Seeing the Blue Between

Seeing the Blue Between: Advice and Inspiration for Young Poets by Paul B. Janeczko

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a great book for teaching about poetry. The different featured poets share their sometimes contradictory opinions about poetry, which gives the reader a broad scope of perspectives on the subject. And the poems, too, provide a broad scope of the genre, as well as being cute, clever, and enlightening. The targeted audience is obviously children, but it doesn't need to be.


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Missing Peanut Butter

I like peanut butter. I mean, I'm not in love with it, not going to marry it, probably not even date it. Honestly, it's just a friend! But I do like it, a lot. I like the taste and smell and texture, particularly crunchy. I like it in cookies and cakes and brownies and ice cream and yes, even sandwiches. I also like it on crackers and celery and pancakes. In college, many years ago, I wrote a poem about the peace and joy I received from eating peanut buttered biscuits. But oh! with all of these, the joy is doubled when you add chocolate to the mix. mmm MMM. Okay, so since there was some lip-smacking action, maybe we were really good friends.

But it doesn't matter, because it's all over anyway. See, unfortunately, a couple years ago I noticed my head start to tighten up when I'd eat certain things with peanuts, and eventually, eating peanuty things produced full-on migraines. No fun at all. Every once in awhile I'll be unable to resist and eat some peanut M&Ms are some small peanut thing, but I don't own any peanut butter any more.

For the most part, I've gotten by just fine without it. Dessert tables usually include plenty of non-peanuty treats, and I manage to avoid buying such for myself. My sandwiches have ham and cheese, which is probably better anyway, to help me with the calcium. Though peanut butter and cheese isn't really that bad, ham is probably a little less fattening.

Last night, however, I was rummaging for a snack and found the best option was some freezer waffles--low fat, I'll add, and with strawberries. They're pretty good. But I found what I really, really wanted to put on them was peanut butter. It was an interesting feeling, not a craving like I sometimes get for chocolate, that anxious feeling of needing chocolate like you see depicted in commercials all over the place. It was more of this melancholy feeling you get when you look at pictures of old friends. And as for a friend, I might have risked a migraine for it. But well, I couldn't really justify going to buy a whole tub. Still, last night, I was really missing my old friend peanut butter.

I settled for jam.

Published!

I got an email this weekend saying my poetry submission was accepted for a journal at San Diego State University. They were looking for poems and short stories for children 10-14 with a theme of "Night Rhythms" and what do you know, I actually had one of those! I've actually been working on this for a long time. Should I tell you how long? Anyway, most recently I had a version critiqued last summer at Hollins and when I saw the call for writing, I took upon myself to make some of the suggested changes, and some others as well. What do you think?

Pacific Waves
To see, to see…
anything but pomegranate paws
laced with cold steel fingernails
scraping on the baseboard in the dark.
She sits up in her basement level bunk bed,
stringing in the curtains for her sails.

The frame rattles in time with the whirring
of the water heater in the storage room next door,
whirring, wearing, worrying.
The ghosts have already dirtied
the powdered milk with sketches of their names
(They can only come if she asks)
hovering, hoping, and whispering

pleas...Before the water escapes…
Before she floats through the window
and out to sea...
She’ll ride Pacific waves
through Hawaii and the Seychelles
and maybe into Singapore,
Where snores will transform into lullabies
and sing a poor girl to sleep.