Gratitute

Those who scoff at children's literature lack a refined sense of literacy. True, there are garbage children's books; Just as true is the fact that there's the same amount, no, there's more of garbage adult literature.

I found this book awhile back.

Yep, it's a children's book of the most refined nature. I love the author. In the past, I'd foregone many opportunities to enjoy her books because the cover art typically had a lack of appeal, for my taste. You could say that I scoffed at them, possibly included judgments of "Looks like garbage". At any rate, I eventually ended up reading one of Baylor's (author) books and was dumb-struck-awed by the quality of writing. Baylor is an all-around first-rate writer and storyteller who doesn't even need illustrations for her work to reach the status of "perfection". For sure I'd buy her books without a single illustration. She's a master, a Yoda in her own right.

So, Thanksgiving season is happening at your household? This recently discovered Baylor book is so harmonious in timing for the festivities and good feelings. It couldn't be more perfect. I'm thinking you might like it (the book, but I'm sure you'll like the season with all its entrails too).

It all starts when a girl who is unsatisfied with her family's income and economic standing takes matters into her own hands. That sober girl sets her family down at the kitchen table to council her parents on the matter. And with that intro, here's a few excerpts to finish it off...

No wonder

I had to call this meeting

about money.

Can you believe

my father is

sitting here

looking me straight in the eye

and saying,

“But, Mountain Girl,

I though you knew

how rich we are.”

I say,

“We can’t get very far

in this discussion

if you won't even admit

that we’re poor.”

(Hey, it's me with another little two cents. From this point the mother talks about how rich they are in ways other then money. End two cents.)

But I say,

“Can’t you give me

one single number

to write down

on this paper?”

So we start with

twenty thousand dollars.

That’s how much

my father says

it’s worth to him

to work outdoors,

where he can see sky

all day and feel the wind

and smell rain

an hour before

it’s really raining.

...

So that makes

four million

and fifty-five thousand dollars.

Finally,

my brother says

to put down

seven dollars more

for all the nights

we get to sleep

outside

under the stars.

We all say

seven dollars

doesn't seem to be

enough.

We talk him into

making it

five thousand.

So there you have a brief, brief clipping of a delicious masterpiece. Isn't is so poetic? There's more in the story but I can't give it all away! Now, I don't think I can recommend it any more highly then I've been going on about, so I'll be signing off.

Thanksgiving, here we come...

Poem For the Day

The Liar

Deceiver, dissembler
Your trousers are alight
From what pole or gallows
Shall they dangle in the night?

When I asked of your career
Why did you have to kick my rear
With that stinking lie of thine
Proclaiming that you owned a mine?

When you asked to borrow my stallion
To visit a nearby-moored galleon
How could I ever know that you
Intended only to turn him into glue?

What red devil of mendacity
Grips your soul with such tenacity?
Will one you cruelly shower with lies
Put a pistol ball between your eyes?

What infernal serpent
Has lent you his forked tongue?
From what pit of foul deceit
Are all these whoppers sprung?

Deceiver, dissembler
Your trousers are alight
From what pole or gallows
Do they dangle in the night?

-William Blake, 1810

Poem for the Day

toucannery

whatever one toucan can do

is sooner done by toucans two

and three toucans it's very true

can do much more than two can do

and toucans numbering two plus two can

manage more than all the zoo can

in fact there is no toucan who can

do what four or three or two can.

Jack Prelutsky

Photo from HERE

Poem for the Day

Forgiveness

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been

Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!

John Greenleaf Whittier

Poem For the Day

Who Am I?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Who am I? They often tell me

I stepped from my cell’s confinement

Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,

Like a squire from his country-house.

Who am I? They often tell me

I used to speak to my warders

Freely and friendly and clearly,

As though it were mine to command.

Who am I? They also tell me

I bore the days of misfortune

Equally, smilingly, proudly,

Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?

Or am I only what I myself know of myself?

Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,

Struggling for breath, as though hands were

compressing my throat,

Yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,

Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,

Tossing in expectation of great events,

Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,

Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,

Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?

Am I one person today and tomorrow another?

Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?

Or is something within me still like a beaten army,

Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!

March 4,1946

James; Future Laureate

James cracks me up. In fourth grade his teacher did a poetry unit and he loved it. He found his collection of gems the other day and started writing some more. Enjoy.

Then (fourth grade)

Golf

I pull my arms back

and swing through.

Oh my gosh!

It's a hole in two.

Milk Haiku

From out of the cows

Squeeze Squeeze Squeeze comes warm taste milk

I love sweet warm milk

Now (eighth grade)

Trouble

Everyone is out to get me.

I'm out to get everything.

The jewels around my neck

Were my Aunt Fan's.

The ring on my finger

Belongs to Uncle Stan.

And now they have caught me

So I'm sitting in the can.

Love Poem

This is a favorite poem of mine. During high school a friend barked to me about doing a homework assignment on it so I took a look to see what the problem was. I liked it, a lot. It struck something in the back of my mind/heart. Maybe it was because it caught me off guard or maybe because it was nontraditional in the love poem sense. This poem could easily be sung to a child from a mother or from any human being carrying that deep, binding connection to another. It's such a pure expression and not flowered with lovey-doveyness (not that a little lovey-dovey isn't welcome every once in a while). In the Greek language there are four different words for our one word "love". They represent the aspects of physical, friendship, affection, and charity. This below poem goes for the charity, I'd say. Whad'ya think?

Sonnets from the Portuguese

XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1 Rather Than 2

They cut desire into short lengths


And fed it to the hungry fires of courage.


Long after—when the flames had died—


Molten Gold gleamed in the ashes.

They gathered it into bruised palms


And handed it to their children


And their children's children. Forever.

-Vilate Raile*

This poem has been a favorite of mine for a while now. I love the imagery and that it is so poignant with limited wordiness. In fact, this quote comes to mind...

“The most valuable of talents is never using two words when one will do.”

-Thomas Jefferson

A couple of weeks ago, sitting in church, Las pointed out to me that the text of the hymn Upon the Cross of Calvary is written by Vilate Raile. I’m quite fond of that hymn. Knowing a part of her from the above poem now sheds a little light on the hymn from a different angle. Whereas previously the hymn was more personal, between my thoughts/feelings and the Lord, I must say that I now feel a bit of the warmth from her first poem added into those pondering thoughts/feelings. To hear her hymn and see the text, click HERE (notice how this message too is expressed with such brief wording and yet invites the reader to such depth).

*Vilate Raile, in Asahel D. Woodruff, Parent and Youth (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Union Board, 1952), 124; also in Selected Writings of Gerald N. Lund, Gospel Scholars Series (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1999), 402-3.

Poem for the day...

I love this poem. It's so melodious and has rich, vibrant imagery.

Daybreak in Alabama

When I get to be a composer
I'm gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I'm gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.

Langston Hughes

Friday Freebie!

Today's Friday Freebie is book related, of course. Creature Comforts generously shares these three templates. One link is a library card pocket, another is the actual library card. The third link is a library style card that could be used as notepaper or something like that. Gotta love free printables. Enjoy!

Library Pocket

Library Card

Note Card

Also.....

For the weekend, I leave you with a speech. This was delivered before the Senior class of the Cambridge Divinity college by Ralph Waldo Emerson on July 15, 1838. It's been a while since I've read it, and I can't remember the whole premise, but I remember how poetic it was. I can't remember if I agreed with all is ideas, but he sure said it masterfully.

The discovery came when I viewed the new Joseph Smith first vision movie at the Mesa Temple visitor center. Before the movie began, a quote flashed on the screen making the statement that God has spoken to his children throughout all the ages and there was never a time that needed it more than now. That isn't the direct quote. The direct one is much more striking. I had to know where it came from. I wanted the meat of it. Anyway. I found it. The source is HERE. It's delicious to read, though it is a bit heavy for one sitting. I had to read it in two or three sittings. At any rate, I'm going to read it again this weekend. Care to join me?

Recommendations for the Day

I'm going to give a little shout out for Bipolar Disorder to increase awareness in this world so ill-informed. For those ignorant and those informed, I highly recommend An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison. Click HERE. She is accomplished and considered an authority on the subject and well respected in the academic community. Jamison herself has Bipolar Disorder and as the title states, the book is a memoir of her experiences. This book is very appropriate for a casual, informative, entertaining read. I recommend it to many people often. By reading this book the reader will gain somewhat of an understanding of what the disorder truly is and is not. Read it!

The second book I'd like to recommend is also by the same author but is vastly different in style. During her time writing Touched with Fire, Jamison was a professor of psychiatry at John Hopkins University School of Medicine. Touched with Fire includes researched genetic lines of many famous writers, artists, and composers with probable Cyclothymia, Major Depression, or Manic-Depressive Illness (Bipolar Disorder). She includes selections of writing and prose from her subjects of research. I enjoyed the deep connections I found, and to a certain degree, understood what the writers felt. It was a bit haunting to read with a perspective similar (in a way) to their own. I also found the genetics fascinating. I found a link for the book. Click HERE. It's a Google thing and you can read through a ton of it for free.

I hate websites that sport famous people (with no credible documentation), claiming the individuals have some extreme disorder. I hesitate to add such sensationalism to my own page, but as a general rule, stating big names grabs attention and I hope that this tactic might suck you, the hesitant reader, into further interest. The final deciding reason I let myself post the below names is that the research on the individuals is in depth and credible, not some sensationalized list from a subpar website. I left out the information included with the individuals' names (If a person was placed in an asylum or psychiatric hospital, committed suicide, or attempted suicide). You'll have to read the book to find out what happened to who. So without further ado, I give you some of the well-known names contained in the book:

Poets:

Robert Burns, Victor Hugo, T.S. Elliot, Randall Jerrell, Edgar Allan Poe, Ezra Pound, Theodore Roethke, Anne Sexton, Walt Whitman, and Alfred, Lord Tennison

Writers:

Hans Christian Anderson, James Barrie, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kenneth Graham, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Leo Tolstoy, and Virginia Woolf

Composers:

Hector Berlioz, George Frideric Handel, Modest Mussorgsky, Sergey Rachmaninoff, Robert Schumann, Peter Tchaikovsky, and Irving Berlin

Artists:

Paul Gauguin, Hugo van der Goes, Vincent van Gogh, Michelangelo Adolphe Monticelli, Edvard Munch, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock

SO to sum it up, if you read one out of the two, read An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, the first suggested one. I give it 5 solid stars and two firm thumbs up. If you've heard the term or, heaven forbid, used the term "she/he is so bipolar", the speaker (hopefully not you) most likely had no idea what tripped out of his/her/hopefully not your mouth. As a forewarning, the book is a bit graphic at times, so if you don't want to read a PG-13, don't read it, but do. Cast off your ignorance! Read!

Poem and Speech for the Day

As for the poem, I found it while perusing through The Miracle of Forgiveness. It stirred something deep down within me. There is such substance, such passion, ideals, and power that comes from the writings of early America. Maybe it was the newness of the Nation's birth, from all that enabled its forthcoming, including the work, sacrifice, hope, and faith that produced such fruition. There was a variety of citizens/people that lived during the time. Many factors influenced the individuals themes and diverse ideas, yet there is a common thread of power and passion that I feel when I read those works. I love the writing of that time period! Here's the poem, a mere sample of the time period selection:

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been

Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;

So turning gloomily from my fellow men,

One summer Sabbath day I strolled among

The green mounds of the village burial-place;

Where, pondering how all human love and hate

Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,

Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,

And cold hands folded over a still heart,

Pass the threshold of our common grave,

Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,

Awed for myself and pitying my race,

Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,

Swept all my pride away, and, trembling, I forgave.

-John Greenleaf Whittier

Here is an excellent speech given by Douglas L. Callister. Callister was just recently released as a General Authority this past October Conference. The speech was given to students at BYU. It will give you something to think about. As it addresses literature and the arts I was interested immediately. If you aren't concerned about literature and the arts, maybe you will be after you read it.

Poem for the Day

Some People

Isn't it strange some people make

You feel so tired inside,

Your thoughts begin to shrivel up

Like leaves all brown and dried!

But when you're with some other ones,

It's stranger still to find

Your thoughts as thick as fireflies

All shiny in your mind!

-Rachel Field