of Vancouver, Canada

Flower Cane Perfum Bottle
by Robert Held

Perfume burner in the shape of a lion
Khurasan (Iran), 11th–12th century, the Louvre

Metal perfume bottle with flower design
The Tropenmuseum

Art Nouveau Perfume Labels

The cover of Perfume Bottles Auction is always amazing:

Links:

* The International Perfume Bottle Association Virtual Museum
* A New Orleans Museum of Art exhibit: Scents and Sensibility (Perfume Bottles & Related Accessories from Antiquity to Present)
* The Vintage Perfume Vault blog
* American Scent Bottles: 1770 to the Present
* Guerlain perfume bottles: from past to present
* A guide to silver overlay bottles (by someone who has written a lot of perfume bottle guides!)
* Making your own perfume
* Making a citrus pomander ball

At Our House, Everyone Reads

2011-11-01T07:54:00.006-04:00

Wondering what caught Emma's eye? It's The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt.