Literary Safari

I’m a creature of habit and making lists is at the top of my “habit list.” My day does not go right unless I sit down in the morning and make a list of goals, things to do, and even, places to go. My father used to make lists too. After his death, I found yellow legal notepad after yellow legal notepad filled with numbered lists of his daily goals. I’m sure that if he were alive today for me to ask him what he liked best about his list-making (apart from the direction it gave him), he would answer, “Crossing out things!”

There’s also something lyrical about lists, the way one line flows into the other, creating a rhythm and space in which to find yourself. I suppose that’s what attracted me to the anthology of original children’s list poems, Falling Down the Page, edited by Georgia Heard (Roaring Brook Press, 2009).

Inspired by Walt Whitman’s classic list poem Song of Myself, this collection of original poems highlights a variety of styles, all of which are tied together by the common themes of school and the everyday experiences of the school year. Featured authors include Jane Yolen (“In My Desk”), Marilyn Singer (“In My Hand”), Eileen Spinelli (“Creativity”),  Bobbi Katz (“Things to Do If You are the Sun”), and one of my favorite poets, Naomi Shihab Nye (“Words in My Pillow”).  The poems span a range of moods — lighthearted, serious, thoughtful, funny, and whimsical. There’s something for every type of kid here.

Besides my fascination with lists, there was also something about the size of the book that I found extremely appealing. Laid out vertically at 5×10 inches, its topsy-turvy text, curvy font treatment of titles, and offbeat design are a visual invitation to readers to think differently — outside of the standard horizontal box of our minds — and to sit down and invent our own list poems.

I recently wrote a piece, “Summer School: Play with Words” for Kahani magazine (forthcoming in the Summer 2009 issue). Building upon my previous advice at A+ Advice for Parents, it offers ideas for wordplay exercises. I wish I’d come across Heard’s anthology earlier so that I could have also recommended it to readers. Oh well; better late than never. If you have school age children, why not sit down with them and write a list poem this summer? Or, you could do what I did after earlier today, after re-reading Falling Down the Page: sit down with your own pencil and sheet of paper and see what emerges.

Below the fold is my little list poem inspired by the cloudy skies we’ve had in NYC of late.

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No, I’m not referring to Slumdog Millionaire’s sweep at the Oscars last night (though I will take this opportunity to say that I did have a feeling this would happen back in November when I wrote about it here)!

I’m referring to our six word Valentine contest of a few weeks ago.  Thanks to all of you who played and took the time to share your brief memoirs of real-life love. Reading them as they rolled in over Valentine’s Day weekend reminded me of the many hues and shades of love – from emotional to humorous – that exist and how this annual holiday is (thankfully) not all about roses and chocolates.

Food plays a big part in love of all kinds.

There was Jeff’s:

I picked up a happy meal.

And Ankur’s:

Eating baklava together, no gifts necessary.

Love is also about daily routines and the mundane, as in Bry’s:

Your incessant snores lull me to sleep.

And Maria’s:

Morning warm; you open your eyes.

Love is so much about optimism, as Prasant’s showed:

Hopeful. Heartend. I’m still here.

It is also a source of beautiful metaphors like the one in Debbie’s entry:

Buoyant, we rock, but stay afloat.

The winner of the six-word memoir of love contest, however, is the one which struck our guest judge Anita Jain the most. It came from Fuse # 8 who wrote:

His librarian movie? He married one.

These six words allowed Jain – who did not know any of the contestants or read their entries alongside their names – to imagine a larger context and story. In her judge’s comments, she wrote that she “saw it as a reference to a man’s fantasy of the sexy librarian — which in a way is ultimately about men’s view of women as either Madonnas or whores and in an ideal world, both at the same time. To me, it’s a comment on that and how as much as the world has changed, and women have gained equality in so many realms, this male perception of women is something we modern women still have to struggle against.”

Congratulations to Fuse # 8 for making a V-Day impression, and for telling a story that can be read in so many different ways. That, I suppose is one of the qualities of powerful storytelling. In fact, that is what, I think, makes these six-word memoirs such a little jewel of a genre. They provide a glimpse of the writer’s experience and then, allow the reader to imagine the rest.

Submit your six word love memoir here and enter to win a free copy of Six Word Memoirs of Love and Heartbreak, courtesy of SMITH magazine. Our guest judge will be Anita Jain, author of “Marrying Anita,” a memoir about her search for love in contemporary India which the New York Times calls ” a thoughtful, incisive exploration of the nature of connection.” Deadline: Midnight, February 16, 2009.

So, I’m not usually one to make a big hoopla about Valentine’s Day, but I’ll make an exception this year.

I opened my mail last week to find an envelope from HarperPerennial. Inside was my very own personal copy of a pocket-sized paperback (4X6, a little smaller in size than your average Valentine’s Day Card, but chock full of so many more wishes!) Six Word Memoirs of Love and Heartbreak: From Writers Famous and Obscure which features my very own six word memoir on page13:

Sleeping, our foreheads touch. Fates mingle.

This book is the second offering from SMITH Magazine whose initial invite to writers two years ago was a simple one (inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn): Everyone has a story. Can you tell yours in six words? The submissions poured in like crazy and soon enough they had published theNYT bestselling Not Quite What I Was Planning.

In the introduction to Love and Heartbreak, the editors Rachel Fershleiser and Larry Smith write:

As we’ve sifted through piles of briefly encapsulated lives, we’ve seen themes emerge … By far the most common thread, however, is love. Passionate love, parental love, platonic love–it seemed to be the most universally life-changing factor for storytellers of every age, background and worldview.

This book celebrates life in all its shades of red–a valentine, if you will, to every kind of love. But it’s also a nod to love’s evil twin: heartache.

Indeed, many of the memoirs in Love and Heartbreak focus on the latter, but since Cupid’s Day is on the horizon, let’s flex our writing muscles by taking a whirl at penning a six-word memoir on love, whatever that may mean to you. Consider it your Valentine. Post it here in the comments section, then go to sixwordmemoirs.com and share it with the readers and editors of SMITH magazine. You never know. It may end up in a book someday. The “best” memoir submitted in the comments section will win a free copy of this book, courtesy of SMITH magazine.

I’ll leave you with this some of my favorite “Valentines” and a book trailer for inspiration.

We belly laugh every single day. – Michelle Ottey
My life’s accomplishments? Sanity and you. – Elisabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
Bachelor visits library, books wife (Nonfiction). – Michael Perry
It helps to label the books. – Juan Antonio del Rosario
Hired me. Fired me. Married me. – Julie Klam
True love is a nephew’s hug. – Alison Schulak-Moore (in honor of my nephew’s 2nd birthday today!)
Cynical New Yorker convinced of soulmate. – Kate Hamill
It’s just a matter of luck. – Ayelet Waldman

Oh, and if you happen to be in town on the 14th (I won’t), maybe you’ll want to check out this event: February 14, NYC, Housing Works Bookstore, 8pm. The Valentine’s Day Personal Media Mixer & Confessional Culture Variety Show : PostSecret, Found Magazine, Mortified, and Cassette From My Ex join with SMITH Magazine for a very special evening to benefit Housing Works. Buy tickets here.

OK, so what’s your six-word memoir of love? Deadline: Midnight, February 16, 2009.

We stopped by at Walden Pond on the way to Maine this past weekend. Though I’ve read Walden; or, Life in the Woods many more times than I can remember, I’ve actually never visited Henry David Thoreau’s home in the woods, the place where he spent two years and two months living alone, in a house he had built himself, earning his living by the “labor of [his] hands only” engaged in an experiment to experience a “life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.” (After roughing it for those 26 months, Thoreau then spent nine years composing and revising his groundbreaking narrative about his experience.)

On the drive over, I sat in the passenger seat slowly flipping through and reading Thoreau at Walden, John Porcellino’s graphic novel interpretation of Thoreau’s story. Published by the Center for Cartoon Studies and Hyperion (2008), this brown and black ink illustrated edition brings Thoreau’s journey alive using carefully selected original text from Walden. The line drawings are spare and stark, allowing space for the crux of the philosopher’s words and ideas to come alive.

Porcellino is an astute editor who has culled and woven original language from Thoreau’s original, and organized it by the seasons into four sections: winter, spring, summer, and autumn. Just before we pulled into the driveway of Walden Pond, I re-read the “Summer” section, where Thoreau breathes in and relishes the season that, for most of us, is nearly over: “Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day, for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days … and I spend them lavishly.” (That is exactly what I plan on doing for the remains of these warm summer days.)

If you’re wary of this book just because it’s a graphic novel, don’t be. There’s a terrific introduction by D. B. Johnson, author of the picture book Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, a key to quotation sources (linking readers back to the original text), and an annotated “panel discussion” section which provides further background about Thoreau along with anecdotal details about objects in the illustrations (for example, Thoreau’s three-legged table pictured on page 13 gives Porcellino the opportunity to tell us more about the furniture in his cabin in the woods). [plus a teachers guide] After all this, readers will no doubt be tempted to return to the original edition of Walden, as I was.

But beyond all this, what I love most about the book was its nimble execution of Thoreau’s credo of “Simplify! Simplify!” Porcellino really gets it. He has taken the essence of Thoreau’s philosophy and poured it into an 88 page “comic” where wordless panels convey the silence of Thoreau’s journey, where nature is a key organizational device (as it was for Thoreau’s daily living), and where one man’s personal epiphanies urge us to take pause and figure out a way to render them our own.

Check out this interview with John Porcellino at School Library Journal for more on his work process.

When summer rolls around, I find myself asking friends more than ever, “What are you reading right now?”

Meena recently forwarded me this list of “1,000 Books You Must Read Before You Die” culled from editor Peter Boxall’s 2006 book of the same name. It’s organized by century — pre-1700s to 2000’s — and was compiled with the help of over 100 literary critics worldwide.

As I skimmed my list, all I could think was “Wowie, I sure have my work cut out for me!”

If the list of 1,001 leaves you feeling overwhelmed too, The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books  might be an easier starting point. Editor J. Peter Zane asked 125 writers to “provide a list, ranked, in order, of what you consider the ten greatest works of fiction of all time.”  Authors featured include Joyce Carol Oates, Sherman Alexie, Alexander McCall Smith, Russell Banks, Jonathan Franzen, Mary Gordon, Michael Chabon, and Carl Hiaasen.

I was particularly interested in the Top Ten fiction picks of the (handful of) multicultural authors featured in this anthology.  What books have influenced their work over the years?  A look at Sandra Cisneros, Edwidge Danticat, Sherman Alexie, and Chitra Divakaruni’s picks follows, below the fold.

I’m going to pick up a book from each of these lists — most likely something I’ve never heard of — and try to get to it this summer. What about you? What are you reading this summer?

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It won’t be published in the US until October of this year, but I’ll certainly be keeping an eye out for AIDS Sutra: Hidden Stories from India. With a foreword by Amartya Sen, this nonfiction anthology will feature pieces by 15 well-known Indian heavyweight writers as they “go on the road to uncover their country’s AIDS epidemic” which is home to 5.2 million cases.

From the Random House UK blurb, a sampling of essays we can look forward to:

William Dalrymple meets the devadasis (‘temple women’), many of whom have become victims of HIV; Kiran Desai travels to the coast of Andhra where the sex workers are considered the most desirable and Salman Rushdie spends a day with Mumbai’s transgenders.

Other notable names: Vikram Seth, Amit Chaudhuri, Siddhartha Deb, Nikita Lalwani, and Shobha De! [full list here]

While you’re here, allow me to point you to a fascinating piece that was published in 2006 in the magazine of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria: “Caught at a Crossroads”. In this feature, Priya Bery and Chapal Mehra examine the impact of AIDS on India’s growing middle class. It’s worth reading.