Poet's Corner: The Tin Woodwoman Gets a Massage by Margaret Atwood

Another scanned page of Margaret Atwood's newest collection of poems, Dearly [2020]. I am slowly going through Dearly, also I have, from the library, small volumes by Billy Collins and Barbara Kingsolver as well as a large anthology of African American verse, so even though Poetry Month ends tomorrow, expect more posts until I've made my way through those works.

Poet's Corner: one by Camille T. Dungy

From poets.org. The poem-of-the-day for 20 April. I included the 'about the poem' which I find interesting at the end. A nice feature of poets.org.

In her mostly white town, an hour from Rocky Mountain National Park, a black poet considers centuries of protests against racialized violence by Camille T. Dungy

Two miles into
the sky, the snow
builds a mountain
unto itself.

Some drifts can be
thirty feet high.
Picture a house.
Then bury it.

Plows come from both
ends of the road,
foot by foot, month
by month. This year

they didn’t meet
in the middle
until mid-June.
Maybe I’m not

expressing this
well. Every year,
snow erases
the highest road.

We must start near
the bottom and
plow toward each
other again.

“I drafted this poem while teaching as a staff poet at the Community of Writers Poetry Workshop, where all poets are asked to write a poem a day. I often find that the exhaustion that comes from maintaining a daily writing practice opens me to surprising and rewarding avenues of inquiry. The 4x4 structure I imposed on these lines and stanzas helped me whittle this poem down to what felt like its most necessary components.”
—Camille T. Dungy

Poet's Corner: The light of a candle by Yosa Buson

The light of a candle
               is transferred to another candle—
               spring twilight.

---

Yosa Buson, born in 1716, was a Japanese poet of the Edo period. He was known, along with Matsuo Basho and Kobayashi Issa, as one of the three classical masters of haiku. He died in Kyoto, Japan, in 1784.

All of Agatha #4: The Secret of Chimneys & The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Secret of Chimneys [1925]. A summary from Wikipedia: At the request of George Lomax, Lord Caterham reluctantly agrees to host a weekend party at his home, Chimneys. A murder occurs in the house, beginning a week of fast-paced events with police among the guests.

The good thing about reading Christie’s books in order is that you can see what she’s doing. In my opinion, Chimneys is a less compelling version of The Man in the Brown Suit. Every character from the grumpy aristocrat to the rake to the clever heroine to the detective to the elements of foreign espionage is less compelling, but you can see that the pieces are similar and the setting is less compelling [country house] and even the MacGuffin [memoirs not diamonds]. Warnings for antisemitic and racist caricature.  

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd [1926]. No one can talk about this book without spoilers so it all goes in a cut. SPOILER ALERT!
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Next up is The Big Four, which I am not really looking forward to. Espionage only works if you still believe that some governments are the ‘good guys’ and I think I’ve been successfully disabused of that notion for a while. And then The Mystery of the Blue Train, which I know very well since I did a Bertie & Jeeves fic of it. I have an audiobook version narrated by John Moffat.

Book Bingo: April 2021

First of all, anybody have recommendations for the Biography/Autobiography square? I like reading about [visual] artists, women who did extraordinary things. Not really into leaders or politicians or modern celebrities. I could always read Michelle Obama's book, but maybe my friends have other ideas.



Colour in the Title: Rhode Island Red by Charlotte Carter is a fun modern mystery where the protagonist is a black American street musician in NYC named Nanette Haynes. She deals with boyfriends, lovers, nasty cops, mob guys, strippers, and homeless people. Many detective/hardboiled tropes like too much cash. There is a twist at the end I didn't see coming, too. I will definitely read more in the series. The author is an admirer of Chester Himes who wrote my fill for N-5.

Sword Dance by A. J. Demas [e-book]. This was recommended by ancientreader. It takes place nine years after the events of One Night in Boukous [fill for square G-1]. An injured soldier and a genderfluid eunuch spy meet and become embroiled in an intrigue in a fictional ancient Mediterranean world. I liked this one because it was plot fueled. The sex was good, too. I did read the next in the series Saffron Alley and did not like it because it was more about relationship development and domestic issues and child rearing. I did, however, write a ficlet for this series as part of the Be the First challenge and it should be revealed on AO3 on the weekend.

Non-fiction: Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Tom Orland. I like reading about art and artists and this was a philosophical book about the mental blocks to making art [art meaning any kind of art, writing, music, visual arts, etc.] both short term and long term. What artists tell themselves, what society tells them, how things have changed, teaching art vs making art, fears and myths and misconceptions. It was interesting. Enough quotes and examples to keep things moving. It can be boiled down to 'this is normal, but keep going' but that would make for a very short book :)


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