Two Men at Breakfast: A Trimeric Poem

My friend Sandy recently posted a picture of her husband and grandfather breakfasting together while they read from their Bibles. The beautiful photo got me thinking about the ways generations share love and faith. It also got me playing with a poem in trimeric form.

This is a relatively new poem form which I first heard about on a blog last year (I think it was a Monday Poetry stretch at Miss Rumphius Effect). It was invented by Dr. Charles Stone, who defines it as:

 "Trimeric \tri-(meh)-rik\ n: a four stanza poem in which the first stanza has four lines and the last three stanzas have three lines each, with the first line of each repeating the respective line of the first stanza.  The sequence of lines, then, is abcd, b – -, c – -, d – -." 

Dr. Stone has written a lot of trimerics. He tends to write very spare lines, which I appreciate (and he is, after all, the inventor of the form!) but one reason I enjoy playing with the form is that it seems to lend itself so well to tiny narratives. This is only the second one I've written, but I hope it won't be the last.

Two Men at Breakfast

They keep the Bible near to hand --
the old man and the younger one.
At the table, they enjoy coffee
and sweet fellowship in prayer.

The old man and the younger one
have long shared a love of mornings
and the God who made them.

At the table they enjoy coffee,
sip the bitter and the sweet,
share their worries and their cares

and sweet fellowship in prayer.
These are the moments that bind
generations together in love.

~EMP 7/28/15

The End of an Era

Tuesday seemed like a fairly normal day for me. It was filled with ordinary blessings, busyness, and stress of various kinds, and not much writing time, as evidenced by the fact that when evening came, I hadn’t checked in at Epinions, one of the websites I write for regularly.

That’s not terribly unusual. I have days when I have to prioritize other things – teaching, ministry, or long-term writing projects – and don’t get to what I call my short-term writing projects at all or until late at night. What I didn’t know was that I had already written the last review I would ever write for Epinions. I got word in the evening that the site’s reviewing platform, fifteen years strong, was being shut down permanently.

To understand the shock of this for me, you have to realize a few things. I started writing for Epinions in May 2003, almost eleven years ago. When I started writing there, I was a recently turned 35 year old with a baby less than a year old. I have 1303 – yes, that’s one thousand three hundred and three – reviews and essays (mostly reviews) published at the site. That averages out to almost exactly 10 reviews a month for almost eleven years (yes, I did the math).

More importantly than the numbers, which show what a beloved habit writing for this site was, were the friendships I made there and the incredible amount I learned. What started as a mildly fun hobby – in my first several months on the site, I only wrote a handful of reviews and poked around on occasion, getting to know people and trying to figure out how things worked – picked up steam quickly. I had been looking for two things when I stumbled upon the site originally: a place where I could read good reviews of children’s books, and (once I realized I could contribute content) a place where I could keep my writing muscles exercised on a regular basis. That last felt hugely important to me when the sweet girl was a baby. My energy and time were both so limited (they still are, but in different ways) and I wanted to find a writing outlet where I could engage in real writing but have it be short-term writing, short pieces that had starts and finishes that felt manageable in the small spaces of a busy mom’s life. (I knew the novel and the longer non-fiction projects I wanted to work on would need to wait.)

The fact that the work was all self-directed and self-paced was a blessing. I could write and post as quickly or as slowly as I wanted and no one would mind. I could set my own deadlines and writing goals and try different ways of approaching reviews. The fact that I could write about what I felt most passionate about was beautiful. I liked that the posts were peer-reviewed, and quickly came to respect so many of the peers who were also writing and rating on the site. I liked knowing that my work had an actual audience. While the writing process brings me joy, a lot of it is lonely, and when you write never knowing if you what you write will see the light of day or communicate clearly to anyone, it can make the work feel that much harder. I knew I didn’t have a vast readership, but nonetheless, I had a readership.

I had taken journalism and feature article classes in college, neither of which, frankly, taught me a whole lot about how to write features. I remember struggling through a film review assignment for one of my classes (this was back in the 80s, pre-internet) and thinking how hard it was to craft a good review. I was right. A good film review is hard to write. I would have been astounded to know that one day I would write dozens (if not hundreds) of film reviews. Next to books, movies was my favorite category to write in at Eps; I was a top reviewer in the movies category for several years and was working to regain my momentum in that category when the site closed. Some of my early film reviews there weren’t very good – I labored long re-telling plot and often didn’t figure out what I wanted to say until I’d spent several hundred words – but my colleagues on the site, some of whom were dynamite writers, were encouraging with me anyway, and egged my enthusiasm on. So I wrote more of them, and I got better. When you labor at anything for a decade, you learn skills. I will always be grateful to my time at Epinions for helping me learn to craft strong leads and to hone my natural bent toward what I call “full-circle” pieces. One of my favorite methods for review writing is to bring the reader back around to an initial thought, impression, or assertion. I loved clarifying that skill over the past ten plus years.

There was also the richness of engaging in an incredibly diverse community of people who wrote about all kinds of things I’d likely have not read so much about otherwise. I learned about foreign films, musical instruments, gardening methods, adoptive families, classical music, best-selling thrillers, cozy mysteries, preschool picture books, cooking utensils, pet care, board games, business travel, and comic books. And that’s just off the top of my head!

And I made friends, at least one of whom, Erin, will be a life-long friend. We’ve emailed for years, blogged together, worked on stories together, gotten together in real life numerous times, prayed for each other, gotten to know each others' families and stories. In May, she’s getting married – to a man I’ve known for over a quarter century and had the privilege of introducing her to.

So forgive me if I wax a little nostalgic about the end of an era. In the grand scheme of the world, the sudden demise of a website looms small (and despite the struggles the site has had in recent years, the announcement was shockingly sudden as parent company eBay decided to retire the review platform effectively immediately). But this particular website has meant a lot to me. It’s been a long-term almost daily habit, a place to share passions and enthusiasms, a valued community of friends and colleagues, a place to keep my skills sharp, and if I shed a few tears when I heard the news, well…I think that’s pretty understandable. Although we weren’t given much chance to say proper farewells and do our grieving and celebrating onsite, a few hundred of us have found our way to a facebook page where those things are happening. I’m very glad they are. Epinions and the work and community it generated are worth celebrating.

10 Years as a Reviewer

Yesterday I reached a fun milestone: 10 years since I became a reviewer on Epinions.

I had fun reminiscing about how I "stumbled" onto the site, not knowing precisely what it was. I was looking for reviews of children's books, particularly books for very young children, since the sweet girl was not quite a year old at the time. I discovered a site where I could not only read reviews (of any number of things) but write them too.

I still recall the fun I had tossing out that first four-paragraph review of one of the sweet girl's board books. The only reviews I'd written, up until then, had been for newsletters and college classes. I had no clue what I was doing, and *really* no clue that I would get bitten by the review writing bug and still be writing for the site a decade -- and over 1200 reviews -- later.

I've learned a lot in my time there, some of it to do with crafting reviews, and a lot of it to do with listening to the passions of other people...some of them a lot like me, and a lot of them not at all like me. It's been enriching. It's been a help to our homeschool budget. It's been frustrating (especially when the site has gone through growing pains, changes, and technical glitches). It's been fun.

I also had no clue that I would meet one of the friends of my heart there, a couple of years or so into my Epinions sojourn. Yesterday, Erin wrote a review of the 1994 film version of Little Women in my honor. It's a lovely review from a lovely human being whom I'm grateful to call my friend. That friendship is one of the best blessings to come out of my decade as a reviewer.

Wonder what the next ten years will hold for my writing life? 

Can Facebook Help You Write a Poem?

Maybe.

The other day I posted, as my status update, that I was wrestling with the week's poetry stretch. Write a poem about the moon. And I asked my Facebook friends this question: "what do you love about the moon?"

I loved the answers. Stories, songs, nursery rhymes, associations with the moonwalk, memories of a grandfather. It got me thinking (one of those delightful side benefits of FB from time to time) about all the different ways we delight in the moon.

So I wrote this.

Multiple Moons

The one outside
the window
is real,
rock hard,
reflecting the sunlight--
sometimes golden hued,
sometimes even
blue or rose,
or pearl in
a silver setting--

though wait,
now I am approaching
the metaphor moon,
the one that peeps
a friendly face
through tattered cloud curtains,
sits cool and serene,
a scoop of vanilla ice cream
in its dark sky bowl,
or grins a lopsided smile
on a young girl
and her silver-haired grandfather--

but hey,
I'm edging now
toward the story moon,
the one that followed Owl home,
the moon that got poked
in the eye by the rocket
that brought the picnickers
who loved cheese,
the revelers who sat
and warbled homesick songs
but then
marveled
when they saw the cow
leap right over them,
flying who knows where.

EMP 10-28-10

Lovely Links

Two blessings to my weekend...too lovely not to share.

One is this wonderful blog post by Karen Edmisten. I'm very thankful she "dipped into her archives" to re-post "When They're Older..." a reflection on parenting and "living in the moment" that moved me to tears (even while I grinned wryly at how much I saw myself and our family in it). Every once in a while, I read something that's so moving, so right, so much something I need to hear at this precise moment that I think, "Well, Lord, that was for me, wasn't it?" Of course I know it's not *just* for me! Which is just one reason I decided to share it.

The other is a beautiful ballad that my friend Erin posted on YouTube. It's called Lucy's Lament, and is inspired, as so many of Erin's creations are, by her love for a particular story or character, in this case Lucy Pevensie of Narnia. Erin is a marvelous poet. In fact, I first got to know her (and I'm so thankful I did) after she posted this poem a few years ago on Epinions. I found it so moving that I wrote her an email about it, and the rest, as they say, is history. A handful of years, much correspondence, a couple of re-reading blogs, and two real-life visits later, she and I are still friends -- and I still love this poem. I'm so glad she has now set it to music.

Easy Reader Romance

I love the Mr. Putter & Tabby books written by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Arthur Howard. They're definitely my favorite "easy reader" books written in this generation (Arnold Lobel's Frog & Toad books still stand in a classic place of honor from my own childhood).

Mr. Putter is a delightful old man who reminds me of so many of the neighbors I grew up with. He's slow-moving, kind, courteous, with a love of nostalgia. He spends a lot of time on his porch reading the paper. He's got creaky knees and can (on rare occasions) be a bit grumpy. Mostly he's just an all-around good guy. He lives with his equally creaky and sweet cat, a skinny yellowish-orange feline named Tabby. Their next door neighbors are the ever cheerful and resourceful Mrs. Teaberry and her drooling, good-natured bulldog Zeke.

My six year old really likes Mr. P & T. It's her mother who is crazy about them. I keep putting them on the library hold shelf. I suspect one day we will eventually read them all.

My friend Erin (long-time reader/encourager on this blog) has already beaten us to the punch. She loves the Mr. Putter & Tabby books even more than we do. She's not only read them all, she's reviewed them all on Epinions. (I confess I've reviewed a handful of them too, because they're so much to write about! But Erin has covered every single one!)

A few months ago, when Erin was writing a lot of her Putter reviews, she and I had a fun email exchange about the series. We both agreed that we thought Mr. Putter and Mrs. Teaberry were probably falling in love, even if they didn't realize it. We certainly thought they would be wonderful as "more than friends." Of course we had a great laugh over our romantic sensibilities about an easy reader series of books (though I confessed I've been waiting for Bob the Builder to wake up and smell the coffee for years when it comes to his colleague Wendy) and we coined the phrase "Easy Reader Romance."

One of the things I love about Erin's creativity is that she doesn't let a good idea just sit there. When something inspires her, or tickles her funny bone (or both) she usually does something about it. The result is often charming and wonderful. That's definitely the case with her poem "Mr. Putter and Tabby Send the Note." If you're a fan of the series, check it out. You'll love it!

An Abundance of Teakettles

Sometimes you can do something one way for so long, you can almost forget how it started. Take my teakettle situation, for instance.

I enjoy drinking tea, and so does the rest of the family. But for ages, I've not owned a teakettle. Instead, I've heated water in a regular pot on the stove, or (shudder) when I'm in a hurry, in the microwave (though the water never tastes right somehow). If anyone asked me why I didn't have a teakettle, I would tell them it was because I'd burned out so many.

And it's true. I'm notoriously bad at leaving water boiling too long and burning out all sorts of pans and kettles. I just get distracted, usually by reading, writing or cleaning (or hanging out with my daughter) and I leave things on the stove too long. I have some very funny stories I could tell on myself, including the one from the morning I tried to sterilize the sweet girl's pacifiers when she was just a few months old.

I know, you're thinking: but don't teakettles have whistles? Yeeesss, but I usually got the kind where the whistler was optional, and I'd get tired of it and take it out. Dumb move!

Whenever I burned out a cooking pan or sauce pan, I would replace it soon -- because I NEEDED cooking pans. For some reason, I relegated teakettle to luxury item. I'd burned out too many, so somehow in my mind I didn't deserve a teakettle anymore. Weird, I know. While bemoaning the absence of a kettle to my husband not long ago, he laughed and said "I think you've deprived yourself long enough." I laughed and agreed, but still didn't get a teakettle. Does this have anything to do with Scots stubbornness?

Well, in the past few weeks, on separate occasions I've had friends over and we've had tea. Both times I've cheerfully explained why I don't have a teakettle, adding that I'd have to do something about that one day. One friend told me she thought she had an extra one she could give me, which I thought was very sweet, but promptly forgot about it.

Until yesterday, when a silver teakettle (used but nice and quite serviceable, thank you) showed up on the mat outside my door. My friend had remembered and decided to play teakettle fairy. I love it. It's even got one of those "built-in whistlers" so I can't dismantle it and get back into my bad habits!

But it gets better. Also on the mat, when D. brought the teakettle in, was the morning's mail. Included in that was a beautiful note from the other friend I'd been drinking tea with a week or so ago (she lives in another state). The note was just lovely, bringing tears of gratitude to my eyes -- I'm so thankful for friends. And tucked inside the card was a gift of money with another note that said "for a teakettle -- or wherever else you see a need."

When it rains, it pours! Or in this case, steams and whistles! I laughed and laughed over the abundance of kindness. Yes, thank you, Lord, I got it. I really should have a teakettle again.