BW14: National Poetry Month

In 1996, April was established as National Poetry Month by the Academy of American Poets for the purpose of introducing more people to the pleasures of reading poetry and to appreciate the achievements of american poets.   This year, the Academy is sponsoring the Poet to Poet Project in which students write poems in response to the poetry of the poets who sit on the chancellery board.  Also, on the website you'll find 30 ways to celebrate poetry which includes read a poetry book, attend a poetry reading, write a letter to a poet, start your own commonplace book, and poem in your pocket.

Poem in your pocket day is officially April 24th and my go to poet is Robert Frost.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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Also, join me in a readalong of Susan Wise Bauer's  History of the Ancient World. I'll most likely be reading one to two chapters a week and allowing time for following rabbit trails as they appear.  And if I'm feeling really ambitious, may just attempt to use the Study and Teaching Guide from Peace Hill Press. 

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BW13: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The 17th novel in Susan Wise Bauer's list of fiction reads from her book The Well-Educated Mind is Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.  The story was originally published in a three part serial in Blackwood's Magazine in 1899.


One  - 

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide.

The sea-reach of the Thames stretched before us like the beginning of an interminable waterway. In the offing the sea and the sky were welded together without a joint, and in the luminous space the tanned sails of the barges drifting up with the tide seemed to stand still in red clusters of canvas sharply peaked, with gleams of varnished sprits. A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.

The Director of Companies was our captain and our host. We four affectionately watched his back as he stood in the bows looking to seaward. On the whole river there was nothing that looked half so nautical. He resembled a pilot, which to a seaman is trustworthiness personified. It was difficult to realize his work was not out there in the luminous estuary, but behind him, within the brooding gloom.

Between us there was, as I have already said somewhere, the bond of the sea. Besides holding our hearts together through long periods of separation, it had the effect of making us tolerant of each other's yarns--and even convictions. The Lawyer--the best of old fellows--had, because of his many years and many virtues, the only cushion on deck, and was lying on the only rug. The Accountant had brought out already a box of dominoes, and was toying architecturally with the bones. Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the mizzen-mast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol. 

The director, satisfied the anchor had good hold, made his way aft and sat down amongst us. We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there was silence on board the yacht. For some reason or other we did not begin that game of dominoes. We felt meditative, and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water shone pacifically; the sky, without a speck, was a benign immensity of unstained light; the very mist on the Essex marsh was like a gauzy and radiant fabric, hung from the wooded rises inland, and draping the low shores in diaphanous folds. Only the gloom to the west, brooding over the upper reaches, became more sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of the sun.

And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men.

Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories. And indeed nothing is easier for a man who has, as the phrase goes, "followed the sea" with reverence and affection, that to evoke the great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames. The tidal current runs to and fro in its unceasing service, crowded with memories of men and ships it had borne to the rest of home or to the battles of the sea. It had known and served all the men of whom the nation is proud, from Sir Francis Drake to Sir John Franklin, knights all, titled and untitled--the great knights-errant of the sea. 

It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning with her rotund flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests-- and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. They had sailed from Deptford, from Greenwich, from Erith-- the adventurers and the settlers; kings' ships and the ships of men on 'Change; captains, admirals, the dark "interlopers" of the Eastern trade, and the commissioned "generals" of East India fleets. Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.

The sun set; the dusk fell on the stream, and lights began to appear along the shore. The Chapman light-house, a three-legged thing erect on a mud-flat, shone strongly. Lights of ships moved in the fairway--a great stir of lights going up and going down. And farther west on the upper reaches the place of the monstrous town was still marked ominously on the sky, a brooding gloom in sunshine, a lurid glare under the stars.

"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth....

Read the rest online here or here or here.

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BW12: Spring Beckons

Spring officially arrives on March 20th and with it comes the feeling of rejuvenation.  The feel of the sun,  flowers and trees blossoming, birds singing, squirrels chattering  and mornings sitting out on my patio enjoying nature.  The desire to begin spring cleaning and throw out all the old stuff to make room for the new.  Plus the urge to clean up our garden, explore the nursery, go crazy buying too many flats of plants and get busy digging my fingers into the soil.  And for some unknown reason,  I'm always reminded of Robert Frost and his poem Spring Pools.

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect

The total sky almost without defect,

And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,

Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,

And yet not out by any brook or river,

But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds

To darken nature and be summer woods---

Let them think twice before they use their powers

To blot out and drink up and sweep away

These flowery waters and these watery flowers

From snow that melted only yesterday.

Tell me what you think of when you hear the word Spring.  Words that immediately come to mind for me are rebirth, flowers, buds, seeds, sunshine, bees, birds, sing, bright, pink, new.     Goodreads came up with an interesting lists related to Spring or Flowers or sunshine. 

Decided to get creative and use some of the words from Frost's Poem to find a spring book to read.   Not as easy as you think or else I'm just getting really picky.   Unlike Winter, in which my stacks were full of wintery reads, I don't seem to have nary a one relating to Spring.  Unless I want to count The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder. *grin*

Join me in reading books with spring or spring related words in the title for the season of Spring.  

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BW11: 14th Century

This month I'm jumping into the 14th century which ran from 1301 to 1400. It was the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy and later spread throughout Europe after 1450. We begin to see the rise of the alliterative verse as seen in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, along with Pearl, Purity and Patience.  Plus allegorical literature in which symbols were used to describe characters or events, such as William Langland's Piers Plowman or Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as well as Dante's Divine Comedy.   

If you've finished reading Inferno, are you ready to tackle Purgatorio?  Me neither. I spent a good amount of time, reading through the analysis on Sparknotes and looking people up.It was educational, a bit scary, and at times made me feel woefully ignorant when it came to history. But that's not such a bad thing as I can see where it will lead me on plenty of rabbit trails. Not sure if or when I'll go on to Purgatorio. Need to clean my brain with bleach and feed my soul with something positive first.

However, if you are interested, Rod Dreher from American Conservative blog is doing a Lenten readalong of Purgatorio, so head over and check out his detailed commentary.  Very enlightening. 

Check out Goodreads list of Popular 14th Century literature which includes all the ones I mentioned above as well as Umberto Eco, Anya Seton, Bernard Cornwall and Suzanna Gregory to name a few.  If you are feeling adventuresome, delve into the historical chronicles of Froissart and Joinville. 

Join me in reading a book set in the 14th Century.

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BW10: Armchair Traveling through France

Welcome to March which is beginning to look like a full month with Lent beginning on the 5th, daylight savings time beginning on the 9th,  St Patrick's day on the 17th and the first day of Spring on the 20th.  Plus the very first Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1901 went to Frenchman Sully Prudhomme whose birthday is March 16, 1839.  In fact, other Nobel Prize literature winners from France include:

Frederic Mistral 1904
Count Maurice Maeterlinck 1911 - Born in Belguim, lived and died in France 
Romain Rolland 1915 
Anatole France  1921
Henri Bergson 1927
Roger Martin Du Gard 1937
Andre Gide 1947
Francois Mauriac 1952
Albert Camus - 1957
Jean-Paul Sartre 1964
Samuel Becket 1969 - born in Ireland but moved and died in France
Claude Simon 1985
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio 2008

So while we are armchair traveling through France this month, consider reading a book or poetry written by one of the Nobel Prize Winners.   

I do seem to have one foot stuck in Italy and the other foot in France and have both Italian and French authors in my backpack.  And since I've delving into the 14th century this month,  Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose, fits the bill perfectly. As well as his Foucault's Pendulum which actually is set in Paris.  Another author I've been meaning to try is Marcel Proust and discovered Swann's Way available for free on Kindle.  For fun I have 3 of Cara Black's books in her Aimee Leduc investigation mystery series as well.

For those who prefer a culinary approach to France, Nancy Pearl from Book Lust to Go recommends checking out Julia Child's My Life in France or Kathleen Flinn's The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry.  Take a food tour through France with Balzac's Omelette by Anka Muhlstein or Ann Mah's Mastering the Art of French Eating. 

For more ideas, check out Goodreads popular French Literature list with includes Camus, Voltaire, Dumas, Balzac, Verne and Sartre to name a few. 

Join me in reading all things French, with a little bit of Italian thrown in on the side.

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