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Howdy, Campers! Happy Poetry Friday...and Happy Internet Day on October 29th!
The P.F. link and my poem are below (and trust me--today's host posts a tasty Poetry Friday!)
The Internet: it all began 46 years ago with Leonard KleinrockWith this post, TeachingAuthors launches a short series celebrating the birth of the internet. And we want to hear from
you: has the internet changed you? In what ways? What comes to mind when you think of the internet?
According to
TheInternetDay.com, on October 29, 1969, under the supervision of UCLA computer science professor Leonard Kleinrock, the first message was sent over an internet connection.
(Click here for the sound of connecting to the internet via dial-up...)
When I think of the internet, I think of moving to a new town, into our new house and connecting to the internet, in 1994. Not long after, my friend Barney Saltzberg (whom we've
featured several times on this blog) and I began to
email each other. We could read each other's thoughts--instantly! We could complete each other's sentences! We could talk deep into the night without speaking! We could collaborate on stories through the air! It was
A-freakin'-MAZING.
My. Brain. Exploded. Were our lives ever going to be the same again?
Mine was not. Not long after, I met
Courtney Campbell, who regularly tours schools in Europe. She was incredibly generous, sharing the contact information of her host in Germany. If she had simply given me his snail mail address, I may have stuck that note in my desk and never done a thing about it. Instead, she gave me magic: his email address. I emailed him that evening: "Hello! Would you be interested in having an author visit your schools?"
In the morning, his reply arrived: "How soon can you come?"
And so began several years of my touring schools in Europe. Yup. My life had changed forever.
When I think of the internet, I also think of how each freshly-baked email, each amazing link, each post by every dear friend is a pretty shiny thing which grabs my attention...again and again and again...
...wait, what was my point?
My brain on the internet.
from www.gifbay.com
...and I see how the very structure of my life has changed since that initial euphoria Barney and I tasted, splashing in the shallow end of the 'net.
When I think of the internet, I also feel weighted down.
Off to chop down a few emails...
These days the internet is an unending desire to send a friendly and intelligent reply to every message in my inbox.
It's perpetually polishing my shiny online portrait.
It's forever unfinished homework.
How did we go so quickly from "Oh, WOW--this internet thing is
AMAZING!" to "I can't drive with you to the party tonight--I'll meet you there. I need to finish my blog post and I have too many emails to answer" which--and I swear this is true--I just said five minutes ago (paraphrased) to my husband.
Still,
when I think of the internet, I
also think of Paul Simon's stunning song (co-written by Forere Mothoeloa),
The Boy in The Bubble, on Simon's Graceland album, 1986.
Here is the chorus:
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long-distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry
(here are the rest of the lyrics)
(If you'd like to simply listen to the song, then you can stare at a static image of the Graceland album's cover as you listen here. On the other hand, if you'd like to see Simon's official music video--i.e. pretty shiny stuff--here 'tis.) In the spirit of that song, here's a poem I wrote in April 2012--which I rewrote last night and again (and again) today--thank you, Bruce and ADR, through the miracle of the internet!
MIRACLES AND WONDER
by April Halprin Wayland
"The average farmer’s wife is one of the most patient and overworked women of the time." ~ The American Farmer, 1884
Illinois, spring,
I am descending fifteen flights of stairs
from my lonely hotel room
to a breakfast of buttered toast and eggs.
Each empty floor’s the same:
the same metal stairs,
the same smell of dust and cleanser,
the same beige walls...
so I pull my cell out of a zippered pocket,
dial my sister to say hi, to keep me company,
and as her phone rings in California,
I am descending in time.
I imagine a prairie wife,
one who helped lace the land with barbed wire,
churned butter, gathered eggs, fed the fire,
birthed and buried babies.
No time for mourning.
As winds scratched the plains,
she murmured to the hens.
She had no other company.
She might have called her sister
if she had had a phone,
might never have wandered off,
head tilted back, mumbling to the wide sky.
Each day was the same,
the same metal horizon,
the same smell of dust and scrub,
the same beige crops...her solitary lot.
If only a phone
instead of a lonely yearning;
with a single cell she might have kept
her own fire burning.
poem and drawing (c) 2015 by April Halprin Wayland. All rights reserved.
So now,
when I think of the internet--when I think of
any technology--I may be overwhelmed (a dilemma which the next generation of users will undoubtedly solve) but I'm also singing about Miracles and Wonder.
Are you?
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby don’t cry
Don’t cry
posted in waves of wonder by April Halprin Wayland
My mini-column for last week’s New York Times Magazine is on poetry and song. King David viewed them as natural companions, but these days they’re seen as distinct, unrelated arts.
Accepting Spain’s Prince of Asturias Award for Letters recently, musician and poet Leonard Cohen implicitly took David’s view. He spoke of learning a progression of six flamenco chords from a mysterious young Spaniard who soon killed himself. “It was those six chords,” Cohen said, “it was that guitar pattern that has been the basis of all my songs and all my music… Everything that you have found favorable in my songs, in my poetry are inspired by this soil.”
And he expressed unease over the honor. “Poetry comes from a place that no one commands and no one conquers. So I feel somewhat like a charlatan to accept an award for an activity which I do not command. In other words, if I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often.”
Related: Christopher Ricks, Jonathan Lethem, and Lucinda Williams on the case for Dylan as poet; PEN New England’s new prize for excellence in song lyrics, judged by Paul Simon, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Paul Muldoon, and others; The Village Voice’s jokey list of contenders for the award; and, courtesy of my friend Michael Taeckens, Rimbaud and Jim Morrison. And, just for fun, Roger Miller and Dave Hickey on Hank Williams’ hooked-up verse.
April 5: The prompt on day five of the Poem A Day Challenge was to “… write a TMI poem (or too much information poem).” This one gave me a bit of a creative challenge—not so much the poetry part but how to limit the limitless view of the subject, yet capture its essence without writing "too much." Here goes....
Too Much Information—May I Have Some More, Please
By Bill Kirk
I woke up this morning
And what did I see?
Too much information
Surrounding me.
A common lament, wouldn’t you say?
What is it about information
That makes it a problem to solve instead of a gift?
Are we any better off after being assaulted
By TV, radio, print media and other sensory messages
For most of every twenty-four hours?
How many words, images, sounds and tactile tidbits—
Often classified as news—
Are insufficient,
Sufficient,
Or too much to process?
Is information simply a stimulant
Which some need more than others?
Are some never sated and others overwhelmed?
Has evolution cyber-adapted the few with filters
To disregard all but the most essential?
Or are we turning off even important stuff
Just to escape information overload?
Alas, perhaps it is only the
Useless or unwanted information we rail against.
Do we really want to hear it announced
On our favorite talk show,
That a trans-gender someone
Is having sex and lots of it?
Or perhaps, instead, we secretly want to know how.
Should we be giddy or feel guilty
Having the knowledge that someone previously anonymous
Has become more comfortable
With their newly recognized
Multi-morphed identity?
In an instant forty million people
Are now routinely exposed
To what was previously private.
Should it still be?
Where is Paul Simon in our moment of cultural need?
Who will be the one to pen "Bluetooth Conversations"?
Who will immortalize the public musings of our
Unknown neighbor on the metro train,
As he shares the results of his colonoscopy?
And what about those pesky genital warts?
“Yeah, the doctor told me they aren’t contagious.
(Now Yelling) No, I said contagious.
Reception in this tunnel is really the pits.
I said pits.”
Pardon me, but that’s more than I bargained for
On my commute to work.
And yet we want more….
April 6: “…For this prompt, write an ekphrastic poem. According to John Drury's The Poetry Dictionary, ekphrastic poetry is "Poetry that imitates, describes, critiques, dramatizes, reflects upon, or otherwise responds to a work of nonliterary art, especially the visual." So, I've provided links to two pieces of art, and I want you to pick one (or both) to write an ekphrastic poem. (It would be helpful for you to mention which art you picked.)
1. Pocahontas, by Annie Leibovitz
2. Flight of the Witches, by Francisco de Goya”
EKPHRASTIC? Who could have guessed? Setting aside the odd name of this poetic form, for me these kinds of prompts (using images as a foil for the written word)trigger a quick creative response. In a way, maybe it’s a bit of the same process (although from opposite sides) an artist goes through when handed a story to illustrate. Artists react to the words. In this prompt, writers are asked to react to a visual image. I chose the image of Pocahontas.
Run, Pocahontas! Run!
By Bill Kirk
Run, Pocahontas! Run! The British are coming!
Your carefree days as a 12-year old princess
Will soon be a distant memory.
Run, Pocahonta! Run! The warmth of
Indian Summer days will soon enough
Be replaced with Northern Virginia snow.
Run, Pocahontas! Run! Two years after
Meeting John Smith, he will be injured and
Return to England in 1609.
Run, Pocahonta
Reviva Schermbrucker will be presenting a Writing Course in Johannesburg from 10 to 14 March 2008. See right-hand side for course details and how to register.
Born in Israel in 1954, Reviva arrived with her family in South Africa aged 5 and a half. Reviva became a South African in Johannesburg in the 60’s. After matriculating, she attended WITS (the University of Witwatersrand) and began a Fine Art degree. She completed her undergraduate degree in Philadelphia ,USA and followed it up with a Masters in Fine Art from the University of Wisconsin. She returned to South Africa to a life in Cape Town, married to Peter. Before and in between raising their two sons, she taught art at what was then known as the Cape Technikon and at various schools. But teaching has always been a second choice. Her real passion is making books.
Her first foray into children’s books was as a writer. Charlie’s House ( Songololo Books, David Philip) was illustrated by Niki Daly and first appeared in 1989.
A Child’s Garden (Tafelberg, 1992) is a practical book with a dual audience. It is chock full of fanciful ideas to be experienced in the garden by both children and their parents.
Reviva worked as a materials developer for ELRU (the Early learning Resource Unit) for 10 years producing children’s picture books and readers - including some that fit into matchboxes! (The Matchbox Library) - picture packs, an unique set of alphabet cards (Ah Bekutheni?), innovative games including updated card games (Snap! and Happy Families in South Africa) and a foundation phase numeracy kit (We all count!), award-winning posters and even the lyrics for a musical tape.
Cindy ( ELRU, 2001)is one of the five books in the Keteka series of readers which gives voice to actual children living in situations or communities which rarely make it into the world of children’s books.
Am I a Lion that Eats People? ( ELRU, 2004) is one of four books in the Mielie Book series which addresses tough issues such as poverty, prejudice and stereotyping in fresh and child-friendly ways.
Lucky Fish! ( Jacana, 2003) is a full-length novel for teenagers and adults based on fact. It is set in Johannesburg during the 1960s, and is told by a 13-year old boy named Steven whose parents, Ivor and Lucy, become political prisoners.
Alongside her work for NGO’s and educational publishers such as ELRU, PRAESA (Project for Alternative Education in South Africa) Maskew Miller Longman, Shooter and Shuter etc.– what she calls her ‘bread and butter work’-- Reviva has continued to write and illustrate children’s picture books for the general market
The Jam Tin and the Teacup ( Songololo Books, New Africa Books, 2002) follows the conversation between an endearing orangutan that emerges from the label of a jam tin (APE !– ricot) and a rather uppity damsel who is painted on the side of a porcelain teacup. An African Christmas Cloth, an advent calendar for children in Calendar form, was published by Jacana in 2005.
The works above are a sample of all she has produced. There is a novella for newly literate adults, a number of teachers’ guides and a whole lot of early readers. As Reviva says, “One has to keep producing in this field if one is to keep the wolf from the door.”
Are you tired of reading predictable stories to the children in your life and think you could do better? Do you have a great idea for an engaging picture book? Do you want to be the next Dr. Seuss, Eoin Colfer or J.K. Rowling? This practical, interactive course is designed to help you turn your great idea for a children’s book into a reality. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Run over four Saturday mornings in November from 9am - 1pm at Sasani Studios, Highlands North, Joburg, Write a Children’s Book will be led by two highly experienced South African children’s authors and editors, Linda Weber and Darrel Bristow-Bovey. Numbers are limited, to ensure individual attention, and the total cost is R2,800.
Write a Children’s Book will cover the specific challenges of writing for children as opposed to adults and examine such topics as: issues of plotting; how to speak to your readers (rather than at them or down to them); the importance of character and, above all, the importance of not being boring!
It will also include a session with a children’s book illustrator plus a Meet the Publishers session, where you can hear directly from children's book publishers what they look for in a manuscript, how to present your ideas and how they approach and market children's literature.
A course overview, tutor biogs and registration details can be found on www.creativeindustry.co.za
For further information contact:
Fiona Walsh on 072 298 7736 or email [email protected]
