Perie Longo’s E-Book for Kids by David Starkey
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ormer Santa Barbara poet laureate Perie Longo has a new collection of poems. However, unlike her previous books, A Mosaic of Poetry for Kids is for children, and it can only be purchased as an e-book. The Independent recently caught up with Longo, who is a licensed psychotherapist, a longtime staff member of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, and a facilitator of Poetry for Healing workshops at Hospice of Santa Barbara.
I know you’ve taught poetry to elementary-aged students for many years, but I think of you as a poet who writes primarily for other adults. I began teaching poetry to children in 1985 as a favor to a poet friend who had contracted to teach two 2nd grade classes at Adams school through California Poets in the Schools (CPITS). It took some arm twisting, as I had been teaching only college/ university students up to that time. I said I didn’t know how to teach children.
How old were your own children at the time? Ages 8 and 13. My friend had read some poems I’d written about them, and she advised I read Wishes, Lies, and Dreams by Kenneth Koch. His method is to begin with a poem by a master poet, and then show how he uses it to reach children’s experience and their language ability. I opened to the chapter on metaphor and read a line from a 3rd grade poet,“Your nose is like a banana except it isn’t yellow.” The students reeled with laughter. I had them say something about me. “Your hair is straw, but it’s more wiggly. Like worms!” They then said lines about each other, their family members, and other classroom objects. I’d never had so much fun in the classroom — with words! So they inspired you? I was so taken by the natural ability of children to write poetry, and their genius of imagination and fresh way of looking at the world. In some ways, children have helped me become a more inventive poet. Tell me how you came to write the poems in A Mosaic of Poetry. Melissa Marsted, the mother of two boys I had in poetry classes at Cold Spring School,
approached me to send some of the poems I’d written for children, having recently begun her e-book company, Lucky Penny Press. Melissa asked me to send her six [poems]. She would have artists illustrate them.
COVER STORY
But there are 12 poems and illustrations in the book. Melissa began sending me art she loved and asked me to write poems about them. Artist Nancy Shobe sent photographs of her chickens. Actually, I visited her coop and wrote several chicken poems. Originally, we were just going to have the chicken poems be a book of its own, but it morphed into Mosaic as Melissa’s vision changed for what she wanted for this first book. Since then, I’ve also worked with artist Cathy Winton on a single-poem book: In Praise of the Tomato. E-books are a new medium for you. What are the advantages and disadvantages of digital publication? Definitely, a new medium. This is the first I’ve ever done, and wouldn’t have done it without Melissa’s invitation. I don’t have experience to determine the advantages and disadvantages. I think it is much less expensive to combine text and art than in a print book of the same quality. The art is just so gorgeous! I always felt the art for my poems enhanced the poem a hundredfold. I’m not sure about the other way around.
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To purchase Longo’s e-book, visit luckypennypress.com.
Wave Riding, from the Polynesians to a Multibillion-Dollar Industry
Biking 700 Miles of the California Coast
by Charles Donelan
by Kelsey Brugger
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espite being perhaps the most admired of all sports on-screen, surfing has been less fortunate when it comes to its books. (Of Sports Illustrated’s Top Sports Books, none are about surfing.) UCSB professors Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul change this with The World in the Curl. The tome brings a broader context and a more thoughtful, analytic worldview than ever before to the exciting tale of how riding waves has become a hugely popular activity and an even more powerful icon. It’s an exhilarating trip through the curl of constant innovation that transformed the folkways of isolated Pacific islanders first into a tourist attraction, then a competitive professional sport, and finally a multibillion-dollar lifestyle industry. Starting with the Polynesian watermen and women who migrated to Hawai‘i in the 5th century, The World in the Curl follows the adventures of those brave enough to challenge the ocean’s power and the land’s prejudice in pursuit of waterborne stoke. It’s a long list, and the glory of this comprehensively researched volume is that no two surfers are alike. By digging deep in the backgrounds of such well-known founding surfers as Duke Kahanamoku, the authors have recovered others who are more obscure, but just as important. George Freeth, for example, was the Hawaiian-born son of an Irish sailor and a native Hawaiian woman, and here he is credited with, among other things, inventing the angled mode of attack that defines modern surfing. Talk about game changers; after Freeth’s angle ride, the wave’s curl becomes the locus for more than a century’s worth of style, passion, and ongoing self-expression.
The book follows Freeth’s example by cutting across the wave of standard chronology with chapters devoted instead to topics explored thematically. It turns out that the “Waikiki Dream” of perfect beaches has depended on massive coastal engineering projects bringing in sand from as far away as California nearly since the Duke was a grom. The authors’ shared background in the history of science puts them in a perfect position from which to identify and explain these crucial moments when the ocean gets caught up not only in human leisure activities but also in the profit motives of those who make these activities possible. As a result, the book touts the impact of several non-surfers on the sport, including May Rindge, the dogmatic steward of Malibu property rights who faced down the octopus of national rail and in the process created some of the world’s most valuable oceanfront real estate. The value l off The World in the Curl becomes most evident when the subjects it addresses are either overlooked or misunderstood. Board shapes come and go, but without a decent wetsuit, most of the world’s breaks would be out of season nearly all the time. In their excellent chapter on war and surfing, Westwick and Neushul break down the influence of the defense industry on the evolution not only of the modern wetsuit, which was invented by a physicist fresh off the Manhattan Project, but also of such contemporary surf-world staples as wave forecasting, fiberglass, nylon, and Styrofoam. Ultimately, the payoff for all the research and reasoning that went into this project should be a whole new conversation about our world today and the waves we rode getting to it.
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The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of Surfing by Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul (Crown Publishing) is available at area bookstores and Amazon.com.
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urfers, travelers, and native Californians Dan Malloy, Kanoa Zimmerman, and Kellen Keene took a hiatus last November and traveled 700 miles by bicycle to experience “their own backyard,” stopping along the way at farms, campgrounds, and old friends’ homes for a night or two on their 50-day adventure. The trio got a one-way train ticket to Northern California with bikes, a surfboard, wetsuits, and cameras in hand. They slowly snaked down the state, making their way back to the Central Coast and capturing their experiences with pen and paper, snapshots, and videos. The result? Slow Is Fast, their nicely crafted book, its name inspired by the Spanish mantra poco a poco, or “little by little.” They also created Moving Pictures, a short film companion for their book. Currently, they are on a book tour from Mill Valley to San Diego, where they chat with fans about the trip, screen their film, and sell their book.
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To find out when their next event is and follow them online, visit thecleanestline.com. august 22, 2013
cont’d ˘˘˘
THE INDEPENDENt
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