Have you found poetry?

Because April is National Poetry Month and because the next PerPoTues is about Found Poetry, I've been more aware of little poetic snippets hidden in the every day - even in parking lots.

No parking
Between signs
By order of
Fire marshall

Does that sound a little like poetry to you?

What about this recipe excerpt?

8 lamb rib chops,
one inch thick
or pork rib chops,
cut thicker.
Chopped sweet peppers:
green or red or yellow.
2 minced cloves garlic
2 bay leaves
crushed dried oregano
olive oil or cooking oil
Sliced pitted ripe olives
Snipped fresh parsley

Place chops on broiler pan.
Broil 3 inches from heat.
Turn once; broil until done.



For inspiration, here are a couple of my faves from foundpoetry.wordpress.com. Their poems are much more expertly constructed than my first attempts above! :)

• did this get done yet?
• the future has arrived

To learn more about what Found Poetry is, there is a great article on Poets.org.

What about you? Are you noticing more poetry in the world around you?

****

Photos by:
1) catbagan
2) Polkaroo

What We Found at the Library: Poetry

Even though I'm kind of already in the middle of three different books, I grabbed a few poetry books off the shelf in honor of National Poetry Month and took an occasional poetry break.


So, here's what I found in our library...

In Spanish:

• Five Decades: Poems 1925-1970 (Pablo Neruda)
• The Poems of St. John of the Cross
  

Both have the original Spanish poetry with an English translation on the facing page, which helps, but I'm not a huge fan of these translations. For some reason, they tend to throw out the simple, elegant language of many of the original poems and opt for flowery, arcane words instead. The moral: don't judge a Spanish poetry book by the English translations. Ugh.

In English: A Murmur in the Trees (nature poems by Emily Dickinson)

I'll leave you with one of her more familiar poems, which seems particularly apropos in this era of follower counts, social networking and (ahem) blogging...

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you–Nobody–Too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise–you know!

How dreary–to be–Somebody!
How public–like a Frog–
To tell one's name–the livelong June–
To an admiring Bog!

On the menu: planning better

Since my last menu plan posts, I've learned some things about meal planning. That time, I planned two weeks at once - and then ran into some glitches.

1. Underestimating amounts.
There were a couple times I ran out of ingredients I'd planned on having for a dish later in the week. And I didn't want to be running off to the store all the time.

For example, I wanted to make a cucumber yogurt side dish. Then we ate most of the plain yogurt as a snack with fresh fruit and honey. It was reeeally good. But it messed with my plan. In the end, I sliced the cukes, some tomatoes and some of our mint, then drizzled my homemade Italian dressing over the top. That was good too. But still. It's the principle of the thing. I need to figure out how to account for snacks, etc. when I come up with my plan.

2. Overestimating my energy level.
Some days I'm pretty tired out by dinnertime. (I think it's a combination of the stress of running a business - plus all the tiredness-causing allergy meds.) And the thought of trying a new recipe can seem like more work than I'm up for.

I need to make sure to plan several easy meals and limit the number of new things I'm trying. That way, if I was going to try a new dish on Tuesday, but I'm drained after an afternoon of client meetings, I can just pop the chicken and rice I was planning for Wednesday in the oven instead.

Sometimes the Hubs steps in and takes over. (He made the empanadas I had planned, and the process turned out to be quicker and easier than it looked. Also? They were delish!) But now that he's going back to school, he's just not going to have as much time for that sort of thing.


With that in mind, here's the basic plan for this week (still figuring out some of the details)...

Mon: I'm making Moroccan Lamb Salad With Carrots and Mint, only I'll be using leftover pork instead. Which probably wouldn't make most Moroccans happy. Shhh...don't tell.

Tue: Pesto chicken and maybe some pasta.

Wed: Gonna try out that empanada recipe - with extra veggies in the filling.

Thr: Lentils.

Fri: Tilapia and rice.

What about you? Anything delicious planned this week? You can link up at Mindful Menus.

First day of school

Tomorrow the Hubs starts a seminary class.

Before I continue, I know that some of you who know us in real life may not have heard about that. The thing is that, while he was considering this as an option and going through the application process, he told very, very few people. He wanted to know it was a sure thing first. I guess this must be kind of a guy thing, because my dad totally got it. Anyway, then, all of the sudden, he was accepted and ordering books and - boom! - tomorrow he starts.


And, if you know him in real life, you may already know he is very intelligent and a voracious reader and brilliant with languages and gifted at explaining things in just the right way so the light bulb goes on.

He's wanted to go back to school for a long time, and now things have fallen into place. Although he's pursuing a Master's (and I can totally see him as a professor), we're taking things one class at a time. We'll see where it leads.

For now, we're both really excited about him embarking on this journey. And I am so very proud of my Hubs!


Oh, one more thing, he recently signed on to Twitter (as @felipeviajero). So he'll be posting periodic updates on his seminary experience, as well as his adventures on the light rail and other random observations, there.

Is it ironic that my free verse is about taxes?

My free verse for this month's Perfectly Poetical Tuesday....

And Taxes
Tax time. Looking back in time.
Miles traveled, dates recorded, gains and losses.
Somewhere in between lines of tidy numbers
Were acquaintances made, lessons learned,
Breath and blood and tears.
Life flowing unstoppable, unexpected, and (unlike subtraction)
Uncertain with few exceptions - one of which is taxes.

Perfectly Poetical: Free verse

Happy Poetry Month! There is more poetical fun coming soon, but today let's celebrate with some original poetry!

How to join in Perfectly Poetical Tuesday (PerPoTues) today:
1. Write a poem in free verse, post it on your blog and include a link back to this post.
2. Stop back by, link up (using Mr. Linky) and leave a comment.
3. Follow the other links and read some great poetry!

A few other notes:

• I wrote a free verse poem, but I decided to post it separately. I'll link to it later on.
  
• If you're spreading the word via Twitter, feel free to use hashtag #perpotues.
• If you don't have a blog, you can post in the comments here and skip the linking part. :)

Next PerPoTues:
I'd like to try something different - found poetry! I just learned about this, and I'm excited to give it a try. The idea is to take a text that's not a poem (an excerpt from a magazine article or a politician's speech, for example) and alter it (adding line breaks, maybe reordering a few words or phrases...), so that it reads like one. As Poets.org said, you can think of found poetry as "the literary equivalent of a collage."

To get you started, check out Wikipedia's article. I'll be posting with more information and examples between now and the next PerPoTues on May 10.

What We Found at the Library

Last time the Hubs was headed to the library, I asked him to bring me back a book.


He brought home How to Shoot and Sell Animal Photos - as a joke. (Plus, who can say no to yawning kittens? Awww...)

Anyway.

He also checked out the book I was actually looking for, Vintage Paper Crafts by Anna Corba.


I was looking for inspiration for bridal shower centerpieces, and I knew I could find it there.

I've checked out Vintage Paper Crafts before. I think I just stumbled across it the first time, and it's come home with me a time or two since then, as well. (Who knows? I may even buy it someday!)

What I love about it is not so much the explanation of paper crafting methods and techniques (it has a fair amount of that too), but the ideas it inspires for collage art, cards, gifts and scrapbooks. Just flipping through it gets my creative synapses firing!

I'll probably never follow a project from the book step by step to completion (even if I did break down and buy it), but it always brings to mind new possibilities.

...And that's what we found at the library!