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Good News! The Tulsa City-Couty library will open to allow patrons to pick up held materials on May 18.  

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Good News! The Tulsa City-Couty library will open to allow patrons to pick up held materials on May 18.  

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The book returns will be open starting on May 11.  I don't know about you, but I have missed the Library!
Linda

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You will find books for children, tweens, teens, and literary classics at this site. Listen to your heart's content!

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© Copyright 1997 - 2023 Audible, Inc Conditions of Use…

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Joy Harjo, US Poet Laureate and Oklahoman, answers questions

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Joy Harjo is the 23rd poet laureate of the United States and the first Native American to hold that post. A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and an acclaimed musician, she has published nine books of poetry and released five award-winning CDs. After her inaugural reading in September 2019, she traveled extensively, performing solo and with musicians for audiences of various backgrounds and political affiliations. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she is a Tulsa Artist Fellow.
Q: Why are poems so necessary?
Poetry tries to hold all aspects of human memory - grief, failure, love, joy - and moves toward a liminal space in the borderlands between here and there, in between yes and no, what was and what is to come. The great paradox is that poetry uses language to create a place you can go when human words fail.

We go to poetry to find a road to understanding, and not just any road - it must be compelling, and take us somewhere we've never been before. Even before the pandemic, sales of poetry books had gone up. The audiences for poetry have grown dramatically since the last national elections four years ago.
Q: You have described poetry as a conversation of the soul. How is poetry "soul talk"?
Just about every poet out there - from Walt Whitman to Emily Dickinson to Marilyn Nelson - is ultimately writing a conversation with their soul. Each one has a different patterning, of course, a kind of sound frequency you can hear. And every poem has poetry ancestors.

My own poetry ancestors include a great-grandfather who helped me enter the realm of poetry. He was a good speaker and I think some of my sense of language comes from him. I have some of his handwritten pages of sermons. I also consider Emily Dickinson a forebear. I hear her in her phrasing, a single human voice rising from the seclusion of a room or darkness or loneliness.

The whole country seems to be in that kind of place right now, so quiet you can hear the collective heart. We might feel especially alone because we have been individually isolated. We don't know what's going to happen next. All sound becomes magnified; that's when we can really listen.
Q: Why is listening important?
Listening is the tool required for life, and for any art. It doesn't matter if it's literature, painting, or architecture. You might listen with your eyes to color or to the line or just shape. But it's all about listening with all of your senses.
Q: How did you come to love poetry?
I didn't start writing poetry till I was almost 23. But I came to poetry as a child because my mother, with her eighth grade education, loved and read poetry, mostly Tennyson and the visionary Blake.

She also wrote love-song lyrics - ballads were her form - and worked with some of the best country-swing musicians.

What I have discovered is that most traditions of poetry have their roots in music, and when you go back to those roots we all have, you'll find poetry hanging out with music and hanging out with dance. They form a threesome.
Q: When did you start writing?
I started writing poetry around the time of the Native American Renaissance, which began in 1969 when N. Scott Momaday, a Kiowa novelist and poet, won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. I was an art major at the University of New Mexico and had an eye towards a career in art, which made sense since I had a grandmother and a great aunt who were painters. Then I started attending poetry readings, and discovered Native poets. That's when I realized that poetry was part of me, and could reflect my own life as a Native person.
Q: As poet laureate, do you feel that you provide the same validation for other Native writers?
This position has made it possible for me to open a door of self-affirmation for Native Americans, who still don't see themselves represented much in the culture. This position has enabled me to open a door for many. I represent poetry and the power of what poetry can do: It can speak across chasms, through gunfire. It has saved lives - including mine - and enlarged countless levels of meaning. I am only one of many gifted poets, one of many Native poets, one of many voices who have something to offer in these times and in timelessness.
Q: How would you describe the gift of poetry?
Every gift comes with sacrifice. There is always something demanded. To take care of the gift of poetry demands listening, even when it seems as if there is nothing or no one there. It remembers listening to history and beyond history. It means walking a road of language alone, until you teach someone how to hear you. My mission is to take care of the gifts that I carry, to develop and feed them, and then to share them. We must all take care of our respective gifts, because with them we will find the answers to our problems. With poetry, we can sometimes sing the answers.

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear;
Can't know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

- Joy Harjo

"Eagle Poem," from "In Mad Love and War," copyright © 1990 by Joy Harjo, published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Connecticut, and used by permission.

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A Q&A with Joy Harjo, poet laureate of the United States

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Joy Harjo is the 23rd poet laureate of the United States and the first Native American to hold that post. A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and an acclaimed musician, she has published nine books of poetry and released five award-winning CDs.

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I will be interested to hear what everyone’s comments are at the zoom meeting on Lillian boxfish. I really just couldn’t get into the book. I was listening to it on audio and perhaps it was the reader who was hard to understand but I kept waiting for something to happen in the story and it just never did so I dropped it after about a third of the way through. On the other hand I have finished reading the dressmaker‘s gift by Fiona Valpy and I recommend it. Vicki Anderson

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Lillian grew up in an era when good manners were expected of you no matter your social standing. That led to treating each other with respect at all times and made resolving problems in a civil manner. We could use a healthy dose of that today.

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I think that rumor that big city people are cold and unhelpful is mostly bunk.
I strike up conversations with people wherever I am and I have rarely found cold unfriendly responses.  The few I have encountered have been mostly from small town, small minded bigots.
Fortunately it is rarely difficult to remove yourself and continue on down the road.

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I must agree that I thought about her foot wear several times, that was quite a walk!
I can't say that I really liked this book. There was something that just didn't set right with me but it may have been the younger Lillian that she kept thinking about while making this trek that I had objections to rather than the mature Lillian. I am not sure that the young Lillian would have been particularly likeable,

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Linda Young provided this useful link.

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A List of Characters and Authors and Their Books

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Maybe you would just like to see animals!

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Animals - Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden®

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Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden, Home of the world famous hippo Fiona. Family friendly Zoo committed to inspiring visitors with wildlife and saving species.

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Discover the Best eBooks, Audiobooks, Magazines, Sheet Music, and More | Scribd

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This source is good for children and the young-at-heart!

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The SAG-AFTRA Foundation's Daytime Emmy-nominated, Storyline Online, features celebrated actors reading children's books to inspire a love of reading in millions of children worldwide.

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This is a diary of Charlotte Niedhauk and her husband living on an island off the Florida coast.  They stayed for two years without electricity, running water and not much communication with the mainland.  She was previously a city girl with no skills to survive.  Her husband knew some of the tricks to survive.   Getting by with few supplies, they endured for two years until the Hurricane of 1935 arrived.  They decided at that point to head back to civilization with lots of stories to share.
Marcia Moore

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I failed to sign my post...I am the one who enjoyed the walk.

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Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
I thoroughly enjoyed walking with Lillian and listening to her tell about her life in such a witty way. The author wrote in a sophisticated manner reminiscent of a time when sentences, vocabulary, and punctuation mattered. I laid the book aside for a few days as I wasn't ready for the walk to end.

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The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James is a good book for escaping today's news. It has ghosts, murders, and a disappearance that all took place in 1982 and a followup story that takes place in 2017.

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Lillian was certainly a lady of no fear and lots of spunk.  Her encounters were interesting, from the grocery boy to thugs on the street.  I loved the way she made a deal with the thugs.   I strike up conversations with strangers (I know my husband is wondering why is she talking to that person?)    This reminds me of the book Grandma Gatewood’s Walk.  It was a true story of a grandmother that walked the Appalachian Trail three times.
Marcia Moore

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Hi Everyone,
I just came in from a long walk of 3 miles, but I certainly wasn't living up to Lillian's walk.  Loved the book, but as a woman, I continually kept wondering about her footwear.  Walking around in a suit and mink coat does not speak to me of tennis shoes or good walking shoes.
I just finished reading Stay by Catherine Ryan Hyde.  It is an easy read, but I thought it remarkable that out of thin air I chose it in this historical time.  It speaks of compassion and understanding and how to be a good friend.  I must confess I shed a few tears, but then I cry almost on command when things touch my heart.
Stay healthy, and keep reading and walking!!

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1. What else have you been reading?
2. Do you recommend it to others? 3. Why or why not?

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We often hear that NYC residents don't care about others, but that is not what Lillian experiences. I especially liked the encounter with the family who invited Lillian to eat dinner with them. Then she repaid their kindness by buying the dinner and not waiting thanks.

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I enjoyed Lillian's walk around NYC most of the time, but I did become concerned about her in several instances. She always came out on top though!

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How worried, if at all, did you feel about Lillian as she made her way across Manhattan? Were you troubled by any of her encounters? Heartened? Both? Which ones and why?

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Were you surprised by all the chance encounters that Lillian has with different people on her walk through the city? Why or why not? Do you also like to strike up conversations with strangers? Why or why not?

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Why are manners and kindness so important to Lillian? How does civility relate to empathy and even to democracy?

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How do Lillian’s feelings regarding her mother compare to her feelings regarding her Aunt Sadie Boxfish? And how do these relationships shape Lillian’s ambitions and sense of self?

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Fishback wrote a memorable ad for Macy's scotch whisky used the store's tagline "It's Smart To be Thrifty" to good effect 

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Fishback wrote a memorable ad for Macy's scotch whisky used the store's tagline "It's Smart To be Thrifty" to good effect 

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When you want a wee snifty ... / It's smart to be thrifty."
We'd charge for such a noble drink,
York House is called THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE.
Come lift your lubricated voice
With ours, in praise of Macy's Brand
Of Scotch! It's glorious! It's grand!
And popular as all get-out
of that there's not the slightest doubt.

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Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk: Background

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Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk: Background

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The titular character of Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk is modeled after real-life ad copywriter and poet, Margaret Fishback. In Lillian Boxfish, Kathleen Rooney offers a fascinating glimpse of a woman who was far ahead of her time, taking to print to declare that she didn't need a husband to support her. Starting out as a school teacher, Fishback took on a job at the lower rungs of copywriting at the prestigious department store R. H. Macy's (today referred to simply as Macy's) but quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming chief copywriter. She was a highly paid woman in the advertising world of the 1930s, a time when the Great Depression firmly had its grip over the United States.

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1. Read a book!
2. Write: record your thoughts; keep a journal to help you process the current events. Become a modern-day Samuel Pepys!
3. Create a Time Capsule: Take a shoe box and put some items that you think represent your current life.
4. Bake or try a new recipe for a main dish.
5. Declutter: needs no explanation.
6. Read more!