Bright Star is a Mother's Dream

Moms, if you'd like to share a wonderful, passionate, CHASTE love story with your daughters or sons, go find "Bright Star," Jane Campion's gorgeous new film about Romantic poet John Keats and the love of his life, Fanny Brawne. Unfortunately, it's only playing in select theatres, so you may have to hunt for it (go to http://www.brightstar-movie.com/ and enter your zip code to find the theatre closest to you), but it's worth whatever distance you have to drive. If you're an action movie buff, I should warn you that you may have trouble staying awake; the pace of the film makes a tortoise look manic. But if you love period pieces, lush European-style cinematography, character studies, romance, family drama, or poetry, this is two hours of bliss.

There are so many positive aspects to "Bright Star," it's hard to know where to start. The fact that John and Fanny's relationship is based completely on affection and admiration, with virtually no physical contact--an all but foreign concept in this day and age--is certainly key, but I'll come back to that. Equally as satisfying is Campion's portrayal of Fanny and her mother as strong, capable women--a welcome change from the simpering females typically associated with the early nineteenth century. Fanny's father was long dead by the time John Keats became her neighbor, so one assumes the portrayal of the Brawne women is accurate since, without father, older brother, or other male relative at hand, they were forced to be self-sufficient of necessity. Perhaps because of that need to pull together, the Brawne family had a genuine affection for one another; that affection is evident throughout the film. Though Fanny admits in one scene that her little sister can be annoying, the closeness of the family members is obvious, and they continually, and willingly, look out for one another.


Actor Ben Whishaw didn't make my heart beat faster, but I suspect teen girls will find it easy to fall in love with Campion's scruffy version of John Keats. And they will certainly identify with young Fanny's passion for clothes (forget the mall: when Fanny wants the latest fashion, she just whips out her trusty needle and thread), annoyance with Keats' boorish buddy, and frustration with strict societal rules (Keats is deemed an inappropriate match because he has no reliable income). I especially enjoyed the portrayal of this young woman's relationship with her mother, who appeared to trust Fanny's judgment to do the right thing, but stood ready to offer comfort and advice as needed.

It is the pure--literally--passion of this love affair, though, that makes this film so important for teen viewing. Hollywood has taught this generation that love and sex are one and the same, that it's inconceivable to date a boy without bedding him, that hooking up is just the thing you do. Watching the ardor grow between this young couple creates a tangible ache. When they place their palms on opposite sides of a wall each night, we feel their connection; when they steal shy kisses on a walk through the countryside, we feel their giddy joy; when they make a conscious decision not to consummate their love before what they both know, but deny, is their last night together, we ache with their grief and longing. The inevitable tragic ending will leave only the hardest of hearts dry-eyed; again, I found Fanny's reaching out for her mother's comfort particularly touching.


Unlike Shakespeare's Juliet, Fanny Brawne had sense enough to know that much as she loved John Keats, her life would go on. The film leads us to believe she spent the rest of her life in mourning but, in truth, Fanny eventually married and had three children. I think the film would be more valuable to impressionable young minds had that fact been included because at forty, you know you'll survive the loss of love, but at fifteen, you don't; moving on with her life in no way diminished Fanny's love for Keats or his effect on her life, but it was the necessary, healthy thing to do.


Meanwhile, we are all better for Keats having been in this world. His body of poetry was not large, but his impact on the world of literature is undeniable, and if you are not familiar with his work or the bittersweet, brief tale of his life, you should see "Bright Star."

Video trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFPCgXSFijg&feature=related

John Keats' poetry: http://www.john-keats.com/

Is It Poetry or Is It Prose? Does It Matter?

I've been a fan of prose poet Louis Jenkins for years. His work makes me grin--always a good characteristic in a poem. It's witty, to the point, and often does a little pointed skewering in deft, understated satire--good stuff. Thanks to the wonderful Jeanette Guinn, a longtime friend from the South Carolina Arts Commission, I found out about a grant from the Southern Arts Federation and partnered with my home county's library system to bring Louis to our fair city for a series of readings and workshops. I'm excited: high school students, adult literacy students, area writers, and the general public will all benefit from his visit to Greenville next month.

I'll confess right up front that I'm not a big fan of prose poetry. I like my poems to look like poems--nice, short lines stacked up on the page...a vertical rectangle the size of an index card is about right. Give that rectangle a 90 degree twist and, to me, it becomes a paragraph--not a poem--so I'm eager to sit at this master's feet to see if I can figure out exactly what about his horizontal rectangles constitutes poetry. What makes his paragraph poetry and someone else's flash fiction?

Louis says he could care less about form; he's written "line poetry," as he calls it, too, but feels more comfortable and less restricted in paragraph mode. Most of us poets seem to have a place that feels most natural: my friend Kay Day enjoys writing sonnets; Gregory Orr says what he has to say in short, sparse spurts; Keith Flynn burst into songs in the middle of his poems; ee cummings eschewed capital letters, and Emily Dickinson completely abused them. Yet each of these gifted writers creates appealing, powerful poetry.

I tend to think Louis is right; does form really matter? Isn't it the words themselves that make the difference? As with so many other areas of life, "rules" often get in the way of the experience. I almost drove myself--and more than a few others--crazy in my first crack at motherhood. I read every how-to book available in my determination to do it "right" and to internalize all the experts' "shoulds" and "musts" and "essentials." By the time I got to Child #3, I'd tossed out most of that advice in exchange for routines borne of convenience and practicality. (Undoubtedly, this is why the youngest child in most families is more laid back than older siblings; we moms eventually figure out that doing what comes naturally makes life much happier!)

Poetry might benefit from that trade-off. Less focus on form and more on fodder would perhaps make this genre not so offputting to those unfamiliar (or unimpressed) with the rigid rhyme scheme of a terza rima or the syllabic specifications of haiku. I'm certainly not suggesting we start throwing words on a page all namby-pamby, but a little more oomph and a little less oeuvre might bring poetry a few more fans.

You'll get plenty of both if you come hear Louis do what he does best on Friday, November 6th, at 7 PM in the Hughes Main Library in downtown Greenville, SC. I promise you will be entertained. And if you'd like to learn more about weaving words into a prose poem, sign up for his workshop for the nominal fee of $25 (thanks to the aforementioned grant!). It's Saturday, November 7th, from 10 AM till noon at the same place. Just contact Sandy Merrill at 864-527-9293 or e-mail her at smerrill@greenvillelibrary.org.

Poetry, Take Two

In a survey sponsored by the Poetry Foundation a few years back, researchers discovered the following:

• 94% of Americans have read poetry at some point in their life, but only 15% read it consistently throughout their life.
• Almost 85% say poetry is hard to understand.
• Almost 81% say poetry is boring.
• Yet more than 70% say poetry helps you appreciate the world around you.

I'm going to connect the dots here and suggest that, based on these statistics, if people understand a poem, chances are they'll enjoy it. That's the premise upon which I based the launch of Your Daily Poem, a website that went live June 1st with the sole purpose of presenting uplifting, easy to understand poetry to people who were not predisposed to like it. And to paraphrase and repurpose Sally Field's worn but fitting cliche, "They like it! They really like it!"

I am tickled pink...or fuschia, if we want to be more poetic....to report that, four months after its birth, the number of subscribers to Your Daily Poem has septupled (is that a word?), poets published and un are submitting wonderful work on an almost daily basis, and people are passing around featured poems like juicy gossip. It's enough to make a poetry lover giddy.

Why bother, you may ask, or who cares? It comes down to this: life's hard most days--especially these days. Whether you're a young mother struggling to make ends meet, a working stiff trying to hang onto your job, a retiree worried about health and Social Security, or a corporate tycoon just having a bad day, we all need something to lift our spirits, make us laugh, stretch our imagination, take us away, or resurrect a fond memory. Poetry can do all that. But for too many of us, poetry got a bad name because someone made us study something awful in a classroom, or we opened a Revered Poetry Journal and were befuddled, repulsed, or bored by what we found inside, or we went to a reading and were embarrassed, offended, or bored by what we heard.

So this is my plea: give poetry a second chance. If you think you hate it, go to Your Daily Poem and click around in the archives. Read Ellen Bass's account of a mid-life couple smooching at an airport. Read the condemnation of little girl's beauty pageants on July 21st ("the stench of pink:" what a great line!). Read about an Elvis sighting in the peanut butter aisle at Shoprite, or the bliss of a perfectly ripe avocado, or the smell of oregano in a grandmother's kitchen, or the feel of your beloved's curls against your pillow.

Believe me, poetry is alive and well at YDP and it's not boring. It's heartrending, and hilarious, and touching, and titillating and--big bonus!--not even remotely connected to health insurance! Come discover poets from around the world whose work will definitely help you appreciate the world around you--one wonderful word at a time.

Our Region's Best: Do You Agree?

What say we start off this shortened work week with something even more controversial than Obama's school speech? According to Oxford American magazine, these are the top ten Southern novels of all times:
1. Absalom, Absalom, by William Faulkner
2. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
3. The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
4. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
5. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
6. The Moviegoer, by Walker Percy
7. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
8. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
9. Wise Blood, by Flannery O'Connor
10. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

Now, I'm as big a fan of Faulkner as anyone, but I don't think he deserves to get three of those coveted ten spaces--plus I'm not so sure I might not rank The Reivers ahead of the three on this list.

And there are several on here that are definitely not among my top ten. You cannot have a list of top Southern novels without A Confederacy of Dunces, The Yearling, Gone with the Wind, The Member of the Wedding, Fair and Tender Ladies, Walking Across Egypt, and something by Eudora Welty (though I can't decide which of hers I'd choose). Sorry, Oxford American; your list is a far cry from mine. Let's hear from some of the rest of you! What titles spring to mind when you think of quintessential Southern classics?

A Season of Surviving

I know there are still hot days ahead, but yesterday morning, it was bliss to feel the first hint of fall in the air. I am ready for summer to end: it's been a season of sadness as I've watched many friends and family members suffer through serious illness, depression, divorce, death and, of course, economy-related hardships. Bad things happen to good people all the time, but it seems there's been an unfortunate abundance of that in recent months.

I've been accused more than once in my life of being a "Pollyanna," but is it really such a bad thing to find whatever shred of good exists in a situation? I don't call that naive or unrealistic; I call that surviving! Anyone who's lived more than a couple of decades figures out pretty quickly that life is unfair, that being a good person is no protection from bad luck and that, all too often, just when you think things can get no worse, they do. We often hang on to our sanity by a thread, and even the most devout among us can have moments of wavering faith in tough times.

So where do you go for help when life overwhelms? My salvation inevitably comes from words or music. A familiar hymn, a soothing piece by Vivaldi, a beautiful poem, escape into a novel . . . any of those can lift me out of despair and into--at least, momentary--peace. Case in point: yesterday was long and frustrating. My computer was in slow motion, there were a thousand loose ends still untied at the end of the day, my husband and I were at odds, assorted deadlines were looming, and I was malcontent and frazzled. While waiting for that infuriating computer to do what I needed, I picked up a book that arrived unexpectedly in yesterday's mail, a beautiful little chapbook called Carilee's House that contains fourteen poems by NC poet Lynne Santy Tanner. Within moments of reading the first poem, I felt my heart lift. It took another hour for the computer to finish what should have taken minutes, but I just kept reading between key clicks, and by the time I was finally able to shut down my electronic beast and head home, I was smiling. Not simply calmed down, but actually smiling!

Can poetry cure cancer? No. Can sonatas solve the problems of the world? No. Can viewing a breathtaking apricot sunset put money in your bank account? No. But all these remind us that, even in the midst of anguish, there is peace...that even in a cruel, ugly world, there is always something beautiful out there. And sometimes, that's all we need to know to be able to breathe again.

I can't make my childhood friend's cancer go away. I can't make my friend's son walk. I can't heal my girlfriend's marriage. I can't even take them a casserole; I'm too many states away. But I can pray that some song they hear on the radio, some passage they happen across in a magazine, some word offered up by a stranger will be the saving grace that helps them hang on for another day. And, oh, I am praying that fervently.

Hit Me with Your Best Poem

Because I truly believe that people who think they hate poetry have just never crossed paths with the right poem, I took on the [possibly idiotic, ridiculously time-consuming, but] truly enjoyable task, two and a half months ago, of sharing a poem a day with the world at large. www.YourDailyPoem.com exists only to illustrate the vast diversity of the poetry genre. If you like poetry, check out the site to read both classic and contemporary work. If you don't like poetry, sign up for a month and see if you don't come across something that you like at least a little.

Getting in touch with poets to get permission to use their work is challenging. (Note to poets: you need a website!) Tracking down who owns the copyright to poems published 5-50 years ago is a nightmare. But connecting with poets, and talking with them about their work, is pure joy. And the biggest names have been some of the nicest to work with (isn't that so often the case?). Perhaps because the poets I feature write wonderful poetry--"reality" poetry that makes me laugh, makes me cry, touches my heart, fires up my brain--they are wonderful people to start with. I try to convince them to share a bit of themselves in their bio instead of giving me a laundry list of awards. Not that Pushcarts and NEA fellowships are anything to ignore, but I think it's much more interesting to know something about the poet than about his/her pedigree.

So, if you're a poet, I'd love to consider your work. Send your submission in the body of an e-mail to info@yourdailypoem.com, along with copyright information, publication details if applicable, and an author bio of a hundred words or so.

And if you're a poetry lover--or, even better, a poetry hater--give www.YourDailyPoem.com a try, then let me know what you think.

Hey! I'm on MSNBC!

Some weeks back, I got word that a reporter was looking for input from people who grew up in the 40s and 50s and lived to tell about it. You know, back in those BAD old days, before any of us knew the dangers of suntans, red meat, bicycles, cigarettes, hairspray, hard candy, and such. By all rights, we Boomers should be dead, according to today's health and safety standards. But I feel pretty good myself; how about you? I frankly think my childhood was a lot more fun than what kids today experience, so I wrote the reporter and shared some of my thoughts on that. Lo and behold, he used my comments! Who'da thought it? As it turns out, he didn't do much reporting (doesn't even use a byline; what writer lets that opportunity fall by the wayside?!); he just printed some of the responses he got. But, hey, I'll take my fifteen seconds of fame from whencever they come.

Mostly, I thought it would be fun to use this as a prompt for YOUR memories of "dangerous" living during your childhood days. I've heard my big sister talk about foot x-rays (that was before my time) and I loved my mother's tales of driving the family car to school when she was nine. (Nine?!) One of my own favorite activities--which is totally banned these days--was walking barefoot around town in the summer; it felt sooooo good to go from that hot sidewalk on Main Street onto the cool linoleum of Ben Franklin's Five and Dime or the smooth hardwood floors of my Daddy's Western Auto.

I'm as cautious as the next person, but I think sometimes we get carried away with all these rules and regulations, and I have to say, I think the motivation for all the hoopla is more often about profit than public safety. Several years back I read Myrna Blyth's fascinating book, Spin Sisters, which shares in great detail how the media--women's magazines, in particular--thrive on alarmist stories targeted at "power moms"--those of us who are 25-54 with at least one child at home. Blyth should know; she was editor of Ladies' Home Journal for years, and helped give birth to one of my favorite magazines, More. She readily confesses that she was as guilty as the rest in making us moms second guess our belief that our homes and families are safe. Blyth's need to come clean (or, perhaps, just her need to sell a book, but that's okay) resulted in a mesmerizing examination of how media preys on our insecurities and need for approval. If you haven't read Spin Sisters, go find a copy. It's well worth buying, and certainly deserving of a trip to the library.

In the meantime, I invite you to confess all the horrors your mother may have unwittingly exposed you to in your youth, and the appalling risks you may have taken. Roller skating with no kneepads? For shame! B-B guns? The very idea! Truly, it's a wonder any of us survived to have children of our own.

Here's the MSNBC article. Hope it brings back some happy memories; scroll down seven paragraphs and one ad: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31670024/from/ET/ .