Poetry and Politics

I enjoyed this link-- politicians commenting on poetry, poets commenting on politics. No need to make political comments.

Unrelated:

I'd like to boycott Old Navy because the girls in the commercials are too skinny, but I feel guilty because maybe they were just born that skinny and who am I to judge whether or not that type of body is beautiful or not.

I'm taking a creative writing class. I had forgotten all about writer's block. I am trying to figure out when I do my best writing and it seems as though it's all completely random. The only pattern I've found is that I write most easily when I'm in my office working on something really important that needs to be finished within the next hour. At that point my pen and my mind flow freely about topics wholly unrelated to work. Perhaps if I hung a poster of wild dogs chasing me near my computer it would help.

Have you ever been chased by wild dogs? I hate it. I hate thinking about riding my bicycle and having to kick them away with my feet as I try to pedal as fast as I can.

When I looked up boycotts of Old Navy on the internet most people talked about the outrage of not being wished "Merry Christmas". WWJD? He'd refuse to shop there because they forgot his birthday. I think he might ask their models to come and sup with him too-- a big meal.

In my dream life I am growing my own food and sewing my own clothes. My dream life seems foolish. Why is that? Except for meat. I'll visit the butcher for meat. I wonder how much produce I would have if I planted my yard to vegetables instead of grass. I'd like to grow some flowers too. I barely have time to do what I'm doing let alone raising produce to support myself. Wait...in my dream life I don't have a real job.

If a dream seems foolish is it really your dream?

Fortunately, I am hours from an Old Navy. My yard is too small to grow enough food to sustain me. Even if I did grow my own food I don't really cook. I haven't sewn an article of clothing since I was 12 for 4-H and I think I got a red ribbon for it at the fair. I did bake some cookies that got a purple at the local fair and at the state fair. I'm sad that I thought about wild dogs.

A Dream

I had a new dream last night. I am completely baffled. It seems full of symbolism, but I can't figure it out.

I dreamed that I woke up (that's my favorite beginning for any dream-- so disorienting in its banality). I walked from my bedroom to my back door and opened the door. There was a second door. I opened that door and there was a third door. It opened to the outside just like it should except my screen door was gone (no great loss. I need to replace that screen door anyway). The doors were slightly different than my current back door in that they had no windows. They looked just like my bedroom door-- painted white, old doorknob with a skeleton key lock. Outside, it appeared that someone had picked up. My bushes tend to catch trash from the wind, but someone had picked up trash. Near the lilac bushes, however, there was a box of Cheerios. I walked to it and inside were wads of cash at the top. Underneath the wads of cash were a few mini-boxes of Cheerios. (A note on the foliage-- everything was arrayed just as it is currently. There was not any snow outside and the lilac bushes were leafless and budless).

Let me know what life changes my subconscious is attempting to communicate in my sleep.

A Valentine.

This is for the wooing, the wooed, the won, the wishing, the wondering and the watching. Some poetry...


From William Stafford... A Passing Remark

From Sara Teasedale... The Old Maid

From Lawrence Raab... Marriage

From ee cummings... i carry your heart with me

From John Donne... The Good-Morrow

From William Shakespeare...CXVI

8 wonders

I'll chalk it up to too much happening. I completely forgot about the announcement for the Eight Wonders of Kansas. It was announced on Kansas Day. Probably around the same time they were announcing that Willie Nelson tickets were going on sale-- and probably announced on a media outlet I never hear or view. I need to reassess my media intake or maybe complain to my chosen media outlet.

I haven't actually been to the National Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, but I used to drive through that area all the time. I also drive through Cheyenne Bottoms all of the time, but this spring I'm hoping to spend some time. Truthfully, I haven't ever been to the Big Well. I know. I'm fairly certain I will never visit it on an alone trek because I'm claustrophobic and scared of the dark; I've always imagined the well as dark and skinny. I've also never been to the salt mines. I'm disappointed by the Cimarron Grasslands not making the cut, but it is in the corner and the wonders were chosen by popular vote. It's the trouble with democracy: people vote for non-wonderous reasons. (No offense to the winners-- they are all deserving).

Friday with Shauna

I highly recommend leaving work early on a Friday and having lunch at the Pizza Hut in Oakley. You should meet one of your dear friends from college and order a pepperoni and cheese pizza to share with her two daughters. Then you should take them to the Fick Fossil Museum.

Fick Fossils

This was found in Gove County near the Pyramids/Monument Rocks. You can't really tell from the picuture, but that head is about 2 feet long.

Northwest Kansas and its prehistoric fishheads...
He's about 5 feet long.

Fick Art

Sorry that kitty is fuzzy. It's the only photo that I took and she really was one of my favorites. The kitty has some 3 dimensional aspets that may not be apparent in the photograph-- bee's wax was used in some of Vi Fick's artistic creations.
These are examples of fossil art on black velvet.

A Kansas museum would hardly be complete without the Great State Seal-- and this one incorporates fossils.

I have to say that the art actually impressed me. I don't remember it from my childhood visit to the museum, but I think it's amazing when someone creates art from the things which surround her. It must have been so much fun to make that kitty in the bonnet!

Re: your political aspirations

I understand why one might need to play one Toby Keith song during the "stall for time the campaign is running late" music. Toby has a few patriotic type of songs that have mass appeal and I could have forgiven using those songs as a necessary evil, but "How Do You Like Me Now?" is not one of them. (I get the joke, but that song is so awful...) I went on a date with a guy once who said that he loved Toby Keith. I knew immediately it would never work out between us. Is that the message that you want your pre-arrival music to convey?

PS Props on the attmept to find an appropriate Kansas song... I had to verify with my hairdresser that I was right about the band. I'm not even sure what that song was, but we both agreed that it was Kansas. "Carry On My Wayward Son" would not have conveyed the right message.

Re: your recent email

I received an email today from an application on my social utility network (Facebook). The email wanted to know if I had finished reading a particular book. The application is one that allows me to display the books I have read or am reading on my profile page. I haven't had a single human being ask me whether or not I have finished reading this book. What does it mean when a system generated email starts making enquiries of me that no real people are making? (And the email seems genuinely interested).

There is a degree to which all of this is just talking to myself. Blogging and social networking are pretend-- sometimes they can become real like the Velveteen Rabbit, but usually it's a lot of throw away germy nonsense.

Just so you know, I will never "finish" reading Anne Stevenson's "Poems 1955-2005". I've never "finished" reading a book of poetry. I rarely read the poems in order and I have no way of knowing that I've read them all until I become so familiar with them that I feel that I could request that the poem be a "friend" on my social utility network.

Thank you system generated application email for asking. You are always so thoughtful.

ps where is the stinking spellcheck? and here's an inappropiate apropos link.