1. Veronica Mars. This show is a must see. Watch it.

2. My Friend Flicka. I read it at 8, now again at 35. I had forgotten most of it, but it’s easy to recall now why I devoured it and its sequels. This is a book suitable for kids, but not written for them (at least according to the standards of 2006).

3. Cinnamon tea. Every year, the cinnamon tea gets yanked off the shelves, and I go through a summer without. Then fall comes and it comes and damn. The combination of tea and cinnamon is simply divine.

4. The Emperor’s New Groove. It’s a silly movie, but it makes me laugh like few things I’ve seen before or since.

Please take a look at her lovely poetry here. Rose has decided not to pursue much in the way of publication, so this is a great opportunity to admire her work en masse.

In recent revision of one of my free verse poems, I decided that I would attempt to transform it into some received form–perhaps a dizain because of the mirroring aspect of that form.

Rewriting a free verse poem into a form is obviously an artistic choice, but is it also a political one? The poem is about lynching. Is there a difference between writing a free verse poem about lynching and writing a formal poem about lynching? Is there a statement in there about what are suitable topics for rigidity and artifice? Do we transform a poem’s meaning through lineation and rhyme, or just its appearance, as if with a magic wand? Fitting the form to the sense is something that many writers recommend (as do I), so what statement is it actually making if we determine that the sense of a particular poem fits a form? Are we saying that lynching (to use my example) is a particularly dizain-ish historical fact? That it has a stateliness and a predictability?

I’ve often said that a sonnet can be about anything. But does the act of creating a sonnet change the topic?

I’m thinking about these things instead of actually, you know, writing poems.

I’m going to try to do NaNoWriMo again this year. Last year was a horrible failure. The year before was a success.

Anyone else brave/foolish enough to join me in writing a 50,000 word novel during the month of November?

I have arrived!

My commenter is an astonishing combination of ignorance and illiteracy. It thinks I do music! It makes me so proud.

But I’ve turned off anonymous commenting. Why? To test the dedication of this lovely. If I have real power, it will create a Blogger account just to comment further. Pleaseohpleaseohplease.

… I’d stick ’em in the freezer, dammit!

I am so not ready for this weather.

There was frost on the Jeep this morning. There should be a law that it not frost before Steve’s birthday.

But I don’t mean hair.

Last night, Steve and I went to the fair. While at the fair, we went to a demolition derby. Pickups. It was hilarious.

We ate too much, of course, and I got mud on my head.

But it was worth it.

MINI POetry Review Challenge: MINIPORC

Please participate by publicly reviewing at least one published poem per day this week, as discussed here.

SarahJ of The Rain in My Purse has got the ball rolling with her review.

And Very Like a Whale weighs in, a whale of a weigh-in.

The weather was gorgeous, the news from baseball deeelightful (Yanks lose! Yanks lose!) and some kind person picked up my phone after it fell from my pocket during a hike in the woods and returned it to the visitor center. Everyone deserves a big hug. C’mere.

Over on WEE, I’ve tried to get back to reviewing a couple of poems most days, but I constantly wonder if it’s worth it. What am I accomplishing? I can burn myself out, and for what? Does reviewing add something positive to the general state of the poetry world even if the review ends up negative? Is a negative review worth more or less than a positive one? Do I drag down or build up poetry by approaching it with the intent to speak?

It’s Friday, so I offer a challenge. Publically review at least one published poem every weekday next week. Then talk about the experience. Does it change the way you read? Is it a good change or a bad one? Does speaking publicly make you more negative or more positive? Do you fear hurting feelings? Did you read poems you wouldn’t have read otherwise? Is there a benefit to the exercise? Do you want to continue?

It’s the MINI POetry Review Challenge: MINIPORC. Please participate. Let’s talk reviews.