April is National Poetry Month!

When it comes to writing, poetry has always been my first love. In honor of National Poetry Month, I thought I'd share some of my favorite poets and poems with you, including a few of my own.

Several years ago, I read an article about "Taking Flight" in which the phrase "rare bird" was mentioned. It reminded me of an English professor I had in college. No matter how badly we stumbled when reading aloud, or how poorly we answered his questions, he always found a way to encourage us and make us feel we had potential. "Jonesy" flew the bonds of earth many years ago, but through this poem, I can see him once again flitting about our classroom, trying to teach a young nest full of English majors how to fly. I wrote this poem in March, 2005, based on an incident from a class in the late 1960s. The name "Miss White" is fictitious.

Geoffrey Chaucer was a 14th century poet and author, and is referred to as the Father of English Literature. He is perhaps best known for The Canterbury Tales, a collection of short stories told by travelers to entertain one another while on their journey.

              "A Rare Bird"

Anon. 17th c.  portrait G. Chaucer
(Wikipedia public domain)

A rare bird, lanky, toothless, gaunt,

he perched before his callow clutch,

and from one scrawny, gray-tipped
    wing,

dangled Chaucer, like a juicy worm,

before our unfledged eyes and ears.



"How old is Absalom...Miss White?"

I've never been much good at this
so to his, "Come on, take a guess,"
"From thirty-five to sixty-eight?"
I lamely peep, embarrassed, now.

Canadian Geese
photo by Donna B. Russell

He cocks his head, all smiles, and coos,
"Can you narrow that a little? No?"
He bobs across the room and nods.
Another nestling quickly chirps
a more precise, correct response.



Then turning, he commends us both,
and I am left perplexed, that he
would remove the sting of my distress.
But wisdom knows that confidence
is the lift on which young wings will soar.



                   * * *


How about you? Did you have a special teacher or professor who made an impact on your life? Please share your comments.

Day Thirty: Where Do We Go From Here?

This is it. At midnight tonight, NaNoWriMo 2009 will be history. Those who have reached the finish line will be celebrating their victories. Those who did not, will celebrate their attempt and redouble their efforts to cross the finish line next year. All will heave a sigh of relief and anticipate the return to a more normal life.

What lies ahead? For some, December is NaNo novel editing month, but others, like myself, plan to put that off until after the holidays when there will be fewer (we hope) distractions. Again this year, CreateSpace is offering to print a free proof copy of each NaNo novel that was completed. This offer is good for six months and coupons will be available December 2.

In April, there is another writing challenge: Script Frenzy. The goal is to write a 100-page original script during the month. According to the Script Frenzy website http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/), this may be in the form of a screen play, stage play, TV show, short film, or graphic novel. To help you prepare for April, the website offers a series of "How To" guidelines for each category as well as advice from experts. As with NaNoWriMo, Script Frenzy also has a Young Writers Program.

In addition to the challenge of writing a novel during November, I challenged myself to blog every day. While it was a lot of fun, it was also a lot of work to come up with new and, hopefully, interesting material on a daily basis. Beginning with December, I plan to blog once a week and see how that goes. I would like to invite you, my readers, to submit questions and topic ideas that pertain to writing, animals, chronic illness, or life in general, and I will endeavor to include those in my blog posts. I hope we can have some interesting discussions, and perhaps there will be a contest or two or some other enjoyable activities in the year ahead. So, if you have any suggestions, please leave them in the comments section or drop me an e-mail. And thank you for joining me in my NaNoWriMo journey this year.