WILDERNESSES

We all find ourselves in the wilderness at some point in our lives.
You may be crossing one now.
You may be searching for metaphorical shade and supernatural water in your own personal wasteland.

A wilderness may be blue skies and crooked trees reflecting on still water.
or evaporated pools leaving cracked mosaic mud leading to the dead sea.
or pale watercolors covering unicorns as they migrate.

A wilderness can be the unquenchable thirst following the funeral of one who died too young, a drought not relieved by teardrops
or a visit to the upper room before going there to eternally.
A wilderness may be a lonely room in which you meet yourself.

Wildernesses were all of this or more at the Wildernesses: Physical and Spiritual Show hosted by EASE Gallery.

Artists and writers created pieces over the past two months around the theme of Wildernesses.  The result is a wonderful assortment  poems and essays, paintings and photographs that illuminate the many shapes, shades, and  sizes of  our personal wildernesses.

Both art and writing were shared at the opening reception for this project on Saturday, March 8, 2014.
What a delightful evening of images and words, wine and cheese, audience, artists and writers, family and friends.

In God's Waiting Room II, my poem and offering for the evening, deals with my father's walk in his own wilderness just before his death. This poem is the second in a larger piece composed of six poems.  Click here to read  my poem.

Despite the individuality and personal-ness of each offering, each also paradoxically guides  us through  universal wildernesses recognized and experienced by us all.

The  amazing artwork and writings are collected into one beautiful volume so that the evening can be revisited and remembered, experienced and enjoyed anew.

Click here for more information about this book.

All  wildernesses, however, are not tears and death.

Oxford Dictionaries define wilderness this way:

An uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region.

The origin is explained;

Old English wildēornes 'land inhabited only by wild animals, from wild dēor 'wild deer' + ness.

Literally a place where wild deer live.
A wilder, wilding place.

Synonyms given are wilds, wasteland

So we think uninhabited, inhospitable, or uncultivated region--desert
We think jumble, confusion-- a weary wary place.

All wildernesses are not lonely, but can  also be welcome places of solitude and peace.

Wendell Berry offers us a different view--he offers the potential beauty of  the wilderness in his poem, The Peace of Wild Things.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief... 
Read Berry's the entire poem here.


What is your wilderness?
Where is your wild place, your wasteland?
How do you journey to and through that place?

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

Reflect on a time when you were in a wilderness.

List adjectives to describe that place, that time, that feeling.

What sent you into the wilderness?  How did you come out on the other side?

Write a poem or essay about this experience.

Create a visual image--either by hand or digitally to illustrate your wilderness experience.

WHAT SHOULD I READ NEXT?

I loved  A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle.

I remember reading it when I was about 9.
The first time I read it, the only thing that stuck in my mind was a scene where all the houses looked exactly alike and  how this was extremely creepy and terrifying.

Later, rereading this childhood treasure, I found that scene, of course. to be only a small part in the story.

Later, the notion of other worlds, other life forms, and tesseracts fascinated me.
Children as agents of change intrigued me
Although I had enjoyed the book before, I most certainly had also missed the more captivating points/

I believe this happens often, and I am so thankful that as an adult and as a teacher,  I have had the opportunity to reread many of my childhood favorites.
I have been able to enjoy them anew with deeper levels of understanding


Despite  my misconceptions about A Wrinkle in Time, I had discovered a reading niche-- an area of interest that I began to pursue in my reading.

What other books did I enjoy as a child, based on this new interest.

 I went on to read similar books-- fantasy, utopian, and distopian.

And... what books will I enjoy as an adult based on my childhood tastes?
Recently I found the answer the latter question.

A friend shared on Facebook a website  that suggested books to read based on your childhood favorites.

I loved this list.  The matches were right on.
Children's books I loved were matched with adult books I love.

On the other hand, childhood books that were not my personal cup of tea were linked to adult books that I disliked or couldn't get through for similar reasons.
The Hobbit; or, There and Back Again  was matched with Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure
 
These are both books I feel like I " am supposed to like", but could not get through either--after multiple tries.

Books that are on my to-be-read list were also linked to children's books that I liked.
The Magicians: A Novel by Lev Grossman, which a friend recommended better than a year ago, is sitting on my iPad waiting its turn.  It was matched with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1), one of my all time favorites.


This list also makes me want to go back and read the children's books that I missed that were matched with favorite adult selections. In this category, I loved  Kindred by Octavia Butler, but although I have read many Jane Yolen books, I have not  read its match, The Devil's Arithmetic.
   

So what book is recommended if you like A Wrinkle in Time? Swamplandia! by Karen Russell..  I have not heard of this one, but you know I am checking it out as soon as I am done writing.


Click here to see what book you should read based on your childhood favorites.


 So what should you read next?

There are several sites that point us,  adults or children, to suggested next books, to reads that might follow what we have read in the past or are currently reading.

Books can be suggested that match your interests, theme, genre and more.

The Book Seer is the simplest to use. You just enter your book and its author and it gives you  a suggestion.

Scholastic Book Wizard offers a feature on its home page called Similar Books which can match a book's theme, genre, interest, and can also match its level.   The cool thing about this site is that it can also find similar books at higher or lower levels if you select the  Reading Level Feature.

And finally, this blog post lists seven book recommendation sites to help you find your next good read.

What should I read next?
A whole world awaits ...

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

What did you read as a child?  Which adult books have you read that are similar in theme, genre, and so forth?

Write an essay about why you like the books you  like, why you would recommend a particular book based on a preference for a specific children's book, or what you  will next based on recommendations from the sites above. 

Play with the sites above, plugging in books you have read.  Analyze the results based on what you know about the books entered and the resulting books suggested. Are the suggestions and matches accurate and helpful or do they seem rather random or less than useful to you?

Write a recommendation for your favorite of the sites or another similar site.

FIRST LINES

 Image from A Diagrammatical Dissertation on Opening Lines of Notable Novels

First lines.

We have all had the experience of opening a book in the book store and being mesmerized by the first line, the first paragraph, the first stanza,  the first page.  

I have time and next time been hooked by the musicality, the poetry, the imagery in a perfect first line, an entrancing opening, a tantalizing introduction to a new world-- promising unique ideas--promising magic.

First lines.

I remember peeking into Weaveworld  by Clive Barker which begins with these words:  

Nothing ever begins.
There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs.

The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that; though as the narrator's voice recedes the connection will seem to grow more tenuous for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making.

Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle to clockwork toys.

Nothing is fixed. In and out a shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden among them is a filigree that will with time become a world.

I was transfixed. I was hypnotized. How could I not read more ?   How could I  leave the store without  this book in my possession?

Recently at OCTELA 2014, Dr. Alexa Sandmann of Kent State University and the National Writing Project- Kent State University shared new award winning children's literature.   I was struck by two opening lines she read to us.                                                   

 One Came Home by Amy Timberlake, 2014 Newbery Honor Book

So it comes to this, I remember thinking on Wednesday, June 7, 1871. The date sticks in my mind because it was the day of my sister's first funeral and I knew it wasn't her last.--which is why I left. That's the long and the short of it.
But surely you'd rather hear the long than the short.

 Paperboy by Vince Vawter, 2014 Newbery Honor Book

I’m typing about the stabbing for a good reason. I can’t talk.

Without stuttering.

Plus I promised Mam I would never tell what happened to my yellow-handle knife. Mam might say that typing is cheating but I need to see the words on paper to make sure everything happened the way my brain remembers it. I trust words on paper a lot more than words in the air.

Yes, I need to buy these two books based on the first lines.  As we heard these lines read aloud in Sandmann's session, there was a collective sigh, and I am sure I was not the only one making a handwritten, digital, or mental note of the wonder of these words..

One of my favorite journals about writing, Poets and Writers, offers a column entitled Page One: Where New And Noteworthy Books Begin  featuring memorable first lines from novels, collections of poetry or stories, memoir and more.  

Here are two intriguing beginnings from the March/April 2014 issue.


 Boy, Snow, Bird: A Novel by Helen Oyeyemi

Nobody ever warned me about mirrors, so for many years I was fond of them, and believed them to be trustworthy.

 Praying Drunk by Kyle Minor (collection of stories)

We begin with the trouble, but where does the trouble begin?

Click here for the complete column in the current issue of Poets and Writers 

Which first lines do you remember?
Which lines are indelibly etched in your mind?

To jog your memory of wonderful first lines you have read in the past this online collection of first lines may be helpful.

And just for added fun for those of you who may want  to combine your exploration of first lines with  a touch of grammar, check out A Diagrammatical Dissertation on Opening Lines of Famous Novels, which analyzes and diagrams 25 notable first lines.(Yes diagram-- like in English class when we were young!)


Which first lines have you read or heard recently that made you want to run to the nearest bookseller to find that book?

Which first lines have compelled you, dragged you, doomed you to diving into a book you may not have planned on reading, invited you into a world you did not know you wanted to visit, and submerged you in words that made you newly alive?

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

Reread the opening lines of several of your favorite books.

What musical or poetic elements strike you in these lines?

What images or ideas compel you to keep reading. 

Using one of these selected opening lines as a model or mentor text,  write your own first lines for a story or poem.  Can you include any of your noted  features in your own lines?