Poetry Friday: You Can't Have It All

I went in search of a poem with a "leap" in it, and found this poem by Barbara Ras. I would like to whisper it to myself every morning before it gets light outside. It makes my heart leap; it truly does.

You Can't Have It All

But you can have the fig tree and its fat leaves like clown hands

gloved with green. You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old
finger

on your cheek, waking you at one a.m. to say the hamster is back.

You can have the purr of the cat and the soulful look

of the black dog, the look that says, If I could I would bite

every sorrow until it fled, and when it is August,

you can have it August and abundantly so. You can have love,

(read the rest here)


Poetry Friday is hosted today by ever-organized Kelly Fineman, who put her post up extra early so we can all link at our leisure. Way to leap, Kelly!!

Everyday Marketing

When my husband goes to work, he wears his Air Force uniform. Some days, that's a green flightsuit; other days, it's his dress blues; and sometimes, it's his camouflage shirt and pants (the "battle dress uniform" or BDU.) But in most cases, no matter which uniform he wears, he carries a plain, black, inexpensive backpack slung over his shoulder. And in the outside mesh pocket of that backpack, he carries---for every passerby to see---postcards of the cover for Letters From Rapunzel.

It makes me smile to think of the double-takes he must get, when people see a warrior carrying an image of a children's book. (That's an Air Force coin next to it, if you're wondering.)

He often comes home and tells me "I sold a copy of your book today." I think he must have hand-sold several hundred copies by now. The latest sales were to: the guy who financed our car, and another officer after a pin-on ceremony. Watch out if you sit next to him on the subway!

I think I'm going to start calling him my Secret Weapon.

Guys Lit Wire Set to Launch June 1

Colleen at Chasing Ray said it was cool to cut and paste this from her blog, so I'm doing it. This is such an awesome idea, and I can't wait to see how it catches fire. (Note: the Sarah mentioned is NOT me. I'm Sara. Sarah would be the talented blogger from Finding Wonderland.)

And one more thing. I know there are guys who read my blog. You know you want to do this. Think about emailing Colleen and getting in on the ground floor of this sweet start-up. (I think that's guy-speak for pretty please?)

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Just to update you on the idea that several of us have been bouncing around for a web site recommending books to teenage boys. We are working on the design and putting together a big list of daily posters. But first the name:

Guys Lit Wire!!

All credit for that one goes to Sarah (who will likely also want to mention some help from Tanita). I was banging my head hard against the wall on this and Sarah came through big time. So kudos to her limitless creativity which will be big time on display on the site. Wait until you see the header she is working on for the main page - it is some kind of awesome.

We are planning to go live by June 1st and update every Monday - Friday with a different daily poster. We hope to have 21 folks on board dedicated to posting at least once a month. This way we get tons of new content from lots of different points of view, which is what I really wanted. We will likely run multiple daily posts as the site evolves but readers will be able to count for sure on at least one new post every weekday and that is what we will build a lot of the site's readership on.

There will be book recommendations, author interviews, literary commentary, a rant or two (I'm sure) and lots of other good stuff. The goal is to cover a ton of different types of books from across the literary spectrum so we can become a good resource to actual teenagers as well as anyone seeking to find books for teen boys. (And if the girls want to visit we are happy to have them, but boys are our target audience.)

Right now everything is moving forward quite nicely but we do still need some folks to commit to posting. If any of you would like to participate in Guys Lit Wire (or recommend someone) then please let me know. We are especially looking for guys so we can keep our group balanced (and because guys know a thing or two about what guys like to read... :) Please send me an email if you can help. (colleenatchasingraydotcom)