I’ve been thinking about putting together a small book, basically to give to my mother. I’m going to pick Rik’s brain about Lulu, but does anyone else have any experience with them or other POD publishers?

I’d like it to look nice, but if there’s a more economical way to get a nice result for a handful of copies I’d love to hear about it.

… in Kevin Mench’s shoes.

Dude wore shoes that were so much too small he got turf toe. Um, dude is obviously a weensy bit stupid. Dude.

NaPo is over, and I feel nothing.

Steve is fileting fish.

Vegetarianism is so much more appealing. Rutabagas don’t flop, for god’s sake.

It’s funny that the only times I’ve ever thought about Steve Howe were when I was defending him in relation to Pete Rose. Defenders of Rose like to argue that if a player like Howe wasn’t kicked out of baseball, a player like Rose shouldn’t be, either.

Steve Howe. Poster boy for drug addiction and second chances. He has died in a car accident at age 48. That’s too young to die. The life of Steve Howe seems like a melange of wasted opportunity and bad decisions, summed up like this:

Steve Howe, the relief pitcher whose promising career was derailed by cocaine and alcohol abuse, died Friday when his pickup truck rolled over in Coachella, Calif. He was 48.

I don’t want an obituary like this. My god, I don’t want one like this.

You Should Be a Romance Novelist

You see the world as it should be, and this goes double for all matters of the heart. You can find the romance in any situation, and you would make a talented romance story writer… And while you may be a traditional romantic, you’re just as likely to be drawn to quirky or dark love stories. As long as it deals with infatuation, heartbreak, and soulmates – you could write it.

Yeah. They’ve pegged me. I have written a romance novel. One and a half romance novels, in fact. They are both on a broken hard drive, in a sleeve, in a box, in a desk, in Ohio.

I have a mystery, too, but that’s not too embarrassing.

Of course, considering that I’m pretty freaking unromantic and I don’t believe in True Wuv, I should stick to murder.

Ginger over at Postcards of the Imagination has an interesting post about internet freedoms.

Being on the internet feels so isolated. It’s hard to remember sometimes that we can be tracked, blocked, or cyber-poked with a stick.

My reviewing is a week old and it’s harder than I imagined it would be. The few comments I’ve received directly and indirectly have been positive, so that’s something. And I haven’t gotten any nastygrams.

But I’m feeling a bit depressed about the whole thing. It’s hard to feel that such an effort matters. Of course it doesn’t matter. I want it to matter. It doesn’t. I want it to. It doesn’t.

Some days, poetry fills me up. Other days, I’m so hollow and brittle I’m like a burst milkpod.

How do I make it matter? How do I matter?

My dinner will never be ready, as I started with Giant Frozen Chickens!

The package of chicken had the most ginormous chicken parts I have ever seen. Multiple giant chicken parts, requiring multiple giant chickens. Mutant chickens. We had too much, so I froze some and now am trying to thaw pieces of Giant Mutant Frozen Chickens, probably from Skull Island.

Soup. I think I’ll have soup. This will allow me to shred the GMFC instead of contemplating their hugeness further.

Pangur Bán trans. by Seamus Heaney

It’s a charming but slight traditional Irish poem. I like how this translated poem seems to be about translating something. Not much else to say.

———

Terracotta by James Grinwis

I have to say that while I’m not blown away by James Grinwis, dude is never boring. Today’s poem is very appealing to me with its piling up of off images, though I think the final simile of a siren twirling “like a kicked fruitcake” is just terrible.

———

Testament by Megan Gannon

The first 8 lines are throat-clearing. I don’t want to suggest rewrites for these poems. They are done, complete, not posted in a workshop, but damn. I’d cut those lines and start in with

You are learning

backwards. There’s hardly time.

Those lines would have pulled me in. The current opening pushed me away.