Sicily in Florida

Some days of December I am posting
at the lovely invitation of peaceful
Mary Lee Hahn (who is doing this every day!)
#haikuforhealing.
I hope these short meditations are as soothing
to you as they are to me.

Homemade

Spinach sausage sweets
Nella’s Sicilian kitchen
Love lucious loaves
c.2016 JanGodownAnnino

c. 2016 Nella Annino

c.2016 Nella Annino

c. 2016 Nella Annino

c.2016 Nella Annino

A pantoum: Read a spell

Read a Spell
By J.G. Annino

c. 2016 Jan Godown Annino
“Foreign Language Edition”

You want to escape into a good book.

When they call your name, don’t answer.

Begin where you left off.

A side patio may be the right place to read.

When they call your name, don’t answer.

Some sly books can hide inside a jacket.

The laundry room is often good for one chapter.

Be prepared to say it is school work.

A jacket pocket may hold it.

It is right to enjoy a book for pleasure.

Be prepared to say it for a test.

Their entertainment makes your head spin.

It is your right to enjoy any book.

Offer to read a chapter out loud.

Their entertainment makes your head spin.

They lack something you have.

Offer to read a chapter out loud.

Begin where you left off.

They lack something you have.

You escaped into a good book.

2016 Jan Godown Annino

c.2016 Jan Godown Annino
“Fulham Palace Book Cat”

……………..

10 Good Things After Hurricane Hermine

10 Good Things After Hurricane Hermine
(arrived Sept. 2, 2016)
by J.G. Annino

c.2016 Jan Godown Annino

10 Unlimited chocolates.

9 First butterfly seen, after.

c.2016 Jan Godown Annino

8 Early to bed.

7 Unlimited reading.

6 Utility bill (pool pump, garage-door automatic opener, A/C + device use) will plummet.

5 Candlelight.

c.2016 Jan Godown Annino

4 New poems + other writing (#amwritng.)

3 So many helpers.

2 Hand-written notes/cards/letters accomplished.

1 Unscathed by Hermine.

~ jga

Although we are without electric power as I post this,
our experience with Hurricane Hermine was a breeze.
Hurricane season lasts through October; this was our first
brush with a hurricane in 2016. The damage picture is
a current scene at the entrance to our street & not our
house. We count our blessings.

c.2016 Jan Godown Annino

Favorite Poem Project & Robert Pinsky

Favorite Poem Project & Robert Pinsky
http://www.favoritepoem.org/

Such an honor! The former U.S. poet laureate,
Robert Pinsky, brought the national Favorite Poem Reading
Project to our town, Tallahassee, recently.

Of course we managed to get to the event.
Everyday people from around the state of Florida read a poem,
by an established author. This is the road show for a previous online invitation at the Favorite Poem website. I didn’t enter, as it was some time back. But I’m so glad so many (at least 18,000) people did.

They picked one poem that, over and over, calls to them.
This is one of Robert Pinsky’s favorite challenges. To ask everyone to find a favorite poem or two, read them regularly, and further, he urges us to read the poem out loud and not stop there. Memorize a favorite poem. That allows us to carry it with you, everywhere.

Now, if you are a Poetry Friday regular, this is a given. But
for Bookseedstudio readers who are here from other paths,
might this be a good thing for you to try?

Recently I saw this:

“When was the last time
you did something
for the first time?”

Maybe memorizing a poem will be that new first time
neuron nudger.

Back to Pinsky

This acclaimed poet looks like a cross between Bill Nye, the
Science Guy & that great space educator Carl Sagan. With a
wide grin & great voice, he was just as engaging
as each of them.
“A poem is a work of art made for a human voice,” he told us.
“But it’s not the art of one expert. It’s the art of any and all.”

Here are just three of the poems read that evening.

“Nick and the Candlestick,” Sylvia Plath
“Why I Am Not A Painter,” Frank O’Hara
“Soneto XVII” Pablo Neruda

And I still remember how Pinsky quoted James Baldwin,
“Culture is everybody’s birthright.”

So, everybody, I have always been one of those who can’t pick one
favorite poem. But he said in that case, know that you are
working with one of your favorites. Despite the title of the project,
it doesn’t have to be THE one and true only favorite. Like picking
among children, impossible to do.

So here is the title of a poem section I like a whole lot among
many favorites. It is, “Alphabets,” (part 1) and it is
from the pen of the great Seamus Heaney. It begins:

Alphabets
by Seamus Heaney

“A shadow his father makes with joined hands
And thumbs and fingers nibbles on the wall
Like a rabbit’s head. He understands
He will understand more when he goes to school.

There he draws smoke with chalk the whole first week.
Then he draws the forked stick that they call a Y.
This is writing. A swan’s neck and swan’s back
Make the 2 he can see now as well as say…”
c. Seamus Heaney

Now, I must not have been paying attention because
I didn’t have much advance notice of this long-planned
event & jammed in time, was I, so I had no Pinsky
collection, to nail a book autograph, one of my hobbies.
But everyone says to start with “The Song of Poetry,”
which is both a terrific poetry collection &
an informal primer for poem-making. So it’s on the way.

Thank you Robert Pinsky, for your service as U.S.
Poet Laureaut, for putting Tallahassee
on your map & to Erin Belieu of FSU,
for making this evening happen.

Next time I expect to have a few words about
Tallahassee’s great good luck in the visit to FAMU of
transformative poet Nikki Finney (Head Off & Split.)

Also then, I expect to be playing the National Poetry
Month 2016 Progressive Poetry Game, with Irene
Latham at Live Your Poem & Equally Wonderful
Others. Here’s the lineup (apologies for
computer gremlins -drat! & no links…)

2016 KIDLITOSPHERE PROGRESSIVE POEM
1 Laura at Writing the World for Kids
2 Joy at Joy Acey
3 Doraine at Dori Reads
4 Diane at Random Noodling
5 Penny at A Penny and Her Jots
6 Carol at Beyond LiteracyLink
7 Liz at Elizabeth Steinglass
8 Janet F. at Live Your Poem
9 Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
10 Pat at Writer on a Horse
11 Buffy at Buffy’s Blog
12 Michelle at Today’s Little Ditty
13 Linda at TeacherDance
14 Jone at Deo Writer
15 Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme
16 Violet at Violet Nesdoly
17 Kim at Flukeprints
18 Irene at Live Your Poem
19 Charles at Poetry Time
20 Ruth at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town
21 Jan at Bookseedstudio
22 Robyn at Life on the Deckle Edge
23 Ramona at Pleasures from the Page
24 Amy at The Poem Farm
25 Mark at Jackett Writes
26 Renee at No Water River
27 Mary Lee at Poetrepository
28 Heidi at My Juicy Little Universe
29 Sheila at Sheila Renfro
30 Donna at Mainely Write

AND today’s Poetry Friday frolic is hosted by my pal Michelle H.
Barnes at the tuneful Today’s Little Ditty.

Snappy alligator, sleepy alligator

Last Sunday we went out the door and ran into a bunch
of alligators.
They were loafing.

#St.MarksRefuge c.JanGodownAnnino

I decided their back story was that they
were full from hunting blue crabs, snakes, mullet
& turtle & similar meals abundant in their home, about
45 minutes from our home.

I was there hunting.
For ideas – poem thoughts, finger play actions,
things to say about alligators. In town I’m looking for
children’s books, quotations, crafts about alligators.
To have fun with kids next month
at a regional literary event, outdoors in a park in
the StoryFort. All ages kids possible, but likely 2-6.
Your suggestions are most welcome.

Which brings me to Muhammad Ali.
I enjoy the lines & verses I read from
this underrated poem maker. As a reporter
I was at a campus press conference for his
appearance in town. It was a thrill to hear him
recite, with joy & great expressions, his ditties.
I also know from the reporter who rode
two hours back to the airport with The Great One,
that Ali grabbed the tape recorder & made up a funny
ditty on the spot for the reporter’s father, when Ali
learned he was a fan.

ALI RAP,
The First Heavyweight Champion of Rap

Here is part of one Ali ditty on my current topic:

“I’ve wrestled with alligators.
I’ve tussled with a whale.
I done handcuffed lightning,
And throwed thunder in jail.”
c. Muhammad Ali

I don’t like Ali’s sport that is damaging to
the human brain & body. I want to say that.
But I do like his talent with words. And his
many humanitarian actions.

Alligator Pie by Dennis Lee is more likely
one pleasure I will share with the kids.

I am also appreciating my visits with serious
poems that reference alligators, such as The
Alligator Bride by Donald Hall.

Happy (alligator-absent) weekend & coming week,
to all.

Today’s Poetry Friday is a lovely walk in the park
with Live Your Poem/Irene Latham.

That same alligator weekend for me, was a book debut weekend for the wonderful & talented Irene. And fortunately for me she was in a Georgia bookstore that we love to visit from Tallahassee. I expect to return here this month for a visit with FRESH DELICIOUS,
her third enchanting poetry collection for young readers.

Here are some more looks at last weekend’s resident reptiles.

#St.MarksRefugec.JanGodownAnnino

#St.MarksRefugec.JanGodownAnnino

#St.MarksRefugec.JanGodownAnnino

For our bird lovers!

#St.MarksRefugec.JanGodownAnnino – we lucked into white pelicans, too!

One little word 2016

Both my one little word for 2016 &
also a new occasional feature here
are the lovely term –

MOMENTS
There are also some lovely links below.
. . .
MOMENTS collected in December by JGA
MOM Annino serves her Sicilian stuffing of perfectly seasoned ground beef & rice
GARDEN-clogging past the front-step toad
FIRST-time learner! I now unzip the big purple red ball to share & devour the arils of the French fruit, grenade, a giant pomegranate berry splash zone! (scroll to 2nd item…)
OUR daughter’s moist golden ring cake of dried papaya, cherries, pecans & cashews
MY hubby finding dolphins as they charge & devour fish caught behind a sand bar in Ochlockonee Bay (Tampa’s SaltStrong’s video – it looked just like this!)
LEAVING extra postage stamps on the P.O. packaging counter, various walks to
our neighborhood USPS, in December
GINGER cat is back to his jumping, joyful self, after a worrisome muscle attack.
. . .

In February I plan to return here with January MOMENTS
. . .
The MOMENTS inspiration comes from an author
I was fortunate to meet in 2015, after following along
in social media for some time.
You may have guessed she is the smile-spreading Irene Latham.
She writes beautifully, for adults and children.

Next month you can put on a parka for one of her new books,
WHEN THE SUN SHINES ON ANTARCTICA, And Other Poems from the Frozen Continent.

by Irene Latham
illustrations by Anna Wadham

After this Antarctica book has me fluffing up
my feathers for warmth up against a picture
book shiver – I can develop goose bumps
at 50 degrees – I’ll be taking my market basket out to carry her
FRESH! DELICIOUS! Poems from the Farmer’s Market.
(Maybe there’s a pomegranate poem in there.)

So, my occasional MOMENTS blog here at Bookseedstudio
is inspired by Irene’s Live Your Poem blog listing of experiences
that elicit her gratitude.

MORE MOMENTS
If you like the idea of thinking further about the magnitude
of our Moments,
you may want to visit with two more muses:
MUSICIAN Velma Frye’s original poem song, “Moments,”
from the album/CD I AM TO SOMEONE. (Proud that two
comments of praise for her talents at this site are quotes from my magazine feature.)
AND
ACTOR/performer Roberto Benigni, having the best MOMENT,
with life, with his favorite poets, with love! Settle in -not to miss.

APPRECIATIONS to you for sharing your moments with me here this year.

MOMENTS & Poetry Friday
I’m content to find MOMENT as this year’s guiding word, my first Poetry Friday OWL (one little word)
If you want to read more about Poetry Friday, this article is for you.
AND here is the Poetry Friday organizing plan in 2016.