JUST AN ORANGE

It’s National Poetry Month. Google that phrase and you’ll get a bevy of websites ready to provide you with a poem-a-day and such. They’ll even deliver it right to your email box if you like.

You’ll also likely run into Charles Bernstein’s article Against National Poetry Month , where he insists that NPM consists of poems that are really not worth reading, because they don’t challenge us. That the poetry marketed to the American Public just dumbs-down the understanding of the genre even more. I don’t know if Mr. Berstein is really against National Poetry Month. But he wants us to be willing to invest in poetry. Poetry may be hard to understand. Take the time to understand it. And he has a point. A nation that thinks poetry is found mostly in greeting cards isn’t really something to be proud of. All well-written poetry has something it will give up if we work to find it; some understanding inside the words; some reward.

That said, some of my favorite poems are probably understood easily by the populace and I’m not an elitist, so I say “Okay? Well, we need to start somewhere.” I have heard tell that there are those out there who belittle the compilation of poems by Garrison Keillor on similar merits. The book, Good Poems, is just that. They are good poems. And some great ones. But once they mingle together, heaven forbid, how shall we ever tell the difference? Pah! is what I say. In fact I heartily suggest picking up a copy of Good Poems because there is some really delightful stuff in there. Really fabulous. And as Keillor says himself, saying that a poem is good may be the only recommendation it needs.

And here: Obscurity Knocks by the Trashcan Sinatras. Good stuff.

I LOVE this photoblog, Portes et Fenetres (which is French for Doors and Windows). I stumbled across it while looking for pictures of France. It is dedicated to photographs of interesting and lovely (you guessed it) doors and windows. Most of them are found in France, but there are pictures from all over Europe and a few from New York.

Really, really lovely.

It makes you wonder, where do one of those doors take you? Don’t you want to find out?

I want to be
        famous
so I can be
        humble
about being
        famous.

What good is my
        humility
when I am
        stuck
in this
        obscurity?

~ by David Budbill

We all need a little humor in our lives. Learning how to correctly punctuate may just be the icing on the cake. This book is so funny, I laugh out-loud whenever I read it. (Yes, I have read it multiple times). And if you ever needed help, as many people do, with a semi-colon or colon or any other punctuation mark, this book is for you. Also, Lynne Truss is British. Which pretty much seals the deal right there. I am seriously considering handing this book out as a gift. You know - wedding or baby showers, birthdays, Christmas, housewarming occasions. I think correct punctuation is important: you should, too.

Last week, at my other blog, I wrote about Stories; stories that suggest themselves to us because we hear something or see something and suddenly we’ve spun a yarn around a little idea that turns out to be so much more.

Story is a term we apply to a wide range of things, basically a narrative of sorts. But a story can be fiction or not. In fact we constantly tell stories about our day, our week, our life, to other people. There are probably stories we like to tell. And the way we tell them evolves–not that the truth changes, but we learn how to tell it in such a way that others are interested.

Telling stories is essential. It is a way to transmit truths. It is a way to understand ourselves and others.

This week we are looking at stories. But not just any kind of story; the story that presents it’s self in a poem, or as the case maybe, a group of poems. Of course poems have an idea they wrap themselves around, and often that idea suggests a story. But this week is not about the idea. We’re focusing on the little vignette, something that could have happened to you, or your grandmother. Maybe it didn’t. But, it could have.

I surprised myself in college when I figured out that not only did I love reading and literature, I was interested in language. What’s the difference? I guess the study of language deals with the technical aspects of what makes up literature. I find those technical aspects fascinating, and I’ll admit it right here: I really do find diagramming sentences, yes, fun. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised. In elementary I always liked the language part the best.

{a sweet boy & his dictionary}

There are a lot of ways to define the power of a word, whether technical or poetical, or both. Words are powerful. Look one up, just for fun. You’ll learn something, or make a connection you hadn’t thought of before. In this perilous world, I am tempted to keep a dictionary by my side at all times, just in case.

Just an Orange, simply put, is sort of a blog about, well, a lot of things. I loved my Humanities 202 class in college. Maybe this is my way of revisiting it. But more than that, I just enjoy that kind of stuff. Also my brain could use the exercise of thinking about it.

This blog has been in the works for some time. Almost since the inception of Bells on Their Toes over a year and a half ago, the idea of having a place to write about things that were a little more separate from my life was intriguing and tempting. But also a little bit time consuming and tiring. Which is why it’s taken awhile to get the ball rolling. Now that my youngest is nearing nine months and my sleep to awake ratio has improved considerably, I’ve decided to take the plunge.

So what will this be exactly? Well, poetry maybe the easiest way to sum it up. Not just the kind of poetry that uses words, but poetry that requires stone, or brush strokes, or musical notes, or brain waves from both right and left hemispheres, or simply a person. But make no mistake. Plenty of word poetry. I love words. And words may be what I know best.

I fully submit to the title of Amateur (definitely a capital “A”) when it comes to these things. In other words, I reserve the right to not completely understand what I’m talking about.

My humble credentials are as follows: I have a genetic history of such things; my dad is a writer and a poet, my mother is an artist, as is my dad’s mother and her father. I grew up reading book after book under my covers in bed at night when I was supposed to be asleep. I write (you can see that). I dabble a bit with drawing and painting for fun. When I was young my dad would play records of classical music for me as I fell asleep. The music of Prince Igor by Alexander Borodin would float, or more accurately, roll down the hall from the living room and into my bedroom. (This was before my reading days.) On Saturdays I would dance in our living room to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Copeland’s Rodeo.

I continued reading (Gone With the Wind in three days). I took some piano lessons and later played the flute in my jr. high band. I majored for a while in Modern Dance in college, but switched to English, with a minor in Psych, figuring that words and analysis might last longer than the youthful body. But I miss dancing. Swan Lake is my favorite ballet. I love Martha Graham’s technique for modern dance. I got to see her company perform once. Oh heaven.

I have lived for a time in France and spent a few days in Italy loving every minute I had to explore the art and architecture around me. I followed that architectural adventure by living north of NYC for a few years, where the houses of Scarsdale etc., spoiled me forever as far as what a neighborhood should look like. Too bad, those houses are out of my price range!

I’m married to a film teacher, who also bakes bread and cake. He’s quite versatile. He’s also good for carrying on a philosophical discussion or two. He is brilliant. I am not. But sometimes I like to pretend.

So there you go. And here I go. Welcome to Just an Orange. Care for a slice?