play by play

so while watching the stanely cup (go blackhawks!) the annoucer used the word tutteling. and i just loved it! when do you hear the word tutteling in hockey?! it was amazing. and i just had to share my excitement.

there's an app for that

want to have poetry at the tip of your fingers? if you have an iphone, the poetry foundation has come up with an app for the iphone so that you can have hundreds of poetry at the tip of your fingers. my only problem is that i don't have an iphone. so i can't have poetry at the tip of my fingers (did i say 'tip of my fingers' enough for you?). but it would be so cool if i could. good old apple, always knows what i want. like poetry at all times.

shakespearean insulter

so you want to insult someone like shakespeare did in the good old days? look no futher then here. Thou weedy swag-bellied codpiece!

quoteables 2

so i know i did this already for this month, but i feel like doing it again. my blog i'll do what i want.

-"you can close your eyes to things you don't want to see, but you can't close your heart to things you don't want to feel." - ?

-"come to my window. crawl inside, wait by the light of the moon." - melissa etheridge

-"she's a melody that i've tried to forget, but i can't. it still follows me." - jamie cullum

-"is there time to follow just one desire?" - dashboard confessional

-"the animal does not question life. it lives. its very reason for living is life; it enjoys and relishes it." - ray bradbury from the martian chronicles

-"i wanna hear you laugh like you really mean it. collapse into me, tired with joy." - snow patrol

the language of conservation

poets house has designed a program to make zoo goers more aware of the evironmental impact that people have on this world. with the help of the american library association the outcome of the project will be shared in libraries across the country. the program is in 5 different cities: new orleans, milwaukee, little rock, jacksonville, and chicago and features poets-in-residence that collaborate with wildlife biologists and exhibit designers to curate exhibitions in zoos that feature poems celebrating the natural world and the connection between species. 

i think is very exciting; for both the zoos and for the poets. i hope the installations will last all summer long at the zoos. thankfully i live where i can go to both milwaukee's and chicago's. i won't get to go to the opening day's, but i for sure will be going to see them. i love the zoo and i love poetry. there's no better combination. i have a mini update - the milwukee installation is a permanent addition to the zoo.

part of the installation in new orleans.

russia wants you... to read books.

so russia was alarmed at the tendency for people to read less these days so they have decided to create an ad campaign to have people read more. the moscow writers union have place 100 thematic billboards saying 'read books', 'discover new things', 'be guided by knowledge' and 'fill in the gaps!' on the city streets. young people are the target of the campaign for they are the ones more likely to read the internet but not a book. Alexander Gerasimov, a spokesman for the moscow writers union said, "Such indifference can lead to erosion of entire cultural layers, to depletion of knowledge about literature, to the loss of national self-identification." gerasimov and the writers union plan to make this a russian wide campaign and not just in moscow.

i find this funny but awesome at the same time. good for russia to create an add campaign to get people to read. whatever gets people to read more, do it!  i found an old communist poster to get people to read and i just had to share that. the poster is from the 1920's.

the poster says: Literacy is the road to communism.

free books for kids!

so borders is doing this cool summer reading thing for kids that i'm very excited about;even though i'm much too old to participate in it. it's for kids of 12 years old or under. borders is double-dog daring kids to read 10 books and then they get a free one. and the 10 books can be any 10 books, but the free book is from a certain group of books. but there are some good ones that they are giving away. just some of the free ones are: Ramona the Brave by Beverly Cleary, The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (a personal favorite) and The River by Gary Paulsen. 10 books seems like a bunch of books, but the kids have all summer to read them. so i think that kids should be able to do it. i think this is a great thing for borders to do and hope that many kids complete it and get the free book.

a lighted carousel - the final frontier

so today at work i brought my friend who took the carousel picture - i brought him the poem i had written to go with the picture. he said that he liked the poem. and he said he really liked the first line "safe in the dark" for that's not a normal thing. people don't normally say they are safe in the dark. i'm so glad that he liked the poem. and i'm so glad that he liked that line. it's one of my personal favorites of the poem and i think it's perfect for the beginning of it. so i gave him the poem since it was his picture that inspired me to write it. i just love that photo! all of his photo's were great but that one i just can't stop loving. just amazing! and just because i can't get over the picture i'm going to share it again.

jeremy also read the poem and he said he liked it. he didn't want to judge the photo yet for it was a picture taken of a picture. but he said that the poem made him think of a person who had died and their spouse is waiting for them on the other side and then at the end the couple are together. and even though that's not the thought i had behind the poem, i still like to hear what he thinks. it's always fun to hear what a person thinks a poem means. for you never know until the poet actually says what it means. i'm going to be stingy and not share. but hey that's ok. that's just how i roll (i can't believe i just wrote that).

ok i'm going to stop gushing about the photo. i just love it so much! and just so amazing that it inspired me. so my thanks go to my dear friend for letting me have the photo that has inspired me so much.

a lighted carousel part 2

well i have finished the poem. i just love the photo and i love that it inspired me to write. stuff like that is just the best. i love when i'm inspired instead of making myself sit down and write. so i thought i would share the photo again and then share the poem. hope you like it.

safe in the dark

all i see are the lights

shining on me

i reach out to them

they swirl past me

round and round and round

i sit and wait

for the right time to move

to grab

to take hold of

the lights

they guide me

round and round and round

the lights shine bright

your hand reaches out of the dark

takes hold of me

pulls me
into the light

you hold me tight

round and round and round

sharing the secrets of the light

a lighted carousel

last month i had mentioned that i swapped poetry for art with a friend of mine at work. here's the story if you don't remember. well this week i had brought in my photography to show him. we had been talking alot about art so i didn't mind too much showing him what i had done. i'm no where near being a professional and i wanted to know what he would think about it, since he actually went to school for art. he said he liked them and i hope he was telling the truth. well we had got to talking and so we decided on a photo swap. i would give him one of my photo's and he would give me one of his. well he picked a photo i had taken just for the texture, it's a close up of tree bark. i really like the photo for the sun is hitting it just perfect. here's the photo.

not the best picture of it, but i think you get the idea. so the next day after he picked this photo, i brought it in all framed and matted and i think i surprised him. again he said he liked it and again i hope he was telling the truth. i don't think he would say he liked it if he didn't. well for the picture he was going to give to me, he gave me a stack of photo's he took and let me pick from them. well there were two that i really liked and he said that i could have them both. which i thought was really nice of him. here are the pictures i got from him.

  i'm totally in love with this picture and just keep loving it whenever i look at it is this one:

i just love(!) this photo. there's just something about it i can't get over. i love how you can only tell it's a carousel by the lights. i love the picture so much that it has inspired me to write a poem. when i have the finished poem i will share it on here. i just love this photo! i'm so thankful that he let me have it.  

quoteables

here's another installment of quotes. hope they inspire.

-"if you want to get with me, then you've got to pin me down." - jamie cullum

-"i'll destroy this useless heart. i'll fuck it up so it will never beat again. not just for me, but for anyone." - motion city soundtrack

-"the water in the narrow sink grows dark and warm when the razor slips, the red coming off in his hands." - silvia curbelou

-"death is more universal then life; everyone dies but not everyone lives." - a. sachs

-"what you say is reasonable, logical, justifiable. but does that make it right?" - chris claremount

-"a citizen of america will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election." - bill vaughan

-"it's easier to believe in this sweet madness oh this glorious sadness that brings me to my knees." - sarah mclachlan

-"i'm a good person in most ways. but i'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a bad person in one way." - nick hornby

-"man will begin to recover the moment he takes art as seriously as physics, chemistry or money." - ernst levy

-"shelter me oh genius words just give me strength to pen these things." - cartel

dear america

since i was 10 years old, scholastic has had a book series out called dear america. they are historical fiction books about america, all written from a young girls perspective. the books blend history with fiction to tell the tale of different parts of america's history. for example there is a book about a girl that survived the titanic disaster. from that series scholastic has also launched my america, the royal diaries and my name is america. the royal diaries are about young girls in history all over the world that are part of different royal families. for example, mary queen of scots. my name is america is the same as dear america only from the perspective of young boys.  and honestly i haven't read any of the my america books so i couldn't tell you from what perspective they are from, but i'm sure they are good.

i personally love the dear america and the royal diaries books. they are amazing. i've been getting them since i was ten, and even now i continue to buy them. they are definalty not for my age anymore, but i don't really care. they are well written and very knowledgeable about that certain part of history. when i was a kid i read them in a couple of days. now i read them in one sitting. an easy read but certainly a good one. i strongly suggest them for all kids.

rak visual poetry

sorry this is a little late, but i'm sharing it now. see jeremy was nice enough to buy for me a collection of art from this guy at c2e2. yes i know c2e2 was a month ago. the art that was from this guy was called visual poetry. art that inspires thought. which to me is all art. the artist is RAK. and i saw his stuff last year at wizard world and bought a card that was one of the visual poetry called drifting away. on that card there is a picture and a poem. i really like the picture and thought that the poem wasn't that bad. so when i went to c2e2 this year and saw the guy again and i got all excited. i bought one of his superfreak cards for my mom (it was lucy for my mom loves lucy). jeremy and janell bought stuff from the guy also. well as the day went on jeremy had some surprises for me and his sister. he bought janell some comics and surprised her with them (she got one signed by the editor and chief of marvel) and he surprised me with the everyman visual poetry collection book that RAK had.

some of the pictures in the collection are so amazing i fell in love with them right away. for me, some are a little too obvious with what they mean and stand for. but either way i thought it was really nice of jeremy to buy it for me. and i think it's really cool of this guy to do it. its definalty different art from his superfreaks. and the art definatly inspires poetry - in my mind at least. i espically like the one picture that actually has a poem right with it. it's not the best poetry i've ever seen, but it's not horrible poetry either. one thing that i'm not a big fan of with this collection, is that with every drawing he adds a little message with them. like with the picture 'the great depression' he adds in there if you are feeling sad do this this and this to feel better. it's nice that he is trying to help others but, i don't think that is needed. just have the art speak for it's self and the message will get out there. over all though i like the colleciton. so here are some pictures of the collection. sorry the quality of the photos are bad. my point-and-shoot camera is old and i need a new one. hope you like them.

this is the cover of the collection.

some pages in the collection. i really like the locked away picture (on the right).

the great depression (the picture on the left) is one i was talking about that is just a little obvious with its message. i don't think that the sad face is needed in the background. drifting away (on the right) is the original card i bought last year at wizard world and what got me interested in this guy.

the betrayal is one of my favorites of RAK's. i really love this drawing.

spiderman poetry

as i had mentioned in my free comic book day post, spiderman had poetry in his comic and i thought i would share a picture of it. hope you like the picture. sorry it is low quality, my point-and-shoot camera is 4 years old. and in technology age, that's a dinasour. the yellow scrolls boxes in the comic are where he is quoting the poem.

free comic book day

this saturday was free comic book day. which means at all participating comic stores in america, there are free comics (and usually other cool stuff) to get (as to the other cool stuff, i won a tshirt at my comic book store). so for comic book nerds its heaven. marvel, dc and some of the independent comic book publishers all give out free ones. well marvel did a spiderman comic. and in the comic they quote the poem the tiger by william blake. it's really cool how they add the poem into the comic. the only thing that dosen't go well is that while it quotes the poem the tiger spiderman is fighting a lion. if your going to have a poem called the tiger maybe he should be up against a tiger. but then again the poem doesn't mention a tiger, it's just called the tiger. either way i thought it was really cool that marvel put poetry into its comic. hurray for marvel! i knew there was a reason i read almost only marvel comics; almost that is.