Snuggle Wuggle Wee: A Story Behind The Story and The Launch This Weekend

I just want to share with you a lovely project that I worked on together with two other moms from the organization called LATCH (Lactation, Attachment, Training, Counseling, Help) which helps moms become breastfeeding peer counselors (to help other moms with their breastfeeding), only one among its many projects.

It all started when a book project was broached. Ever since I joined LATCH, that was one of the projects where I really wanted to contribute. When Jenny Ong, one of the co-founders of LATCH, told me that she already had an outline to work with, I was elated. Read Jenny's story here.

I had just come from the Little Lit Festival arranged by the National Book Development Board and I was itching to work on a children's book.

Below is my original picture of Clara, the protagonist.

This is my Pages (by Fifty Three) artwork of Clara. 

My inspiration for Clara is my spunky little daughter, Clea, who just turned three last October. Even though she's the youngest, she's obsessed with being an "ate." She likes taking the lead and she can command a roomful of cousins (both older and younger) to "please keep quiet!" I could just imagine what she would be like if she had been the eldest and I was just expecting my son.

The initial story was under five hundred words (something that I picked up from the Little Lit Festival) and it was pretty straightforward, using simple words that I knew my own kids could identify with. Based on Jenny's outline, the story follows Clara as she anticipates the arrival of her parents and her younger, newly born brother, Paolo, who are all coming from the hospital. It deals with what it's like for a little girl to become an older sibling and how she also explores her own birth story. The story focuses on the closeness of the family, with breastfeeding as one of the ways that a family bonds (yes, it takes the whole family, it's not just about mother and child). I showed it to both Jenny and Buding (Aquino-Dee), the President of LATCH for their thoughts. Buding challenged me to make it a fun book, full of silly rhymes and alliterations that would capture the imagination of children. That was how the title came about: Snuggle Wuggle Wee. It's a nonsense phrase that is meant to capture that joyful embrace in a family.

That was how our book collaboration became complete. Jenny was the voice of experience and advocacy, bringing to the project the urgency of choosing the right books that would help her eldest daughter become an "ate" in the context of a breastfeeding family. Buding was the mover-and-shaker, if I may say so! She's LATCH's cheerleader and she cheered me on to really refine the book. I was the word-crafter. :-)  Together, the story of Snuggle Wuggle Wee moved forward and tomorrow it will finally be available for sale!

Of course, it took more than just us co-authors to make Snuggle Wuggle Wee a reality. It took the entire LATCH organization. What a wonderful group and what a wonderful mix of personalities! Moms can make it happen. That's all I can say.

This shows the evolution of Clara. This is the book cover of Snuggle Wuggle Wee.

I really did take so much pleasure from composing the story, really listening not just to the narrative but to the musicality of the words. Bryan Delfin, the illustrator, is really fantastic! He's the fourth storyteller, actually. He took the manuscript and created magical, cinematic images that really stay with the reader. He took the similes from the book and created lovely illustrations that pop up from the page and take you away to a river ("I can see his lips move like a fish from the side") or make a color burst in your imagination ("red as a tomato" -- here, he cleverly leaves out the color red from the lovely tomato illustration so that you can see the color in your mind and associate it with baby Paolo's color). Snuggle Wuggle Wee celebrates family and I hope it helps families, especially those with young children or those expecting an addition in the family,  get even closer.

This is an open invitation for you to come over to the Global Pinoy Bazaar at the Rockwell Tent this weekend so you can get yourself (and your loved ones) a Snuggle Wuggle Wee book. It's a perfect Christmas gift too! It's only Php 250 and proceeds will help fund LATCH projects (including those that have to do with Typhoon Yolanda --- LATCH members are already helping by providing breastfeeding support to affected mothers as well as organizing efforts to get donated breast milk to affected babies).

Below is a trailer of the book:

And here are directions to LATCH's booth at the Global Pinoy Bazaar this November 24 to 25, 2013:

This is where you'll find the LATCH booth at Global Pinoy Bazaar. 

See you there!

ModPo 2013 #35 The Sun, The Son and The Truth: On Brooks' "truth" and Knight's "The Sun Came"

Image from stickerupper.com.

truth
BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS
And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?

Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years—
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?

Shall we not shudder?—
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?

Sweet is it, sweet is it
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.

The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.

Gwendolyn Brooks, "truth" from Blacks. Copyright © 1987 by Gwendolyn Brooks.  Reprinted by consent of Brooks Permissions.

Source: Blacks (Third World Press, 1987)

--------------------------------------------

The Sun Came
BY ETHERIDGE KNIGHT
                                                        And if sun comes
                                                        How shall we greet him?
                                                                    —Gwen Brooks

The sun came, Miss Brooks,—
After all the night years.
He came spitting fire from his lips.
And we flipped—We goofed the whole thing.
It looks like our ears were not equipped
For the fierce hammering.

And now the Sun has gone, has bled red,
Weeping behind the hills.
Again the night shadows form.
But beneath the placid face a storm rages.
The rays of Red have pierced the deep, have struck
The core. We cannot sleep.
The shadows sing: Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm.
The darkness ain't like before.

The Sun came, Miss Brooks.
And we goofed the whole thing.
I think.
(Though ain't no vision visited my cell.)

Etheridge Knight, "The Sun Came" from The Essential Etheridge Knight. Copyright © 1986 by Etheridge Knight. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260.  Used by permission of University of Pittsburgh Press.

Source: The Essential Etheridge Knight (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986)
-------------------------------------------------------

I can't read Brooks without the response of Knight. Ignorance is bliss, ignorance is paradise (just ask Adam and Eve). The truth is cruel (how can it not be with "firm knuckles/ Hard on the door?"). This is essentially what Brooks states in her poem. Knight dispels this by claiming that the truth did come, the sun did come... in the form of Malcolm X but his poem ends on a sad note, a regretful note.

Brooks' poem is in iambic pentameter, using a traditional form which Knight answers without the regularity of a traditional form but with his own musicality, like in the repeating words of: Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm. I appreciated the audio discussion because it pointed out the meanings of "flipped" (a betrayal) and "goofed" (foolish mistake) as prison terms, situating Knight in his cell (which he mentions in parenthesis at the end of his poem). It's ironic that Knight talks of Malcolm in messianic/ Christian terms: Sun/ Son, the sacrifice of the Sun/ Son while Malcolm was actually Islamic. Nevertheless, it was pointed out during the discussion that Knight's poem was a reflection of the mood among those in prison at the time Malcolm was assassinated. I can imagine the guilt and the regret of Malcolm's message of black pride being cut short by his death.

I try to see this poem conversation as well in terms of my experience. The truth is relative. The truth sometimes depends on who is telling the story. The truth is I come from a mixed race where nothing is truly "pure." The truth is: freedom comes with its own price. And even in the Philippines, supposedly a free country, we are still reeling from centuries of patronage and time again we have "flipped" (we were also called "flips" once, as a derogatory term, by Americans) and "goofed" with our opportunities, earning our label of the "sick man of Asia."

In our islands we have more than our fair share of an unblinking sun. And not only that, we have had centuries of "the Son." And still, the dark continually hangs heavy on our eyes. I do not doubt, though, that we will have our day for answering the hammering at our doors. We've done enough flipping and goofing among ourselves, at some point we will meet the light completely.

Behind the Burqa: On Hosseni's A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A friend of mine lent this book to me several months ago. It remained on my shelf for quite a while. I have to be honest. I didn't want to read about Afghanistan. But this same friend of mine told me a story from And The Mountains Echoed which left me in tears. Remember, she was telling me a secondhand fairy tale and the context for it. But even then, I was crying (actually we were both tearing up). When I told my husband the same story, my voice was cracking and tears were rolling down my cheeks involuntarily. If this secondhand tale was powerful enough to make me cry on recounting it...what more an entire novel? So that was when I plunged into A Thousand Splendid Suns. I was not disappointed.

Yes, it's about Afghanistan. But more than Afghanistan, it's about two women, Mariam and Laila. It's about two women who are brave and strong and unfortunately married to the same horrible man, Rasheed. It's about what two women will do for each other despite all the circumstances. It's about two particular women behind the burqa. It's about child brides and poverty. But it's also about the beauty of friendship and the redeeming qualities of love.

I read another review about how one-sided Hosseini is: Mariam and Laila can only do good and Rasheed can only do wrong. But the thing is...there are such men in this world. There is no explaining their cruelty. There is no explaining the cruelty of wars (and yet they go on). I loved the story telling and the characters. I loved all the little nuances that invests the reader in each character even if some of them are difficult to love. I didn't mind the Afghan words and dialects that were left in, it gives the narrative a sense of place, a sense of character.

There is a breathtaking scene in the book about the Buddhas of Bamiyan in the story. Don't miss it. It gives Afghanistan more cultural history and perspective. It was once a land where Buddhist monks lived (when it was part of the Silk Road). I didn't know that about Afghanistan. All I know of Afghanistan is war and the Taliban. How ignorant I am.

I'm glad I read this book.

View all my reviews

ModPo 2013 #12 Abandonment and Epiphany: On Armantrout's "The Way"

My own drawing. :-)

Note: I am currently taking a course on Coursera.org called Modern and Contemporary American Poetry taught by Al Filreis of the University of Pennsylvania. I will be posting my thoughts on the course discussions here.

The Way

BY RAE ARMANTROUT


Card in pew pocket
announces,
“I am here.”

I made only one statement
because of a bad winter.


Grease is the word; grease
is the way

I am feeling.
Real life emergencies or

flubbing behind the scenes.

As a child,
I was abandoned

in a story
made of trees.

Here’s the small
gasp

of this clearing
come “upon” “again”
______________________

I agree with the video discussion: this is the most difficult poem of week 2! Guidance was definitely needed for this poem. I even missed the meaning of "pew pockets," to think I grew up a Catholic. I also would have totally missed the collage of "I's" if I didn't sit in the discussion.


But, having read the poem in full appreciation, I must say that I am enchanted. Before the video discussion, I did catch a glimpse of the magical in the phrase "a story/ made of trees." There's something about it that invites further reading. And, yes, I was rewarded. I wrote in my notes: "Something magical in the fractures."


Why are difficult poems worth reading? Well, this one in particular, was a revelation. There are multitudes of "I's" but there is, ultimately, the I that has emerged from reading. Because, I am an advocate of reading, this poem holds special significance to me. I am always worried about whether my children will be readers. Maybe because I have "trophy parent" tendencies or maybe because I just want them to experience what I did in my childhood.


I love that notion: "I was abandoned/ in a story/ made of trees." I forget that reading is abandonment if it is truly enjoyable. No one can force anyone to read. But once the reading begins...there is a sense of abandonment. Not in a negative sense...but in a context of pure play, pure exploration. One must abandon one's children to reading if they are to enjoy it.


As a parent, that was reassuring to me. I need to let go some more!


And lastly, I loved that "into the woods" gasp in the clearing. For me, it stands for epiphany, one of my ars poetica elements. Let's stop here: "Once upon a time..." Those were my favorite few words, growing up. I couldn't wait to read. I wanted to hear the story. And then I would tell the stories to my own siblings. There is a moment of surprise, a moment of discovery that defines the life of a reader...and also the life of a writer. Combined with Cid Corman's notion of relationship, Armantrout's story of abandonment and epiphany help me see reading (and writing) in a new light.

L.I.T.E.R.A.L. #5: What's Your Summer Story?

Mommy and Me, 1976

The question from BronzeAge.ph: You’re asked to write a story based on the most exciting/happiest/worst summer of your life. What would it be about?

The answer: It would be the story that I haven't written about, the summer that my mother died.

I never really thought about writing a summer story. But now that I think about it...my mother died in the summer. The skies must have been bright. It must have been really hot. It was in the middle of April, nine days after my baby sister was born. Her burial was in the afternoon. People wore shades. I never saw my Dad's eyes in the pictures. He had a good excuse to wear those shades.

It must have been the worst summer of my life but I hadn't realized it yet. I didn't know about death because I was only three years old. When I look at my daughter who's only two and six months...I realize how fancy free I must have been at the time of her death. I must have been worried about outfits and bathing suits and where to go in the afternoon. At the time, the days must have fused together and I had no inkling at all about yesterday or tomorrow. That's how my daughter is...everything is just one fantastic day full of smiles or tears or snacks or playtime.

Memory is such a tricky thing. It's especially tricky when you're three years old. There's not much there. So... what I want to do is to reconstruct that summer. The seventies fashion, the stories in the kitchen, the beach trips from the two years before and the surreal day that no one expected. Now that I'm a mom...I see that clueless little girl in an apple cut hairdo, wearing that white dress and my heart goes out to her. Come here, you. Let me hug you. You're going to be all right.

Well, thanks for asking, BronzeAge.ph. Now, I have some fantastic material brewing in my head.

NaPoWriMo#26: A Story

A Story
By Justine C. Tajonera

Somewhere in Xiamen I have great grand
aunts and uncles. And down south in
Cagayan of gold, I have many cousins.
I imagine the story of centuries, of decades,
of families, of a young man and a young
woman who meet in Manticao, in Davao,
in Guadalupe, Cebu. I think of a girl,
long ago, who fell in love with a boy
of whom her parents disapproved. She
married the man who wooed her mother
and broke out in hives on her wedding day.
She packed up her life, years later, and
left the sugarcane fields with two babies
in her arms. She lived out of a garage
and bitterly warded off unwelcome
advances from wolves in men's skins.
Why is this story so important? Don't
ask. Every morning we write a story.
It's as long as a novel or short as a
mantra. It's as old and as young as the
stars. Listen. Once upon a time...

L.I.T.E.R.A.L. #1: Two Books, One Burning Desire

Two Books, One Burning Desire

by Justine Camacho-Tajonera


The Questions (from BronzeAge.ph): Has your book/story/epic been published? If yes, how was the experience, and where can we buy your book? If no (or not yet), why the delay? Is there anything you know you should be doing to make it happen?

The Answers:

 I self-published two books last year, Artemis Lets Go (a novel) and Gift (a poetry book). It started out as a project while I was attending a seminar on producing breakthrough results. I wondered if it was possible to finally publish a book, something that I'd been wanting to do for a long time. I ended up with two published books!

I started doing some research and that was how I discovered Lulu.com. While doing my own editing and figuring a little code, I published my novel and my poetry on the Lulu.com platform and then I discovered Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing Platform as well. Apart from that, I went through the thrill of getting the actual proofs of my books all the way from North Carolina (Lulu) for less than 1,000 pesos each.

I'm not implying that it was easy to actually write the books. That was a totally different process. My novel had been rejected already by a local publisher and I just didn't want to leave it in my proverbial baul. The manuscript was done. It was just a matter of exploring other avenues.

My poetry book came after another project wherein I challenged myself to write a poem every day (back in 2010). I ended up with tons of poems and I just had to sort through them, put them together, and edit them. I was very fortunate to have found a fellow writer, all the way in South Africa, who generously edited my work. I also asked a former professor to write the foreword and he graciously accepted. I asked a good friend of mind to do all the illustrations and the cover art.

Seeing the actual books for sale, online, made my heart skip a beat! Every time I saw them out in a new online store, I had to pinch myself.

I found a local printer and put together a launch for family and friends last November 13, 2011 at Fully Booked, BGC. It was an exhilarating experience (especially getting the stacked books wrapped in brown paper). It was a lovely way to celebrate my writing and a venue to sell the books as well.

These books are definitely not my bread and butter but they taught me a lot. I'm actually still learning until now (for example: it takes a lot of marketing to actually get your published work off the ground). It was a wonderful journey, for sure, one that I'd gladly go through all over again. If you're determined to have your story heard, nothing will stop you. It's just a matter of time.

I'm working on a new book and I'm excited to get it out there to readers. I realize that I'd still do this (writing) even if I didn't get paid. :-)


Artemis Lets Go is available on:

iTunes (U.S.) - http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/artemis-lets-go/id453223514?mt=11

Lulu.com - http://www.lulu.com/shop/justine-camacho-tajonera/artemis-lets-go/ebook/product-17977574.html

BarnesandNoble.com (U.S.) - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/artemis-lets-go-justine-camacho-tajonera/1105797728?ean=9781257937776

Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/Artemis-Lets-Go-ebook/dp/B005GOPVRM


Gift is available on:

iTunes (U.S.) - http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/gift/id466799387?mt=11

Lulu.com - http://www.lulu.com/shop/justine-camacho-tajonera/gift-poems/ebook/product-17977602.html

BarnesandNoble.com (U.S.) - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/gift-justine-camacho-tajonera/1107391966?ean=9781257947911

Amazon.com - http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Poems-ebook/dp/B005NYK98G

Storytelling

by Justine C. Tajonera

Tell me the story again
of how we met,
if I listen often enough
I might say it by
heart
in my sleep.

When the children are grown
and have children
of their own,
maybe they will tell
our story.

Maybe when the stories
are told often enough
nothing is
forgotten.

Who might know what
the truth will be
if the story
is all
that matters?

Be careful with the way
you string the words
together
because that will be
how they
will be
sung.

Tell me again,
tell me
again

and we'll never grow
old and never be
weary.

(May 24, 2010)
Image of storytelling by the fire from Simon Barnes, copyrighted but licenses for further re-use with permission.