Another day, another poet

Langston Hughes was an African-American poet whose writings were a much treasured part of the Harlem Renaissance.  In his work, he paints a picture of black America with little displacement of his own personal experiences, but rather explored the voice of his people as he heard it from them.  The poem, “I, Too, Sing America“, is simple in its phrasing, but complex in emothion and undertones.  It is a simple song of hope.  It looks past the bigotry all black of the time faced, and looked to a day when the poet could see humanity rising to the challenge of its own ignorance. 

I, Too, Sing America

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

and grow strong

Tomorrow,

I’ll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody’ll dare

Say to me,

“Eat in the kitchen,”

Then.

Besides,

They’ll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed–

I, too, am America.

National Poetry Month

Once again April is here, and with it comes the 12th annual National Poetry Month.  In light of this most important national celebration, I hope to post as many poems on this blog in the coming days.  From the Americas to the Middle East, poetic forms abound the world over.  It is these forms I hope to put here to help paint a picture of our world’s voices.  I begin with an American doctor from the early 20th century who studied with the great American poet Ezra Pound.  William Carlos Williams brought much of his analytical training to his poetry without losing the humanity necessary in relaying truths that appeal to us all.  More than likely this made him an excellent physician.  The poem, “Spring and All” juxtaposes the image of the lifeless leftovers of winter and a hospital with the slowly blooming growth of early spring.  What makes this significant is the subtlety with which it is handled.  I hope you enjoy, and keep checking back for more poems to come.

 Spring and all

William Carlos Williams

By the road to the contagious hospital

under the surge of the blue

mottled clouds driven from the

northeast- a cold wind.  Beyond, the

waste of broad, muddy fields

brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen

patches of standing water

the scattering of tall trees

All along the road the reddish

purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy

stuff of bushes and small trees

with dead, brown leaves under them

leafless vines-

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish

dazed spring approaches-

They enter the new world naked,

cold, uncertain of all

save that they enter.  All about them

the cold, familiar wind-

Now the grass, tomorrow

the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf

One by one objects are defined-

It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf

But now the stark dignity of

entrance- Still, the profound change

has come upon them: rooted, they

grip down and begin to awaken.

Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

Winner of the Bellwether Prize for fiction, Mudbound is a very powerfully written story set mostly on a farm in the Mississippi delta after World War II. The Bellwether Prize was established by Barbara Kingsolver to recognize socially responsible fiction by new authors.  This title deals with racism, sexism, and some of the effects of war and social change as part of the story.  The story is told from multiple points of view, with each of the main characters “telling” a chapter in chronological order and then having other characters “talk” until time has moved forward and it’s again their turn for a chapter.This is the kind of writing and story-telling that I simple can’t put down once I get started.  The quote from Barbara Kingsolver on the cover is “This is storytelling at the height of its powers….Hillary Jordan writes with the force of a Delta storm.”  How true.

Maisie Dobbs

Maisie Dobbs is a very unique and special fictional character in Jacqueline Winspear’s well-written mystery series.  The latest title in the series is An Incomplete Revenge, which I just finished reading.  What I enjoy about this series, which is set during and after World War I in England, is watching the process Maisie uses to solve mysteries and repair relationships.  Maisie has a very different (and rather psychological or Buddhist) way of approaching investigations.  It’s also fun watching Maisie cope with her own human frailty and blind spots and overcome her “disadvantages.”  And I just like it when a strong woman character develops her potential and makes a go of things in a society that doesn’t offer a whole lot of opportunities and support for that, and does so in a way that empowers others as well.

Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

What a wonderful book and well-done audiobook!  I enjoyed listening The Friday Night Knitting Club so much, even through some tears!  It’s a little idealistic along the lines The Walton’s TV show was, but the people still feel very real, and I got caught up in their lives and found myself rooting for them and often having the satisfaction of seeing them grow and change and succeed (in careers, school, and relationships).  Georgia and her 12-13 year-old bi-racial daughter Dakota, Georgia’s mentor/supporter Arlene, Dakota’s father James, deli-owner Marty, and all the women of the Friday Night Knitting Club are each unique and special.  Walker and Daughter live and have their small yarn shop in Manhattan.   Carrington McDuffie does a wonderful job narrating the Blackstone audiobook, which the Library has in CD and as a downloadable audiobook in our Digital Library.

CyberSkeptic Tips for March

Here at Central we take a publication called “The CyberSkeptic’s Guide to Internet Research.”  This month’s publication gives several links to the FBI FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) website.  Here researchers can read about many famous investigations performed by the FBI including UFO sightings and celebrity scandals.  There are many different FOIA electronic reading rooms for the different departments of the US government, just Google FOIA Reading Room to find them.

New Month …

Happy March to all, and to those looking for something to celebrate, look no further.  Historically, March has been celebrated as the beginning of the new year by many cultures (Great Britain did until 1752.)  On a more recent note, in the United States March is National Red Cross Month, National Caffeine Awareness Month, National Cheerleading Safety Month, National Nutrition Month, and National Women’s History Month.  On this particular day in history, Alexander Graham Bell was born, Time Magazine was first published (85 years ago), and TV show “Moonlighting” premiered in 1985.  There are many more interesting facts to be found about this month.  To learn more, talk to your Reference Librarian.

Sea Inside (2004)

I cannot help myself – movies based on true events are still my favorite, and this one was not a disappointment. It’s not a “pretty” story, but one that is full of thoughts on the complexity of assisted suicide. The film is based on the life of Ramon Sampedro (played flawlessly by Javier Bardem), a Spanish quadriplegic who spent 30 years fighting for the right to end his own life. The film brilliantly addresses the emotional and ethical aspects of this topic without judgment. Although the focus of the movie is on the right to die, I found it very life affirming. It is also a movie about family, love, courage, and friendship.  After seeing this one, it will stay in your thoughts for days.

In defense of “In Defense of Food,” by Michael Pollan

I grew up in (& still live in) an area that has generally lived close to the land. Fly over us in an airplane and we look like a patchwork quilt of cropland. So I pretty much grew up having an idea where some of my food came from.

And after reading Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I had some knowledge about the benefits of sustainable living and community-supported agriculture.

Now Pollan’s book has given me much more to think about. The idea, for instance, that some food is “food” and some food that looks “normal” has been processed beyond anything our great-grandparents would recognize. Another new concept to me is nutritionism, which according to Wikipedia “is an ideology that assumes that it is the scientifically identified nutrients in foods that determine their value in the diet.” Seemingly this idea alone has created a western food culture that has made us not healthier, but fatter. And reading that our diet has shifted from leaf-based to largely nut-based was a radical idea to me. We have basically excluded one set of vital nutrient sources in favor of another, perhaps less beneficial, one, to our apparent detriment.

I would recommend perhaps reading this book instead of listening. Like many informational books, there are a lot of facts to be gleaned, and reading would allow you to take them at your own pace. In addition, there was something about the reader’s voice—the pitch, the inflection, something—that was a bit grating at times.

Will In Defense of Food cause me to completely change my diet? That remains to be seen. I agree with many of the principles Pollan puts forth; a few of them are already near to my heart. But I have ordered this book for my husband, in the hope that maybe we can make a concerted effort to change the way our family eats. Letting go of decades of eating habits won’t be easy, but ya gotta start somewhere … 

Hope may well be in our own hands

            In this day of strained celebrity gossip and trivial reality TV triumphs, it is refreshing to hear about those people who give without regards for the attention they may receive.  Such is the heart of former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s book Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World. 

            While interwoven with his own experience with Not-for-Profits, what Clinton refers to as NGOs, the former president gives a detailed overview of who’s who in the world of giving.  Each chapter gives a different slant on the giving model and explores different ways the reader can also begin to give more generously themselves.  Clinton’s recommendations range from giving time to money, from micro-credit programs to being a big brother/big sister. 

            The breadth of Clinton’s charitable work is on full display as the writer gives case after case of his work since leaving the Oval Office.  This does not mean Clinton is writing solely about his own exploits, but rather weaves is own experiences in an almost secondhand way.  By telling of his friends and partners in the Clinton Foundation, the author shows the intricate web of people needed to run a modern NGO, and briefly shows the hurdles that face many non-profits.

            The book, though sometimes listy, read very fluidly and without any of the catches that often keep people from finishing non-fiction books.  Each idea led easily to the next and kept the pace of the book from being broken.  This is important when dealing with a subject of such grave importance as charitable giving.

            However, the true gem of this book lies in the individual lives the readers are allowed to briefly glimpse.  Clinton praises the spirit of humanity that shines bright in a doctor who has given his life to fighting treatable illnesses in Haiti or that of a young rape victim, infected with AIDS, who donates her time and energies back to the clinic that had provided medicines to her for a drastically reduced price thanks to a global non-profit collaboration.  The volunteers and victims giving each other reason and hope lends the reader a bit of the positive energy men like Bill Clinton are privy to each day.

            In the end, the book’s title proved to be apt.  Not only does the book present a broad view of the way millions give of themselves each day, it gave this reader hope that we can come together and make the world a little better through giving.