Poetry Friday

Poetry Friday: July Roundup of Books and Bookstore

August 2, 2024 /
 

24 Bookstores in 2024

 
 

26. Capitol Hill Books, Washington, DC 

Visited on July 19, 2024
 
This is a quirky used bookstore in Eastern Market in DC. It’s an old building full of charm and a wee bit rundown. It also has loads of interesting signage and books.
 
 
I wandered for about an hour and finally settled on one book.
 
Capitol Hill Books
 
If you’re still on Twitter (X), I highly recommend their snarky Twitter feed. @chbooksdc
 

27. McKay’s Used Books, Manassas, VA

Visited on July 28, 2024
 
 
This month’s books were much cheaper since I visited used bookstores. One of the books was only 50 cents!
 
 
 
 

Books Read in July

by Marta Molnar
by Dave Eggers

by Loren Grush
by Dave Barry
by Kate Quinn
by Kate Quinn
edited by Amber McBride, Taylor Byos, and Erica Martin
by Billy Collins
edited by Diane Lockward
 

Summer of Naomi Shihab Nye Recap

At the beginning of the summer, I mentioned that I was going to spend the summer with Naomi Shihab Nye. With The Sealey Challenge beginning August 1, I wanted to try to wrap up my Naomi Shihab Nye studies (at least for now).
 
 
I’ve been reading Naomi Shihab Nye for close to three decades, but I love the way that you can really see patterns across someone’s work when you really take a deep dive. Here’s how I gathered materials for this deep dive:
 
I read the following books:
  • Grace Notes
  • Transfer
  • Cast Away
  • Voices in the Air
  • Honeybee
  • 19 Varieties of Gazelle
  • The Tiny Journalist
  • Words Under the Words
  • Mint Snowball
 
I also read her poems in the following books (she is a contributor):
  • If Bees are Few: A Hive of Bee Poems edited James P. Lenfestey (Many thanks to Michelle Kogan for this recommendation. It features many of my favorite poets including Ross Gay, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Mary Oliver. I purchased it used, and I can’t wait to read the rest of the anthology).
  • Word of Mouth: Poems Featured on NPR’s All Things Considered edited by Catherine Bowman
  • More in Time: A Tribute to Ted Kooser Edited by Jessica Poli, Marco Abel, and Timothy Schaffert
 
 
I didn’t have the chance to read the full anthologies that she’s edited, though I own several of them.
 
A few things that kept coming up again and again in the podcasts were her very popular poem “Kindness” and the her prose poem “Gate A-4.” I’m sure you are very familiar with them.
 
I think my favorite interview with her was in On Being with Krista Tippett. Krista is such a calm and thoughtful interviewer that I like so many of the episodes she’s done with poets and this one is no exception.
 
My favorite book overall is Everything Comes Next. It has a lot of the favorites and some new poems too.
 
She also gives advice to young poets in this book:
 
“Don’t start with a big idea. Start with a phrase, a line, a quote. Questions are very helpful.”
 
The book that affected me the most emotionally was The Tiny Journalist.
 
A favorite quote comes from 19 Varieties of Gazelle:
 
“We need poetry for nourishment and for noticing, for the way language and imagery reach comfortably into experience, holding and connecting it more successfully than any news channel we could name.”
 
When I reread 19 Varieties of Gazelle, the poem “Blood” really stood out to me. One of the lines said:
 
“Today the headlines clot in my blood.”
 
This book is the first Naomi Shihab Nye book I owned, and I think this line captures the current state of the world.
 
I’m a bit of a learner junkie. And I love seeing people’s syllabi or their reading lists. I’d love to see a syllabus from a class that she teaches. Wouldn’t that be interesting? To read the things she recommends to her students? If you know of ways to see a syllabus that she uses in her teaching, point me in the right direction.
 
 

Sealey Challenge Update

I started the Sealey Challenge yesterday. I will report next week on how it’s going. 
 
 
 

Haiku of the Week

 
on a gray day
blooms oversleep—
wildflower bedheads
 
Photo Taken: May 12, 2024 Shenandoah National Park
Haiku Written: June 17, 2024
 
 

Grow 

It’s a revising kind of week! I’ve been touching base with a few projects that got put on the back burner in July–some of which just a little bit of revising. So I’ve been exercising my revising muscles. Naomi Shihab Nye says:
 
“If you believe in revision, you don’t have to worry about perfection.”
 
Thank goodness!

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14 Comments

  • Janice Scully

    August 2, 2024 at 8:37 AM

    You have been busy and you inspire me! So many books and such short days, still only 24 hours. Your posts always remind me of D.C and the years I lived there. I enjoyed your clever haiku and thought about what it must be like for a flower waking up on a gray day.

  • Heidi Mordhorst

    August 2, 2024 at 11:04 AM

    Marcie, as always I am filled with admiration for the self-discipline you exercise in setting and reaching your goals. (I’m never quite sure what I’m spending all my time doing when I might be reading or writing, but it may have to do with a certain guilty penchant for packing videos on YouTube–which is the more foolish because we just don’t travel as much as we used to.) I would love to oversleep and wake up with a wildflower bedhead. That makes me want to recommend this book to you: https://myjuicylittleuniverse.blogspot.com/2011/04/alice-oswald.html

  • Laura Purdie Salas

    August 2, 2024 at 1:59 PM

    Thanks for sharing some of the juiciest fruits from your deep dive into Shihab Nye’s work this summer, Marcie. I love so many of the tidbits you shared–not to mention the signage and troll toll at the bookstore! Haha. We’ve had so much rain (plus some hail) this summer here in the Twin Cities. When I go out to water (now that it’s gotten so hot) and deadhead the deck plants, I often think they look a bit hung-over and oversleeping :>D

  • Denise Krebs

    August 2, 2024 at 5:22 PM

    Marcie, you are an inspiration. I love that you make plans for study and art, and then you carry through. Your deep dive into Naomi Shihab Nye is helping me think of similar possibilities. I continue this second day of August on my reading poetry to my grandson each day in August (or most of August). My version of the Sealey Challenge this year. Congrats on the book shop challenge, and even better, you continue shopping for books. I know Clint Smith’s is a winner, and the other choices you made look interesting too.

  • Catherine

    August 3, 2024 at 6:09 AM

    Wow, Marcie! You have been busy! You’ve inspired me to reexamine all the Naomi Shihab Nye books on my shelf through the lens of my new teaching assignment. (MS ELA!) “Wildflower bedheads” is perfection. And congratulations on your forthcoming book! I can’t wait to read it!

  • Mary Lee

    August 3, 2024 at 1:29 PM

    As soon as I finish YOU ARE HERE, I’m set to begin a Sealey Challenge dive into Naomi Shihab Nye’s books! Thanks for this post — I’ll keep it handy and we can compare notes!