Tis the season and all that. When I was growing up, Christmas Eve was the night that my grandmother reserved for telling the very best stories from her Italian repetoire. No matter how we begged and pleaded to hear Leo Bruno or other Italian fairy tales the rest of the year, she always insisted that they were too long to tell any other night of the year but Christmas Eve, the longest night of the year. So to me, Christmas Eve has always held, in addition to the promise of Santa and all those presents, the magical anticipation of hearing the very best stories that the year has to offer. In that tradition, I offer a list of the best Christmas poems to read aloud on Christmas Eve, to make those hours pass more quickly and send children off to bed with visions of sugar plums and the sound of poetry delighting their ears.

Twas the Night Before Christmas Clement Clark Moore
In 1823, the New York Sentinel published an anonymous poem that was to become one of the most famous Christmas poems of all times, and redefine the way that jolly old Saint Nick was seen. The poem was an immediate hit, and Twas the Night Before Christmas is a traditional Christmas Eve reading in millions of homes around the world.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas Dr. Seuss
Theodore Seuss Geisel, the man known to millions of children and their parents as Dr. Seuss, first published How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 1957. It became an instant classic, and its subsequent translation into a television Christmas special featuring the voice of Boris Karloff introduced it to a whole new generation of children. This year, read the poem aloud to your kids BEFORE you watch the show and watch their faces light up with the spirit of Christmas.

Dominic, The Italian Christmas Donkey
So it”s not a classic poem – but I grew up hearing about Dominic, the little donkey that pulls Santa”s sleigh in Italy because the reindeer can”t climb the hills of Italy. Enjoy!

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Robert May
We all know and love the tale of plucky Rudolph who saved Christmas one foggy Christmas Eve, but there”s more to the story. Read about how the character of Rudolph was created, and the man who created him. There”s actually a bit of the Christmas spirit in the idea of a huge department store giving back the right to publish Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to the man who created it to help him through a time of desperate need.

A Wish for Wings That Work Berkely Breathed
Opus, the adorable, practical penguin from Bloom County has one Christmas wish – wings that work so he can fly on Christmas morning. The book was made into a Christmas special in 1991 and airs every year, but share it with your special little ones in book form. The pictures are pure magic, as are the delightful words.

Technorati Tags: poetry, poems, christmas, read-aloud-poems, christmas-poems

If you love spoken word and slam poetry, you should check this out. If you don”t know what spoken word has to offer the world of poetry, you really should check this out. If you”ve never heard some of the best in spoken word and slam, then you truly MUST check this out. THIS is the collection of twenty YouTube video clips posted at GotPoetry this morning. I”ve just spent the last forty minutes listening and reliving the work of twenty very different spoken word artists from Kanye West to Steve Connell. Among the highlights, Taylor Mali”s “What Teachers Make”, Marty McConnell”s spoken word piece about passion and causes and being caught between generations, singer/songwriter Ani Difranco without the music and Suheir Hammad”s incredibly moving piece dedicated to her two brothers. I”m not going to tell you any more about it… just go listen. Really. Enjoy.

Then come back here and watch the PBS New Mexico”s piece about the National Poetry Slam.

I”ve said it often here – poetry is powerful. Words can unite and words can heal – but I”ve never thought of that in literal terms. Until today. That”s when I found this from Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert (thanks to John from GotPoetry for posting the link).

Apparently, several months back, Adams lost his voice after severe allergies strained his vocal muscles. This resulted in a condition called Spasmodic Dysphoria, a rather rare and exotic condition where there”s a “disconnect” between the part of the brain that controls speech and the part of the brain that wants to make it. The result – the inability to frame words and speak aloud. For Adams, who is a public speaker in addition to a comic strip creator, the loss of his voice was difficult, but could have been worse. He found that he could still speak in some situations – that the process of public speaking was different enough from the normal use of speech in day to day communications that his brain could still process it. Now, I”m sure you”re wondering what this has to do with poetry… here”s Scott”s description of what happened the other day…

My theory was that the part of my brain responsible for normal speech was still intact, but for some reason had become disconnected from the neural pathways to my vocal cords. (That”s consistent with any expert”s best guess of what”s happening with Spasmodic Dysphonia. It”s somewhat mysterious.) And so I reasoned that there was some way to remap that connection. All I needed to do was find the type of speaking or context most similar – but still different enough – from normal speech that still worked. Once I could speak in that slightly different context, I would continue to close the gap between the different-context speech and normal speech until my neural pathways remapped. Well, that was my theory. But I”m no brain surgeon.

My speech returned.

Amazing… and nearly as amazing, Adams ended his post with an invitation to readers to share their own happiest moments. On a blog that usually has 25,000 readers a day, Adams logged over 180,00 views – and well over 100 readers moved to comment and share their own stories of happy moments. Poetry really does heal. Words really do have power. Whatever you”re doing today, stop for five minutes and go read Scott”s blog and all the wonderful, happy moments people shared. Then.. take five more minutes and read a poem. Out loud. It”s good for you.

From my mailbox: Another quickmuse update – sounds like some exciting stuff going on over there while I wasn”t looking. I”ll definitely be taking a look at their new blogs~

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky gave us a peek at the relentless poetic stream that flows through his head, just waiting for him to open the spigot. Read his poem and find out how it can possibly be that “James Mason sounds just like Mel Brooks.”
Read Robert”s piece here (http://tinyurl.com/ymtg6m)

From the far side of the pond, Glyn Maxwell gives us a poetic highwire act. Many false starts and blind alleys (and one ephemeral Spongebob joke) culminating in a terrific turn of phrase in the last half minute. You can feel the sweat through your monitor.
Read Glyn”s piece here (http://tinyurl.com/ycqmbo)

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Contribute!

You can compete. We know you can. Show us: here (http://tinyurl.com/ykpkzc).

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New Goodies!

As promised, QuickBlog (http://tinyurl.com/ydjz58) is now live. We”ve gotten contributions so far from Thylias Moss, Julianna Baggott, and Rudresh Mahanthappa. In six weeks this will be the premiere blog on the subject of improvisation. Don”t let them say you weren”t there from the beginning.

You might note also that we”ve undertaken a major site redesign (on the interior pages — the home page is still the same old same old). We feel it offers greater flexibility and more possibilities for future use. We hope you like it.

Coming Soon:

Holy cow! The first ever humor agon, with Neal Pollack (http://www.nealpollack.com/) and Roy Blount Jr. (http://www.royblountjr.com/) Did we just say Neal Pollack and Roy Blount Jr.? Yes, yes we did. Tune in November 7. And on November 15, we”ve got Paul Hoover (http://tinyurl.com/y9nbkw) and Brad Leithauser (http://tinyurl.com/ykhpu3). These are good times for in-the-moment writing. Don”t miss a drop!

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It”s been five years since the morning that I stood in front of a television set watching in stunned horror as the news services replayed over and over and over the footage of a plane crashing through the second of the twin towers at the World Trade Center. I have yet to write about it. The enormity of it staggers me still, and there is a part of me that whispers, “You weren”t there. This isn”t your story to tell.”

I”m not sure why I have this reluctance to write about that day, or what came after it. The notion of trying to put so much emotion into words humbles me, makes me wonder what hubris would allow me to imagine I could shape a poem to convey even the tiniest bit of it. That, however, isn”t the case for many others – and that is a good thing. Poetry has always offered people a way to seek solace and comfort and begin healing. In recognition that tomorrow should be a day of commemoration and healing, I”m offering something a little different – a list of as many sites devoted to poetry surrounding 9/11 as I can find. Read, share, take comfort, heal.

september11victims.com
The site was online at 11 AM the morning of the attacks, and posted the names of victims as they were confirmed. In the five years since, the site owner has added photos, profiles and information about those that died that day, and opened it to comments. There are a few dozen poems posted here for the victims and their families. The one that brought tears to my eyes was this one.

Robert Pinsky reading his poem 9/11. Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky was commissioned by the Washington Post to write a poem commemorating 9/11. He read it September 12, 2002 on the MacNeil Lehrer News Hour for PBS.

About.com poetry guides, Bob Holman and Margery Shaw, solicited poetry for 9/11 after the attacks. The anthology is collected here, along with a sidebar of links to other collections of 9/11 poetry on the web.

Poetry for 9/11 at www.coping.org. Along with the poetry are videos, links to virtual memorials, slide shows and more.

A tribute from the UK in the form of a poem to be read by Simon Armitage, widely believed to be in line to become the next Poet Laureate of the UK. He”ll read the poem tomorrow evening on a national show, on the anniversary of the tower attacks.

Ten poems from poemsforfree.com that are free for any personal or non-commercial use.

The Internet Remembrance Campaign at worldatwar.org collected – and still collects – poetry and artwork inspired by the events of 9/11.

A memorial Syrnu posted at Authorsden.com, a moving combined work by over a dozen poets.