Unless we read poetry

"Unless we read poetry, we"ll never have our hearts broken by language, which is an indispensable preliminary to a civilized life." ~Anatole Broyard - The New York Times

Confession Tuesday -

Dear Reader:

It’s that time again.  Time when I look all inward at myself and talk to you about what’s been going on.  So let’s shuffle ourselves into the confessional.

I confess that I’ve given up Diet Coke for lent and so far there have been no casualties.  I’ve actually been doing very well about it. Perhaps being off work sick for a week may have helped. I was certainly distracted where consumption of food and drink was concerned.  Did pretty good with water intake like a good little patient.

I had the flu… and this in spite of the fact that I received a flu shot in the fall. I confess that I was grumpy about that fact. Hey, I did my part!

I’m in the mood for St Patrick’s Day and corned beef and cabbage!  I confess that I am especially fond of corned beef and cabbage. Oh, and potato’s too. I love hose little Yukon Gold ones. I could eat corned beef anytime and honestly I would love to have it more often.  This time of year I usually buy two and throw the second in the freezer. Sometimes we tap into it the next week and other times we will no eat it till much later in the year.  Now I’m totally hungry! I guess that will do it for now. See you all next week when I share all my dirty little secrets that I don’t really have.

Please Do Me Right Now....

Could not resist this  Credit:

Meg: 107: What Phobia?

image by Sarolta Ban

He hides his nervousness behind a Mercurochrome mask

feels the grittiness of a public humiliation just the same

with no particular reason that he can articulate.

It's just the size of everything is so outlandish.

The rivers of mascara that flow like lava.

Mars and Jupiter staring him down.

What phobia should he choose

as he recoils from it all?

He has become the two legged atom

randomized and feeling underfoot

an ant fleeing as the real world trudges on.

Michael A. Wells

Magpie



Magpie 106: Canned Art

photo credit: Bob Adelman, 1965

Through the eye's prism

rows upon rows of Avant-Garde

a canned future 

handy in a missile crisis - 

it's all good- art saves!

Cut into it if you must.

Preserved for generations

to come - taste it - um good!

Michael A. Wells

Mag106



Writer's Anguish

Daniel Kalder writing in the Guardian takes on the matter of writers who self-censor in a fascinating piece that opened my eyes with a bit of history about many authors who have penned work that they subsequently destroyed rather then all publication or in some instances sought and failed to keep the material from seeing the light of day.

Examples of writers and their anguish over what might be published and in the instance of Nikolai Gogol one has to wonder if his decision to burn his work was not more anguish then he could take as he stopped eating and died.

I generally have though of self-censorship more in terms of having ideas or simply general topics I am too uncomfortable to write about. I know these can be sources of great anguish and maybe at times hamper a writer from perhaps moving their work from say one level to something more profound. Maybe it isn't so much a specific idea or topic that would make that extraordinary piece but just having something, anything holding back is like putting a stopper in a bottle.

Interesting article - read it here.

On Being a Poet

"Being a poet is like having an invisible partner. It isn't easy. But you can't live without it either. Talent is only 10 percent. The rest is obsession." ~ Selma Hill, Contemporary Women's Poetry, 2000