Kristi Wachter.com

My Heaven On Earth anthology introduced me to Les Murray. He's written some extraordinary poems, and there are hundreds of them online. What a mountain of wonder.

"Spring Hail" is lovely, so vivid and specific. The repetitions (not just the first line, but eating ice as well) breathe rhythm into the whole and make the memory more immediate.

(I'm not sure how he's using "prop," and my dictionary isn't helping; I'll have to look that up some more.)

I'm pretty sure this is the first Rebecca Wee poem I've read.

I especially liked the ambiguity or double meaning of

"On a beach a man pushes a cart with his life
through the sand."

I also read "Mrs. Darwin" by Carol Ann Duffy.

I love villanelles, and I love how Stallings follows the rules of the form until she makes the choice to modify that last line (and add a blank line for emphasis, or at least mindfulness).

I love how she invokes the whole of the typical morning - toast, and, sensibly, butter, and then also the morning mail.

There are actually only a few references to burning and smoke, but the whole poem seems infused by the scent, the way everything takes on the burnt smell when something gets blackened in the toaster.

She is so brilliant.

Other poems read today:

Little Donkey - Wendy Cope

I picked up my copy of 180 More, and instead of picking a random poem, I decided to start with the first one:

"First Hour," by Sharon Olds.

This is a lovely, jarring poem that lifts me out of my immediate life into the moment she's describing.

I immediately wanted to know more of her work, and found a large collection at PoetryFoundation.org. I haven't read them all yet - I want to take them slowly - but I'm anticipating more surprising, welcome alien images.

I recently discovered that WikiHow articles are often available in other languages - and now they're my favorite source of dual-language practice.

I can bring up an article in the target language (Spanish, French), and read it to practice comprehension and find new vocabulary words. It's terrific for the specialized vocabulary that goes with a particular hobby or daily activity, like playing the piano or making an omelet.

This is a fantastic biography. It's incredibly well researched (literally: I find it hard to believe how much time and trouble the author took to talk with everyone, read every archived document, chase down every source), and clearly and compellingly told.

I am lucky enough to own a couple of volumes of poetry by the amazing A. E. Stallings.

Randomly picking a few poems to read while sipping my tea, I came across "Pencil."

I love the rhymes, the occasional repetition or additional rhyme on the first and third lines.

She's so masterful, so skilled.