Poetry vs. Technology vs. The Bed

I got in trouble last night for reading poetry on my phone.  I blame it on the Poetry Foundation's new app for my iPhone.  It is too easy to pull up a poem while I am in bed waiting for my husband to finish brushing his teeth or something of that nature.  I'm sorry that he decides to get in bed once I am mid-poem and has to wait for me to finish reading.  And if I love the poem, I will spend an extra minute or two adding it to my favorites, sharing it on my Facebook or Twitter, or even reading a little more about the poet and then maybe reading another poem or two from them.  You can see how easily the cycle perpetuates itself.  So, am I getting in trouble for reading poetry, or am I in trouble for being a technology fanatic?

I liken all this to a lot of men's passion for sports.  Let's talk basketball more specifically.  The NBA Finals are in full swing.  When my husband wants to turn on the television to catch a score on SportsCenter or just a few minutes of a certain game, I don't get upset about it and feel completely irrelevant.  And I know that just like a Lay's potato chip, he can never have just one.  One minute turns into an hour...it is a mean cycle too.  I long ago resigned to the fact that my husband loves sports, many of them, and when he is watching a game or highlights, he is indulging in his passion and will pay attention to me after that.  I don't try to have a conversation with him while he is mid-game or try to distract him with imaginative things.  It is what it is. And he does it in bed too.

I guess what I really should be worried about this year is the NFL and them possibly not having a season.  I love football, but I love poetry more.

Smile, Andrea

Revisiting poetry: One way to celebrate National Poetry Month

A favorite website of mine, www.poets.org, has a list of 30 ways to celebrate National Poetry Month.  Because I am way behind on any writing this month due to work travel, I have been reading a lot more poetry and this morning, I decided to revisit a poem I encountered a while back in a college poetry class.  I never appreciated this course as much as I now know I should have, but I did keep the books from the coursework.  I was planning on browsing through the book and reading a few poems, but once I pulled the book from the self, it seemed to want to open itself to George Gordon/Lord Byron's "When We Two Parted."  Sometimes the world has a mysterious way of talking to you and you can't help but know you should listen even if you don't quite understand it.  This poem greeted me with an astonishing silence and ended in tears.

If I should meet thee
     After long years,
How should I greet thee? -
     With silence and tears.

National Poem in your Pocket Day

Today is National Poem in your Pocket Day and the poem I am carrying around in my pocket to share with others is a poem that is close to my heart written by a significant poet and person in my life gone too soon,  Jack Myers.  A link to his poem "Cirrus" is below:

http://www.writersgarret.org/jackmyers.shtml

Happy poetry sharing, Andrea