(no subject)
I was poking around bomc2.com. and found something curious (like it takes much). bomc2.com is a bit limited, but I have rather eclectic reading interests so I can easily find four books to satisfy the subscription policy, then I quit! Because having a book arrive in the mail every month is exactly what I need (along with a few more dents in my head!). I use bomc2 the same way I use to treat the discount book racks at Barnes and Noble, but this way I can be a little more discriminating, continuing my quest against instant gratification.
Right now I'm not happy with my poetry collection. I have a pretty good idea what I like, and it appears I don't have very much of it. I have too many anthologies and not enough from the specific authors that sing to me. No hurry on changing this, but as I continue to prune my bookshelves I am noticing gaps. As I whittle down my interests, I would like there to be much more space on the on the shelves, but this is an area that I could fill in a little bit. I should not just subsist on a heavy diet of Shakespeare (I think it upsets the golfers when I start muttering in meter at them). Besides, my sonnet a week days were a long time ago. There are other forms that should be explored.
So I'm keeping an eye out for certain things. When I punched in "poetry" on bomc2, this popped up:
Poetry as Spiritual Practice: Reading, Writing, and Using Poetry in Your Daily Rituals, Aspirations, and Intentions by Robert McDowell.
I'm not big on books like this. I feel about these they way I do about vocabulary builders; I get all excited thinking this will be a great thing, and then I disappointed when it isn't really written with me in mind. But I do still get excited that this might be inspirational, so I went over to Amazon.com to check it out. It had the usual reviews from people whose opinion I am not thrilled by, but one of the reviewers surprised me:
"Poetry exposes me to a different way of experiencing the world. When I read Poetry as Spiritual Practice I instantly translated the poems into pictures. I can see fields of grain or rain in Autumn. It is fascinating to see all the patterns and rhymes that can be woven into language. I always enjoy learning about the different ways that other people think of and experience the world."-- Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures
Thinking in Pictures is an amazing book. And I bet Temple Grandin is pretty remarkable too. Hmmm...considering who she is and how she feels about poetry (it isn't an easy subject for her, sort of in the same way that spelling/proof reading isn't my thing). I might have to check it out. There are worse things than a spiritual practice of poetry.
Right now I'm not happy with my poetry collection. I have a pretty good idea what I like, and it appears I don't have very much of it. I have too many anthologies and not enough from the specific authors that sing to me. No hurry on changing this, but as I continue to prune my bookshelves I am noticing gaps. As I whittle down my interests, I would like there to be much more space on the on the shelves, but this is an area that I could fill in a little bit. I should not just subsist on a heavy diet of Shakespeare (I think it upsets the golfers when I start muttering in meter at them). Besides, my sonnet a week days were a long time ago. There are other forms that should be explored.
So I'm keeping an eye out for certain things. When I punched in "poetry" on bomc2, this popped up:
Poetry as Spiritual Practice: Reading, Writing, and Using Poetry in Your Daily Rituals, Aspirations, and Intentions by Robert McDowell.
I'm not big on books like this. I feel about these they way I do about vocabulary builders; I get all excited thinking this will be a great thing, and then I disappointed when it isn't really written with me in mind. But I do still get excited that this might be inspirational, so I went over to Amazon.com to check it out. It had the usual reviews from people whose opinion I am not thrilled by, but one of the reviewers surprised me:
"Poetry exposes me to a different way of experiencing the world. When I read Poetry as Spiritual Practice I instantly translated the poems into pictures. I can see fields of grain or rain in Autumn. It is fascinating to see all the patterns and rhymes that can be woven into language. I always enjoy learning about the different ways that other people think of and experience the world."-- Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in Pictures
Thinking in Pictures is an amazing book. And I bet Temple Grandin is pretty remarkable too. Hmmm...considering who she is and how she feels about poetry (it isn't an easy subject for her, sort of in the same way that spelling/proof reading isn't my thing). I might have to check it out. There are worse things than a spiritual practice of poetry.