God Bless the Gargoyles

Apr15

Someone posted a link to the entire poem by Dav Pilkey, “God Bless the Gargoyles”, brought to mind by the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris today. I haven’t sorted out my own reaction and my own feelings and thoughts about the cathedral’s burning; it seems culturally significant and ominous somehow, beyond the immediate tragedy of the loss of the cathedral and its art. But I’m not sure what it means or portends, if anything.

Nevertheless, I did like this poem (an excerpt):

“God bless the rain, and the stormclouds that bring it.
God bless the music, and the voices that sing it.
God bless the ones who sing everything wrong.
God bless the creatures who do not belong.

God bless the hearts and the souls who are grieving;
for those who have left, and for those who are leaving.
God bless each perishing body and mind
God bless all creatures remaining behind.

God bless the dreamers whose dreams have awoken.
God bless the lovers whose hearts have been broken.
God bless each soul that is tortured and taunted,
God bless all creatures, alone and unwanted.”

God bless Paris. God, please bless our broken world.

For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry by Christopher Smart

Apr11

April is National Poetry Month, and I’m featuring poetry picture books this month at Semicolon.

Poet Christopher Smart was born on April 11, 1722. He was a contemporary and friend of Samuel Johnson and other literary figures of the day. He was also the son-in-law of publisher John Newbery, the man for whom the Newbery Award is named. Mr. Newbery was Christopher Smart’s publisher, but the two eventually had a falling out because of money issues. Either because of the money or because Christopher Smart truly was mentally disturbed, Mr. Newbery had Smart committed to an insane asylum. While there, Smart wrote poetry, gardened, and prayed. He eventually got out, but later died in debtor’s prison.

Christopher Smart wrote a famous free verse poem called Jubilate Agno, part of which is about his cat, Jeoffry, and how said cat worshipped the Lord. The book pictured below is one I have in my library, and it contains the part of Jubilate Agno that is about Jeoffry the cat. Smart also wrote a poem called A Song to David about David and the Psalms and how God speaks through the psalms of David.

Excerpt from Smart’s poem, A Song to David

Glorious the sun in mid career;
Glorious th’ assembled fires appear;
Glorious the comet’s train:
Glorious the trumpet and alarm;
Glorious th’ almighty stretch’d-out arm;
Glorious th’ enraptur’d main:

Glorious the northern lights a-stream;
Glorious the song, when God’s the theme;
Glorious the thunder’s roar:
Glorious hosanna from the den;
Glorious the catholic amen;
Glorious the martyr’s gore:

Glorious—-more glorious is the crown
Of Him that brought salvation down
By meekness, call’d thy Son;
Thou that stupendous truth believ’d,
And now the matchless deed’s achiev’d,
Determin’d, dar’d, and done.

Samuel Johnson on Christopher Smart, from The Life of Johnson:

“Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart showed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question.”

Concerning this unfortunate poet, Christopher Smart, Johnson had, at another time, the following conversation with Dr. Burney:

BURNEY. “How does poor Smart do, Sir; is he likely to recover?”
JOHNSON. “It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with the disease; for he grows fat upon it.”
BURNEY. “Perhaps, Sir, that may be from want of exercise.”
JOHNSON. “No, Sir; he has partly as much exercise as he used to have, for he digs in the garden. Indeed, before his confinement, he used for exercise to walk to the alehouse; but he was carried back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I’d as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.”

I’d as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Indeed.

Forward Me Back to You by Mitali Perkins

Apr10

Mitali Perkins’ new book, Forward Me Back to You, is excellent YA fiction that deals with adoption, searching for birth parents, sexual assault, human trafficking, faith, and the meaning of family, all in the context of an exciting and romantic story that shows both Christian and non-Christian characters as real people with complex motives, thoughts, and desires. This book is going to be hard to classify, which is a great move in the right direction as far as I’m concerned. It’s not traditional “Christian fiction”. Nobody gets saved or converted at the climax of the novel, and it’s not preachy or trolling for Christian converts. But it’s also not the regular old “sanitized” secular novel either. Prayer and church-going and the application of Scriptural principles to life are a normal part of many of the characters’ lives, just as they are a normal part of my life and the lives of many of the people I know.

In the story eighteen year old Robin, whose birth name was Ravi, goes on a mission trip to Kolkata, India to help an organization that is dedicated to the fight against human trafficking. But Robin/Ravi has a secondary (or maybe primary) motive for traveling to India: he has decided, after many years of seeming indifference to his birth culture and parentage, to search for his birth mother who abandoned him to an orphanage in Kolkata eighteen years ago. Also on the mission trip are Katina, a tough girl with secrets of her own, and Gracie, the girl who has had a crush on Ravi for as long as she can remember. As they each work out their own ways to serve in Kolkata, they also learn to be served and to experience healing from the wounds that they have carried with them to this place.

Both the romantic aspects and the sexual assault themes of the novel are explored frankly but appropriately. Teens should certainly be able to handle the subjects as they are incorporated into the story. Although adoptees and victims of assault should be aware of possible triggers in the story, they should also know that the novel might be helpful and even cathartic. For those of us who have not experienced either adoption or assault, Forward Me Back to You should be helpful in developing understanding and empathy.

However, the novel is primarily a story, not a therapeutic exercise. As such, it’s the best kind of story—a tale in which I could ride along with the characters, grow to care about them, experience their joys and tragedies, and learn something about how to handle my own. And I got to do it all in the safety of my own living room. It’s a good book, one I plan to share with my own teenage and young adult children and with some others that I know who would particularly enjoy it because of their own background with similar issues and themes.

If by Rudyard Kipling

Apr7

If by Rudyard Kipling, illustrated by Giovanni Manna. Creative Editions, 2014.

Read the poem If at Poetry Foundation.

Michael Caine reads and comments on the poem If.

I’m a big fan of poems made into picture books with nice, full page or double spread illustrations for each line or couplet or quatrain of the poem. This edition of the famous poem If by Kipling is a fine example of the genre. Italian illustrator Giovanni Manna “has made illustrations for more than 80 books for children since 1995. His work has been featured in exhibitions throughout Italy and internationally, from Bratislava to Britain. He teaches watercolor at the International School of Illustration in Sarmede and was awarded the Andersen Prize for best Italian illustrator in 2003.” (Biographical information from the book jacket.)

Kipling, of course, is one of England’s best known poets and storytellers. This book begins with a biographical note about Kipling, specifically about Kipling and the poem If and Kipling’s son, John, for whom the poem was written. The story of Kipling’s son is also well known, but in case you’ve never heard it, the short version is that John was raised to become a soldier or a sailor but because of poor eyesight, he did not qualify to join the military at the outbreak of World War I. His father, already a famous author and man of influence, pulled some strings to get 17-year old John into the Irish Guards and after brief training, John was sent to the front lines in Belgium. John Kipling died in September, 1915 during the Battle of Loos.

If you want to read more about Kipling and his son, you might try Kipling’s Choice by Geert Spillebeen. I read this book a couple of years ago, but never got around to reviewing it. It’s a fictional account of John’s life and death and his relationship with his father.

However, back to the poem. It’s about a controversial subject: what it takes to become a man. The illustrations all show a boy, a small boy dwarfed by a big world. And that’s the feel of the poem, too. The “son” to whom the poem is addressed can hardly expect to live up to all that the poet enjoins him to do to become a real man. And yet the expectations in the poem are good, even reasonable, the kinds of things we would all want to do and be: a good loser, a hard worker, a persevering leader, a decent person. If we could do all of these things, then we would truly be the men and women God created us to be.

But. There’s very little room for failure in Kipling’s vision of the true man. He does allow that others might break or destroy the things you have labored to build, but that you might fail in your own endeavors to be courageous, diligent, cool-headed, and virtuous—this doesn’t seem to be a part of the poet’s vision. I wonder IF Rudyard Kipling thought about mercy and forgiveness and starting again after our own sin and failure bring us to tragedy and included those things in his philosophy of maturity and growth after the death of his son. Many have blamed the father for the son’s death, and perhaps Kipling himself felt the need for mercy after the death of his son. (After his son’s death, Kipling wrote in a poem, “If any question why we died / Tell them, because our fathers lied.”)

If is an inspiring poem, and Mr. Manni’s pictures add to the poignancy and imaginative influence of the poem. Poetry picture books are a great way to introduce yourself or your children to the classic poems of the English language. I’m going to feature several more during April, National Poetry Month. What are your favorite picture books that feature poetry, preferably a single poem?

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

Apr6

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. Illustrated by Graeme Base. Harry N. Abrams, 1987.

Jabberwocky, one of my favorite poems, taken from Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, is illustrated in this picture book by the perfect illustrator for the poem, Graeme Base. Mr. Base, the Australian author and illustrator of the popular and weird picture book, Animalia, is certainly the right illustrator for the poem. Lewis Carroll’s imaginative poem with its other-worldly creatures and words calls for an artist who can also imagine scenes and creatures that have never been seen or heard of before.

Lewis Carroll is, of course, a favorite poet and writer of mine, although he’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I’ve written about Carroll and his books and poems many times here on Semicolon:

Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Many Happy Returns:January 27th

Of Snarks and Quarks

Radio Jabberwocky

Lewis Carroll’s Christmas Greeting

One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll by Katherine Krull.

Graeme Base, however, is an author and artist that I am just now getting to know. His Australian picture book poem, My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch, is a fun romp, and Animalia, although not my favorite alphabet book, is certainly popular here in the United States as well as in Base’s home country of Australia. Today, April 6th, is Mr. Base’s birthday, and since he was born in 1958, he’s only a year younger than I am. That gives him time to produce more wild and weird books in future. Do you know this author, or are you a Lewis Carroll fan? Leave me a comment, and tell me about your experience with either Carroll or Base.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson

Apr6

The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Julie Morstad. Simply Read Books, 2012.

This board book edition of Stevenson’s classic poem was recommended in the Reshelving Alexandria Facebook group in a discussion of picture book poetry books. I’m pleased to have found a copy to order for my own library.

The illustrations in this one, as you can see from the cover, are wistful, childlike, and enticing—just like the poem. The colors and natural landscape are spring-like, and the children, boys and girls, are multicultural and just sweet-looking. The poem is found in Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses and in many other children’s collections, but I’ll reproduce it here for your enjoyment and convenience.

The Swing
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside—

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown—
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

Now I want to go find a swing and celebrate the sixth day of poetry month by swinging and reciting.

I’m reviewing and highlighting poetry picture books this month on Semicolon in honor of Poetry Month. What’s your favorite poetry-related picture book?

From “Little Pictures of Japan”, My Travelship by Olive Beaupre Miller

Apr5

I think this would be a lovely idea for a spring celebration, perhaps sometime during April, poetry month:

“Of Poetry Picnics and Fireflies”

“In Japan they sometimes have poetry picnics. When Master Sogi has an especially fine flowering tree, a cherry perhaps, all pink and with a wealth of bloom, he invites his friends to a party. There they come in their holiday robes and little clattering wooden sandals. They walk about the tree and admire it, they drink in its fragrance, and tea is served to them under its branches. Then they sit down and begin to scribble narrow , little slips of paper. By and by each one has written a poem in pretty Japanese characters, and after he has read it to the others, he goes and fastens it to a branch of the tree in honor of which the party was given.
That is pleasure enough, certainly, for one afternoon, but if the guests stay until nightfall it is possible that Master Sogi will provide for them another lovely game, that they may enjoy the beauties of Nature still further. When it is quite dark, he will let loose hundreds of captive fireflies in the garden, and as the pretty things flit here and there, showing their airy, elfin lights in the dusk, the guests will chase them hither and yon, over little bridges, in among the flowers, around quaint stone statues, about the tea house. All the garden will be gay with flitting forms and silver laughter, till the fireflies lose themselves in the moon-beams.”

I would show you the pictures in the book of the poetry-tree and the children chasing fireflies, but I’m not good at photography or posting pictures. You will just have to find your own copy of this delightful book of Japanese poetry and stories to share with the children in your life under your own poetry tree.

Emma’s Poem by Linda Glaser

Apr4

Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty by Linda Glaser, illustrated by Claire A. Nivola. Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010.

The Statue of Liberty originally had nothing to do with immigrants. It was simply a friendship gift from France to the United States, a symbol of French-American amity. But a lady named Emma Lazarus wrote a sonnet in honor of Lady Liberty, and the rest is history.

The New Colossus
BY EMMA LAZARUS

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus grew up the daughter of wealthy Jewish immigrant parents. She knew nothing of homelessness or poverty or freedom-seeking from her own personal experience or background. But she worked in the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and raised money for it and came to have a heart for immigrants.

This brief but telling biography is especially timely in today’s America when we are again having a national debate about immigration and whether or not we as a nation still want to extend the invitation: “Give me your tired, your poor . . ” I believe we need to extend that invitation and to have an ordered, legal way to do so. Politically speaking, I’m caught in the middle again. I begin to see the uses of some walls along the border in certain places to control and channel the flow of illegal immigration. At the same time, I believe that we need to be a country that welcomes immigrants, especially those who are fleeing persecution, but also those who are escaping poverty and violence and who are willing to work to make America strong and to better themselves.

Emma’s poem still rings true today, and I’m afraid its sentiments are becoming lost in the Republican hostility to all immigration and the Democrats’ manipulative use of immigrants and their plight to further their own political ambitions. It’s sad to me that we can’t come together and advocate for a sane and humanitarian immigration policy that welcomes “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” to our shores while keeping out those who only want to prey upon us and take advantage of our freedoms to commit crimes.

At any rate, Emma’s Poem is an introduction to a poem and to a life that we need to remember in these times. The paintings by Claire Nivola that accompany the text of this biography are colorful and striking, a fitting complement to the story of poet Emma Lazarus and her powerful poem. If you are interested in purchasing ($5.00) a curated list of favorite picture book biographies with over 300 picture books about all sorts of different people, email me at sherryDOTpray4youATgmailDOTcom.

I’m reviewing and highlighting poetry picture books this month on Semicolon in honor of Poetry Month. What’s your favorite poetry-related picture book?

A River of Words by Jen Bryant

Apr3

A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams by Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet. Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2008. 32 pages.

“By stripping away unnecessary details, Williams tried to ‘see the thing itself . . . with great intensity and perception.'” ~Author’s Note, A River of Words by Jen Bryant

“Then I looked to a big box of discarded books I had from a library sale. One of the books had beautiful endpapers and I did a small painting on it. Then I took a book cover, ripped it off, and painted more. The book covers became my canvas, and any ephemera I had been saving for one day became fodder for the collages.” ~Illustrator’s Note, A River of Words, illustrated by Melissa Sweet

My youngest daughter, Z-baby, says her favorite poem is William Carlos Williams’ brief meditation on the distilled essence of common things that begins with the words: “so much depends/ upon/ a red wheel/ barrow . . .” This picture book biography distills Mr. Williams’ life down to the bare essentials, but it nevertheless tells and implies so much about the man and about his poetry. In the book, I learned:

–that Williams became a doctor, of obstetrics and pediatrics, so that he could make a living and still write poetry in his spare time.

–that Mr. Williams loved poetry from his boyhood days in Rutherford, New Jersey.

–that the poet made friends with other poets: Ezra Pound, Hilda Doolittle, Charles DeMuth, and Marianne Moore.

–that William Carlos Williams lived a busy life of keen observation and “rivers of words”.

Several of Williams’ poems are featured on the end papers of the books, and quotes from his poems are woven into the text and into the collage illustrations. (If you are shocked by the quotation from Ms. Sweet about the wanton destruction of books to make her artwork, I choose to believe that the books she used were already too damaged to be shelved or read.) Without Melissa Sweet’s pictures, this book would be interesting but ephemeral. However, the illustrations complement and enhance the text so well that the book is destined to become a classic in the picture book biography genre. It already won the following awards back in 2009 when it was published:

2009 Caldecott Honor Book
An ALA Notable Book
A New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book
A Charlotte Zolotow Honor Book
NCTE Notable Children’s Book

And to those awards I add my kudos. I bought a copy of A River of Words for my library, but I think I will need to buy another copy for Z-baby. (And maybe one for my son-in-law, the poet.)

There is also a book about William Carlos Williams in the Poetry for Young People series that would be a good follow-up for “young people” who are intrigued by this introduction to his life and work. If you are interested in purchasing ($5.00) a curated list of favorite picture book biographies with over 300 picture books about all sorts of different people, email me at sherryDOTpray4youATgmailDOTcom.

I’m reviewing and highlighting poetry picture books this month on Semicolon in honor of Poetry Month. What’s your favorite poetry-related picture book?

Across a Dark and Wild Sea by Don Brown

Apr2

Columcille, aka Saint Columba, was born in Ireland in 521 AD. The son of a king, he became a scribe and a monk and a bard in a world that was falling apart with the fall of the Roman Empire and final end of the Pax Romana (the peace had been eroding for several centuries before the sixth century).

Don Brown’s picture book biography paints the time of Columba as a dark time without much love for learning, except among the monks and religious of Ireland, a real Dark Ages. The book goes on to tell how Columba became involved in a violent and bloody battle over possession of a copy of a book and how he left Ireland to become a missionary in the wilds of Iona, an island off the coast of Scotland.

I like Mr.Brown’s telling of the story of Columcille/Columba. The illustrations by the author are a little too sketchy in style for my taste, but it’s more a matter of taste than of talent or quality. You may love the pictures. An author’s note in the back of the book gives more information about Saint Columba, and there’s a page showing the letters of the uncial alphabet, a writing style used in Saint Columba’s time. Brown’s bibliography includes Thomas Cahill’s How the Irish Saved Civilization, a book I have read and would recommend if you want to read more about the Irish monks and their missionary efforts and their preservation of many of the texts of Western civilization.

Saint Columba is supposed to have written the following poem, called Altus prosator (not included in this book):

Altus prosator, vetustus
dierum et ingenitus
erat absque origine
primordii et crepidine
est et erit in sæcula
sæculorum infinita;
cui est unigenitus
Christus et sanctus spiritus
coæternus in gloria
deitatis perpetua.
Non tres deos depropimus
sed unum Deum dicimus,
salva fide in personis
tribus gloriosissimis.

High creator, Ancient
of Days, and unbegotten,
who was without origin
at the beginning and foundation,
who was and shall be in infinite
ages of ages;
to whom was only begotten
Christ, and the Holy Ghost,
co-eternal in the everlasting
glory of Godhood.
We do not propose three gods,
but we speak of one God,
saving faith in three
most glorious Persons.

If you can read and pronounce Latin, the poem sounds lovely in that language. I can’t really read Latin, but I tried, and I enjoyed the attempt. The poem is also an acrostic; the part above is just the first verse, the beginning with “A” part. Here’s a link to a translation of the entire poem.

Here’s another section of the poem that I especially liked:

By chanting of hymns continually ringing out,
by thousands of angels rejoicing in holy dances,
and by the four living creatures full of eyes,
with the four and twenty happy elders,
casting down their crowns beneath the feet of the Lamb of GOD,
the Trinity is praised with eternal threefold repetition.

I’m reviewing and highlighting poetry picture books this month on Semicolon in honor of Poetry Month. What’s your favorite poetry-related picture book?