Maine Humanities Council

Take Heart is edited and introduced by Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair, and produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

Phillip Booth

The late Philip Booth of Castine had his own way with free verse, creating his music from the repetition of words and their placement on the page. Today’s poem, about the realities of old age, provides a striking example.

Old

by Phillip Booth

Old, the old know cause to be bitter:

they’ve seen

their children (as if they could tell)

insist they are growing deaf:

they’ve found

old friends invent new friends

to prove the old don’t matter:

they have hardened

themselves to let memory rust out;

with only themselves to hold on to,

they have grown

beyond any surprise;

to get their way

they have aged again

to be children:

beyond control, they have gained

control

of every last life save their own.

They know it can get no better.

Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 1990 by Philip Booth. Reprinted from Selves, Penguin Publishing, 1990, by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to David Turner, Special Assistant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at poetlaureate@mainewriters.org or 207-228-8263.

One of the opening pages of Carl Little’s The Art of Dahlov Ipcar strikes the mood of the folktale world, tinged with the energy, magic, and power: a fox turns back its head, teeth bared, as partridges rise in gorgeous brown haste to fly in all directions (Fox Moon). This is one mood of Dahlov Ipcar. Other works in this book show zebras galloping across a series of whispering lines, or Caribbean animals of the sea arranged in a segmented mandala, and whisper the influence of Rousseau, another mood.

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Posted on behalf of our friends at PaperTigers:

The Spirit of PaperTigers project is part of the PaperTigers program. Through its website and blog, PaperTigers promotes multicultural books for young readers from and about anywhere in the world. The purpose of the Spirit of PaperTigers project (SPT) is to select a set of books and to put them into the hands of children in different parts of the world, especially in schools and libraries in areas of need. The seven books in this year’s set have been chosen because their content and focus promote our goals, i.e. to promote reading and literacy, as well as greater understanding and empathy among young people from different backgrounds, countries, and ethnicities.

Three phrases sum up what we hope the book sets will represent for all who use them: “a cultural encounter in or through a book”, “a fun encounter”, “a path towards empathy”.

While book set recipients are free to use the books in whatever way they judge best suited to their situation, an “SPT User’s Guide” is included with each set and offers suggestions that teachers and librarians might find useful.

A crucial element of our SPT project is the sharing of the feedback we get from recipients. Recipients are asked to provide feedback on the responses of the young readers to the books in the form of reports, observations, drawings, photos etc. We will then be able to feature this feedback, and the school or library that uses the book set, on the PaperTigers site and blog. In this first year of the project, sets of books are heading towards destinations within the United States but also to countries as far away, and as diverse, as India, Kenya, the Philippines, and Uruguay. A limited number of sets are still available and we would be delighted, even though we cannot say yes to all, if schools and/or libraries in Maine were to let us know if they wish to take part in the project. The quickest way to contact us is through email, or by regular mail at: PaperTigers Managing Editor, 300 Third Street, Suite 822, San Francisco, CA 94107.