If you haven’t heard, April is National Poetry Month. Let the celebration begin. Whoop-di-doo. Let your inbox fill with unread poem-a-day emails. Let national magazines feature a token article about the relevancy of poetry. Let teachers assign haikus and limericks to display in cinder block hallways. Let the New York Times hand […]
MoreToday 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 […]
MoreI 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 […]
MoreTo 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 […]
MoreYesterday I listened to an anti-Valentine’s Day show on the radio. Then I read an anti-anti-Valentine’s Day advice column. What’s with all the hating on my second favorite holiday of the year? Valentine’s Day is about love. That’s all there is to it. Yeah, love! It doesn’t have to be romantic love or hot […]
MoreMy 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 […]
MoreWhen 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 […]
MoreBooks 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 […]
MoreAt 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 […]
MoreI love the Midwest, but sometimes living here I need a strong dose of quirky. I spent last weekend in Chestertown, Maryland with my sisters, my mother and a handful of nieces, and I’m happy to report that quirk has been dispensed. Chestertown is a small historic Eastern Shore town, population 5,000, situated […]
More