Poetry Break

A collection of children’s book bloggers participate in Poetry Friday, where they post children’s poems at the end of each week.  See this link for more information:   http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/feature.children.html?id=179694). 

This isn’t a children’s book blog, but I like the idea of taking a poetry break once a week. 

So, I cruised our stacks and pulled out “Dance for Flute and Thunder: Praises, Prayers, and Insults: Poems from the Ancient Greek”.  It’s a collection of  poems and fragments of poems by ancient Greek authors that is beautifully translated by Brooks Haxton.  I thought the poem “Dog Days” fit today’s 95 degree weather:

 Wet those thirsty pipes, my friend, with two parts water,

one part wine, for now the Dog Star swings around again

to parch the world….

–Alkaios

Then I ran across the poem, “Taxing the Rain”, on novelist Jeannette Winterson’s site (http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/poem.asp).  It struck me as a sort of bookend to Alkaois’ poem.  Here’s a snippet:

… for rain comes

to slake all our thirsts, spurting
brusque and thrilling in hot needles,

showering on to anyone naked;
or blaming our skins in the shape of scented baths.

It’s by Penelope Shuttle, a poet I am not familiar with.  She’s good!  I’ll have to look for more of her work.

The 2007 Quill Award nominees have been announced

If you’re casting about for good reading, the 2007 Quill Awards nominees were announced last month.  The awards are given to books in various fiction and nonfiction categories based on votes by readers, booksellers and librarians.  I’m disheartened to see that I’ve only read 3 (4, if you count the cookbook) of the books from the adult lists and 3 from the children’s lists.  I’ve been invited to vote, so I guess I need to get reading!  Visit this link to see the nominees and to find out how you can participate: http://www.thequills.org/press.html

As for the adult books, I read Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” many years ago.  And who hasn’t seen the movie?  I haven’t heard Sissy Spacek’s audio book rendition, but I bet it’s wonderful.

I loved Amy Sedaris’ “I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence”.  Filled with her bizarre humor, this is Emily Post crossed with Betty Crocker after an afternoon spent perfecting margarita recipes!

I do own an edition of “Joy of Cooking”, but it’s not the 75^th nor have I read it from cover to cover.  My family loves the Banana Nut Muffin recipe; it’s really tasty and low in fat.

 “Special Topics in Calamity Physics” by Marisha Pessl was disappointing.  It’s very funny and the characters are engaging, but it went on too long.  Pessl’s a good writer, though, and I look forward to reading her next book.

Let’s see, there’s 5 titles in 18 categories.  Voting ends August 31.   It’s not looking like I’m going to be able to get them all read by then.  I’ll be really happy if I can conquer one category!