storyfires

A quote for National Poetry Month: "When in doubt there is always form for us to go on with...The background is hugeness and confusions shooting away from where we stand into black and utter chaos...To me, any form I assert upon it is...to be considered for how much more it is than nothing....The poem is a momentary stay against confusion."                                                         --Robert Frost And a poem, by Sylvia Plath: The Night Dances A smile fell in the grass. Irretrievable! And how will your night dances Lose themselves. In mathematics? Such pure leaps and spirals ---- Surely they travel The world forever, I shall not entirely Sit emptied of beauties, the gift Of your small breath, the drenched grass Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies. Their flesh bears no relation. Cold folds of ego, the calla, And the tiger, embellishing itself ---- Spots, and a spread of hot petals. The comets Have such a space to cross, Such coldness, forgetfulne

April is National Poetry Month .  This happens to be fitting because I happen to be writing a poetry novel--a story written almost entirely in verse. Why would anyone do such a thing? Besides the fact that April is National Poetry Month? (Which is sort of irrelevant, actually, since I wrote the first draft before I'd ever heard of Na. Po. Mo). First, because my agent thought I should. Second, because it's fun. Third, because I think a lot of teachers kill poetry for teenagers. I got lucky and had a teacher who showed me why I should love it. I'd like to pass that on, try to make poetry a little more accessible to kids. But that begs the question: WHY on earth would anyone want to read a poetry novel? I don't know. Because it's a good story, I hope. And it doesn't rhyme, mostly. And I've tried not to be obscure. Because it deals with real-life teenage issues and is sometimes romantic. And because I learned when I was seventeen th