Dear Reader,

Today was light on the poetry writing front (I did write one, but it was for an assignment and it was awful and it was about pinecones), but heavy on the “finish the things” or attempting to.

During the Rilke poetry discussion call, I submitted a chapbook to a contest. Shhh…it was when others were reading their poems from the assignment. With almost 60 people on the call and Word Raccoon miffed at me, I did not share mine. 

Actually, I did not follow the prompt because WR grabbed the wheel two lines in, and I told her she was headed in the wrong direction, but she didn’t care. 

Because WR insisted on wearing her Dolly Parton tee to get her lab work done this morning, and furthermore, doubled down with her Coke Zero earrings, I made her leave the camera off but allowed her to participate lightly in the chat.

(One of our comments earned us an “exactly right” from the instructor. WR is still polishing her badge.) 

Here’s the deal: Rilke’s work affects us. The more work affects us, the less we can say about it unless we write it down. 

Two of the poems were read aloud in their original German, and someone asked why we were hearing it in German first, and the answer made sense: because poetry is first music and rhythm. 

Naturally, there cannot be a one-for-one there, but I get it. 

Recently I’ve been working on a poem. It’s special to me but alas, it put on a party hat and has become a song. Sigh. 

That was not the plan, WR, I said. She does not care. 

Yesterday at the café, WR and I were minding our own business when a man struck up a conversation and ended up asking us out! We politely told him we hoped he would have a delightful time at the event he had suggested, then excused ourselves and went and bought four bags of mulch and some flowers. 

I reckon we garden now. 

I had to laugh. That is certainly not why we were at the café, but it serves us right for imagining that was the place to hide from Barry’s band practice. 

(Though we did have a visitor stop by while we were there for a moment who brought us gifts, a man: my brother! And on his birthday!) 

Anyway, besides reading Rilke with others, WR woke early and started in on the house. I think she imagined I would make her stop after today since the anniversary I spoke of yesterday will have come and gone. 

She hung up in the hallway the birds that began life as trivets. They are in a bit of a drunken formation, but we do not do perfection. 

Then we decided our newest addition, a painting we are calling The Haunted Ancestor, belonged in the stairwell, so WR got to work putting her in her new home. (And she’s not so bad.)

We also installed a second towel ring on the new towel cabinet. 

We planted the flowers that we bought yesterday. 

Our niece picked up the old dining room table, and yesterday, after band practice when furniture was already migrating from room to room, the kitchen table was swapped into the dining room and the new kitchen table (a foldable wicker table we bought Saturday at an antique shop and immediately painted) was put in play. It’s smaller, it’s portable, and it feels like I’m drinking a cup alfresco. 

I feel my body ready for another rebellion day, but I’m asking it for a little leeway. If only it will let me do the kitchen backsplash, install the new storm door closer, hang the rest of the kitchen paintings and etc., and do the trim around the upstairs bathroom mirror (yeah, that’s still on the list), and miscellaneous things along the way, we can be friends. 

(Whatever you do, DO NOT tell my body about a top secret mega project I have planned. The supplies are coming, but I may have to hire the work out. I’d love the bragging rights for this one, though…)

Oh, and a poem of mine, Control: The Language, has been picked up by The Closed Eye Open for their summer issue. I’ll share a link when it comes out. I’m happy and honored. 

I suspect that during writing time tomorrow I will be revising a bunch of poems; it’s time I gather another first-string lineup. That feels good.

And maybe I will try to convince that song that she’s a poem…but she’s not, and she knows it. 

It’s heady reading Rushdie and Rilke simultaneously. That last line of Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rilke is an unanticipated gut punch. 

To spring rain and asparagus,

Drema 

Dear Reader,

Tomorrow marks one year since my mother died.

In the last years of her life, she gave me two gifts that have changed the way I live.

The first was the sunporch.

Whenever she visited, she would stop there and look around. At the time, the room held little more than a porch swing. I would complain that it was either too hot or too cold to use much.

“If I had this porch, I’d live out here,” she’d say.

Eventually, I listened.

I bought furniture. I wrestled chairs and tables into place. I added lamps and baskets and little touches that made the room feel welcoming. Slowly, the porch became a place where reading wanted to happen and writing wanted to happen and life wanted to happen.

Eventually, where grieving wanted to happen.

Before she passed, every time I made an improvement, I told her.

Her first language was paint and wallpapering.

The second gift came not long before she passed.

I had spent days painting a bathroom yellow. Three coats in, I could still see through it in places. Frustrated, I told her I thought I needed another coat.

“Stop painting and start decorating,” she said.

It was exactly the right advice.

Not just for that bathroom.

For life.

There comes a point when more paint isn’t the answer. More preparation isn’t the answer. More fixing isn’t the answer.

Sometimes you have to stop trying to perfect the foundation and begin enjoying what you’ve already built.

I’ve found myself returning to that advice again and again.

The past few months have been full of decorating. The hallway. The porch. The bathroom. Lampshades. Mirrors. Art. Little corners of the house that suddenly seemed to matter.

For a while, I thought I was just nesting.

Now I think something else was happening.

A bouquet is not enough to express my grief.

It’s taking a whole house to do that.

Yours in color, wallpaper, and porches worth sitting on,

Drema

Dear Reader,

In addition to the baptism by McCartney last night, beforehand (because naturally we were early), Word Raccoon’s ears perked up.

“Is…is that Cake?” she asked.

It was.

It was CAKE doing a cover of “Strangers in the Night.”

What??

WR immediately demanded to know what album it was from.

Friends, it was Stubbs the Zombie: The Soundtrack.

Which meant absolutely nothing to us because zombies? Except CAKE.

Today we listened to the EP and: all the yeses.

We also discovered a rarities collection of Cake. We do not generally do rarities albums, but apparently there are exceptions.

Why do we love music that says, “Sure, I have all the feelings, but whatever”?

It’s emotional camouflage.

Like putting gauze over the speaker.

Like playing suck-and-blow with a credit card with your feelings, you know, how you pass the card to someone else by sucking it onto your lips and blowing it onto the next player’s? (I’ve never played it, but WR has watched Clueless an unreasonable number of times. Seriously. Let’s not count, ‘k? 

She even watched it in China! 

She has written at least two poems about the movie. Because Cher was NOT a dumb blonde. (Not that we accept that stereotype anyway…) She took to heart criticism and tried to grow. 

Also, no Clueless, no Legally Blonde. 

I said what I said!

Not many people would accuse WR of playing it cool. She is, I think, constitutionally incapable of it, though she occasionally attempts the experiment.

Moving on.

In submitting news, we learned today that our chapbook Waxing cleared another hurdle but not the final fence.

That’s okay.

She’s not a horse.

We also submitted Inconveniently Alive today. If it isn’t the first time we’ve sent that manuscript out, it’s close.

A few lines we rather liked:

I like the hay.
It pokes, but it’s warm
and it remembers
it was once alive.

And:

I told my heart to calm down
and it threw a folding chair.

(If you’ve ever followed Indiana basketball, that makes perfect sense.)

The household retrofitting continues.

It is band-ready for tomorrow, the fridge is full of beer, and household projects have been temporarily suspended.

WR and I intend to choose alternate writing quarters tomorrow, giving our Freewrite a workout.

Please let the coffee shop uptown be open. At least between 1 and 3, after which time it will be safe to return to all the household projects.

If this were You’ve Got Mail, Joe Fox would have fired back with some sort of Godfather line to counter Kathleen Kelly if she dared defend Clueless. 

Let’s see if this screen magically generates a message…

No?

Yours in song covers, chapbooks, and strategic retreat,

Drema

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon and I attended an old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness release-day listening party at a local record shop.

We heard Paul McCartney’s The Boys of Dungeon Lane. There were maybe twenty people in the store, and the album was really listenable, especially the track “Days We Left Behind.” 

Attendees received postcards of McCartney as a lad, very cool, and one lucky winner took home a print of Macca. She said she was going to put it in her kitchen. 

I pointed out to her that it came with hardware to hang it, so that tells you the frame of mind I’m in right now. 

The LPs arrived just in time, which apparently had been very much in doubt, according to the store owner, so that was a relief to all.

We love that Macca is still creating. We think you’re never too old to create. 

WR only wrote one poem today: “Wallpapering the Moon.”

No idea why celestial bodies are on her mind so strongly.

She has done many of the things and knows precisely which things remain and has plans now for many of them. 

Some she has no clue about, though she wishes she did.

She registered for Adam Walker’s poetry class and ordered the book of Rilke’s poems which is required reading. For a moment she experienced that particular euphoria that comes from knowing brain food is incoming, and then the usual “but what if I make an idiot of myself?; what if I don’t know what I think I know?; what if I sound pretentious?…”

She finished the second Rushdie story, “The Musician of Kahani,” which had both magical realism and shades of Vonnegut, and began the third, “Late,” which opens with a man who wakes up dead and begins almost immediately saying that Descartes was partially right and partially wrong about the difference in the mind and brain, highlighted by death, so we are intrigued. 

She decided to try the touted slow-reading method and does indeed find it superior and the reading more enjoyable, so she’s grateful for that advice, just as she was when it was suggested that she ought to read once for plot, again for the rest. Her reading has never been the same, though she was never a weak reader to begin with. 

She plans to spend part of the weekend submitting poetry. And spending time on her porch, which she always enjoys when the weather and such is nice. She overfed the squirrels today on accident, but it was fun to watch them scramble for the mixed nuts.

Weekend reading and writing, 

Drema 

P.S. I first watched this video a couple of nights ago, and I just read about it again in the brothers Green’s newsletter about the once-belief that geese grow on trees. Yes, a dictionary from the time proves it, via The Dictionary Diva. (This made me crave my “paper” dictionary,” among other things.)

Dear Reader,

Despite telling Word Raccoon that I was ready to get more fully back to the page, I woke at 1 am and by 2:30 I gave up trying to sleep, took my book downstairs (the Rushdie – I’m hooked on that second story now!), and read two pages before falling fast asleep and not waking for good until my alarm went off at 6.

(This is not literary clickbait. Rushdie arrives later.)

The reason I couldn’t go back to sleep initially is because I kept thinking about all of the small things I was going to do today to improve the house, everything from hanging mirrors to doing a furniture swap out.

In my mind, I saw myself doing a whole list, and I was so excited about improving things that, as I said, I couldn’t sleep.

When the alarm went off, I was sleepy, but that wasn’t the issue. My joints said, “Hello? Remember us? We know that you carried two heavy boxes upstairs yesterday – who told you to do that? We know every single thing you moved, hauled, swept, and hammered this past week.”

In short, my body did not even want to climb the stairs to get ready. It took caffeine and a pain pill, but I convinced it.

I strongly suspect that my body has been talking to Word Raccoon, who couldn’t care less whether or not I get that mirror on the wall.

While I told the body (and I meant it) that I will be more mindful today, I did negotiate a few tasks before leaving to write.

My mind works best when I close loops, when I actually finish a project instead of opening another. But also, one project suggests another, and they all seem so easy to start with. Before I know it, I have three projects going and a list of others to begin. Naturally, I prefer those with a quick visual win.

Okay, the brain has been emptied. I’m going to treat myself to a few pages of Rushdie even if I am at the café , something I sadly hardly ever do, read here.

Rushdie is one of those authors I like much more than I expected to. In fact, I look forward to his books coming out, though I haven’t read them all. He surprises me with his au courant-ness. His humor surprises me. His tone engages. His plots are imaginative.

And obviously, he’s a badass on multiple fronts.

In this collection, he has done something I seldom see done, where the narrator directly says he’s giving information for those who don’t know. He does that in multiple places. I mean, it’s forthright, and I suppose you could argue that it gives a direct connection with the reader, so it’s intimate. But also, maybe it takes away a bit of authority from the author? Like, I feel like I can just say it, and it’s on the reader to look up a word or a custom, etc.

I suspect it’s sly commentary/critique on the Western-culture-heavy perspective on storytelling and the assumptions we as readers are expected to make, and by pointing out things we wouldn’t know, he’s saying of course we don’t know because the publishing world is built that way.

Or maybe he’s just trying on a voice. I honestly can’t remember if he does it in multiple stories (I think so) though I know he does it multiple times. This is not a review. Just random thoughts.

Okay, WR says fine, I should read a few pages, but then I will absolutely get to the poetry or she will have my hide.

Bossy little animal.

To progress, however small. To life, always precious.

Drema

P.S. Today’s reading led to two poem drafts. More on that later, perhaps, but it involves soup on the moon and the word badinage.

Dear Reader,

The following is merely an exercise I created to get the words to flowing.

No t-shirts were harmed, or intended any harm, in the writing of this blog post.

Meanwhile, poetry smokes Gitanes in the alley, asking if I’m done pissing around with paint and wallpaper.

Not yet. 

Poetry rubs its forehead against mine and when I write a poem tonight, eyes fried, it slips back into the shadows, poetry, flips its collar, and says “That’s what I’m talking about.”

I watched a video on the history of the t-shirt recently. It said a soldier wore one on the cover of Life magazine, I think, and then Marlon Brando as Stanley popularized them, and then, of course, James Dean. 

I’ve been to the James Dean museum. It’s worth a look. There’s a cool letter by him there to his young cousin Marcus, who had sent him drawings. 

Jim had feelings about these. He wanted his cousin to choose his subject carefully. 

Which is good advice for any sort of artist. 

Marcus lived in Indiana, in James’s words, “…land that is greatly blessed…”

What do t-shirts have to do with poetry?

You tell me. 

Shall I speak of blank white shirts (ok, Plain White Tees) that beg for words, or worn thin as a milk mustache on the body?

I want two hours on either end of the morning now, Word Raccoon and I do, for peak writing, tee or no.

I have a sun visor/surround for my computer now so I can see my screen better. It reminds me of the social studies fairs I used to win ribbons at every year, those trifold postboard affairs. I still have all of the ribbons, though I don’t know where the trophies went.. Which is why I entered it mostly. 

Once as a teen I dated a guy (ugh, why him?) and he saw my wall of certificates and ribbons and said I must be smart.

He…was not so much.

Then he asked me how much longer before I finished my math homework. 

He wore t-shirts and smoked. 

Everyone asked, Why, Drema? 

I wondered that myself before telling him to 

take a hike. 

I returned his gifts, and we swapped back t-shirts he’d bought us. 

He’d misspelled my name on the one he wore.

I never told him he had, but when we broke up,

I threw it away. 

Word Raccoon says she would like to get back to regularly scheduled poetry and all that she’s been missing during the home decor updating.

My poor baby. I hear that. I miss so much.

Dear Reader,

I blame the TV show Friends and Neighbors for the fact that I bought three mirrors. 

Remember how I said I was staring at mirrors on the show (and not even symbolically, but yes, that too)? Well yesterday, before going to see The Devil Wears Prada 2, I asked Barry if he minded if we stopped by the Goodwill so I could see what they had on hand, because the online prices for mirrors had me yikesing. 

I called the Goodwill and it turned out they were open, yay, but only until 2 because of the holiday. 

We were planning on hitting the 11 AM movie. 

We raced to the store with only about 20 minutes to comfortably shop and check out if we were going to make it to the movie on time.

Barry went in one direction, I went in another. I scanned quickly to find the mirror section. There was a big expanse of white that could have been a picture or a mirror, the rear of something, but Word Raccoon said it was a mirror and I rushed towards it.

She was right. 

We quickly pawed through the stack and soon found exactly what we wanted. 

And did the gorgeous gold-framed rectangular mirror I found cost hundreds of dollars? 

It did not. 

It cost $19.99. And it’s really nice. Not perfect, but Word Raccoon does not do perfect.

Well, after a quick consult, I wrangled it into the cart and raced over to the furniture area, looking for a slim console table or desk for the hall. Immediately I spied one for $14.99 that looked made for the space. I ripped the tag off the desk to claim it and called Barry once again to ask if he wanted a look. 

(Did I mention the place was packed?)

“Have you seen the line at the registers?” Barry asked as he quickly agreed to the desk. 

We jumped in line. It was so long I asked if he minded if I ran back because I hadn’t had a chance to find a better picture frame for my lovely painting I showed you a couple of days ago. 

I found the perfect frame, and hopped back in line. When at last we heard the total, I gasped in disbelief.

The three items I had chosen plus a jacket totaled $19.00. 

“Did you scan the mirror?” I asked her, not believing that could be right.

The clerk smiled. “It’s half price day.” 

Which explained the crowd. 

WR pirouetted and wheeled the cart out gleefully. I do believe I even saw a heel click.

Why she had brought her smaller car when searching for furniture, who knows, but somehow it fit. (Honestly, she thought she might find a mirror but really was not confident she’d find a desk, is likely why.) 

But wait, didn’t I mention three mirrors?

I did indeed. 

After the movie, I teased that no one was at the theater (except a couple who were rude enough to sit right behind us in an otherwise empty theater. Psychos, WR hissed, but I told her that was a little harsh.), because they were all at the Goodwill. 

It was just after one PM.

“Want to go back?” Barry asked.

“Did you get to look at what you wanted to?” (That was a yes, let’s return in WR-speak.)

He had not. I blame a certain mirror scout.

We had 45 minutes, give or take, before 2. If we had found all of that in 20 minutes…

WR ran back to the mirror section on a hunch, and found two gorgeous oval mirrors that were only $5 each!! She had no idea where they were going except in the cart.

She lamp stalked, finding one with a shade she was pretty sure she could convince to mirror the shiny teal lampshade we’d just seen in the movie and she’d insisted the hallway needed that blue with the yellow. I agreed. Lamp and shade for the hallway, thrifted for $3.50.

Not knowing for sure how she’d transform the shade, she grabbed a colorful curtain and a pillowcase in the required color for fifty cents each to see if either of those would work for nothing o’dollars. (Okay, 50 cents.)

Once she got them home, however, the curtain was just right to drape over the desk and she realized she preferred trim, not an entire lampshade, so as not to overpower the desk and small space. She ordered teal tassel trim that has already arrived, though I’m making her wait before tackling yet another project. (That sounds like a tongue twister: teal tassel trim.)

Now back to the Goodwill.

I will not list every blessed thing she found, but she thrifted a gorgeous wooden platter, huge, painted with cherries and I “swan,” I think she’s going to insist it go on a kitchen wall. I’m not going to stop her.

In fact, I think that has inspired the kitchen cabinet update I was supposed to be researching.

Checking that off the list.

She found a metal sculptural wall hanging with ancient looking “tiles” that she is likely going to repaint the middle section of, but which told her it belongs in the hall. (WHEN WILL THOSE WALLS BE CURED? SHE CANNOT WAIT TO HANG DECOR!)

And she found a wide but narrow seaside painting that obviously wants to fill the porch wall where she finally took down the pie tins she put up so many years ago. That might happen yet today. If she goes to the gym first. I’m not above bribery.

Update: I let her put it up before the gym, but then she kept her word and went.

One of the mirrors, actually, has been put up in the living room in place of something that had been there too, too, long. WR took a long, deep, breath after making that change today. 

Anyway, as we put our jewelry on this morning, WR said she wants jewel-like poetry today. She’s ready for delicate, peony-like stanzas. Spring pink syllables. 

I am hoping to limit her household project time today in favor of writing, but no, she’s fussing with the doctor’s office as we try to sort out a refill request with our lovely mail-order medicine company. Great shades of 1900’s-era Sears & Roebuck.

At least she’s able to sit outdoors today. She’s loving that.

Poems prefer spring,

Drema 

P.S. WR, instead of doing any of the list of things she was supposed to for the week ripped the fabric and foam off a bench just to see what was underneath because she was tired of it as is. Now she’s contemplating a bazillion ideas for it, but the lead idea is to make a sand table where she can put her dunes rocks, sand, driftwood and all of the things that give off poetry vibes.

Dear Reader, 

Word Raccoon and I have been decorating the newly painted bookshelf in our minds for days now. Today, we were ready to make it a reality. 

But.

But then we realized we had three big boxes of books from it to go through to see what belonged on the shelves. That didn’t even mean searching the other bookshelves in the house.

WR started grabbing anything that appealed to her, from books she hasn’t read to books she thinks she ought to, to books she adores. 

Even before she chose books, however, she chose shelf decor, which just felt wrong at first. I mean, bookshelves are for, you know, books. 

However.

However, this bookshelf is definitely special, and we wondered what it might feel like to showcase books instead of warehousing them. 

Onto the shelves, then, went books that particularly delight us mixed with hmmm…could be interesting: 

Special editions of Woolf and Brontë. 

Craft books.

Art books. 

Classics and classics-adjacent.

All of the kitsch, too, apparently.

A sibling photo from when there were only four of us and I was only eleven years old. (I’m the mischievous-looking one with the butterfly necklace on the bottom right, in case you couldn’t tell.) That photo came from my parents’ house last year. I treasure it.

Two photos I took in Paris late one night through a shop window. 

A Raggedy Ann doll that used to belong to my grandmother.

And on and on. 

WR and I are thrilled with the results of our bookshelf transformation, although we honestly don’t know what we will do with the remaining books. 

Between the movie (which was good) and all, it’s been a full day. 

So here’s the bookshelf before we accidentally fall asleep. 

Now we’re either going to try to write a poem we began on the way to The Devil Wears Prada 2 today, or we’re going to read more Rushdie, because though we are still only on the second story of the quintet, we are intrigued now. 

Or, you know, we might doze off.

With warmth from the porch,

Drema 

Dear Reader,

This house is a beast not easily satisfied. You paint a hall, she asks what you’re going to do about the lighting situation. You change the batteries in the hall light, she asks if you are really going to leave those curtains up? You tell her you have different curtains, you just have to dig them out, she says…

Well, you get the picture.

This morning Word Raccoon and I, my beloved writing pal/menace, plotted on the porch. Not a novel, no, no, but Things to Do Today. Alas, poetry is still asking for more house improvements before she returns to my fingertips.

We began by putting a small basket of books on a (not the painted one) bookshelf, falling for each book all over again as we held it in our hands, wondering if it is socially acceptable to hug them, because we absolutely were. 

We also came up with more adorable ideas for the door edges, but I’ve convinced WR that we ought to wait until it’s a bit warmer if we’re going to have to leave the doors open for a time. (No, I’m not telling you until I can show you! But we are SO EXCITED! 😀)

Here’s what else we managed:

We replaced the burned-out bulbs in the porch light strands and took down the Christmas lights while we were at it. The porch already feels calmer and brighter somehow.

We are currently engineering a dishwasher skirt because apparently the internet would like fifty dollars for one and absolutely not. We are experimenting with Velcro and a mushroom-covered tablecloth. Because why not?

We packed up the china on the porch. It’s pretty and we do use it occasionally, but I know where the garage is if I need it.

I did keep aside half the set for when we have company.

We wallpapered the painted bookshelf and then spent an absurd amount of time touching up the trim and arguing with shelf brackets. Alas, we are not professional furniture painters and it shows, but honestly? I think she turned out cheerful and charming anyway.

We shopped the house for a basket deep enough to conceal ugly utility items on the porch because the previous basket was exposing cords and WR was threatening to toss the whole thing. She does not do ugly.

I also hunted the house for a frame for a little painting I found at our local thrift shop last week for, I think, fifty cents. I haven’t tried to read the signature yet because I kind of like letting it reveal itself bit by bit, though I am endlessly curious and it just makes me happy to look at.

It’s on wood, and WR and I LURVE paintings on panels. Why do they look so much richer?

I found a frame to protect it for now, though it’s a little too large. Still, it already feels happier framed. Some things just want to know they’re being cared for.

And somehow, amidst all the ladders, paint, wallpaper scraps, and Oreos, WR and I still found time to sit on the porch this morning with a cup of tea and enjoy the breeze as it wandered through, raising our hair and our spirits.

Ah, what a treat.

The happiest of holidays to you, Dear Reader. As for us, WR is campaigning to go see The Devil Wears Prada 2. I wouldn’t say no to that.

Drema

P.S. I think poetry might be appeased at last because I have written two poems tonight, and more seem imminent.

Now Listening to: “Open Book” by Cake

Dear Reader,

It has been a long, full day but Word Raccoon, while quite tired, is also feeling triumphant. The hallway? Successfully painted. The bookshelf? It had two coats and might need a third. I’ll assess tomorrow morning, but it’s looking so much better.

I’m excited now to reimagine the hall. I found myself eyeing mirrors on the show Friends and Neighbors tonight that might suit the hallway. I’m thinking of a thin console table, or a shelf, maybe a plant on it? Definitely a colorful runner.

Also, WR did indeed get her Reese’s though she asked for it after the first coat, and I gave in, just to keep her moving. But I had to remember where I put it first.

During one of our breaks (the one before we missed a step on the ladder but mercifully caught ourselves; WR refuses to climb a ladder one more time today), we watched a YouTube video by Adam Walker, “Don’t Wait Until Your Deathbed to Notice the World.” WR bounced up and down when she heard him say he’s teaching a course in June, “Rilke & The Poetry of Things.” We are definitely considering it!

Here’s his syllabus. (Yes, I’m a lit geek.)

Apparently he left teaching at Harvard and is making his own poetry niche online. I think more people of the academic bent ought to consider that.

WR is ready to move from household projects back to poetry. I think. 

She did pick up a line while watching TV: “the calculus of compromise.” That would make a great title for a lead poem in a collection of the same name, yes?

Now reading: The Eleventh Hour, Salman Rushdie’s latest book, a short story collection on death. I read the first (very) short story of the quintet and found it moving and memorable, even though as I’ve said before, I get impatient with short story collections because I get invested in characters, and then the book isn’t over, but the story is, and I’m asked to let go of those characters and get to know new ones.

I don’t mind short stories in journals, only in collections. Linked stories are a different animal. And collections with a strong theme are fine, too. In case you were curious, this one does have a strong theme.

Now to wait for the bookshelf to finish drying so I can put the wallpaper in, let the paint cure for 48 hours, and then see how I want to arrange the books…for once I’d like to be intentional about it. Although I’m very casual about books. I prefer trade paperbacks, and I like to write in them and crinkle the pages like, “See, I don’t need you. You’re not so important to me,” when they absolutely are, even more so than those few gorgeous hardcovers I can’t really bring myself to open. And I know that’s wrong because what’s in the book is the thing.

At any rate, I know I mentioned arranging books by color before, but I’ve never done it. I do like the look of it, but for me, there’s something about just shoving beach reads in with classics that makes me feel well-rounded. I’m all about the texture.

Watching paint dry over here. If there’s a poem in that, I haven’t found it.

Drema