My favorite thing about the holiday season is the beautiful seasonal songs: sacred hymns, traditional carols and even holiday pop classics. Now that Christmas time has passed most radio stations will be returning to their regular tunes. But there is one more holiday classic I look forward to hearing: the New Year’s standard “Auld Lang Syne”.

This song is widely regarded as the work of Scottish poet Robert Burns, even though several of the lyrics can also be attributed to other writers of similarly-titled works (such as “Old Long Syne”, a 1711 ballad by James Watson). Legend has it that Burns wrote a letter to a friend in which he spoke lovingly of the Scottish phrase “auld lang syne” and of an old folk song that “thrilled through [his]soul”. It is in this letter that he compiled and composed what would live on to become an enduring and well-loved holiday classic.

One of the things that fascinates me most about “Auld Lang Syne” is that, even though it has become a traditional New Year’s song throughout the world, it is still a widely misunderstood tune. There seems to be something missing in translation as holiday revelers warble the title, which roughly translates to “old long since” (and I mean that’s a rough, literal translation…or so I hear) and stumble over the lyrics.  But a simple internet search has been more than enough to uncover many wonderful things about “Auld Lang Syne” that I never knew, including full Scottish lyrics, a few nice translations of the song, and this gorgeous rendition of the song as performed by Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis.

As the song says, upon further reflection, should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind, perhaps we should take the time to kindly and fondly remember them. Over a pint perhaps at the pub? That’s neither here nor there, really. But this song does blossom into a moving, loving and heartfelt ballad…and strikes me as the perfect way to usher in a new year.

We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet for auld lang syne…

I have a dear friend who loves poetry and can quote huge chunks of it anytime you ask.  I envy her that because most of the time poetry doesn’t work for me.  I had a brief flirtation with John Donne in college but that light burned bright and then died quietly and though I’ve tried, I  haven’t been able to work up the will to take another ride on the Poetry Appreciation Train.  I want to ride but I  just don’t get most poetry.  I’ve often wondered if this disability is tied up with my inability to appreciate jazz or the Three Stooges–it’s something that works for some but not all.  I had grown accustomed to thinking that poetry, much like pro football, was never going to be for me.   However, I stumbled across a collection of sijo poems in the children’s collection a while back and finally found a crack in my poetry defenses.  My favorite from the book is called Wish and it so perfectly conveys how poetry should work on a person’s heart  that it almost makes me weep (almost.)  Thanks to this Korean form of poetry, which looks so innocent and non-threatening,  I’ve been tempted into the poetry section–that’s 811 to the Dewey Decimal users among us.  It’s still rocky going but I’ve now realized that  Edna St. Vincent Millay is not as twee and ladylike as I thought and that has been a marvelous discovery for me.  Maybe I’ll give John Donne a call.

“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting
and autumn a mosaic of them all.”
- Stanley Horowitz

Yesterday was the first official day of Autumn and I couldn’t be happier.  Even though we Georgians probably have at least a month to go before the advent of cooler, crisper weather or the rich, stunning appearance of fall foliage, I’m anxiously anticipating the coming months.

Autumn has always been my favorite season. September meant going back to school and getting back into the hustle-and-bustle of school life (this zeal for academics usually wore off in about a month). October has always been great because of chillier weather and Halloween candy. And November is the best time of the season as the fall colors are at their most potent and Thanksgiving is in the air.

I have a lot that I’d love to say about the way that autumn makes me feel but so many great writers, poets and thinkers have already spoken so eloquently about the season. So I’ve included some more really amazing quotes about fall. Please don’t be shy about sharing your own thoughts on the glories (or the agonies, even) of autumn:

“Autumn is the eternal corrective. It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity; but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance.  What man can stand with autumn on a hilltop and fail to see the span of his world and the meaning of the rolling hills that reach to the far horizon?
- Hal Borland

“No Spring nor Summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one Autumnal face.”
- John Donne

“Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for
biting winds than genial breezes.  Autumn is the mellower season,
and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.”
- Samuel Butler

April is the month of fools and poetry.  Now, most people would rather be a fool than read poetry, but I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to be afraid!  You may be one of the many poor souls who were inundated at a young age by English teachers who made you analyze the MEANING of a poem (as if there were just one single meaning).  No wonder it is sometimes so hard to just enjoy poetry for what it is, and what it means to you.

So this month I’m going to try to shed some light on why I like poetry so much by busting open a few of the myths surrounding it.

MYTH #1: There is one correct meaning for every poem.

I’ll admit: it is true that most poems mean something, otherwise why bother to read it, right?  But is there ONE correct interpretation that acts as a sort of “answer” to a poem?  Many poems have a lot of built in ambiguity, in order to make many meanings possible.  Could it mean this?  Could it mean that?  Maybe it can mean both or all of the above at the same time!  It is fun to think about these multiple meanings and sometimes one interpretation affects another interpretation in interesting ways.

In fact, there are many poets who intentionally play with meaning and nonsense.  James Tate’s Selected Poems is a good place to start for the adventurous among you who like to straddle the line between sense and nonsense.  In addition his poems are often lighthearted, but with a sometimes dark center.  Charles Simic is also a good poet of the surreal.  His poems are odd, strange, and fun, and make just enough sense to keep you reading.

Of course, you may also enjoy a poem for its sound.  There are two main aspects of poetry: sound and sense.  So the sound of a poem is just as important as what it means (not to imply that they are in competition; in fact they usually complement each other).  All poets concern themselves with sound, but Dylan Thomas is a good place to start.  Try reading his poems aloud without thinking about what they mean.  You’d be surprised that you’ll understand the meaning without even trying—the general jist of it will come through the  sounds!  There are also many spoken word and slam poets who put an extra emphasis on the performance and sound aspect.  Check out this DVD if this is what interests you.

Lastly, just as important as the meaning of a poem is the way a poem looks on the page.  e.e. cummings famously played with typography and layout of his poems to great effect.  Check out some of his fun and still innovative poems.

A COROLLARY: Poems can make perfect sense!  Just because some poems don’t have to make complete sense doesn’t mean other poems can’t be very straight forward in their sense-making.  There are many poets who write in a more direct style, but a good place to start is William Carlos Williams.  Many people try to eke out a meaning from his poems, but sometimes a wheelbarrow is just a wheelbarrow.  Perhaps Williams just wanted to paint an image, so that the reader can be as absorbed in this rain-soaked scene as he is.

The 2008 National Book Award Winners are:

Fiction: Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
Nonfiction: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
Young People’s Literature: What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell
Poetry: Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems by Mark Doty

Several weeks ago, I wrote about the importance of including nursery rhymes when reading to young children.  Along those same lines, introducing children to poetry at a young age can help foster a life-long love, not only of poetry, but also of words and reading.  Incorporating poetry into your regular reading habits isn’t as daunting as it may sound.  Many picture books are already written in rhyming verse, so chances are, your child already has some experience with it.  Quite a few well-known poems have even been adapted into a picture book format.  The Owl and the Pussycat and Casey at the Bat are two famous ones.  Other popular adaptations include The Spider and the Fly, Wynken, Blynken and Nod and The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.

If you’re still unsure where to start, Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky are perennial favorites.  They’re smart, laugh-out-loud funny, and usually pretty short.  Other well known authors and poets have books that have been written specifically for, or adapted for, children, including Robert Louis Stevenson, Langston Hughes, and Maya Angelou.

Reading poetry should be fun and enjoyable for both you and your child.  Browse the poetry section of your library for more books.  Remember, the goal isn’t to analyze it.  Listen to and enjoy the words and imagery.  Then, if you or child wants to, discuss it as you would any story you’ve just read.

Love the Library’s eAudiobook service but have an iPod?  Unfortunately, there are currently no vendors offering downloadable audiobooks to libraries using Apple’s digital rights management format, but there are a few free options available for you on the Internet.

LibriVox is a volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.  LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and then “release” the audio files back onto the net.

Classic Poetry Aloud provides podcasts of, well, classic poetry.  If it’s Shakespeare, Pope, Keats, and Shelley you’re looking for, this is the place.

Podiobooks Listeners to Podiobooks.com can choose to receive the episodes of their books via an RSS feed or by listening to episodes by directly downloading episodes from the site.  The site is free, but donations are accepted to compensate authors, who permit their works to be available on the site.

openculture is a site that collects podcasts, videos, and online courses that are freely available on the web, and claims to “sift through all the media, highlight the good and jettison the bad, and centralize it in one place.”  The link provided here takes you directly to their audiobook collection.

Aaron Zaritzky was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He graduated from the Creative Writing Workshop at Oberlin College (2000) and completed a Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry from the University of Arizona (2004). The Pulitzer Prize winning press BOA Editions published his book-length translation of Felipe Benítez Reyes’ Probable Lives as part of the Lannan Series. One of these poems, “Fears,” was chosen to represent a day in National Poetry Month. Nobel Prize finalist Miguel Mendez, the Kennedy Center, and others have commissioned him to translate work. He is currently ghostwriting a book for his father and lives in Macon, Georgia with his wife, Yosálida, their daughter, Sofía, and their cat, Humo.

Aaron, can you tell me how you became a poet? It seems like an odd thing to be!

It does seem like an odd thing to be. And how does someone become a poet? And what is a poet, anyway? Is everyone who writes poems a poet? If so, that means most everyone has been a poet at some time in their lives. Or is a poet someone who has poems published?

There are a whole lot of people out there who spend much more time making a living at something other than writing poems who are still called poets. I would venture to say that almost every poet, at least in this country, finds him or herself having to “write poems on the side.” That’s just the nature of the thing, I guess. So, to answer your question, I first became interested in writing poems when I was in middle school. One day, for no real reason, I decided to try to write a poem about spilling Cheerios all over the kitchen counter. I realized, as I was doing this, that there were so many interesting ways to put words together and that interesting language often has more to do with the words you choose than with the “meaning” or “story” behind the thing you are writing. After that, I just kept writing on my own.

You’ve translated poems before, including the book Probable Lives by Felipe Benítez Reyes. What made you translate this book? Did you pick it, or did it pick you? Did you work closely with the original author?

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John Olivares Espinoza was raised in southern California where he worked as a landscaper for his father. He is the author of two previous chapbooks and holds an MFA in creative writing from Arizona State University. He currently teaches writing, literature, and ethnic studies at the National Hispanic University. His first full-length collection of poetry, The Date Fruit Elegies, will be out this year from the Bilingual Press.

John has a website at john-olivares-espinoza.com

John, what draws you to poetry? Why did you choose it? What can you achieve in poetry that you can’t achieve through other mediums?

After twenty years of being repelled by poetry, I was drawn to it because of the emotional experience I received reading it. Isn’t that why we read books, go to the movies, or concert performances—so we can get blown away by the drama and visceral experience? Poetry does all this in 50, 25, 12, or 2 lines. This is some power. But unlike a movie or rock concert that takes hours to get to that point of experience, or books that take weeks, a poem takes two minutes to read. I chose this medium because it can make the reader gasp, sigh, laugh, and relate in just one short shot.

I noticed that your unique background as a landscaper for your father often factors into your poems. Can you tell me a little bit more about this?

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Sarah Vap is the author of American Spikenard, which won the 2006 Iowa Poetry Prize, and Dummy Fire, which won the 2006 Saturnalia Poetry Prize. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula with her love, the poet Todd Fredson, their one year old son, and a 30 year old horse. She teaches at Olympic College.

You can read some of Sarah’s poems online!

Sarah, when did you first become interested in poetry?

I first started to write poems when I was very little. I would leave them on my parents’ pillows at night, before I could fall asleep… to clear my heart or conscience, I think, in order to sleep. They were usually some variety of apology poem for something horrible I’d said or done that day. One particular memory… in the kitchen, my mom was cooking, and she asked me if spaghetti sounded good for dinner. It didn’t sound good, so I said it didn’t sound good. Then I realized, by the very tender look on her face, that she hadn’t actually wanted to hear whether or not I really thought it sounded good, but she’d wanted to say some variety of “I’ve done something for you, sweet child!” and for me to respond with some variety of “I accept!” But I didn’t know that until I saw her face after I said no. I didn’t even know that about questions, until then… that sometimes they were asking something completely different than the words indicated. I was, as you can imagine, tormented by my cruel misinterpretation until I could write her that letter poem that night. My parents never really responded to those agonized letter poems, that I can remember, but they did keep them, and read them. My father still has one hanging up in his darkroom. The instinct of apology is still strong with me.

Did you know you wanted to be a poet then, or was there another moment when you made that decision?

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