A Poetry Book Review

As a former English major, it's embarrassing to admit that I seldom read poetry anymore. However I recently made an exception and read an unusual book of poems, "Poetic Musings of an Old, Fat Man" by Harry E. Gilleland, Jr.

At first, while I was impressed with Gilleland's honesty in revealing his personal experiences, I wondered if the book would reach a very wide audience. People don't often read about others they don't know except for celebrities. But as I continued to read, it became clear that the musings in the book went far beyond his own experiences. Gilleland covers everything from everyday life to historical events, including love, beauty, religion, politics, birth, death, and everything in between. His poems are really about the meaning of life and, like life itself, are sometimes humorous, sometimes poignant, and can be tragic, joyous, and of course all that's in between. Gilleland seems to be a wise man and I look forward to interviewing him here in the near future.

What Can They Mean?

One of my college Linguistics professors told us when someone is studying a different language and they come to a term the native speakers can't define it means the word represents a concept  absolutely basic to that culture. In recent years there have been several terms we used to define easily in American English that people no longer agree on. For instance there have been conflicts about what it means to be dead, how to define a human being, and the meaning of the word "marriage." Although our country has been a "melting pot" made up of immigrants from all over the world, most of us have always agreed on the definitions of those basic terms. But things don't stay the same and our world is certainly changing. In fact there have probably been more changes in the last hundred and fifty years than in the preceding thousand years. I predict that it will be quite a while before we can ever agree on those basic terms again.

What You May Call It

As a high school student I spent my summers volunteering with a society for "crippled" children, who had various "handicaps" like being "deaf and dumb" or "mentally retarded." Later those terms stopped being used and "disabled" was substituted as something less insulting. But wait! (as they say in TV commercials.) The new term was also considered demeaning by some so we've tried things like "developmental delays," "special needs," "differently abled," and a few other ways to describe people who have various limitations, but are still worthy of respect.  I think the last one does the best job of describing their situation, but it's probably too long to be accepted by everyone. Besides, we all have different abilities just as we all have special needs. 

Hey! Maybe that's the point. Just because people have physical or mental limitations doesn't mean they aren't people first. What an amazing idea. 

If you'll pardon me for being politically incorrect, my response to that is, "Well, duh!" 

Blog Tours

     I've just added a list of other people's blogs, which you can see below the history of this blog. Some of the ones listed are other authors or artists published with Guardian Angel Press, which will be publishing my picture book, Secret Service, A Call to Adventure. The rest are other authors and there will be more in the future. We want to help each other get the word out about our books by sharing information on each others' blogs. 

     Authors used to depend on book tours, which involved traveling around the country doing book signings and events, for publicity, but today, although we still do some of those, it's so much easier for authors to spread the word through the internet. When people cooperate, everyone benefits so we'll be hosting interviews and doing book reviews for each other. Those are called blog tours or virtual book tours and you can look forward to seeing many of them here in the future. Maybe you'll see me on some other sites too. 

Another Good Book

I just finished reading Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin. She's a well known autistic woman who does a fascinating job of describing how her mind works and how it may differ from "normal' people's minds. If you've read previous blog posts here you probably know I'm fascinated with language and brain development, and I've spent a lot of time with people who have various special needs. Grandin's book includes all those topics, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed reading it a lot.

The Very First Time

I told you about the first time I was published for pay, but here's what happened  the first time I was published at all. 

I was a total social misfit in High School - what we called a square back then. Our school was going to publish an anthology of things written by students, and I submitted something to my English teacher, who was in charge. He asked if it would be okay to publish something else that I'd written for class and I said, "Sure." But I'd forgotten about the thing I'd written months earlier and he'd asked to keep or I would have refused. When I saw it in print for all the school to read I didn't know whether to be more pleased or mortified, but mortified won out since it was extremely personal and revealing. As an adult I think it was pretty good writing and can see why my teacher chose it, but as a student it was very embarrassing. Maybe I'll dig it up and share it in another post so you can see what I mean.

At least I learned always to be careful what I submit for possible publication.

A Real Writer

My senior year in college I got a new roommate who asked what I wanted to be when I graduated. I'd given up the idea of writing (cf previous post) but didn't know what else to do, so I told her I wanted to be a writer. "Do you have any rejection slips?" she asked. "All writers have rejection slips." 

I had none and she wouldn't let me alone. For months she kept asking me to show her my rejection slips and I got sick of her nagging. Finally I sent something I'd written as a little kid to a publication I knew couldn't possibly accept it. Sure enough, I got a rejection slip, showed it to her, and she let me alone.

Years later after getting the first thing I'd ever submitted published right away I began sending out other manuscripts and getting - you guessed it - rejection slips. That was a bit disappointing, but also exciting because they showed I was a real writer.

I've been grateful to that roommate, Sheila Walsh, ever since and wish I could get back in touch with her to express my gratitude.