Mobile and Savannah are twin cities! Perhaps Savannah is a little more humid and for sure it has more sand gnats, but a lot of things are similar. I spent the night with the Walkers (thanks, Sue and Ron) last Thursday night. All over the south those folks spoiled by temperate weather year round were whining about the cold. (Ivodean found an icicle at Melbourne Beach. Do tell. See this, girlfriend. It's the world's tiniest fiddle playing for you, poor baby, having to live in such a place!!LOL) But green, green, and more green was a telltale sign that Mobile had not been as cold as Birmingham. Can you spell spring? The Tulip Trees and Bradford Pears think it's spring already. As do my frilly daffodils.
Ah, Mobile. What a lovely audience for myAlabama Humanities Road Scholar gig "Nine Bean Rows: Planting the Divine Detail" workshop! Polly Pope guessed about 30-35 writers were there. I agree. And everybody was so willing to participate! Heartwarming, too. Joyce Scarbrough was a dear to arrange that meeting for me.
It was a little like old home week because these same folks were in the Christmas short story anthology which made a few waves in the Alabama literary scene in December. A bunch of them came up here for a signing I arranged at Jonathan Benton Bookseller.
The drive both on Thursday and Friday was gorgeous. Sunny, springlike. Coming back I stopped off at the library in Prattville where I'll have a reading in April. Even the library has changed drastically in the 18 years since we moved back to Savannah from our decade there. The reading room is now a lovely children's room. Downtown, too, is totally different. Hope' is gone and replaced with an upscale gift shop. Carol Brooks. The couple retired from FL to be close to children who live in Selma. Betty Clapper and I had lunch at Marchelle's ( a far cry from Quincy's--that and Jim's were the only two choices in 1990) or Betty did. I had vowed if I ever ate there again I would have dessert only. I had a chocolate/caramel pie that was huge and yummy. Prattville Drug is no more. It was there that I bought Nicorette Gum, lots and lots of it, and also wedding gifts. My personal card was kept on file there. As was the other Mrs. Tommy Thompson's, so our bills sometimes got mixed up. I bought a footed crystal punch bowl and cups there which I still use. A couple from our church, Julie and Don Edgeworth, have transformed one of the old corner buildings to sell and eclectic collection of antiques. We parked in back of a darling school supply store opened by Nancy Hefner. The name escapes me, but I bought Henny Penny for Victoria. I remembered the sky is falling story, but I hadn't seen that book for years.
Our neighborhood, Hunting Ridge, so swank-seeming in the 1980's seems a little overgrown, a little gone-to-seed now alongside all the newer, larger, more-modern houses further up and over the hill. Our two cherry trees in front are huge. All the azaleas which were big then are in terrible need of pruning, it seems to me. Too much foliage for the house.
As go houses, so go our peers. The sixties seem to be the door into a certain seediness. But I'm not going there. Not tonight.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Books, books, books. . .
They're here!
And I've had two readings/book signings already!!
First signing at Little Professor Cafe & Books!
You've read a poem already from TSD!
Would you like to hear what the poetry is like in The Nights, The Days? Well, get ready for something really different here: these poems are dream poems (yes, right from my real dreams--isn't that a scary thought) and each dream poem is accompanied by a journal entry from the year 2000 (even scarier) and many of my Savannah buddies are mentioned by real name. (Too scary.)
Here's a sample:
subtract and add
a man allowed his body
to be sliced off
here and there
to aid in the cosmetic
surgery of women
so many times
he was left lumpy
Wednesday, January 26, 2000 7:25 a.m. Fixed a nice lunch both Monday and Tuesday so that we could have a SlimFast dinner. I have dropped five pounds after three days of that, but I'm hungry and thirsty. Tommy and I are both desperate to break the mold of overeating which started at Thanksgiving and hasn't let up yet. Worked on the Bob poem. I think it's better. Courtney brought back the pool key and the other papers. She hasn't made a decision about the house. She also likes Betty's which is a one-level. Email from JV who shares my feeling about BR. Says he's a nice fellow. Says M is gaga over him.
I warned you! Pretty different, huh? I think I've fallen through the genre cracks again with this one. But since everybody is so consumed with weight loss at the beginning of every new year, I thought you might identify to some extent.
Questions? Shout them out!!
Here's a sample:
subtract and add
a man allowed his body
to be sliced off
here and there
to aid in the cosmetic
surgery of women
so many times
he was left lumpy
Wednesday, January 26, 2000 7:25 a.m. Fixed a nice lunch both Monday and Tuesday so that we could have a SlimFast dinner. I have dropped five pounds after three days of that, but I'm hungry and thirsty. Tommy and I are both desperate to break the mold of overeating which started at Thanksgiving and hasn't let up yet. Worked on the Bob poem. I think it's better. Courtney brought back the pool key and the other papers. She hasn't made a decision about the house. She also likes Betty's which is a one-level. Email from JV who shares my feeling about BR. Says he's a nice fellow. Says M is gaga over him.
I warned you! Pretty different, huh? I think I've fallen through the genre cracks again with this one. But since everybody is so consumed with weight loss at the beginning of every new year, I thought you might identify to some extent.
Questions? Shout them out!!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Yippee! So this is blogging. . .!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you, dear Picket. Thank you, dear friends of Picket.
I can't believe I have a blog, and now I have Picket's friends at my blog!!!! Chris, I'm going to try and find the recipe for you, Chris.
Paula's Banana Pudding
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
3 egg yolks
1teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter (My mantra from Julia Child: "If it isn't butter, don't bother.")
3 medium bananas, sliced
vanilla wafers
Mix together sugar and flour and slowly add milk. (Use whisk; don't want any pesky little lumps.) This can be cooked in the top of a double boiler, but you can cook it over low to medium heat if you don't know what double boiler is !! or if you triple the recipe as I did for the one you saw on my stove. Slightly beat egg yolks and temper (Paula's word, not mine. I think it means so the eggs won't curdle, my word, when the heat hits) with a small amount of the hot custard; stir well. Add egg mixture to custard pot and cook 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla and butter. Let cool. In a 13 x 9 casserole (Picket, have you ever heard of such? We always put our puddings in a deep bowl, don't we?) alternate layers of pudding, bananas and wafers, beginning and ending with pudding.
Meringue Topping
3 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
6 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar and sugar until stiff. Add vanilla. Spread over pudding mix; completely seal around edge. Bake until desired brownness on top. (Paula notes that she prefers to use freshed whipped cream in the restaurant, but, of course, you have to chill the pudding before adding the whipped cream. Otherwise, tiny disaster--which you don't want to have in front of the fam.)
Picket, did you say you have mama's recipe? I don't think I do. Give us a cooking demo. (I'll bet she could do it!!)
Okay, off to that refrig with my big-headedness-from-your-compliments waddling behind me!! (What are you having for dinner, Chris?)
So long, Closet Writers!
I can't believe I have a blog, and now I have Picket's friends at my blog!!!! Chris, I'm going to try and find the recipe for you, Chris.
Paula's Banana Pudding
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
3 egg yolks
1teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter (My mantra from Julia Child: "If it isn't butter, don't bother.")
3 medium bananas, sliced
vanilla wafers
Mix together sugar and flour and slowly add milk. (Use whisk; don't want any pesky little lumps.) This can be cooked in the top of a double boiler, but you can cook it over low to medium heat if you don't know what double boiler is !! or if you triple the recipe as I did for the one you saw on my stove. Slightly beat egg yolks and temper (Paula's word, not mine. I think it means so the eggs won't curdle, my word, when the heat hits) with a small amount of the hot custard; stir well. Add egg mixture to custard pot and cook 2 more minutes. Remove from heat and add vanilla and butter. Let cool. In a 13 x 9 casserole (Picket, have you ever heard of such? We always put our puddings in a deep bowl, don't we?) alternate layers of pudding, bananas and wafers, beginning and ending with pudding.
Meringue Topping
3 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
6 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat egg whites with cream of tartar and sugar until stiff. Add vanilla. Spread over pudding mix; completely seal around edge. Bake until desired brownness on top. (Paula notes that she prefers to use freshed whipped cream in the restaurant, but, of course, you have to chill the pudding before adding the whipped cream. Otherwise, tiny disaster--which you don't want to have in front of the fam.)
Picket, did you say you have mama's recipe? I don't think I do. Give us a cooking demo. (I'll bet she could do it!!)
Okay, off to that refrig with my big-headedness-from-your-compliments waddling behind me!! (What are you having for dinner, Chris?)
So long, Closet Writers!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Two Poetry Books Coming Out At Once!!
Who could have ever guessed? The Shortest Distance is a full-length poetry book that I've been working on getting ready to publish since October 2007 when Susan Shehane, Publisher/Editor of Coosa River Books contacted me to ask me about publishing my work. The artwork, "The Sleeping Head," by my good buddy, Carolyn Watson, is worth more than the book costs at $15.00. The book will be available at Little Professor here in Homewood (205)870-7461 and at http://www.amazon.com/ if I ever get it posted correctly. Right now you have to put in both my name and the title to bring it up. Take a peek at the lovely cover!
Thank you, Susan. I am forever indebted to you: it is about to happen! (Susan is also the author of a lovely memoir, Alabama Listening.)
One of my favorite sections of this book contains poems I've written for my grandson, Nicholas. The title poem is in that section. I thought you might like to see it here. (See below.)I wrote the first one when he was seven and have kept it up annually.
My other book is The Nights, The Days, a chapbook of dream poems combined with journal entries of the same time. This one won a competition. I LOVE the cover on both books, but the art director has interpreted this one beautifully. Brenda Thornton's "Across the Fens" was the basis for the cover. See that gorgeous cover soon at http://www.negativecapabilitypress.com/. This will be the place to purchase this book as well. (Chapbook means little book, less than 48 pages. Price only $12.00.) Some of my Savannah buds are going to be very surprised to see actual journal entries published that include their names!! (It's all good. Very, very good. I promise.)
The Shortest Distance
for Nicholas, at seven
Angles with formulas over equations,
axioms memorized over the unknowns;
earliest choices so easily concluded.
Now as we meander along this rickrack
of shoreline, our tracks skirting the water,
we pore over shells being swallowed
into wet sandy graves; we pick one up
and try to thumb him open, as tightly seamed
as a green pistachio, then throw him back;
we scan the drier sand for fresh turtle tracks
and follow the smooth slide to a roped-off
orange square dated by a tracker today.
The wind will sweep her mounds level,
disguise the high drama of timing her dig,
of her great effort to release the eggs,
her eyes locked in a glazed-over stare
each time a contraction begins and ends
with another of the one hundred eggs laid.
This part I will not explain to you now.
Anyhow, you will be spared that one pain.
I run back to the surf and walk backwards,
an old Indian trick, I tell you, but you know that one
already, so we grab the bucket near our umbrella,
to start an aquarium with seaweed and water.
We each net the waves crashing onto sand
in threes; yours is squirming with a sand flea,
a baby flounder, and minnows of all sizes
while mine hangs empty; I am dawdling
unable to stay on task with this strange
arithmetic that at once suspends time
and yet has it speeding away, a catamaran,
sails puffed, grown miniscule, the size
of little hands spread in plaster, as fast
as your mother and her brother grew
too shy to hold mine, too busy for sand castles.
Factor in this constant of passing time
and the shortest distance between two points
is not always the straightest line; the brown
mermaid’s purse lies emptied, curled up;
the spidery hermit crab lurks inside a shell;
the turtle tracks will be erased. Our hyperbolic
beach mornings burn away long before noon.
___________________________________
And now, back to the grind of marketing. . .
Thank you, Susan. I am forever indebted to you: it is about to happen! (Susan is also the author of a lovely memoir, Alabama Listening.)
One of my favorite sections of this book contains poems I've written for my grandson, Nicholas. The title poem is in that section. I thought you might like to see it here. (See below.)I wrote the first one when he was seven and have kept it up annually.
My other book is The Nights, The Days, a chapbook of dream poems combined with journal entries of the same time. This one won a competition. I LOVE the cover on both books, but the art director has interpreted this one beautifully. Brenda Thornton's "Across the Fens" was the basis for the cover. See that gorgeous cover soon at http://www.negativecapabilitypress.com/. This will be the place to purchase this book as well. (Chapbook means little book, less than 48 pages. Price only $12.00.) Some of my Savannah buds are going to be very surprised to see actual journal entries published that include their names!! (It's all good. Very, very good. I promise.)
The Shortest Distance
for Nicholas, at seven
Angles with formulas over equations,
axioms memorized over the unknowns;
earliest choices so easily concluded.
Now as we meander along this rickrack
of shoreline, our tracks skirting the water,
we pore over shells being swallowed
into wet sandy graves; we pick one up
and try to thumb him open, as tightly seamed
as a green pistachio, then throw him back;
we scan the drier sand for fresh turtle tracks
and follow the smooth slide to a roped-off
orange square dated by a tracker today.
The wind will sweep her mounds level,
disguise the high drama of timing her dig,
of her great effort to release the eggs,
her eyes locked in a glazed-over stare
each time a contraction begins and ends
with another of the one hundred eggs laid.
This part I will not explain to you now.
Anyhow, you will be spared that one pain.
I run back to the surf and walk backwards,
an old Indian trick, I tell you, but you know that one
already, so we grab the bucket near our umbrella,
to start an aquarium with seaweed and water.
We each net the waves crashing onto sand
in threes; yours is squirming with a sand flea,
a baby flounder, and minnows of all sizes
while mine hangs empty; I am dawdling
unable to stay on task with this strange
arithmetic that at once suspends time
and yet has it speeding away, a catamaran,
sails puffed, grown miniscule, the size
of little hands spread in plaster, as fast
as your mother and her brother grew
too shy to hold mine, too busy for sand castles.
Factor in this constant of passing time
and the shortest distance between two points
is not always the straightest line; the brown
mermaid’s purse lies emptied, curled up;
the spidery hermit crab lurks inside a shell;
the turtle tracks will be erased. Our hyperbolic
beach mornings burn away long before noon.
___________________________________
And now, back to the grind of marketing. . .
Friday, January 2, 2009
Okay, Guys. I think I've Got It.
My first photos. Maybe I can move on into design and substance from here! Happy New Year to anyone who stumbles upon this.
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