Month: July 2015

Poetry-ize your house for the summer

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Behold my triumph in a stealth supplemental classical education!  My nine-year-old son, the one affectionately known as “Rat Boy,” came up to me and said, “I really liked that thing you put up, the one about the cows and everything.”  He meant the great G. M. Hopkins poem “Pied Beauty,” which I had printed out, matted on construction paper, and tacked over his gerbil’s tank without comment.

He and his siblings certainly did not want to memorize poems when we were homeschooling!  Boy, did they not want to.   But I’ll be darned if I didn’t  hear my seven-year-old (also known as “Rat Boy.”  What can I say?  They act ratty) muttering, “What the hammer?  What the chain?  In what furnace was thy brain?”  Yes, folks, my boys are reading poetry, and they are enjoying it.

As I’ve mentioned, it’s good to be a decent writer no matter what your profession or vocation; and the best writing comes from people who read a lot, and who have certain ponderous, glorious, melodious phrases steeping in their brains.  It’s good to own these phrases whether we’re consciously thinking of them or not — whether we understand what they mean or not.  So I’m on a poetry rampage these days . . . but a stealthy one.  No nagging, no prodding, no pedantics or pleading.

I just sat down and skimmed through lists of famous poems, picking out my favorites, and printed them out in a large, plain font (it takes forever to write poems out by hand, for some reason).  Then I cut each page down to the size and shape of the poem, rather than leaving them on 8.5×11 paper — I think they look more appealing, less easy to ignore as educational-type stuff, if they’re nonstandard shapes.  Then I matted them on whatever color paper seemed appropriate (again, to make them more decorative and appealing, and less scholarly in appearance), and went around the house tacking them to walls.

I tried to make the placement relevant (“Love (III)” goes under Rublev’s icon of the Trinity; “Dust of Snow” goes next to the window on the side of the house where there are, in fact, crows and trees), but went first for places where I’ve noticed that people tend to hang around staring at the walls already.  Then I didn’t say a word about them, and just waited for the kids to notice.  I think the key was not making a big deal about it — just doing it because I felt like doing it.  No pressure, so they had no motivation to rebel or be difficult.

Here are the poems I hung up, chosen mostly because they’re fairly short and have wonderful sounds and/or images:

“The Tyger” William Blake
“Still, Citizen Sparrow” Richard Wilbur
“Dust of Snow”  Robert Frost
“Spring and Fall” G.M. Hopkins
“Love (III)” George Herbert

and here are the ones awaiting colorful matting as soon as I remember where I left the construction paper:

“Thirteen Ways of Looking At a  Blackbird” Wallace Stevens
“When I Was One-and-Twenty” (from A Shropshire Lad) A. E. Housman
“Epistemology” Richard Wilbur
“The Lake Isle of Innisfree” William Butler Yeats
“The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower” Dylan Thomas
“maggie and milly and molly and may” e. e. cummings
“The Walrus and the Carpenter” Lewis Carroll
“Nothing Gold Can Stay” Robert Frost
“Mock On,  Mock On, Voltaire, Rousseau” William Blake
“At the Sea-Side” Robert Lewis Stevenson
“Marginalia” Richard Wilbur
“I Knew a Woman” Theodore Roethke

I wanted to put “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways,” but we have a Lucy, whom we do not want to creep out.  Otherwise, I gave my self full permission to just pick stuff that I happen to like for whatever reason, and didn’t feel obligated to choose Important Works Students Ought To Learn.

Oh, it’s so easy!  I’m very happy about this idea, and I don’t see how it could possibly do any harm.  When we stopped homeschooling, I was very glad to have someone else take over all the work, but felt persistently of blue that the curriculum was a little flat.  Now I feel like I’ve snuck vitamins into all their favorite snacks, and their days are bound to be richer.

Lots of people hang up quotes from saints or favorite authors, and I think this is a great idea, too.  But for now, I’m just pushing sounds and images.  Do you do this at your house?  What’s on your walls?

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This post originally ran at the Register in 2012.

In defense of deploring poor taste

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You should know that terrible times have a sifting effect, letting the truly important human experiences of loss and pain and death and forgiveness stand out in high relief — and that if your lesser pain gets sifted away, then you just deal with that. You just do. Because to raise your hand in protest at the minor outrage you’ve suffered, when the bodies of the dead are barely cooled, is just . . . .in such poor taste.

Good taste is not much of a virtue to strive for. In the hall of monuments to human achievement, it’s only a modest bust, at best. But my goodness, it’s something.

Read the rest at the Register.

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The Stupids Get On Board the Potty Train

Sorry for the bloggy silence lately! Lots of writing deadlines coming up (if you could spare a prayer I do a good job, I’d appreciate it very much!), plus birthday parties, doctor appointments, potty training, and July 4th (which we’re having at our house, and which is bringing out the Marney in me).

Maybe you’re wondering where I was on Monday, during my radio spot with Mark Shea. Well, I was lying down, because I forgot it was Monday. Sorry. It wasn’t because I didn’t feel like talking about gay marriage, honest! But I wasn’t heartbroken that I missed that opportunity, either. Anyway, you can hear podcasts of Mark’s shows here. He has four other co-hosts, and they’re so fancy, they know what day it is.

Speaking of radio, Jennifer Fulwiler was kind enough to invite me back on her Sirius XM radio show for a segment tomorrow (Thursday the 2nd) sometime around 2:15 eastern. (You can find podcasts of Jen’s show here, including the show where I explained how the Church is like a TARDIS.)

Oh, you want to hear more about potty training? Sure, fine. All you have to do is wait until your kid is 3-1/2 and hanging obscenely out of her size 6 diapers.

This is the advantage of having ten children. I don't even think, "This doesn't bother me, because I know I have good reasons for doing things the way I do them." I just think, "Yep, I'm a bad parent. Oh well. Hey, maybe she'll give me some of her candy!"

(Via Sanctimommy.)This is the advantage of having ten children. I don’t read things like this and think, “This doesn’t bother me, because I know I have good reasons for doing things the way I do them.” I just think, “Yep, I’m a bad parent. Oh well. Hey, maybe she’ll give me some of her candy!”

Then you spend six weeks loudly moaning and groaning about how disgusting diapers are. This does not require acting lessons.

Then you wait until your teenager daughter goes on summer vacation, wave $20 in front of her face, and arm her with a pack of My Little Pony panties, three pounds of assorted bribe candy, a new potty shaped like a pink ladybug, and a giant “surprise present” (fittingly, a water table) to be earned as a grand prize for when the kid not only uses the potty regularly, but stops bursting into tears when we insist that she dump it out herself. It took maybe a week, but miss soggy bottom is all potty trained now, and I didn’t have to clean up any puddles of anything. Ta dah!

The general rule for potty training is: you can potty train them when they’re ready, or you can potty train them until they’re ready, but either way, it won’t happen until they’re ready. (In our case, Benny was ready, but she didn’t know she was ready; hence the disparaging remarks and the candy.)

Well, bye! And remember, as a married woman you are now required to contribute on an adult level. And bring a serving spoon, not a soup spoon. A serving spoon!