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Dewey’s 24-hour Read-a-Thon 2009, Part Deux

Hour #13:

HOLY COW, I made it to the halfway point. I cannot believe my stamina and I’m not even tired yet. I guess it helps that I normally stay up late on Saturdays to begin with.

Anyway, the purpose of this post–other than to continue with my hourly or bi-hourly updates–is to complete the Midway Survey:

1. What are you reading right now?

Keeper of Light and Dust by Natasha Mostert, which I have been reading since the challenge began! Still reading it, but there are only 83 pages left!

2. How many books have you read so far?

I’m still working on book #1; I guess you could say that I’ve been a bit distracted by The Girl, the challenges, the cheerleading, and Twilight and Moonlight DVD breaks.

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon?

I haven’t even thought that far ahead. I’m looking forward to finishing this book.

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day?

The only special arrangements I made was having an audiobook in the car because I knew we had about a 45 minute ride from my house to Anna’s. Gotta keep reading, and Janet Evanovich is a good break from reading.

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those?

There have been a number of interruptions between Cheesecake, Chipotle, and Little Caesar’s Pizza…and that’s just the food. I think you can already guess what the other distractions were given previous answers.

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far?

How cheerful people are when they comment on your blog even when you have been so engrossed in reading that you really haven’t been commenting that much. Ok, that an concentrating when there are so many Vampire movies I would rather be watching…lol OK, salivating over.

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?

I don’t have any suggestions…but that could be because I’m having a tough time concentrating.

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year?

I think I should probably have started off with shorter books, rather than starting with a 300+ page book.

9. Are you getting tired yet?

Not tired yet, but I have had two cups of coffee for breakfast, a few sodas, and a bunch of green tea! Perhaps that has helped keep the brain muscles working.

10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered?

I think the distractions have helped a lot. I may have given up sooner in the challenge. This is my first read-a-thon, and I think reading in a group has been helpful! We find ourselves reading passages out loud…that has been interesting.

Stay tuned for more updates in this post!

Hour #16:

Here’s my short little update. We were in the car listening to Janet Evanovich, and we are now on Disc 7 of 8, so we’re nearly finished with that book, but doesn’t look like that one will be finished in this read-a-thon.

But I’m home, and I’ve decided that the drive along I-70 is really boring and tires people out. I’m waning here a bit, but I am determined to at least finish one book for this challenge.
Wish me luck!

Here’s a photo of our lunch scarf-fest!

Hour #17:

Life in the Thumb is hosting the latest challenge where we must complete this phrase:
You know you’re participating in a READ-A-THON when:

1. You carry the book to the kitchen, pour milk into coffee with one hand while keeping your eye on the page and overflow your coffee mug.

2. You don’t pay as much attention to your blog as you normally do, fail at commenting and cheering others on, and forget to pee.

3. Read passages out loud randomly to your husband who just looks at you like you are out of your mind or have suddenly contracted a weird form of tourettes.

4. You’ve driven 45 minutes to a friend’s house to spend the day reading while your husbands get to wait on you hand and foot while you read.

5. While you are in said car on the trip to the friend’s house you are listening to an audiobook and reading from a hardback at the same time–boy your brain gets tired with all that double duty!

6. You start to stare at the floor and wonder what it would be like to be your dog or your cat. (see photo)

Hour #18:

I finished my first book for the Read-a-Thon, Keeper of Light and Dust. That means I read 301 pages. Not bad for a first timer. I’m headed to bed for a few hours, but will be up before the read-a-thon ends. Keep reading everyone.

Dewey’s 24-hour Read-a-Thon 2009

Welcome to my very first attempt at the Dewey’s 24-hour Read-a-Thon; I thought about all those times that I was going to participate when Dewey was alive, and I missed out on those chances. But I’m doing it now.

What you can expect from me today in terms of blogging is some updates to this post throughout the day, so keep checking back.

I’m primarily going to be reading some review copies, short stories, audiobooks, and poetry books. I have no particular page goal or book total that I hope to achieve. I will be checking for the mini-challenges and other blogger’s updates; I see the hubbub feature growing in the near future! Overall, I just want to have fun.

Meme Hour #1:

3 Facts About Me:

1. I love my Keeshond like he’s my kid.
2. I love books, and I think it’s becoming an addiction.
3. I really love poetry and I hope to in some small way broaden the audience for poets publishing work today.

Where I’m reading from is my living room couch, the car as I head to Anna’s later today, and her couch or floor or somewhere.

I’ve answered all the other questions for this meme above. Now let’s get reading!

Hour #2:

Not much reading happening here as I get ready to head over to Anna’s in Baltimore, but I have gathered the no-bake cheesecake, the veggies and dip, the green tea, strawberries, and some bread sticks. I’ve got a ton of books in my bag, but we’ll see how many I actually get through over her house. 🙂

The laptop will be coming along, though I hope I can hook it up, if not it’s my multimedia movie/music distraction when I need a break! See you all on the Web again soon.

Hour #3 & 4:

Ok, so the last hour the hubby and I were in the car “reading” One for the Money by Janet Evanovich. Yes, I resorted to audiobooks while in the car, but that counts as reading, right?! I don’t discriminate anyway.

Now we’re at Anna’s house and The Girl is taking a break with the scooter outside, and Anna’s on the couch wrapped in a blanket reading. I’m blogging, obviously, but the Men are out getting us Chipotle for LUNCH! WOOHOO. I like this read-a-thon stuff. Keep commenting, and I will be back on the Internet soon. I hope these updates aren’t boring you! I’m reading Keeper of Light and Dust by Natasha Mostert for those interested! I really love this book!

Hour #6:

This is hour six, and I am still reading the same book, but that’s OK. My main goal is to finish this book and maybe read some poetry later today. However, I did decide to take a cue from The Girl and draw a comic for the Hour 6 Mini-Challenge at Sophisticated Dorkiness. If you haven’t read this blog before you should, Kim does a great job. Anyway, here’s my comic creation below based upon Natasha Mostert’s Keeper of Light and Dust:

Well, it’s back to reading! Have a great time. We’ll be posting about our adventures in cheesecake later!

Hour #8:

I’ve made it 8 hours! I’m still reading the same book, but the breaks to eat and have The Girl read to us has been good! I’m still awake…no snoozing here. Anna, on the other hand, has fallen a sleep for a nanosecond or two! 🙂 Too much quiet for her, I think. I just entered the Hour #8 mini-challenge about Loving Your Local Library. What a great challenge. well, it’s back to reading Keeper of Light and Dust!

Hour #11:

Well, we had our Jello No-Bake Cheesecake with fresh cut strawberries, and some of us had some whip cream on top as well. You should have heard the orgasmic sounds from the girls and boys. LOL And it was all very platonic! Still reading Keeper of Light and Dust, but I’m nearing the 200 page mark in spite of the Twilight-Edward distractions.

The Girl is hoping to win the comic challenge, but I’m hoping to beat her out and win the prize. It’s a friendly little rivalry we have going on here. Neither of us will probably win! LOL Anyway, its back to reading…I mean watching Edward!

Poem #15 and #16, PAD Challenge 2009

Prompt #15 is to alter a favorite poem’s title and use that title to write a new poem.

I chose The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost and changed it to this:

The Onion Not Eaten

I strolled by the farm stand,
picking through the bins,
tossed aside unripened bananas,
tomatoes, and mangoes.

The wind was missing,
but the sun beat down heavily
my shoulders sweat and slump
beneath the weight of my basket.

It’s filled to the brim with great finds
from strawberries to spinach leaves.
The onions are missing,
The bin is empty.

The recipe calls for onion,
I cry, but only silence replies.
The sun has fallen behind,
and I’ve run out of patience.

I walk back to my car with full
basket, tossing it in the trunk.
At home, the recipe suffers
Not.

Prompt #16 is to pick a color, write a poem inspired by that color, and use the color as your title.

Yellow

Streaks across the windowpane
bolts of lightning
shifted right and left,
pursued.
The canary escaped from its cage.
Free.

What did you write today?

For more information about the challenge, go here.

***Giveaway Reminder***

Don’t forget to enter The Traitor’s Wife giveaway, here and here.

Poem #14, PAD Challenge 2009

Poetry Prompt #14 is another two-for-Tuesday, so we were asked to either write a love poem or an anti-love poem.

Cosmetic Surgery Love

Your face is putty in my hands
I can nip and tuck it,
mold it to meet my needs.
Is this love?
No, it’s plastic surgery.
Love is how I feel about the feel of skin
between my latex fingers
as I shape it, pull it, trim it.

I used to play with Barbie dolls,
with their perfect breasts and thighs.
They always had almond eyes, high cheekbones,
and narrow chins—the perfect woman.
I studied anatomy in college,
learned the best techniques,
and now I turn out the best molds.

They stare in the mirrors,
and in spite of the gauze strings
that cling to their bright pink skin,
smile wider than stitches allow.
Shaking my hand, spilling out praise,
they love me.

What did you write today?

For more information about the challenge, go here.

C.O.R.A. Diversity Roll Call–Poets

I recently discovered this week’s C.O.R.A. Diversity Roll Call is about poetry and poets, so naturally I’m participating. While I’m supposed to talk only about a female African American poet, I’m going to broaden this to include my two favorite African-American Poets, Yusef Komunyakaa and Rita Dove, who is a more recent find thanks to The Writer’s Center and Kyle Semmel from where I won a book of poetry.

First, let’s talk about Rita Dove and share one of her poems. Rita is not only a poet, but also a script writer and story writer. She served as Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995 and as Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. She now works at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville as an English professor. Check out her Webpage for more biography information.

This is one of my favorite poems, which can be found here with several others:

My Mother Enters the Work Force

The path to ABC Business School
was paid for by a lucky sign:
Alterations, Qualified Seamstress Inquire Within.
Tested on Sleeves, hers
never puckered — puffed or sleek,
Leg o’ or Raglan —
they barely needed the damp cloth
to steam them perfect.

Those were the afternoons. Evenings
she took in piecework, the treadle machine
with its locomotive whir
traveling the lit path of the needle
through quicksand taffeta
or velvet deep as a forest.
And now and now sang the treadle,
I know, I know….

And then it was day again, all morning
at the office machines, their clack and chatter
another journey — rougher,
that would go on forever
until she could break a hundred words
with no errors — ah, and then

no more postponed groceries,
and that blue pair of shoes!

I adore the detailed images in this poem and how each one is selected for its powerful message about the life and times of this mother entering the workforce. This is a very poignant social commentary about this one woman’s struggle as befitting to all others at the time.

I may have talked about Yusef Komunyakaa on this blog before during the last Book Bloggers Appreciation Week, but here he is again. I first learned of Komunyakaa’s work in a college seminar on Vietnam War literature and I’ve returned to his work ever since. Yusef was raised during the Civil Rights movement and served in the U.S. Army between 1969 and 1970 as a correspondent and editor of the Southern Cross during the Vietnam War.

Here’s one of my favorite poems from him, found here:

Camouflaging the Chimera

We tied branches to our helmets.
We painted our faces & rifles
with mud from a riverbank,

blades of grass hung from the pockets
of our tiger suits. We wove
ourselves into the terrain,
content to be a hummingbird’s target.

We hugged bamboo & leaned
against a breeze off the river,
slow-dragging with ghosts

from Saigon to Bangkok,
with women left in doorways
reaching in from America.
We aimed at dark-hearted songbirds.

In our way station of shadows
rock apes tried to blow our cover
throwing stones at the sunset. Chameleons

crawled our spines, changing from day
to night: green to gold,
gold to black. But we waited
till the moon touched metal,

till something almost broke
inside us. VC struggled
with the hillside, like black silk

wrestling iron through grass.
We weren’t there. The river ran
through our bones. Small animals took refuge
against our bodies; we held our breath,

ready to spring the L-shaped
ambush, as a world revolved
under each man’s eyelid.

Who are your favorites? Have you discovered any new African American poets?

Poem #11, 12, and 13, PAD Challenge 2009

Ok, I got really behind in the poem-a-day challenge, so I’m going to combine three days worth of poems into one post.

Prompt #11 is to write about an object or objects, much like William Carlos Williams’ The Red Wheelbarrow. Here’s my version:

Keyboard

a-s-d-f-j-k-l-;
perfect squares lined up
ready
for pounding fingertips
to drop.

Much more
than the sum of their parts
to become
“Laf” on a cell.

Gleaming silver
under fluorescent light
in dim living rooms
with wide displays.

Those keys drop and rise
string letters into words
phrases, sentences, paragraphs
connected into novels.

Prompt #12 is to fill in the blank and use this phrase–“So We Decided to BLANK”–as the title of the poem.

So We Decided to Have a Go

We stared into the abyss.
It was dark below our feet,
but our shoes were black and deceptive.
We decided to have a go,
take the plunge.
I yanked on the rope once more,
made sure it was secured to the tree.
I shouted aloud, “Yahooo!”
The wind whipped past my ears,
whistling You-who high-pitched.
He was still behind me
on the ledge, teetering.
He swaggered back and forth,
walking into the abyss
silently.
The cool water rose up into my pants,
dousing the heat between my legs.
The blush on my cheeks white
like porcelain.
My hair slicked back
as I burst through the water surface,
spitting moisture into an arc.
No sooner had I emerged,
he was there plunging below
displacing me.

Prompt #13 is to write about a hobby, whether its scrapbooking or fishing.

Photography

I hold my eye up to the circular glass
peering as far as I can,
the couple stands in my crosshairs.
My finger poised,
hovers just above gleaming silver.
A swift drop–
the finger depresses the shutter,
the shot is fired.
Her hand on her hip,
his on her cheek, slightly tipped upward.
He smiles down at her,
though she frowns, looking askew.

A few miles away,
my sights are set on you.
Your unclean clothes, bushy beard,
dirty skin, and white smile.
You’re there in a wheelchair
ready to bolt and do.
Your eyes vacant
Amid the pastel tulips in the park.

What did you write today?

For more information about the challenge, go here.

I’m Off to Conversations & Connections

Anna and I are headed to Conversations and Connections tomorrow, so I will not be online tomorrow until late in the evening.

The writer’s conference is sold out again this year, and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us.

I’ll be back to post my poem for the poem-a-day challenge and let you in on all the goodies.

Have a great Saturday everyone.

Poem #10, PAD Challenge 2009

Prompt # 10 is to write a poem about Fridays. Hmm, what on Earth! I haven’t got a clue. OK, really, this is going to be a bad one.

TGIF

Today is the end of the week
Great day to sit and relax
Immersed in words, intoxicated
Fiddling with lines and verse.

What did you write today?

For more information about the challenge, go here.

***GIVEAWAY REMINDER***

I have 1 copy of Jill Mansell’s An Offer You Can’t Refuse; get two entries, comment on my review and my interview. Deadline is April 11 at Midnight.

Poem #9, PAD Challenge 2009

Prompt #9 was to write about a memory. I had a good time with this one.

First Glance

Memory is a funny thing
It can be clear as a clean windowpane,
or as murky as Briny waters.

I remember your dark hair, how that one strand curled
just above your forehead above your deep blue eyes.
You t-shirt clung to those new muscles,
firm biceps and washboard stomach.
Jeans clinging to thin legs
that walked tentatively.

You remember walking around with bed-head,
“sleepies” clinging to the corner of your eyes.
A wrinkled, Swiss cheese shirt too small for your new body
and arms that felt like prosthetics.
Jeans too tight in the crotch,
making your stride stiff.

My hand disappeared in yours that first night
but it was comfortable even when your hand started to sweat
as we sat in the back of your friend’s mustang,
drove around downtown listening to rock and shouting to talk.
I leaned back to feel the wind in my hair
trying to keep it from striking you.

I slid closer to you on that leather seat,
the mustang cornering on two wheels just missing the curb.
Your arm curled around my shoulders to hold me close
When a seat belt wasn’t enough. You smelled of musk
and wood. At least that’s how I remember it.

What did you write today?

For more information about the challenge, go here.

***GIVEAWAY REMINDER***

I have 1 copy of Jill Mansell’s An Offer You Can’t Refuse; get two entries, comment on my review and my interview. Deadline is April 11 at Midnight.

Poem #8, PAD Challenge 2009

Today’s Prompt is to write about a specific routine or routines. This was another tough one for me, but here’s my attempt:

Exercise

Get up, get down
Step up, step down
Hike up, walk down
Moving in this motion
Just to get the heart pumping.
There must be a better way.
Aerobics for an anaerobe.
Dressed in sweats, ready for the afternoon
sweat pours down
as my feet hit the floor or the plastic mold.
Techno music with drum beats
in time with my steps:
Up, down, up, down, up.
Too bad the fat doesn’t sloth off with water.

What did you write today?

For more information about the challenge, go here.

***GIVEAWAY REMINDER***

I have 1 copy of Jill Mansell’s An Offer You Can’t Refuse; get two entries, comment on my review and my interview. Deadline is April 11 at Midnight.

Poem #7, PAD Challenge 2009

The prompt for Day 7 fell on Tuesday, April 7. Poetic Asides has two prompts on Tuesday–Two for Tuesday. I was tasked with writing a poem about clean or dirty. So here’s my rough draft for this prompt:

Shave

Swift horizontal swipe
cuts down dark trunks
fall quicker than the lead
in my pencil broken on the page.

A nail scratching up my chalkboard leg,
dry and cracked from winter kiss.
Clear-cut forest
with scattered stumps among cracked earth.
My hands run along
carrying water to the earth,
moisture covers skin seamlessly
absorbed deeply by pores
free of radicals
free of conservatives
free to be.

What did you write today?

For more information about the challenge, go here.

***GIVEAWAY REMINDER***

I have 1 copy of Jill Mansell’s An Offer You Can’t Refuse; get two entries, comment on my review and my interview. Deadline is April 11 at Midnight.

Richard Currey at Writer’s Center

Richard Currey Booktable
On April 5, I dragged my hubby down to the Bethesda, Md., Writer’s Center for a reading with Richard Currey, author of Fatal Light, which was re-released for its 20th anniversary through the Santa Fe Writer’s Project.


Sunil Freeman, assistant director of the center, listed a number of awards and achievements for Richard’s friend, Robert Aubrey Davis who works at Sirius Satellite Radio on The Village. Robert joked about how Richard wrote him notes about what to say when he introduced him at the reading. Robert talked about Richard’s early work as a poet and quoted from a poem that his friend wrote.

Richard stepped up to the podium, thanked his nephew for helping him get Fatal Light republished. Richard haggled with the original publisher of Fatal Light to obtain the rights to the work for republication. He’s working with Operation Homecoming, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, to help today’s veterans see writing as a way to deal with their demons through writing workshops and other programs on bases across the United States and abroad.

Fatal Light was written in Richard’s early 20s, and depicts soldiers plucked from the innocence of their lives and dropped into the confusion of war, leaving them to pick up the pieces of their own lives when they return home. The events in the novel are based upon experiences he had as a naval corpsman and medic. He hopes the novel speaks to the current Afghanistan and Iraq generation.

Coming from a background in poetry writing, Richard said he had to focus on the structure of the novel, though Fatal Light is not written in chapters and is much more like a puzzle. As Richard read, his somber tone lulled the listeners quickly, but there was a anxious atmosphere as we waited for the other shoe to drop.

I noticed that while Richard was reading, he seemed entranced by the words he read from on the page, as if he were drifting into older memories. Whether those had to do with Vietnam or other memories related to the writing of Fatal Light, I don’t know. The passages he read were very poetic. Richard was humbled by the applause and reiterated that the characters are fictionalized and an amalgamation of two or three people within a fictionalized plot.

Richard indicated during the question-and-answer session that he was influenced by Faulkner, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, and he enjoyed the contemporary works of Raymond Chandler, Tom Franklin, William Gay. He called himself an undisciplined reader.

It was a fantastic reading, and it was great to chat with Richard Currey afterward and get my copy of Fatal Light signed. I can’t wait to read and review this quintessential work of Vietnam War literature, and hopefully, Richard will be amendable to an email interview.

And here’s another special treat, my husband and I remembered to get the camera battery charged and we took these great pictures, including one of Richard and I.

Check out the new introduction from the 20th Anniversary edition, here.

Want to hear more about The Writer’s Center event, click on over to Art & Literature.

About the Author:

Born in 1949 in the small town of Parkersburg, West Virginia, Currey’s literary ambitions started early—and were fueled by his grandfather.

Currey’s family moved to Washington, D.C. in 1961—where he was drafted in 1968. In an effort to avoid the Army, Currey enlisted in the Navy. Ironically, he was trained in jungle warfare and special operations, and saw service as a medical corpsman attached to the Marine Corps’s Fleet Marine Force. By his 20th birthday Currey was, as he has since written, “sewn into a new skin.” His military experiences were not to emerge as literary themes for some time, however—Currey started his writing life with poetry, and published many poems before the first version of Crossing Over: The Vietnam Stories was picked up by a small Boston publisher in 1980. The book became a cult hit, and was named a “Best Title of the Year” by Library Journal.

But it was the novel Fatal Light that would establish Currey’s international reputation, with widespread critical acclaim and 20 different editions published in 11 languages. The book was nominated for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and brought its author the Vietnam Veterans of America’s Excellence in the Arts Award and a Special Citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation.

***GIVEAWAY REMINDER***

I have 1 copy of Jill Mansell’s An Offer You Can’t Refuse; get two entries, comment on my review and my interview. Deadline is April 11 at Midnight.