Thursday, June 25, 2009

Deep red-orange daylilies

Deep red-orange daylilies suddenly appeared in my garden, below the tall spotted orange ones. Over in the daisy area, orange instead of yellow daisies opened, too. Is this a response to the heat, the recent rain? I love the wonders of nature, slight variations, etc. I see why Loren Eiseley and Charles Darwin and other naturalists and scientists get excited by all the little changes!

It also feels, in a purely coincidental way, like a quiet little commemmoration of the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett, themselves suddenly joined by coincidence. They were part of my childhood; their deaths bring change of a non-garden variety very close.

Tomorrow I will walk in the heat to the local university campus to teach a little poetry workshop to a group of writing fellows, with the Illinois State Writing Project. Then over to the bookstore to work a bit, if there's something appropriate to do, then lunch with a co-worker and former co-worker. Later, there's a visitation for a friend's mother. Then a "date" with my husband at an art opening. Busy day indeed.

But each morning starts these days with lap swimming at the local outdoor pool. I love being in the water.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I Googled myself...

...I Googled myself, which is good to do now and then to find out what anyone might be saying about me (sigh...usually nothing...) and discovered myself to have won an Honorable Mention in the New Women's Voices competition at Finishing Line Press!

http://www.finishinglinepress.com/newwomensvoices.htm

This is delightful news. The same thing happened to me last year, with the same press! I was a finalist in last year's open chapbook competition, and, since they offer publication to all 10 finalists, I have book coming out this fall, called Broken Sonnets.

You will soon (around July 16) be able to order it at their New Releases page, same link as above, just seach for link at top of page.

The new book is called Living on the Earth, and that publication process will start in a while, and take a while. But I will post links to advance sales, etc.....as soon as I figure out how!

Wait! I have a blog?!

I signed up here in order to leave a comment at someone else's blog, and here I am! Apparently I was here before, as I already had an account I had forgotten about and had to reset my password, something that will no doubt come back to haunt me...but I'll cross that little technological bridge when I come to it. Sigh...

I do a guest column called "The Poetry Cart" at the Web Log for Babbitt's Books, where I work, so I have added that to the blogs I follow here. Please feel free to add comments there, to visit the store in person, and/or to order books online. It has a great selection of poetry, rare books, ephemera, lots of cool stuff.

I am a poet, in various print and online publications, and I fear things like Facebook and MySpace. I am so...technologically challenged and old-fashioned. But I read a lot of poetry and will perhaps comment on it here!

I love reading in general, so I may comment on books in general here, too. I don't have much of a web presence, or my own web page yet, though everything around me says I must, sooner or later...but in the meantime, you can find me here!