Patricia MacLachlan and Poetry by Joylene M Bailey

 

I know I've said this before: Patricia MacLachlan is one of my favourite authors. You may be familiar with her book Sarah, Plain and Tall, for which she won the Newbery Medal. It was produced as a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie in 1991, starring Glenn Close and Christopher Walken. 

The movie is wonderful. The book is brilliant.

In an interview, MacLachlan once said that she wanted to create an intense emotional experience for the reader using very few words. It's because she's a genius at saying so much with so little that I love her work.

All the Places to Love (above) is the most beautiful children's book I've come across. Her words are spare, but enough to settle into your heart.

When I was older, Papa and I plowed the fields.

Where else is soil so sweet? he said.

Once Papa and I lay down in the field, holding hands,

And the birds surrounded us:

Raucous black grackles, redwings,

Crows in the dirt that swaggered like pirates.

When we left, Papa put a handful of dirt in his pocket.

I did too.

It reads like poetry. And I think that's why, years ago, I decided to take poetry classes. I wanted to learn to be less wordy, to write tight, to make words sizzle. With poetry, every word speaks. And isn't that what makes poetry profound?

Please allow me to share some snippets from poems I've recently savoured. I dare you not to be affected or astounded by at least one phrase. 

No, no, there is no going back

Less and less you are 

that possibility you were.

More and more you have become 

those lives and deaths

that have belonged to you.

...

Every day you have less reason

not to give yourself away.

- Wendell Berry [1993-I]

*****

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

- Marge Piercy [To be of use]

*****

This day is all that is

good and fair.

It is too dear

with its hopes and invitations, 

to waste a moment on yesterdays.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson [From a Letter to His Daughter]

*****

Was it for this I uttered prayers,

And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,

That now, domestic as a plate,

I should retire at half-past eight?

- Edna St. Vincent Millay [Grown Up]

*****

The birds have vanished down the sky

Now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me,

until only the mountain remains.

- Li Po [Zazen on Ching-t'ing Mountain]

*****

I'm so thankful for authors and poets who worked hard on their craft, with purpose and dedication, so that someday this reader would be touched and inspired by their words. I can only hope to do the same.

~~~~~

Feature photo by Joy Bailey

Joy lives and writes in lake country, Alberta, where she resides on three pretty little acres with The Cowboy, a couple of seniors, and a couple of pets. Her latest story was a bedtime one for the grands, about a purple horse named Secret, and her turtle friend, Lightning Bolt. Find more of her joy-infused writing at her blog, Scraps of Joy.

Mentored by Irresistible Words by Joylene M Bailey

Image by Pezibear from Pixabay 

I’m pretty sure Dr. Seuss taught me to read. 

 

In other primary readers, while John and Janet were getting new skates …

“Look, Mother,” said John.

“I have some skates.

Janet and Anne have some skates.”

“I can help Anne,” said Janet.

“John and I can help Anne.

Come on, Anne.

We can help you skate.”

 

… Dr. Seuss’s characters were hopping on Pop, Thing One and Thing Two were getting into trouble and the Fiffer-Feffer-Feff was sporting four fluffy feathers. Dr. Seuss’s rollicking rhymes and winsome words hooked me from the beginning and helped me to understand how joyful words could be.

 

Later, I learned that lighthearted tales, silly or not, often spoke truth:

“You couldn’t say “Skat!” ‘cause that wouldn’t be right.

You couldn’t shout “Scram!” ‘cause that isn’t polite.

A host has to put up with all kinds of pests,

For a host, above all, must be nice to his guests.” 

       - Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose -

 

Dr. Seuss taught me to love words.

 

***** 

Like many others this month, I loved Lucy Maud Montgomery from my adolescence on. While I enjoyed Anne’s story, I was more captivated by the characters, and the joy of nature, and the comfort of place and belonging. The way LMM could take me right into the moment with her words, where I saw the sunset over the harbour, inspired me. 

Overhead was one long canopy of snowy fragrant bloom. Below the boughs the air was full of purple twilight and far ahead a glimpse of painted sunset sky shone like a great rose window at the end of a cathedral aisle.

- Anne of Green Gables -

Many years later I was able to verify with my own eyes, just how accurate her descriptions of her beloved island were when I vacationed on Prince Edward Island. 

 

LM Montgomery taught me to paint pictures with words. 

 

***** 

More than any other shadow mentor though, the one who inspires me most is Patricia MacLachlan. Though she writes for children, her books seem to cross age boundaries, as with her Newbery Medal winning book, Sarah, Plain and Tall. 

I love how she weaves together stories of the young and the old. Mostly I marvel at her gift of saying so much with so few words. As one reviewer has said, she “has become known for creating an intense emotional experience for the reader using very few words.”

 

They had come for her in a wagon and taken her away to be buried. And then the cousins and aunts and uncles had come and tried to fill up the house. But they couldn’t.

- Sarah, Plain and Tall -

~~~~~

Her gift for few words captivates me in my all-time favourite book, All the Places to Love. In this beautiful picture book, what is not said is just as important as what is said.  

 

Today we wait, him sitting on a wooden-slat chair

And me on the hay,

Until, much later, my grandmother holds up a small bundle

in the open window,

Wrapped in a blanket made from the wool of her sheep,

And my grandfather cries.

- All the Places to Love -

 

There are stories upon stories upon stories in that one sentence. Enchanting!

 

Her work kindled in me the need, the desire, to keep my words few but compelling. Because of her writing, I took poetry classes in order to learn how to write with no wasted words. 

 

Patricia MacLachlan taught me to create an experience with words and the spaces around the words.

*****

These three writers, in their turn, have inspired in me a desire to use irresistible words to invoke an experience of joy and beauty in my readers. I'm not there yet, but every word gets me closer. 

 Scraps of Joy