New Semester

It’s always nice to see a new batch of students in your classes at the beginning of a new semester, along with a few returning faces. This semester, it looks like I have a good group. Classes are reasonably sized, but not too huge. I’m excited about using my new textbook in creative writing withContinue reading “New Semester”

New Year’s Resolution 2: Complete a Book of Poems

Some readers of this blog will be familiar with my series of poems on the paintings and logs of Walter Inglis Anderson, which I’ve called “Barrier Island Suite.” They’ve been around for a few years and have been published individually in magazines over the years, but I’ve never quite decided what to do with themContinue reading “New Year’s Resolution 2: Complete a Book of Poems”

New Year’s Resolution: Clean My Desktop

This one is rather easy to accomplish, though it may be harder to keep! Did you know that leaving files on your desktop can slow down your computer’s performance significantly? I do, and yet I still put them there for easy access. This year, my resolution was to clean off this space and start afresh.Continue reading “New Year’s Resolution: Clean My Desktop”

In Memorium: Nelson Mandela

It is hard to hear of the passing of Nelson Mandela today. He was one of the major political figures of my youth, a living icon to look up to as a man of unprecedented strength of spirit, yet a man of passive resistance. Icons of a former day, Gandhi or Martin Luther King, wereContinue reading “In Memorium: Nelson Mandela”

Why are All Poets Dead or Famous (or Both)??

Okay, so I hope to be living proof (along with many of my friends and students) that the title of this post isn’t true. However, I wouldn’t blame you for thinking it was true if your only source of information was an online bookstore. Just one example this morning, I went to Barnes and Noble,Continue reading “Why are All Poets Dead or Famous (or Both)??”

Day of the Dead: the genesis of a poem

Okay, I’ll admit it. Sometimes I check my stats in WordPress to see how many people are visiting my blog and what they’re looking for. Lately, the number of visitors has risen dramatically, largely because of some posts I wrote awhile back while troubleshooting my DSL modem. Blogging lesson: if you want traffic, write aboutContinue reading “Day of the Dead: the genesis of a poem”

Fun with e-books (or Never Say Never)

Quite awhile back, I wrote a complaint about e-books. My issue at the time was that Kindle didn’t include page numbers from the original print versions of e-books, but I was curious that students were starting to use them in one of my classes. They presented a challenge for scholarship, but I could see theContinue reading “Fun with e-books (or Never Say Never)”

More Fun with the Phone Company

We all love the phone company, right? This time I’m not writing about ATT or my dsl modem (see previous posts, if interested). This time, I’m writing about Virgin Mobile, whose prepaid phones we’ve been using for some time now. We’ve started to notice that their customer service is going down the tubes and theirContinue reading “More Fun with the Phone Company”