Loose Leaf Notes

1. Scrabble is the “Can’t Build a Better Mousetrap” of games.

2. White hair is the new platinum blonde.

3. I write like I play Scrabble:   Those first few plays should be good ones because they set the tone of the game in the same way the first few sentences set up a story.  Endings are important too and I plan for them early.  Whether playing Scrabble or writing, you don’t want to get stuck with any high scoring letters that should be on the board.

4. Quiet is a high scoring Scrabble word / but in the morning when I’m grieving / it’s an island that I’m stranded on / and I’m anxious to find shelter and food / It’s a filter for noise / but some loud memories / are too big to sift through / They persist as a hum in my ears / water-logged songs without lyrics / that drone long after the concert / when I stood too close to the speakers – Read this poem in its entirety HERE.

5. Sign seen on Facebook: I thought you said you were interesting.  No, I said I was into resting.

6. A new light projector really appealed to the DJ in our grandson Liam. He gave a fortune telling reading to his Opa Joe. “Your grandson will be rich,” he said. – More From Liam’s Birthday #9 #9 HERE.

7. One by one, the monarchs are passing / like hikers on the Appalachian Trail / Like tourists waving goodbye to admirers / on their way to the next town –  Read A Monarch Migration in its entirety HERE.

8. “Emergency Poet” Opens Literary Pharmacy to Support Mental Well Being – Literature academics from Keele University are opening an innovative “Poetry Pharmacy” to dispense literary “first aid” as a way of bringing the therapeutic benefits of poetry to the local community and to support mental health… A dispensing “pharmacist” will be on-hand to prescribe some poetic medicine for a complicated mix of emotions as well as being able to deliver full-length consultations in the shop’s designated consulting room. -More HERE.

9. Last week I played Scrabble with friends at the Pharm House, a pharmacy and newly opened cafe.

10. We wait for poems that fit like skin. We dream them from a distance then write them up close in.

11. “Poem” comes from the Greek poíēma, meaning a “thing made,” and a poet is defined in ancient terms as “a maker of things.” So if a poem is a thing made, what kind of thing is it?…  A poem is a text—a product of writing and rewriting—but unlike articles, stories, or novels, it never really becomes a thing made in order to become a commodity…  Like no other book, a book of poems presents itself not as a thing for the marketplace, but as a thing for its own sake. – More HERE.

12. How many of us believe poetry is useless? How many of us don’t even care to ask the question, “Is poetry useless?” – Mark Yakich

13. My poet’s thinking cap is a beret. See HERE.

_______Thirteen Thursday