How to use this Page

After no Pulitzer Prize for fiction winner last year, the Pulitzer jury picked The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson for the fiction prize in 2013. See all the finalists at this link.

Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar won the drama prize. Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam by Fredrik Logevall won for history.

The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss won biography and Stag’s Leap by Sharon Olds won poetry. Finally, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America by Gilbert King won general nonfiction.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This week Caroline Kennedy appeared at a New York City Barnes & Noble to celebrate National Poetry Month and promote the release of her new book, She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems. Poet Sharon Olds (who has two pieces in Kennedy’s book)  joined her onstage.

Kennedy (pictured, via) explained why she took on this project: “One of the reasons why I worked on this book is because so many people think of poetry as a solitary art form; one poet writing alone and the reader far away. But, I think what we all see here today is that poetry can really be of value for a community … And since poems are meant to be heard, reading a poem really starts a conversation.”

Olds read several poems including “Leap Before You Look” by W.H. Auden, “to my last period” by Lucille Clifton, her own “High School Senior.” One fan requested “i carry your heart with me (i carry it in” by e.e. cummings, and Olds complied. Kennedy concluded the evening by personally reading “Chocolate” by Rita Dove.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

#18 in on ongoing series of posts celebrating the alphabet.


photo by tenebrismo.

I am quite quazy about Q.

Quick and quiet, quacking or quaking, Q's a letter of quintessential quality.

Unlike O, who sometimes doesn't know which end is up, Q sits next to me on the couch and stays put. I like a letter who's quaint, a little quirky, sometimes questioning, always forever faithful to U.


photos by jazzejunqueinc and crissygarcia333.

You know how Ramona Quimby signs her name, drawing Q like a little cat? Ever since I saw that purr-fect Q, I've been a goner for Q's tail; it's got to be the coolest fashion accessory in the alphabet!

Okay. Right now, say "q." See how it makes you purse your lips just so, like you're ready for a kiss? ☺ I love that!

Now, look at your keyboard. Q occupies the farthest left position there (good politics, eh?). See how the word, "Qwerty" is spelled out in the second row? After decades of typing, I only recently learned what QWERTY is, and now it's my favorite Q word.


   Sholes Qwerty Keyboard Layout (1878)

Qwerty is the most widely used keyboard layout on English language typewriters and computers, patented in the 1870's by editor and printer, Christopher Sholes. Seems he spent years trying to find a layout that would prevent typebar clashes and jams. That meant studying the most common letter combinations in words, and arranging the keys so the typist would have to stretch and/or alternate hands to type them! That's why "q" is left hand, "u" is right hand.


First commercially successful typewriter (Sholes and Glidden by Remington, 1874),
(photo from sftrajan's photostream).

Another reason to love Q? It's withstood much malignment over the years. Like X and Z, it's not called upon quite as often as everyone else to form words. Moreover, Q's been called redundant (bite your tongue, Quintilian!) -- C and K (Q's staunch rivals) can easily stand in for Q without a fuss (quail = kwail, liquor = licor). Ben Jonson said things were just fine with Old English until the French (Norman Conquest), made Q part of the game: "The English Saxons knew not this halting Q, with her waiting woman 'u' after her."


photo by Afid wa Istafid.

As for me, a firm believer in minding her Ps and Qs, I think life would be quite bland without the exotic, specialized je ne sais quoi Q brings to Suzy Q, Bar-B-Q, Q & A, Q-Tips, and that rapturous word, "quiver." *fans self* And of course, there's this exquisite poem by Sharon Olds. True to form, Q knows how to really bring it.

Q
by Sharon Olds


photos by lowtech511 and sky_mitch.

Q belonged to Q.&.A.,
to questions, and to foursomes, and fractions,
it belonged to the Queen, to Quakers, to quintets --
within its compound in the dictionary dwelt
the quill pig, and quince beetle,
and quetzal, and quail. Quailing was part of Q's
quiddity -- the Q quaked
and quivered, it quarrelled and quashed. No one was
quite sure where it had come from, but it had
travelled with the K, they were the two voiceless
velar Semitic consonants, they went
back to the desert, to caph and koph.
And K has done a lot better --
29 pages in Webster's Third
to Q's 13. And though Q has much
to be proud of, from Q.& I. detector
through quinoa, sometimes these days the letter
looks like what medical students called the
Q face -- its tongue lolling out.
And sometimes when you pass a folded
newspaper you can hear from within it
a keening, from all the Q's who are being
set in type, warboarded,
made to tell and tell of the quick and the
Iraq dead.

~ from The New Yorker (August 10, 2009).

When I first read the poem, the ending stunned me. Everything was kind of playful until Q's final appearance, at the end of a word. Talk about surprise and impact.

What's your favorite Q word? (One Q word I don't like = query.)

Enjoy the rest of the poems being shared around the blogosphere by checking in with Kelly Herold at Big A little a.


Easy ham and broccoli quiche recipe here (Pillsbury.com).

                                     ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

DID YOU KNOW?

♥ When Remington mechanics finalized the qwerty layout before manufacturing the first commercially successful TYPE WRITER, they moved the R so that the word "typewriter" could be typed solely from the top row of letters (to impress customers).

♥ The first Remington typewriters were mounted on sewing tables and embellished like sewing machines to appeal to women. Instead of a lever, one used the treadle to return the carriage. Read more at the Virtual Typewriter Museum.

       

♥ Qwerty favors lefties; thousands of words can be typed using only the left hand vs. only about 200 using the right.

More alphabetica here.

 Certified authentic alphabetica. Handmade just for you with love and quivering loins quiche. 

Copyright © 2009 Jama Rattigan of jama rattigan's alphabet soup. All rights reserved.