Winter Love Poem: "Oranges" by Gary Soto

I think I first read this in the early or mid-nineties. It was in a high school textbook, maybe, or an anthology meant for teenagers. I love the innocence and the earnestness of the speaker, and I love how sensory/sensual the poem is. It could be a film. Imagine: the lamplit porch, the girl's face--you can  just see the couple's breath in the air as they walk down the street. The bell in the drugstore, the nickel in the speaker's pocket, the orange fire in his hands at the end. Happy December.

Oranges
by Gary Soto

The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted -
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickel in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn't say anything.
I took the nickel from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady's eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.

Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl's hand
In mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.

Poem-y moment of the week: "Fog" by Carl Sandburg

Remember this one from grade school, then middle school, then possibly even high school?

I love the quiet simplicity of this poem. I love the surprise of the little cat feet, and the transformational quality of that line. The fog becomes the cat, just that easily. And then it is the cat, or maybe the cat is the fog.

Fog
Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking over
harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

I quoted the first sentence on a handout for a poetry workshop I'm leading in a couple of weeks at the Adventures in Homeschooling Conference in Sacramento, and Tai happened to see it. "Is that something someone actually wrote," he asked, "or did you just make that up?" I wish.

I found the poem in its entirety and read it aloud to him. He was silent a moment, and then said simply, "I like that poem."

My heart swelled right up with...I don't know what--something good--for my poetry-liking boy.

But he wasn't finished. Then he explained to Kenzo--who had also listened to the poem and was now prowling around on little cat feet--about "haunches": "You know what haunches are, Kenzo? You know when Athena (our cat) is sitting or crouching? Right here (he squatted and pointed to his thighs), those are her haunches."

Kenzo squatted experimentally and looked down to check.

What an important line, that one with the haunches in it. It gives us the cat, alive. And that word, so muffled and soft and heavy-light, simultaneously grounded and ready to rise, so foglike, so watchful-catlike. You do kind of have to understand what haunches are in order to feel that poem all the way through.

Just the day before, Tai told me that poems had to rhyme and have rhythm, so it's interesting that he saw "Fog" as a poem. Maybe because I found it on poetryfoundation.org. But maybe not. I'll have to ask. At the time, I was just happy that he liked it.

It's not surprising, really. It's a great poem. It's short. It's evocative. And Tai is a cat fan and we do live near San Francisco. Though I have to say that the fast-motion stuff in SF and along the coast is a little different from the kind of fog that Sandburg probably imagined.

Fashion policery, imagery and vocabulary

I was indulging in a little HuffPo fluff reading about celebrity red carpet fashion (fashion risks: success or stumble?) when Tai snuck up behind me and said, "What's that?" So I explained the concept to him and he stood beside me as I clicked through a few slides.

About this one he said, "She looks like a milkmaid going a-Maying."

Courtesy of Huffington Post

That's one sleek and sexy milkmaid (HuffPo called this one a Success), but I get his point and I love that he said "a-Maying". Where did that come from? How many times can he possibly have heard or read that term?

You'd think that playing celebrity red carpet fashion police would be a very girly-girl thing to do, but both of my boys loved it. They had something to say about everyone:

That dress looks like her pants are falling down.

She looks like a criminal. 

(Sorry, Beyonce fans. Wondering if it's the skin tone, stripes, or shades. Hope I'm not raising a racist.)

That's just...weird.

So I'm hatching an idea that involves finding slideshows like this--they're everywhere on the web--and writing comments about each slide. We work on refining the imagery and similes, and go for really apt description. This will be a do-it-together activity so we can be funny and snarky together (who can come up with the most creative critique or the spot-on-est description?), maybe with a pint of ice cream or a bowl of popcorn. Probably the fashion blunder photos will provide the best fodder. As always, we'll need to start with a couple of good model sentences.

If celebrity fashion doesn't appeal, I'm sure there are variations: tricked-out cars or bikes, home decorating disasters, bad hair, hats.

I'll try it this week and report back.