book worm.

Lately I’ve been reading much more than I had been. I had [temporarily] forgotten the joy of reading which is, of course, ironic since one of my goals as a teacher is to instill in my students a love for reading.

I love the feeling of being totally immersed in what I’m reading, of thinking about ideas and feelings I hadn’t meaningfully understood previously, of putting myself in a completely different time period with characters whose experiences teach me something about my own. It broadens my understanding of, well, everything. And sometimes it makes me laugh.

I think, ultimately, what I love about reading most is its uncanny ability to help me be more empathetic.

(And I love that it gives you something more interesting to talk about than “The Bachelor.”)

What have you been reading? Any book recommendations?

Here are mine: one terribly trashy novel with hilarious sex scenes, one for sheer entertainment with some pithy self-reflection thrown in for good measure, and one beautifully written work of art that made me cry. Variety is good in our diets and good in our book choices too.

lv, molly

{This trashy novel features horrible double entendres and is set in the Scottish highlands– what more could you ask for? Oh, intelligence and depth? See below, dear friend!}

{This book is hilarious, honest, and self-depricating. And even insightful– her reflection on her friendship with gay men is amazing. I love this book.}

{This book is, simply put, one of the most beautiful books I’ve read. Normally when a novel gets a lot of hype, I look the other way. But it came highly recommended from teachers I respect, and I fell in love with it from the first page on.}

poem of the week.

Unknown Bird by W.S. Merwin

Out of the dry days
through the dusty leaves
far across the valley
those few notes never
heard here before

one fluted phrase
floating over its
wandering secret
all at once wells up
somewhere else

and is gone before it
goes on fallen into
its own echo leaving
a hollow through the air
that is dry as before

where is it from
hardly anyone
seems to have noticed it
so far but who now
would have been listening

it is not native here
that may be the one
thing we are sure of
it came from somewhere
else perhaps alone

so keeps on calling for
no one who is here
hoping to be heard
by another of its own
unlikely origin

trying once more the same few
notes that began the song
of an oriole last heard
years ago in another
existence there

it goes again tell
no one it is here
foreign as we are
who are filling the days
with a sound of our own

land.

by Suheir Hammad

his approach
to love he said
was that of a farmer
most love like
hunters and like
hunters most kill
what they desire
he tills
soil through toes
nose in the wet
earth he waits
prays to the gods
and slowly harvests
ever thankful

new year, new look.

After myriad technical errors, the new look has arrived! I’m not 100% sold, and I might switch back to the standby. But trying on a new look is a good idea for the new year, me thinks.

Also, the Recipe Index is totally updated and now neatly organized with a drop-down menu with categories. I’m impressed because I can hardly get myself to organize my desk.

Enjoy the last hours of 2010, and I hope you have a wonderfully happy time welcoming the new year.

Here’s one of my favorite poems to read on New Year’s.

lots of lv, molly

Auld Lang Syne

“For the sake of old times,” Scottish Poet Robert Burns

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu’d the gowans fine;
But we’ve wandered mony a weary fit
Sin’ auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

*Image*

lines for winter.

Perhaps in an effort to avoid homework or perhaps because winter sometimes makes me a little sad, I’ve been reading a lot more poetry lately.

Isn’t this one just beautiful? lv, molly

by Mark Strand
for Ros Krauss

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

poem.

Richard Ellman & Seamus Heaney

As I’ve mentioned before, Seamus Heaney is one of my favorite poets. On the rare night that I have a free moment, I like to look flip through books of poetry that I haven’t touched in too long.

I read this one night last week, and it made me cry. It’s that stunning. lv, molly

Mid-Term Break

by Seamus Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o’clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying–
He had always taken funerals in his stride–
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were “sorry for my trouble,”
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o’clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

a certain loveliness.

A Child’s Calendar: November

by John Updike

The stripped and shapely
Maple grieves
The ghosts of her
Departed leaves.
The ground is hard,
As hard as stone.
The year is old,
The birds are flown.

And yet the world,
In its distress,
Displays a certain
Loveliness—

Photo via here.

happy (almost) weekend.

A poem for September. And another poem. Just because. lv, molly

P.S. Doesn’t W.S. Merwin write some of the most beautiful poetry you’ve ever read? His poems stop me in my tracks and catch me with a line that perfectly encapsulates a feeling I’ve had– or one I imagine I’ve had. I suppose that’s the genius of poetry.

To the Light of September

BY W. S. MERWIN

When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know
that you have come
the seed heads of the sage
the whispering birds
with nowhere to hide you
to keep you for later

you
who fly with them

you who are neither
before nor after
you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew

_______________________________________________

Bread

BY W. S. MERWIN

for Wendell Berry

Each face in the street is a slice of bread
wandering on
searching

somewhere in the light the true hunger
appears to be passing them by
they clutch

have they forgotten the pale caves
they dreamed of hiding in
their own caves
full of the waiting of their footprints
hung with the hollow marks of their groping
full of their sleep and their hiding

have they forgotten the ragged tunnels
they dreamed of following in out of the light
to hear step after step

the heart of bread
to be sustained by its dark breath
and emerge

to find themselves alone
before a wheat field
raising its radiance to the moon

poems hide.

Two poems by Naomi Shihab Nye… I’ve fallen in love with her work. lv, molly

Breaking the Fast

1.

Japanese teacher says:
At first light, rise.
Don’t hover between
sleep and waking,
this makes you heavy,
puts a stone inside your heart.

The minute you drift back to shore,
anchor. Breathe.
Remember your deepest name.

2.

Sometimes objects stun me,
bamboo strainer, gray mug,
sitting exactly where
they were left.

They have not slept
or dreamt of lost faces.

I touch them carefully,
saying, tell me what you know.

3.

Cup of waves,
strawberry balanced
in a seashell.

In morning the water seems
clear to the bottom.

No fish blocks my view.

Valentine For Ernest Mann

You can’t order a poem like you order a taco.
Walk up to the counter, say, “I’ll take two”
and expect it to be handed back to you
on a shiny plate.

Still, I like your spirit.
Anyone who says, “Here’s my address,
write me a poem,” deserves something in reply.
So I’ll tell you a secret instead:
poems hide. In the bottoms of our shoes,
they are sleeping. They are the shadows
drifting across our ceilings the moment
before we wake up. What we have to do
is live in a way that lets us find them.

Once I knew a man who gave his wife
two skunks for a valentine.
He couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“I thought they had such beautiful eyes.”
And he was serious. He was a serious man
who lived in a serious way. Nothing was ugly
just because the world said so. He really
liked those skunks. So, he re-invented them
as valentines and they became beautiful.
At least, to him. And the poems that had been hiding
in the eyes of skunks for centuries
crawled out and curled up at his feet.

Maybe if we re-invent whatever our lives give us
we find poems. Check your garage, the odd sock
in your drawer, the person you almost like, but not quite.
And let me know.

joy accompanied me.

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning,
as if supported by the rays of the sun,
a bird settled on the fire escape,
joy in the task of coffee,
joy accompanied me as I walked.

Anais Nin

Image via here.

summer night is like a perfection of thought.

The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom the book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

new favorite poem.

I absolutely love this poem by current U.S. Poet Laureate W.S. Merwin. The imagery has stuck with me all day. lv, molly

Separation

Your absence has gone through me

Like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

clown in the moon.

I first became interested in Dylan Thomas’s poetry because I heard a rumor that Bob Dylan changed his last name from Zimmerman to Dylan as a homage to Thomas. As a teenager interested in Bob Dylan and his song about smoking pot, naturally my interest was piqued.

When I was in my early 20s at Trinity in Dublin, I found myself sitting in the wrong class with students who looked much older than I did. Most of them wore glasses that sat low on their noses, and they had books that looked well-worn and well-read. I felt too sheepish to leave, so I took a seat in the back and feigned ignorance when my name didn’t appear on the class register. It was a Dylan Thomas colloquium, and I happily missed an Introduction to Irish Literature to sit in on it. It’s one of my favorite memories of my time in Dublin– stumbling upon a poetry class by happenstance, slinking into the back corner of the room, listening to older students with Irish accents read poetry. I want to romanticize it even more because that’s how I remember it, but I’ll restrain myself!

“Clown in the Moon” is one of my absolute favorite Dylan Thomas poems. I’ve read it innumerable times, and each time I could daydream about its imagery and its meaning for an afternoon. What do you think about the title and its implications for the poem? I hope you enjoy this poem as much as I do! lv, molly

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.

Image via here.

let me teach like the first snow.

For the next two weeks I’m embarking on a terrifying little journey entitled “13 Hour Days.” These days will be composed of things I find meaningful and satisfying: observing middle school classes and helping students one-on-one, grad school classes, homework, tutoring, and pretending it’s okay to replace exercise with chocolate and little sleep.

When I returned home tonight, I fell onto my rocking chair and resembled a lump of exhaustion in teacher’s clothing. I’m not even sure what that means. If a student used that analogy, I may encourage him or her to think more deeply about it. But that’s all I’m capable of delivering currently; I’m sorry.

The point is, I’m tired. And I won’t be posting much, but I’ll leave you with this poem for now. It was given to us during a reflective session at the university last week, and I think the sentiment will carry me through the more tiring times. I hope this finds you well and happy and resembling something far more attractive than a lump of exhaustion. xo, m

PS- Did I mention I’m loving it so far? Children are amazing.

Undivided Attention

Taylor Mali

A grand piano wrapped in quilted pads by movers,
tied up with canvas straps – like classical music’s
birthday gift to the insane -
is gently nudged without its legs
out an eighth-floor window on 62nd street.

It dangles in April air from the neck of the movers’ crane,
Chopin-shiny black lacquer squares
and dirty white crisscross patterns hanging like the second-to-last
note of a concerto played on the edge of the seat,
the edge of tears, the edge of eight stories up going over, and
I’m trying to teach math in the building across the street.

Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned?
All the greatest common factors are delivered by
long-necked cranes and flatbed trucks
or come through everything, even air.
Like snow.

See, snow falls for the first time every year, and every year
my students rush to the window
as if snow were more interesting than math,
which, of course, it is.

So please.

Let me teach like a Steinway,
spinning slowly in April air,
so almost-falling, so hinderingly
dangling from the neck of the movers’ crane.
So on the edge of losing everything.

Let me teach like the first snow, falling.

Image via here.

forming a low, gigantic chord of language.

As I wrote in a post a few days ago, I’ve revisited Billy Collins’ poetry, & I’ve fallen in love with it all over again. Poetry is almost always best read aloud (I think, anyway), so I recommend that you nerd out for a minute. Close the door, & read this to yourself. There’s something about reading aloud that’s amazingly lovely, like eating with your hands. We should do both of those things more often. xo, m

The Long Room in Trinity College Dublin's library is one of my favorite places in the world. I pictured it when I read this poem.

Books

From the heart of this dark, evacuated campus
I can hear the library humming in the night,
a choir of authors murmuring inside their books
along the unlit, alphabetical shelves,
Giovanni Pontano next to Pope, Dumas next to his son,
each one stitched into his own private coat,
together forming a low, gigantic chord of language.

I picture a figure in the act of reading,
shoes on a desk, head tilted into the wind of a book,
a man in two worlds, holding the rope of his tie
as the suicide of lovers saturates a page,
or lighting a cigarette in the middle of a theorem.
He moves from paragraph to paragraph
as if touring a house of endless, paneled rooms.

I hear the voice of my mother reading to me
from a chair facing the bed, books about horses and dogs,
and inside her voice lie other distant sounds,
the horrors of a stable ablaze in the night,
a bark that is moving toward the brink of speech.

I watch myself building bookshelves in college,
walls within walls, as rain soaks New England,
or standing in a bookstore in a trench coat.

I see all of us reading ourselves away from ourselves,
straining in circles of light to find more light
until the line of words becomes a trail of crumbs
that we follow across a page of fresh snow;
when evening is shadowing the forest
and small birds flutter down to consume the crumbs,
we have to listen hard to hear the voices
of the boy and his sister receding into the woods.

Photo via Trinity College Dublin.