Loving the music in words...

A couple of days ago, one of the staff at the nursing home where Mum lives loaned her a book of poems that the staff-member has treasured since high school. When I visited Mum that afternoon, I spent over half an hour leafing through the book, reading poems to Mum at random (until a steady stream of visitors put that pleasant pastime on hold).

I have mentioned on this blog before just how much poetry means to both Mum and me. Some of the poems I read to Mum that afternoon were ones her mother had recited at public occasions, some were ones Mum remembered reciting at music festivals, some were ones my wonderful Grade Four teacher had recited to our class... all were dearly treasured.

There's something about poetry that captures my heart and my imagination -- the lilt of the language, the meter and rhythm, the precisely, carefully chosen words...

Over twenty years ago, to celebrate our shared love of poetry, I compiled a collection of favorite poems for my mother, for a Christmas present. I dedicated the compilation "To my mother, who taught me to love the music in words". That dedication rings true today, as it did back then. I am blessed that she and I can still enjoy together the music inherent in the words of poetry.

There is another mother and daughter to whom I know poetry means a great deal. As part of the Stony Brook Children's Literature Conference that has been going on all week, this evening -- July 11 at 7:30 p.m. -- in Southampton, New York, there is a reading and book-signing that I would so love to be able to attend. Julie Andrews Edwards and Emma Walton Hamilton have compiled a book (to be officially released October 1, Julie's 74th birthday) entitled The Julie Andrews Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies. Julie and Emma, like my Mum and me, truly love the music in words.

At a Children's Books author's breakfast in May, twenty-five years or more after I wrote those words about Mum teaching me to love the music in words, Julie Andrews spoke to the audience about words, wisdom, wonder -- the Three Ws of the Julie Andrews Collection publishing program -- and spoke from her heart about appreciating the music inherent in the words of poetry. For me it was one of those moments when one feels a deeper kinship with someone, knowing that she has thought the same thing, felt the same thing, as I have. Please give this podcast a listen -- I think you'll like it.

When I was a child, I loved to recite -- in its entirety -- Longfellow's poem The Day is Done. He, too, spoke of the music in words.

Come, read to me some poem...

And the night shall be filled with music,

And the cares that infest the day

Shall fold their tents like the Arabs

And as silently steal away.