Second Anniversary of Blog, Spice Drawer Mouse

A cube that includes Maud, the mouse who was my pet in the 1980's. This 3-D reminds me she had a wheel, also there was a Liberty Ball - she was only willing one time to try the Liberty Ball. She became a little seasick rolling.

March 27 is the second anniversary of my blog, Spice Drawer Mouse. I was visited once by a mouse who was investigating the spice drawer. The entry was later covered with screen.

The U of W Cherry Trees

Today I visited the U of W to see what the cherry trees look like. Those inside the quad have a practically transparant red cloud as a canopy. Viewed closely this cloud was many buds still rather closed - at some old trees a few blossoms that are at places along the trunk are open white and pink flowers.

There was a robin and a chickadee as well as squirrels, a bird chased by a crow flew above me, a piece of plant trailed from his beak, he was pale brown stripes below and the size of the crow, they flew around the hall so I could not see more.

Correction to "Poetic Authority"

"Yoo Hoo Killed Cock Robin" did not feature Beauregard the Hound as I described it in my earlier blog. The poem was read aloud by Albert Alligator. It matters to have the facts correct, I should have checked the book, The Pogo Peek-A-Book, instead of relying on recall.

seven at books at 12:10 not six

When counting the number at books at 12:10 I visualized an earlier discussion moment than after a steady participant arrived slightly tardy. Vast apologies.

Poetic Authority

In an essay about my book Memory a critic discusses my relation to the idea of Poetic Authority.These essays about my work can be reached from the list of publications here at this blog. - my access to this theory of Poetic Authority returned me at the time to the childhood readings of Pogo - Rowrbazzle! whatever such a word means.

Poetic Authority springs from Milton - Milton needed Poetic Authority from the church of his time to publish - and I learned that his work was read as having Divine Inspiration. My own expectation is that my own poems are not Divinely Inspired in this way. I enter my comment here not as a Disclaimer - I have no idea what a Disclaimer on such a thing could mean. The critic wonders if I have Poetic Authority - I would believe I had no more Poetic Authority (Divine Inspiration) than any other person who has published or had a degree from the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. I think it is Poetic Licence.

It is nearly Easter, I return at times to thoughts of childhood readings in Pogo - At this point from reading and being on the internet about the psalms - Who Killed Cock Robin - "I, said the thrush as she sat in the bush, I will sing him a psalm."(Then Beauregard, the hound, who is reading the poem aloud, asks, "What's a pea-salm?"), Poets on the Psalms, which includes an essay by Madelyn Defrees among others.

When First Lutheran Church headed into celebrating its 125th anniversary I was able to contribute to the choir with song translations of two hymns from Swedish that had been part of their standard along with a translation of a hymn which was a translation of Psalm 19 by Ludwig Runeberg, the Swedish-Finnish poet, a hymn with a long presence at First Lutheran Church in Tacoma, Washington.

Today the homily at the Lenten service was about Dietrich Bonhoefer, so I hoped to work a comment about his writings on grief during yesterday's Books at 12:10 Discussion of Sherman Alexie's Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I located a discussion, section by section, of the Beatitudes - Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted - which referred to the comfort of the bereaved being Christ. Dietrich Bonhoefer was a Lutheran pastor who was executed in 1945 in Nazi Germany for his resistance participation. He studied in the United States in 1930 and did a lecture tour in the United States in 1939. His writings were in the format of homilies.

Because Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is Young Adult fiction, I looked in a few books about it - I think the book has been published as Grief Therapy, but shelved with Young Adult books because all young adults should very well handle the sad parts of the plot.

One reader commented that when she became a widow in the middle of the 1990's her children saw the movie Smoke Signals, which Sherman Alexie developed from fiction he had written, fiction based on life experiences. It affirmed their experience.

The point I wanted to discuss was that the format matters in putting the information across to those who need it - the fiction format is accessible in ways other possible formats are not.

Six were present during the discussion, our comments were enthusiastic.

100th anniversary of U of W Scandinavian Department

March marks the 100th anniversary of the Scandinavian Department at the University of Washington. One hundred years ago was also the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition that left remarkable campus structure. (Also, Laura Jensen has a poem at Salt River Review.)