Another year, another non-attendance at West Chester May 7, 2007
Every year I bemoan my inability (more like unwillingness) to go to poetry events like West Chester. Every year I say, “Maybe next year.”
Um. Maybe next year.
The current plan May 7, 2007
I’m bad at making decisions, so I’m keeping both blogs for the moment. That “moment” might be five minutes or two years. It’s really hard to say.
In any case, there is a static page on WordPress for my blank verse. I’ll be posting the sections here, but there’s where the whole mess will reside if anyone is actually willing to read the whole mess. I know that I’ll be using WordPress in November for NaNo, as well.
Scavella mentioned that one of the things she hates about Blogger is the commenting issue, and I agree. Commenting on Blogger blogs is often frustrating and futile. I have set it so that anyone may comment. If you use the “other” option, you can fill in your name and website (if you wish). Or you can post anonymously. Whatever works best for you.
Up to 121 lines! May 7, 2007
I’m over 10% done with the Blank Verse Challenge! Woot!
For the whole shebang, click ze button.
WordPress cons May 5, 2007
Well, after I post this, I will have identical posts here and at my new WordPress blog. I have some complaints about Blogger. But I also have some complaints about WordPress, and I wonder if it’s worth switching.
WordPress pros:
The biggie: Static pages for things like the blank verse challenge is way cool.
It’s rumored to be more stable than Blogger.
Keeping track of my comments on other people’s blogs is much easier. It’s pretty much impossible on Blogger.
Support for the site is simply better.
WordPress cons:
The biggie: I have to pay to edit my template? WHA?
Because of that, I appear to be stuck with their choice of templates–none of which I like.
And I have to lose some of my widgets, like the ChainReading widget, that I like and use.
Doing any admin work is incredibly slow on dialup, and at work I’m on dialup.
Did I mention they want me to pay them so that I can do what I do on Blogger for free?
Blogger vs. WordPress May 5, 2007
Well, until I post this, I will have identical posts here and at my new WordPress blog. I have some complaints about Blogger. But I also have some complaints about WordPress, and I wonder if it’s worth switching.
WordPress pros:
The biggie: Static pages for things like the blank verse challenge is way cool.
It’s rumored to be more stable than Blogger.
Keeping track of my comments on other people’s blogs is much easier. It’s pretty much impossible on Blogger.
Support for the site is simply better.
WordPress cons:
The biggie: I have to pay to edit my template? WHA?
Because of that, I appear to be stuck with their choice of templates–none of which I like.
And I have to lose some of my widgets, like the ChainReading widget, that I like and use.
Doing any admin work is incredibly slow on dialup, and at work I’m on dialup.
Did I mention they want me to pay them so that I can do what I do on Blogger for free?
Mimesis journal May 4, 2007
I got my contributor copy of Mimesis this morning. Very nice.
It’s funny how I react to my own work when it’s in hard copy. It’s different, somehow, when it’s on a page. Solider. Thicker. It has a chunkiness to it.
I think I associate paper with reality. Books are real writing. Computer screens aren’t.
Yet I prefer online publishing. Go figger.
All buttoned up and ready to go May 4, 2007
I need to come up with a way of organizing the 1000 lines of blank verse. But in the meantime, at least I have a button!
1000 lines of blank verse? (52-83) May 3, 2007
The porch is listing, just a little off
so you can feel deep in your ankle joints
as if you were at sea. They built it slant
to run off rain into the sprawling yew
that flattens in the middle, a green wave
ridden by a sailing leaf armada
against the porch’s rail. I feel the urge
to see how they would do against a Drake
who launches fire and fireships in their tack.
A rolled newspaper, smug and orange-bagged
tossed lazy from a car, could be a stick
of dynamite, this gasoline Greek fire.
And if the whole porch goes, and if the bombs
must raze the village, saving it, that means
so much less weeding in the garden. Much
less picking through the mulch as if for gold
and finding snails and dog shit. We could stand
across the street, could bundle up the cats
in crates and blankets, take them down the hill
and buy them ice cream at the Tastee Freeze.
I’ve always been too willing that the world,
my world, be taken down in brighter flames.
I blame the vine. It’s all the bushy green
of plants I didn’t want. The way a weed
becomes a weed is by being too strong
to need me. Who can cherish sturdiness
or yard-long roots that safety-pin the soil
when there are violets in need of some
warm shelter? Challenge. Need. Fragility.
The independent leave us to our own
devices, sulking in our premade beds
and stinking there like allium in spring.
Shift this, suckas! May 3, 2007
AL defenses keep doing an aggressive shift on Travis Hafner. In Tampa, they went so far as to have the third baseman to the right of second while the second baseman played in the outfield.
In any case, David Dellucci on first. Two out. Bottom of the 11th. Hafner up. Two strikes. The pitch was terrible, way low and outside, and Pronk was completely off-balance, leaning and reaching out to cue it down the left field line–where there was nobody. It skittered into the outfield.
At some point the camera switched to Dellucci and you could tell he was going to try it. The defense was scrambling, the announcers screaming. Joel Skinner at third started windmilling his arm. Run. Run. Run. And Dellucci scored from first.
I don’t know when I’ve laughed harder at the end of a game. There’s no doubt he meant to do it. There was a big, dopey grin on many faces.
Generally, of course, a team would be happy to force Hafner to get a hit that way. He’s got no speed, so it limits him to a single. But with the game on the line, with two out and the runners moving, there just has to be a better way. Not that I know what it is.
