Poetry Friday: A Book that Belongs on your Shelf!

Buffy Silverman is hosting this

week's round-up of poetic goodness.

I requested the book several months ago, but the holds list was several hundred patrons long. I despaired of ever coming to the top of the list. And then this month, it finally arrived on my holds shelf! I haven't had time to read it cover to cover yet. But I've flipped through its pages, marveled at the art, delighted in the words and reached an important decision. This is a book that I must own!  (In spite of the fact that we are constantly striving to whittle down our massive collection of books.)

 A Velocity of Being:

Letters to a Young Reader

Edited by Maria Popova & Claudia Bedrick

(Click on the title for Maria's review 

at Brain Pickings and a glimpse
into the wondrous illustrations.)

And so today, I bring you a few snippets from the poetic entries in these letters to a young reader to whet your appetite and send you to your nearest indie bookstore so you can read the entire poems. 

"Stories become our 
 well-worn pathways,
 and our companions, too."
"Dear Spacetime Traveler" by Lucianne Walkowicz 

"It's lovely to read in the bathtub
 (but be careful the book doesn't slip)!
"Great Places to Read Books" by Sarah Kay
(I'm hoping to locate a print of Lisa D"Andrea's charming illustration for this poem.)

"But once it comes to rest
 In the nest of your hands
    The book is a bird"
"To a Reader" by Matthew Burgess

"To read is a skill, a blessing, an invitation, an opportunity."
"To the Open Minds of Tomorrow" by Aaron Koblin

"I stopped being lonely
  I met myself everywhere 
  I got lost
  I got found"
"Dear Readers" by Eve Ensler 
      
"You become part of it- your fingerprints on the paper; your sneeze
 Your DNA
 Your lunch. ..."
"Instructions Included" by Dona Ann McAdams

"A guide, a balm, a touchstone, a totem
 Nothing can beat a good book as companion."
"A Book is a Magic Carpet" by Shirley Manson

"Books don't teach us about life,
 they just call forth what
 our mind suspects,
 our heart hopes,
 and our spirit knows
 to be true."
"The world is alive, generous," by Tom De Blasis    

"No other dragon watches curled
 Around such riches as are mine,
 My Word-hoard, my dear Library:
 For every book contains a world!"
"Dear Reader" by Ursula K. Le Guin  

It's a book meant to be savored slowly and reopened frequently. It's a book for those who delight in the written word and inviting images. It's a book that I believe belongs on your shelf!

Slice of Life: Summery Middle Grade Titles

I've met monthly for book club with a group of middle school students this past year. We started the year by reading Mock Newbery possibilities and then moved to March Book Madness titles after the Newbery was announced in January. We took a couple of months off while I was traveling and enjoying the arrival of my new grandson. 

Last month, I asked the book club members if they would like to have a meeting before school was out. They were definitely interested. I thought it would be fun to feature titles set in summer or with summer in their titles for this final meeting of the school year. Unfortunately, only three titles (of the many I requested) arrived before our meeting in June. We planned to select a title for our July meeting from these titles. We meet at the public library during July and August.

The Summer of May - "An angry thirteen-year-old girl and her hated English teacher spend a summer school class together, learning surprising things about each other." (Follett)

Summer at Forsaken Lake - "Twelve-year-old Nicholas and his ten-year-old, twin sisters, Hetty and Haley, spend the summer with their Great-Uncle Nick at Forsaken Lake, where he and their new friend Charlie investigate the truth about an accident involving their families many years before." (Follett)

Cosmic - "Twelve-year-old Liam, tall for his age, is often mistaken for an adult, a fact that he uses when he finds himself in a group of children on the first manned spacecraft since Apollo 17. When things go wrong, some quick thinking by the kids averts a disaster. Likable characters, gentle humor, and the far-fetched adventure will hold readers' attention." (Horn Book Guide)

Our group selected Summer at Forsaken Lake. When I stopped by our local indie bookstore, I discovered that it wasn't readily available in paperback. But I learned that Kate Messner's Breakout had just became available in paperback this month.

"In sleepy Wolf Creek, New York, a prison breakout sets the community on edge and brings racial tensions to the surface. Messner tells the story through letters, transcriptions, newspaper articles, and other items the three girl protagonists gather for a school time-capsule assignment. Doses of humor and details about the main characters' everyday lives help leaven the story, which delivers timely and relevant messages." (Horn Book Guide)

The day after our book club meeting, ten more books arrived on my holds shelf at the library. And because I can't resist sharing these books with someone, I decided to write this post. If you're in search of a good middle grade summer read, here's a pic of the stack of titles I picked up. I stacked them in order of publication dates with the oldest publication on top to the more recent titles on the bottom. I've read two of these titles, My Life as a Book and Three Times Lucky (click on the title for my 2012 review).

You may notice an excellent summer title, The Penderwicks, absent from the stack. I didn't include it because most of my book club members have already read it and loved it. I'm adding The Girls of Firefly Cabin which I just read about on Jana's #IMWAYR post. And one more title that I carried upstairs to read because it's about summer and a teen who has to spend her summer vacation volunteering at the library, A Kind of Paradise.

Happy summer reading! If you have a favorite middle grade summer read or if you've read some I've shared and want to recommend them to my book club members, let me know in the comments.

 It’s Slice of Life Tuesday! Click over to Two Writing Teachers to read more slices!

Poetry Friday: Celebrating our Newest US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo

 Linda at A Word Edgewise is hosting

this week's round-up of poetic goodness.

I've been absent from this group for a few weeks, but I had to show up today to celebrate our newest US Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, a member of the Mvskoke Creek Nation and our first Native American poet laureate. As a fellow Oklahoman, I feel a connection to her since I have roots in Oklahoma too. 

"In an interview with Laura Coltelli in Winged Words: American Indian Writers Speak, Harjo shared the creative process behind her poetry: 'I begin with the seed of an emotion, a place, and then move from there… I no longer see the poem as an ending point, perhaps more the end of a journey, an often long journey that can begin years earlier, say with the blur of the memory of the sun on someone’s cheek, a certain smell, an ache, and will culminate years later in a poem, sifted through a point, a lake in my heart through which language must come.'" I love the idea that a poem can be the end of a long journey that may have begun years earlier.

"Perhaps the World Ends Here," one of several favorites by Joy Harjo, speaks of the importance of the kitchen table:
"At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We 
       pray of suffering and remorse. We give 
       thanks."
It makes me think of the hours I've spent around a kitchen table. You can explore more poems by Joy Harjo here. I look forward to her time as our US Poet Laureate and seeing what she will do as she serves in this position.

Slice of Life: Plea for Tomatoes!

We've had several days of overcast skies, but this morning I spotted my first possibilities of summer lusciousness in the pots by the driveway.

Five tiny green globes

Require your warmth to flourish

C'mon, Mister Sun!

It’s Slice of Life Tuesday! Click over to Two Writing Teachers to read more slices!

Slice of Life: Dear Day Designer!

One of my favorite things to do each summer is to pick out my new planner. I'm one of those folks who loves to purchase a planner that begins in July and ends in June. Maybe it's from all my years of teaching or maybe it's because I like a fresh start in the summer.

For the last several years, I've purchased a Day Designer calendar. I love the pocket that's near the front, perfect for coupons. I love the two page spread for each month with a space for Notes & To-Do, and the inclusion of the prior month's calendar and the upcoming month as well. I like the two page spread for each week, with a space for This Week's Top Three (perfect for goal setting), the lines provided for each day's plans, and the daily To-Do list with boxes for checking things off. 

As you can see, I have the ALMOST perfect planner! But, every year about this time, I get cranky with my planner. I NEED calendar pages for the three months ahead (July, August, and September). It's not yet time for my new calendar, but most of the events I want and need to enter are for future months. 

I was totally excited when I picked up my new planner to see a bonus feature of two additional months. Hurray! They have finally seen the light and next year, I'll have the July and August planning pages as I near the end of my planner. But wait! The bonus month pages are for May and June of 2019. Now why would I want the previous two months when I start using my new planner in July???

While I was writing this post, I hit upon my own solution to this problem. I'll copy the July and August monthly planning pages from my new planner and glue them onto some of my blank note pages in the back of my current planner. But please, Day Designer, could you include those months in my 2020/2021 planner?  It would make this satisfied customer extremely happy!

Spiritual Journey First Thursday: Connection

It's the first Thursday of the month 
and time to show up with my friends 
for Spiritual Journey First Thursday. 
I'm hosting this month and
our theme is connection. 

 June 6th is a significant day.

Yes, it's D-day and this year marks the 75th anniversary.

It's also the day my parents married, June 6, 1941.

It's also the day my dad died, June 6, 1980,

on their 39th wedding anniversary.
(My sis pointed out to me that today
also marks 39 years since daddy died.)

And so I chose significance as my theme for this month.

But each of these significant dates

(except for D-day) is highly personal. 

So I switched our prompt for June to connection,

a significant word for our spiritual journeys. 

Of course the first thing that comes to mind is connecting with God. And there are many ways that can happen. For some of us it occurs in daily quiet time and prayer. "Be still and know that I am God," is one of my favorite passages of scripture. 

Sometimes we feel connected to God by the glory of nature. I cannot walk in the woods without celebrating the glory that is manifest there. I've loved the words to the hymn "How Great Thou Art" since I was a young child. "When through the woods and forest glades I wander . . . Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art!"

Sometimes we feel connected to God when we recognize His hand at work in our lives. This happened last month when I was in Texas helping my older sister move into her new home. We had just completed a shopping expedition to Target. She was exiting the mobile chair she used to navigate the aisles and the parking lot. I was getting into my seat on the passenger side of the car when I heard her call out, "Oh no, I'm falling." I couldn't get there in time to help. By the time I came around the car, there she was, on the ground, legs splayed in front of her. When someone stopped to ask how she could help, I sent her into Target to ask for assistance. 

Suddenly, a man stepped over from the next row of parked cars and said, "I can pick her up." I immediately replied, "No, you can't. Someone is coming from Target to help us. Wait for someone else to help you." But he insisted that he could pick her up. Sliding his arms under her arms, he lifted her and held her there briefly while she gained her footing. I truly believe that the Lord was looking out for us that day and sent this man to help us. I'm sure the Target employees would have insisted that we wait for an ambulance. I still have no idea how he was able to lift her from a seated position on the ground, but he did. And I believe he was there at that time for a reason. He was our angel!

Another way that we connect with God is when we trust in Him, when we trust in the power of faith to overcome fear and worry. I love this verse, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."  Anne Lamott says it this way: "...we do the next right thing. We tell the truth...We remember mustard seeds, that the littlest things will have great results. We do the smallest, realest, most human things. We water that which is dry." We connect with God and then we draw on His power to meet the challenges in our lives.

If you're interested, here's a post I discovered when I googled connect with God. You take a quiz to discover your worship personality and then you're directed to a variety of ways to connect with God via your particular worship personality.  

I'm looking forward to reading your posts about connection. Leave a comment with your link and I'll round up the posts. (Sorry, I don't know how to use Mr. Linky.)

Ruth reminds us that our connections are fraught with the pain of separation. She shares reassuring words from Henri J. M. Nouwen's book, Life of the Beloved. 

Irene shares what helps her feel connected and a book she's reading from every day this year. 

Margaret discovers a new connection to a friend after a funeral. She shares a poem and encourages us to seek meaningful, loving, and God-filled connections.  

Karen shares a new-to-me poem and reminds us that while connection may be what it's all about, it's also challenging work which her faith community has spent some time pursuing together. 

Carol has experienced a week filled with connections. She connects us each season with her gallery walks of photos and poetry. Her post is no exception. We're transported and connected to her garden by her words and poetry. 

Celebrating Three Months!

I used to participate in a weekly celebrate post. When our group evaporated, I decided to do a monthly celebrate post. I knew I had two months to write about, but a look back at my blog revealed that it's been three months since I celebrated. 

March 2019

• Our yearly book club retreat  
• Will's birthday
   
• Christmas gift massage (nothing beats it for total relaxation)
• Thirty-one days of slicing for the Slice of Life Challenge summarized in my post, Looking Back  
• This glorious sunset on the last day of March
  
   

April 2019

• Grandson Robby's arrival
  
  
  
  
• Love these pics of springtime in DC

• Celebrating National Poetry Month with a Skype visit with niece Kara's 4th graders in Oklahoma

 

May 2019

• Brothers connect over a chat about cars

• Our grandparent group met at Island Books to discuss Anna  Quindlen's new book Nanaville: Adventures in Grandparenting
  

• Sara and her boys 
  
•  Mother's Day in Virginia with Blake, Teddy, and Stefi
  
  

• Florence, Final Day of Fun completes my series of photo blog posts about my trip to Italy in February
• A belated celebration of my1,000th post
• Trip to Texas to help my sis move into her new home 
  
  I know she will be in good hands with Michael and his sweet family close by.