Bookslut Review of Dubus

Over at the great literary blog & review site Bookslut, Nina McGlaughlin reviews a classic Godine title: Voices from the Moon, by Andre Dubus. She writes, "Both novels illuminate great and complicated passion, jealousy, rage, and huge hurt, as well as the inexpressible in romantic love, and, as John Updike put it in his review of Voices from the Moon in The New Yorker in 1985, 'our homely, awkward movements of familial adjustment and forgiveness'."

If you're a New Yorker subscriber, I encourage you to head over there and read the full text of Updike's review from their February 4, 1985 issue.

The Death of Amazon

In The Huffington Post today, Alex Green, the owner of Back Pages Books, makes a — dare I say — wildly bold prediction regarding the future of Amazon. He writes, "With a margin of profit lower than the national sales tax average and countless Amazon Prime customers locked in at obscenely low shipping rates, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos saw the writing on the wall. He rapidly began seeking a way to avoid the third meltdown of his business in the last decade. He got out his Kindle, grabbed a list of vague numbers, jumped on a giant soapbox and tried to stave off the perception that his Kindle-fever was anything but panic. Then in June, Rhode Island passed a law following New York's lead. On Thursday, North Carolina jumped on board as well, passing a sweeping e-fairness law. Facing the greatest drop in tax revenue since the Great Depression, states across the country have decided that Amazon no longer needs its tax breaks.

"Amazon has responded by dropping its affiliates in North Carolina and rattling a saber engraved with the motto, 'We don't pay taxes.' The problem for them is that other states waiting in the wings are more destitute and powerful than North Carolina. California charges sales taxes that are almost double the national average. With a titanic economy on the brink of near-anarchistic failure, broadly despised Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is almost all that stands between Amazon and the tax man.

"The consequences of enforcing a sales tax after such a lengthy period of legislative inaction, however, are devastating. Amazon simply cannot survive if it has to pay sales taxes. If nationally enacted today, enforced tax legislation would put at least $1 billion of Amazon's yearly operational costs and profits into state coffers. Under such pressure, Amazon would briefly comply and then collapse. Three weeks later you would find them on the nightly news, appearing before Congress for a bailout, "selling," as the poet Franz Wright says, 'the emptiness of their own hands.' Like the auto companies before them, Internet retailers used your roads, your government, and your tax subsidized infrastructure to support non-viable companies that killed your local businesses. Nothing in life, as the saying goes, is free."

Can it be true? Can we imagine a world of books not dominated by Amazon? After only, say, a decade or less of dominance in this market, I have difficulty conceiving of it.

Catie & Jim, of Catie Copley

Common Milkweed ~ Asclepias syriaca

Please check out a review of Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! on Isabelle Lafleche’s wonderfully fun blog Pink Lemonade. Isabelle is an author residing in Montreal. She first wrote about my book after seeing it at the New York book expo last spring and we have been corresponding ever since. The winner of a free copy of Oh Garden will be selected at random from comments left on her blog and anyone can leave a comment.

Much to share — following the success of my Monarch butterfly exhibit several years ago, I have been invited to create an all new exhibit at the Sawyer Free Library. If you don’t hear from me over the next few weeks, it is because I am deeply involved in preparations. The photo/journal exhibit, with video footage, will be at the Matz Gallery at the Sawyer Free for the month of September. The lecture date is Thursday, September 10th at 7:00 pm. The exhibit is made possible through partial funding from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Serendipitously, an article that I wrote (with photos) about the Monarchs will be appearing in the upcoming fall issue of Cape Ann Magazine, which will be available in mid-August at bookstores (Toad Hall and The Bookstore), Richdales, and other local markets.

I was bemoaning that one part of the story that was missing from the exhibit was a photograph of a female Monarch ovipositing (depositing an egg). I believe that because of the many months of cold and rain brought about by air currents dipping further south than usual, the Monarch population in our region is way down from previous years. Fantastically, especially because there are so few on the wing this year, a female Monarch was in our garden several days ago, laying eggs in our little milkweed patch, which reminded me to remind you of the importance of growing milkweeds. The photo attached is the female Monarch (you can tell she is a female by her dark, smokier colored wing patterning) nectaring at marsh milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). She was laying eggs on both the common and marsh milkweeds, which we grow side-by-side, and yes, after many hours of patiently standing in the milkweed patch, I did get a snapshot of her ovipositing.

On another note, I received over a hundred email responses after writing the article In the Wake of Godzilla. All but two concurred. Steve Reynolds, a member of the zoning board, was one of the two, and wrote an interesting response. I have sent him a response in turn. All those who wrote to me regarding Gloucester Crossing will automatically receive a copy of Mr. Reynold’s letter and of my response. If you did not write, but would also like to receive a copy, please feel free to email me at kimsmithdesigns {at} hotmail.com.

P.S. Since i wrote this note yesterday, many Monarch caterpillars have emerged. The siblings are voraciously munching on the milkweed.

Pete Sipes Reads Ferdinandus Taurus

Pete Sipes, of Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, reading from the classic Godine titles Ferdinandus Taurus:

[Thanks to one-time Godiner Genevieve Brennan]

Sailing with DRG

When you’re a summer intern at Godine, you get some added perks. No, not just eating a lunch on the very busy and sunny Common. But rather, a trip to Maine! An island in Maine, no less.

This weekend I traveled north to David’s summer house on an island off the coast of Maine. A day with David in the office promised many surprises. . . so I was certain a weekend involving boats, tennis and lobster would hold even more exciting experiences. I was certainly not disappointed. Even though I’ve lived in Massachusetts my whole life and even used to summer on the Cape, I had never actually been sailing. And so, David set out to rectify that terrible problem.

After a light breakfast, a group of us looked at the water and decided that although there wasn’t much wind, we’d probably be able to make it to a nearby island for a picnic lunch. We set off (which involved much rigging and ropes and nautical terminology that went right over my head), and were barely crawling along, in an ocean that was near glass-like, when all of the sudden someone looked behind us and spotted low hanging dark clouds. Not only were the clouds incredibly ominous, they were also moving at light-speed. Within two minutes of having spotted them, the sea started to turn choppy. The entire sailboat tipped on its side. (Thank goodness I had thought to grab my book, which had just been lying on the deck seconds before!) The less experienced "sailors" were hurried downstairs and the true seaman took over the sails, wrestling to get the mainsail down as quickly as possible, lest the gale-force winds drag us over to the nearby island and dash us upon the rocks!

David remained at the rudder, calling out orders while I huddled below deck. After many minutes of clanking and banging from above, the sail was safely down and we were able to motor back to the home island. The ride still consisted of wild winds and pelting rain, mind you. When we arrived back, the rain had stopped and the sun was peaking from behind the clouds. All in all, the strange and sudden squall had lasted a mere half an hour.

I could not have fathomed a more "interesting" first sail, though I should have expected something monumental when I set out to sea with David at the helm.

[Kit Harris is an intern at Godine and will be a Junior at Johns Hopkins University this Fall, studying for the year in Paris and then Florence. "Oh, she exaggerates," says David.]

Genius Reviews

Two reviews of Genius of Common Sense are making the rounds today online, it seems. The first has a front-and-center spot on Arts & Letters Daily: Howard Husock writes, at City Journal, "Not only did Jacobs draw important inferences about how cities, the quintessential human ecosystems, grew and prospered organically; she was able, despite her lack of advanced degrees or even a college diploma, to attract the support of elites through the power of her original ideas. Her position as a staff writer at Architectural Forum lent her views credibility and helped convert the likes of Lewis Mumford, then the architectural critic for The New Yorker, making it respectable for elected officials to oppose Moses. Bronx residents, in their struggle to stop construction of the Cross-Bronx Expressway, had tried demonstrating against Moses, but to no avail. He had always been able to rely on planning elites, newspaper editorial pages, and his own social background and connections to make 'slum-dwellers' look self-interested and benighted. In Jacobs, Moses faced a foe who employed hardball political tactics and sarcasm as well. She dared to condescend to him."

And over at Seth's Blog he writes, "Genius of Common Sense is plainly a labor of love, with a great selection of photographs and a belief in Jacobs’s importance that you might say “shines through the book like a watermark” (Nabokov). The subtitle is 'Jane Jacobs and the story of The Death and Life of Great American Cities' but that isn’t right: It’s mostly about how Jacobs and her neighbors fended off Robert Moses to preserve Greenwich Village. Which is a lot more visual. As I read it I kept wondering what I would have thought of it had I picked it up as, say, a third grader. I read a lot of biographies for children back then. I might have been attracted by the weird title and helped along by the high ratio (1 to 1) of picture space to word space. I would have liked the underdog aspect." Me too!

Harry Patch: 'The Last Fighting Tommy'

Last week thousands in Britain attended a funeral for Harry Patch, the last British survivor and veteran of World War I, who died on July 25th at the age of 111. For many, Mr. Patch’s death marked the end of an era, the passing of the last man living who could tell what it was to be a soldier in the Great War. Harry Patch was memorialized in a poem by Sir Andrew Motion in 2007, when Motion was the British poet laureate. His five-part poem, "Harry Patch: 'The Last Fighting Tommy'" is included in The Mower: New and Selected Poems, just out from Godine.

Watch the video: courtesy of The Guardian.


Also: listen to the Radiohead tribute, 'Harry Patch (in Memory of)'

Jim reads from Catie Copley!

In the Wake of Godzilla

[Photos from Along the Highway Adjacent to Gloucester Crossing]

For readers who are unfamiliar with the landscape and day to-day affairs of Gloucester, Gloucester Crossing is a newly built shopping mall located on the grounds of a formerly fully functioning neighborhood elementary school. The shops are scheduled to open later this year. When I write formerly fully functioning elementary school, I mean to say that the Fuller School was shuttered at the onset of the development, staff laid-off, and students relocated. Subsequently the grounds surrounding the school, including the ballpark and vernal pond, were clear-cut. Despite repeated assurances from the developer Sam Park that the vernal pond would be protected (see videos), it was not. Despite the full knowledge that the developer was not in compliance with, and his complete disregard of, the agreed-upon terms of development, Sam Parks and DeMoulas (Market Basket chain of supermarkets) were given two million dollars in tax-increment-financing, or TIF, further unfairly crippling local businesses.

Perhaps you have a “Gloucester Crossing” in your neighborhood. I think I speak for the majority when saying we all basically desire the same thing for towns and cities — that our local businesses and industry be allowed to grow and thrive — creating a mutually beneficial relationship between citizen and business. Local industries, such as fishing and tourism are the lifeblood of Gloucester. Destroying the natural beauty of Gloucester in the name of creating low-paying jobs (part of the TIF agreement) destroys the very thing that draws people to our city — an extremely shortsighted form of development.

I am sickened by feelings of powerlessness against rapacious developers who defile our community. Not only was it heartbreaking to witness the annihilation of the vernal pond, surrounding tree cover, and ballpark, but also the wholesale demolition of the granite outcropping that formerly ran adjacent to the last leg of Route 128. Created over millennia — rife with native plants and wildlife — now only a pile of rubble.



There are many in our community who bravely fought the developer. They won the first round against Park’s bullying self-serving insistence that a traffic light on Route 128 be installed to serve his customers (with the potential to create the worst traffic jams imaginable). As the developers are circling round the harbor front, it is very clear that there needs to be in place a system of checks and balances that offers incentives to those who consider the environmental impact as well as the aesthetics of future developments, and adhere to the agreed upon terms. Gloucester is a perpetually cash-strapped small city, which places us in a very vulnerable position. I don’t see the good folks of Manchester, Essex, and Rockport tolerating this kind of in-your-face-destruction. Is it because Gloucester is that much poorer, or is it because we citizens, through our elected officials, lack the political will to legislate against and to prevent this kind of abuse?

Boycotting works. Did we need a fourth supermarket within a one-mile radius? Did we need another Marshall’s and Staples, particularly since both businesses already have branches that are within a half hour drive? A friend said, “what does it matter, what’s done is done, and nothing can change that fact.” Yes, that is true, but this is a teaching moment for all of us who care about the natural beauty and community development of Cape Ann. Fishermen and artist, restaurateur and patron, Varian engineer and organ builder, innkeeper and guest, elected official and voter, rich and poor, year round and summer resident, entrepreneur and blue collar worker, white collar and green collar, we all have to join forces and work together to preserve our natural resources and shape future development. The alarm has sounded and we now have a visual, daily reminder of the face of unbridled, pernicious development.

The photos taken only a few days ago show the granite outcropping before and after it was demolished. The flora is native spiraea (Spiraea latifolia), a caterpillar host plant for the female Summer Azure butterfly, found dead at the blasting site.

[Kim Smith is the author of Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! Available now from David R. Godine, Publisher.]

Perec & Kramer: Separated at Birth

We have the folded and gathered (unbound) pages for Thoughts of Sorts here, and reading it over — Perec's mostly humorous essays are quirky, whimsical, and engaging — this likeness struck me; it struck me like a bolt of lightning:

Georges Perec, Godine


Cosmo Kramer, Seinfeld


I'm not 'sayin', I'm just — you know — saying. They're both kooky.

Looking, and Looking, and Looking at the Newberry Library

Last month, while attending the ALA in Chicago (for those of you who think this is the American Law Association, think again; it's the American Library Association — for librarians — and it is, as shows go, pretty dull stuff), I allowed myself the luxury of visiting the Newberry Library on West Walton Street. The Newberry is one the great, free-standing, independently funded research libraries in this country, and it is well known in typographic and calligraphic circles for its outstanding collections in these areas. I was welcomed by Paul Gehl, whose official title is Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing, which contains probably the greatest collection of writing books and calligraphic manuscripts (along with those at the Houghton amassed by Philip Hofer and the British Museum) in the English speaking world.

In the old days, when I was a student at Dartmouth, you could go to almost any library, sign in, sit down in the reading room and have books brought to you. You didn't have to wear white gloves or provide evidence of some formal scholarly affiliation, or show your drivers license to prove your identity. As a senior at Dartmouth, I spent an entire term my senior year at the Bodleain Library at Oxford sitting in the reading room and looking through fifteenth and sixteenth century books. No one asked me any questions; the books were brought, left at my reading station, and picked up when I was finished. All in total silence.

The same procedure, I am glad to report, still obtains at the Newberry, and Paul Gehl is the personification of civility and helpfulness; he simply gives the interested scholar the two wooden racks of typewritten cards describing the Wing holdings with a few slips of paper on which to write the call numbers. It's simple; it's efficient; and it's a pleasure. No wonder that every serious scholar from Stanley Morison to Beatrice Warde to Nicolas Barker has made it their home, and a special vote of thanks is due to Jim Wells, who presided over the collection for years and who befriended and was a friend to so many in this rarefied field that still holds a fascination for a certain lunatic fringe.

The history of scholarship in the fields of typography and calligraphy is riddled with individuals who never received a formal college diploma and never attended formal courses of study but whose education was nurtured and furthered by curators like Jim Wells and Paul Gehl. Daniel Berkeley Updike, whose "Printing Types" remains the standard in the field to this day, never graduated college; not did Stanley Morison, probably the foremost typographic scholar of the last century. Richard Benson, whose recent book will find its place on the shelves of the classics, never graduated, not did his brother John Benson, the foremost stone-cutter of our age. Matthew Carter, who is surely the foremost type designer of our time, was offered a place at Oxford, but declined to study punch cutting in the Netherlands instead. The list goes on. Scholarship, and most especially connoisseurship, have little to do with a college degree; they have everything to do with looking, and looking, and looking some more. And reading. To this end, we have institutions like the Newberry to thank, and to their curators for their help and encouragement.

Godine's Biggest Fan

Some impostor (we're sure it is an impostor, although the reasons why are another matter) has sent David several very genial letters in the name of pop icon Britney Spears. We thought you fine readers might enjoy a bit of tom-foolery. To wit:

A National Best Seller

A little bit of cheery news for a small independent press such as ourselves: The Poetry Foundation released their list of national best-selling titles for July 12, and Linda Bamber's debut collection Metropolitan Tang came in at a sturdy, whimsical, desirous #23 on the list! Sandwiched between Frederick Seidel and Matthew Dickman — not too shabby.

Brood Parasitism

What is going on? Look closely at the photograph and you will see the smaller bird is feeding the much larger bird. The plumage of juvenile birds often differs strikingly from that of their parents, but that is not the case here. The bird in the foreground is an adult Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) and the bird it is feeding is an entirely separate species, a Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater). The obviously well fed fledgling cowbird parked itself in our yard for over a week. From sun up till sun down, squawking loudly with its mouth held wide open, three Song Sparrows ran themselves ragged feeding it safflower seeds.



Lovely russet-streaked plumage, brown-cap, streaked-eye, and clear bird songs give clues to identifying the Song Sparrow. Its song is sweet and performed at all hours of the day, from early spring through our Indian summer. They are one of the most common and geographically variable birds found in North America, breeding as far north as Canada and Alaska and wintering in Mexico. Not all Song Sparrows are migratory. For the past few winters we have had several residing in our garden all the winter long. Their diet usually consists of seeds, grains, berries, and less frequently, insects. We find them feeding in a solitary fashion on the ground below both the safflower and Nyjer seed feeders.

The Brown-headed Cowbird is a brood parasite, meaning it lays its eggs in the nests of other passerines (perching birds), neither building its own nest nor raising its young. Females lay as many as three dozen eggs in a season and over 140 different species of birds have been known to raise their nestlings.

Brown-headed Cowbirds were originally nomadic, foraging on the insects and prairie seeds churned up by the vast herds of bison during their annual northward and southward migration across the Great Plains. Nearly extirpated, the bison were replaced by goats, sheep, and cattle, with which the cowbirds became associated, hence the name cowbird. As the North American landscape has become increasingly fragmented through deforestation, the Brown-headed Cowbird has experienced a massive range expansion.

Cowbird young tend to hatch earlier, grow faster, crowd-out, and reduce the food intake of their hosts. Some species have learned to recognize and reject cowbird eggs — robins, blue jays, catbirds, and brown thrashers, for example. Species that accept the cowbird eggs include many warblers, vireos, Eastern Phoebes, and Song Sparrows. The spotting pattern of the Song Sparrow egg is similar to that of the cowbird. Brood parasitism is a dramatic example of avian co-evolution. Brown-headed Cowbirds have their most damaging impact on species such as the Kirtland’s Warblers, which have only recently been subjected to cowbird parasitism and have not yet evolved defense mechanisms.

Since World War II, the decline of forest songbird populations over much of North America has increased rapidly and the reasons are many. Brood parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds was considered by many to be the chief cause. The primary determinant is not brood parasitism, as was demonstrated by an extensive study conducted by Audubon scientists (cowbirds are also declining in numbers), but habitat fragmentation. Perhaps the loss of songbirds could be halted if their survival depended entirely on conservation efforts in the United States and Canada. However, it is the inexorable destruction of tropical rain forests (the songbirds winter habitat) that, if continued unabated, in only a few years will drive many of our beloved songbirds to extinction. The most enduring action we can take to ensure a future for all living creatures is to properly manage the scale of human activities on our planet.



{Kim Smith is the author of Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities, of which Viveka Neveln at The American Gardener recently wrote, "Anyone who gardens along the Eastern Seaboard from Maine to South Carolina will appreciate Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities!"}

Desert Review & Special Offer

Just got a really nice review from Publisher's Weekly of Desert, by J.M.G. Le Clézio: "One of the few works by 2008 Nobel laureate Le Clézio to be translated into English, this mythic novel tells two parallel stories of descendants of a holy man called Al Azraq. The novel begins with Nour, a Berber boy who bears witness to the failed rebellion led by Sheik Ma el Aïnine against the French in the years leading up to WWI. In the cadences of an incantation, Le Clézio renders the dire suffering of the displaced desert peoples who turn to Ma el Aïnine for guidance. The parallel story, set in the near-contemporary, portrays Lalla, a young woman who lives on the Moroccan coast and spends her days exploring the seashore and listening to the stories of her aunt and the fisherman Old Naman. After escaping an arranged marriage, Lalla lands in Marseille and finds not the gleaming white city of Naman's stories but a cruel place cut off from nature. Le Clézio's vision is cinematic, his language lyrical and the lives he portrays are vivid and convincing."

We've also decided to make Desert available with The Prospector at a special 30% discount off the cover price when you purchase them together. The offer only lasts until August 1 — so, order now and discover this world-renowned Nobel Prize–winning author through a definitive masterpiece (The Prospector) and the novel that the Nobel committee termed Le Clézio's "definitive breakthrough as a novelist" (Desert).

Aram Saroyan @ the Poetry Foundation

Over at The Poetry Foundation website, Black Sparrow author Aram Saroyan (whose new collection of essays, Door to the River, will be available this fall) has an essay on his personal / literary experiences with Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Ted Berrigan. He writes, 'As a teenager in Manhattan, I turned to poetry because I couldn't understand what life was about and thought I might uncover some clues in such writing, which, according to Louis Zukofsky, finds an order "that can speak to all men." Howl, which I found during high school, was like an encyclopedia of the emotional and psychic life that had been driven under in me, with the result that I felt restless and bored a lot of the time. It was like finding a deep neural and psychic autobiography in the middle of the snow job of late-1950s/early-1960s America. Life is big, it said. It has a lot of colors. It's serious. It's funny. It's full of suffering that is also like bread, nurture, on a journey of the soul. I could say that reading it broke me open, so that I could discover myself in the deeper history of our time and kind.'

Garrison Keillor Ruffles Some Feathers

Over at Norlight Lit Life, the blog of Northern Lights Bookstore, they take exception at a recent statement by cultural icon and fellow bookstore owner Garrison Keillor. They write, 'Oh Garrison, we love you but we hope you realize why people were justly upset with your comments of late. Comment one: Garrison Keillor commented that Common Good Books, St. Paul, Minn., which he opened in 2006, "is sort of slowly making its way. I don't know. It's not making money. Nobody makes money with bookstores."

It's the blanket of "nobody" that stands independent bookselling hair on end. It is certainly difficult to make money selling books. Living in 90% of the world today, you'll find difficulties making money in most businesses that don't revolve around oil, weapons, or governmental bailouts. This buys into the dangerous myth of the dying bookstore. Times are tough. Some great stores have closed their doors. Bookselling alone has brought few independent wealth. But to say that no one makes money on it, that we're non-profits without 501-c status rather than integral and innovative members of the business community — that's where we disagree. Most vociferously with the perpetuation of that myth that bookstores are a dead-end for business — the myth that big box stores and online warehouses would love to use as examples of us being quaint dinosaurs. The only way someone should mistake us for quaint dinosaurs is in hearing our roar combined with our impeccable customer service!'

This is an ongoing discussion in our office and elsewhere in the book world: is this popular story grounded in fact? Certainly, every business today is struggling — but does the closing of many bookstores indicate tough times or a pandemic demise? We'd love to hear what booksellers themselves have to say on this!

Summer Reading

Over at the Three Percent blog, Nobel Prize-winner Le Clézio's novel Desert is recommended summer reading from the 2010 Best Translated Book Award panelists (it has disclaimer that this is not in any way the award's long-list, but we hope Desert is included on that too). Chad Post writes, 'The list below simply represents all of the titles that the nine BTB panelists (Monica Carter, Scott Esposito, Susan Harris, Annie Janusch, Brandon Kennedy, Bill Marx, Michael Orthofer, Chad W. Post, and Jeff Waxman) have recommended to each other to take a look at. It’s a sort of list of “books in the running,” or more accurately, “translations that some of us have liked.” (And yes, this is just fiction. For now. Maybe we could do something with poetry in the not-too-distant future . . .)'

The Effort

It has been a blur of wild activity here over the past few weeks. We're calling independent bookstores to follow up on our catalog mailing, setting bookstore appointments for David (who is at ALA right now in Chicago and will be in Denver next week), finishing our Fall lead titles in production, and trying to come up with new marketing, sales, and publicity avenues all the while. The total expended effort to keep these projects afloat is just herculean.

From the editorial process to the minutiae of color proofing, to calling bookstores individually: every tiniest aspect of the organization requires personal, focused attention. Not a bit of it is automatic. If it were not that the staff here — from our interns to the owner — are better jugglers than Barnum Bailey, everything would fail miserably. Before working at such a small organization I had never realized how intensive the publishing process really is. David Godine acquires, edits, art directs, sets metal type, calls on bookstores, and works the trade shows. The editors do marketing, the publicity person edits, the art director does permissions, and the production guy (moi) controls the website. We also make julienne fries (it's a good thing) and whiten your smile.

All of this is apropos of nothing, but the blog has been pretty quiet and I thought our regular readers would want to know what's happening. I hope everyone else's summer is a little bit calmer!

That Joe Biden. . .

He sure has good taste! Here is a picture of Vice President Biden looking over a copy of Genius of Common Sense (via Genius author Glenna Lang).

Joe Biden and Genius of Common Sense

Vice President Joe Biden came to Boston to raise money at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser on June 23. Before he was set to speak, people mingled in a large space high above Fenway Park. My old friend from Cambridge politics, Rob Barber, who now heads the New England Steering Committee for Organizing for America and was to introduce the vice president, tipped me off that if I positioned myself “along the rope” keeping the audience about eight feet away from the speakers, I might have a good chance of being on Joe’s path while he greeted the crowd as he exited after his speech.

When I noticed folks starting to move towards the podium, I headed up there and saw that tall, mostly men in suits had already lined up along the rope. I turned to the woman next to me, who was several inches shorter than my 5’2”, and said, “What do we do?” It turned out her name was Magdalena and she had taken a ferry, a bus, and a train to get there from Martha’s Vineyard where she works as a nurse. She had volunteered in Obama’s campaign and was enthralled by the candidate and his running mate, to say the least.

When I asked one of the tall guys if Magdalena and I might stand in front of them, they graciously agreed. We all had a great conversation as we waited a long time for the program to start. And right before it did, an 11-year-old girl made it through the crowd behind me, and I pulled her in next to me. I now had the beautiful young girl in a salmon-colored chiffon dress on my right and Magdalena in her colorful garb from the Dominican Republic on my left, all of us along the rope in front of the lectern.

I can’t neglect to say what a terrific and charismatic speaker Joe Biden is. He hit all the right points about health care, the environment, end to nuclear proliferation, etc. This is not a time to prioritize, we must do everything at once. He mentioned Scranton a number of times, with a funny story that took place there to boot. The three of us, directly in front of him, were smiling and nodding. When he spoke about children and education, he paused to ask the girl next to me how old she was and wove her into his message.

Sure enough, after his speech, Biden stepped off the podium and headed along the rope. His second stop was Magdalena. She blurted out that she had always wanted a hug from Barack Obama. Joe Biden responded with a bear hug and a promise to deliver it to the president. I held up Genius of Common Sense with a post-it note on the cover saying “About someone else from SCRANTON.” I said, “I wrote this book about another very important person from Scranton.” The vice president widened his eyes, yanked the book from my hands, studied the cover, and said, “Jane Jacobs? No kidding!” I managed to get in “It’s for your grandchildren” before he exclaimed “THANK YOU” and planted a kiss firmly on my cheek!

Magdalena had asked a woman across the room to take some photos of us if we got to speak with Joe Biden. Not surprisingly, he was surrounded by secret service, so I am not sure if the photos will capture anything. She’ll email them to me if they do, but anyway, it was a thrill – and I hope he or his grandchildren read the book. I think they just might.

[The author of this post is Glenna Lang, co-author of Genius of Common Sense, as well as several other Godine titles.]

Bombus impatiens — Common Eastern Bumble Bee

The Common Eastern Bumble Bee is one of the most oft-encountered pollinators found working in the garden. I love to say the words Bombus impatiens (BOM-bus im-PAY-shuns); the round soft sounds of the genus and species names rolls around the lips and off the tongue. Bombus is Latin for ‘”booming” or “buzzing.” Of course, a babbity buzzing bumble bee must surely be a Bombus! The binomial nomenclature for the Spanish poppy in the photograph, Papaver atlanticum (pronounced pah-PAH-ver at-LAN-tik-um), too, is pleasurable to say aloud. Learning about the root meanings of these descriptively beautiful names and how to pronounce them is just one of the many joys of learning about the natural world.

Taxomic Classification of the Common Eastern Bumble Bee
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta (True Insects)
Order: Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps, and Sawflies)
Family: Apidae (Bumble, Carpenter, Digger, Cuckoo, and Honey Bees)
Sub-family: Apinae (Honey, Bumble, and Digger Bees)
Genus: Bombus (Bumble Bees)
Species: impatiens


Bombus impatiens ranges across eastern North America from Ontario to Maine and south to Florida. It is more commonly found along the Atlantic coast and is much less common near the western edge of its range (eastern North Dakota, western Kansas, and eastern Texas).

Comparing it to last month’s photo of the Carpenter Bee, which is characterized by a shiny black abdomen, the first abdominal section of the Common Eastern Bumble Bee is covered with yellow pile and the remaining segments with black pile. Members of the genus Bombus are generally covered in aposematically-colored pile, meaning long hairs in “warning” colors of black and yellow.

As do their relatives the carpenter bee and honey bee, bumble bees form colonies, feed on nectar, build nests, and gather pollen to feed their young. Bombus impatiens typically nests below ground in preexisting holes, often using discarded rodent nests.

Unlike a honey bee’s stinger, which is barbed, the bumble bee’s stinger is smooth and can be used over and over again. Usually, bumble bees present very little danger as they are typically non-aggressive and would rather not expend their energy manufacturing venom unless absolutely necessary. The loud buzzing sound bumble bees make is the result of vibrating its flight muscles, which it must do to warm up to become airborne at low ambient temperatures.

Pollination by bees is known as melittophily. Many bee pollinated-flowers are blue or yellow, often with ultraviolet nectar guides, and are scented. Bee-pollinated flowers fall into several categories: open, bowl-faced flowers such as wild roses and poppies, composite flowers (asters and goldenrod), and non-radial symmetric flowers such as lupines and turtlehead. Up to forty percent of the world’s food is pollinated by wild bees, including bumble bees. Because they are especially efficient pollinators Bombus impatiens is increasingly called upon in the agriculture of blueberries, cranberries, alfalfa, clover, and hot-house tomatoes. Cool, cloudy, and even light rainy weather may slow bumble bees, but activity will not be completely halted. Bumble bees can fly in temperatures to 41 degrees, whereas honey bees require temperatures at a minimum of 50 degrees.

The greatest threat to bumble bees is loss of adequate habitat. Monoculture farming has changed fields formerly rich in floral diversity. Bombus species need habitats continuously in bloom, from April to November. One solution is to create, between farm fields, buffer zones of wild flower meadows. Bombus impatiens has been recorded feeding on many flower families, including the following: Apiaceae (carrot), Asclepiadaceae (milkweeds), Asteraceae (composites), Balsaminaceae (Impatiens capensis), Berberidaceae (barberries), Convovulaceae (morning glories), Ericaceae (heaths), Fabaceae (legumes), Lamiaceae (mints), Malvaceae (mallows), Papaveraceae (poppies), Rosaceae (roses and allies), Saliaceae (willows), Saxifragaceae (saxifrages), Solanaceae (tomatoes), and Urticaceae (nettles).

Spanish poppy, also commonly called Moroccan and Atlantic poppy, is an utterly delightful perennial poppy that begins to flower in mid-spring in our garden, and, with consistent deadheading, continues unstintingly until the first frosts of autumn, providing nectar for three seasons. The lovely deeply lobed blue-green foliage begins to look a bit tired by mid-summer but then recovers with the cooler weather of late summer. Moroccan poppy blooms in one color only, a clear shade of Spanish orange. The flower takes a semi-double form “Flore Pleno,” but I (and the bees) prefer the single form. In reading up on Papaver atlanticum it is often recommended to weed out the ordinary and “less desirable” single forms, silly advice really. The singles are beautiful and less fussy-looking. P. atlanticum is found growing wild in rocky crevices in the mountains of Morocco, giving us a hint about their culture. They require good drainage (excellent for the rock garden) and grow well in full to light sun. When the seed capsules are allowed to mature, Moroccan poppy will reseed readily throughout the garden. Remove the unwanted seedlings, allowing others to take hold where they are desired. Transplant seedlings when they small, only a few inches in height, and early in the season, while the weather is still cool. Moroccan poppies resent transplanting and will not recover if attempted during the heat of summer.

End Notes: Save the dates for the Seaside Garden Tour sponsored by the Rockport Garden Club, Friday July 10 and Saturday July 11 from 10 am to 4 pm. Tickets are on sale at Toad Hall Bookstore. Tour includes perennial plant sale.

[Find more of Kim Smith's gardening and garden design tips in her book, Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities, available now from Godine and fine bookstores everywhere.]

P.K. Page at Poetry Magazine

A new poem from Godine author and acclaimed Canadian poet P.K. Page appears in the current issue of Poetry Magazine (June 2009), "Cullen in the Afterlife." If you enjoy this, we highly recommend Cosmologies, which was shortlisted for the 2003 Griffin Award for Excellence in Poetry, has a foreword from book critic Eric Ormsby, and is the first (still the only?) of the poet's collections to be published in the United States. For your reading pleasure, here is another poem from Page's Cosmologies,


"The Understatement"

I speak not in hyperbole,
I speak in true words muted to their undertone,
choosing a pebble where you would choose a stone,
projecting pebbles to immensity.

For where love is no word can be compounded
extravagant enough to frame the kiss
and so I use the under-emphasis,
the muted note, the less than purely rounded.

Perec at the NBCC

This is maybe one of the strongest recommendations I've seen of a Godine writer who has — to say the least — an enthusiastic fan base. Critical Mass, the NBCC blog, has been posting responses to the question, 'which work in translation had the deepest effect on their reading and writing?'

Martin Riker, of the estimable Dalkey Archive Press, writes, 'That would be one or all of Georges Perec’s novels. If I had to pick one, it would be Life A User’s Manual, unless it was W, or A Memory of Childhood. Although it might also be his early novel, Things. These are the translated titles, to which I resort because I don’t speak or read French. I once had the occasion to write to the translator of these books, David Bellos, and I took the opportunity to let him know that Perec is my favorite writer, and that, since a translator is to a large extent the creative force behind a translated work, he, David Bellos, is also, in a palpable way, my favorite writer. Few writers have opened up the possibilities of literary art with as much enthusiasm, mastery, and pleasure as Perec.'

Rosa bourboniana

Roses grow well in our Gloucester garden. The buds are reluctantly, yet deliberately, beginning to open in the cool dampness of this year’s early June weather. While coming and going along the garden pathway and up and down the front stairs, we are teased by their fleeting scent. I am impatient for their beauty and fragrance. The climbers and ramblers grow more massive, and ever taller still, and soon the garden, and the adjoining rooms to our home, will be infused with their pervasive perfume. The large-flowered redolent climbers ‘Aloha’ and ‘New Dawn,’ along with ‘Variegata di Bologna,’ clamber up the porch pillars. ‘Louise Odier’ and ‘Souvenir de Victor Landeau,’ both sumptuously scented Bourbon roses, are planted adjacent to these beauties, one on either side of the front steps. Around the corner is the rugosa hybrid ‘Therese Bugnet,’ with inherent beach rose fragrance, and opposite her is my mystery rose, climbing two stories tall, her aromatic Persian pink blossoms draped about our second story bedroom window. Sublime, really.

Because the roses are sited within close proximity to the house, along the garden paths and embowering the front entryway and windows, few pests or diseases escape my attentive eye. Eliminating the earliest Japanese beetles helps to control a mass onslaught. Removing, and carefully disposing of, leaves that show the first signs of black spot helps to retard the spread of the disease.

The following is an excerpt from Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! For extensive information on rose culture and an expanded list of the most richly scented cultivars see Chapter 14 titled "Roses for the Intimate Garden."

Rosa bourboniana

The Bourbon roses (Rosa bourboniana) comprise one of the most extravagantly scented class of roses, along with having a wide range of growth habit in form and height. From the shrubby and compact ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison,’ growing to about two feet, to the thornless climbing ‘Zephirine Drouhin,’ there is a suitable Bourbon rose available to fill nearly every conceivable desired effect in the landscape.

Named for the island of Reunion, formerly called Isle de Bourbon, Rosa bourboniana is a natural crossing of the China rose (repeat blooming) with the Autumn Damask rose. Reunion belongs to the archipelago of Mascareignes in the Indian Ocean and lies east of Madagascar. Originally discovered by the Portuguese, then colonized by the French in the seventeenth-century, Reunion had a diverse population of settlers from around Africa, Asia, and southern Europe. The Bourbon rose was discovered growing wild in Reunion in approximately 1817.

Hybridized Bourbon roses flower in hues of white to china pink to cerise and purple. The flowers are quartered at the center and filled with overlapping petals. With their sublime fragrance, tolerance for cold temperatures, and freedom of flowering (‘Louise Odier’ remains in bloom from June until the first frost), Bourbons are amongst the most distinctive of all roses.

The following is a list of Bourbon roses successfully growing in our garden, along with one failure noted.

‘Louise Odier’ ~ 1851 ~ Bourbon ~ Delicate china pink, camellia-style flowers, enchanting and intensely fragrant. Blooms lavishly throughout the season, from early June to November, with a brief rest after the first flush of June flowers. Grows four to five feet.

‘Zéphirine Drouhin’ ~ 1868 ~ Bourbon ~ Clear hot pink. Thornless. The sensuous Bourbon fragrance is there, only not as intense relative to some others noted here. Repeat blooms. Twelve feet.

‘Madame Isaac Pereire’ ~ 1881 ~ Bourbon ~ Deep raspberry-magenta. Considered to be one of the most fragrant roses. Six to seven feet. Note: We no longer grow Madame Isaac Pereire as its buds usually turned into brown, blobby globs that rarely fully opened due to damp sea air.

‘Souvenir de Victor Landeau’ ~ 1890 ~ Bourbon ~ Deep rose pink, richly fragrant and consistently in bloom through October and into November. Pairs beautifully with Louise Odier. Four to five feet.

‘Variegata di Bologna’ ~ 1909 ~ Bourbon ~ Creamy pale pink with rose-red striations. Suffused with the heady Bourbon fragrance. The foliage becomes tattered-looking later in the season. Slight repeat bloom, although it initially flowers for an extended period of time, four to six weeks in all. Tall growing, best supported against a pillar.

‘Souvenir de Saint Anne’s’ ~ 1916 ~ Bourbon ~ Ivory flushed with warm pink and cream single to semi-double blossoms. Sensuous Bourbon fragrance. Compact growing, ideal for the garden room. Continually blooming. Two feet. Note: ‘Souvenir de St. Anne’ is a sport of ‘Souvenir de la Malmaison’ (1843), with the similar lovely colorway. The unopened buds and blooms of ‘Malmaison’ have the tendency to be ruined in damp air, whereas ‘St. Anne’s’ do not.

Several tips for improved rose culture:

Aphids are soft-bodied, winged and non-winged, gnat-sized insects found in a range of colors — bright green, reddish brown, orange, yellow, and black. They form colonies on the tender new growth tips of roses and will suck the moisture out of every flower bud. Vigilance is key. Simple and organic methods for controlling aphids include spraying the infested area vigorously with a garden hose set on a jet stream directed onto the infested new growth (preferably in the very early morning to allow the foliage to dry) and then repeating this routine for a total of three days; snipping the infested tips and discarding them into the trash; or introducing beneficial insects such as ladybugs, praying mantises, and green lacewings.

If spraying with a garden hose proves to be ineffective, or you do not want to wet the foliage for three days during a particularly damp season, try a mixture of one tablespoon (begin with a tablespoon or two, gradually increasing the dose as needed) of Dr. Bonner’s peppermint soap to one gallon of water. Spray liberally; this will suffocate the pesky creatures.

Ladybugs and praying mantises will stay if there is a continual supply of food. For the past several years we have done nothing at the onset of an aphid invasion. The welcome green lacewings have decided to call our garden home; the larvae of the green lacewing efficiently eradicates the aphids. Their nickname, “aphid lion,” gives an indication of the role the lacewings play in the rhythm of the garden.

Pruning is necessary to maintain the overall desired shape of the rose plant, to increase its number of blossoms, and to keep pests and diseases at bay. To encourage vertical growth while becoming established, climbers and ramblers should not be pruned. When it does become necessary to prune a rose plant, cut off to the base old, dark brown woody canes that are no longer flowering. Canes crossing over other canes can be removed for a neater appearance. Weak and twiggy growth and blackened tips from winter damage should also be removed.

Bourbon roses generally require minimal pruning. Roses that bloom repeatedly throughout the summer (this includes all the aforementioned Bourbons, with the exception of ‘Variegata di Bologna’) should be pruned just after the first flush of flowering. Repeat bloomers also benefit from diligent deadheading and an occasional neatening during their extended period of florescence, by removing tattered foliage and twiggy growth. In early March, and again after the first flush of flowers, remove weak and twiggy growth and apply a three- to four-inch layer of compost to the drip-line to help control black spot.

A sepal, a petal, and a thorn
Upon a common summer’s morn—
A flash of Dew—A Bee or two—
A Breeze—
A caper in the trees—
And I’m a Rose!

Emily Dickinson

End Notes: Please join me on Sunday, June 21st from 10 am to 11am for a book signing and informal lecture at the Sargent House Museum’s garden festival. For tickets and information about the weekend-long event, information is available on their website.

The 2009 Summer Concert Series at Willowdale Estate begins on Thursday, June 18th at 7:30 pm. “At the Heart of June” features the music of Martinu, Poulens, and Messiaen for piano, cello, clarinet, and violin. Light reception sponsored by Willowdale. Tickets are on sale now at Eden’s Edge.

David Bromige: 1933—2009

We were very sad to hear of the recent passing of noted poet and Black Sparrow author David Bromige. The acclaimed poet D.A. Powell has a touching remembrance of Bromige at The Poetry Foundation blog, Harriet: "I think I probably took 18 classes from David Bromige, including my undergraduate classes and my graduate courses. After completing my B. A., I hung around and did an M. A. in English. In 1993, as I was working on my thesis, the state of California — suffering from a budget crisis, as always — extended a 'golden handshake' offer to faculty at the top of the salary scale. It was a handsome deal, and David was one of many who were drawn into early retirement. One of the requirements, though, was that the retiree would have to cease work immediately; not even finishing out the semester. This would have left me without my poetry advisor. David graciously offered to oversee the completion of my studies without pay."

You can learn more about David Bromige at Wikipedia, and find a nice collection of online resources at the University of Buffalo.

Leithauser on Updike

Congratulations to those first fine five folks who emailed us for posters — they are on their way. Enjoy!

And a quick note: Godine author Brad Leithauser has a nice review today, at Slate, of John Updike's final collection of short stories. Brad writes, "It has become almost a cliché to marvel over Updike's adherence to Henry James's dictum that the writer should be 'one of the people on whom nothing is lost.' For Updike, no meaningful experience went unrecorded and unpublished, ingeniously translated into fiction or verse. Over time, loyal readers began to feel a companionable connectedness not merely with his writing but with his much-photographed life."

You can also read David Godine's thoughtful note on the occasion of Updike's passing here.

The Great Godine Poster Giveaway

We have some lovely posters here in our office (strays from BEA) which we are going to give away to the first five readers who email info@godine.com with the subject line BEA Poster Giveaway and their address in the message body.

The posters:

Back from BEA

We're all back from BEA, and wiped out. As has been widely reported, the show this year was smaller than in the past. A few of the heavy-hitters downsized from aisle-length booths to basement meeting rooms, fewer publishers were giving away galleys, and overall attendance was down (whether by nature or design, as I hear the officials were stingier this year with badges). Our booth was full of disappointment — not because we had less material to give away or took fewer orders than usual, or anything like that, but because David Godine had to leave for his daughter's high school graduation.

Aside from the disappointed faces of so many visitors to our booth — who inevitably were there because they're old friends of David — Book Expo 2009 was a great success. We gave away almost all of our galleys, most of our letterpress marketing material, all the posters we wanted to give, and got to meet some very interesting reviewers and other (always wonderful) industry people. There was plenty of interest in our new titles and we put together some very strong orders. If you were there and didn't see us, feel free to call up to place an order.

It's BEA Season!

Readers of this blog may have noticed how quiet it's been lately. This is due, in large part, to the fact that BEA Season has held our office hostage for the last few weeks. A shantytown of boxes, posters, galleys, bookmarks, foamcore-mounted book covers, and assorted letterpress giveaways, has been amassing around my desk as the day (this Thursday) approaches. I'm extremely grateful that the show is in New York this year, and not Los Angeles, as in 2008 — removes the momma-bird-like tension of letting all this precious promotional material out to cross the country in the hands of FedEx. I'll tell you what: it was a tense few days waiting for confirmation that everything had arrived in LA safe and sound. No such trauma this year.

We're going to have some really great promotional material available at the booth: galleys for Le Clézio's novel Desert and Robert Reid's memoir Arctic Circle; a set of pages from Yousuf Karsh's Regarding Heroes bound in a letterpress cover that David Godine printed himself; an essay from The Guardian (UK) on the enduring appeal of Lark Rise to Candleford, also with a DRG original letterpress cover; some gorgeous new posters; and a new array of bookmarks. If you're a bookseller in the area (right in the front, to the right of the main entrance as you come in) please stop by to say hello, take a look at our 2009 titles, and maybe even place an order. The list is altogether, I think, remarkably strong this year.

We'll be at booth 4204, hope to see you in NYC!

Sphinx Moths

I am frequently asked about sphinx moths, the most common question, “What is that furry flying creature nectaring at the butterfly bushes?” This week’s column is a recycled version of an older article on sphinx moths, which I hope you will find helpful. Photos of an unusual red form of the Virginia creeper sphinx moth caterpillar, and the eclosed adult, are also included.

We were delighted with the sheer numbers of Snowberry and Hummingbird Clearwing moths nectaring in our gardens this past summer. There were so many clearwings nectaring on a butterfly bush at Willowdale one afternoon that I actually saw two sort of crash into each other. I’ve sent for several snowberry bushes (Symphoricarpos albus var. albus) from a reputable mail order source and will keep you posted on their culture. Snowberry bushes are often seen in older gardens. They are a suckering shrub ideal for a dry, partly shaded location. They eventually grow to five feet, possibly higher. The bush has a lovely habit when, in late summer, the branches arch from the weight of the popcorn-look-alike plump white berries, and are juxtaposed against the deep green opposite leaves. Symphoricarpos albus var. albus is the species native to eastern regions of the United States; Symphoricarpos var. albus var. laevigatus is native to the Pacific Northwest. Snowberry, a member of the Caprifoliaceae (Honeysuckle Family), is a larval host plant for both the Hummingbird and Snowberry clearwing moths and the berries are an important winter food source for quail, grouse, and pheasant. Attention backyard gardeners: unfortunately snowberry is listed by the U.S. federal government as endangered in Massachusetts, Kentucky, Maryland, Illinois, and extirpated in Ohio.

I love plants that have a suckering habit because once they become established, as with our native spiraea (Spiraea latifolia), it is rewarding to dig up a clump and passalong to a fellow gardener. I am looking forward to receiving our suckering snowberry bushes!

I will be signing books at the Ipswich Garden Club’s much anticipated annual plant sale, this coming Saturday morning, beginning at 9:00 am. The plant sale is at the Hall-Haskell House/ Visitors Center.

This weekend only, the Wenham Museum is holding a new fundraising event titled Tablescapes, featuring table settings designed by local businesses. Briar Forsythe, the proprietor of Willowdale Estate, and I have partnered to create what we are calling an Alfresco Birthday Party in the Butterfly Courtyard Garden. For more information about Willowdale Estate, a full service special events venue, and their butterfly and songbird garden I designed, visit my webpage at Willowdale Estate. For more information about Tablescapes, visit the Wenham Museum’s website.

[Kim Smith is the author of Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities!]

Think Native Asters in Spring

We tend to think of asters only in fall. Surrounded by spring’s emergent beauty, it is easy to lose oneself in the flowering tree families of Magnoliaceae, Rosaceae, Cornaceae, and Fabaceae. Add to that the living picture of nesting songbirds, blossoming shrubs, bulbs, and wildflowers, then followed by summer’s luxuriant bounty — understandably so — we often fail to adequately plan in spring for fall blooms and butterflies. I encourage you to consider integrating native species of asters in your overall garden design. Plant aster seeds collected, a nursery-grown pot, or a pass-along from a friend, and, come next fall, you will be richly rewarded for your foresight. The luminous lower angle of light gilding the late summer New England landscape creates an ethereal haze when seen through the purples, lavender-blues, rosy-pinks, and white inflorescence of calico, New York, New England, late-purple, and smooth asters, to name but a handful, transforming roadside, meadow, and garden.

Asters are one of the most important plants for providing nectar in late summer and autumn for all categories of pollinators. Listed on the website of the Connecticut Botanical Society are perhaps thirty or so asters native to New England. The following three beauties I have in mind for your gardens not only provide nectar; they are also larval host plants for many species of Lepidoptera: smooth aster (Aster laevis), flat-topped white aster (Aster umbellatus), and New England aster (Aster novae-angliae). The neatly compact Wood’s asters that are commonly available at garden centers have their place in the landscape design when a low mounding plant is desired. We see comparatively far fewer butterflies on Wood’s asters than the three aforementioned straight species.

The flower clusters of flat-topped aster are usually flat, but occasionally may appear dome shaped. The lacey white ray flowers surround the yellow disk florets and the leaves are a larval food plant for the Harris Checkerspot butterfly (Chlosyne harrisii). Aster umbellatus grows anywhere from 2 to 7 feet. Typically, in the well-tended garden, it will grow towards the taller side, as does New England aster. Plant both in the back of the border. The foliage on the lower part of the stems of New England aster tends to dry out towards blooming time; plant lower- growing perennials such as Montauk daisy and goldenrods in the foreground to disguise the ratty looking foliage. Flat-topped asters, New England, and smooth asters begin to bloom in September. They tolerate a variety of soil and light conditions, however, they will thrive when planted in full sun and in rich, moist soil.

New England asters bloom in shades of deep purple and pink, more intense in color when compared to other native asters. I can’t talk about New England asters without mentioning my friend Joe Ann’s patch. Hers runs along the back length of her luxuriantly lush vegetable garden. In mid- to late September, the blossoms become a nectar magnet for all manner of pollinator on the wing. The combination of masses of Persian pink blossoms, bees, and butterflies are truly a sight to behold.

Not only are smooth asters a top source of nectar for Monarch butterflies (and many species of butterflies) during their annual fall migration, they are also a larval host plant for the Pearly Crescentspot (Phyciodes tharos) butterfly (see photo in last week’s column) and Northern Crescent (Phyciodes selenis). If I had to choose a favorite of the favorites, it would have to be smooth aster. The cheery lavender-blue ½ inch button-sized flowers are a lovely addition to the butterfly garden. I like that they reseed prolifically throughout the borders, realizing however, that this trait may not be to every one’s taste. Smooth aster is a common sight in our neighborhood and grows vigorously along the shoreline, particularly in wet swampy areas.

Generally speaking, the majority of native wildflower seeds will germinate without pretreatment when planted outdoors in fall or early winter. To plant in spring or summer, a physical modification to the seed’s coat is often needed to allow the embryo to mature or break dormancy. New England aster seeds require a period of moisture and cold after harvesting before they will germinate. If planting in spring, this period is artificially simulated by placing the moistened seed in a refrigerator for a certain length of time. Place the seeds in a small container with moist (not wet) sand, peat or vermiculite, and leave in the refrigerator for four to six weeks. This procedure is known as stratification, because of the layering of the seeds within the medium. Look at the seeds from time to time. The seeds must be kept moist while pre-chilling but it doesn't usually benefit them to be actually in water or at temperatures below freezing. Light is also beneficial after pre-chilling. Pre-chilled New England aster seeds should have only the lightest covering of compost or soil, 1/4 to 1/8 inch.

End Notes: — Weston Nurseries often carries ‘Alma Potchke,’ a lively, almost hot pink, cultivar of New England aster. Garden in the Woods at the New England Wild Flower Society offers the straight species of New England aster. I am giving away seeds of New England asters with purchase of book. — If you are planning to attend my class (first class is this coming Tuesday, May 5th) at the Arnold Arboretum, “Your Garden as Habitat,” please register at your earliest convenience to assure a spot. — Oh Garden of Fresh Possibilities! would make a terrific Mother’s Day gift. Please come join me, if you can, the weekend of Mother’s Day at the upcoming book signings and events: — Barnes and Noble at the Prudential Center, Boston. Thursday May 7, 2009 at 4:30 pm. — Jabberwocky Bookshop at the Tannery in Newburyport on Friday May 8, 2009 at 7:00 pm. — The Stevens-Coolidge Place Annual Plant Sale on Saturday, May 9, 2009 from 10:00 am to 2 pm. Butterfly walks and book signing.

Jane's Walk in Cambridge

I'm still coming down from my Jane's Walk high. It was truly an exhilarating experience.

A couple months ago, Jane’s Walk USA asked us, the authors of Genius of Common Sense: Jane Jacobs and the Story of Death and Life of Great American Cities, if we might organize a walk in our city. Begun in Canada the year after Jane died in 2006, the walks honor the memory and spirit of author and urban activist Jane Jacobs on the weekend closest to her birthday on May 4. According to Janeswalk.org, the walks offer "a street-level celebration of Jane Jacobs ideas and legacy."

This Saturday, our Jane's Walk here in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a smashing success. We had chosen an urban fringe area on both sides of the railroad tracks between Porter Square and Sherman Street in North Cambridge. Within the last ten or fifteen years, these once crime-ridden, semi-industrial streets have sprouted attractive infill construction and gone through major rehab and reuse of old buildings.

We had forty enthusiastic walkers — many were longtime fans of Jane. And we were thrilled to have Jane's niece and nephew, Nancy and Robin McBride, as well as city councilor Henrietta Davis, former mayor Frank Duehay, and Michael Kenney, reporter from the Boston Globe. Charles Sullivan, the head of the city’s historical commission led us, brilliantly providing historical background, maps, and Winslow Homer’s 1859 engraving of a view along the tracks of Cambridge’s cattle market.

As we walked by a large co-housing project, a resident putting in her “sweat equity” took time from her gardening to describe life in an “intentional community.” One of our walkers, who lived in a converted broom factory that we passed on our route, invited us to see her glorious enclosed garden bordering the tracks. We also unexpectedly bumped into and heard insider views of the neighborhood from Joanna Malenfant, daughter of the late Geneva Malenfant whom Charlie Sullivan called “Cambridge’s own Jane Jacobs.”

Back in Porter Square, a large group of us wound things up at Christopher’s restaurant, not quite Jane’s White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street, but nevertheless an old neighborhood establishment in a nineteenth-century building. We sipped and ate and continued conversation.

The whole event was truly a blast, with its serendipity and lively discussion among the walkers. We loved gathering a group of folks for the sole purpose of strolling through a more-or-less ordinary neighborhood for a little urban exploration and contemplation.

Yes, the walk should certainly be the first of many. It far exceeded any of our expectations — in turn-out, chance encounters, and enjoyment.

Max Allen, a Jane’s Walk organizer in Toronto, had emailed on Friday that there were going to be 140 Walks in that city alone. Other Canadian cities boast many. American cities joined in this year. This feels like the beginning — or continuation — of a movement. Hats off to Jane Jacobs and her books!

[The author of this post is Glenna Lang, co-author of Genius of Common Sense, as well as several other Godine titles.]

Charting the Emotional Landscape

CHARTING the EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE: The Fugue as Poem

Following the death of my father from metastatic lung cancer in 1991 (he had never smoked a cigarette), my relationship to language changed.

For decades I had forced it to carry the weight of my various frustrated angers, starting with the early poems of Mad Dog Black Lady (reprinted in African Sleeping Sickness). The contradiction inherent in the title of that first book amused me — being mad yet being polite about it. I wanted to "say it plain" as the dictum goes; but, my penchant for complexities, and admiration for the genuinely profound went artistically unsatisfied. I was constantly seeking a way to lend depth and scope to my poetry — particularly after being criticized for (apparently) writing too easily — something I was unaware of doing, since it may have taken hours of intense focus, a dozen revisions, over years, if lucky, to compose a given poem; although I managed an average of a hundred poems per year, in various stages of completion. (This does not rule out other types of writing experiences, such as the "automatic" and "being in the zone." Yet I'd hesitate to classify work emerging from those experiences as "easy.")

How, I wondered, does a poet make one's effort evident without putting the reader to sleep? How could I sustain my stubborn purpose and volcanic content without resorting to a traditional form, which might deaden my text in its familiarity? How do I invite the reader into the process, and yet "lock" my language? How do I present familiar emotional content in an unfamiliar form? How do I vent my fury, exuberance or love, all of those, and yet transcend it / them in the same extended moment?

Even as I asked such questions, my answer was coming about on its own — related to my childhood encounters with music (which I discussed in The Riot Inside Me), with an emphasis on the classical music taught in junior high school, coupled with my adult appreciation of the blues and jazz. I had always loved the minor keys, discordance and the contrapuntal as generators of musical ironies — and enjoyed their counterparts in elevated conversation and cultural dialogue. What knitting of a comprehensive musically inclined whole (akin to collage, perhaps pieces of Pound’s Cantos wiggling around in my subconscious and tripping across Theolonious) from fragments, the overheard, snippets of ideas, combined in unexpected ways, offered exciting, challenging and unexpected poetic leaps? My answer was the fugue. In it, one finds the discipline of structure wedded to the freedom of movement. When I went back and examined some of my longer poems, such as "Essay on Language" (6/86, in Heavy Daughter Blues), I realized that I had already begun exploring my version of the fugue.

Since, I've managed to compose five fugues. The playful "The Ron Narrative Reconstructions," a nod to poet Ron Silliman (in Bathwater Wine), was my first fully realized fugue, and was written in January 1995. "Salvation Wax" (10/95, also Bathwater Wine), was the third, the most biographical, and, I think, the most important of the fugues, the longest poem I have written to date; however, the last one, "Amnesia Fugue" (4/99), which appears in Mercurochome, has become my favorite. In these fugues, I am doing what was wished for in Hand Dance (performing 'the ritual of the whole . . . shaping a certainty'), as suggested in the form of the poems "ethiopian in the fuel supplies," "Essay on Language (2)," "Vet" and "Cancer" — poems in which I explore the "shattered narrative."

The series is completed with "Night Widow Fugue" (9/97), my homage to unmarried / unloved Black women of all ages. It is wed to "Sorceress of Muntu" (5/73), the first of the fugues drafted, but which remained unfinished until its revision in August 1997. In it, I pitch a royal bitch about my frustrated "writing career." I had intended to use "Sorceress" as the title poem of a separate manuscript; however, the phrases it apparently "needed" for completion had failed to materialize. I had tried fitting it into other manuscripts, but it overwhelmed them. In Ostinato Vamps (University of Pittsburgh Press) it is not only a perfect fit, but an exquisite climax. It equals "Amnesia" as my favorite of the fugues.

For the years between “Salvation Wax” and “Amnesia Fugue”, I favored the older work. Their common theme is the death of my eldest son from HIV / AIDS. In the first, he is dying. In the second he is dead. As time passes, the latter holds more emotional weight, therefore more impact. It is difficult for me to read it. I often present sections of "Salvation" in public; rarely so with "Amnesia," perhaps because there is still too much painful immediacy in its narrative. Too much sadness.

Will I write another fugue?

Perhaps.

The series seems to have ended itself. It’s as if I’ve exhausted the need that created these poems. I don’t know the definitive answer, although I wish I had the luxury of time to worry it onto paper. In the meantime, I regard the fugue as a remarkable way in which to recreate given moments, explore new impulses, expand aesthetic arguments, and refine one’s emotional content in the process of composing the poem. It is a form for those who delight in deepening revelations.

Le Clézio Reading at MIT

For those of you who missed the event, which I discussed briefly here, we've received permission from the author to post this recording of his MIT talk this past Tuesday. If you enjoy it — I think you just might — have a go at his novel The Prospector, before we release his breakthrough work, Desert.