Monday coffee: A Little Jack Prelutsky this morning

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Cappuchino latte art

By Blanka Novotná

My son loves Jack Prelutsky. I can’t blame him – I love Jack Prelutsky, too. One of my top five of his poems is “My Dog May Be A Genius.” If you don’t know it, you might want to go and borrow or buy the book of the same name (if you’re embarrassed to buy a kids’ poetry book for yourself please feel free to tell the clerk it’s for my kid :-D ). So in honor of National Poetry Month and the man who, after Shel Silverstein, has done so much in recent decades to keep poetry alive for kids, I give you my off-the-cuff poem about Spot.

My Cat Is Not a Genius
After Jack Prelutsky’s My Dog May Be a Genius
SpotHelpsMom
My cat is not a genius;
of that there’s little doubt.
As soon as I have let him in,
he wants to go back out.

He has fresh food right in his bowl
but prefers all human cheeses,
even though he throws them up
and emits such nether breezes.

He sheds black fur on my white shirt
and white fur on black jeans.
He won’t attack his knit toy mouse
but bats stray coffee beans. ‘

But when he sits upon my lap
and covers me with fur
I can’t help merely loving him
just for his rumbling purr.

So, yes, he sheds insanely
and he makes an awful mess,
but we love him very dearly
though he’ll never master chess.

Happy Poetry Month, friends – Love from ina

Monday coffee: Writing “happy”

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Mahlzeit für einen Binturong

By 4028mdk09 CC-BY-SA-3.0

This silly looking beast is a Southeast Asian Bear-Cat. Otherwise known as a binturong.

Binturongs are distant relatives of civets. They walk low to the ground, have prehensile tails and are the size of a very large dog. They waddle like raccoons, except when they leap straight up in the air (all four paws off the ground) to jump on ducks. No, not kidding. I had the pleasure of meeting one at the San Diego Zoo – he was one of their “Animal Ambassadors.” He did, as binturongs are reputed to do, smell exactly like Fritos.

20130311-150354.jpgI often hope that Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) got to meet a binturong. With their funny tufty ears, their habit of hanging upside down from tree branches to sleep, and their spray of whiskers, they are as close to a Dr. Seuss animal come to life as anything on Earth.

Our friend, Linda, is having a terrific contest in honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday. The contest ends on the 16th of March. If you haven’t joined in yet, please do – even if you’re not “a real poet.” Dr. Seuss is for everyone.

I haven’t, myself, written a poem for the contest yet. My six year old has, but I haven’t been able to. Why? Partly because I’ve been overworked, but mostly because I’ve been a bit blue – a delayed effect of a lot of kind of yucky stuff from the past couple of months finally sitting down on my head.

Young pet bear cat in Taman Negara Malaysia

By Bart Van den Bosch CC-BY-SA-2.5

Until today, I have been waiting to “feel happier” before trying to write my Seussian poem. Which is why I ended up looking up pictures of binturongs. And it was when I found this little guy that I realized that…as a writer, you can’t always wait to be happy before you write. Because sometimes it’s the act of writing, the being at one with your creative nature, that is happiness. I’m happy when I’m writing – even when I’m grumpy about what I’m writing or even just bored. So instead of waiting to write until I am happy, or trying to jolly myself into happiness, I’m going to write myself happy. In fact, I’m going to do it now. This post is just by way of thank you to Linda H., and all the other writers I know (at PA friends, and HMPDYWT, and Posted Asides), for reminding me, however indirectly, that to be happy, writers…we write.

Monday coffee: Glorious words, or The Secret Life of Twitter

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Blue Dacnis, Dacnis cayana - Flickr - Lip Kee (1)

by Lip Kee cc2.0

First, a note, and then, a sort of confession. The note: Linda, one of our writing friends, posted a great question (as in, really great question) for those of us who participated or followed along in the Brighter Light Challenge. Please stop by so we can share our experiences!

And  now, pleasant duty over, it’s time for that little confession. For someone who lives right in the heart of Silicon Valley – like 10 minutes north of Adobe and 15 minutes south of Facebook – I was very slow to create a Twitter account. I just could not see the point of it. Sometimes, people described Twitter in a way that made it seem like being mute witness to lonely shipwrecked folk helplessly throwing messages in bottles out to sea from millions of individual deserted islands. Other times, I imagined that it was like standing in the middle of Grand Central Station yelling at every passing patron while each of them yells their thoughts into the big, echoing chamber as we passed one another. Either way, it sounded less than appealing.

What finally forced me to get a Twitter account was an acceptance of a  poem by an online magazine that asked authors to include in the bio 1) a web address and 2) Twitter “handle” (what you’re called on Twitter). Well, then. So I gritted my teeth and did it.

And…like most things I balk at, I am enjoying Twitter immensely (this willingness to balk at enjoyable things is, I’m told by those who know, related to my astrological sun sign). There is lots of great get-started advice for writers on creating a Twitter platform for yourself (among the ones I can recommend: Robert Lee Brewer’s starter advice, Debbie Ohi’s writer’s guides, Nathan Branford’s how-to which makes me wish he was still with a lit agency so I could write something he’d want to agent). But what can get lost in all the technicalities (though all 3 blogs mention it) is how RELAXING Twitter is.

Déferlement St-TugenRelaxing? Yes, actually When I first created my Twitter account, I found people I love to read (Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, Richard Blanco, Steve Martin, Eric Idle, Margaret Atwood, Stephen Fry  to name a few) and signed up for their tweets. And now, when I need a break, I just log onto Twitter and read. It’s not like being overwhelmed by random people yelling at you. It’s more like standing at the edge of a cool ocean of WORDS as the tide’s coming in, feeling clean air and fresh, blue water, washing over you. These are people I chose, for their wit, intelligence, and vocabularies, with interests and causes and I get to just…listen. As Humpty Dumpty says, “That’s Glory for you.” And it is – it’s glorious. It’s like a private word-concert. If you’re on twitter, or if you’re about to give it a try, and if you are/do please let me know – I’d love to follow your wonderful words, too.

In which we reappear

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Zan Zig performing with rabbit and roses, magician poster, 1899

Of all the illusions professional magicians proffer to their public, I still fall hardest for the gosh-darned rabbit trick. You know, bunny goes onto some kind of  fancy plate, someone puts a large domed cover over her, and Hey, Presto! The cover is lifted and no bunny! And yet, ten minutes later, a wand waves over the magician’s hat, and he pulls out the same bunny, looking slightly apologetic, but none the worse for her illusory adventure.

I’m feeling a bit like the bunny, emerging from a dusty, black, shiny hat. Both Andrea and I have had  a few of Those Sorts of Weeks, but that’s (knock wood) done and we’re getting ready to get back to our writing lives.

I wanted to say thank you to all the friends who checked in through FB and Twitter to make sure that our brief disappearance from the blogosphere was just that and that Andrea and I were fine.

Rabbit 0068And to all the participants in the Brighter Light challenge who’ve been waiting so patiently for the outcome, the results are ready!  In fact, they would be announced immediately except that Andrea’s beautiful island has been hit by a power and internet outage (yikes!) which means she can’t access our blog. Andrea will be back with us in about a week. In the meantime, I’ll try to keep us all entertained with some cute animal pics or a little soft-shoe. Gosh, it’s good to be back and to “see” all of you !

All Agog, or “how we didn’t forget”

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I first saw the phrase “I’m all agog” in an old children’s book, in a poem about a man named John Gilpin.  I was eight and fell in love Asian Elephant and Babywith the word the way only an eight year old can – I even loved the way the word “agog” looked like a pair of starting, staring, amazed eyes. In my teens, “agog” got tangled up in my mind with a term of affectionate mockery used in Scotland centuries ago to describe an oversized mountain of a man: “Tha’ great lumping Gog,” they would exclaim. “You elephant.” In my mental web of meanings and ideas, to be agog became the experience of a great, huge gallump of anticipation – to stare up at a great mountain of excitement .

Many of you, like me, have been all agog to hear the results of the Brighter Light challenge of January. Every poem posted is pretty amazing, and I can’t imagine how hard it must be for Andrea  to decide between  all these bright lights.

Andrea was very much hoping that she would have the results of the contest for us by now, but it’s taking more time than she thought. I’m not surprised – too many amazing pieces of work here. She wanted to let you know that we haven’t forgotten and the results will be posted as soon as ever we can along with the prizes. Just like the storybook elephants, InOurBooks didn’t forget.

This evening, my child (and Brighter Light co-author) and I finally looked up “agog” in the dictionary. To be agog is to be: highly excited by eagerness, curiosity and anticipation. It turns out that my labyrinth of meaning wasn’t that far off. So really…we’re all agog, and I’ll post more about the challenge when we are closer to the results ~ InaGo Elephants, The YMCA is Not a White Elephant - geograph.org.uk - 940795

Friday Surprise: Here We Are!

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Here we are!

The 1st of February.

Sunshine and moon

An overwhelming number of wonderful poems and in my case also several new words. Sharon taught me, Andrea, all about a Lazy Boy, so now I know precisely what a Lazy Boy is.

And it explains a lot because years ago someone called themselves Lazyboy and displayed a video with someone who kind of view the life from a Lazy Boy and it’s called the Facts of Life. Lazyboy continued though and sent out this impressive something in around 2004 and it has been one of my favorites ever since. I’d call this poetry – only I’m not quite sure who’d agree. Only this is what I thought of when Sharon writes Lazy Boy:

Lazy Boy!

About Our Brighter Light Challenge – yes, the light is so much brighter now. Ina and I already said that there will be prizes for the best poem and the best collection. Well, in fact the best number one, number two and number three single poems and one prize for the best collection.

During this week-end I’ll go through all the poems and I will likely post something more on Sunday.

Brighter Light Participants : a technical note

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Hi, it’s Ina. Several people have run into issues with our Notice Board. I’m currently trying figure out what can be fixed and what is just a problem, so I wanted to pass on the information I do have (this reminds me of a joke my programmer husband says used to make the rounds at a company he once worked for: if a program has an unfixable  bug, just call it a “feature” and sell the program anyhow).Calopteryx virgo male

So here is what I have so far:

1) If the Notice Board suddenly started asking you to register before you can post anything, I think I’ve fixed it. It should let you post/comment again without registering. If you see any comments from a “Felicity Test” that’s me, testing out the fix.

2) Charmingly, it looks like you can edit your posts/poems right up until someone comments. So if, for example, someone posts a comment about your poem that suggests an interesting or useful change, the Notice Board promptly stops letting you do anything to your post – like input that interesting or useful change. Sigh. (It’s not a bug! It’s a feature!). I have been banging my head against the walls of any forum I can find about how to fix this problem with no success. So…as a work-around, Andrea has graciously offered to use your latest version of a poem, even if you can’t delete the earlier one. If you post a re-written poem and your earlier version can’t be deleted, please:

  1.  indicate which poem is the latest version (the version you want to enter in the contest)
  2. indicate the prompt to which it is a response

That way Andrea will consider the poem you want her to.

Steelblue Ladybird (Halmus chalybeus) on leafIf I make any further changes, I’ll keep you-all posted. I will also make sure that we don’t make any changes that will prevent you from accessing your poems and comments. If you run into any more technical problems, please drop me a line through the “Contact Us” link and I’ll do my best to fix it fast!
~ Ina