Month: August 2010

It’s through the wonders of technology that the photographer Steve McCurry is able to share these wonderful images online, but the fact remains that what these images capture is the sight of people reading books. A beautiful melding of arts.

  Ever since Gutenberg invented the printing press which enabled everyone to read books, artists have tried to portray the relationship of a reader and his/her book.        Garrett Stewart's book, The Look of Reading:  Book, Painting, Text, explores the relationship of reading and art.       We are familiar with words describing images, but not so familiar with images describing words and the impact reading has on our lives.           Artists fro … Read More

via Steve McCurry's Blog

Some folks hither and yon come clean about their week every Tuesday. In that spirit (let’s not speculate what the following says about my psyche):

• I confess that, as I was driving with the boys to visit my mum, we ran into traffic. Complete standstill. “What’s ‘traffic?'” Vincent asked. (Good question, m’dear!) I pointed to all the cars, explained that we all wanted to go the same way and were slowing each other down. “No,” sage Vincent replied. “When you drive really slow, that’s called ‘being in a parade.'”
• Driving home again with the boys strapped in their seats in back after several days at my mum’s, we ran into another logjam. No commentary from Vincent, exhausted sleeping boy. But as I sat there, stuck in traffic that was stalled for no apparent reason — construction, accident, overflow from an on-ramp — it occurred to me that anything could be up ahead — sinkhole, stampeding elephants, zombies — and I’d run right into it, just another cow mooing along, blithely following the herd straight into disaster.
• I confess that I really don’t want to die a stupid Darwin Award sort of death. Really.

*

But I can’t end a confession post on that note. I think that’s against the rules. Or it should be.

Reminder:  Any poet-blog folks who are interested in participating in a Tupelo Press Poets on Parade (Parade!) sort of blog author tour (reviews/interviews/what-have-you), drop me a line at mgauthier [at] tupelopress [dot] org.  I confess we’ve never done this before, and I’m excited about it.

As I’ve mentioned (probably many) times, while Vincent has always been hyper-verbal, when it comes to Aidan, now 19 months, not so much. He says “Hi,” “Bye-bye,” “Cat,” and, occasionally, “Daddy.”  Yes, there’s a vital word missing here.

He also has learned and uses consistently some sign language, especially the sign for “more.” He uses that to indicate more of just about anything. He puckers his mouth when he wants a kiss. He shakes his head, “No,” and bobs his entire body to say, “Yes.” I taught him “I love you,” in sign language by pointing to myself, crossing my arms, then pointing to him while I say it. His version is to point at himself with both hands, hold his arms, uncrossed, to his chest as if he’s hugging something, and then push both his hands at me, while he says, “Unh…unh…UNH!” I like his version very much.

His range of sounds is really quite expressive.

A low grunty “uuhhh” functions as his default word/words. If he says this while rubbing his head or patting his knee, he’s saying,”I bumped my head, ” or “I hurt my knee.”  If he says it while pointing at the faucet or the fridge, he’s telling us that he wants a drink or something to eat.

Whenever he says it, what we’ve come to understand is that he is using it intentionally, trying to tell us something. It’s not a cry, or a whine, or other form of complaint. He’s talking to us.

Having a conversation with Vincent is one of the great joys of my life. He’s creative, funny, thoughtful. I’m one of six, so I know better than to burden Aidan with expectations, but there’s knowing and knowing, and he’s been more than a little confounding until now. And I’m a poet, a reader, someone who prizes words; it’s hard not to long for him to start using some himself.

But discovering this, his grunty little sentences, is a revelation. Aidan may not be speaking much yet, but he is indeed learning language structure, and he is communicating. And if you’re paying attention, understanding him is the easiest thing in the world.