Rarely does my neighborhood offer peculiar sights. There’s a walker who charges down the street with ski poles in the middle of summer and a very tall cross-dresser I haven’t seen in years. During swim team season toilet paper hangs gracefully from trees, and in the spring girls in prom dresses duck into limousines. That’s [...]
Archive for the ‘Poetry found’ Category
Life outside the lines
Posted in Life outside the lines, tagged blogging, children, culture, death, life, Maurice Sendak, poetry, random, school on May 9, 2012 | 3 Comments »
Brave hearts in burqas
Posted in Brave hearts in burqas, tagged Afghanistan, culture, news, poetry, women, writing on May 1, 2012 | 1 Comment »
The last thing we need is one more national themed day or month that no one cares about or notices. But after reading the New York Times magazine this past Sunday, I’m going to suggest a new one. As I noted last week, April 26 is “Put a Poem in Your Pocket Day.” The following day [...]
A good day for wing flapping
Posted in A good day for wing flapping, tagged culture, dancing, life, poetry, random, video on April 23, 2012 | 2 Comments »
A quickie post while I figure out what poem I’ll post next and where I’ll put it. My daughter sent me a video I want to share. The title, “Free to Be You and Me,” sounds like a coloring book for a self-esteem presentation. Self esteem presentations make me gag. But I didn’t gag [...]
Running away from dogs
Posted in Running away from dogs, tagged detroit, dogs, life, poetry, random on March 28, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Today I read an article in the latest Rolling Stone about roaming packs of wild dogs in Detroit. With little money for animal control and deserted buildings, empty lots, and a declining human population, Detroit is being overrun with stray dogs. (You can link to the article here.) The writer visits one abandoned home filled [...]
Spring clean-up for Poem Elf
Posted in Spring clean-up for Poem Elf, tagged poetry, random, spring on March 27, 2012 | 1 Comment »
I don’t often have the chance to monitor my poem-elfings once they’re up. I do wonder what happens to the poems I’ve left behind, but I don’t pursue my curiosity. It’s the fate of former boyfriends in the pre-Facebook age. They may have grown bald, fat and alcoholic, but we used to be [...]
A Preposterous Preoccupation
Posted in A preposterous preoccupation, tagged cancer, culture, feminism, health, humor, movies, poetry, women on February 28, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
To write my last post I had to look up the cast of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. I came across an amusing bit from the script. Terry Thomas, playing his usual upper-crust Englishman equal parts outraged and dastardly, serves up this rant on an American obsession: “As far as I can [...]
Your daily dose of adorable
Posted in Your daily dose of adorable, tagged children, culture, family, life, poetry on January 25, 2012 | 2 Comments »
My mother used to have us children memorize poems in the summers. I don’t remember if we got a reward or not (learning to dive merited a candy bar, so I suspect the same for poem-memorization), but we didn’t resist. The easiest poems to memorize were A.A. Milne’s from the wonderful When We Were Very [...]
Gentle medicine for the holidays
Posted in Gentle medicine for the holidays, tagged Christmas, culture, health, music, poetry, relationships on December 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
When I was a teenager, and like other teens suffering from an awkwardness in inverse proportion to my romantic longings, I liked to sit by the fire during the holiday season and listen to sad music till tears rolled down my cheeks. It was great. Certain inchoate desires—to live a happening life, to [...]
Flush with the joy of discovery
Posted in Flush with the joy of discovery, tagged books, culture, humor, people, poetry on November 18, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Books in the bathroom are as essential as toilet paper. But not to be used for the same purpose, except in cases of emergency. And then only if the book is already full of what it will be full of if used for such purposes. For one (back to reading books, not wiping with [...]
Elf-ing has its privileges
Posted in Elf-ing has its privileges, tagged birthday, gifts, poetry on November 10, 2011 | 1 Comment »
At my age, birthday fuss sometimes makes me cringe. Really great presents do not, which is why I want to share a few that I’ve received. First, a friend found me these salt and pepper shakers who have been welcomed into my growing elf family in spite of the fact that they [...]
