Robyn Hood Black - children's author, poet, artist

Greetings, Poetry Lovers! Heartfelt thanks to Jama (& bears Basil and Cornelius, and all those Paddingtons....) , at Jama's Alphabet Soup, for including artsyletters in her "nine cool things on a tuesday" post this week. Jama has been a supporter and cheerer-on-er of my artsy endeavors since the beginning, more than a decade ago.  As she is for so many!  Thank you, Jama. 

If you're not familiar with Jama's famous roundups, enjoy!  I already clicked on links in this one for some holiday shopping myself. 

Speaking of Jama, did you catch her post in October about dust? Yep, dust.  From the post and the lively comments, I learned that many people are far better housekeepers than I.  And that there are also several folks who manage to put off dusting perhaps as often as I. 

Housekeeping has not been happening this week, as I've been covered up in Etsy orders (and dust) for the past few weeks! 

Seems my folks in Florida, Nita and Jack (who married in 1980, a few months before I set off for Furman University at 17), have contemplated dust this week.  My mom has always been a more conscientious housekeeper than yours truly.  

In a text this week she said, "...I commented that all I can see in this house is dust," and that became a poem prompt for Jack ("Poppy" to the Fam).

Here goes:

Where there's dust...

there's us...

Don't stand still.

by Jack Morgan

He thought the chuckle might help me with filling all these orders!  He was right.  

This season is supposed to be a time of preparing, clearing, waiting, and stillness (think "Silent Night"), but I'll make a New Year's Resolution to do better next year.  ;0) Not much dust collecting on me of late.

With the drop in temps this week and the flurries just over the state line here, I'll offer one last thought of dust, winter-themed.

Dust of Snow

Robert Frost

(1874 –1963)

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Here's to your snow falling softly, if you have snow, and to all your dust being fairy dust! 

Go Live Your Poem with the lovely Irene, who kindly has our Roundup this week, wonderful poetry, and a submission opportunity in a short window of time this weekend.... 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers! In a few weeks, on the 16th of December, Jane Austen fans will have something to celebrate – the 250th anniversary of her birth in Hampshire, England.  (Those of us in the U.S. can revel in her delicious words and wit before turning our attention to the 250th birthday of our nation, just around the corner. But, I digress. Though I do want to make sure you know "The American Revolution" by Ken Burns premiers Sunday evening on PBS, with episodes each night next week!)

Of course, Austen is best known for her novels:  Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Which is your favorite?  I'm not alone in my devotion to Pride and Prejudice. (I find it astonishing that she first drafted this work, originally called First Impressions, when she was just 21. I think I still have a college essay for my British novel class about mirrors and such, titled, "Reflections on – and in – Pride and Prejudice.")

The Austens loved poetry, too.  Jane had one beloved sister, Cassandra, and six(!) brothers. 

Jane even wrote some poetry herself, many pieces humorous.  She appreciated the poetry of Sir Walter Scott and William Cowper.

At the Jane Austen House website – which you must visit if you're still reading this, and especially if, like me, you haven't yet made it to Chawton – you'll find wonderful details about Jane's life and works.  In fact, this weekend is the last for an exhibit, "The Poetry Bookcase," a "specially created installation" bringing together "poems that Jane Austen and her family knew and loved." On October 6, 2022, for National Poetry Day across The Pond, poet and Creative Engagement Officer Ellora Sutton offered a short feature on Jane Austen and poetry here.

I love that Sutton included a poem by Jane's mother, the elder Cassandra Austen - a response to a family competition to write as many rhymes for "rose" as possible.

My work being done, I look'd through the windows,
And with pleasure beheld all the bucks and the does,
The cows and the bullocks, the wethers and ewes.
To the library each morning the family goes,
So I went with the rest though I felt rather froze.
My flesh is much warmer, my blood freer flows,
When I work in the garden with rakes and with hoes.

Delightful!

Jane does reference poetry in her novels, of course.  Don't you love this exchange between Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, also in the piece?

"I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!"
"I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love," said Darcy.
"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away."

(I can't read that passage without hearing the voices of Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen from the Joe Wright 2005 adaptation. And, yes, I took myself to an actual theater when it came to a local venue for the 20th anniversary earlier this year.)

The Jane Austen House has offered a lovely podcast his year, A Jane Austen Year.  It's the accompaniment to a book of the same name you can learn about at the site. "A Jane Austen Year is a mindful, soothing and uplifting podcast that transports you to Jane Austen's House in Chawton… Each month, join us on a seasonal journey through Jane Austen's novels, the story of her life and the world she lived in."  I love that the narrators are people who staff the house/museum, and original music and sounds were recorded on the premises.  You can sample the first episode at the link.

But wait – there's more! The Jane Austen House's annual lecture is next Thursday, November 20, and we're all invited – on YouTube, anyway.  Salley Vickers will present "The Difficult Miss Austen" and discuss "some of the more subversive and socially critical elements in Jane Austen's novels, as well as the dangers and difficulties that women experienced…."   Note that the 8 p.m. time on the website translates into hours earlier in the states, 3 p.m. for those of us on Eastern Standard Time. Here's the link.

Just a couple-few more things I've treated myself to this year:  Lucy Worsley's 2017 Jane Austen at Home: A Biography, and also

Rebecca Romney's Jane Austen's Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector's Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend  (February 2025), which I haven't read yet.

I did purchase a used copy of Miss Austen by Gill Hornby (2021) because I wanted to read it before watching the PBS series which debuted this year.  It's a fictional story told from sister Cassandra's perspective. You can still find the series on PBS (available on Passport) and Amazon Prime Video, as well as another outlet or two.

Finally, you might have noticed above that I felt the call to commemorate Jane's birthday with a new item in my shop, an ornament made with an original sketch of the author. There is only one portrait of Jane's face in existence, a loose pencil sketch by her sister, Cassandra, made around 1810. (Cassandra had made an earlier rendering of Jane in blue dress and bonnet, but her face wasn't visible.) Decades later, their nephew commissioned an engraving based on the facial sketch, which itself was based on a watercolor interpretation of the sketch by James Andrews.  This engraving is the image most of us are probably familiar with, and it appears on the ten-pound bank note. There are various thoughts and opinions on all of this by scholars, of course – I'll let you find those rabbit holes if interested. (Here's one.) And here is London's National Portrait Gallery page with Cassandra's sketch.

For my ornament, I brewed some proper English tea, put on some classical music, and made my own little sketch with colored pencils, some gouache, and a touch of pen and ink. It's far from perfect, but Cassandra's wasn't either!  I printed the image on high-quality Moab paper with Epson pigment ink and set the image under a glass cabochon. It hangs in a brass/alloy setting with a gold-plated pewter book charm adorning the top and has a vintage yellow ribbon. (Austen referenced shades of yellow a few times in her works.)

Cheers to you, Jane!

Lace up those walking boots and head over toThe Apples in My Orchard, where the lovely Carol has our Roundup this week.  

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!

It's a week when the news has us reeling.  I'm just offering a bright spot/diversion.  I know others among us are Downton Abbey fans, and the final movie comes out TODAY.  My daughter Morgan and I plan to see it next weekend when she and the baby grands visit. (Wish Baba luck....)

Devoted fans since the series ran on PBS (starting 15 years ago!), we've seen the movies and went to the traveling exhibit when it came to The Biltmore Estate.  (Those costumes - swoon!)  That was just days before we were all on lockdown in 2020, come to think of it.

I've caught a few TV interviews with the cast this week, and I recorded the hour-long special on NBC on Wednesday night.  Almost time to get out that fascinator hat!  (It came in handy, above, when the recent mixed media art retreat I attended in Georgia had a 1920s-themed welcome party.  I zipped up my dress from Morgan's wedding in 2016, added a few touches from Amazon, and off I went!)

I thought it would be fun to make a couple of small blank journals with 1920s ephemera as well, to celebrate. These have 1920s fashion illustration clippings on the covers, plus a couple of other period extras inside. (Here's a link to my Etsy shop, and here's a link to my artsyletters blog with some pictures of a tiny 1920s celluloid date book.)

In pondering poetry penned during the setting of the movie, the end of the 1920s turning into the 1930s, I thought of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961), one of the leading imagist poets of the early 20th Century.  This poem caught my fancy, from her 1931 collection, Red Roses for Bronze.

Stars Wheel in Purple

by H.D.

Stars wheel in purple, yours is not so rare
as Hesperus, nor yet so great a star
as bright Aldeboran or Sirius,

(Read the full poem here.)

Thanks for coming by, and be sure to catch the Roundup with our lovely Rose at Imagine the Possibilities.

Greeetings, Poetry Lovers!  I've missed you as I've been popping in and out of town and in and out of here recently. This week, I'm on board to celebrate Clara's Kooky Compendium of Thimblethoughts and Wonderfuzz, the latest (and most amazing) collaborative poetic genius-work from Pomelo Books, a.k.a. Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong. 

I thought I'd have a fulsome review to share earlier this fall, but... Helene.  I'm thrilled to see all the good press this one-of-a-kind anthology has been receiving since it splashed into the kid-literary pond last month, both among our PF family and in the wider world!  In fact, last Friday over at Jama's Alphabet Soup - the crème de la crème of blogs in my book (and lots of others), Clara and her quirky crew were the main course.  So for a really good review and explanations and insights and sneak peeks, please go fill your bowl here. (But then come back and keep reading! And look up other wonderful reviews, too.)

It was fun to work on poems for this project, and then wait with bated breath to see what in the world Janet and Sylvia were cooking up.  We knew it was something that took a lot of editorial and creative wrangling, and something that would be unlike any other collection.  

When I started reading my own copy, my first thought was, "Wow - I wish I had had a book like this when I was growing up!" This fun and somewhat indescribable treasure offers space for curiosity and creativity to run wild.  I'm glad I'll be able to share it with grandchildren when they're a wee bit older.

The line illustrations by Frank Ramspott bring to life all the imaginings and characters and poetry within, but don't overpower all the layers of text.  And I do love all the layers.  I might read and write haiku because I NEED the spareness it requires/provides, but that is probably because I'm actually the opposite of a minimalist. I wonder if Clara is a minimalist or a... maximalist?? Nope, that's not the right word. I'll have to wonder and think on that a bit.

Thare are more than 150 poems between the covers of this book, and I'm delighted to share the two I've got in there.  

The first was in response to Janet and Sylvia's question, "Can you write a poem about siblings?"

SIBLINGS

Take the "r" out of brother, and what do you get?

BOTHER! That's what. He makes me upset.

Take the "i" out of sis, and what does it make?

 "Ss" – like a hiss - the sound of a snake!

Please take them both, take them out of my sight.

Then I know everything will be all _ _ ght.

I said, everything will be all _ _ ght.

Hmmm.

Okay, please put back the "r," and return the "i," too –

I have to admit, I would miss those two.

©Robyn Hood Black

I dearly love my brother, Mike, though growing up, we probably both sometimes felt the way the narrator of this poem feels!  I got TWO bonus sisters when my mother remarried right before I went off to college - Carla and Sharon.  Love them too!

My other poem was a response to writing about syllables.  I do love me some syllables. And a challenge. 

ONE-ON-ONE

"I am Worm,"

said Worm.

"I have no feet.

"I am long and smooth.

"My name has one sound."

"Caterpillar!"

announced Caterpillar.

"Appendages galore.

"Spectacular segments, moving together.

"Melodious appellation!"

"Branches beckon," declared Caterpillar.

"Jubilant journeys!"

"I am off to the dirt," said Worm.

"Have a nice day."

©Robyn Hood Black

Thanks for reading. Oh, and speaking of words and wordplay, they require letters.  I've been having some fun in the studio with letters.  (See what I did there?) Just in time for stocking stuffer season, I'm assembling some fun little necklaces using vintage miniature Scrabble tiles. (Here's the link; I've got a rare 20-percent-off holiday sale going on.)

Here's hoping your thoughts and wonders leave you inspired and comforted and rested or energized, whichever you need. I'm sure you'll find poems you need over at There is No Such Thing as a Godforsaken Town, where our wonderful Ruth is rounding us up from Kampala, Uganda, with her usual thought-provoking, community-building offerings.  Thank you, Ruth!

Greetings, Poetry Lovers! Bonjour, Mes Amis.

It's almost Poetry Month!  And almost April in Paris… Sigh. I've not (yet) been in person.  And – the Paris Olympics are right around the corner. 

Pardon my French (it's been a few decades), but my thoughts are turning Français this week.  And items in my Etsy shop, too. (Click here to apply a shop-wide coupon code for Poetry Month if interested.)

I found a fun blog called "Snippets of Paris" with some thoughts about children and poetry there. 

And this gem below from Rosemonde Gérard (Louise-Rose-Étiennette Gérard, 1871-1953.) It's a New Year's poem, but since "our" calendar generally had the New Year starting in March until the 16th Century, I say it counts.  (You can learn more about that here.)

Bonne année à toutes les choses,
Au monde, à la mer, aux forêts,
Bonne année à toutes les roses,
Que l'hiver prépare en secret.

Bonne année à tous ceux qui m'aiment,
Et qui m'entendent ici-bas,
Et bonne année aussi, quand même,
A tous ceux qui ne m'aiment pas.
 

Here's the Enlish translation, compiled from various sites including the one above, but with a correction/tweak of mine, too.

Happy New Year to all things,
To the world, to the sea, to the forests,
Happy New Year to all roses,
That winter prepares in secret.

Happy New Year to all who love me,
And who hear me down here,
And happy new year too, anyway,
To all those who don't love me.

I just adore those last lines.  Our world could use more of that perspective for sure.

The author was a playwright as well as a poet, overshadowed somewhat by her husband, Edmond Rostand, author of Cyrano de Bergerac.  She was the granddaughter of a French prime minister.

Until this week, I didn't know she was also the author of lines that have run through my husband's family, and between my husband and me, for decades and decades. 

"More than yesterday, less than tomorrow."

Perhaps you're familiar with that sentiment, too?

Gérard wrote, in 1889 in a poem to her husband,

Car, vois-tu, chaque jour je t'aime davantage,

Aujourd'hui plus qu'hier et bien moins que demain.

While the poem was not immediately popular, the phrase was made so by a jeweler in the early 1900s.  He created medallions with mathematical signs replacing the words for "more" and "less."  These jewelry items became beloved tokens.  You can read more about all that here.  

You can still find the phrase on trinkets today. A few years ago, I found nice quality tags engraved with "Je t'aime plus qu'hier moins que demain" from a jewelry supplier, and I make bookmarks with these for my shop. Folks like them!  Of course, the first one I made was for my hubby, Jeff.

If you're a history buff, but sports are more your thing than jewelry, head over to this link. The second incarnation of the Olympics (our modern games) was first hosted in Paris in 1900, and France has hosted them four more times since then.  (It wasn't really called the Olympics, but had a long, boring name. The months-long event, however, kicked off the modern Olympics era.)

And since it's technically still Women's History Month, let's raise a glass to the fact that those games included women athletes for the first time!

As of this Poetry Friday, there are 118 days until the start of the Olympic Games and 151 days until the start of the Paralympic Games.  Go, Athletes, from all countries represented!!  Of course, over here we'll be cheering on Team USA, but I wish the best for "all who love (us)" and "all who don't love (us)." I pray for a peaceful gathering, spirited competition, and comradery.  Oh, and for lots of pretty blooms in Paris this April.

Now, vous allez over to The Miss Rumphius Effect, where Tricia has our Roundup and is sure to get us started on the write poetic foot for April. 

Be sure to consult Jama's big Roundup of the Kidlit Poetry Month events here!

Happy Easter to those who celebrate, and blessings to all.

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  I hope you had a good Thanksgiving weekend last week, wherever you were.  Prayers for all with an empty chair at the holidays this year.

Over here  on the South Carolina Coast, Friday morning temps will be in the 40s, which is chilly for us. (Then we'll warm back up.)  But pictures of growing piles of snow from the Northwest to the Plains are something else altogether, like the pictures posted online recently by our own Amy Ludwig VanDerwater up in New York state. 

So here's a little poem by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) for the new season.  (Love the last line... we were happy to say goodbye to the hurricane season, by the way, on Wednesday!)

Winter is good - his Hoar Delights (1316)

Emily Dickinson 

Winter is good - his Hoar Delights
Italic flavor yield -
To Intellects inebriate
With Summer, or the World -

Generic as a Quarry
And hearty - as a Rose -
Invited with asperity
But welcome when he goes.

Happy December! 

Grab your snowshoes and shuffle on over to see our lovely Catherine at Reading to the Core for this week's Roundup!

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!

The poem I'm sharing this week is an offering of levity, with so much going on in the world this month.  From a 19th-Century copy of CROWN JEWELS (or Gems of Literature, Art, and Music ...) compiled by Henry Davenport Norhtrop and published by Pennsylvania Publishing Company in 1887, I plucked this wee riddle poem by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), then gave it the artsyletters mini collage treatment.

On the Vowels

by Jonathan Swift

We are little airy creatures,

All of different voice and features:

One of us in glass is set,

One of us you'll find in jet;

T'other you may see in tin,

And the fourth a box within;

If the fifth you should pursue,

It can never fly from you.

I thought those "little airy creatures" would pair well with some old lace! Though the blocky midcentury brass letters are anything but airy, I suppose - so here's to a little contrast!

If you are hungry for more vowels, and consonants, then of COURSE you must make your way to Jama's Alphabet Soup, where our beautiful & talented letter-wrangling host has this week's Roundup! 

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!

Here in coastal South Carolina, the days are still warm, but not excessively hot; some leaves are scattered on the ground; and we're still keeping a cautious eye ocean-ward after an unusually quiet start to the hurricane season in our corner of the Atlantic, anyway. (The peak Atlantic season occurs in September and October.)

Our kids in and near the mountains report cooler days of late, and at our Upstate South Carolina house last weekend, the deep green of summer is giving away to early hints of color in the trees. 

Back at the coast, I've been making collages featuring actual postcards of bathing beauties from the early 1900s.  I have some for sale at a local shop here, and I'll be adding some (such as the one pictured above) to my Etsy shop, too.  I guess it's my way of hanging on to summer a wee bit, even as the calendar pages turn themselves to autumn....

Here are a couple of September poems to help me get oriented, and maybe they'll strike your fancy as well. The first even begins with a nod to the sea.

September

By Joanne Kyger (1934-2017)

The grasses are light brown
and the ocean comes in
long shimmering lines
under the fleet from last night
which dozes now in the early morning 

...

Enjoy the rest of this rich poem here.  And you can read more about Joanne Kyger's rich life here. 

And here is a poem published in 1914, a few years after that postcard above was published, as a matter of fact. 

September Midnight

By Sara Teasdale

 
Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer,
Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing,
Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects,
Ceaseless, insistent.

The grasshopper's horn, and far-off, high in the maples,
The wheel of a locust leisurely grinding the silence
Under a moon waning and worn, broken,
Tired with summer.

Let me remember you, voices of little insects,
Weeds in the moonlight, fields that are tangled with asters,
Let me remember, soon will the winter be on us,
Snow-hushed and heavy.

Over my soul murmur your mute benediction,
While I gaze, O fields that rest after harvest,
As those who part look long in the eyes they lean to,
Lest they forget them.

Originally published in Poetry, March 1914. You can read more about Sara Teasdale here. 

Back to the present, hop on over to Australia to enjoy a different season from mine in the Northern Hemisphere, and lots of great poetry - Kat Apel has our Roundup (& a "Katch-up"!).  Thanks, Kat. :0)

Greetings, Poetry Lovers!  Can you believe we've almost reached the end of another Poetry Month? I have lots of catching up to do on so many of the wonderful month-long projects conjured up and celebrated around the Kidlitosphere.  Fortunately, Jama's round up post of all the April goodness can guide us even after Sunday has passed.  

With the heaviness and stress of the daily news, I thought I'd offer up another old poem from the "Poems in a Playful Mood" section of NARRATIVE AND LYRIC POEMS FOR STUDENTS edited by S. S. Seward, Jr., published by Henry Holt and Company in 1909.  (Seward was evidently an assistant professor of English at Stanford University.)

Here's a "playful" poem that seems just right for our perch on the far edge of April. National Poetry Month wasn't launched until 1996, so April did not have such a designation more than a century ago. 

Let's just carry on the poetry love into May, shall we?

PROSE AND RHYME

by Austin Dobson

When the roads are heavy with mire and rut,

   In November fogs, in December snows,

When the North Wind howls, and the doors are shut,

   There is place and enough for the pains of prose; --

   But whenever a scent from the whitethorn blows,

And the jasmine-stars to the casement climb,

   And a Rosalind-face at the lattice shows,

Then hey!-- for the rippple of laughing rhyme!

When the brain gets dry as an empty nut,

   Whenthe reason stands on its squarest toes,

When the mind (like a beard) has a "formal cut,"

  There is place enough for the pains of prose; --

  But whenever the May blood stirs and glows,

And the young year draws to a "golden prime," --

   And Sir Romeo sticks in his ear a rose,

Then hey!-- for the rippple of laughing rhyme!

In a theme where the thoughts have a pedant strut

   In a changing quarrel of "Ayes" and "Noes,"

In a starched procession of "If" and "But,"

  There is place enough for the pains of prose; --

  But whenever a soft glance softer grows,

And the light hours dance to the trysting-time,

  And the secret is told "that no one knows,"

Then hey!-- for the rippple of laughing rhyme!

    ENVOY

In the work-a-day world, -- for its needs and woes,

There is place enough for the pains of prose;

But whenever the May-bells clash and chime,

Then hey!-- for the rippple of laughing rhyme!

Follow the poetry ripples over to the Poetry Friday Roundup, hosted this week by the ever-talented & generous Jone Rush MacCulloch.

Bonjour!  

One thing I love about being an Etsy seller is that sometimes I send my artsyletters offerings to the four corners of the world.  I've had customers in close to 20 countries. This week I received an order with a special request from France, and the message was sent via email rather than through Etsy, so there wasn't an option to translate on the spot.  However, I was delighted to realize that my four years of French in high school and one in college were sufficient for me to make out its meaning!  [I still used an online translator just to make sure, and sent my reply in English and via a copy from an online translator, though I did "check" that it looked right.]

And while items in my shop have a definite British Isles bent - I mean, my target market really is nerdy English-major types like myself - somewhow a few items for Francophiles continue to surface from my work table. Especially since I was able to procure some gorgeous letters and postcards and bank notes and such from centuries past, from a seller in France.  (I often buy supplies from other corners of the earth, too.) 

I am especially smitten with postcards and business receipts and such with layers of interesting text or handwriting in different hues of ink, all jumbled together - ahhhh.  And while I do reproduce some antique maps etc. for items I make that I need more than one of (tourist-friendly items at a local shop here in Beaufort, etc.), I do prefer to just capture the actual text or image under glass as a one-of-a-kind snippet of history, such as the items in the picture above.  I'll wrangle these into finished pieces and get some listed today, to join a few French items already listed.

I don't have an actual French poem to share today, but when I think about French writing, Le Petit Prince always come to mind.  (I do have a copy in French somewhere...!)  I have always adored this book, and even read it out loud to eighth graders - eighth graders! - back in the day when I briefly taught middle school English. 

My love affair is shared  by the world, evidently - did you know there was a The Little Prince theme park in France, near the German and Swiss borders?  (See https://www.thelittleprince.com.) There's also a foundation. And closer to home, evidently a Broadway play just opened? 

If you haven't read the story, it's just a treasure of creativity, love, loss, and hope.  In fact, I read that aside from religious texts, it's the most translated book in the world. It features a pilot, stranded in the Sahara desert, who encounters a little prince requesting a drawing of a sheep. Throughout the tale, the young prince describes his journey across planets, and amusing and touching encounters which evoke universal themes. 

The whole book seems poem-like to me, with its fairy tale qualities and compression into a deceptively simple form.  (Saint-Exupery did write poetry and other works.) Plus, the art is charming. So for a taste of the book's voice, I'll just share a few sentences from the beginning, as the narrator, before meeting the book's subject, explains how he left a career in art at the tender age of 6, after an unsuccessful (according to others) couple of drawings. 

The grown-ups then advised me to give up my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and to devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. Thus it was that I gave up a magnificent career as a painter at the age of six. I had been disappointed by the lack of success of my drawing No. 1 and my drawing No. 2. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves and it is rather tedious for children to have to explain things to them time and again.

So I had to choose another job and I learnt to pilot aeroplanes.

[Saint-Exupéry, Antoine de. The Little Prince (pp. 10-11). GENERAL PRESS. Kindle Edition.]

The book was written while Saint-Exupery was in the United States.  It was published in 1943, only a year before the author's plane disappeared on a mission in World War II.

Earth Day wasn't around in the 1940s, but I have a feeling The Little Prince would agree with its aims of nurturing this planet. And speaking of this planet, and of France, the world will be keeping an eye on the presidential election there this weekend I'm sure, with ramifications not just for France but for the war in Ukraine and political relations beyond. 

Merci for joining me in this very rambling post today - be sure to pilot on over to see Margaret at Reflections on the Teche for this week's Roundup, and to catch up with the Kidlit Progressive Poem! Thanks for all the hosting, Margaret.