i’ve gathered around me, rather by accident, a tall stack of books about poetry.  here’s a bit from my notebooks:

although the wind

blows terribly here,

the moonlight also leaks

between the roof planks

of this ruined house.

:: Shikibu

*******

the mind of poetry makes visible how permeable we are to the winds and moonlight with which we share our house.

:: Jane Hirshfield

*******

the objective correlative of subjective experience

:: T.S. Eliot

*******

the natural object is always the adequate symbol.

:: Donald Hall

*******

one of the functions of poetry is to keep the memory of people and places and things and happenings alive.

:: Jane Kenyon

********

the prophetic function of the poem, waiting on the page for the breath the will come and make it alive, make it new

*******

lyric poetry…the personal lyric…incantatory blessings

*******

i think culture invented lyric poetry along with religion and philosophy to help people understand the world and to discover ordering powers.

:: Gregory Orr

*******

an abiding dearest freshness deep down of things

:: Gerard Manley Hopkins

*******

my ear is not working, my poetry ear.  i can’t write a line that doesn’t sound like pots and pans falling out of the cupboard.

:: Jane Kenyon

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we’ve been having fun video calling our California relatives today.  look what i found on the webcam:

taken a few weeks after his birth.  and then us today:

so blessed…

up at flickr…

Halloween

Mabel’s birthday

Nico  love

it’s no secret; Wes Anderson has a new movie.  but do you know how much i love his work?  oh so much!  there’s lots o’ fun at that first link, but if you want to dig deeper (and foxes do dig deeper) then this is the link for you.

and for those of you who aren’t really about movies or animation or clicking on any random link i might offer,  here’s a bit from an interview with Roald Dahl–he wrote the book that the movie is based on–when he was 71:

One of the vital things for a writer who’s writing a book, which is a lengthy project and is going to take about a year, is how to keep the momentum going.  It is the same with a young person writing an essay.  They have got to write four or five or six pages.  But when you are writing for a year, you go away and you have to come back.

I never come back to a blank page; I always finish about halfway through.  To be confronted with a blank page is not very nice.  But Hemingway, a great American writer, taught me the finest trick when you are doing a long book, which is, he simply said in his own words, “When you are going good, stop writing.”  And that means that if everything’s going well and you know exactly where the end of the chapter’s  going to go and you know just what the people are going to do, you don’t go on writing until you come to the end of it, because when you do, then you say, well, where am I going to go next?  And you get up and walk away and you don’t want to come back because you don’t know where you want to go.

But if you stop when you are going good, as Hemingway said…then you know what you are going to say next.  You make yourself stop, put your pencil down and everything, and you walk away.  And you can’t wait to get back because you know what you want to say next and that’s lovely and you have to try and do that.   Every time, every day all the way through the year.  If you stop when you are stuck, then you are in trouble!

this really is some of the best writing  advice.  or at least the most useful.  i used it whenever i had a long paper to writie in school, and i used it every day when i did NaNoWriMo.  my only other trick is bribing…you can have a cup a tea when you finish this page.  you can go for a walk when this scene is done.  works like a charm.  sorry Alfie Kohn.

**edited** to add this wonderful link to pictures of Roald Dahl’s writing shed.  do take a look around!

of the library at Canterbury…Shannon had embroidered “all who wander are not lost” on her green canvas backpack.

*i’ve updated the Year in Books List. we’re current through October.

gathering is peculiar, because you see nothing but what you’re looking for. if you’re picking raspberries, you see only what’s red, and if you’re looking for bones you see only the white. no matter where you go, the only thing you see is bones. sometimes they are as thin as needles, extremely fine and delicate, and have to be handled with great care. sometimes they are large, heavy thigh bones, or a cage a ribs buried in the sand like the timbers of a shipwreck. bones come in a thousand shapes and every one of them has its own structure.

:: from The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

our good friend Nicki (who was also here for Nico’s birth!) came over today and let me leave for an hour of walking and writing at the cafe.  i felt so grown up!  when i came home, i found a happy girl and these turkeys.  here’s a link so you can make your own…though these look more like vultures i think!)

while i was out i spied a NY Times and saw that Mark Bittman had written a 101 list especially for Thanksgiving.  i just love these lists, more suggestion than recipe.  it gets the creative kitchen juices flowing to think about how different flavors and textures compliment each other.  this from the girl who could eat beans and rice almost every day!

here’s the list about why to homeschool that Andy made, in no particular order (and that’s AP with the babies picking peaches out on the island):

• for the fun and challenge of it
• to share an experience with your child
• to read the same books
• to continue our own education
• it seems natural
• you like your kids, and there’s plenty of time later not to be around them
• freedom
• to curb the compulsory part of school
• to avoid the herd-like nature of school
• to keep home the organic center of life
• to foster the sense that learning is not a specialized activity–education is not the province of “trained experts”
• to keep the idea of education as career training to a minimum
• school gives the impression that knowledge is impractical because it’s so far removed from the rest of life
• who knows what they’re doing in those classrooms

last night i finally got around to roasting all of the squash that has been showing up in our CSA shares.  i had a pumpkin, a butternut, an acorn, and a delicata.  such variety!  i left the pumpkin and delicata whole like Lyanda recommended.  i must admit i was a little dubious that the pumpkin would cook.  but the process worked beautifully–the flesh cooked and the skin and seeds were so easy to remove.  i ended up with a buttery delicata for tonight’s dinner (tortellini tossed with squash and kale) and 10 cups of smashed squash in the freezer.  i even labeled the bags!

that’s what the librarian wanted to know. and i don’t know why the question would bother me…but it did. i mean my girl is just three. is it such a rare occurrence that a mama comes in looking for books her little on has requested? but you know what? we are homeschoolers! and yes, my girl is but three. we don’t do any formal work. we do live our lives with open eyes, good books, and walks outside.

a few months ago AP and i wrote down our separate reasons for wanting to homeschool our children. here’s mine:

• why?  because i want to; it interests me; i can; it’s a challenging DIY project
• it’s cost-effective, much cheaper than private school
• i feel a responsibility to the littles.  i want them to spend their days with someone who values them and their unique strengths
• i don’t want someone else’s schedule–hurrying to pick up or drop off or some silly assignment (or teacher)–taking up our time
• i am a late-blooming autodidact.  i want my children to create and not be afraid
• “study to be quiet and work with your own hands.”
• someone has to feed + clean + clothe these children.  we might as well learn too.
• school is not about learning
• i don’t want the influence of secular values (or crazy christian ones!)
• every step toward wholeness, integration, consciousness, simplicity, understanding, reverence  is a step in the right direction