Postmodern Donkey tipped me off to a haiku competition called Going to Mars with MAVEN, sponsored by the University of Colorado-Boulder. The word “maven” means “accumulator of knowledge” in Yiddish, but it stands for Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission. The Website explains: Continue reading
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7) Most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you? I have excellent powers of denial that suppress those types of experiences, so I can’t think of any.
“Selene cut the blooms from the neighbors’ roses,
Floating them with oil in the bath. I counted
Twelve wicks. Less my bifocals, they were straight tongues.
Making love in petals and half-drowned rose scent
Feels like something aphids do after rainstorms.”
Carp Fishing and Poetry–Who Knew?
17 FebThank you, Samir of Cecile’s Writers, for presenting me with a Liebster Award! You’re one of my favorite bloggers who expands my thinking horizons, and I appreciate it immensely!
For readers who always eat their desserts first, page down for the carp fishing video.
As part of the award, Samir asked me to answer 11 questions. So here goes:
1) Literature or entertainment fiction? literature IS entertainment fiction for me
2) Introvert or extrovert? heart of an introvert, but I can put on the cloak of an extrovert, when needed. Just don’t expect me to wear it for very long.
3) If you could promote (and succeed) in one cause, what would it be? stripping all physical, psychological, and verbal human violence from this world.
4) Movies or books? BOOKSSSSSSS!!!!!!
5) Which writer’s books can’t you stand (please be honest)? Can’t name one, perhaps because I won’t read them if I don’t like them. I do recall reading At Swim-Two-Birds for a class in experimental literature and thinking that it was a boring “one trick pony.”
6) What’s your favorite cuisine? Chocolate……seriously, I love Southern Indian dosas. After that comes Thai and Vietnamese, North Indian and Persian, Sushi, Spanish/Moroccan, Mexican/Central American…
7) Most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you? I have excellent powers of denial that suppress those types of experiences, so I can’t think of any. 
) BUT, I have lots of embarrassing moments with animals. For example, my husband and I were gathering wood for a fire after dark at Nxai Pan in Botswana. Continue reading
Surprise Valentine Poem for You
14 FebA friend’s poetry chapbook arrived in the mail today, just in time. Here’s a brief excerpt:
“Selene cut the blooms from the neighbors’ roses,
Floating them with oil in the bath. I counted
Twelve wicks. Less my bifocals, they were straight tongues.
Making love in petals and half-drowned rose scent
Feels like something aphids do after rainstorms.”
–From Strutting, Attracting, Snapping
Poems by Michael Odom
Go ahead, you know you want to buy this book…you’re only a click away.
Best Valentine E-V-E-R
12 FebApparently this video has been on YouTube for a year, but a friend just posted it on FB today. I am in love with the words of Mark Grist, the spoken word poet who delivers his ode to women who read. Don’t tell my husband… Continue reading
Echoes Before Silence
16 JanEcho River
“Soon we had fashioned a rude boat,
and with lanterns affixed to the prow were ferrying tours across the smoky waters:
Styx, Lethe, Echo River, the host
of wonders I had found. By slapping
the water with the flat of my paddle,
there comes a sound like the ringing of bells,
a mournful, hollow melody—waves lap-
ping and beating under the low stone arches.
The voice, too, will reproduce in myriad; Continue reading
Name That Book!
22 JunAnd now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for Name That Book! We’ve identified several people in our studio audience who think they know a thing or two about “great” literature (no not you, Professor Bloom), so we’re going to challenge them. The first one to identify the “home” of the following passage wins a pat on the back from the Writer’s Shadow!
“I am the way into the doleful city,
I am the way into eternal grief,
I am the way to a forsaken race. Continue reading
The Power of the Pen
14 MayI love the quote mentioned in today’s New York Times (5/14/2012), regarding a march instigated by a group of Russian writers just wanting to take a protest stroll (against Putin’s crackdown on dissent) through central Moscow without being harassed, beaten, arrested, etc. :
“Russian history is full of confrontations between leaders and writers, whom Stalin once described as ‘engineers of the soul.’” Continue reading
Open Mic Fright
4 MayAnd so my eight-year-old son, the voracious reader but painfully reluctant writer, has progressed from writing about building a treehouse in Maine with his dad, to a nonfiction report on the Iguanodon with its fearsome thumb spikes, to creating a fictional story about the adventures of Frog the Kitten and Sid the Skunk.
Now the focus is poetry. In class, they’ve read many examples of what poems can look and sound like. My son’s favorite collection is the latest Shel Silverstein, Everything On It. But enjoying poetry is not the problem—apparently. Continue reading
The Writer’s Shadow
Making Tracks…
Missed Any of These? Hmmm??
Thank you, 4am Writer!
Thank you CalloftheSiren!!
Thank you SAMIR!!
Thank you Scribblerbean!!
Thank you ReadnCook!!
Thank you NYParrot!!
Thank you WhatsItAllAbout!!
