My mom and stepdad and sister were here for two weeks from the States and I taught my mom to do the mosaics I've been learning. First we handpaint the plate glass, then cut it into the desired size and shape, and then use it for mirror frames, boxes and any number of things we decided to use it on. It was fun.

The other thing I've been up to? Isn't he cute?

For those of you who felt even the slightest bit of jealousy that I was able to spend the last few days in beautiful Rio de Janeiro, you should know the universe has a way of correcting itself. :)

Our car trip home was punctuated by one child vomiting all over the car, one car air conditioner that decided to stop working, and one flat tire. It was a lovely few days in Rio, with a not so lovely trip home. Honestly though, ANY car trip in Brazil in which you make it all the way home alive is a good trip. So I guess I can't complain.

When you're in Rio,
with Copacabana sand between your toes,
staring at Sugarloaf Mountain,
drinking juice through a straw
straight from a fresh coconut,
there is no need for a poetry post
because you're
absolutely
positively
swimming
in puro Poesia.

Who else is waiting on news? I find when I am waiting I have wild swings between hope and hopelessness, between expectation and self-protection. It's not easy to maintain a sense of detachment from the possibilities, is it? I am a dreamer and there is a part of me that wants to let my hope fly free, unclipped by the realities of the publishing industry. And then there is the other more practical, realistic part of me that knows there are some things you just can't control.

For me, though, hope always wins out. It means that in the end I'm sometimes even more disappointed than I would have been if I hadn't allowed myself to hope, but I think it's better for my creativity. I don't think my muse has a realistic bone in her body and she doesn't like it much when I try to talk sense into her or try to reason with her about the truths of publishing. When I do, she just shuts up for a while. So, that leaves me vulnerable to disappointment. Can there be any other way?


HOPE

Hope refuses to perch
as if she had arrived for only a visit,
like so many flitting wings
on the branches of a bloodwood tree,
weaving instead feathers from her breast
into the fabric of my soul.

Her fussing brings pain,
reminding me of a presence I’ve tried
to ignore, preferring instead

a familiar landscape of barren desert,
averting my eyes from the want within,
to grow as if shielded from sun, protected
from possibilities until they would
weigh my branches with promise.

But hope, feathered hope, is already here,
nestled so sweetly for laying,
and I await with the pain
of expectation.

--- Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

My children would like a dog. Really, really, really much. But, it's so difficult. We travel a lot and we live in an apartment in the middle of a large city. We'd need a small dog, that doesn't shed and that is easily housebroken. I keep trying to push the conversation to the background, not because I don't want a dog, but because we need time to figure out what kind and how much and all that. We can't just go out and buy the first dog we think looks cute.

But alas, the conversation surged back in full force a couple of days ago when we ran across this poem during reading time. And upon being reminded of what it means to love (and be loved by) a dog, I'm not so sure I want the decision delayed any further. Now, I too want a dog really, really, really much.

Chums

He sits and begs; he gives a paw;
He is as you can see,
The finest dog you ever saw,
And he belongs to me.

He follows everywhere I go
And even when I swim.
I laugh because he thinks, you know,
That I belong to him.


---Arthur Guiterman

There's actually one more verse to this poem but it's not printed in our edition of Poems to Read to the Very Young selected by Josette Frank. The entire poem can be read here.

My son is 7 1/2 years old. He's beginning to make the transition between books that are for babies and books that are for big kids. He can handle a chapter book on his own now and it's still a recent enough accomplishment that I can see the pride he feels in it. But he also loves art, making his own art, as well as looking at art made by masters of the craft. So he secretly still loves picture books too. More than ever, or maybe still just as much as ever, he pores over the artistic details in the art in a picture book. He notices more and more each time and to be honest, learns more and more about story-telling by studying these books.

I wrote today's poem a while back, but it perfectly describes how my son feels about his picture books at this phase of his life.


PICTURES

I still like your pictures;
there's so much to see.
The boy on these pages
reminds me of me.
Your story might be for
a younger aged kid,
but I like your pictures
and I always did.


---Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

Five minutes, that is. Today's topic is hairbrush. Because it was the first thing I looked up and saw when I needed a topic.

Time starts now.


Hairbrush


Prickly stick, stuck
in my long thick mane
I stomp and stamp, steamed
as you scratch my tender scalp
and stretch my sunny tresses
to their breaking point,
like straw snagged
in a pitchfork.


---Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved, meaning especially that I reserve the right to revise!)

Okay, now let's get to work revising. The above is just an example of ideas put down on paper in a five minute limit. I'm not sure there's anything there of use, though when I thought of hairbrush, I immediately thought of my four-year old daughter's contentious relationship with the hairbrush. So while I may not have captured that relationship in her true four-year old voice, it's a start. And that's what these five minute COP exercises are for. The true poem comes later when there is time for what I've written in the first five minutes to gel and grow and change into something that sings.

Like Sara Lewis Holmes, I enjoyed Kelly Fineman's post yesterday on revising poetry and couldn't pass up the chance to try my hand at her challenge to revise her sample sentence into something more poetry-like. With my brain in haiku mode yesterday, I took her sentence:

"Today I walked through the woods as the light faded, heedless of nature until a rustling noise drew my attention to a litter of raccoons near the stream."


And I came up with a haiku that almost manages to incorporate each of Kelly's details. I can't wait to see what Kelly came up with. I think she'll be posting it today if she hasn't yet. Sara posted her own here. And I hope a few more of you join in on the fun too. Here's my try:



Wandering creek side
Shadows swell between quiet pines
Raccoons surprise my thoughts

Barely four hours since I awoke and I'm already wishing for a nap. Lots happening here today and over the next few days, so the anticipation and worry and details have been keeping me up at night. So for all who didn't get a good night's sleep last night...



Bedtime

I cannot sleep.
I know I won’t.
Whenever I lay down,
I don’t.

A million thoughts
Dance in my head
And keep me tossing
In my bed.

Purple sheep
And racing cars
Rocket ships
That orbit Mars.

Pirate boats
And air balloons
Dishes running
off with spoons.

Thoroughbreds
And spelling tests
plot to rob me
of my rest.

Bedtime would not
be a pain
If I could just
Turn off my brain.


---Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

I've always been scared of haiku. Wait. That's not true. As a child, I loved haiku. They were easy. Count the syllables, write three lines and Bam! You're done. It's only been more recently that I've become afraid of haiku. It used to be 5 syllables/7 syllables/5 syllables and then there was the whole debate over how haiku can't really be written well in English because it's a Japanese art, so the syllable thing is just a guideline and in fact you could do 3/5/3 if you want...or even 4/6/3 or any approximation would work if you wanted, and it all became too wide open for me! If there was no set structure to ensure I was writing a haiku, then I felt more pressure to make sure there was deeper meaning behind my simple observation of the world. And what if that deeper meaning didn't come across? And then my haiku didn't even fit the syllabic format the reader expected? What if my haiku was crap?

But recently, I've decided that I like haiku again. There's nothing like it for capturing a single image, and for me, nothing like it for evoking the emotion of a memory I'd like to hold onto.

Here's one for today:



Small one sleeps,
sweat of dreams on brow,
laughter on lips.


---Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

I've told you before that my critique group plays a little five minute game every so often called Crap on Paper, or more commonly known as COP. Set the timer. You have five minutes to draft a poem on the topic of the day. Topics can be generated by choosing the first thing that comes to your mind, by opening a book and pointing to a word, or by randomly dialing a telephone number and asking the person who answers for a suggestion. Sometimes that last one doesn't go over so well.

Today's COP topic was chosen using the book option. (Randomly pulled Susan Taylor Brown's HUGGING THE ROCK off my newly organized bookshelf, randomly opened to page 113 and pointed to the word "pictures".) Five minutes starts now:

School Pictures


No matter how much
I plan for this day,
my hair always ends up
in wild disarray.
My shirt's always stained
with that afternoon's lunch.
My smile's always crooked.
My back's always hunched.
It looks like on purpose
I tried for my worst.
It's always this way.
I think that I'm cursed.


So, there you have it. Not exactly the best poem you've ever read. But if you look, you'll find a couple of places I can make better word choices or rephrase to make the meter a little smoother. Especially that next to last line.

Five minute poems aren't about perfection. It's the fastest way to get a quick draft down on paper without ANY pressure. You can always revise after the five minutes are up!

We're organizing the bookshelves in our house today. After waiting three months for a very special bookshelf to be built, and buying two others second hand, when they all suddenly arrived at the same time this morning, we had work to do! So we are. Working. Arranging bookshelves, making choices, organizing according to the way we think, as well as for aesthetic pleasure, and to tell you the truth, it's rather intimidating. But books! We love books and it will all be worth it in the end.

So, in honor of books, here's today's poem. (It's also been posted on my website, so some of you might have seen it before.)

MY FAVORITE BOOK

Come along, old friend.
Let’s walk your road again.
I know each bend,
each rise
and fall.
I know it all, yet
every time you show me more
a twisted root
a hidden door
a sheltered nook
I’ve passed but never seen before.

Let’s run your road, this well-worn path.
We’ll kick up dust and later,
when I stop to rest,
I’ll feel your breath upon my back
press me toward
The End.


---Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

On this, the first Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month 2008, I should have some really significant to say.


*drumming of fingers*

*lost in thought*

*I wonder if an immediate second cup of coffee is too much caffeine at once?*

*looks at fingernails*

*I ought to push back my cuticles.*

*where did I put the choc--, oh wait, it's too early for chocolate.*

*"I've been working on the railroad, all the live long day" . . . "I love you, you love me" . . . "Turn up the radio, Blast your stereo, Right now, This joint is fizzlin', It's sizzlin', Right . . . Pump it, louder, Pump it, louder, Pump it, louder . . ."

*Ahem . . . composes self*

*more drumming of fingers*


Obviously, when you try too hard, something important to say becomes too hard to think of, much less to find a way to say. Poetry is not always the deepest thought, the thought that's never before been expressed in all of eternity past. Poetry is YOUR take on your subject of choice. It's the way YOU see the world, which may or may not be similar to the way I see the world. It's the words YOU choose that I wouldn't have that help me see the world in a different way, or perhaps, the words you choose that I also would have chosen that show me someone else sees the world just as I do. Poetry brings us together in unexpected ways, through either discovery or through connection, and sometimes through both. Even when the poem is about something not so earth-shatteringly important.

Imagine your five-year old self reading the following poem. What would you relate to? What would it reveal to you? Would you discover something new about yourself or the subject of the poem? What about now, reading it as an adult? Do you see the poem any differently than you would have at five years old?


Puzzles

Piece by piece,
bit by bit,
try them all
to find a fit.

First the edges,
then between,
filling in
this puzzling scene.


---Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)


I don't claim that the poem above is a particularly good poem but that's what a good poem does for its reader, no matter the age, no matter the subject. It shows us how we're the same, it shows us how we're different. And if it does all that in one poem, even better. The part of poetry that cannot be controlled by the poet is *how* the reader will see the poem. And it will take into account the reader's experiences, thoughts and feelings. It's one of the best things about poetry to me, that we can read (or write) a poem as a five-year old, and then years later, we can read it again and see a completely different level of meaning.

Poetry grows and changes even when we never intended that it should. Even when we tried our very hardest to think of something important to say and it just didn't come, and didn't come, and didn't come and so we ended up writing a poem about something as simple as a puzzle.

I've been rereading a collection of writings by Katherine Paterson called "A Sense of Wonder" and ruminating on what it takes to maintain a daily sense of wonder about life. Today was most decidedly NOT a day of wonder. From the time I awoke until this very minute, I've felt rushed and pushed and pulled on and tugged on and tired. And sick. I wanted to find the wonder. I searched. And I'm sure the wonder was there, but the eyes of my heart could not see it.


For now, here's today's poem. Tomorrow will be better, right?


Weeds


Nothing grows inside my brain.
I think it's full of weeds.
If I could get a hoe in there,
I'd plant some thinking seeds.


---Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

I don't know about you, but the poetry posts all over the web for National Poetry Month have my mind whirring at the speed of hummingbird wings. I've resurrected a dormant collection idea and begun a companion collection, both of which I'm really excited about now. I'm going to try to draft a poem a day for one or the other of these collections during this month. I won't be posting those drafts here, but I will be posting an original poem (read first draft!) or translation every day (or most every day) here during the month of April. It's a tall order, but if I can't do it during National Poetry Month, when I'm surrounded by all this inspiration, when can I do it?

Hummingbird

Wings sing
a drummer on air
a melody made
in shade near a shadbush
a tune without music
a hymn with no notes
a perfect-form song
plucked on mid-air
a solo of solos
in Spring


---Kristy Dempsey (all rights reserved)

Mario Quintana (July 30, 1906—May 5, 1994) was a Brazilian writer who once said, in response to attacks on free speech and artistic expression by conservative (read dictatorial) government, that "mistreating a poet is a sign of very bad character." He is said to have been interviewed once, near the end of his life by a jornalist who asked: "Back in your time, how was life?" His answer? "Your time, my ass. I am alive, and pretty well alive, my time is now."

He was a poet of "the simple things", unconcerned with critics, he wrote poetry because he "felt the need to write it." The following poem is some form of a sonnet, though my tranlation approaches nothing of the sort. It was impossible to maintain some of the rhyming. This is Soneto II from Rua dos Cataventos:


Sleep, little street, everything is dark . . .
And my steps, who is there to hear them?
Sleep your pure and restful sleep,
with your lamps, and your gardens, nothing to fear in them . . .

Sleep . . . There are no thieves, I assure you . . .
Or even guards that would seek to torment . . .
In this high night, as if above a wall,
the stars sing like crickets . . .

The wind is asleep on the sidewalk,
the wind stoops down like a dog . . .
Sleep, little street . . . There is nothing . . .

Just my footsteps . . . But they are so light
as to even seem, in the mid of night,
the footsteps of my future haunting . . .

1. I woke my almost 10 year old daughter up this morning by handing her a cup of coffee and telling her I had signed her up for an afternoon job at her school. From now on I'd be picking her up at 6 pm every day when her work day ended. She sat straight up, eyes wide open and then immediately said, "April Fools...but can I still have the coffee?" Smart one, that cookie.

2. I finished the picture-book-that-may-not-really-be-a-picture-book in Portuguese yesterday and sent it off to sarah_create and her fluent Portuguese-speaking husband for review. It was fun for them, at least, to read something in Portuguese and at least pretend for the moment that they are in warm, balmy Brazil instead of shivery, quivery Iceland. The story is really for a contest that will be put on by the Brazilian branch of IBBY. And all I stand to win is a few books. But still, it was fun and who knows but that I really could publish a book here one day!

3. I want to celebrate Poetry Month by posting something poetry related every day. I'm not sure if it will be an original poem, or a translation, or just thoughts, but I'm in this year. If I miss a day here or there, don't hold it against me, but I'm going to try! I'll be back in a minute for my first post of the month!

I'm writing my first picture book in Portuguese. And I'm absolutely loving it. I'm all giddy and have that wonderful lovey-dovey feeling you get when you start something new that you think just might end up working. My one dilemma? Who in the world will I get to critique it? I wonder if Ana Maria Machado has time for a quick read? :)

I have to admit that I haven't had a chance to read Carrie Jones' two books yet. Being in Brazil makes it difficult sometimes to keep up on the latest and the greatest in YA lit. But to know how adorable Carrie Jones is, all you have to do is read this entry from her Journal (though you might want to skip the link to the video at the end. Carrie gives plenty of warning that it's not appropriate for kids and that there are those who might find it offensive. But the post itself is adorable!):

http://carriejones.livejournal.com/128872.html

Good luck, Carrie! Hear, hear for Clean Campaigns!

I pulled out an old picture book manuscript day before yesterday. It's quiet. It's literary. It might be philosophically obtuse. I'm somewhere deep in a literary hole, staring up at flickers of light, trying desperately to grab hold of one of them for keeps. But there are parts of this manuscript that make me go, "YES! YES!", and I think that deep somewhere in it, there is something to love.

But now that I've been staring at the same stanza for the last two hours, changing it back and forth and back again, I'm spent. Chocolate, anyone?

If you've got vibes and got 'em good, send any and all you're willing to part with toward publishing-dom for me, please. Smart Savvy Agent went wowsers over my re-vision of the-pb-I-feared-to-revise and sent it on it's merry way, off to Brilliant and Esteemed Editor. Fingers crossed.

And I'm off to dream up new and exciting things...

Remember the picture book that I'm revising? The one where I said I wasn't sure I could ever be satisfied with the new emotional center of the story?

I think I might be falling in love. :)

I sat with my daughter today as she tried to pare down the list of presents she hopes to receive for her birthday, just a little over a month away. For a nine year-old, who is still learning the value of money, and only just beginning to be aware of the needs of others before she thinks of her own wants, this was a very difficult task. When you're nine and you're wooed by the colors and sounds of the latest gadgets, or the status and style of the latest clothes, or even (albeit a little secretly because you're too old for such things) by the beauty and marketing of the latest doll, it's hard to set your own limits. You want to hope for everything. You want to have it all.

It's a time when your hope is young but it's wild and rampant. You don't restrain it. You're not afraid to wish.

As I was helping my daughter today, there was a part of me that was sad, homesick for that unrestrained hope, that time before you learn that you don't get everything you hope for. (Though, thank God because we're protected from some of the useless things we've hoped for. We can't really know what we want until we know what we need.)

But the funny thing about hope is that the older we get, the more fragile our hoping becomes. We try to protect ourselves, to not hope too much or we'll be disappointed. We want to save ourselves from the letdown.

And yet, we can't help it. We may turn our eyes, but we can't turn our hearts.

The difference for me between childlike hope and our own more fragile hope is that children can wish on a thousand stars in the sky and never run out of wishes or stars. And if they don't get what they want, their wish is still out there somewhere, floating around in the universe, waiting, quite possibly, to come true. Our hoping is more knowing, more informed, but all the more tender because we know that if it's to be, we play a part in making it true. And we fear we're not up to the task.

Fear not, friends. Even our dashed hopes can lead to achieving impossible dreams.


Greener Still

My youth was green, like tender shoots

Sprayed with chartreuse,

Limed with strokes of light,

Blind but reaching

Anyway.

Innocence waned

Then turned its face,

Its knowing eyes cast

Toward cooling clay,

Its hoping, ever greener

still.

Random list of Thankfulness:

1. People who pick up and carefully dispose of their pets' sidewalk deposit. I mean, seriously, pox on those who don't. Okay, maybe not. That's not very thankful. But to those that do, you have my everlasting gratitude.

2. Ibuprofen. Not only have we had two viruses, various body aches and three children with fevers this week, now I hear you can substitute it for a daily aspirin to keep your blood from getting thick and gloppy.

3. Readers who love me but don't love my story too much to keep them from seeing its faults. Because I'm blind at the moment. Well, not blind, just closing my eyes and hoping for the best.

4. Quiet. No need to explain.

Oh my gosh, I'm going out of my mind. When you're revising a text for a specific editor, try to stay away from reading about what said editor talked about at the most recent conference they attended. It will only make you second guess yourself more than you already are.

Just warning you...