Serena

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Serena

She is a woman who is deeply tormented by her tragic past, and yet she maintains an inextricable hold on everyone and everything that intersects--or interferes--with her quest for power and wealth in the timber industry. If you've seen the film version, which twists the novel into a story about a woman whom tragedy has transformed into a dangerously obsessed and jealous person, you have not met the real Serena. Jealous and obsessed are words indicative of weakness. Ron Rash's Serena is powerful and ruthless from the very first chapter. She is not obsessed, but rather fiercely devoted to her pursuits. She is not jealous so much as she demands unwavering loyalty in love and in business. She inspires fear and awe as she commands nature as well as man.

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The Two Trees

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The Two Trees

Writing has not come easily this weekend. Like many, I've been preoccupied with the attacks in Paris, following the headlines and conducting my own research into the problems with ISIS and Syria, trying to process the what, who and why, and the what next.

In the wake of tragedies, such as the ones in Paris, and major political events (legislation, Presidential debates, State of the Union addresses), I watch the reactions on social media. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are the modern-day soap box, the national (and sometimes international) town square: people exercise their freedom of speech there through what they post, like, and share.

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Something Scary: The Highwayman

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Something Scary: The Highwayman

I am not one who likes to be spooked--I have never been inside of a haunted house and I doubt that I ever will. I don't enjoy horror movies where ghastly ghouls and masked murderers leap from behind trees and I cringe at even the previews for exorcism movies.

I prefer my frights to creep quietly from the words on a page, or from a scratchy voice accompanied by the pop of a campfire or a twig snapping in the distance. I prefer scary poems to anything else.

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Leaps of Faith and Roads Not Taken

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Leaps of Faith and Roads Not Taken

I've been reading David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks this month, and while I'm nowhere near finished, I wanted to share a passage from the last page that I read today (no spoilers):

One of the narrators (there are a few!), named Hugo, is different; there is something special that distinguishes him from "the Normals," as he calls them, of the everyday world. At this point in the novel, Hugo is stopped in the street by a group of men in a white SUV who invite him to become someone/something different, an opportunity to evolve. But he must decide to leave the relative safety of the life he knows right now.

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There's a Zelf on the Shelf and Other Hidden Poems

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Take a look at your books, and what can you find?
I wonder if poetry comes to your mind.
No?

Look closely--look at the spines,
What stories emerge when you put them all in a line?

Book Spine Poetry: "The Lamplighter"

As I Lay Dying
in my Heart of Darkness,
The Lamplighter
Hangs a Thousand Trees with Ribbons.
what a Joyful Noise they make!
Atonement.

Care to give it a try?
Would you like to become a poet
in the blink of an eye?
Yes?
Take a look at your books. Browse. Peruse.
Collect all of the titles that you think you could use.
Then sort them by function--verbs, adjectives, nouns,
and start matching them up to see which ideas resound.
Add a word here, add a phrase there
to smooth out the sentences (some might call this cheating, but there's no need to care).

Voila!

Book Spine Poetry: "Walking Across Egypt"

Walking Across Egypt,
I watch as the House of Sand and Fog
becomes Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet;
The Stream and the Sapphire
Make a Scene,
calling for A Farewell to Arms--
Cry, the Beloved Country

You're a poet--and I bet you didn't even know it.
Happy National Poetry Month!

Book Club: I Shall Be Near to You

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It's the story of a young woman, Rosetta, who, in an effort to be with her husband as he leaves their home to fight for the Union army, cuts her hair to the nape of her neck and enlists in the army herself as Ross Stone. Together, Ross and her husband try to learn how to be newlyweds, contend with the horrors and uncertainties of war, and keep their dream of owning a farm in the West alive.

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Week-End Update: February Vacation

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For the past three years, February Vacation has been the one break from school during which we don't travel, which means that I have a full nine days to do whatever whim strikes me. As always, I made an overly optimistic to-do list that had no hope of being completed, but the things I did manage to squeeze in made for a relaxing (although frozen) break.

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