Swan Lake

A scene from a Chinese version of "Swan Lake," by the Guangdong Military Acrobatic Troupe, featuring Wu Zhengdan and Wei Baohua.

An amazing 48 seconds.

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=3f5112778b7fa7051ee5b20dd6b0aecb7164037f

15 Sentence Portrait

Starlight White

We had been sitting on the unforgiving plank seat of the picnic table for a heart-to-heart when my dad scooped me up and held me, my spindly spine drawing a neat line down his chest. The dusk light turned my fingertips faintly yellow, the color of pollen too stubborn to be washed off in the bath. My stomach was a hard chasm and my throat thick with the warm milk that was supposed to have put me to sleep. Tomorrow was the first day of school and my fingers flexed like a basketball player miming a free-throw shot, ready and nervous to press my freshly sharpened pencils into the mysterious shapes of the ABCs.

All summer I had waited, planned, and dreamed about tomorrow, but not any tomorrow, tomorrow’s tomorrow: it was the evening before my first day of kindergarten at Prairie Hills elementary school. I had to ride the bus alone. My red and black backpack was packed with Big Chief paper and a box of tissues for the classroom. I wanted to be new like my new supplies, a brand new grown up girl instead of the little girl who stayed at home with her mother while the big kids went to school.

My dad pointed toward the lights at the edge of the prairie grass. We watched the fireflies flit freely near the lawn’s limit. My Dad, who must have sat here with his other three daughters and maybe even my brother, breathed gently into my ear. The taste of mint lingered in the air as I absentmindedly ran my tongue across my freshly scrubbed teeth. The stars were cool pinpricks behind my eyes.

Dad told me, “Just scream them out.” My little-girl lips opened wide in a high pitched scream and as the butterfly wings raced toward the stars, soft traces of their wings gathered in the creases of my smile—the starlight white smile I would give the next morning for my new teacher, Mrs. Drew.

(with thanks to Ms.Nic.)

Ted Kooser and Me

Ted Kooser
(click on image to enlarge)

Last night we managed to find our way to the Dowagiac Fine Arts Festival to listen to Ted Kooser read his poems. We were running late, of course. It was only our second trip to Dowagiac and we were unsure of the way. Luckily we had my new favorite toy: a gps device. It shows and tells you where to go. I love pushing its buttons. L. finally had to suggest I might want to enjoy the lovely scenery instead of the virtual fields and lakes.

We had tickets dead center and about halfway back from the podium in the quite posh Dowagiac Central Middle School. Junior High never looked so good.

Ted Kooser turns me on. Wait. Ted Kooser's poetry turns me on. But it is him too. His softly angled face full of stories, ready for a joke, eyes and hands eager to get outside with his notebook calms me into a readiness to gaze into his poems and wait for the pressure of his elegant verse to set off little explosions under my skin.

He is one of those poets who have that power to compel me to pay attention. To observe. To listen. He is not flashy or aggressive. He doesn't demand attention. I just find myself turned inside out when listening to his poems. If he asked me about my deepest secrets, I would tell him with comfort. One of those types.

I am sure not everyone feels this way about Ted. But maybe not.

Maybe it is because I am from Kansas and he is from Nebraska.

L. and I were two of the youngest audience members in the sizable crowd. What an honor. What a shame that more young people (by young, I am thinking 40 or under) didn't come out to hear these words simply spoken with such delight and power.

He read two of my favorites "Beaded Purse" and "Tattoo." I heard "A Washing of Hands" in a new way. He also read a poem about a couple splitting a roast beef sandwich. I can't find it in my copy of "Delights and Shadows", his 2004 book of poems. I want a copy of that poem. Please let me know if you know it.

He read one poem that he had composed that morning. It was a portrait or "snapshot" poem he had written called "Will Work for Food" and depicted a person living in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Kooser makes it his habit to write every morning from 4:30 - 7:00. For something like 30 years he sold insurance and had to find a time to write. After serving as poet laureate of the United States two times, he nevertheless maintains his morning writing routine.

Kooser's poetry starts in observation. He sees insects. He sees his wife washing her hands. He sees stories. He sees humor and pathos. He sees strangers. His poetry does not start in the depths of the Bodleian stacks tangled in linguistic theory. You do not need to read Dante in the original or be able to define "trochaic" to understand and find pleasure in his words. You do not need a PhD. You need to be human. You would be surprised that many are unsure about how to meet this qualification.

Ted Kooser’s poems give me pleasure. They don’t stretch my vocabulary or sting my political correctness. They don’t spur me on to political revolution or social activism. They make me aware of the delicate pleasure of being alive and call me to see the world, really see it. This is a welcome reminder for a girl who gives into the tempation of pushing buttons on a tiny handheld gps device screen instead if seeing the landscape in front of her eyes.

A few Kooser poems:

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.



Tattoo

What once was meant to be a statement—
a dripping dagger held in the fist
of a shuddering heart—is now just a bruise
on a bony old shoulder, the spot
where vanity once punched him hard
and the ache lingered on. He looks like
someone you had to reckon with,
strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,
but on this chilly morning, as he walks
between the tables at a yard sale
with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt
rolled up to show us who he was,
he is only another old man, picking up
broken tools and putting them back,
his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

Links:

Ted Kooser's Official Site:
http://www.tedkooser.com/

A list of his published works:

http://www.tedkooser.com/works.html

Weekly Column: American Life in Poetry:

http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/

Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

No, Really, It Was Tough: 4 People, 80 Martinis

All you need to know about the Martini and how to pick your gin:

Spirits of The Times

No, Really, It Was Tough: 4 People, 80 Martinis

By ERIC ASIMOV

Published: May 2, 2007

The Times tasting panel sorts out which gins produce classic martinis, which add welcome nuances and which really ought to seek another line of cocktail.

Pilobolus: A Performance Merging Dance and Biology

http://www.ted.com/talks/pilobolus_perform_symbiosis