Ridiculous!

Yes, it's ridiculous to catch a cold in the middle of a summer heat wave. And yes, I caught a cold sometime during the past week. It started Sunday in my throat, then migrated down to my chest over the past few days.

The cold did, however, provide me with a good excuse to sit at home and do nothing but read Harry Potter books. I basically read books 6 and 7 straight through during these past few days. Quite satisfying, I must say. Yes,J.K. Rowling isn't the most gifted writer, but she knows how to move a plot along. It was especially interesting to see how far she must've planned in order to pull off the series. Also, the movies are so engrained in my brain that I was visualizing scenes with the actors as I was reading. Crazy bit.

Anyway, I'm glad I took the time to pour through the books.

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SIU Press somehow managed to get advanced copies of Furious Lullaby. Big grin. I thought it would've taken them a bit longer, but they're ahead of schedule.

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It's time to start planning my school year in earnest. Two classes coming up this fall: my usual intro to poetry and an advanced multi-genre workshop. For the advanced workshop, I'm looking at fiction, non-fiction, and poetry collections that are steeped heavily in research or are strongly associated with a historical time period. Should be interesting as a seminar, but tricky as a workshop . . .

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Quick thought on the poem-a-day thing I've been doing all this August--as I was telling Sue in the comments section of the post, I've been composing by ear lately, and the couplet's the best way for me to "hear" the language. I can't "hear" what I'm doing if I wrote in tercets, quatrains, or any longer stanzaic pattern.

This is a new development for me and I think it's pretty closely related to my attempts at purging the prose poem form from my head. I'll think on this more and perhaps come up with something more eloquent, but until then, I'll probably continue composing in couplets.

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Throwing a party here on Saturday. You're alll invited. BYOB.