33/365 Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

I loafe and invite my soul, 

I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

I know it is just one poem, but I've got this lovely pocket edition.  And it's long, too.

This is one of those poems that makes my stomach hurt at certain parts.  How is it so perfect?  My taste doesn't naturally turn to this sort of poetry, but I do love Walt Whitman.
I don't want to say much about it, because I'll just get silly.   I read on Wikipedia that the first edition was pocket-sized because. "That would tend to induce people to take me along with them and read me in the open air: I am nearly always successful with the reader in the open air." Which sort of cracks me up.  It's Wikipedia, so who knows if it's true, but it makes me very happy about my little pocket edition.
I have Leaves of Grass, but I've yet to read it all.  I tend to buy used books in huge spurts, around twenty at a time, and then it takes me an age to read them all.  I'm still going through the stuff I bought at a closing sale last year - three buying spurts ago.  
Anyways, I love Uncle Walt.  We share a birthday, incidentally.  It makes me very proud, though I can't think of any logical reason why.  


CONCLUSION: Must look in to Leaves of Grass.  Will think about always keeping the little Song of Myself in my purse.  I might have to give it a read while sitting out in our lovely yard one afternoon.  

Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the

earth much?

Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?

Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of

all poems,

You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions

of suns left,)

You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look

through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in

books,

You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,

You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

32/365 Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman

I'll be honest: I went into this book thinking something along the lines of, "this is going to be pretentious and weird and I am not going to like it."  And I'll continue to be honest: I didn't love it.  But I certainly didn't dislike it either.  Reading a book like this to yourself is obviously not going to have the same feel that actually reading it aloud with another person - as it's supposed to be read - would give it.  But even reading it in my head, alone (I felt it necessary to specify that I am alone in my head), I could get a sense of how it would feel when read aloud.  Some of the poems would probably sound very cool.

But even as it was, I liked a lot of this slim paperback.  The "book lice" one in particular.
 
I wonder if I have kids if we will read this.  I hope I raise them reading poetry, so that they would be comfortable enough to try it aloud.  Even though poetry is supposed to be read aloud, it takes guts to actually do so around other people.  You feel you're not doing it right, or messing with the sense.  I tend to go too fast.  I'd like to have some poetry read out to me really well.  I know I'm missing a part of poetry by not reading it aloud to myself, but blah blah.

I have to say, the whole reading together thing in this book is probably trickier than it seems.  I can imagine my family trying and getting tangled up and laughing and having to stop all the time.  It would still be fun - but I don't think that was how it was intended to be performed.

CONCLUSION:  Expected it to be awful and was pleasantly surprised.  Don't know why, though - it did win a Newberry Medal.

30/365 Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know I haven't been good and read anything long for an age.  I can't say how distracting it is, living in a nice new house (well, at least new to me) on a lake.  There was nothing to do but read in that depressing apartment.

 I will try to do better.  It's been a long week.

But! All that said, this book is FANTASTIC.  Roald Dahl is so wonderful I want to scream.  The cover reads, "The premier storyteller of our time brings his own brand of wicked humor to six favorite fairy tales." And it's spot on.  Snow White pinching the magic mirror to give to the dwarves (ex-jockeys) and using it to make bets on horse races and become millionaires.  I mean!  Or take the opening of Cinderella, for example:

I guess you think you know this story.
You don't. The real one's much more gory.
The phoney one, the one you know,
Was cooked up years and years ago,
And made to sound all soft and sappy
Just to keep the children happy.

And Goldilocks and the Three Bears:

This famous little wicked tale
Should never have been put on sale.
It is a mystery to me
Why loving parents cannot see
That this is actually a book
About a brazen little crook.

Or the end of Red Riding Hood:

The smart girl smiles. One eyelid flickers.
She whips a pistol from her knickers.
She aims it at the creature's head
and bang bang bang, she shoots him dead.
A few weeks later, in the wood,
I came across Miss Riding Hood.
But what a change! No cloak of red,
No silly hood upon her head.
She said, 'Hello, and do please note
'My lovely furry WOLFSKIN COAT.'

CONCLUSION: Roald Dahl rules the world.  Though, I already knew this.

20/365 Selected poems of Emily Dickinson

I PROMISE I read.  But we were at a new house with no internet.  So.  Very tired, but happy.

I liked the poems.  Didn't get them all, but I'm over my "Too many freaking dashes!" prejudice.

CONCLUSION:  will read more.