out of the dust

Beginning: August 1920
As summer wheat came ripe,
so did I,
born at home, on the kitchen floor.
Ma crouched,
barefoot, bare bottomed
over the swept boards,
Because that's where Daddy said it'd be best.

I came too fast for the doctor,
bawling as soon as Daddy wiped his hand around
inside my mouth.
To hear Ma tell it,
I hollered myself red the day I was born.
Red's the color I've stayed ever since.

Daddy named me Billie Jo.
He wanted a boy.
Instead,
he got a long-legged girl
with a wide mouth
and cheekbones like bicycle handles.
He got a redheaded, freckle-faced, narrow-hipped girl
with a fondness for apples
and a hunger for playing fierce piano.

(very quickly, let me say, I did NOT write that poem. It's the beginning to the novel Out of the Dust)
I mentioned this briefly in my last post, but now I would like to write about this to a greater extent.
First, as you may know, I want to be a young adult's author, because novels for young adults are SO good, and also, that seems to be all that I can write. (oh, I just realized, that sounds like I'm saying everything that I write is SO good, that's not what I mean. I mean that everything I write happens to be about children who are about 13...)
So I've taken to hanging out in the Newberry section of the library.
When I actually was a young adult, (12-18ish, folks) I did not read Out of the Dust for the simple fact that I love to judge books by their cover, and the cover of this book is generally unappealing.
It was recommended to me, and I was not interested.
Oh what a fool I was!
So Out of the Dust is the best of both worlds because it is a novel written entirely in poetry.
This poetry does not rhyme, and this poetry is not obscure.
I'll give you an example. or five.
Some, like the first one, are very story-like. Some are very poem-like.
But all of them tell so much to the reader in just a few simple words.

Fifty Miles South of Home
In Amarillo,
wind
blew plate-glass windows in,
tore electric signs down,
ripped wheat
straight out of the ground.


Debts
Daddy is thinking
of taking a loan from Mr. Roosevelt and his men,
to get some new wheat planted
where the winter crop has spindled out and died.
Mr. Roosevelt promises
Daddy won't have to pay a dime
till the crop comes in.

Daddy says,
"I can turn the fields over,
start again.
It's sure to rain soon.
Wheat's sure to grow."

Ma says, "What if it doesn't?"

Daddy takes off his hat,
roughs up his hair,
puts the hat back on.
"'Course it'll rain," he says.

Ma says, "Bay,
it hasn't rained enough to grow wheat in
three years."

Daddy looks like a fight brewing.
He takes that red face of his out to the barn,
to keep from feuding with my pregnant ma.

I ask Ma
how,
after all this time,
Dadddy still believes in rain.

"Well it rains enough," Ma says,
"now and again,
to keep a person hoping.
But even if it didn't
your daddy would have to believe.
It's coming on spring,
and he's a farmer."

It's so beautiful. I read it in just a few hours, and I think I might actually read it again before I have to return it. There's a reason this book won a Newberry. Karen Hesse is lovely, and this book is perfect and unique in it's style.
It makes me want to write today. Just spend the whole day writing.