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Monday, February 20, 2012

It's My Birthday, Too, Yeah!

The doorbell rang, and I answered in my jammies. It was Ginny, one of my poetry students, with blueberry turnovers for my birthday! My mom called! And a jillion people are saying "Happy Birthday!" on Facebook. I love birthdays, even though it means I am getting older. I would like to think I am getting wiser, but I think a weird other osmosis thing is going on: I am taking it all in and being affected by it all. And even as my metaphorical skin gets thicker, it gets thinner, and there is very little barrier now.

Another way of saying this, as I said to my mom on the phone, is, "I guess I'm 55. But sometimes I feel like 5."

"Sometimes you act like 5." And there, in that nutshell (with an emphasis on nut), is our relationship, both of us laughing.

Imaginary soundtrack: The White Album, specifically "Birthday," by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

It's also Presidents Day, so take the day off! And the birthday of photographer Ansel Adams, whose pix I cannot show you, unless you click the official website, here, but this picture of him is in the public domain!

Also, it's sort of the birthday of the United States Post Office, and I am pretty sure they are taking the day off, too! According to the Writer's Almanac, George Washington established the Post Office Department today in 1792. And John Glenn orbited the moon in 1962, when I actually was 5, not just 5 in my mind and on my red-high-topped feet. This may account for my enduring fascination with the moon and outer space. Or it's a random coincidence.

And Margaret Bashaar of Hyacinth Girl Press says she is going to print my chapbook, Nocturnes, today, because it's my birthday. Yay. It has stars in it, the moon, black holes, and the large hadron collider. Songs at night, some about art, Whistler's nocturnes...

Thanks to Nashay Antoinette Jones for this cover art and Hudson Rio for the graphic design. Thanks to Sarah Reck for the interior design and book layout. Thanks to Margaret Bashaar of Hyacinth Girl Press for loving the poems and making the book!

I'll be reading a couple of these poems this week at the McLean County Arts Center, 7:30 p.m., along with ekphrasis class poetry students Candace Armstrong and Janice Witherspoon Neuleib, plus guest poet Jannett Highfill, who often includes art in her poems. I'd be happy to see any of you locals there! (Must remember to wear red high-tops.)

25 comments:

  1. happy birthday! your warmth touches all of us! and i love that you are five in your mind. of course! such spirit!

    sherry

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  2. happy birthday! your warmth touches me. and that you are five in your mind- oh, such spirit!

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  3. Happy birthday! Love the cover of your book - can't wait to read it.

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  4. Thank you, Sherry and Molly! Sherry, I think I sense a prove-you-are-not-a-robot moment there...! You are not a robot!!

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  5. Feliz comple anos, mi amiga.
    You are young if that's a relative concern but if it's not, then you are still 'very' young. :)

    Hope you have a wonderful and loving day.

    Tu amigo, nene

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  6. Thank you, nene, and you are also young!

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  7. Really like the cover of your chapbook.

    Happy Birthday!

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  8. Thanks, Maureen! I like it, too. I like the eye of that poppy, and how the poppy was in my dream and thus in my poem, the one called "Naked Dance," toward the end of the book. I am so tickled and honored that the artist read the poems and wanted to bring that image to life!!

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  9. Oops. Kim J Kimmel was busy stargazing and forgot.

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  10. Blueberry muffins AND a chapbook publication?

    You are one lucky five year old.

    My robot words are "stalked againien", which for once I kind of like--in a creepy sort of way...

    Happy Birtday!

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  11. Thanks, Seana. Ooo, that is creepy. Maybe it names a generation of humans populating a planet where women were sent to avoid being stalked again. The stalked againien come from these women via frozen sperm, and the term applies to the original group of settlers as well. See this science fiction novel developing? Thanks for not being a robot!

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  12. Birthday girl! You have a young spirit, is all. And look at that beeeeeyoooootiful book!

    Now....regarding all this robot-talk. Be prepared for my poem tomorrow. It is most definitely about this. I think it was probably your site that inspired it, because the other day I tried to comment and couldn't read any of the words, pathetically....

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  13. Whoopee, Hannah! I look forward to your "robot" poem and I've been writing verification word poems, too!

    And I've been having that same trouble, verifying myself as human, in various places!

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  14. Happy Birthday! Hope I get to finally bump into you in person at AWP!

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  15. Your chapbook is a sweet birthday gift, congratulations! Happy Birthday, and welcome to 55, which is my age, too.

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  16. Thank you, Ruth! I'm tickled we are the same age. So far it's a great age to be.

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  17. Happy (belated) birthday nut! Love this post. I wish you a wonderful year. It seems to have started off well. smile

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  18. Thanks, Sarah! I've still got that Beatles pounding in my head this morning, too!

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  19. Happy birthday. I would have sent my greetings yesterday but it was a holiday.

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  20. Thanks, Ted! I'm glad you took the day off!

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Go ahead and comment, and I will publish it after I get an email notification! Thanks!