Art and shiny things…
Really excited to say that my poem has been published as the poem of the week at Cellpoems! Cellpoems is one of my three favorite online publications, along with Rattle and Linebreak, so it’s a real pleasure to be included. If you haven’t yet, check them out, and consider subscribing -as well as publishing online, they deliver a short, exquisite poem once a week via text to subscribers.
Orange
I thought you would make things certain
Like a window nailed shut to the sill.
You were born with a paper lantern for a
heart,
the skin lit from within, the light in
danger
of going out.
-Sandy Longhorn, Cellpoems
Needtobreathe has released a new album, Rivers in the Wasteland, and you can hear it in all its glory on Relevant. RT
Fast Company has a great analysis of the contrast between the working lives of Danes and Americans, and the happiness levels thereof. “Some non-Danes wonder if Danes ever work. Not only do Danes tend to leave work at a reasonable hour most days, but they also get five to six weeks of vacation per year, several national holidays and up to a year of paid maternity/paternity leave. While the average American works 1,790 hours per year, the average Dane only works 1,540.” RT
NPR’s Marc Hirsch has an on-point analysis of the writing flaws of New Girl – “It’s not because there wasn’t any narrative juice in a Nick/Jess pairing. Their relationship could have been the story of Jess gradually dragging Nick in the direction of becoming a put-together human being. It could have been the story of the tension between a bright-eyed optimist and a schlumpy underachiever. It was neither, because the writers don’t seem interested in picking a lane and seeing where it leads. Instead, they constantly fidget from one to another, always at the last second and always with almost immediate regret at not having made a different choice.” RT
Dawson’s Creek showrunner Kevin Williamson says that he had no idea how many people liked Joey and Pacey, and that up until the last moment he still planned to have Joey and Dawson get together. (Claire’s note: horror!) RT
To celebrate his just-announced Pulitzer win, a poem from Vijay Seshadri!
We hold it against you that you survived.
People better than you are dead,
but you still punch the clock.
Your body has wizened but has not bled
its substance out on the killing floor
or flatlined in intensive care
or vanished after school
or stepped off the ledge in despair.
Of all those you started with,
only you are still around;
only you have not been listed with
the defeated and the drowned.
So how could you ever win our respect?–
you, who had the sense to duck,
you, with your strength almost intact
and all your good luck.
You are the start of the week
or the end of it, and according
to The Beatles you creep in
like a nun. You’re the second
full day the kids have been
away with their father, the second
full day of an empty house.
Sunday, I’ve missed you. I’ve been
sitting in the backyard with a glass
of Pinot waiting for your arrival.
Did you know the first Sweet 100s
are turning red in the garden,
but the lettuce has grown
too bitter to eat. I am looking
up at the bluest sky I have ever seen,
cerulean blue, a heaven sky
no one would believe I was under.
You are my witness. No day
is promised. You are absolution.
You are my unwritten to-do list,
my dishes in the sink, my brownie
breakfast, my braless day.
-January O’Neil, Rattle
Coffee and Irony 