FIRST LIGHT: Student Poet Laureate Awards

Tomorrow is the big day, the day when the students who have won the second annual NC Student Laureate Poetry Awards will be recognized at the yearly conference of the North Carolina Engligh Teachers Association held at Caldwell Community College. These awards were established two years ago by my family as a way of bring poetry more into the student awards lineup at NCETA, thereby encouraging the reading and writing of poetry in our public schools.

The awards are given for the best poems by middle and high school students. John York is first readier and I am final judge, as each year's Poet Laureate will be. The student Laureates receive monetary awards, as well as books. This year they, their families, and assembled teachers will also be receiving a chapbook of the winning poems, First Light.

Here is the list of winners. You may find out more about NCETA's student writing contests by going to http://www.ncenglishteacher.org/. I will be posting the poems themselves, along with photos from the awards ceremony when I return on Saturday.

MIDDLE SCHOOL:First Place:C.J. Murphy“Where I Come From”W. Lincoln Middle

Second Place:Falecia Metcalf"The Rain"N. Buncombe Middle

Honorable Mention:Allie Sekulich“On the Ice”Charter Neuse Middle

HIGH SCHOOLFirst Place:Sarah Brady“Vocabulary Words”Holly Springs High, now at UNC

Erin Walklet“Agape”Cardinal Gibbons High

Second:Courtney Duckworth“Ode to Karen Dalton”R.L Patton High
Chelsea Hansen“Met Death”Penn-Griffin School
Maria Evans“A Breath”Leesville Rd. High, now at UNC-CH

Honorable Mention:

Allison Kupatt"Cult Classics"Enloe High School
Rachel Thompson“Aqua, Zephyr, Terra”Penn-Griffin
Amanda Honey“Runners”Carrboro High
Megan Przybyla"Summertime"Leesville Road High School

OF SHAWLS AND REPRINT FEES

My husband bought this shawl for me in Florence, Italy many years ago. I keep it draped over my bedroom wall. I think I may have worn it once. It's the sort of shawl to wear to an opera, maybe Tosca or La Traviata. It's also the sort of shawl that feels out of place here in Cullowhee. Actually, it ought to be an opera singer's shawl. And since I sing opera only in my dreams, amazing myself as I walk onstage to hear Musetta's aria coming out of my mouth, maybe I've always felt that this shawl is just too special for someone like me to wear.

The black shawl below is another matter. I ordered it from the Sears Catalog--yes, Sears--so you know how long I must have had it. Whenever I wore it, it picked up various debris in its long fringes, like a net, and so I came to think of it that way, as a net gathering up a woman's sensibility. Her dreams, fears, and songs.



That image was the start of my third book, Black Shawl, from which Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham wanted to reprint the title poem in their recent Clothes Lines anthology. They couldn't afford it, though, because my publisher, asked a huge reprint fee. So much money for one poem? I was astonished and horrified.

Nothing to do, then, but to write another shawl poem, which I did surprisingly quickly. Maybe the mountain woman's voice in it is a close cousin to the woman's voice in Black Shawl. Yes, it's in the anthology, which again I recommend highly. And although I don't approve of any poet's poems being kept from anthologies because of unreasonable reprint fees, I'll have to concede that this time those fees pushed me into writing a poem that I like and am pleased to see published in this anthology.


River Shawl




She’d dribble the fringe of her shawl
in the river. The quick current rippled the black threads.
They floated as she wished she could.
They wanted to be swept away but she held fast
to what had been woven. Her mother’s shawl.
Now her own. How much longer
to be handed down, this black keepsake?

She’d lift out the fringe,
rub it over her face, feel the cold
water run down her cheeks,
down her neck,
into white folds of flesh underneath the dress
worn before her by her kinswomen.

What might she catch in this web
if she let it drift far enough
out of the shallows,
into the dark center
where she could not see the bottom?

How far would she have to wade
until she stepped into
some other world, under the sun-dappled
surface? The river itself was a shawl,
always wrapping itself round the hills,
threaded with golden light,
trailing its castaway leaves.

It could weave her into its weft,
carry her farther than she could imagine--
the sea she could feel surging
inside when she let herself
want what she knew she could not
have, a life she could open
as wide as a closet door onto
garments no woman had worn
before her. Nobody’s life but her own.




from Clothes Lines, ed. by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham, Catawba Publishing, 2009.

SOUP--OR POTAGE, IF YOU WANT TO SOUND FRENCH

(An October bouquet from the last of my zinnia patch.)


This glorious Sunday I've spent doing my "kitchen meditation" using one of Lynne Rossetto Kasper's Weeknight Kitchen recipes. I've loved The Splendid Table for years, and a while back, I signed up for Lynne's newsletter. I read every recipe that shows up in my email, and this week's FABULOUS FALL ROOTS SOUP, excerpted from Sunday Soup: A Year's Worth of Mouthwatering, Easy to Make Recipes, by Betty Rosebottom (Chronicle Books) did indeed make my mouth water, and since it's Sunday, I decided, why not give it a try in my messy kitchen. (My photos try to frame only the parts I'd want my friends to see!)

Actually, I decided to begin this recipe-meditation yesterday, spending part of late afternoon roasting the vegetables so they'd be ready this morning. I also wanted to make my own chicken stock, of course, and I wanted to be able to leave it in the fridge overnight, so that I could skim the fat off the top

You can click on my blog title to be taken to the recipe on Lynne's website, by the way. (You can also check on how faithfully I followed it.) Yes, I cheated a bit. No leeks. I walked right past them at Ingle's; they are not part of my lexicon. I'd never heard of them while growing up. But I HAD heard of rutabagas and sweet potatoes, and carrots. And after I became sophisticated, I even heard about creme fraiche. And I knew how to make chicken stock. My grandmother always seemed to have a pot of it on the stove.

(My succulent roasted root veggies!)

So, this morning I took my gorgeous roasted veggies from the fridge, resisting the urge to cram some of them into my mouth, and scooped them over into the chicken stock. I let them simmer for a little while longer, just to make sure all were cooked thoroughly. And then....

....and then, a major decision. The un-pureed soup looked so good. And I do like what my friend Vicki Lane calls "texture" in my soup, as does she. Did I want this to be a vegetable soup or a "potage." Should I follow the recipe or diverge from its path? I meditated a little while, looked out the window at the fall foliage, and decided to follow the path of the recipe this time around.

I did not, after the luscious puree was done, add creme fraiche. I added non-fat sour cream instead. Non-fat is good for you, right? Next time I'll do the French.

We will have this soup for supper tonight when my husband returns from hiking in the Smoky Mountains. I think he'll like it, even if it does have rutabaga in it!

CLOTHES LINES

Can you believe that communities have gotten into brawls over clotheslines? Some folks seem to think they make a yard look "trashy." I've always had a clothesline; hanging out the wash is one of my favorite activities. Then I can enjoy the pay-off-- sheets dancing, shirts waving in the wind, underwear mincing its way along the line, and later, I like the way sun-dried laundry smells.

Well, here's another look at clotheslines, but it won't get you into a brawl, nor do you have to worry about bringing your clothes in at night, in case of rain. What I'm talking about is a whole bunch of clothes lines strung together by Celia Miles and Nancy Dillingham. This anthology of work about clothes and how we women get tangled up in them has just been published and its cover looks like a writer's shawl, don't you think? One she'd throw around her shoulders before heading out for the cafe, the salon, the bookstore, the poetry reading! The 75 western North Carolina women in this book would probably love to fling such a shawl round themselves and head out to make the literary scene in style.

Here is Nancy Dillingham's poem on the back cover. If your local bookstore doesn't have this collection on its shelves, gather your shawl around you and demand that it be ordered at once! It's from Catawba Publishers, and the ISBN is just below Nancy's poem.

Finding Our Line

Every day
we shape our clay
from the inside out
giving it cachet.

But sometimes
it’s the clothes we wear
that give us away
that give us sway

Curves, straight lines
diagonals, in-your-face style
au courant, de rigueur
faux, retro

Similarly
we define ourselves as writers
shape our style

The curve of the plot
the turn of the phrase
the tone of the prose--
it’s the pattern of patter that matters

We preen, we pose
give color to character
and landscape
decorate and align

weaving a provocative story
stitching a tall tale
spinning a yarn
threading a theme

piecing a poem
with precision and panache
punctuating with élan
finding our line

Nancy Dillingham

CLOTHESLINES
Edited by Celia H. Miles and Nancy Dillingham ISBN 978-1-59712-355-690000

THE LAST ROSE OF SUMMER

I sang this song when I studied voice in high school. I thought it a bit sentimental then, and find it almost unbearable now, even though its author, Irish poet Thomas Moore was a friend of Shelley's and Byron;s,  and thus has good Romantic credentials. The thought of the group Celtic Woman singing it is enough to make me imagine slogging through treacle. Actually, they are the perfect vehicle for it. But I digress. The rose I prefer is the Rose of Sharon. Here's Moore's poem, followed by the concluding lines of mine. You'll have to go to Black Shawl to read all of it.

'Tis the last rose of summer,
Left blooming all alone,
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone.
No flower of her kindred,
No rose bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one,
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go sleep thou with them;
'Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow
When friendships decay,
And from love's shining circle
The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered
And fond ones are flown
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?

ROSE OF SHARON (conclusion) from BLACK SHAWL (LSU PRESS
Who will save me, I wonder,

as I pleat these white tissue

roses I gather for garlands

and bridal bouquets. (Now the nick

of a hat pin! Some blood

from my finger squeezed into each

center.) Whoever he is,

when he comes with his silver

axe swinging, his saw teeth

that grin through the laurel

hells, I will be Rose

Among Wild Roses. I will be Rose

Willing. I will be ready.

Now, that's the kind of Rose I like!

MY NEW CHAPBOOK HAS ARRIVED

Shortly after Inauguration Day, my friend Penelope Scambly Schott (Portland, Oregon) and I began a poetic collaboration about the event, thinking we could probably do better with inaugural poems than the official Inaugural Poet. After our initial poems linked pretty closely to the inauguration, we spiraled off in some interesting directions, circling back again at the end to President Obama and that memorable day. Here are some images from the chapbook, which by the way, was printed by Ash Creek Press in Portland and is hand-sewn by the poets. You may order directly from me: P.O. Box 489, Cullowhee, NC 28723. Cost is $10.00, with 2.00 for postage. Thanks!

END OF SUMMER

Yes, I know. The equinox hasn't happened yet. It's late summer, not the end of it. Still, on the first day of September, with our garden done for (only a handful of tomatoes this year) and the morning glories sagging, I am ready to bid summer adios and begin looking toward autumn.

 I said I'd start blogging again on the first of September, so I pick up my digital camera and walk out to the front porch.  Right here, where I am, I see summer departing.

What is the name of this bush? I ask every year around this time. The one with the pale to deep mauve plumes? Whatever it's named, I love it.




Light through leaves, unreachable

no-name light,

no-name fingers of blooming

beyond my holding on to them,

scattering their small blossoms

onto my hands,

cornmeal blooms,

but the color of rougepot

and my mother's favorite lipstick...

(Byron likes this bush, too. He poses for me, just long enough for me to capture what he knows will be a photo to add to my extensive Lord Byron collection.)

Does any image say summer's end as hauntingly as this one?





Or this one? All day outside my window I watch it. I think the wind is blowing hard till I realize it's the birds gobbling elderberries, whizzing around the bushes like electrons around the pulsing core.



Forget my poetic reveries. The students down below are cavorting and our dogs go chasing the sound. I call them back. Ace of Dogs stands by the goldenrod to watch their ascent. You can barely see Bro's white head and Byron's small black body in the shadows.



Here come Bro and Byron into view.



Well, what's a poetic-looking mauve plumed bush to a dog, anyway? Bro makes good use of it.