Booked Up, 2021, Part 4--Soul Food, Poetry and Art

 

Poetry and Art, bottom, top

I suppose books on art, and poetry, should be considered non-fiction for the most part, but I separate them because they're special to me. 

I think that's true even of Whitman, His poetry touches parts of us that are as real as our heart beats. This past year I've been through about 10 such books, not counting Walt, whom we turn to often even for a few lines and memories.

ART: Other than those reread, posted earlier, there have been two more. The most recent art book is one we bought in October, visiting Susan's favorite town, Truchas, on the high road to Taos.

• Truchas, Sally Delap-John. We stopped in her gallery years ago and bought her first book, and couldn't pass up another chance to view her paintings of Northern New Mexico. We will eventually buy one, but this time settled for her little book with great painting of my favorite mountains, the Truchas, on the cover.
•  The Art of Noticing, 131  ways to Spark Creativity..., Rob Walker. A book Austin Kleon recommended, and full of ideas to push me out of ruts and find inspirations for painting.

POETRY: “Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don’t use often enough."--Ray Bradbury

There were only four poetry books  I read in these six months, but they brought life and honesty and sense into this pandemic world.

Poetry is a tradition in our marriage. We have more than one shelf of thin books of poetry in our front room, many by people I know, others  I've found at the Western Heritage Awards at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. And, Susan usually buys me a poetry book or so on either our anniversaries or Valentines days. They also are usually poets I've never  heard of.

So it was in October, we walked into the smaller, a "boutique" bookstore in Santa Fe, Gunstock Hill Books, with more than 8,000 books. Owned by a retired doctor from New Hampshire, it is packed with first editions and signed books of all sorts. As we got ready to leave to go across the street to eat, Susan cam e up with three poetry books, all first editions: 

• Turquoise Land, Anthology of New Mexico Poetry, 1974, New Mexico Poetry Society, 99 pages of poetry plus bios of the poets.
• Leonard Cohen, Poems and songs, 1993, 234 pp.
• The San Franciso Poems, Victor di Suvero, inscribed. 1987. 63 pps.

Closer to home:

• In The Days of Our Resilience, Nathan Brown. 2021, www.brownlines.com The fourth  in his Pandemic Poetry Project, a poem a day since May, 2020, poems  written on prompts from sponsors, including one from me. 287 pps. Brown is former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma. Reading his books is like taking a journey back in time through the last almost two years of turmoil in the U.S. They exercise and stretch the senses and mind, with wit, compassion and insight.

Booked Up, 2021, Part 3--Fiction, stories that are often real

"Tell me a story," we often said as children to our parents.

That's why we like novels, short stories, plays--the flights of imagination that can be, or are, real.

My fiction books are simply those whose subjects, authors or ideas interest me, just as non-fiction does.  I find elements of reality in all of them, whether in landscapes, characters, the writing, the humor, the conflicts. 

This year's were no different, though as a journalist I don't have much patience for wordy, drawn out tomes of earlier authors. I simply couldn't get through Moby-Dick earlier this year. I find myself looking at chapter lengths, even in non-fiction, and measuring my progress by percentages--yes, I am a type A anal journalist prizing brevity, though you can't tell it by the length of this sentence.

So here are the  four novels I've read in the past six months, not counting the two rereads previously posted, in order of reading.

• Daughter of the Morning Star, Greg Johnston, his latest Longmire book, the best yet in writing, plot, characters and the spirits of Native American. A real Western.
• Lightning Strike, Wm. Krueger, author of the great This Tender Land. 
• Bless Me Ultima, Rudolfo Anaya, I'm ashamed I've just read this. One of the best I've ever read, spiritual deep, magic, the real New Mexico.
• Stardust, Neil Gaiman. Will finish tonight. Last book of the year. Another I should have before. His magic and story telling fire the imagination.

Booked Up, 2021--part two--nonfiction

 

Some of my 2021 reads

As an old, and former journalist, I read more non-fiction than fiction, and that's been certainly true this year.

Of the 21 this year, 13--including rereads-- were since June, not counting art and poetry books.

In order of reading, minus the two rereads:

• Remembering Santa Fe, William Clark
• Mythologizing Jesus, From Jewish Teacher to Epic Hero, Macdonald Dennis 
• Forget the Alamo, The Rise and Fall of an American Myth, Bryan Burrough, et. al. 
• Sea People, Christina Thompson, the ancient settlement of Polynesia, another one recommended by a favorite former UCO student, Lauren Vargas, Ph.D, who reads more books than I can count.
• The Brass Ring, Bill Mauldin,  his life and World War II experiences
• Everything That Remains, story of minimalism, Milburn/Nicodemus
• Being Mortal, dealing with aging, Dr. Gawande
• Lost City of the Monkey God, Doug Preston, the discovery of a Central American city, loaned by friend, former UCO student and fantastic travel journalist Heide Brandeis, after her trip of the Amazon, which this book survived.
• After Jesus, Before Christianity, Vearncombe, et. al. Before there was a New Testament and organized Christianity, up to 200 A.D.
• Apocalyptic Polly, A Pandemic Memoir, Polly Basore Wenzl. One of my favorite former students at O.S.U., now of Wichita, former terrific journalist, who had the courage to quit a full time job and write. Envious of her and this book--more later.
• Tony Hillerman, A Life, James McGreggor Morri Makes you want to read all of Hillerman again. 

Note: can you spot the inconsistency in the photo above with the contents of this post. The post is correct.

Booked Up, in 2021--part one

"If a book's not worth reading more than once, why keep it?"

                                                                           --Terry Clark, 2021

Some of my 2021 reading, 

 I thought that as  another  year goes "into the books," in that old cliche. For me,  it's not just a cliche. While we always seem to look back, as well as hoping for the future, especially in these years of the plague, I also turn back to the books that helped me survive.

There have been 54 of them this year, 27 in the first half, and 28 as of today, six of which were reread.

First, here are the genres I read, second half, first half:

• Non-fiction--13, 8--21.
• Fiction--7, 3--10
• Poetry--4, 6--10
• Art--3, 4--7

What did I reread?

1.  The Blessing Way, Tony Hillerman, an Okie's first novel,  first edition, inscribed to his friend Carter Bradley, Purchased at an SPJ silent auction a few years ago. Fiction
2. Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon, a creativity dynamo, whose weekly email newsletters and books expand the mind and spirit. https:austinkleon.com Art
3. Show Your Work, Kleon. Art
4. A River Runs Through It, Norman Mclean, heavily marked up and underlined from our previous readings. Fiction
5. Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, Reflections on 60 and beyond, Larry McMurtry, who died this year, first edition, signed to me at his bookstores, "Booked Up, " Archer City, leading a UCO student trip, 1999.  He soon quit signing books there. I also bought a Booked Up coffee cup there. You can see it at the top of the photo. He quit selling those at the bookstore too. In the past few years he began selling most of the 200,000 books in his several buildings. Non-Fiction, essays
6. Out on the Porch, Reynolds Price, first edition, signed. Essay, black and white photos of Southern porches matched with quotes from fiction writers.

The Old Ones

"The Old Ones at Sunset," 8 x 10 acrylic on canvas panel

Aging. That's been on my mind more than I realized, as another year nears end and another birthday looms.

Looking back last night after I finished the last of the seven books I've read in the past two months, it dawned on me that three of them were in some ways about that theme.

I finished rereading Larry McMurtry's "Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen," one signed by him that I bought 22 years ago. He died this past year, and that book is about his thoughts on aging.

Before that, I picked up our copy of Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It," and reread that for the first time in years. "I am haunted by the waters," the old man closes the book.

The other book was by a doctor, on helping people as they age, "Being Mortal," recommended by my son-in-law Todd Bell, himself a doctor.

Yesterday, after a walk in Hafer Park and talking with my favorite old tree, I picked up my acrylic paints, palette knives and brushes headed to the back porch, obviously thinking about aging.

The result is pretty rough, but that seems fitting texture for the bark and wrinkles, as I tried something new, palette knives first, then brushes. 

 I call it "The Old Ones at Sunset. I suppose  if you're being snarky, thinking about me, you could call it "Portrait of the Old Tree Hugger." If you were sarcastic, you could simply call it, "The Golden Years."