Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Dog Days of August

Energy drains; air conditioning strains; interest wains. I've been stuck in a goo of rhymes lately and I don't like it much. One more symptom of summer doldrums. But I'm fighting back. I just updated the website, and that felt okay. I sent a revised poem to my critique group for tonight's meeting, and I've started my weekly poem for my on-line writing group. What I have not done is update my publications list here, but I think I can manage that today. Mostly though, I want to sit very still and play solitaire on my ITouch or read magazines on the Kindle. Right now out the window in front of my desk I see a vibrant blue sky, almost violent in its clarity and I know that the car will be an oven when I leave in a couple of hours to drive to a meeting in Denver.  But who am I to complain?

Just finished reading The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan. Having read Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath years ago, I thought I understood the Dust Bowl. I've known and loved Woodie Guthrie's music from that time. Truth? I knew nothing. Egan has educated me, which is a good thing because next month I'll be a reader at an event in Lafayette, CO called Dust Bowl Poetry. The whole town is reading Egan's book and a variety of events are planned in response to that communal experience. It's a great idea and I'm pleased to be part of it. Much better than having been part of the original event, which did involve parts of Colorado. If you haven't read this book, do so, please. It is a cautionary tale that relates to our current blind spots about global warming. We need to learn from our collective mistakes.

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