happy friday the 13th

That's Poetry Friday and THE 13TH ANNIVERSARY of my juicy little universe!  Yes, the earliest post you can see on this blog was posted on this day thirteen years ago in 2008.  

Yes, that time now seems blurry & far-off...

Before that I blogged at LiveJournal about our year in France when the kids were 5 and 8, and I am pleasantly surprised to discover that the Internet indeed never forgets and that you can read approximately 20 photoillustrated posts from that year here.

A couple of years ago I used BlogBooker to download my entire juicy little universe as both Word doc and PDF, so that I could cull all the poems I've published here over the years.  It was definitely worth the $20 I spent and it resulted in a document--a book--of about 2100 pages!  That's an oeuvre to be proud of for its sheer volume, and you all helped to write some of it, since comments were included in this tome.

Not every post has been earth-shatteringly brilliant, but occasionally I find one that I only barely remember writing and which seems to me to be notable.  These Big Idea posts usually include a poem, but having culled the poems, they aren't surprising; the "essays" are, however.

Shall I share them with you, as a way of cataloguing them for myself?* Or shall I resort to the tried-and-true acrostic commemoration of this part of my poetic life online?

Oh wait--I already did that in 2016 on the 8th anniversary.  Here's the acrostic, and it still holds true.

So I'm absolved from writing an anniversary poem this year, and instead I'll just drop a few links for those fans of my writing who have time on their hands--but not before repeating that none of this--just about none of my later writing life--would have happened if I hadn't had a Poetry Friday audience to share it with. 

For a performative person (I think performative has not entirely become a dirty word, has it?), knowing that someone might read, comment, appreciate, critique has made an enormous difference to my motivation and commitment to write just about weekly.  And equally important is the knowledge that, even when I have skipped a week or stepped back for a time, I'd be welcomed back. Thanks to all of you who make this forum, this community.  I'm grateful to know you all--some of you even in person!!

Our host today is Bridget over at Wee Words for Wee Ones, and although TEN is technically a wee word, it is a very big deal because Bridget's 10*10 anthology has become a reality!!!   

*****************************************************************************

*Here are a few I think are worth rereading.

https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2009/10/party-poopers.html  

On this one, my first bloggiversary, Tabatha is the sole commenter--some while before we realized that we were neighbors and that our kids went to the same middle and then high school magnet programs! 

https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-dishwasher-of-my-mind.html 

Some science, some psychology, some education policy, plenty of connections. 

 

https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2016/11/november-kaboom-take-2.html

I consider identity and visibility.

 

https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2018/03/pre-progressive-poem-pre-poetry-month.html

This is the one where I interviewed Irene Latham and Liz Steinglass about the history, trajectory and themes of the Progressive Poem.

https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2019/03/poetry-friday-youthclimatestrike.html

My first dedicated climate action post, I think, and I'm proud of the list near the bottom of what we as communicators (writers, poets, teachers) can do to make change.

happy bloggiversary to me

Read all about Poetry Friday here.

Yes, poetry fans, this weekend marks the 9th birthday of 

my juicy little universe!  

Next year, for the 10th anniversary, I will do some extravaganza of gratitude like making a lengthy found poem out of your--YOUR--comments over the years. But for 2017, at the end of a weighty and irregular week (and I mean that in the medical sense), I have only enough energy to point you in the direction of my very first post, made before I even learned that there was Poetry Friday.

It was about typing, and the sole commenter was my friend and critipue group partner Robin Galbraith (@RobinGalbraith), now the proud holder of a Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA!  (Speaking of typing, for no discernible reason the KUE key on my computer has stopped working. Now how will I type "kwakwaversal"?)

Speaking further of typing, I have held forever the position that writing by hand (including drafting and doodling and note-taking) has a different character than writing by typing, and my notebooks are very important to me.  But this has been the year that I had to admit that actually getting any writing done seemed to be related to abandoning my notebook and just typing on my laptop.

I'm still pondering why this is--is it a function of my fast-paced intense inside-the-DC-beltway microculture, which makes writing anything by hand feel inefficient?  Is it that my brain, fueled by a constant stream of think-too-much adrenalin, can't wait around for my handwriting to keep up?  Are those two things pretty much exactly the same, and should I try to relax?  Your views welcome.  : )

So here's my own poem about typing, a skill so very much more important now than it was when I took typing in high school in 1979.  (I have a second grader who has taught himself to type rather fast using two fingers on his right hand and his left thumb, and who will be therefore very well prepared for his computer-based assessments next year.)  I found this poem lurking in that very first post...


Keyboard Magic

I go around with 
letters dangling from the tip 
of each finger—

the h, j, and m jangling like charms
from my right index,
the c, d and e each occupying a joint

of the left middle,
the o ringing and ringing
my right ring finger,
a sparking a little flame from
that powerful pinky--

letters and numbers,
punc-punc-punctuation marks
trailing each move of my fingers
like the starry streaks 
that follow the sweep 
of a movie magic wand.

(c) draft HM 2017


The Poetry Friday round-up today is with Irene Thirteen--tippy-tap your way over and see what's popping at Live Your Poem!

new & improved

Welcome to my WIP--a combined blog and website!  Please bear with me while I get it all set up, and here's a poem about the process to keep me going...this one pretty faithfully records today's loooooooong
edit >update>preview>edit loop.






from constant change figures | Lyn Hejinian

constant change figures

the time we sense

passing on its effect

surpassing things we've known before

since memory

of many things is called

experience

but what of what

we call nature's picture

surpassing things we call

since memory

we call nature's picture

surpassing things we've known before

constant change figures

experience

passing on its effect

but what of what

constant change figures

since memory

of many things is called

the time we sense

called nature's picture

but what of what

in the time we sense

surpassing things we've known before

passing on its effect

is experience

sunshine part 1

 

As I mentioned last Friday, the mind-expanding Ruth from There is no such thing as a Godforsaken town has nominated me for a Sunshine Award!  Here's how it works.

1. Share 11 random facts about yourself
2. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger creates for you
3. List 11 bloggers
4. Post 11 questions
5. Acknowledge the nominating bloggers
6. for the bloggers you nominate to answer and let all the bloggers know they've been nominated.  (You cannot nominate the blogger who nominated you.

Let me begin by sharing 11 random facts:

1.  Eleven is a favorite number of mine, being my birthdate and a prime number that kind of sticks out from the crowd.
2.  I have lived in New York, London, Paris, Munich (everybody talk about...pop muzik).  But not in that order--Munich came first, then New York, London and last Paris.
3.  Harriet the Spy and I are the same age. When I lived in New York City, my first apartment was on East 84th St. between 2nd and 3rd, just blocks from Harriet's spy route.  It was somewhat surreal for me to discover that all that NYC geography that I had read about was real and that I was IN IT.
4. I always imagine that physical tasks like painting a room or yard work are going to take much longer than I think--while I could sit and work on a writing-type project for HOURS without getting daunted.
5.  I believe that teachers should do some lunch and recess duty, or more exactly that teachers should enjoy lunch and recess with their class.  Eating and playing together is healthy.
6. There was a time when I spent every Sunday in an office under the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island.
7. I believe in personal ads.
8. I own a series of mixtapes and playlists labelled "Music for Instant Attitude Adjustment."
9. If the sun is out I have to be in it, and in winter I need to look right at it.
10.  I'm a planner, not a pantser, but most of my best and most interesting ideas come in the moment, not during the planning.
11.  I have a dozen watches and a hundred earrings but no necklaces.

My 11 questions from Ruth are...

1.  What's your favorite song right now?

Easy.  "Happy," by Pharrell Williams from the Despicable Me soundtrack, with a video and lyrics totally appropriate for kindergarten and the power to instantly adjust even the crankiest attitude.

2.  What made you decide to start blogging?

I realized it was a way to connect with other children's poet types as well as to exercise writing and reading skills of many kinds.  It's also a place where I can exert complete and utter control over both content and style (unlike in all the other spheres of my life).  Huh--you'd think I'd post more often, considering that.

3.  What's your favorite post you've ever written?  (Link, please!)

No fair!  I love all my children/students/posts equally, of course....but if I have to pick one that does well what I enjoy most in my blogging, it would be this one. It connects oral tradition and literature with my work as a teacher, with my experiences as a child, as an adult and as a parent, and includes an original poem--demonstrating "the interdependent web of all existence," as we say in UU congregations--or at least my existence, my juicy little universe.

4.  What's a book you've given (or loaned) to multiple people because you love it so much?

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv.  I worry about nature-deficit disorder on a daily basis.

5.  What Hogwarts house would you be in?

All the quizzes (and more importantly, my children) say Hufflepuff.  I don't love badgers but that's fine by me.

6.  What's your comfort food of choice?

I'm a large-bowl-of-salty-snacks kind of person (pretzels and a glass of milk), but there are days when I could eat an entire chocolate cake (no frosting, again the glass of milk).

7.  What book character would you like to have lunch with?

Harriet--see above.  We would invite Claudia, too.

8.  What's your favorite podcast?

What's a podcast?  I listen to the radio.  NPR Morning Edition; sometimes All Things Considered; Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and This American Life if I get a chance.

9.  What's a movie you've watched many times?

Disney's Mulan, which my then 5yo son watched  incessantly the year we moved to France and he had to man up and pose as a French speaker in demanding and alien school environment.  What a wise boy he was and is.

10.  What are your favorite clothes to wear?

I can't adDRESS this right now.  I'm in the middle of an almost sick obsession with the idea of the capsule wardrobe and it's embarrassing.  It has to do again with complete and utter control.

11.  What's a book on your wish list?
That IS my wish list: 1) read a book. 
I'm having a lot of trouble with adult novels in the last few years (ie since I started teaching full time).  When I find one I love, I fall in and read it to the exclusion of all other unrequired activities, which may come to include basic things like showering and feeding the family.  They do say that books are dangerous. 

That's all I have time for this week, and it's a shame I didn't manage to get it done in time for PF.  But you can visit the roundup any time of the week with Karen at http://karenedmisten.blogspot.com/ !