Time Flies When You're Having a Breakdown

Did you miss me?

Yes, my plan to celebrate National Poetry Month with daily poetry readings fell through. And yes, on top of that, I haven't posted in two weeks.

And yes, I went to the annual conference of the American Copy Editors Society (ACES) and haven't even blogged about that yet. But I have a good excuse: I took a new job.

And the Winner Is...

Thank you to the seven of you who entered my 500th-post contest!

That's right, seven of you. As if I have a seven-sided die.

Instead of going to any great lengths to pick one of seven, I did the unfair thing. I eliminated Tony Noland from the running and used a standard, six-sided die to make a decision among the rest of you.

(Why Tony? Because I had already planned to send him a free copy of the finished e-book anyway.)

So I rolled a die and counted down from the top of the list, in the order that I saw them (reverse chronological). And the winner is . . .

 

Chuck Allen!

So, Chuck, I'll be contacting you in the near future.

Everyone else keep an eye on this space for my forthcoming e-book later this month.

We'll try this contest thing again when I hit 1,000 posts, sometime in 2018.

Today's Poem: Oh Captain! My Captain!

Today I feature a Walt Whitman poem whose opening exclamation was made famous (at least to people of my generation) by the wonderful and wonderfully sad movie Dead Poets’ Society. It appears in his famous collection Leaves of Grass in a section called “Memories of President Lincoln,” and it’s a great example of metaphor.

Today's Poem: John Clare

Today's poem comes from John Clare, an Englishman who spent a lot of time in British asylums. He couldn't always remember who he was and at times claimed to be married to women he wasn't married to, and even claimed to be Lord Byron or William Shakespeare.

Whether his poems, which were distinctly unselfconscious, were a reflection of his mental problems or an escape from them is anyone's guess. But here is one in which he recognized who he was.

Today's Poem: Complaint of the Skeleton to Time

Today's reading is not of my doing, but of the poet's . . . and his friends. Here is Allen Ginsberg reading his own poem, "Complaint of the Skeleton to Time," from the album The Lion For Real (and courtesy of Spotify).

Today's Poem: The City in the Sea

The City in the Sea

by Edgar Allan Poe

(1809–1848)

April is National Poetry Month!

As the title says, April is National Poetry Month.

Last year, I wrote a bunch of silly poems throughout the month. This year, I decided to mark the month a bit more seriously . . . and play around with some new software at home. Throughout April, I'll be featuring poetry readings here on the blog — every weekday if I can manage it. And they'll be snazzed up with background music and a little something to look at.