Thursday, November 10, 2011

Announcement: Ban My Book -- BanMyBook.com


What better way to get your book noticed than to ask your audience to ban it?

Nothing is more delicious than a well-publicized banned book, particularly to "reluctant readers" of all ages.

When you hear that a book is too controversial for school libraries, what is your first reaction?

Quite likely, you want to find out what the all the hubbub is about--at least that is what I suspect.

So I have set up Ban My Book, a site dedicated to giving voice to under-represented writers (translation: writers out of the traditional publishing loop, those of us who refuse to kiss connected/corporate/foet A$$).

Books can be "banned" in many ways, which I explain on Has Your Book been "Banned"?

As under-represented writers, we need our voice out there as well, which is why I have established Ban My Book.

Ban My Book may also develop into a publishing company; I'm still looking into the intricacies of e-book/POD publishing. For this to work, Ban My Book would need to adopt a low-cost method of getting books out there, and the new website, with its jarring title and domain name, is the first step.

There can be much irony in the words "ban my book": a powerful in-your-face statement and a call-to-action declaration, an implicit "I dare you to silence my voice."

At the very least, Ban My Book will offer a public space for promoting well-written, under-represented books that have been self-published and/or have been effectively silenced by the traditional publishing industry and distribution channels.

Right now, my own under-represented book is featured on the home page, but once the site is fully functional and other writers come on board, I plan to feature other books.

For more info, email Jennifer [at] BanMyBook.com

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The Children’s Hour, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)


This drawing has been adapted from a real child's drawing.
To see the original, see
Rhia.tv
______________________________________

Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations,
That is known as the Children’s Hour.

I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.

From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.

A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!

They climb up into my turret
O’er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!

Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!

I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.

And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
____________________________________

First published in The Atlantic Monthly, September 1860.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

The Snow Storm (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882)


In honor of the Autumn snow storm of October 29, 2011:
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and at the gate
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
1835, 1841

Monday, October 31, 2011

Have a Spooktacular Halloween! The Ghost of Goshen (Anonymous)


Through Goshen Hollow, where hemlocks grow,
Where rushing rills, with flash and flow,
Are over the rough rocks falling;
Where fox, where bear, and catamount hide,
In holes and dens In the mountain side,
A Circuit-preacher once used to ride,
And his name was Rufus Rawling.

He was set in his ways and what was strange,
If you argued with him he would not change,
One could get nothing through him.
Solemn and slow in style was he,
Slender and slim as a tamarack tree,
And always ready to disagree
With every one that knew him.

One night he saddled his sorrel mare,
And started over to Ripton, where
He had promised to do some preaching.
Away he cantered over the hill,
Past the schoolhouse at Capen's mill;
The moon was down and the place was still,
Save the sound of a night-hawk screeching.

At last he came to a deep ravine,
He felt a kind of queer, and mean
Sensation stealing o'er him.
Old Sorrel began to travel slow,
Then gave a snort and refused to go;
The parson chucked, and he holloa'd "whoa,"
And wondered what was before him.

Then suddenly he seemed to hear
A gurgling groan so very near,
It scattered his senses nearly.
"Go 'ome, go'ome," It loudly cried,
"Go 'ome," re-echoed the mountain side,
"Go 'ome," away In the distance died-
He wished he was home sincerely.

And then before his startled sight,
A light flashed out upon the night
That seemed to "beat all creation."
Then through the bushes a figure stole,
With eyes of fire and lips of coal,
That froze his blood and shook his soul
With horror and consternation.

He lost his sermon, he dropped his book,
His hair stood up, and his saddle shook
Like a sawmill under motion.
No cry he uttered, no word he said,
But, suddenly turning Sorrel's head,
Away and out of the woods he fled
As fast as he could for Goshen.

The ghost he saw and the rattling bones
Were a pumpkin, a gourd, and some gravel stones,
That gave him all that glory;
But ne'er again up that mountain side,
In the light would Rufus Rawling ride,
And many a time I've laughed till I cried
To hear him tell the story.
__________________________
Happy Halloween! Now for The Mad Doctor (1933),
starring Mickey Mouse

Enjoy!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Portrait by a Neighbor (Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892-1950)


Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you'll find her
A-sunning in the sun!

It's long after midnight
Her key's in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Till past ten o'clock!

She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon.

She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
And pays you back cream!

Her lawn looks like a meadow,
And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne's lace!

__________________________
From A Few Figs From Thistles, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1922. p. 28-29.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Bonnie George Campbell (Anonymous)


Hie upon Hielands,
and laigh upon Tay,
Bonnie George Campbell
rode out on a day.

Saddled and bridled
and booted rade he;
Toom* hame cam' the saddle,
but never cam' he.

Down cam' his auld mither,
greetin' fu' sair,
And down cam' his bonny wife,
wringin' her hair:--

"My meadow lies green,
and my corn is unshorn,
My barn is to build
and my babe is unborn."

Saddled and bridled
and booted rade he,
Toom hame cam' the saddle
but never cam' he.

_______________________
*Toom = empty

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