Friday, April 29, 2011

Zeus and the Giant Iced Tea trivia questions!

Zeus and the Giant Iced Tea: PoetryHey...this is cool. I can make trivia questions about mine, or other people's, books! Now that's promotion I can get behind!

Try out the ones I made for Zeus! Never before have questions been so trivial! Can you get 100%? Can you get 5%?

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Youch!

Wow, I never realized how good Goodreads is for stalking your fans! Too bad I found this out by getting my first Goodreads rating for Zeus and the Giant Iced Tea: 2 out of 5 stars! Ouch!

So I did some digging and see that this particular reader has set this book on the quality shelf among such peers as Wrestling Superstars II, I Was for Sale: Confessions of a Bondage Model and The Satanic Rituals: Companion to the "Satanic Bible". Zeus was rated lower, in this person's opinion, than Bomb Queen Volume 3: The Good, The Bad And The Lovely and Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection. Even poetry books by Jewel and Billy Corgan fared better than mine!

Oh well. At least it's nice to hear what people think! The reader is obviously a wrestling fan - I wonder if The Muscle pissed them off?

Onwards and upwards (or downwards!)

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Saturday morning thoughts: Poetry as Jazz

Turned on the good ol CBC radio 2 app this morning and had this revelation:

It seems like contemporary poetry is a lot like modern jazz. Half the time when you turn on the radio or open up some journal you get this this overwrought, overthought construction that only musical theorists could love (and you still wonder if they actually do like it - or if they are just trying to impress themselves), and half the time (if you're lucky) you'll get that something smooth and meaningful, that something you'd actually want to settle down with on the couch on a Sunday.

Anyway it, and this ensuing blogpost, inspired this poem:


Saturday Radio Jazz time
Just looking for something
to waste the morning
reading poetry to
and all I get
is five guys
treating their gear
as an arsenal of noise
and running their fingers
madly
up and down
every key in their possession
like they were paid by the note
while I do the same
with the radio dials
just trying to escape
just trying to just find
something
Heartfelt
and Meaningful
not overwrought
or overthought
or overplayed
just something sweet
smooth
and true
like a girl alone
writing poetry in a coffee shop
somewhere
and not
overwrought
or overthought
or overplayed
like too much poetry is
these days.