Watermark

Snapshot Poem 31 May 02006

lazy lazy morning
sun pads into the bedroom

like a friendly yellow cat
another drifty hour

in the blue sheets
later, the park churns

with colorful herds
of small children

grownups shooing
at their heels

trying to organize
delight

Habits of Effective Bloggers - Roundup

problogger's challenge to write about the Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers has resulted in a great many thoughtful posts; mostly, of course, about professional blogging, rather than the personal and idiosyncratic blogging in which I indulge.

I was hoping for some truly eccentric suggestions. You know, like turn three times clockwise, then bow to the west twice; or put on your FEAR THE POET T-shirt, burn sage incense, chant "I am creative" thirteen times. Something.

But no, pretty much the expected good advice, with a few not-so-typical good ideas; and some of the usual, unusually well-expressed. To the extent there is a common theme, it is: Passion. Persistence. Patience. To which I would add: Play! . . .

I did a very quick look-through, and offer below some brief excerpts . . .

To read the rest of this post, go to Blogging Blog.

Memorial Day

When they brought my father out
of Germany, he weighed ninety-two
pounds.
            Was he still
a boy then? Was he kind?

    They could leave the camp
but had nowhere to go.
    A brass key to a church, where
sometimes there was food. Then
    back through the foreign woods.

                         Who might he have been?
If not for this? Did he dream, ever,
of people burning beneath his plane?
                         Does it matter?
    For years his medals rested

in a velvet box, passed from wife to wife.
   What counts against him?
    What weighs in his favor?
                         Who has the right
to measure?

I struggled for some time about what to post today, and finally decided on this somewhat revised version of a NaPoWriMo piece.

Will we ever have no need for this day?

Why the neighbors might think I'm weird

I watched myself this morning.

It was raining, so I had this big bump on my chest -- where the camera hides under my jacket on wet days.

Stopped to chat with a crow that flew into a small tree and tipped its head at me.

In the park, when I bent down to pick up my dog's poop, I noticed raindrops on the bare dandelion, so stayed bent and took some pictures. Explained to the dogs that they would just have to be patient and wait for me.

Coming home, said good morning to the waiting squirrels. Visited with them a bit as I filled the feeders.

I could have told them that five thousand humans died yesterday in an earthquake, but I knew they would not understand; no more than I understand my own grief when I find one of their little bodies, stiff and ravaged in the grass.

Other than that, I'm perfectly normal.

Fierce, Indeed.

Which Classic Female Literary Character Are you?

You're Elizabeth Bennett of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen!
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Via Bookworm

Saturday Squirrel

Habits of Effective Bloggers

Six Habits of Effective Bloggers:

1. Get out of bed
2. Drink whatever caffeine stimulant appeals to you.
3. Take & upload a few pictures of the cat.
4. Write.
5. Post.

You think I'm kidding?

Sometimes managing #1 is a challenge; #2 is then a requirement. Without #3, this blog would no doubt have stayed in dim obscurity -- this is not how I imagined making The New York Times.

If your topic is narrow, you are likely to have a ready-made audience; all that is needed is to bring your blog to its attention -- assuming, of course, that you provide good content. If you are not blogging for business, or around some specific topic or hobby, then how will a potential reader find you? Well, one way is that they may stumble across you while looking for something else; cats, for instance.

Why would you be blogging, if not for work, or money, or politics, or some other specificity?

Maybe because blogging (that ugly, guttural word) is, itself, an art form. Or can be. Then blogging is simply a tool, or a medium -- like clay, or language. So one must learn to use this tool -- to sail this craft -- just as another artist must learn the qualities of canvas and paint and color, or whatever means of expression s/he uses.

That means some tedium; learning at least a bit of code, so that one can display that cat picture in the most appealing manner -- floated, or centered, or wrapped in text, as the case may be. It means learning how (and whether) to do a blogroll, and how to ping the services that send you readers, and how to market whatever art it is that you are making. And let's not pretend that marketing doesn't matter. If you didn't care whether anyone looked, you wouldn't put it online.

Somewhere around #4 & #5, you add your blog to yet another directory, and spend some time reading another blog -related blog, to see if there is something new to learn. And you learn it. Because if blogging is your art form, then you must keep exploring the techniques, the possibilities.

It's a different thing than using a blog to display some other kind of art -- paintings, or photographs, or poems. Then the blog is simply a gallery, or an online page. Many are, and quite good ones at that. But I mean something different -- something I don't even know yet. Something I am discovering as I go.

The most important thing -- whether you are blogging for art, or blogging for business -- is the missing #6 on the list. It's idling.

Idling meaning, doing something, reading something, imagining something, apparently unrelated to blogging. Doing nothing. Meandering, physically or otherwise. While wandering about, one is likely to stub one's toe on an idea, or an image, or a link that sparks yet another, and another -- and then here you are, at the keyboard, blogging.

It's a challenge, that balance -- to take the time, the silence and solitude, to find something fresh; and to take the time, the noise and community, to stay connected and current. To write; to post.

But then, you can always take a break and go look at other people's cats:

Friday Ark
I and the Bird
Carnival of the Cats
Carnival of the Dogs
Circus of the Spineless
Weekend Cat Blogging

Do be sure to visit Eatstuff's Weekend Cat Blogging this week, which has some very fun shots of a possum; and I and the Bird at Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding is absolutely amazing.

Thursday Walk|Poetry Thursday

   

Rachel has generously sent me a translation of the China Daily article that was linked to Watermark:

I'm only hemidemisemiliterate in Chinese, but this is what I think it says:

A Creative Landscape Indicates a Romantic Existence
Aren't we always looking to lend our lives something of a romantic sensibility? So--have you experienced the beauty of artistic representation? People often regret the lack of poetry in their lives. What would happen if you took every incident of your life and expressed it through a picture and a poem? Well, you'll have to savor the sensation yourself. Don't hesitate--throw off your trepidation--once you've tried it, you may just find the romance that's been missing from your life for so long.

The word for "romance" or "romantic" in Chinese, pronounced langman, is a transliteration from English. The first definition given in the Dictionary of Modern Chinese, the dictionary in most common use (it seems to me) in the PRC, is "rich in poetic feeling; full of imagination." I don't think the word has acquired as strong associations with vapidity and silliness in Chinese as it has in English, but instead has sort of attached itself to a set of traditional attributes of the scholar-poet.

Ah, of course -- a scholar-poet. Just how I've always imagined myself.

I am no Pollyanna, and generally averse to the too-quick assurance that every cloud has a shiny lining -- but it's true that one consequence of illness is a widening, and sometimes a deepening, of time. Time to think, to read, to look.

Together with time, I have been blessed with the technology to share my observations -- a digital camera; a little laptop. Interesting, and sometimes beautiful, things to look at. This columbine comes back, year after year, and seeds itself in neighboring gardens. 

This van, which sits in the parking lot, offending some neighbors and intriguing me, has aged -- perhaps not with grace, but with style.

Like me.

We each have our own way.

Today my way is somewhat incoherent -- too tired, but determined to post. Please bear with me.

[My Bread Van photoset on flickr.]

Snapshot Poem 24 May 02006

Abigail & Henry ~ click for larger image

Abigail, today the park lawn
is a meadow of dandelion seed
and English starlings. An African
in eye-whacking tennis whites
teaches a young American how
to swing her racket. His voice
sings in this hot day. A piercing
call and from my shadow an osprey
shadow glides -- two young ones,
learning, turning in the blue
air. The mallard couple, he
with his glossy green cap,
she rather matronly, stick
their heads in the water,
tails straight up. How not-
British it is here, without
you. A man paddles past
in a red kayak. Your sweet-
heart longs for you, the children
ask, my dog watches eagerly
then droops in disappointment
as a woman in a dazzling scarf
comes near enough to know
it is not you. Abigail, this beauty,
this heat, these creatures, this
Montana summer -- we send it
all to you on this, your English
birthday. Let it be today's
bright and cheering tunic.

For Abigail

Lucy's Monsters

Lucy knows there is a monster in the oven, because she sees it, every time she passes that black glass door.

Actually, there are far too many monsters in Lucy's world. There's the one in the basement; the one at the corner of the neighbor's deck; the one under the manhole cover in the courtyard; and so on.

Lucy has to be brave every day -- and she is.