So I’m heading off soon on vacation, and wondering how to get my mind to go along with me. With many projects on various burners — back and front — I don’t even feel like vacationing. Ever have so many things you want to do that you’re tempted to make it a writer’s retreat instead of a vacation? Having let that happen once, I’m doing everything I can to get my mind to take its…
I don’t know about you, but I browse Calls for Sub the way a chocoholic browses a Godiva shop window. I just find it so much easier to organize my submitting around other people’s ideas, I guess. I have now landed in 3 theme anthologies as a result. And I keep looking, mostly for anthologies, but also for special issues on magazine web sites. The classifieds in Poets & Writers are my favorites — the…
While we wait for the actual data to actually emerge from NASA … (drum roll, please!) NASA has posted what instantly became my favorite version of the artist’s rendition of Deep Impact’s hit on the comet. Go to the above link and click on “View this video” under the right hand sidebar “Comets a Smash at JPL”. It’s a cool musical version of the impact, vocals and instrumentals provided by the … you guessed it…
A new space mission has been a smashing — literally — success! Stay tuned as they unscramble the fuzzy images at JPL/NASA and bring you the origins of life on earth (perhaps), or at least another installment in the odyssey of a comet through long reaches of nothing. I find this mission compelling because of its astonishing accuracy and because its aims are so lofty: nothing less than the hope that we might discover how…
Representing the millions around the world who quietly work for peace in the form of education, human rights, justice and economic assistance are being nominated as a group for the Nobel Peace Prize. As someone who has worked my whole career for nonprofit organizations and various causes, I’m aware that most Americans don’t know about heroic efforts made in our communities every day to promote peace and wellbeing among those in need. After September 11,…
I’m sad to see that Rhubarb Is Susan is suspending new reviews of poems. This site, where reviewer Simon DeDeo provides close readings of individual poems culled from various journals, helps to fill the void of poetry reviewing in a unique way. By dealing with individual poems, the reviewer explored theory, practice and craft in poetry to a depth seldom found in poetry book reviews. Most book reviews seem little more than blurbs, even in…
I wasn’t going to take it, I didn’t have time, believe in quizzes, couldn’t get the link to work, etc. Then someone sent me a link that worked and … SOB! … “You are John Ashbery. People love your work but have no idea why, really. You are respected by all kinds of scholars and poets. Even artists like you.” If you’re feeling self-destructive, take the Which Famous Modern Poet Are You quiz at Quizzilla.…
I have to poetry plug a site I blogrolled awhile back and have just begun to explore. Here Comes Everybody is a series of interviews with poets using the same nine questions: 1. What is the first poem you ever loved? Why?2. What is something.someone non-literary you read which may surprise your peets/colleagues? Why do you read it/them?3. How important is philosophy to your writing? Why?4. Who are some of your favorite non-Anglo-American writers? Why?5.…
Rockets AwayThe First Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot be created or destroyed. Mitch’s paraphrase: You can’t get something for nothing – but you can always try. There was something wrong with my family. I was certain of it. If we were a normal family, why were we on a bumpy road, heading for a week of Christmas vacation on a remote Mexican beach? Had we…
Don’t know if you’re a way-back fan as I am, but — who knew? — Henry David Thoreau’s blogging. Can it be that the author of the simple life has discovered the Internet? As he said in today’s post: My practicalness is not to be trusted to the last. To be sure, I go upon my legs for the most part, being hard-pushed and dogged by a superficial common sense which is bound to near…