a letter to our better selves

~ jama ~ 34 Comments
“Else’s Letter” by Caroline van Deurs (1918)
ELEGY FOR THE PERSONAL LETTER 
by Allison Joseph

I miss the rumpled corners of correspondence,
the ink blots and crossouts that show
someone lives on the other end, a person
whose hands make errors, leave traces.
I miss fine stationery, its raised elegant
lettering prominent on creamy shades of ivory
or pearl grey. I even miss hasty notes
dashed off on notebook paper, edges 
ragged as their scribbled messages—
can't much write now—thinking of you.
When letters come now, they are formatted
by some distant computer, addressed
to Occupant or To the family living at—
meager greetings at best,
salutations made by committee.
Among the glossy catalogs
and one time only offers
the bills and invoices,
letters arrive so rarely now that I drop
all other mail to the floor when
an envelope arrives and the handwriting
is actual handwriting, the return address
somewhere I can locate on any map.
So seldom is it that letters come
That I stop everything else
to identify the scrawl that has come this far—
the twist and the whirl of the letters,
the loops of the numerals. I open
those envelopes first, forgetting
the claim of any other mail,
hoping for news I could not read
in any other way but this.

~ from My Father's Kites. © Steel Toe Books, 2010.

*

I fell in love with letter-writing when I got my first penpal in second grade. Cindy lived in Erie, Pennsylvania, a world away from Hawaii, and I thought her life was positively exotic. Four distinct seasons, magical snowstorms, a huge lake!

What a thrill to receive genuine-for-real mail addressed to me! Such fun to describe what I was up to in my neatest hand. While in third grade, Cindy and I practiced our shaky cursive. It was nothing short of miraculous for my thoughts to cross an ocean and a continent to reach my special friend, all for only 4 cents!

I love envelope art!
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ruth burrows: a burst of color and fun

~ jama ~ 18 Comments

Hey, ho! Come on along, we’re off to explore Ruth Burrows’s eye popping art today!

If you ever need a lift, just take a gander at any one of Ruth’s bright, colorful, pulsating pieces. It’s impossible not to smile or WAKE UP in the presence of such energy, exuberance, and joie de vivre. 🙂

Ruth is based in Lincolnshire, UK, where she built a log cabin in her back garden to use as a studio. She studied Theatre Design at Nottingham University before moving to the UAE, where she worked as a designer for over 20 years.

In addition to a wide range of editorial work, Burrows illustrates children’s books and recently published a craft book called The Illustrator’s Guide to Procreate (David & Charles, 2023).

I almost always start with just pencil and paper. I then take a picture of my sketches and colour them in using Procreate or Photoshop. Sometimes I’ll have a big painting binge using acrylics and watercolors. These usually find their way into my digital work.

Ruth is all about color, pattern, and humor, and most loves to draw objects and faces. Her vibrant surface designs also adorn a wide range of home goods (fabrics, wallpaper, ceramics, glassware, wall hangings).

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eight legs of terror

~ jama ~ 30 Comments
“There’s a Spider in My Tub” by John Kenn Mortensen (2013).
CONFESSION 
by Sarah Russell

There’s a spider in the bathtub.
I saw him last night, and he’s still there
this morning, though I gave him fair warning
when I brushed my teeth before bed.
I need to take a shower.
But there’s a SPIDER.
In the BATHTUB.
My Dr. Schweitzer is arguing with my Eek.
He’s small –
smaller than a shirt button –
and round and 8 legs look like 3 too many.
But he’s in the BATHTUB.
Where I SHOWER.
NAKED.
I turn on the water, and he wiggles
a couple of legs but the spray doesn’t hit him,
so I don’t get a pass from Karma.
Then my Eek takes over,
and I get a piece of toilet paper,
and he wiggles 2 legs again but doesn’t run
so my Eek doesn’t get to plead self-defense.
I try to make it painless –
a squish and done – but then I wonder
if he was just trying to say hello,
and the shower’s kind of lonely
without him in there waving at me.

~ copyright © 2018 Sarah Russell as posted at Your Daily Poem.

*

art by Michael Sowa.

EEK! Has this ever happened to you?!

This poem made me laugh and shudder at the same time. Because we see so many spiders in our house, I rarely argue with my Dr. Schweitzer anymore. No waffling with my conscience, no reverence for life. It’s either us or them.

Scariest scenario: I’m staggering upstairs to bed and when I reach the top landing, a wolf spider’s there to greet me (gasp! heart clutch!). I wouldn’t hesitate to kill a smaller spider. But this one’s HUGE. And FURRY. These are the largest species we see indoors.

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[tasty review] Welcome to Our Table by Laura Mucha, Ed Smith, and Harriet Lynas

~ jama ~ 7 Comments

I couldn’t help but smile upon first seeing the sunny yellow cover with 16 happy kids at the table sharing dishes from their native countries. What an irresistible invitation to join them for a mouthwatering feast!

Even before you open the book, the message is clear: international, diverse, community, inclusive, fun and delicious. When you start reading, it’s so easy to relate: We are different, but we all love food! 

Welcome to Our Table: A Celebration of What Children Eat All Around the World (Nosy Crow, 2023) is an epic smorgasbord featuring hundreds of dishes and ingredients, both familiar and exotic, temptingly flavored with fascinating tidbits about how certain foods are grown and prepared.

Written by poet-author Laura Mucha and her chef-food writer husband Ed Smith, the 64-page compendium is served up with Harriet Lynas’s cheery, drool-worthy digital illustrations, sure to whet the appetite and arouse curiosity.

The mouthwatering menu contains 33 “courses” or topics, most featured on inventively designed, reader friendly double page spreads along with several single page spreads + sidebars. Friendly kids of multiple ethnicities are shown eating, serving, or interacting with various types of foods (interesting asides are conveyed via occasional speech bubbles).

After a brief introduction, Mucha and Smith set the table with descriptions of common eating utensils. Besides forks, knives, spoons and chopsticks, more than 1/4 of the world eats mainly with their hands. In India, Pakistan, Bhutan and Bangladesh, fingers are the way to go! And in places like South Korea, Italy or Nigeria, hands are preferred only for certain dishes (lettuce wraps, pizza, pounded yams).

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of flip flops and lollipops

~ jama ~ 36 Comments
“Merry Go Round” by Michael Young.
WHERE I COME FROM
by Sally Fisher

We didn't say fireflies
but lightning bugs.
We didn't say carousel
but merry-go-round.
Not seesaw,
teeter-totter
not lollipop,
sucker.
We didn’t say pasta, but
spaghetti, macaroni, noodles:
the three kinds.
We didn’t get angry:
we got mad.
And we never felt depressed
dismayed, disappointed
disheartened, discouraged
disillusioned or anything,
even unhappy:
just sad.

~ from Good Question, Bright Hill Press, 2015.
“Spaghetti” by Michael Serafino.

*

They say variety is the spice of life, and this is certainly true when it comes to regional vocabulary. Don’t you love how there are different terms for the same things, and what you choose to use signals where you’re from?

“Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows” by Holly Ellsworth-Rose.

I smiled and nodded in recognition while reading this poem — and fondly thought about my late mother-in-law. A staunch New Englander, for her it was ‘pocketbook’ not purse, ‘divan’ not couch, ‘bubbler’ instead of water fountain. We never had trouble communicating, but our use of different terms kept our conversations lively and interesting.

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