Plath makes me want to:

1. Drink scalding coffee
2. Perfect a lemon meringue pie
3. Have weekly dinner guests
4. Go to Smith
   
5. Teach at Amherst
   
6. Swim in the Mediterranean
   
7. Warm milk before I go to bed
8. Study Joyce
9. Re-read her novel
10. Write

mme. bookling

I was wrong about NPM. Shakespeare forgives me.

Since I was COMPLETELY mistaken about National Poetry Month being in May (it's actually April and I totally missed it), I feel a bit sheepish about my blunder. I have decided, however, that the whole mishap should not deter me from sharing my favorite poems of all time as I originally set out to do.

Today I want to share one of my three favorite (because I memorized them in HS and still know them) Shakespearean Sonnets.

Sonnet 116
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to ever wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, though his height be taken.
Love's not times fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within its bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ; nor no man ever loved.

to the very edge of doom indeed,
mme. bookling

do you have a favorite sonnet?

NPM: May 5th "She Walks In Beauty"

It's national poetry month (hereafter known as NPM)!! I almost forgot until I sat down this morning and read the paper. In honor of such a jocund celebration, I will be periodically posting my favorite poems of all time. I would love to know your favorites as well...

Today's first entry is from the hunk of a poet that dominated the Victorian Era...

George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron. 1788–1824

"She walks in beauty"

SHE walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light	5
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;	10
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,	15
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

I love Byron's soulful connection of darkness and beauty, his ornate and drippy descriptions, and his obvious gift at setting mood.

I have also been toying with the idea of memorizing a poem this month and then performing it via video. Now to choose which poem...

Write a poem, Read a poem, Be a poem,
mme. bookling

"A Homemade Life" Number Three Best Seller

In the post-supper stupor commonly experienced at my mother-in-law's, I lazily sat to read Sunday paper with my glass of wine. I was enjoying the NW Arts & Life section when I stumbled upon the bestselling list for the local book scene.

I was JUST bemoaning the problems with bestseller lists to my family (Mary Higgens Clark, really?!) when I found my annoyance assuaged by Seattle once again.

Drum roll for Mrs. Molly Wizenberg of (one of my favorite blogs) Orangette who is number three on the best seller list with her memoir, A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from my Kitchen Table.



Oh I want to gobble up this novel like I gobbled up the teacake I made from her recipes this week. It may be the first fiction I have purchased in a great many years that was published post 1980.

Congratulations Molly! Seattle is so proud.

mme. bookling