Winter!

Free for use under the Pixabay Content license. Image credit: Mollyroselee

What is your favorite type of weather?

I don’t care that I’m in the minority. Give me chilly winds and icy skies. Give me naked trees reaching their gnarled limbs in every direction. Give me the nostalgia of snow days and canceled classes, empty hours with nothing of import to fill them with. Those were simpler times. Maybe it’s because I associate winter with my childhood, and staying home and watching movies with my mom without the encumbrance of a “non-traditional instruction day” (really, tell me something technology hasn’t destroyed).

Summer is not my jam anyway. Too hot, especially in the South. Good God, you can’t take your clothes off fast enough in air so hot and sticky just breathing is an insurmountable chore. I mean, it has its perks, especially when you’re a kid. Summer vacation, no school, you know the drill. Swimming and traveling and running in the grass under the hot sun until your pants and shirt are stained with chlorophyll and your skin is pink with sunburn (or in my delicate case, sun poisoning).

Free for use under the Pixabay Content license. Image credit: DominikRh

Swimming and traveling and running in the grass under the hot sun until your pants and shirt are stained with chlorophyll and your skin is pink with sunburn (or in my delicate case, sun poisoning).

Added is the fact that summer is bittersweet because you know it will never last. The days will grow shorter and colder. The leaves will turn and you’ll return to school and the hustle and bustle of life. Winter Is Coming, indeed.

But in winter, there is always hope. Hope that you can’t find in summer, which is this…spring is on its way.

Free for use under the Pixabay Content license. Image credit: jplenio

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Poem for the Day: November 6th, 2021

Autumn by Grace Paley

1

What is sometimes called a   
   tongue of flame
or an arm extended burning   
   is only the long
red and orange branch of   
   a green maple
in early September   reaching
   into the greenest field
out of the green woods   at the
   edge of which the birch trees   
appear a little tattered   tired
   of sustaining delicacy
all through the hot summer   re-
   minding everyone (in   
our family) of a Russian
   song   a story
by Chekhov   or my father


2

What is sometimes called a   
   tongue of flame
or an arm extended   burning
   is only the long
red and orange branch of
   a green maple
in early September   reaching   
   into the greenest field
out of the green woods   at the   
   edge of which the birch trees
appear a little tattered   tired
   of sustaining delicacy
all through the hot summer   re-
   minding everyone (in   
our family) of a Russian
   song   a story by
Chekhov or my father on
   his own lawn   standing   
beside his own wood in
   the United States of   
America   saying (in Russian)
   this birch is a lovely
tree   but among the others
   somehow superficial

© 1991 Grace Paley. “Autumn” first appeared in Long Walks and Intimate Talks by Grace Paley and Vera B. Williams, which was published in 1991 by The Feminist Press at the City University of New York. It was later included in Begin Again: The Collected Poems of Grace Paley, which was published in 1999 by The Feminist Press. You can read more about Grace Paley and her life and work here.

Poem for the Day: November 3rd, 2021

November Night by Adelaide Crapsey

Listen. . 
With faint dry sound, 
Like steps of passing ghosts, 
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees 
And fall.

Adelaide Crapsey (1878-1914) is most famous for being the inventor of the cinquain, a poetic form containing five lines. Crapsey’s short and tragic life, coupled with the macabre nature of her work, which deals heavily with death and human suffering, makes her a poet not easily read. However, for the reader brave enough to wade through the murky waters of Crapsey’s sparse oeuvre, her work is richly rewarding. You can read more about Crapsey and her work here.

Poem for the Day: October 31st, 2021

Halloween Party by Kenn Nesbitt

We’re having a Halloween party at school.
I’m dressed up like Dracula. Man, I look cool!
I dyed my hair black, and I cut off my bangs.
I’m wearing a cape and some fake plastic fangs.

I put on some makeup to paint my face white,
like creatures that only come out in the night.
My fingernails, too, are all pointed and red.
I look like I’m recently back from the dead.

My mom drops me off, and I run into school
and suddenly feel like the world’s biggest fool.
The other kids stare like I’m some kind of freak—
the Halloween party is not till next week.

© 2005 Kenn Nesbitt. “Halloween Party” originally appeared in Nesbitt’s collection When the Teacher Isn’t Looking, which was published in 2005 by Meadowbrook Press and is available to purchase wherever books are sold.

Quote for the Day: October 26th, 2021

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Isn’t fall the best? Multicolored leaves falling from the trees. The smell of change in the air. The intentional slowing-down of time. And pumpkin spice everything, of course. Since today’s quote is from The Great Gatsby, I thought I’d share my favorite edition of that particular book, which you can purchase here.

Poem for the Day: October 20th, 2021

the tenderness of autumn by Madisen Kuhn

i hold onto 
the way the air feels in october 
it brings out the best in me 
unlike the violating heat 
of august that fills the space between
the dirt and the heavens 
only a handful of moons prior to 
the golden treetops and the 
ritualistic pumpkin and maple 
that stir our hearts and reveal 
our need for stupid, cheery things 

the earth is falling asleep 
lying its head to rest 
in the fading foliage on the ground 
folding up the day into smaller 
and smaller glimpses of light 
but here i am
bathing in the soft wind 
here i am 
grinning in a grey sweater 
here i am 
waking up