Jude Goodwin captures life's fleeting moments in 'The Night Before Snow'

Title: The Night Before Snow (and other wintry poems)

Author: Jude Goodwin

Genre: Poetry 

Buy The Night Before Snow

What I have to say:

Faithful followers of this blog may know about my poetry addiction. Suffice it to say, this book fed it. I meant to read a few poems a day, but once I started reading, I went through this whole collection of achingly-beautiful poems in one sitting. Yeah. Poetry.

All joking aside, though, wow. As soon as I read the first poem in the collection, I knew I was looking at something special. "There I Was Again," the poem starts, "writing urgently about the rain / as if it would ever stop / or change somehow / into something ordinary."

That stunning opener sets the tone for the rest of the collection. Goodwin has captured life's fleeting, delicate moments--the ones that are gone so soon we never really grasp them--and gathered them into a collection of beautiful, warm, sparkling jewel-poems that speak to the poignancy and wonder of the human experience. Everyday objects and events like rain, couches, heaters, and annual Christmas programs suddenly transform into rare, transcendent experiences.

The night before the first snowfall of the season, for example--there's something magical in the air, like everyone is holding their breath and wishing. I bet few of us have actually stopped to think about that, much less try to write about it. But Goodwin has, and she's done more than try: she's captured the mood perfectly. "It's quieter than any other time of the year. It is the night before snow."

I tried to pick a favorite poem from the collection for this review. I couldn't.

I loved "In Winter" which describes a boy playing the flute in the snow: a sound that will be heard forever in the speaker's memory. I loved the perfectly crafted "I Read Somewhere," so comic and yet so poignant at the same time and for the same reason.  I love "Ode to the Lights" which is about hanging Christmas lights (but is it really?). I love "The Hallelujahs" in which the speaker wonders if there will ever come a time when she won't love the Christmas season--all its hassle, all its repetition, it all sounds like hallelujah to her.

If I had to choose a favorite it might be "Her Music." The speaker loses herself in the piano music of her daughter. If she closes her eyes and listens, "the room is filled with God's rays." I loved all the poems in this collection, but none of them moved me quite as powerfully as this one.

On the outside, these poems are simple. There's no complicated rhyme scheme or cluttering punctuation. The themes are simple, too: love, light, music, snow. Anyone can read these poems, and anyone can relate to them--because we all know what it's like to wait for the snow, or to hang up Christmas lights, or to get attached to a comfy couch.

But that's not where it ends. Like the objects and experiences she writes about, Goodwin's poems speak of something deeper, something more luminous, something more wonderful than simply a couch or the snow or Christmas lights. It's the experience of being human, of being alive--with all the wonder and beauty and joy and poignancy that entails.

Like the snow itself--soft, delicate, melting away all too soon--we live and love with awe in our hearts because we know none of it will last forever. While it lasts, that's what makes it, like the snow, such a gift.

Rating:

Until tomorrow.

Poetry Appreciation: Autumn

Hey all,

It's been a while since our last session of Poetry Appreciation, and I know you've all been just dying waiting around for the next one.

Whatever. I'll skip the sass and cut to the poetry now.

Autumn is probably the most poetic time of year, don't you think? Autumn is so crisp, poignant, and exciting.

Here's the first of my two favorite poems about autumn:

The morns are meeker than they were -
The nuts are getting brown -
The berry’s cheek is plumper -
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf -
The field a scarlet gown -
Lest I sh'd be old-fashioned
I’ll put a trinket on. 

Emily Dickinson's house in Amherst, MA

By the immortal Emily Dickinson. She's my favorite.

A lot of her poems leave me scratching my head (which only adds to my enjoyment - it's not poetry unless you feel the top of your head being taken off, as Emily herself would say). But this one I think is very accessible. Even if you've never read an Emily Dickinson poem, you can jump right in.

To my knowledge, it's the only poem she ever wrote about autumn. Which is actually a little surprising. Maybe she preferred the spring.

Here's the second. It's a bit longer, so I'll just give you the first stanza, and encourage you to look up the rest if you like what you see:

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

London in Autumn (Credit: Garry Knight)

Give it up for John Keats, my other favorite.

The first time I read this poem was in my Romantic poetry class at BYU. Our professor gave us a print out of "To Autumn" and told us to go sit outside somewhere and read it. That was the whole class for the day. Did I mention it was autumn? Yeah, pretty much that professor was the bomb.

On the surface, this poem is just a beautiful description of autumn. Fruit is ripening and getting ready for harvest, and there are a few last warm days before winter sets in.

But underneath, Keats is exploring the idea of "ripeness." He's probably alluding to the line in one of his favorite plays, King Lear:

"Men must endure Their going hence even as their coming hither. Ripeness is all."

In other words, you don't get to decide how long you live, or when you die. It comes when you're ripe for it. And the best you can do is accept it gracefully.

This was especially apt for Keats, because he always had the sense that his life was going to be cut short. It ran in the family: his father, mother, and brother all died young, and his grandmother died "before her time."

("Why do you write like you're running out of time?" as Hamilton would say. OK, I've never seen Hamilton or even listened to it, but that line is amazing.)

Anyway, the upshot is that Keats died at 25, so that premonition was pretty spot on.

This has been Poetry Appreciation with Erin. I promise it's not always this depressing.



'Til tomorrow.

The Beat on Ruby's Street + Giveaway

Giveaway: 

Want to read The Beat on Ruby's Street? To win a free e-copy, enter our Rafflecopter giveaway!

Title: The Beat on Ruby's Street (A Beat Street Book)
Author: Jenna Zark

Publication Date: June 1st 2016

Publishing Company: Dragon Moon Press

Number of Pages: 139

Buy: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Nook, iTunes

Erin's favorite quote: "It's okay," he says. "Write."

What Goodreads has to say:

The last thing eleven-year-old Ruby Tabeata expected to happen on her way to a Jack Kerouac reading was to be hauled to the police station.

It’s 1958 and Ruby is the opposite of a 1950s stereotype: fierce, funny and strong willed, she is only just starting to chart her course in a family of Beat Generation artists in Greenwich Village. Ruby dreams of meeting famous poets while becoming one herself; instead, she’s accused of trying to steal fruit from a local vendor and is forced to live in a children’s home.

As Ruby struggles to return to family and friends, she learns her only choice is to follow her heart.

Join Ruby’s journey as she finds unexpected friendships, the courage to rebel against unjust authority and the healing power of art in this inspiring middle-grade novel by Jenna Zark.

What I have to say:

Endearing, engaging, and thought-provoking, The Beat on Ruby's Street is a fantastic middle-grade novel set in Greenwich Village, New York, in 1958. 

The story follows eleven-year-old Ruby Tabeata, an aspiring poet born into a Beat Generation family. Defiant, unconventional, and full of dreams about Jack Kerouac and the Beat poets, Ruby is a spirited, lovable protagonist with a strong voice, and readers should have little to no trouble relating to her, despite differences in time and location.

Ruby's troubles begin when she tries to attend a Jack Kerouac reading (Kerouac was a famous Beat Poet). Unfortunately, she never makes it to the reading. Instead, she gets waylaid by a neighborhood bully, arrested by the police, kidnapped by a social worker, taken to a children's home, released, and moved to a new house. 

Somewhere in there she hides in an Italian restaurant, breaks a few wine bottles, goes on a hunger strike, and sneaks out of her room in the middle of the night to attend a poetry reading. 

The gist of it all is that, while Ruby may be at the mercy of people who are older and have more authority than her, there's absolutely no way she's going to let them dictate her life. 

As a historical fiction novel, The Beat on Ruby's Street paints a vivid picture of what life was like for the Beat Generation in 1950s New York. The story is both informative and fun, and the author sets the stage brilliantly, working in little details about Kerouac and the Beatniks without coming across as heavy-handed or textbook-oriented. Both readers familiar with the Beat Generation and those who know nothing about it will find this an enchanting, moving read.

I loved The Beat on Ruby's Street. Honestly, I can't say enough good things about it. Even though it's not the kind of book I usually read, once I started, I couldn't tear my eyes from the pages (metaphorically - I read the Kindle edition). I think this was mainly due to the strong voice and perfect pacing. The story moves along at a natural pace that pulls the reader in and makes them want more. 

Besides all this, the story raises issues that are as relevant today as they were in 1958. Ruby wrestles with the realities of family, education, society, marriage, money, friendship, immigration, art, leadership, and authority. Her relationships with her family members are complicated and touching. Her view of the world is both insightful and innocent, but always relatable. 

Ruby is a wonderful character. The flashes of poetry scattered throughout the story are magic. And the last chapter is especially moving.

This has to be one of the best historical novels, and one of the best middle-grade novels, I've ever come across. Whether you're looking for a good historical fiction or a sweet middle-grade adventure - or just really good writing - pick up The Beat on Ruby's Street and you won't be disappointed.

Rating (out of 5) :

Until tomorrow.

My poetry addiction

I get high off poetry.

Anyone else?

It's more potent, more lasting, and, in the long run, more dangerous, than alcohol, marijuana, or any other type of stimulant.

To prove to you the full extent of my condition, allow me to point out the fact that I wrote a poem to describe my addiction to poetry, the first stanza of which reads: 

I have been drunk with poetry
Reeling from a villanelle's symmetry
Stumbling through sonnets in ecstasy
I have been drunk with poetry

Things are that bad.


It's always exciting when I stumble upon another addict - usually between the pages of a book because, let's be honest, people don't talk about their poetry addictions in public. The event usually occurs much the same way: I suddenly go very still. And then a thrill runs slowly down from my head to my toes. I'm alive and all at once, I feel it. I'm quickened. I'm in love. And I'm rediscovering poetry - for the first time.

I recently ran into one of these old friends I'd never met before in the pages of A Shropshire Lad. The poet: A. E. Housman, born 1859, Bromsgrove, England, died 1936, Cambridge. And what a conversation we had.

C. S. Lewis said that friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, "What? You, too? I thought I was the only one!" If that isn't the definition of poetry, I don't know what is. Often, when I read a good poem, I feel sure that the poet knows me, impossibly and intrinsically. In A Shropshire Lad, A. E. Housman pours out, measuredly and eloquently, his soul. But as he confides his dreams, his longings, his sorrows, frustrations, and yearnings - the reader grows more and more certain that she's reading about herself. This is the paradox of poetry.

I picked up my copy of A Shropshire Lad in a rather impressive bookstore in Ashland, Oregon. For $3.50 I purchased the record of the poet's soul. The small, orange, hardback edition looks fairly old, but contains no copyright date, so I'll never know exactly when it was published. The penciled inscription on the inside of the cover reads, "To Kelly, on her 19th birthday, Tom Nash." I read Housman's poems every night before bed for about a week - maybe less - adrift on a sea of poetic delirium. This is poetry, pure and simple. It soothes and aches. Housman got it right.

The only downside to reading Housman is that it makes me despair of ever writing anything comparable.

To return, for a moment, to C. S. Lewis, the Narnia author quotes Housman in a passage about his (Lewis') experience with Joy - "Into my heart an air that kills / from yon far country blows." Whom C. S. Lewis quotes is worth reading.

One of the poems contained in A Shropshire Lad serves as an accurate representation of the collection. The poem embodies the major themes of the slim volume: beauty, youth, the brief nature of human life and the inevitability of death, with the determination to make the most of what little time we have.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide. 

Now of my three score years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more. 

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

In the first line of the second stanza, the poet is referring to a biblical verse out of Psalms, which reads, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten" (Psalm 90:10). As you can figure out if you do the math (but who wants to do math when they're reading poetry), threescore years and ten add up to seventy years total.


This has been Poetry Appreciation with Erin. Thank you for joining me. If you or someone you love is struggling with a poetry addiction, please comment below.

The Fall of Arthur: Unfinished Masterpiece

Title: The Fall of Arthur

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

Date of Publication: 2013

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Purchase: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, ebay, The Book Depository, The Official Tolkien Book Shop (just for fun)

What I have to say:

I have never read another book in which the words themselves were such a source of delight.

We always talk about how Tolkien was a linguist - and sure, he invented a pretty awesome language for the elves, and the writing in Lord of the Rings is wonderful, but - holy cow!!! The Fall of Arthur is amazing!!!

Listen to this:

"Guinever hiding   in the grey shadow 

watched and waited,   while the world faltered" (III.181-82).

And this:

Wolves were howling   on the wood's border;

the windy trees   wailed and trembled,

and wandering leaves   wild and homeless

drifted dying   in the deep hollows.

Dark lay the road   through dank valleys

among mounting hills   mist-encircled

to the walls of Wales   in the west frowning

brownfaced and bare.   To the black mountains

horsemen hastened,   on the houseless stones

no track leaving.   Tumbling waters

from the fells falling,   foaming in darkness,

they heard as they passed   to the hidden kingdom.

Night fell behind.   The noise of hooves

was lost in silence   in a land of shadow. (IV.1-14)  

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. And that is just a sample from Tolkien's narrative poem on the downfall of Camelot - his only venture into Arthurian legend according to the dust jacket, though, as someone pointed out on Goodreads, he also wrote this thing called Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The poem is thoughtful, masterful, breathtaking, and, catastrophically, unfinished. Despite the comment from one of his friends that, "You simply must finish it!" this is another work that Tolkien never finished. The upside of that is that it's a quick read - only 57 pages, 70 if you count the notes on the text. And commentary by Christopher Tolkien on the larger context of the poem, both in Arthurian tradition and in Tolkien's writings in general, as well as on the evolution of the poem, follows the authorial text (I'm sure it's very interesting, but I didn't read it).

Here's what Goodreads has to say:

The world's first publication of a previously unknown work by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the extraordinary story of the final days of England’s legendary hero, King Arthur.

The Fall of Arthur recounts in verse the last campaign of King Arthur who, even as he stands at the threshold of Mirkwood, is summoned back to Britain by news of the treachery of Mordred. Already weakened in spirit by Guinevere's infidelity with the now-exiled Lancelot, Arthur must rouse his knights to battle one last time against Mordred's rebels and foreign mercenaries.

Powerful, passionate and filled with vivid imagery, The Fall of Arthur reveals Tolkien's gift for storytelling at its brilliant best. Originally composed by J.R.R. Tolkien in the 1930s, this work was set aside for The Hobbit and lay untouched for 80 years.

Now it has been edited for publication by Tolkien's son, Christopher, who contributes three illuminating essays that explore the literary world of King Arthur, reveal the deeper meaning of the verses and the painstaking work that his father applied to bring it to a finished form, and the intriguing links between The Fall of Arthur and his greatest creation, Middle-earth.

[Also, this book was a goodreads choice winner for poetry in 2013, because Tolkien is just so good that he can still win awards for his literature after being dead for 41 years.]