December 4 – 10, 2006: Josh Hockensmith & David Need

Between birth and death, a wide, bright hall
           after Bede

The bus almost doesn't stop but does,
surprised. A sparrow hops up and in.
It's warm on the bus, and just a little darker
than she had expected.

The sparrow pays, hops back to a seat.
Not too bad. The ride's a little bumpy.
Periodically, she jumps and flaps
to look out the window.
They're moving fast but not so fast.

She jumps in time to see a storefront sign
in passing -- PANTS PLUS -- but lands again,
little claws ticking on the orange plastic seat,
before she can make sense of it.
And just like that, they're at 8th Street, her stop,
and she's on the wing again.

Heart Sutra, remix

rhythm is form

rhythm is form

rhythm is form, form
is emptiness

rhythm is form, form is
emptiness, emptiness
form, form rhythm

rhythm is form, form is emptiness
emptiness form, form rhythm
rhythm is form, form is emptiness
emptiness form, form rhythm
rhythm is form, form is emptiness
emptiness form, form rhythm

rhythm is form, form is emptiness
emptiness form, form rhythm
rhythm is form, form is emptiness
emptiness form, form rhythm
rhythm is form, form is emptiness
emptiness form, form rhythm

rhythm is form
form is emptiness
emptiness form
form

Josh Hockensmith is a poet, translator, and book artist who has been living in Chapel Hill since 2000. His essays and poetry have appeared in South by Southeast, Oyster Boy Review,and Cafe Irreal, among others. His translations have appeared in Cafe Irreal, Bolivian Studies Journal, and the PEN Boliviaannual publications for 2003 and 2004 and anthologized in Narrative from Tropical Bolivia (Editorial La Hoguera, 2003). The Vancouver Chamber Choir used his translations of Mexican poet Jose Gorostiza for a performance in 2004. He also produces one-of-a-kind books on commission, and his books have been collected by UNC's Sloane Art Library for its collection of artist books. He has produced small editions of hand-made books in collaboration with other poets and artists, including Jeffery Beam, Stephen Addiss, and Ippy Patterson.

Mulberry Window

I

A mulberry broken from last year's storm
         leans what's left over the old white fence
and, lighter than air, tohees pause, turned north,
         red-breast spring again beyond

my grey window; I feel my heart
         wanting to fly as usual;
it either does not know or does not care
         that dolorous shadows of distant wars

are on the march, pulling us in tides
         across the faithful new-green fields
to failure; & not as storm nor sowing fire,

and nothing but parking lots growing,
         and still, launching its small hunger, each bird
vanishes into the wider promise.

II

How many days are simply white falls,
         a passing sheeting surface
against stilled eyes? The world's inertia
         bears down and rises

in familiar greens, the neighbors' house
         rises away into the future sky
in its private symphonies,
         the body's weight leaves no print

on the white, collapsing and billowing scrolls,
         the hand can make nothing
from passing color

no matter how hard the grip.
         Work falls away like tools
left behind in the tall, waving grass.

III

My eyes are not filled with new color
         at either sunset or dawn,
there is no emptiness there
         like the space inside a pail,

no dipper tasting or taking,
         nothing without that comes,
frame by frame, museumed
         to be mine;

eye touches world like a trembling
         drum, a host of grass stalks
swept by winds

again and again,
         where the world pulls us
against our roots.

IV

Though even the earth comes apart,
         and death the end for every eye
and this flesh, loosened, drops from the frame
         like heavy clay,

each vine has lasted in the infinite awhile
         longer than logic would allow,
poised in the impossible
         among other dense realizations --

this year's mallow and false indigo,
         the cosmos that have wandered a few yards,
the rose, eaten by deer,

its bare bones drying --
         opened from between nowhere, like breaths
or pages of the sun.

V

It is not simply that there is a rose
         in a thin glass on the round table,
among other departing shapes
         in the gathering twilight,

nor simply the absence of the rose
         proposed by its slim thorny stem,
the way the first stroke on a page
         begins the unravelling,

the way Rodin found the Gates of Hell
         deep inside a surface;
and lifted them out,

its that this rose is doubled, drawn before me
         and already elsewhere
and is, like all things that surface in this way,

a good mirror.

VI

Out my window, a grey titmouse pauses in the mulberry
         sifting (though the berries are gone) like a shadow;
and I was thinking, "why is it that tree needs us so much to say it?"
         And wondering, "what is it I am trying to say

That is not tree?"
         There is always this (not-quite) fit
Between the tool and the task.
         Between a divided hunger and the territory

Over which it searches. Person who is
         not world
who breathes world,

And the vast space
         that opens
in the small, grey wings.

David Need is a writer and teacher who has lived in Durham since 1994. His poetry is largely unpublished save in hand-made, limited additions or small local magazines such as The Blotter. He has poems forthcoming in Oyster Boy Review. In the 1990s, Mr. Need helped organize and/or participated in several short-lived reading series in Durham, including the Meanwhile Exhibition, Speak, and the Midnight Readings at Main St. Cafe. From 1996-1998, he taught creative writing at the Carver Hill Adolescent Treatment Center through the Durham Arts Council and taught Community Education courses on the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. He currently writes on visual arts and literature for The Independent Weekly and has a monthly review column in the on-line poetry journal MiPOesias. Since 2000, he has been teaching courses on Asian religions and on Russian and American arts and literature at Duke University.

December 11 – 18, 2006: Carole Boston Weatherford

Two new books by Ms. Weatherford made their debut in September. A prose poem, Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom (New York, NY: Hyperion Books for Children, 2006), imagines Harriet Tubman's journey from her first escape to her return South to free others. The story unfolds through conversations between Harriet and God. Illustrated by Kadir Nelson, Moses has received four starred reviews and has been named a best book of 2006 by School Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Horn Book Guide, and Nick Jr. Family Magazine. It begins as follows:

On a summer night, Harriet gazes at the sky and talks with God.
I am your child, Lord; yet, Master owns me, drives me like a mule.
Now he means to sell me South in chains to work cotton,
rice, indigo or sugarcane; never to see my family again.
God speaks in a whippoorwill's song.
I SET THE NORTH STAR IN THE HEAVENS
AND I MEAN FOR YOU TO BE FREE.
Harriet sees the star twinkling.
My mind is made up; tomorrow, I flee.*

In the 1920s and '30s Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears, Roebuck & Co., donated seed grants to build more than 5,000 schools in the rural South. Through a series of narrative poems,Dear Mr. Rosenwald (New York, NY: Scholastic Books, 2006) tells the story of one Rosenwald school and of a community that dreamed of, and worked to secure, a brighter future for its children. Illustrated by Gregory Christie, the book has received three starred reviews. Here's an excerpt.

Passing the Plate

Homecoming Sunday, a church full.
Uncle Bo didn't need to preach a sermon
after going on about the new school.
Said we're gathering money a nickel
and dime at a time. The ushers passed
the plate. Afterward, Uncle Bo
waved envelopes white neighbors sent.
Twenty dollars in all. Then, the choir sang
The Lord will make a way somehow.

Just before the service ended,
Miss Etta Mae asked to have a word.
I was born a slave. Worked hard
even after freedom came. Never had time
for book learning. Here's a dollar
from money I been saving for my burial.
Hurry and build that school
so I can learn to read my Bible.

Carole Boston Weatherford's poems appear here with permission of the publishers. In November Frank Stasio interviewed Ms. Weatherford on "The State of Things", a production of WUNC Public Radio, as she worked with students at Mary Scroggs Elementary School, in Chapel Hill. The third-graders had been studying Dear Mr. Rosenwald, and the show chronicled their discussion with the author when she visited the class. Click here for the interview and to listen to Ms. Weatherford read "Passing the Plate" and other poems from the book.

Ms. Weatherford's first children's book, Juneteenth Jamboree (Lee & Low Books) appeared in 1995. Since then, she has received many literary honors, including creative writing fellowships from the North Carolina Arts Council for 1995-96 and 2001-02. Her book The Sound that Jazz Makes (Walker Books, 2000) won the Carter G. Woodson Award from the National Council for Social Studies (NCSS) and an NAACP Image Award nomination.Remember the Bridge: Poems of a People (Philomel Books, 2002) won the Juvenile Literature Award from AAUW-North Carolina, and was short-listed among the NCSS Notables, National Council of Teachers of English Notables, International Reading Association Teachers' Choices, and Voices of Youth Advocates Poetry Picks. Her books total 22, including three collections of poetry for adults.

Ms. Weatherford has master's degrees in publications design from the University of Baltimore and in fine arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is visiting distinguished professor at Fayetteville State University and lives in High Point with her husband, Ronald, and their teenage son and daughter.

* From Moses by Carole Boston Weatherford. Text Copyright 2006 by Carole Boston Weatherford. Illustration Copyright 20006 by Kadir Nelson. Reprinted with permission by Hyperion Books For Children. All Rights Reserved.

A Garland of Holiday Poems

My thanks to Julia Taylor Ebel, who wove this garland of holiday poems. When Julia and I began discussing the project, we envisioned a string of poems for children. Like many garlands, this one twined longer than we expected, and in the end a few "grown-up" poems made their way into the last swag. Print it out and drape it over your mantel! Wrap it around your Christmas tree! Wear it as a holiday shawl! Whatever you do, enjoy it!
-- Kathryn Stripling Byer

Poetry is word play at its best. Words skip and dance across a page -- or stroll and linger. Sounds play with each other, calling us to listen, teasing our ears, leading us through the lines.

Holidays offer opportunities to share timely poetry with young readers and listeners. You will find here seasonal poems by North Carolina poets. May this garland of poems brighten your holidays -- Christmas, Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa -- and usher you into the new year with a new, child-like sense of wonder.

You and the child in your life can write your own holiday poems. Choose a focus first. If you ask a few leading questions, even a preschooler can give you the words of a poem to treasure for years to come. Sally Buckner gives you a start in her poem "The Second Tree."

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy New Year!
-- Julia Taylor Ebel

Julia Taylor Ebel lives in Jamestown, but part of her heart is in the North Carolina mountains, where hikes lead to poems and conversations lead to stories. She is available regionally for school and community programs. The untitled poem that follows is by Ms. Ebel.

The Second Tree
   by Sally Buckner

There was another tree in the Garden of Eden. . .
. . . and it is evergreen,
shucks brown needles just as new ones
spring from limbs like slim green spears of light;
roots plunge deep, hold fast in solid ground;
branches spread wide welcomes.
At the tip, a star,
Solid core of radiance
Silvering the dark.

It is always the season for lights,
And gifts abound,
Safe in the tree's soft shadow,
A new one every time I look:

(Complete this poem by listing
the gifts -- both tangible and invisible --
underneath your tree.)

Advent
   by Susan Lefler

The old woman in a Santa hat sits
near me in her folding chair, surrounded
by gravestones, waiting for the Christmas parade.
She's probably never heard of Advent, but she knows
something is coming, now that trees
have shrugged off leaves and the long
mountains rest, bare on their elbows,
and rime ice cloaks the ground. She waits and I wait.

An old flatbed covered with hay floats
by the graveyard with its small tableau of children.
Mary, cloaked in a blue sheet, bends
over the swaddled doll in its wooden crate.
Joseph leans on his stick and tries to keep
the yarn beard out of his mouth. An angel lurks
nearby with a crooked wing.
The old woman watches and smiles.

That first Christmas they made do
with swaddling clothes and a stall,
angels sang after the fact, shepherds and kings
straggled in, late to the party. And still, the road
to Bethlehem is long and we hold back,
wait for a sign that something is coming,
We watch and wait, the old woman and I,
smiling among the stones.

A Great Miracle Happened There
   by Mimi Herman

In elementary school, I was the shyest kid in my class.
The hamster or guinea pig or anaconda --
Or whatever we had as pet that year
Made more noise.
The cursive alphabet above the blackboard
Demanded more attention.

I was aiming for invisible.

But every year, in December or sometimes November,
According to a calendar none of the other kids had heard of
(Except Kenneth Zogry, the know-it-all from Hebrew class,
And my best friend Betsy Katzin),
My mother arrived for Hanukah,
With her bright orange pantsuit, her frosted hair,
And her electric frying pan

To mesmerize us with the story of Judah and his Maccabees,
A battle for the boys, a miracle for the girls.
That tiny bit of oil that burned for eight days and eight nights,

And which my mother now poured from the Wesson bottle
Into the pan.

We spun dreidels,
Until the tops wobbled and toppled to the ground,
I held my breath. Maybe with the Maccabees on my side,
I could win all the chocolate gelt.
In this ancient gambling game,
Even a classroom loser could become a winner.

My mom let me light the menorah,
That you weren't supposed to light before sunset.
With both hands, I held the shamos
The helper of all the other candles,
And kissed each wick with flame,

While latkes sizzled in oil in my mom's frying pan.
A miracle! Potatoes turned into pancakes!
We ate them from paper plates, with plastic forks.
Slathered them with sour cream or applesauce.
My family's weird food, which the other kids loved.

The whole class sat rapt at my mother's stories.
I was -- for that one day -- visible,
My mother's glowing child,
The shamos, the winner, the girl draped in apples and cream.
A miracle.

Old December
   by Heather Ross Miller

Mistletoe, myrtle, and oak
to my west, and a long roll
of old pastures, these my
best wild treasures, unearned
and for free. The trees of
Hebron and Galilee, the white
pagan berries for kissing
at Christmas, and the durable
dark thicket.

Winter solstice, and the dried-
up old druids, the old tea-leaf
readers, hover outside,
dreading to climb my trees,
oh, how brittle their bones,
and the sun like a thin gold sickle.
New moon, old moon, half moon,
horned - the night overwhelms
them as they slice the boughs,
and the woman whose house
this is, the woman I am,
sees.

Countdown to Christmas
   by Joy Acey

Ten moose on the roof stringing colored lights
for Santa to find them on Christmas night.

Nine happy beavers gnaw a balsam tree
then haul it home for all their friends to see.

Eight calling blue jays hang balls with silver string.
They're chirping of gifts that Santa Claus will bring.

Seven jolly chipmunks believe nobody knows
what's inside each package they've tied with satin bows.

Six ruddy raccoons all rush to write their lists
toys they want from Santa, so no one will be missed.

Five gray mice practice singing Christmas songs.
Santa is coming. They hope it won't be long.

Four chubby woodchucks measure, sift and beat,
baking sugar cookies for Santa Claus to eat.

Three bushy squirrels stack those cookies on a tray,
leave them for Santa and the deer who pull his sleigh.

Two lop-eared rabbits pour milk into a glass,
each of them is wishing tonight will quickly pass.

One sleepy little bear tries patiently to wait
to spy Santa Claus, but it is getting late.

His eyes keep closing as the time ticks on.
Soon he falls fast asleep long before the dawn.

In the morning when he opens up his sleepy eyes
all around the Christmas tree he sees a big surprise.

Presents stacked everywhere! Oh what fun!
Laughing friends dance and shout,

      "Happy Christmas, Everyone!"

Snow Lace
   by Julia Taylor Ebel

Snowfall
frosts green
of hemlock boughs
and laurel leaves,
weaves white lace
on every twig
of birches,
beeches,
   and oaks.

Dashing Through the Stores
   a parody by Scott Kinard and Michael Beadle

Dashing through the stores
With a red-hot Christmas list
Lines are way too long --
How do I pay for this?

Molly wants a doll.
And Tommy wants some boots.
If I don't get them wrapped on time,
My kids will think I'm Scrooge!

O, Mistletoe, G.I. Joe,
Playstation number 3
Stars Wars game
For what's his name
To place under the tree.

Parking space, smiley face,
It's snowing all around.
Sleigh bells ring. People sing.
I love that Christmas sound.

Silent Night
   by Michael Beadle

Thick flakes fall feather lazy,
everything soft as a prayer.
Blurry streetlights, an eerie lemon.

Bare limbs earn new clothes.
Inches rise, clouds mound
over a deserted pickup

with windshield wipers stuck
in mid-sweep. Your face aglow
in kitchen candlelight.

A burn on my lips
as I kiss your forehead, twice
for good luck.

I remember not wanting to break
the spell of a night
that made us mute with wonder.

I remember not wanting
to say anything at all,
wanting the snow to say it for me.

The Snowflakes' View of Town
   by Carol Boston Weatherford

Christmas Wren
   by Julia Taylor Ebel

Deep
   in December
darkness
   holds night,
light
   comes slowly,

yet a cold
   winter wren
on frozen
   branches
sings
   to morning.

Inside Christmas Day
   by Kathryn Stripling Byer

If Dog is Love,
as the bumper stickers say,
then Love is playing in the snow today,
her long nose white
as whipping cream I'll beat
into sweet snow drifts for pumpkin pie
that's cooling on the countertop.
I watch my Dog's shenanigans,
from my place among the pots and pans.
The turkey's sizzling,
green beans simmering,
cinnamon and clove scent
rising from the potpourri
while all around us,
Dog and me,
this Christmas day
hangs, shimmering.

Santa Belled the Christmas Cat
   by Allan Wolf

At the North Pole each December,
Santa sets about adorning
sleigh-bells 'round his good Cat's neck
to give all Mouse-Folk ample warning,

so Goodman Mouse might scurry home
to share his family's Christmas cheese
and sing a squeaky wassail
with a mousling on his knee,

then gently kiss dear Goody Mouse
beneath the mini-mistletoe.
So next time when you hear a chime
at Christmas time you'll know:
Santa belled the Christmas Cat,
and Goodman Mouse is safe at home.

Nine Years Old and All's Well
   by Sally Buckner

Just before dawn,
stars glint like bits of frost
in the velvet Christmas sky.
Inside, our Heatrola roars a toasty blast.
Cozy beneath the shelter of our cedar,
I inhale its spice and relish
the threads of silver glistening from its boughs,
exult in the treasure beneath:
Roy Rogers gun-and-holster for tomboy me,
baby doll and layette for my motherly sister,
a tumble of boxes bound in red-and-green mystery,
a stash of tangerines and chocolate kisses.
On the sofa, a broad smile on her rosy face
Mama perches in her flowerdy cotton robe.
Behind her, sipping black, black coffee,
Daddy grins from his recliner.
At his feet, Sister sits cross-legged, in dazed delight.
In that little room, happiness bubbles
like the the hot chocolate simmering on the range;
its glow almost as dazzling
as the rainbowed rope of lights
spiraling to the tip of our aromatic tree.

Nine Holiday Haiku
   by Lenard D. Moore

Snowglobe
   by Lorraine Stark

Nativity
   by Rand Brandes

When the SS screen
Flashed our unnaturally
Green family tree
Under the Christmas lights

It struck me --
I had forgotten
Your middle name --
June, Roberta June,

Summer solstice
And sunshine
Lit the room,
The strange snow melting.

The Day after Christmas
   by Kathryn Stripling Byer

Scent of ashes
fro