Tuesday Tidbits

The month winds down. Grant proposals in, students' dissertations read and passed, a pound of asparagus from the garden picked and roasted every day. The lilacs scent my garden, along with viburnum. The restlessness dissipates...

Three more poems to write. Hallaluah. This year, NaPoWriMo exhausted me. Too much going on, and (stupidly) I commenced running PURE through my Nudgers at the same time.

And my heart's in PURE, not the poems. So.

That said, I have a few poems with decent bones, words I can turn over when I'm more engaged. And the practice itself, the diligence of writing in response to a prompt is a phenomenal opportunity. Like this, in response to the prompt 'regret':

A Snowy Day Spent Otherwise

Your eyes scrunch from sun casting icicle
rainbows on blank pages, under eyelids,
rebuking you; a high-pitched whinny snakes
through walls, under skin despite the frantic

looping mantra… focus on the word, focus
on the... a pencil slams, clatters to
the floor, feet stomp down the hall
to parted curtains. The yard gleams

in treacherous beauty. A snowball shatters
glass; through melt smear a pink-cheeked child
slides down crystalline hills, whooping joy.
What is more important than the visceral

act of throwing limbs against slatted wood,
feeling air and icy shards smack against chin
and nose, your daughter, your only born,
pounce on you at ride’s end? Her face lights up –

she spies you at the darkened window. The muse
hisses in your ear; your eyes scrunch…

(I remember the day, a rare snow day; the kids off from school, the sun glittering on the icy hill, the kids laughing and I... chose to work. Me bad.)

==> CINDY PON's debut SILVER PHOENIX: Beyond the Kingdom of Xia hits the shelves TODAY! Young adult fantasy with an Asian flair - BUY IT!

==> If you're looking for reading inspiration, check out this new blog: FILL IN THE GAPS 100 PROJECT. Fifty of us - writers, readers, editors, all passionate about BOOKS - listed our top To Be Read lists, along with reviews. A special YAY! to Emily Cross for organizing what started as a comment thread over at EDITORIAL ASS.

==> Accepted into Lesley University Writing Workshop for late July in Cambridge, MA. Very excited - great faculty (including Julia Glass). Imagine - an entire week of writing, workshopping, and talking about writing. In my old stomping ground... yippee!

Keep on writing - and reading. Peace, Linda