Who is Agnes Sparrow

Happy Poetry Month

In honor of national poetry month I am presenting one of my truly favorite poems of all time. in just by e.e. cummings. Take a breath and read. It's wonderful.

in Just-

spring       when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far       and       wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

 from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

     the

             goat-footed

balloonMan       whistles

far

and

wee

e.e. cummings

Who the heck is Susan Boyle?

If you don't know by now, you should. This kind of stuff makes me cry. Check it out.

Guaranteed to make you smile. At last count she's gotten over 5 million hits on this. Now if I can figure out how to do that for my novel, The Prayers of Agnes Sparrow.

Anyhoo-I hope Susan does really, really well out there. 

The Perimenopausal Writer

Getting older stinks like old, fermenting cabbage. But I am trying to take it with a certain amount of humor. Perimenopause makes that possible. I have more symptoms than bayer has aspirin. But the most annoying symptom I discovered is loss of memory. OMgosh I cannot remember a blooming thing and I have resorted to writing down pretty much everything. My keys have become a great source of anxiety.  My office area (it's just a table in the corner of my bedroom) is slathered with post-it notes, scribbles on legal pads, my date book--anything and everything that I can scratch a note on. The trouble is, it's not very organized and I often forget which note is which and in what order should tasks be accomplished. For a writer this can be very bad, particularly one with bad handwriting like me. Because now that I am a real author with a real book launching in just a few months, I've come to see that organization is key. I have never been busier in my life--even when the kids were little and I was chasing them from one end of the house to the other while juggling pots and pans and sterilized bottles, folding laundry and cooking I managed to keep things in my brain. Now my brain is pretty much a spaghetti strainer and thoughts fall out constantly and and I can't find them. This is particularly annoying when a great line of dialog or plot idea bounces into my brain--usually while I'm away from my desk. I discovered I can record memos on my Blackberry but I haven't done it yet--I don't like the sound of my voice. I know, so what. But I'm pretty sure I'll forget what I was going to say anyway. Fortunately when I am actually in the zone and writing well it's like a whole other person takes over and I can write--at least for a while. The good news is--well there was good news about perimenopause and writing but I forget.