Fictional Favorites, part four, plus a progressive poem

So much going on here today! Thanks for coming.


We'll start with the KidLitosphere Progressive Poem, day 13:

If you are reading this
you must be hungry
Kick off your silver slippers
Come sit with us a spell

A hanky, here, now dry your tears
And fill your glass with wine
Now, pour. The parchment has secrets
Smells of a Moroccan market spill out.

You have come to the right place, just breathe in.
Honey, mint, cinnamon, sorrow. Now, breathe out
last week’s dreams. Take a wish from the jar.
Inside, deep inside, is the answer…

Unfold it, and let us riddle it together,

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Tomorrow, Diane will have the next line. For the full line-up, click here.

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This series of posts considers What would fictional characters' favorite poets/poems be?

Tara from A Teaching Life and Linda from TeacherDance are sharing their Fictional Favorites today. Tara chose Anna Karenina and Linda picked Ántonia Shimerda.

Tara says:

I connected the fierce urgency and determination of Mary Oliver's "The Journey" with Anna Karenina's feelings the moment she knows she must go with Vronsky, whatever the cost. My own thoughts about Anna have changed so much over the years...the more I experienced of life, the more subtle and sympathetic a character she became. I've also always loved this Oliver poem - the elemental strength of it. Anna felt strength like this when she follows Vronsky - I hear it especially in those last 10 lines.


The Journey
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.

It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.



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Linda Baie chose Willa Cather's Ántonia Shimerda from the novel My Ántonia. Ms. Shimerda's favorite poems would be Meadowlarks by Sarah Teasdale and Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost.



Meadowlarks
by Sarah Teasdale

In the silver light after a storm,
Under dripping boughs of bright new green,
I take the low path to hear the meadowlarks
Alone and high-hearted as if I were a queen.
What have I to fear in life or death
Who have known three things: the kiss in the night,
The white flying joy when a song is born,
And meadowlarks whistling in silver light.

~~~~~~~~~~

Nothing Gold Can Stay
by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

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Thank you so much, Tara and Linda, for sharing your fictional favorites today! And thanks, Irene, for the progressive poem fun!

Booktalking is our Poetry Friday host.