My Year in Lists: 2011

Reading

• Final count: 47 books, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry!
• Most fun: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, which I read twice! I also read the first five sequels in the Mary Russell series in a matter of months.
• Biggest surprise: Eat, Pray, Love. I can admit that I found it profoundly moving when I read it last spring. Sometimes books live up to their hype.
• Greatest accomplishment: Vanity Fair. It was looooooooong. Fortunately, its awesomeness was proportional to its length.
• Highest quality to quantity ratio: Winesburg, Ohio. Written about small town Ohio in the early 20^th century, Sherwood Anderson's tiny little collection of short stories was phenomenally beautiful, sad, and honest. I have no idea why I left it collecting dust on my To Read bookshelf for so long.
• Best poetry: Sleeping Preacher. 
• Fictional character I was most in love with: It’s a tie between Mary Russell’s Holmes or Mr. Thornton from North and South. (Feel free to draw your own conclusions from this!)

Television

I was all about period dramas this year. My favorites were

• The absolutely brilliant Downton Abbey from Masterpiece Theater.
• Granada’s beautiful 1980s interpretations of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. 
• The VampireDiaries. (Hey, there’s enough Civil War in there that I’m going to count it!) 

All three of these were superbly written and beautifully produced and addictive as all get out. Thank you, Netflix!

Music

What didn’t I listen to this year? Here’s a playlist of a few of my favorite songs from a few of my favorite artists this year. Most of these albums didn't come out in 2011, but they've all spent a lot of time on my iPod in 2011. 

Real Life

This year was tumultuous, at best, and while I was never bored, I was never quite at ease, either. 

The good:

• Three good friends got married and another got pregnant for the first time. 
• I got a new job that I love and am consistently challenged by.
• I traveled to Denver and Winfield and Manhattan, Kansas had a great time with friends at all three locations. 
• I did a lot of yoga and played a lot of softball and even did a bit of belly dancing. 
• I started a book club with my friends.
• I submitting my writing for publication again for the first time in years, and had a poem accepted for publication sometime in 2012!

The bad:

• I had an icky bout of bursitis that kept me on the couch for a good chunk of the fall. 
• My university went through a substantial restructuring process, and not everyone made it out unscathed. 
• My mom was in the hospital twice and recovering from surgery for a good part of the year.
• My grandma was in the hospital for a stroke and had to move to a nursing home with her husband in the fall.
• My grandpa was in the hospital twice, first for a hip injury and again for blood clots a few weeks ago.

The confusing: 

• Even awesome new jobs can be terribly stressful, baffling, brain-addling things.
• I set aside my first savings for retirement and taught myself about a bunch of grown-up stuff like building credit and buying cars and health insurance deductibles. Yay responsibility?
• I spent a lot of time thinking about Occupy Wall Street and the recession and global warming and the crimes at Penn State. The future seems more complicated and challenging than it ever has before.

When I look back on this year, I think that I’ll remember it as the first time that I realized that whenever life gets harder, sadder, or scarier, it also gets more interesting, gains a richer texture, becomes more precious and vital in its complexity. Life is a bit like beer: yes, Bud Lite (i.e. college life) is easy to drink, but it’s the bitter complexity of the hops that makes an IPA (being a 28-year-old) memorable. 

I’m glad I was here for 2011, whatever challenges it’s held, and I’m glad I got the chance to drink it to its dregs. So if you're lucky enough to live in the Midwest, go find yourself a Boulevard Single-Wide IPA and have a happy new year. See you again in 2012!

Dear Winfield

Winfield, this year, on your 40th birthday, you left me exhausted, cranky, damp, bruised, and--let's be honest--slightly hungover. You confronted me with strangers who laughed and called me "a Winfield virgin" as they slapped parking stickers my windshield. You gave me a puddle to sleep in and a few hours at a laundromat manhandling wet sleeping bags. You gave me a tornado watch. You gave me a near death experience involving lighting, a nearby power plant, and a sky full of sparks. You gave me four pairs of wet socks in 36 hours. You gave me two sacks of damp, muddy, funky laundry. You covered my cowboy boots with a thick crust of mud.  You did the same to my Ford Escort, which after some pretty serious off-roading will be forever known as Mud Puppy. You gave me epically sore feet and a crick in my back and a sleep deficit reminiscent of my sophomore year of college.

The new tent, which my friend Ryan helped me stake up using his ninja knot tying skills.

But, Winfield, you also gave me and endless sea of bluegrass and old timey folk music as far as the ear could hear. You gave me Ashes to Immortality, Hot Club of Cowtown, Fast Food Junkies,  Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul, and Dumptruck Butterlips. You gave me strangers who shared directions and their campgrounds, strangers who offered me bags of wine and bowls of pasta salad and the use of their gas stoves. You gave me a new tent that has already proven itself both rainproof and seaworthy. You gave me lunches of cheese and bagels, pears, pumpkin bread, iced coffee, and brownies. You gave me gyros and kettle corn. You gave me two nights of listening to music and dancing with friends and happy strangers until 4:00 in the morning. You gave me music, adventure, camaraderie, and a really cool tee shirt.

Lunch, day 2.

Winfield, what I'm trying to say is I love you. See you again next year, same time, same place?

Yours oh so truly,
Lesley

Summertime . . .

and the living is hot. Like really hot. Like "Oh, good Lord, where's the ice bath?!" hot.

The first 100 degree day of summer is upon us here in Kansas. Instead of getting cranky about it as I sweat to death on my couch, I want to write about my favorite summer things. The power of positive thinking and all that.  ;)

Here's what I love about summer:

1. Produce, produce, produce. There's so much delicious fruit in grocery stores and at the farmers' market that I actually have to work to eat it all. It's fantastic: first come the strawberries, then the nectarines and peaches, then the melons, and, of course, there are always the apples to look forward to in the fall. And don't even get me started on the cucumbers and salad greens! Ooooo, the salad greens! (Okay, so I like food--can you tell?)
2. The smell of barbecue. I like the taste, too, but barbecue is so heavy that I prefer salads and hummus and veggie-based dishes in the summer. Ugh, who can handle a belly full of greasy brats and burgers when it's this hot? But the smell permeates my neighborhood as the college kids crack open beers and grill on their decks. All of downtown is rich with charcoal smoke, Frisbee games, and lawn chairs.
3. How cold things taste extra amazing. Ice cream. Popsicles. Frosted and dripping bottles of beer straight from a cooler. Enough said.
4. The lake. I haven't gone swimming this year, but I'm desperate to! I miss wasting a whole afternoon splashing around in Clinton Lake between rounds of laying out under the blistering sun. (Well sun screened, of course!) And it's weird, I know, but I love the smell of the lake--it's so rich, so fishy and dirty and musty and gloppy somehow. It smells alive. I like it much, much better than chlorine.
5. Music. There are silly summer hits on the radio and fantastic concerts in Kansas City every night of the week. I've only gone to one show so far this year, but I've passed up about four great ones due to time conflicts. The music industry (and the whole world, it seems) is so gloriously busy in summer!
6. Nighttime. For me, my least favorite thing about summer is that the heat makes it hard to get a good night's sleep (at least in my apartment!). But the upside is that everyone seems to stay up a little bit later to take advantage of the cool night air. Summer nights are great for parties, for camping, for movie marathons, and for reading late into the night. There's something truly wonderful about being up at 3:00 a.m. on a summer night to hear the cicadas singing in the cool, damp air, and watching the moon high and bright overhead.
7. The haze. I love how everything and everyone slows down when it's really hot. We have no choice in the matter: the air feels like molasses. It's hard to move, to breath, to even think. The promise of heat stroke makes everyone pant, sweat, and sprawl their way slowly through the daylight hours. It's a sort of forced laziness. You have time to hear the crickets creaking, to watch the lightning bugs flicker, to smell the damp grass when twilight comes. Summer may be the loudest season--full of bugs and animals, fireworks, outdoor festivals, and wind--but  it always feels like the quietest season to me. It asks me to feel the sweat and salt on my skin, to stop moving so far and so fast, to hear my own thoughts moving through my own head. 

A Few of My Favorite Things: The Hippie Edition

As I've mentioned earlier, it's been a busy month. First came an editing job on a tight deadline, which was followed by an intense drafting process for an essay that was due to my writing group, and then there was yet another editing job. (Oy! Freelance work seems to come in threes, just like deaths!)

Basically, I haven't had a lot of down time since January, so I've been trying to take it a little easy this weekend by enjoying a few of my favorite things. So, in the spirit of Mrs. E's "favorite things" posts over on Easy Street, here's one of my own--but a Lawrence hippie edition!

I've been watching a whole lot of Slings & Arrows this weekend. It's a Canadian comedy about a Shakespearean theater company struggling through various artistic and financial crises following the death of their artistic director. The former artistic director returns as a ghost to collaborate with (read: torment) his old friend and replacement as the company puts on Hamlet.

 
I love, love, LOVE this show--it's so smart, so well written, and so damn literate that I can hardly stand it. It's intensely funny (one of the main writers was an actor on both Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live), and the characters are amazing. I am so sad that there are only eighteen episodes of it (three seasons at six episodes each)--I'm almost done already!

So why's it hippie-tastic? Helloooo! It's all about arts funding and dramatic actors and romance and Shakespeare--with that earring, you know he wasn't precisely conventional.

I've been listening to a band called Pentangle. They're a British folk rock band from the late 1960s and early 1970s. I've heard them described as "folk-jazz" and "acid-folk." Yup, hippie-tastic.

I've been using my new Neti pot since my "seasonal" allergies have decided to make their appearance in this unusually warm February weather. It's been helping a lot with what I believe to be dust and mold allergies.

Why's it hippie-tastic? Neti pots originated in the Ayurvedic and yogic medical traditions. Also, look at this guy.

I've also been loving my newest thrift store find (wearing second-hand clothes is distinctly earth-loving and hippie-ish, by the way):

It's a fantastic khaki-colored blazer, which I got from the Salvation Army for $4.99. It's perfectly preserved and made of a somewhat yucky-feeling, stiff polyester-cotton blend (it's obviously from the late '70s or early '80s), but that just means it's the kind of garment that's going to last, like, forever. And it looks damn good with a colorful, flowy scarf; skinny jeans; and cowboy boots.

And last but obviously not least, I made homemade granola for the first time. I was buying Kroger's 100% Natural Cereal and eating entire boxes in three or four sittings--it was not a cost-effective way to live! So I thought I'd try my own version adapted from Alton Brown's recipe, a famous and somewhat complicated Allrecipes.com recipe, and what I had in my cabinet.

It turned out really, really, really well. I had a hard time not licking the spoon even before it was baked, and it's pretty fantastic now that it's cool and ready for some milk or yogurt.

Yum. Hippie life never looked so delicious. (See the recipe below.)


It's been a fun weekend, but I'm not looking forward to getting back to the grind tomorrow. But at least I can munch on granola before work tomorrow, and no one needs to know what I'm listening to on my iPod. More songs about knights and thyme and meadows, please!

---------------
Lesley's Granola

5 cups rolled oats
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup sunflower seeds
3/4 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup craisins

Stir together rolled oats, almonds, sunflower seeds, and coconut in a large bowl.

Combine the vegetable oil, salt, honey, and brown sugar in a pan and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add the cinnamon and vanilla extract to the liquid mixture, stirring well.

Stir the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients. Spread the granola on two baking sheets covered in aluminum foil. Bake at 300 degrees for 30 minutes, stirring and flipping the granola every five to ten minutes to avoid clumps and stickage.

Allow the granola to cool on the pan before mixing together with the craisins. Serve hot with milk or cold with milk, yogurt, or cereal. Or just stick your face in the bowl and gnash--whatever floats your boat!

2010 Recap

As much as I'm looking forward to 2011, 2010 has already been incredibly novel for me. My life has changed drastically in the last year, and so have I. So instead of posting a list of resolutions or expectations for the new year, here's my list of my favorite novelties of 2010--I think they're worth commemorating.

1. Singlehood: Breakups are hell, but, damn, I love doing what I want to do when I want to do it. There are benefits to being single--I'm starting to remember that.  :)
2. New Job: No, make that three new jobs, including two part-times and my first real nine to five (not to mention the occasional freelance editing work!). Entering the working world has been challenging, but I love paying my own way.
3. New Apartment: Downtown Lawrence. Hardwood floors. Big, bright windows. Terrible insulation and laughable wiring and one very pathetic window unit. But I love, love, love it.
4. New Friends: You know who you are!
5. Yoga: I am officially that obnoxious yoga-obsessed person! I think a lot about posture now, and balance, and the importance of feeling strong every day.
6. Healthy Living: In general, I've eaten a lot better, drank a lot less, and worked out a lot more than I have since before I started grad school. It's been great, and it hasn't felt like discipline, really--more like setting myself up to feel good every day.
7. Music: I've been listening to music constantly these past few months, especially more of the ladies (Ingrid Michaelson, Kate Nash, Nina Simone, Cat Power, Erykah Badu, and Janelle Monae) and indie stuff (Ratatat, Arcade Fire, Yeasayer, and Phoenix). I've missed it!
8. TV Obsessions: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who have improved the hell out of my life. Thank you, Netflix, Joss Whedon, and BBC!
9. New Style: My hair is red again, and shorter, and saucier, with stiff little bangs. I wear my big nerdy hipster glasses every day now. I've bought all of my favorite clothes within the past six months. I look and feel like a whole new woman.
10. New Ways of Thinking: I've worked hard this year to think in healthier ways. I try to be kinder to myself, more understanding of others, and more protective of my own mental health. It's hard work, challenging my own assumptions about the world and shedding my mental poisons, but it's work that has made me feel happier and healthier than anything else this year.

As far as years go, 2010 has been both incredibly difficult and richly rewarding, and I expect nothing less from 2011. So I'll leave you with this, one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books of 2010: Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet.

People have (with the help of their conventions) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy; but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult: everything alive holds to it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself in its own way and is characteristically and spontaneously itself, seeks at all costs to be so and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must hold to what is difficult is a certainty that will not forsake us.

Thanks, Rilke, and happy 2011 to all!

Enamored

I'm having one of those days where all I want to do is lay on my couch and read about a zillion books and do a little writing. Maybe I'm just growing weary of daleks daleks daleks all day long, but it's come upon me suddenly, the hunger for words. It happens. I've added five or six books to my Goodreads To Read shelf in the past few days. I want to read lots and lots of sci-fi and steampunk and cyberpunk and go back to my gloriously nerdy roots. I'm hungry not for high literature or for sentimental feeling or for postmodern ambiguity but for thinking. I want ideas, big, chewy, crunchy ideas with lots of vitamins and fiber and nutrition and maybe some sprinkles on top.

Anyway. You get the idea. It's lunch time, obviously. Here are some other things I'm enamored with:

• My new iPod Nano, which my lovely parents bought me for my birthday because they are awesome and because they love me
• Putting together lots of new playlists for my new iPod Nano after the gym tonight
• Laurell K. Hamilton's Meredith Gentry series. I mean, the woman can make faeries (faeries?! are you kidding me?) into fantastically creative and compelling mystery novels for adults. She is obviously some kind of genius.
• 70 degree days in November, warm breezes, cool skies, the chilled and rainy days to come.
• My birthday tomorrow. I plan on getting a massage, buying a bottle of red wine, ordering Indian take-out, and settling in for the night with a good book, which sounds like pretty much the best idea I've ever had.
• This brief essay by Lera Auerbach on The Best American Poetry blog. 
• This fantastically textured, moody, profoundly beautiful poem by Claudia Burbank on the same blog.

Enjoy, folks, and have a happy Monday.
---------------

Geranium

Thank you for the dead geranium, red
memory of a short-stemmed city.
For nickel shows, tea rooms, the rotten-egg
mill-smell that crept between the fretted sheets.
For elms that divided our limbs with dusk,
and twisted things in ash trays, girls lit with gin,
long trains moaning, the night in a plum.
Thanks, too, for captured Kaiser helmets stowed in attics,
the Alligator Man and Monkey Woman at the circus,
and rented clarinets, and dented trombones,
ladies in a savage dance, hair bound high.
Thanks, perhaps, for noon, the dark bird’s love call,
being born on ice, out of wolf, wolf.
For the stately progress of capped men
towards a gray chowder, something shaken by the gills.
And all that we devoured, and all that didn’t drown.
--Claudia Burbank

My 15 Albums

Have you heard of this? It's a facebook trend where you write a note listing 15 albums that "will stick with you" or that  "changed your life." My Aunt Janet tagged me in her facebook note, but I thought it would be more fun to share my list here.

The only constraint is that you have to write the list fast, in no longer than 15 minutes. My self-imposed constraint is that I have to pick albums that are personally important to me, that carry a lot of emotional weight with me, not just really excellent and obscure albums that make me sound cooler than I really am.  ;)

So here it goes!

1. This Fire, Paula Cole--Great music for dealing with 14-year-old feminist-ish anti-establishment rage. And (let's be honest) 26-year-old feminist anti-establishment angst. I still listen to it!
2. Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morisette--Could any female who grew up in the 1990s *not* include this in her list? I feel like I grew up with this one.
3. Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan--I'm pretty sure I listened to this every night of my freshman year of college. This is my official Favorite Album of All Time.
4. Astral Weeks, Van Morisson--Something about Van Morisson makes me feel more okay with life. It also reminds me of driving to Lawrence in my dad's truck.
5. Stunt, Barenaked Ladies--I listened to this album non-stop between the ages of 14 and 16. Don't judge me--"Light Up My Room" is amazing.
6. Moulin Rouge Soundtrack--I learned a lot about classic pop music from this soundtrack. If you want to judge me, see above. Also, how cute is Ewan McGregor?
7. Want One, Rufus Wainwright--I bought this album because I thought the cover was pretty, and I was completely enchanted. It holds up to zillions and zillions of listens, and it's still my favorite Wainwright album.
8. Everybody, Ingrid Michaelson--I started listening to Ingrid Michaelson really recently. Every song is awesome *and* useful.
9. Nashville Skyline, Bob Dylan--Connected to summertime and old boyfriends. 'Nuff said.
10. Dawson's Creek Soundtrack--Hey, I promised honesty, didn't I? I really liked a lot of the songs on this album. Thank goodness for cross promotion and The CW.
11. I Am a Bird Now, Antony and the Johnsons--Heart-wrenching. Antony goes after death and gender. Reminds me of KJHK and driving home in the rain.
12. Portions for Foxes, Rilo Kiley--I probably listened to this on the way to class every single day during my first year of grad school. Up-tempo and super-dark.
13. Bat Out of Hell, Meat Loaf--I can sing you every single song on this album word for word. Just ask.  ;)
14. O, Damien Rice--Another college favorite. Pretty, melancholy tunes. Good for rainy days and dorm rooms.
15. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Lucinda Williams--I like all of Williams's albums, but this is the one I've listened to the most. Every single song kills.

Runners Up*

• ???, Steve Miller Band--I listened to a couple of old Steve Miller Band albums when I was in junior high about a million times, but I can't remember their names for the life of me. But they made me happy.
• Sky Blue Sky, Wilco--This didn't make the list because I'm passionately in love with about three songs on this album, but the rest are only okay. Those three carry a lot of weight, though!
• A Love Supreme, John Coltrane--This is the only jazz album I've ever loved. It makes my brain feel all buzzy and profound.

*Is this cheating? If so, it's pretty fortunate that I do not care.

Becoming Buffy

I'm pretty sure that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was instrumental in getting me through the first month after my breakup.

There's something deeply rewarding about watching a strong female character beat-up some grody-faced vampire dudes. More importantly, there's something deeply rewarding about watching a profoundly cute, intrinsically girly blond girl with a great sense of humor beat up a bunch of vampires while growing from a teenager into a mature-ish adult. Grrrrl power, much?

Buffy is part of the feminist-y kick I've been on lately. I'm listening to a lot of Madonna and Lucinda Williams. I'm reading Wonder Woman comic collections and rereading some of my favorite novels that feature strong female characters, like Thea Kronborg from The Song of the Lark. I'm reading excellent articles like this one on the importance of just getting over yourself and "writing like a motherf****r."

In general, I don't feel like I see nearly enough strong, independent, fierce female characters in movies, books, and television. When I do see them, these women are rarely allowed to be both independent and happy. Instead, we're usually shown uptight career women who can only be happy when they let their guard down, give up control of their lives, and marry a hunky Mr. Right. And don't even get me started on how terrifying it is that so many young women choose Pretty Woman as their favorite romantic comedy . . . oy, vey!

But I digress. Basically, I find it difficult to find role models for how to be a woman who is single, strong, successful, and genuinely happy, which is precisely what I'm going for these days.

So what can I do about all this, besides watching all the Buffy I can lay my hands on? I guess I'm given no option but to do it for myself: If there aren't enough Crazy Badass Amazon Warrior Artist Women in the world for me to emulate, then I guess it's up to me to be one of the first.

Now, don't worry, I'm already on my way. My hair is already superhero red . . .

 and the new Buffy-esque pleather jacket is already hanging in my closet.

If I can look like a superhero, why can't I be one?

Ten Tumbled Tidbits

I don't feel like writing anything sensible today, so here's a list of what's on my mind:

1. Spring begins in less than two weeks. I love that the color of sunlight is changing and that I can smell the earth again. Yes, PLEASE.
2. Easter is one of my favorite holidays. Everyone's joyful, the weather's usually beautiful, and, let's face it, Easter candy is the best holiday candy ever. What can possibly compete with jelly beans, Sweet Tarts shaped like bunnies, malt balls, and Cadbury cream eggs? (Yes, Halloween, I am calling you out, chump!)
3. (Nerd Alert!) I've been thinking about the benefits of AP Style lately. It's unflinchingly in favor of brevity, simplicity and clarity. I think it might be a good thing.
4. I've been in an essaying sort of mood. Writing poetry every day has made me grumpy: I've grown sick of forcing line breaks and of hearing that irritatingly "poet-y" voice I sometimes fall in to. So I've given in and started writing brief lyric essays everyday instead. I like how this is going.
5. Someone recently told me that I have terrible taste in music because I like Lil' Wayne. Are you kidding me?! You can disagree with his persona, his hairdo, his violation of gun laws, and his misogyny, but, good grief, you cannot deny that the man is a brilliant poet/rapper/lyricist. And his music is funny, which I think is a rare and wonderful thing.
6. Project Runway should never have a break between seasons. Ever.
7. I'm finally reading George Eliot's Middlemarch. I love Eliot's insights into human nature, but goodness, it's wearying to read such dry, relentless, scathing satire. Just like someone already, George!
8. I'm a redhead again thanks to the efforts of my cousin Sarah, who is an amazing hairdresser! It's been a few years since I've dyed my hair, and I'm enjoying the change.
9. OmigoodnesssoexcitedwhenwillithappenahhhhIlovebasketball! (Translation: I am suitably enthused for the NCAA men's basketball tournament.)
10. I'm reading a collection of Gerard Manley Hopkins's poems very, very slowly. His work is beautiful; each line is stuffed with the complex music of sprung rhythm and constant alliteration. But his syntax is downright tortured by his sound schemes, and it's hard to pick out the meaning of some of his lines. I have to read each poem through a couple of times before my initial response ("Ooooo, pretty!") matches up with my desired response ("Aha! I see what old Manley is getting at!"). Anyway, he's good, so here's one of my favorites. Enjoy!

 ---------------

The Windhover

By Gerard Manley Hopkins 

From PoetryFoundation.org

To Christ our LordTo Christ our Lord This epigraph dedicated the poem to Jesus while echoing the Latin phrase, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam, the Jesuit motto meaning “To the Greater Glory of God.”

I caught this morning morning's minionminion favorite, darling; also, an underling or servant, king-

    dom of daylight's dauphindauphin prince; a French historical term, along with “chevalier”, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

    Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimplingwimpling rippling wing

In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

    As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

    Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

    Buckle!Buckle! to bend, attach; prepare for flight or battle. The verb could be descriptive of the bird’s action, or it could be the speaker’s imperative. AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!chevalier French word for “knight” or “champion”; pronounced Chev-ah-leer, to rhyme with “here” and “dear”

     

   No wonder of it: shéer plódshéer plód slowly, laboriously, and without break; these accent marks, inserted by Hopkins, tell the reader to place more accent or emphasis on those syllables when reading aloud makes plough down sillionsillion Fresh soil upturned by a plow (“plough”)

Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dearah my dear Compare with the same phrase in the poem “Love (III)” by George Herbert, a poet Hopkins admired.,

    Fall, gallgall to become sore, crack, or chafe themselves, and gash gold-vermilionvermilion a vibrant scarlet color.