Potpourri: Literature & Women's Studies

Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win.

Quiz #10

In 1993-1995 she was the youngest and the only African American to serve in this post. What is the post and who is she? Provide brief bio and link if you can.

haiku

an urban garden
beyond concrete and billboards
offers mums and tea

~zawadi

Blog Workshop

Writing In the 21st Century: Blogging Workshop

hosted by Color Online
Facilitator, Shanae Brown
2007 Black Web Bloggers Awards Winner

DATE CHANGED

Join us Saturday, Novemeber 10, 2007
11am-1pm
Alternatives For Girls
903 West Grand. Blvd, Detroit

Learn how to meld your creativity with technology.

Questions, contact us at coloronline2005@yahoo.com

Birthday Shout Outs!

Ruby Dee

Ruby Ann Wallace was born Oct. 27, 1924, in Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up in Harlem. She graduated from Hunter College with degrees in French and Spanish. She was the first black woman to appear in major roles at the American Shakespeare Festival, in Stratford, Conn. A lifelong activist and breast cancer survivor, she and her late husband co-authored With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together. They discuss their lives as actors, activists, parents and a married couple.

To read more:

bio

pbs

npr

Our Voices

all things considered

you uncurl like an early sunday yawn
draped in paper robes and coffee stirs
absently listen to feathered conversations
outside our window till linda wertheimer
percolates on the counter.

lmb

Museum Adventure Pass

“Art that inspires and engages, hands-on science that excites and educates, history and culture that brings past and present Michigan to life – all of these and more are waiting for you at your local public library. Just use your library card to receive a Museum Adventure Pass, presented by Macy’s, and get free admission for two or four, depending on location, at one of these participating organizations.”

So I go to my library yesterday, and I discover a new program being offered through the library sponsored by Macy's. I am ecstatic! We’re always looking for ways to share art and culture with Color Online members and here is a way. We can’t take a large group, but we can plan mentor/participant outings using this program.

To learn more: http://http://www.detroitadventurepass.org/

Submission Call

We will periodically post submission calls for literary publications both print and online.

The Broome Review, a new print journal is accepting submissions of poetry, fiction & non-fiction. All pertinent info available at: thebroomereview

Potpourri: Literature & Women's Studies

Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win.

Quiz #9

Name the author and the title of one of her works. Provide link if possible.

"[She] was born in Parmele, North Carolina, on May 17, 1929. The second oldest of five children, she moved, as an infant, with her family to Washington, D.C. She studied piano as a child and teenager. She loved music, movies, and books. As a young wife and mother in her early twenties, while working as a clerk-typist at the U. S. Patent Office, [fill in] began a search for satisfying work. She found it in writing...

After several years of study and rejections from publishers, [fill in] had her first poem published in the Hartford Times in 1962. Her first book was published in 1972. She is now the author of more than 40 books for children -- poetry, biography, picture books and older fiction. She says her mission is twofold: (1) to contribute to the development of a large body of African American literature for children and (2) to continue to fill her life with the joy of creating with words."

Birthday Shout Outs!

Mahalia Jackson

October 26, 1911- January 27, 1972
New Orleans, Louisiana

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Mahalia Jackson is viewed by many as the pinnacle of gospel music. Her singing began at the age of four in her church, the Plymouth Rock Baptist Church in New Orleans. Her early style blended the freedom and power of gospel with the stricter style of the Baptist Church. As a teenager, through her cousin's aid, she was influenced by such famous singers as Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Enrico Caruso and Ma Rainey, and her own style began to emerge into a more soulful expression...

From the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott until her death, Mahalia was very prominent in the Civil Rights Movement. Very close with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she often performed at his rallies--even singing an old slave spiritual before his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington in 1963. She also sang at his funeral five years later.

To read more: http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/jack-mah.htm

Potpourri: Literature & Women's Studies

Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win.

Quiz #8

Who wrote The Auero Sisters? Provide brief bio and link if you can.

Fertile Ground: Selected Poetry Read

Ghosts
Maurya Simon

All day the day lilies stall in the shade;
at dusk, the moon prowls the dark providences.
We have reached the in-between hour-
our bodies flow through tight crevices;
our slender feet, clever in their lightness,
step through even granite dungeons as they
float us back into the empty world.

We join hands, knowing no other solace
than breath, no comfort other than flight.
Our mission is simply to fully remember
all the catechisms of our days and nights,
and to relive our errors, one by one.
Clouds in the desert, winds in the forest:
we starve, we how our green lamentations.

What inhabits us is a hidden loss, something
we cannot speak nor name- a sorrow so rich
and fine it makes our skin translucent.
Write our etching names in the blank pages
of your hearts, or press them gently there,
like the dried petals of passion flowers.
We hold you accountable for change.

for Alex Londres and Geoff Bowers, taken by AIDS

Book Loan Program

For all active online members, you may borrow any title from our bookshelf from the shelf marked 'own.' You may borrow a book up to 30 days. We will ship books media rate. You must do the same with delivery confirmation. 1 book per loan. If you fail to return a book or fail to return it in the condition in which you received it, your loan privileges will be permanently revoked. Active member is defined but not limited to regular participation in this community. If you are unsure, write me at cora_litgroup@yahoo.com. Put 'book loan' on the subject line.

Requests
Post all loan request here. Use the following format:

Member Name
Book Title
Email

I will send you an email indicating if we have the book currently available and date mailed. Any questions, write me at cora_litgroup@yahoo.com

More Color Online
If you would like to discuss books or book-related topics at length, start a discussion at our Book Blog forum or Shelfari. Both are public forums but you must be a registered member.

Color Online Book Blogs Discussion forum
Color Online Shelfari Discussion forum

Stamp Fund
I strongly believe books are to be read and not hoarded nor collecting dust on a shelf. However, I also must accept my personal economic restraints. This program is funded out of my pocket. If you'd like to help to defray the cost of shipping books for our book loan program and prize books, $2 stamp donations are great. For a number of reasons, do not send cash to Color Online. Stamps are greatly appreciated.

COLOR ONLINE
PO BOX 1004
FARMINGTON, MI 48332-1004

Happy reading.

Color Online Quiz: Literature & Women's Studies

Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win.

Quiz #7

Doesn't get any easier than this one. Check our archives for the answer. :-)

Who wrote the poem, "Curtains"? Please provide a brief bio and link if you can.

Poet Profile

Camille Dungy "author of What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison (Red Hen Press, 2006), Camille T. Dungy has been awarded fellowships and awards from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the American Antiquarian Society. A graduate of Stanford University and the MFA program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, she lives in San Francisco, CA, where she serves as an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Department at San Francisco State University. Her work has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, The Crab Orchard Review, Poetry Daily, and other publications. She is Assistant Editor Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem's First Decade (University of Michigan Press, 2006)."

To read more http://www.fishousepoems.org/archives/camille_dungy/index.shtml

Ms. Dungy is a supporter of Color of Online. She has donated her poetry collection to our group and we have featured her work here. Check Fertile Ground archive for her poem entitled, "The Ark."

Color Online Quiz: Literature & Women's Studies

Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win.

QUIZ #6
Name this term

"The natural rhythm of language caused by the alteration of accented and unaccented syllables. Much of moderation poetry- notably free verse- deliberately manipulates [fill in] to create complex rhythmic effects."

Submission Call

"How can one not speak about war, poverty, and inequality when people who suffer from these afflictions don't have a voice to speak?"
~Isabel Allende

Color Online is currently accepting submissions for our first e-zine issue slated for January publication. We are looking for poems, short stories, book reviews and articles.

Tell us how the personal is political. How are you a visionary? Think about our mission statement or the above quote. Tell us how you are growing spiritually, politically and culturally. In what ways do you choose to help yourself and others?

Send questions and submissions to cora_litgroup@yahoo.com. Include complete name and contact information with your submission. No attachments will be accepted. Original works only.

Deadline is December 12, 2007. Contributors will be contacted by December 27, 2007. We will not send rejection notices.

Fertile Ground: Selected Poetry Read

Interstate
Ruth Ellen Kocher

The projects were a gift to us,
the meek who inherit the earth.
Walls for our roaches. Foundations
for our rats. The green paneling
layered like grass grown
in a country meadow we never
saw. Sometimes, over
the sound of sex above my head,
I could hear a distant highway,
cars cutting through air
as though no boundaries existed
Between there and here.

You must understand this, the hollow
tunnel of sound-less-ness echoed in movement,
the suggestion of space without walls,

a road that went somewhere
in a heaved sigh of relief.

From Cave Canem 2002.

Book Snapshot

In the time of the Butterflies, is a historical fiction about the murder of Mirable sisters, revolutionaries who committed themselves to the overthrow of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. Julia Alvarez principally tells the story through Dede the surviving sister though the author also beautifully weaves personal reflections of each sister in her own voice.

Feature Legend

New Crayons-Remember when you were a kid and getting new crayons was a big deal? Getting new books holds the same kind of magic for some of us big kids. Every week on Sunday, I post what's new in our box. I think crayons is a pretty cool metaphor for multicultural lit. Every week we receive a book is a good week.


COLA- Color Online Love Alert. This feature is two-fold. Some COLA items will be full blog posts while others will be links on found on our sidebar. Links and features highlight blogs, books and articles written by women of color or news about awards and articles celebrating the work of women of color writers, poets, artists and activists and multicultural publishers. Check the sidebar regularly for new COLA links.

Shades of Love- created to promote kidlet and YA books we want to share with you. When you see the Shades of Love tag or the symbol, you readily know the type of book featured.



Quizzes-Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Must provide your email addy to be eligible to win. Cool prizes, check out our Prize Bucket.

Sunday Salon- A recap of the week's posts. We know everyone has a full life. Some days you aren't going to get by. Sunday Salon is posted Saturday night. Check it out and catch up on the week's activities.

What Do I Read Next- a regular feature. Each week Doret and I will recommend a title or a list based on a particular genre or themes. But for this to really work, we need your requests. Tell us what kind of books you enjoy or what themes you'd like to explore written by or about POC.

CORA Diversity Roll Call- a bi-weekly meme hosted alternately between Color Online and Worducopia each week, with a question that explores and celebrates diversity in literature. Different weeks may focus on racial diversity, ethnicity, abilities, sexual identity, social class, and so on. No need to officially sign up--join in each week as you wish.


Sewing Circle-created to promote adult literature by women of color we want to share with you. When you see the Sewing Cirle tag or the symbol, you readily know the type of book featured.

Susan Says- my rambling. Book-related, usually.
Camile has a regular column on Wednesday. She's liable to say anything and she usually does.
Reviews- we actively encourage our members to contribute. Most reviews are written by community members and we link back to their individual blogs.

With all this we also host contests and challenges. Spring 2010 we will launch our bi-annual e-zine. Stay tuned.

Contact Us

cora_litgroup@yahoo.com

Mailing Adress:
COLOR ONLINE
PO BOX 1004
FARMINGTON, MI 48332-1004

Featured Collection

A friend introduced me to the poet’s work via her poem, “Appetite.” I knew from my first reading I wanted to read more of Ms. Smith’s work. Ms. Smith is young, articulate, and talented. Kevin Young in his introduction of her work writes, “…She seems to speak in tongues, to speak about that thing even beyond language, answering The Body’s Question of her title.

"How delightful it is to fall under the lucid and quite more than lovely spell of Tracy K. Smith's debut collection. Smith's work is deceptively plain-spoken, but these are poems that are powerfully wrought, inspiring in all the clarity of their many gospel truths. The Body's Question announces a remarkable new voice, brilliantly bundled, ingeniously belted down." --Lucie Brock-Broido

Fertile Ground: Selected Poetry Read

Appetite
Tracy K. Smith

It's easy to understand that girl's father
Telling her it's time to come in and eat.
Because the food is good and hot.
Because he has worked all day
In the same shirt, unbuttoned now
With its dirty neck and a patch
With his name on the chest.

The girl is not hungry enough
To go in. She has spent all day
Indoors playing on rugs, making her eyes
See rooms and houses where there is only
Shadow and light. She knows
That she knows nothing of the world,
Which makes the stoop where she kneels
So difficult to rise from.

But her father is ready to stuff himself
On mashed potatoes and sliced bread,
Ready to raise a leg of chicken to his lips,
Then a wing; to feel the heat enter through his teeth,
Skin giving way like nothing else
Will give way to him in this lifetime.

He's ready to take a bite
Of the pink tomatoes while his mouth
Is still full with something else,
To hurry it down his throat
With a swig of beer, shrugging
When his wife says, You're setting
A bad example. It doesn't matter-

Too many eyes without centers
For one day. Too many
Dice, cards, dogs with faces like sharks
Tethered to chains.
It gives him
An empty feeling below his stomach,
And all he can think to call it
Is appetite. And so he will lie
When he kisses his napkin and says
Hits the spot, as his daughter will lie
When she learns to parrot him,
Not yet knowing what her own appetite
Points to.

From The Body's Question by Tracy K. Smith

An Interview with Tracy K. Smith

Discovered this article this morning. For all you aspiring poets and readers, do check out Ms. Smith. We're featuring her debut collection. Tracy K. Smith won the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize for her book, The Body's Question (Graywolf Press 2003). Her second book, Duende (Graywolf Press, 2007) won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets.

The Line Between Two Worlds: Tracy K. Smith and Elizabeth Alexander in Conversation
by Tracy K. Smith Interviewed by Elizabeth Alexander

Tracy K. Smith synthesizes the riches of many discursive and poetic traditions without regard to doctrine and with great technical rigor. Her poems are mysterious but utterly lucid and write a history that is sub-rosa yet fully within her vision. They are deeply satisfying and necessarily inconclusive. And they are pristinely beautiful without ever being precious.

Writers and musicians have explored the concept of duende, which might in English translate to a kind of existential blues. Smith is not interested in sadness, per se. Rather, in the strange music of these poems, I think Smith is trying to walk us close to the edge of death-in-life, the force of hovering death in both the personal and social realms, admitting its inevitability and sometimes-proximity, and understanding its manifestations in quotidian acts. This dark force is nonetheless a life force, which, in the poem "Flores Woman," concludes, "Like a dark star. I want to last." If Duende were wine it would certainly be red; if edible it would be meat cooked rare, coffee taken black, stinky cheese, bittersweet chocolate. Tracy K. Smith's music is wholly her own, and Duende is a dolorous, beautiful book.

See complete interview at http://poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19726

Potpourri: Literature & Women's Studies

Quiz #3
Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win.

The first African American elected to the Texas Senate since Reconstruction, [ fill in the blank ] went on to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She mesmerized the nation during televised coverage of the House Judiciary Committee's investigation considering the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.

Who is she?

Fertile Ground: Selected Poetry Read

Home
Audre Lorde

We arrived at my mother's island
to find your mother's name in the stone
we did not need to go to the graveyard
for affirmation
our own genealogies
the language of childhood wars.

Two old dark women
in the back of the Belmont lorry
bound for L'Esterre
blessed us greeting
Eh Dou-Dou you look too familiar
to you to me
it no longer mattered.

From The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1997.

Potpourri: Literature & Women's Studies

Quiz #2
Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win.

Hanan Mikhail Ashrawi

Born 1946
Ramallah, Palestine(now the Israli-occupied West Bank)
Palestinian political activist and teacher.

"I am a descendant of the first Christians in the world, and Jesus Christ was born in my country, in my land. Bethlehem is a Palestinian town. So I will not accept this one-upmanship on Christrianity. Nobody has the monopoly."

She became spokesperson for the Palestinian cause in court of world opinion. Who is she?

Featured Poet: Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde was born February 18, 1934. Died 1992.

Her first volume of poems, The First Cities, was published in 1968. In 1968 she also became the writer-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, where she discovered a love of teaching. In Tougaloo she also met her long-term partner, Frances Clayton. The First Cities was quickly followed with Cables to Rage (1970) and From a Land Where Other People Live (1972), which was nominated for a National Book Award. In 1974 she published New York Head Shot and Museum. Whereas much of her earlier work focused on the transience of love, this book marked her most political work to date…

Lorde was diagnosed with cancer and chronicled her struggles in her first prose collection, The Cancer Journals, which won the Gay Caucus Book of the Year award for 1981. Her other prose volumes include Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982), Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984), and A Burst of Light (1988), which won a National Book Award.

In the 1980s, Lorde and writer Barbara Smith founded Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press. She was also a founding member of Sisters in Support of Sisters in South Africa, an organization that worked to raise concerns about women under apartheid.

Audre Lorde was professor of English at John Jay College of criminal justice and Hunter College. She was the poet laureate of New York from 1991-1992. She died of breast cancer in 1992. The Collected Poems Of Audre Lorde was published in 1997.

To read complete entry: http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/306

Potpourri: Literature & Women's Studies

Naomi Long Madgett

Answer the quiz and your name will be entered in a monthly drawing. Post your reply to the comment box. Must include your e-mail to be eligible to win.

Quiz #1

She received the Creative Achievement Award, College Language Association, 1988, for Octavia and Other Poems. She is the co-founder and president/editor/publisher of Lotus Press and is Detroit’s current Poet Laureate. Who is she?

Fertile Ground: Selected Poetry Read

Poetry Should Ride the Bus
Ruth Forman

poetry should hopscotch in a polka dot dress
wheel cartwheels
n hold your hand
when you walk past the yellow crackhouse

poetry should dress in fine plum linen suits
n not be so educated that it don’t stop in
every now n then to sit on the porch
and talk about the comins and goins of the world

poetry should ride the bus
in a fat woman’s Safeway bag
between the greens n chicken wings
to be served with Tuesday’s dinner

poetry should drop by a sweet potato pie
ask about the grandchildren
n sit through a whole photo album
on a orange plastic covered La-Z-Boy with no place to go

poetry should sing red revolution love songs
that massage your scalp
and bring hope to your blood
when you think you’re too old to fight

yeah
poetry should whisper electric blue magic
all the years or your life
never forgettin to look you in the soul
ever once in a while
n smile.

from We Are The Young Magicians

Fertile Ground: Selected Poetry Read

Postcard From Barcelona
Latasha Natasha Diggs

looking above
it is more than espresso
paella. Or cheese,

or ham sponged
between the sea’s yeast,

the spider plant,
her umbilical shoots,

the sheets, t-shirts
heaved towards cobblestone.

throughout,
but unnoticed is a choice.
a questioning rejoice.

a mourning, lonesome
from birds residing

in crocheted tin spances
gilded chastity. wired betrayal.

saddled above a deaf audience
tourist are enamored
by what resides in short distance-

too anxious to send postcards
telling friends they have seen
the Gaudi cathedral.

on this curved path
this winding alley,

the washer board garments
hang un-twitched, monkish.

but the birds knowing
everything and nothing.

find few responses
with pleated wings
and tender gospel.


From Cave Canem Anthology 2002

Birthday Shout Outs!

Diane Ackerman

Diane Ackerman born October 7, 1948 is a writer, poet and naturalist. She’s best known for her work A Natural History of the Senses.

“Her poetry has been published in leading literary journals, and in the books Origami Bridges: Poems of Psychoanalysis and Fire; I Praise My Destroyer; Jaguar of Sweet Laughter: New and Selected Poems; Lady Faustus; Reverse Thunder: A Dramatic Poem; Wife of Light; The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral. She also writes nature books for children: Animal Sense; Monk Seal Hideaway; and Bats: Shadows in the Night.

Ms. Ackerman has received many prizes and awards, including a D. Litt. from Kenyon College, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the John Burroughs Nature Award, and the Lavan Poetry Prize, as well as being honored as a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library. She also has the rare distinction of having a molecule named after her --dianeackerone. She has taught at a variety of universities, including Columbia, the University of Richmond, and Cornell. Her essays about nature and human nature have appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, Parade, The New Yorker, National Geographic, and many other journals, where they have been the subject of much praise. She hosted a five-hour PBS television series inspired by A Natural History of the Senses.”

To learn more: Diane Ackerman

YA Author Feature

"Born on February 12, 1963, in Columbus, Ohio, Jacqueline Woodson grew up in Greenville, South Carolina and Brooklyn, New York and graduated from college with a B.A. in English. A former drama therapist for runaways and homeless children in New York City, she now writes full-time. She has received The Kenyon Review Award for Literary Excellence in Fiction and most recently, three Coretta Scott King Honor books."

Ms.Woodson tackles difficult themes such as race, sexuality, sexual orientation, non-traditional families and more. A few of her titles include: The House You Pass On the Way, If You Come Softly, Maizon at Blue Hill and Hush.

To learn more: Jacqueline Woodson

Birthday Shout Outs!

Autherine Juanita Lucy

From http://www.answers.com/topic/autherine-lucy-foster:

Autherine Juanita Lucy was born in the small farming community of Shiloh, Alabama, on October 5, 1929. The youngest of ten children, Juanita, as she preferred to be called, grew up on the 110-acre farm maintained by her parents, Minnie Hosea Lucy and Milton Cornelius Lucy. Like her siblings, Lucy was no stranger to hard work and helped her family pick cotton and harvest crops. However, she was a bit awkward and often fell behind the others. She was also very shy, giving no inkling of the civil rights pioneer she would become…

In February of 1956, just months after the Supreme Court had ruled against segregation in Brown v. the Board of Education, Autherine Lucy enrolled as the first black student at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Her arrival on campus came after years of court battles by the NAACP on her behalf. However, the roots of segregation and racism were too strong for the law to break, much less a shy young woman reared on a rural farm. Angry mobs chased Lucy from campus only three days after her arrival. A month later she was expelled from the university. Though a student for less than a week, Lucy's time at the University of Alabama was an important milestone in the civil rights movement. Historian Nora Sayre wrote in Previous Convictions, "The Autherine Lucy case became a symbolic battlefield for those who were determined to maintain segregation and those who had resolved to eradicate it." Today, with the largest percentage of black students of all the Southern universities, the University of Alabama owes much to the legacy of Autherine Lucy Foster.

You're Invited, Join Us At Color Online!

“Let there be everywhere our voices, our eyes, our thoughts, our love, our action, breathing hope and victory.” ~Sonia Sanchez

Color Online has a particular focus on the works of women of color, but we promote all works that celebrate the human experience through multiculturalism and diversity. Membership is for young girls and young women between the ages of 14-21.

Membership benefits:

• Exclusive privileges to private Color Online book collection
• Have work published on our blog
• Attend cultural events
• Participate in writing contests and win prizes
• Monthly workshops and activities
• Earn community service hours for graduation

Join us at Shelfari.com for your online discussion group and your message board to post your original poetry. Color Online is your private online community to discuss what topics or interests you have. Leave us a comment including your e-mail and we'll enter your name in a drawing for a book or Amazon gift card. Promotion ends October 12th. Winner will be notified October 15th.

Have questions? Write us at coloronline2005@yahoo.com

Fertile Ground: Selected Poetry Read

Elena at Five Years
Demetria Martinez

Elena warms a brown egg
Between her palms, close to her lips,
Cold from a carton,
Chosen from the dozen.

It is the center now of a sphere
Of kitchen towels in a drawer
Next to an Amish cookbook,
Next to the oven's white side.

For three weeks at 3:15
Elena will breathe on that egg
Held between her lifelines
Against her grape-stained lips,
She anticipates the birth
Although brown eggs, her mother says,
Can't hatch.

But at 5, Elena
Has a good ear for heartbeats,
Sidewalk cracks cry
When her tennis shoe touches them,
The lave chips that embroider
The yard have names,
And a brown egg is throbbing
In the cup of her hand.

From Claiming The Spirit Within Edited by Marilyn Sewell copyright 1992

Birthday Shout Outs!

Tanaquil Le Clercq

“She was born in Paris on Oct. 2, 1929. Her mother, Edith Whittemore, was American, and her father, Jacques Le Clercq, was a French poet and writer. Their daughter was named after an Etruscan queen and was 3 when the family moved to New York...

"With an elongated physique that she used with refinement or humor (Balanchine once cast her as a dragonfly), she epitomized the modernized look in classical dancing that Balanchine was promoting in the United States in the 1940's. As the first City Ballet ballerina personally trained since childhood by Balanchine, she was naturally identified with his major works and the roles he created for her in them. These ballets included ''Symphonie Concertante,'' ''Symphony in C,'' ''Bourree Fantasque,'' ''Western Symphony'' and ''La Valse,'' in which her doomed heroine danced herself to death with chilling fervor.”

Fertile Ground: Daily Poetry Read

Curtains
Sandra Cisneros

Rich people don't need them.
Poor people tie theirs into fists
or draw them tight as modest brides
up to the neck.

Inside they hide bright walls.
Turquoise or lipstick pink.
Good colors in another country.
Here they can't make you forget

the dinette set that isn't paid for,
floorboards the landlord needs to fix,
raw wood, linoleum roses,
the what you wanted but didn't get.

From My Wicked Wicked Ways

YA Pick of The Week

Conseulo is a Puerto Rican teen living in San Juan in the 50s. The island is undergoing major culture changes with the influx of American enterprise. Conseulo's coming-of-age encapsulates the awkwarkness, doubt, disappointment and personl dilemma we all have experienced during our formative years. I'll be passing this one on to my own pre-teen in the very near future. A few choice sub-plots going on, too. Cofer weaves the personal transformations of multiple characters effortlessly. The text is sprinkled with Spanish that isn't difficult to understand.