crooked house

Poetry Friday: Elizabeth Bishop

You must go read Maud on the brilliant but famously unproductive Elizabeth Bishop.

A couple of months ago on a local CBC radio program I heard that journalists from the BBC were in the midst of doing a radio documentary (scroll down to read the description) on Bishop and the importance of her childhood home here in Great Village, Nova Scotia:

For Bishop, Great Village was a place of comfort and security, where she was cared for by her grandparents and embraced by the community. It was also a place of distress – her father had recently died and her mother was committed to a hospital for the mentally ill following a nervous breakdown.

Subsequently, a chill runs through Bishop's writing – such as snow, icebergs and frost – and also a sense of precariousness of being on the edge of something deep and dangerous, like the ocean or air into which she could disappear.

I found the description of that  show -- apparently Lavinia Greenlaw, the poet who made the radio piece, even slept in Bishop's bedroom -- but unfortunately the audio doesn't seem to be online. I'm desperate to hear it. So my Poetry Friday contribution this week is my favourite Elizabeth Bishop poem  "One Art". Go read it. And then go here to read a couple of  interesting paragraphs about the evolution of that perfect poem (scroll down to the very end of the review).

Poetry Friday is hosted this week by Two Writing Teachers.

A Christmas Tree for the Bookish

This is the work of IJM Studio. Via hoi pippo.

What say we all agree to construct one of these book trees  in our homes and call it a day as far as the  Christmas prep goes? I'm already starting to feel a little overwhelmed. I've got two days to put together that wretched Martha Stewart paper cottage/advent calendar I recently bought for Luke. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I should know better than to tangle with Martha. Six years ago I tried to construct a Christmas castle she'd made out of sugar cubes. Actually, she'd made hers out of special sugar tablets which were more brick-like in shape. I couldn't find any of those so I opted to use regular old sugar cubes instead. Big mistake. They threw all the measurements off and everything went wonky. I worked away on the thing for weeks -- literally weeks -- before I dumped it all in the garbage one night in a fit of temper. This was the Christmas right after 9/11. It was an emotionally difficult time for all of us. That's my excuse. For thinking it was a good idea to build a Christmas castle out of sugar cubes in the first place, not for the fit of temper.

I want to be a crafting queen. But I most emphatically am not. If you've ever clicked on the links in my blogroll, you'll know I've included a number of sites that display the gorgeous handmade items of craft bloggers.  Some people surf porn sites. I surf craft ones. Drooling in perhaps a similar way.

And now that I've taken a closer look at the book tree, I'm starting to think that it looks deceptively simple. It might be harder to pull off than I originally thought. Unless I enlist the help of my resident architect. He's very familiar with the material:

Book-Signing Proposal

On a recent trip to the Philippines, Neil Gaiman helps one of his fans propose to his girlfriend (also a big fan). It's a sweet story. And Neil Gaiman seems like a really nice guy.

Free Quentin Blake and Raymond Briggs Bookplates

And there are oodles more from many fabulous children's illustrators (for noncommercial use). Via Chicken Spaghetti.

What the Corporate Gingerbread Man Says

The other day when I posted a picture of Luke and a gingerbread man toy, I did not announce that the gingerbread man came with a McDonald's Happy Meal. It was one of a series of talking toys based on characters from the latest Shrek movie and clearly part of a massive marketing campaign designed to prey on the minds of young children. I figured that those of  you who let your kids frequent "the Big M" (as Luke calls it) would recognize the toy and those of you who do not would be none the wiser  -- and therefore you wouldn't look down on us with pity and concern. Or call social services. Obviously, I'm blowing my cover now. Because this is important.

I was sure that when you press the gumdrop button on the gingerbread man's tummy he says, "Don't bite!"* And then when you press it again he says, "Not my gumdrop...button!" But tonight I've learned that there is some confusion about this. No one else seems to think he's saying "Don't bite!" At least, not among those who have taken the time to post their translations online at Yahoo! Answers.

By the way, get a load of how Yahoo! Answers decides on the response to a particular question: they tally the votes of random visitors to the site. I hope that particular kind of "research" doesn't take off any time soon. "Should I make the incision here or here," muses your surgeon in the operating room. "Nurse! Go online and check Yahoo! Answers. See how many people voted for the left side of the head versus the right."

But I digress. Thirty-eight percent of visitors to the Yahoo! Answers site voted for this answer:

When you press the button the first time he says "ahh". The second time he says " Not the gumdrop buttons." He said both of those in the Shrek movies.

And no one voted for the answer in which the gingerbread man says:

I don't have a stomach and this place still makes me sick.

As Agnes Repplier (whoever she is) said, "Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements."

*If the gingerbread man isn't saying "Don't bite!" he should be. Marketing people for  McDonald's and/or Shrek: feel free to give me a call.

Children's Books That You Love -- And That Your Child Does Not

A couple of months ago I picked up A House Is a House for Me. I love everything about it. Luke's eyes glaze over as soon as I bring it out.

It's the kind of book he should like. The detailed illustrations by Betty Fraser are absolute knock-outs, with a real 70s flavour. (That makes sense, of course, since it was published in 1978.) The text, by Mary Ann Hoberman, is written in energetic rhyme. It starts out with simple ideas about what lives where:

A web is a house for a spider.
A bird builds its nest in a tree.
There is nothing so snug as a bug in a rug
And a house is a house for me!

And moves on to more esoteric notions:

Perhaps I have started farfetching....
Perhaps I am stretching things some....
A mirror's a house for reflections....
A throat is a house for a hum....
But once you get started in thinking,
You think and you think and you think
How pockets are houses for pennies,
And pens can be houses for ink.

Actually, there's something about the whimsical logic of A House Is a House for Me that reminds me of The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown. And Luke does love that one. My fingers are crossed that he'll grow into A House Is a House for Me.

Another picture book I  like -- and that Luke doesn't much care for -- is Robert Munsch's sentimental Love You Forever. You probably know the one. It features scenes in the life of a mother/son duo, starting when the son's a baby and ending with him all grown up and looking after both his ancient mother and his own baby daughter. Maybe the refrain rings a bell:

I 'll love you forever,
I'll like you for always,
As long as I'm living,
My baby you'll be.

David can't read that one without welling up. (You can read the entire text here.) I have a friend, a cynic and a teacher, who insists that the book isn't for children at all -- it's an evil marketing ploy designed to take advantage of overly sappy parents.

Come to think of it, this works the other way, too. Luke really enjoys his Thomas books and I'm always trying to get out of reading the boring things to him. And of course there are some books that gave me the warm fuzzies when I was a kid and that leave me stone cold now. I loved the entire syrupy and formulaic Bobbsey Twins series, for instance. I think The Bobbsey Twins' Wonderful Secret was the first chapter book I struggled through. I was in the first grade and the teacher, who was ancient, had an equally ancient copy of that one, most likely a first edition, in her meagre classroom library.

How about you? Are there any books you love that your kids detest -- or vice versa? Any books you can't believe you loved when you were young?

Fairy Tale Review and Tin House's Fantastic Women

A while ago the lovely Maud sent me the Green Issue of the  Fairy Tale Review, an annual journal devoted to contemporary literary writing inspired in some way by fairy tales. (I love the way the issues are each given the name of a colour, like the series of Fairy Books published in the late 1890s, early 1900s by Andrew Lang. Remember those? The Blue Fairy Book, The Crimson Fairy Book,  The Yellow Fairy Book and so on.)  I've been enjoying it very much. As a sucker for economical short shorts that can suggest an entire universe and tell a story in very few words, I was particularly taken by Ayse Papatya Bucak's "Once There Was, Once There Wasn't" which you can read in its entirety here. (Scroll down.) I was also taken by the first chapter of Stacey Richter's  novel FAIRYLAND. You can read more of that same novel, I think, as "The Doll Awakens" in the excellent Fantastic Women issue of Tin House, which I also received recently. Both of these disturbing pieces by Richter feature an extremely creepy "living" doll, a particular fascination of mine.

Do You Speak Squeak?

Luke can talk now. It's amazing  -- and yet we hardly take the time to notice. He's gone from an utterly baffling, bawling baby to a small person who can usually articulate  his wants and needs, even if his speech, particularly the syntax, is still a bit like a space alien's. If that alien learned to speak English in Britain. He's got a strangely British accent at this point -- an exaggeratedly cheery intonation and careful, crisp enunciation. The best part: every "er" comes out "ah." As in "See you lat-ah!" I keep expecting him to ask for "bangers and mash" for his "tea." Along with "oh, plums" some of his favourite exclamations right now are "Oh butter fingers!" and "Oh my goodness, me."

But sometimes, when he is particularly hungry or tired or bored or frustrated (or when the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter's aligned with Mars), Luke chooses to speak the language of Squeak instead of English. Like the !Ora language of Africa, which includes click sounds not heard in many other languages, Squeak uses sounds not generally found in English. They're not whimpers. They're not moans. They're not quite whines. They are short, sharp, high-pitched squeaks. Sometimes he deigns to throw in a little body language to help me along, such as pointing, jerking his head, or making some exaggerated facial expression that usually involves bulging eyes and a downward turn of the mouth. I've gone from frantically trying to interpret each squeak to pretending I'm a real xenophobe. "I don't speak Squeak," I tell him. "And I have no interest in learning. I'm still trying to learn French and that's bad enough."

It takes me right back to the days (and endless nights) when Luke was still a baby who communicated only through shrieking cries. And Priscilla Dunstan, that woman who claims to be able to teach you to translate specific baby sounds  into specific baby needs, hadn't been on Oprah yet.

According to Dunstan, "Owh" means "I'm sleepy". "Heh" means "Change me." "Neh" means "I'm so hungry." "Eh" means "Burp me." And "Eairh" means "I have wind." I'm pretty sure Luke, whose usual cry sounded nothing like any of those and more like a cross between an air raid warning and a dying buffalo, was saying, "#@%# you! You don't have a #@%#ing clue, do you? Somebody #@%#ing get me a #@%#ing mother who #@%#ing knows what she's doing!"

Hmm. Maybe that's what he's been saying in Squeak all weekend. It's been a long one.

The Din-Din Man and Poetry Friday

Here is Luke with the "din-din" man.

And here he is explaining why the "din-din" man can't say "cheese" for the camera. (He can only say, "Don't bite!" and "Oh my gumdrop...button.")

Gingerbread Children

by Ilo Orleans (from the out-of-print collection Gingerbread Children)

Gingerbread children
Stand in a row--
Very good children
Always, you know.
The never will jump
Or kick or leap.
Or start to cry when
It's time to sleep.
They never run off
Or look around
And no one has heard
Them make a sound.
Gingerbread children
Are fine to meet;
But, much better stiff;
They're good to eat.

Poetry Friday is being hosted this week by Susan Taylor Brown.

I've been fascinated with The Gingerbread Man (who was considerably less well-behaved than those gingerbread children in the poem) since before Luke was born. Once we decided we wanted to have a baby, I had no trouble getting pregnant. No, my problem was staying pregnant -- I had four miscarriages before Luke "stuck." At the same time, I was trying to write short stories (for adults) with imagery from fairy and folk tales. (Those links are to some very, very short -- and very tongue-in-cheek -- ones.) I never did finish my version of The Gingerbread Man featuring a couple struggling with infertility. I'll have to get back to it.

Jan Brett has a beautiful version of the tale (for children) called The Gingerbread Baby. She provides free masks of the various characters on her site.

Anne Frank's Tree Granted a Reprieve

Edwin Koot, of the Dutch Tree Foundation,  was interviewed on that same episode of "As It Happens." Koot is trying to save the chestnut tree that grew outside Anne Frank's window in Amsterdam. The tree, which Anne wrote about extensively in her diary, represented freedom to her. She wrote:

"Nearly every morning I go to the attic to blow the stuffy air out of my lungs. From my favourite spot on the floor I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree, on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver. As long as this exists, I thought, and I may live to see it, this sunshine, the cloudless skies, while this lasts I cannot be unhappy."

The tree is still there outside the Anne Frank Museum today but only a quarter of it is still actually alive. The city and the museum believes it's a danger to the secret annex itself and want to cut it down.

The Anne Frank Tree, a beautiful interactive monument where you can leave your own "leaf" on the "virtual" tree, has a webcam  view of the actual tree and a lot of good information about its relevance and also about its diseased state.