Spring Cleaning

Yes, it's that time of year as I try to remove the cobwebs, old magazines, junk mail and dust of yesteryear. A little spot painting to make the walls seem fresh and hanging wall accessories to give the place some zest.

In other news, April is right around the corner. So join in on some activities and celebrate National Poetry Month (special thanks to Anastasia for inviting me to these events):

West Regional Library, Broward County, Florida celebrates

April National Poetry Month

Free Public Poetry Reading April 7, 2014   6:00-7:30pm

Featured Poets: Anastasia Clark, Suzzette Dawes, Steve Murray, Fabian Novoa,
Donna Raglund-Greene & Sue Thompson

West Regional Library is located at 8601 W. Broward Blvd., Plantation, FL 33324.

Sea Glass Poetry Project Free Public Presentations will take place at:

Margate Catharine Young Library 5810 Park Drive, Margate, FL 33063	Apr  5, 2014    Saturday     2:00-4:00pm
Main Library 100 S. Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301.	Apr 16, 2014  Wednesday  5:30-7:30pm
Stirling Road Branch 3151 Stirling Road, Hollywood, FL 33312.	April 29, 2014  Tuesday    5:30-7:30pm

Check back soon for more updates. Know of any poetry events around town? Let me know!

Calling All Ye Bards!

Wow! We're in March already. April is next. April is National Poetry Month. So let's take a look at some of the poetry contests. There are plenty of poetry contests on the internet but the below two are free:

South Regional Library Poetry Club Contest. Submissions are open until April 6th. Email your poems to Sadiq Alkoriji at salkoriji@broward.org or drop them off at the AV/POP or Reference Desk. Contact Library for guidelines and prize information. 954-201-8870

Southwest Florida Poetry Contest. Submit one original poem no longer than 32 lines to tropicalia@news-press.com. Deadline is March 21.

If you see anymore free poetry contests, please share with me.

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MY POEM FOR THE WEEK

POETRY AROUND TOWN

Poetry Reading on March 11, 2014 at 7 pm with HKPF top three award winners (Susan Williamson, Meryl Stratford and Zan Gray).

Southern Breezes Cafe, building 68
Broward College

South Campus

7200 Pines Blvd.

Pembroke Pines, FL 33024

                                                                       ###
West Regional Library, Broward County, Florida celebrates

April National Poetry Month

Free Public Poetry Reading April 7, 2014   6:00-7:30pm

Featured Poets:  Anastasia Clark, Suzzette Dawes, Steve Murray, Fabian Novoa, 

Donna Raglund-Greene & Sue Thompson

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Poetry Club. South Regional/BC Library Multi-Purpose Room. Monthly, every 3^rd Tuesday at 6:30 pm.

Poetry & Spoken Word. Goddess Store n Studio. 2017 Harrison St, Hollywood, FL. Monthly, every 3rd Sunday. 6 pm.

Open mike (music, comedy, poetry). Gigi’s Music Café. 4385 NW 88 Ave. Sunrise, FL. Weekly on Wednesdays at 7 pm.

Some resources for poetry events include poetry.openmikes.org and meetup.com.

Dreams and/or Delusions of Poetry

With all the poetry, poets and poems in movie (Beat poets have been dominating the movie scene "Howl," "On the Road," and "Kill Your Darlings"), I dream of hosting an event that evolves around poetry and film. I was dreaming yesterday

First, I researched films about poet and poetry.

(Yes, I was not surprised to find several databases that show movies based on poems:

15 Movies Based On Poems - Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/poem-movies_n_3641770.html

10 Great Movies Based on Poems – Flavorwire

http://flavorwire.com/387561/10-great-movies-based-on-poems/)

Next, I narrowed the search to find movies released on or after 2012. The list was still promising. I read the synopsis and drafted a dream program for April (since it is National Poetry Month):

10:00 – 10:15 am           Opening Remarks

10:15                            Movie

Rita Dove: An American Poet

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3211016/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

10:55 am                       Harlem Voices: The Poetry Of Langston Hughes And Claude McKay

http://www.filmsmediagroup.com/ItemDetails.aspx?TitleId=24065

11:30 – 1 pm                 Poetry Reading in Courtyard & Lunch

1:00 pm                        A Poet in New York

(about poet Dylan Thomas)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2870668/

                        2:30 pm                        Lemon

(about poet Lemon Anderson)

www.lemonthemovie.com/lemon-the-movie/about.php‎

4:00 pm                        Tar

(inspired by CK Williams’ work with a lot of Hollywood biggies).

www.imdb.com/title/tt2133333/‎

Now that would be my program based on my research. Question is how much is it to get the rights of these films so I could show them? I could actually get a venue, possibly do some advertising and get some folks to attend. Is my dream reachable or am I delusional?

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poetry AROUND TOWN 

Poetry Club. South Regional/BC Library Multi-Purpose Room. Monthly, every 3^rd Tuesday at 6:30 pm.

Poetry & Spoken Word. Goddess Store n Studio. 2017 Harrison St, Hollywood, FL. Monthly, every 3rd Sunday. 6 pm.

Open mike (music, comedy, poetry). Gigi’s Music Café. 4385 NW 88 Ave. Sunrise, FL. Weekly on Wednesdays at 7 pm.

Some resources for poetry events include poetry.openmikes.org and meetup.com.

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my poem for the week 

 Since I day dreamed above, here's one to dreaming in my sleep:

All aboard...

You know they don't really say that. They might tell you not to hold the door and warn you that your fellow passengers might blame you for making the train late. Please stop holding the door so the train can go.
The words "next stop" I could hear clearly but the stop name I could barely make out the words throughout Miami-Dade (Tri-Rail announcer really spoke clearly).
Overall it was fun: driving up to the Tri-Rail station, figuring out how to use ticket machine, tap, get on train, tap, transfer to metrorail, broken "B" on ticket machine, join another queue to pay for Metrorail, tap, then go to Government Ctr stop, then tap and catch the Metromover then stop at Bayfront Park.

The art show was lovely: We actually saw a Picasso (called it from afar) and also a Monet (I recognized the impressionist strokes and I really surprised myself with that one. I guess the Art Appreciation class finally paid off). The prices were vastly more than outside my budget as they were original oil paintings (I'll have to make do with just the posters).

My friend called today "blind leading the blind" since neither one of us had ever ridden the rails in South Florida but we did make it to the art show in Bayfront Park and back without accidentally boarding any wrong trains (directional or otherwise like the Amtrak that shares the tracks), so Yay!

Poem of the Week

Here's to another time in another nation when I rode the rails:

Feeling Silly

I woke up this morning feeling real silly: My mother had called and my cell was ringing. I jumped out of sleep and answered her questions. Then looked on my phone and thought I’ll surely be late now. It’s 9:42 and I supposed to be there at 10 am. I’ll surely be late! I started feeling anxious but had to calm myself down to look at the schedule and found out I had plenty of time since I didn't start until 2 pm. Whew!

It’s nice to be able to do silly things at times and much better than:

 Have you ever woken up confused, anxious or just plain silly? Let it be your guide for some writing!

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poetry AROUND TOWN 

Poetry Club. South Regional/BC Library Multi-Purpose Room. Monthly, every 3^rd Tuesday at 6:30 pm.

Poetry & Spoken Word. Goddess Store n Studio. 2017 Harrison St, Hollywood, FL. Monthly, every 3rd Sunday. 6 pm.

Open mike (music, comedy, poetry). Gigi’s Music Café. 4385 NW 88 Ave. Sunrise, FL. Weekly on Wednesdays at 7 pm.

Some resources for poetry events include poetry.openmikes.org and meetup.com.

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Your state of mind

I am always curious why? What is the thought process? Is there a thought process? If no thought process, what triggered the behavior? I feel this way whenever I watch the news.

People say I over analyze things. Sometimes at work, I am trying to figure out something, looking intensely at the screen and some ass-wipe will stop at my cubicle and say to me,"smile." I don't get it. I'm focusing on what I'm doing, then I'm interrupted and told to smile. So where's the camera? Even worse is when I am told I look mad. Then I give the "annoyed" face.

When I walk by his or her desk, I don't see him or her grinning away while typing at his/her computer or talking on his/her phone and I definitely would not be commanding someone to smile as I am not in their head! So why do some people think it's ok to walk up to someone and tell her to smile.

Psychology interested me. In college, I even took one course as an elective. It did peek my interest but so did working. Now, I wished I did follow up with it.

My Poem for This Week

Poetry Around Town

Poetry Club. South Regional/BC Library Multi-Purpose Room. Monthly, every 3rd Tuesday. 6:30pm
Poetry & Spoken Word. Goddess Store n Studio. 2017 Harrison St, Hollywood, FL. Monthly, every 3rd Sunday. 6 pm.
Open mike (music, comedy, poetry). Gigi’s Music Café. 4385 NW 88 Ave. Sunrise, FL. Weekly on Wednesdays at 7 pm.

Some resources for poetry events include poetry.openmikes.org and meetup.com.

Cupcake Contest

oxymoron

—noun, plural ox·y·mo·ra [ok-si-mawr-uh, -mohr-uh] 

a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in “cruel kindness” or “to make haste slowly.” dictionary.com

Who starts a cake decorating class and a low calorie diet around the same? Well, me because I am an oxymoron. No, I am not any ordinary moron. I've been wanting to learn to decorate cakes so I enrolled in cake decorating class for January (back in December). Then on January 1st, I received an email about a weight loss challenge so I joined it. I gained 5lbs the first week then I started researching lowfat/no sugar/no butter or oils/ no eggs cake recipe. 

I would bring the cookie, cake, cupcakes and cake to their respective class and decorate with icing. I also need to practice decorating so I would bake double the cookie, cake, cupcakes and cake needed. It seem such a waste to toss it after decorating so after class 1 (and practice), I had cookies for days, hence the weight gain. The 2nd class I fared better as I stopped by my mom and shared the cake. The practice one I tossed after realizing although it was low fat, it was still too tempting. After the cupcakes class, I dropped those off at my mom's. After the practice batch, I took those to work. Hah! I lost the 5lbs plus 2 more pounds. After the last class, I dropped off the cake

that I decorated in class. For practice making roses, I decorated some cupcakes. Then I held a cupcake contest for the prettiest decorations. I know that I have to give them away (or my mouth will devour them)

My original -->	Added some more leaves; isn't it more lovely? 6th place
5th place	Double Rose 4th place
3rd place	2nd place The rose on this one is perfect

The Winner:

The White Rose

(so I still need more practice with the roses!)

but I just want my eyes to feast on my feat.
I'm going to commemorate with a poem...later.