Unraveled Wednesday: 5/15/24

I'm happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today with a sock and a third. I finished the first one, cast on the second one, and I'm past the heel, picking up gusset stitches, and beginning the gusset decreases. Just a foot and toe to complete and I'll have a pair!

I tried the Finchley graft (youtube video link) that Vera wrote about recently on the first sock and it seemed slightly easier and faster than doing Kitchener on the toes. I'll have to try it a few more times to get more familiar with it and really decide which method I like best.

I finished one ARC last week, but it was just average for me. A Great Marriage was the first book I've read by Frances Mayes (she is probably best known for Under the Tuscan Sun), so I wasn't sure what to expect. This is the story of Dara Wilcox and Austin Wilcox who meet and fall deeply in love. The book opens with a prenuptial dinner at her parents' house, and it's all perfect until some wine is spilled. Several family members see this as a possible bad omen, and it turns out to be just that. Austin receives distressing news that disrupts their plans and the wedding is canceled. Dara flees to California to visit with friends, then heads to South Carolina to help restore an inn. There are moments of angst and some drama, but it reminded me of a Hallmark movie in book form. My mother-in-law used to love to read books with very mild dramatics (where nobody suffered from serious illness or died) and the ending was all tied up neatly with a big bow. This book made me think of her as she would have loved it.

I found the author's writing style difficult to read. She used a lot of sentence fragments and once I started noticing them, I had difficulty concentrating on what she was saying and found myself paying attention to how she had written it. But if you like your books to be mainly romantic escapes where nobody really suffers and characters live happily ever after, this one may bring you enjoyment. (And as a bonus, it has an arresting and interesting cover!)

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on August 13, 2024.

What are you making and reading this week?

P.S. I'll be back tomorrow with some poetry, but I'm visiting my SiL for a while and will be taking a short break until sometime later next week. See you then!

What's for Dinner?

I don't remember where I first came across this recipe but I've made it quite a few times and it's one of my favorites. It's easy; there are no special ingredients, and it makes a lot, so there are always leftovers (which is a good thing). Oh, and it tastes good, too! 

It's called Crockpot Cheesy Sausage Tortellini. 

In case you can't read my scribbly writing, here's the recipe with my notes:

24 oz chicken broth (I use unsalted)
18 oz frozen tortellini
5 oz fresh spinach (it comes in 10 oz packages, so I just cut it up and add the whole 10 oz)

1 can diced tomatoes, undrained (I usually use a 28 oz can)

1 kielbasa, cut up

1 block cream cheese (I use Neufchatel cheese and usually just half a block)

salt, pepper, 1.5 Tbsp Italian seasoning

1 c shredded mozzarella cheese

0.5 c shredded Italian cheese blend (I usually don't use plain mozzarella, but use 1.5 c of the Italian cheese blend instead)

Just dump all the ingredients in the crockpot, mix them well, and cook on low for 3-4 hours. Stir it a few times to incorporate everything and mix the melted cream cheese into the chicken broth. One hour before serving, add the shredded cheese and stir once more. 

You could easily make this meatless, and if John wasn't eating dinner here, I would most likely substitute hot sausage for kielbasa and add some crushed red pepper flakes. You could probably substitute ravioli for the tortellini if you prefer, but I think tortellini feel "fancier". There is still some left over in the refrigerator and I might claim it for dinner tonight while John eats venison steaks. Happy eating!

Unraveled Wednesday: 5/8/24

I'm happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today, with some stripes on a sock. 

I've only knit with Must Stash yarn once before when I used the bright Vespa for some fingerless mitts for Ryan. 

Initially, I was a little disappointed with the way the sock was turning out because the stripes in the Denali yarn aren't quite as crisply defined as I hoped. The brown and some of the green and blue stripes look "heathery" to me. But it looks a little better if I look at it from farther away and it is beginning to grow on me. Maybe I'm just being too fussy! The pale lavender heel works well, so I'm just going to keep knitting. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I was afraid that I might like this colorway so much that I would have a hard time gifting them to Jess, but that's no longer a worry. They look like Denali colors; I hope to have a Christmas gift done early, and I may make myself a pair of short socks with the leftover pale lavender color. 

I only finished one book this week, but it was great. Goodreads tells me that I've read 41 short story collections, and only one was worthy of five stars. Now that I've read Table for Two there will be two. I was a little wary about reading this volume. I enjoyed The Lincoln Highway and Rules of Civility but had trouble with A Gentleman in Moscow despite multiple attempts. But no worries, this is simply one of the best books I've read this year.

Short stories almost always suffer from the problems of not being long enough, not providing enough detail, or ending just as the reader begins to enjoy them. Far too often I'm simply left wanting more. That was not the case for any of the stories included here. Towles is a master of language, so each story feels precise and specific. I found details I loved and things that I had thought before myself, expressed far better by the author.

"... what you're probably heading home to are the compromises of marriage. These will govern when, what, and how you eat. They'll govern when, what, and how you watch. So, the canceled flight can create something of a temporal oasis—a twenty-four hour period in which no concessions need to be made to anyone."

 I can't pick a favorite story from this book. If anything, "Eve in Hollywood" is the weakest part of the collection. It's the novella continuing the story of Eve from Rules of Civility. All of the short stories are complete, perfect little glowing jewels, and I very much hope that Towles publishes more short stories.

What are you making and reading this week?

A Nugget Retrospective

Justin & Jess were only gone for six days so my Nugget-sitting time came to an end last week. I've missed scratching her ears, giving her extra treats, and sitting with her while she purred loudly. I don't miss cleaning her litterbox, but that's still an important part of responsible cat ownership. Since cat-sitting her may have been the most enjoyable thing I've done recently, I'm here to share a few photos. Justin texted me when they were in the airport on their way out and said, "Don't hesitate to send pictures of Nugget whenever you visit her." I thought this was sweet, so I made sure to take plenty of photos. If adorable cat pictures aren't your thing, we will return to some (less cute) knitting and reading content at a later date. 

Unraveled Wednesday: 5/1/24

Kat is on vacation so there is no official Unraveled Wednesday today. But it is Wednesday and I have unraveling, so there you go. It is also May Day! My kids think I'm talking about something that happened 100 years ago (it was only 61 years ago in 1963), but we had an actual May Day celebration when I was in first grade. This included a tall pole that teachers had hung crepe paper streamers from the top and all the girls did a sort of dance holding onto the end of a streamer so the streamers ended up woven around the pole. I'm not sure ours looked as nice as this short video from 2017, but it was fun.

But enough about things from 100 years ago. Let's talk about knitting now. 

I started knitting Jess' socks. She always wears anklet socks so I already have a break on these gift socks. This is the cuff, a few rows with the Denali yarn, and then the beginning of the heel flap. 

When I took it out of my knitting bag and really looked at it, I wasn't happy with those three rows of Denali. I didn't like how this section of the self-striping yarn looked next to the pale lavender contrast of the cuff and the beginning of the heel.

I had just barely started so it wasn't a big deal to unravel it. 

I think that I'll cast on again with the Denali, and do only the heel in the contrasting lavender. I haven't started yet because I picked up Justin & Jess at the airport last night and didn't get home until 1:30 am. I know enough not to knit when I'm functioning with too few hours of sleep!

I spent a lot of time cat-sitting Nugget at her house last week, so I didn't finish any books. I enjoyed playing with her, hiding treats for her to find, and just sitting with her while I scratched her ears and listened to her purr. 

What are you making and reading this week?

Read With Us: How to Say Babylon

Last week, Kym gave you an introduction to our current Read With Us selection, How to Say Babylon. This week I'm going to tell you a little bit more about this memoir by Safiya Sinclair. In simple terms, the book is about growing up in Jamaica with a strict and controlling Rastafarian father and how the author struggled and came to find her own power. But there is much more to it than that. 

I just finished Babylon last week and because it was due back at the library, I'm not sure I'll have a chance to reread it before our discussion. I've been trying to search out some more information about Sinclair in the hope this might help me to better understand her. I've read interviews with her, read her poetry, and even found an interview she did with Tara Westover. I'm going to share some bits and pieces with you that I found helpful. 

This Pen Ten interview from 2017 helped me to better understand Sinclair's journey as a writer and poet. This paragraph about when she began considering what kind of poet she wanted to be was especially illuminating for me:

"However, I would say that coming to America as a college student is the first time I really considered what kind of poet I wanted to be. I brought my work into a Bennington College workshop when a white student crossed out any references to Jamaican flora and fauna she didn’t recognize, scratching out the Jamaican patois, remarking “Can you say this in English?” And that was the moment I decided that my responsibility as a poet was to always keep my gaze centered on my Jamaican landscape, to tell the stories of Jamaican womanhood, of blackness and marginalization, to write against postcolonial history and nurture anti-colonial selfhood. To leave no space, no place, not even a sliver of consideration for the venal hegemony of whiteness in my imagination; dark, beautiful, and untamed."

(I did have to look up venal hegemony and it sounds like it might be dominance capable of being bribed. If her main goal is to focus on Jamaica and tell the stories of Jamaican womanhood, Blackness, and marginalization, I would say that she is succeeding.)

Because Sinclair's poem Silver figures largely in How to Say Babylon, I wanted to read the whole thing. It was difficult to track down (it turns out it's on the endpapers of the hardcover version of the book), but I'm going to leave it here in case you might also learn something from reading it.

Silver flows through my veins

Into my hands when I caress the strings 

                            of my guitar

Silver is the moon I swallowed

on a dry dreary night when I willed it so

silver is the rain in May

wholesome and lithe and falling into me

Our springtime sarabande kisses me sodden

up then I'm happy

down then I'm sad

Silver    I cry        Silver

Silver encases my heart

like a drunk jeweller quenching a cigarette

silver is my lips against the ice

my tongue against the frost

the sweet staccato

my praline dress

my stuck umbrella on a sunshiny day

Silver is the witty wind

coaxing my eyes to sleep

upon the blurred pastel pages

of a slipshod butterfly

Silver is a legerdemain

Legs like a leprechaun that feeds on leer 

                                       and lemons

A quire of my deepest thoughts

the inkling of my most secret soul

It is the palsied web

of the crestfallen spider

the ugly dewdrop ring

that scars my finger like acid

dusk that brings the sidereal night

resting its echo upon the wing

of a firefly that drinks the silver from my eyes

Silver is my billowing meerschaum

is the flicking goldfish fin in the silent sun

silver are the wispy strands in my hair

lined silver spiralling through the universe

Silver chose me

like starlight to the naked eye

the words I bleed are silver

the time that dances minuets

upon my broken sylvan skin,

is silver in a lancer's armor

when my stomach bursts

and I disgorge eternity

silver stands beside me

fondling the viol

The weight, the wind, are uxurious

for they are solely silver

ever heading my way

My ears are filled with a pixie's dreams

like honey      only Silver

when the days of maiden's trouble subside

silver peels away

My belly swells

and it'll be a while

but I know more silver 

is welling

inside

Lastly, here is a video of Safiya Sinclair being interviewed by Tara Westover, author of Educated, at the Center for Fiction They have more than a few things in common, but there are also many differences. I loved how Westover let Safiya Sinclair tell her story. It's over an hour long, but maybe you'll find an opportunity to listen to it. 

How to Say Babylon is currently available from Amazon in hardcover ($15.55) or Kindle ($14.99), or from Audible. You can check your local bookstores for a copy — and, of course, the book should also be available at most libraries. I had to wait about two and a half weeks for the audio version, and after I had some difficulty understanding "spoken Jamaican" I had another almost three-week wait for the Kindle version. Reading and listening to both versions worked well for me. 

Our book discussion day for How to Say Babylon will be Tuesday, June 11, 2024. Carole, Kym, and I will each post discussion questions on our blogs that day, and then at 7:00 pm Eastern time we’ll be hosting the always educational and fun live book discussion on Zoom. I have some questions about this book, but I always come away from our discussions with a better understanding. I'm counting on all of you! 

Poetry in Action

As we approach the end of April and National Poetry Month, I want to share O, Miami with you. I was struck by Miami's multi-pronged approach to poetry during April and sharing poetry with the whole city in a variety of ways. Their mission statement is impressive: "O, Miami builds community around the power of poetry. Through collaborations, projects, events, and publications, we create a platform for amplifying Miamians, investing in a new shared narrative of our city and a more equitable picture of its future."

The goal of the annual O, Miami Poetry Festival is for every single person in Miami-Dade County to encounter a poem!

So what does this mean in terms of events? There are loads of them! How about Wheels and Words - a Miami-Dade County Dept. of Transportation bus decorated with poems by 3rd and 4th graders. 

Poetry Parking Tickets are made to look like Miami-Dade County parking tickets, but instead of a citation, each ticket contains a poem. This turns the experience of getting ticketed into something positive. 

I personally like the Lost Socks/Missed Connections Embroidery Workshop. It's described as "a whimsical archival poetry project that connects South Florida’s Craigslist Missed Connections and the mythology of lost socks. Socks featuring sewn, ironed, and embroidered Missed Connection posts-as-poems will be dispersed at five laundromats across Miami-Dade. Lost Socks / Missed Connections is a project of chance and fun, hoping to spread a bit of joy to those who find them." I'd love to find a lost sock that featured some poetry!

Fruit Stickers would put a lot more fun into grocery shopping. O, Miami welcomes you to turn fruits and veggies into a sweet poetic encounter. Join our street team and help us spread joy in the produce aisle by distributing poetry fruit stickers. You may meet an introspective banana or a lime declaring its love for you. The stickers feature 9 original poems written by O, Miami’s elementary & middle school students.

One of the most interesting installations is called Wish-a-Poem. This interactive project involves three libraries in Miami. At each library, patrons will see a magic lamp on a white pedestal. When they rub that lamp, phrases of a new poem appear simultaneously on screens at all three libraries. This was not designed by a genie, but rather by Yucef Merhi, a student of philosophy, physics, and interactive telecommunications. To create the language behind Wish-a-Poem, he built a database of phrases drawn from the poetry archive of O, Miami, and generated by artificial intelligence. 

“I see poetry as a living matter,” says Merhi, “as something that is constantly changing and transforming. Every time you rub the lamp, you get a new poem, and the combinations or the poetry combinations that you can get are in the number of thousands.”

I would love a chance to rub that lamp!

I'm amazed by Miami's commitment of people, time, money, ideas, and creativity to National Poetry Month. I'm not sure if they can meet their lofty goal of every person in the county encountering a poem, but with things like poetry on wheels, fruit stickers, and magical lamps that you can rub and wish-a-poem, it certainly could happen. 

Just a Couple of Books

I only finished two books this week. One is How to Say Babylon so I'll be saving my thoughts on this book for our Read With Us discussion in June. I always come away from our discussions with a better understanding of the book, and that would be really helpful for me with this one. 

The second book is a bit of fluff that I felt compelled to read as soon as I saw the premise. The Husbands is not the type of book I usually read (at all!) but the premise sounded so intriguing that I had to give it a try. A single woman, Lauren, returns home to her flat in London after attending a "hen-do" and is quite surprised to find Michael on her landing. She's even more surprised to find out that he is her husband. Her flat is mostly the same, but there are differences, like the wall color, rugs, and photos on the wall. There are even pictures of Michael on her phone. When he goes up to the attic to change a lightbulb, another completely different husband comes back down. Lauren eventually discovers that she has a magic attic with an endless supply of husbands, and some of her own circumstances (like her job) change with each new husband. I know this sounds ridiculous but Gramazio has written it with a bit more depth than the simple premise might suggest.

Worldbuilding could have been a little more detailed but then the novel might move out of the genre of chick-lit romance and into science fiction. The author has written about 200+ husbands and this becomes very tedious after a while. But the husbands are somewhat ethnically diverse, and Lauren meets one "husband" named Bohai who becomes her confidante in the real world. He has a magical blanket chest and can get new wives or husbands. Some of Lauren's husbands are interesting, as are the differences between them. Then there are her maneuvers to get her current husband back up into the attic when she decides she wants a hopefully better one. Lauren gets a bit philosophical towards the end as she approaches the anniversary of the magic attic, and the ending is abrupt and dramatic. I've been married for 43 years and there have been times when my husband is lucky I didn't ask him to check the attic while crossing my fingers that a better husband might come back down the attic ladder. But the book is definitely fun, creative, and entertaining, and it might even provide me with a daydream or two about what could be in my attic the next time my husband does something that makes me raise my eyebrows. It was just three stars for me, but sometimes a fun and creative bit of fluff is just what you want to read. I even liked the cover!

I hope you've got something good to read this weekend!

National Poetry Month: A Poem in My Pocket

Today we wrap up our celebration of National Poetry Month. The picture above is the official 2024 National Poetry Month poster featuring artwork by children’s author and illustrator Jack Wong along with lines from “blessing the boats” by poet Lucille Clifton. 

Last Thursday was  "Poem in Your Pocket Day" but we are celebrating it today. I thought that blessing the boats would be a wonderful poem to slip into my pocket and share with you. 

blessing the boats

Lucille Clifton

(at St. Mary’s)

may the tide
that is entering even now
the lip of our understanding
carry you out
beyond the face of fear
may you kiss
the wind then turn from it
certain that it will
love your back may you
open your eyes to water
water waving forever
and may you in your innocence
sail through this to that

====

Clifton, Lucille. "blessing the boats". The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965-2010, 2016.

You can read more about the poet here. 

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Be sure to check in with Kym, Kat, and Sarah for more poetry today, and thank you for joining us in celebration of National Poetry Month. (And remember that any time is good for poetry, not just Thursdays in April!) May you in your innocence sail through this to that ...

Unraveled Wednesday: 4/24/24

I'm happy to join Kat and the Unravelers today. I'm still working on my HotM; I've started a regular old Hitchhiker, and I've got another project all ready to cast on but I have to wait for some more yarn to arrive. Sadly, I haven't knit any cat toys for Nugget, but I'm cat-sitting her into next week, so there is still time.

I have really been enjoying working on my HotM, and thank you to those of you who suggested double-ended crochet hooks as repair tools for garter stitch last week. I now have my own set, ready for any mistake I might make. I hesitated at paying almost $15.00 for three small plastic double-sided crochet hooks, but my grandfather always advised using the right tool for the job. I didn't understand how these were different from my regular crochet hook, but once I watched the video that showed how the repair was accomplished without continually flipping the knitting over, I was convinced. I haven't made any mistakes yet but I'm sure there will be more in the future. 

While I was knitting away on my HotM, a thought popped into my mind, "What if I forget how to knit a regular Hitchhiker?" I had this variegated yarn sitting beside me (it was sort of like emotional support yarn that I had gotten out of my stash) and promptly cast on. Since I only have one skein I'm combining it with the same solid blue that I'm using in my HotM. (Can you tell I really like royal blue?) I'm happy to report that it's just like riding a bike and I have not forgotten how to knit a Hitchhiker.

I was perusing an email from Must Stash when I saw that they had a colorway named Denali, a lovely succession of Alaska-colored stripes. Jess went to Alaska last year and since I always puzzle over what to knit her for Christmas, I thought some Alaskan-inspired socks would be just the thing. I've received the Denali yarn and decided that using a contrasting color for the cuffs, heels, and toes would be a good idea so I didn't disrupt the stripe sequence. So now I'm impatiently waiting for my contrasting color yarn to be delivered. I'm anxious to get them started before my sock mojo starts to decline. 

This post is getting a bit long, so I think I'll do what I did last week and write a book post on Friday. It's only two books so far but maybe Nugget and I will read together and finish another one. 

What are you making and reading this week?

A Bunch of Books

I didn't include my recent book reviews in my Unraveled Wednesday post so it's time to do it now. These books include a combination of old, relatively new, a reread, and an advance reader's copy. 

I'm not sure how I missed reading Rules of Civility back in 2011 when it was published, but I was glad to finally read it while waiting for my hold on Table for Two. What I liked best was Towles' ability to clearly and realistically write a woman's voice. Other reviewers have disagreed but it worked for me. The story of Katey Kontent, Tinker Grey, and Eve Ross, set in 1930s New York City was written beautifully, but it also provided plenty of impetus that made me want to keep reading. The plot may be slightly predictable but sometimes that's just what I want to read, just like Katey admires Agatha Christie because "everyone gets what they deserve" and justice is served. Three and a half stars rounded up.

I've never been much of a memoir reader, so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur. I felt much the same about The Many Lives of Mama Love. Both of these books made me think, "These people sure do lead different lives than I do, and in many ways, they sound quite exciting." But then there are also the terrible parts - drug addiction, committing felonies, getting thrown in jail, losing custody of your children, and trying to overcome the shame and stigma of your past crimes to get a job and become a productive member of society. I was impressed with how Lara Love Hardin reinvented herself but would have liked to learn more about what it felt like to overcome her heroin addiction. I also would like to read some more from the other side - what her children felt like having a mother in prison, and the stories from the D.A. that she had previously slept with and his wife who worked in the probation department. Hardin is surprised by her neighbors' contempt for her but seems to justify her crimes of stealing from them by saying that she had done this to provide for her children. She conveniently forgot that she and her husband had spent all of their own money on heroin. But people who have authored their memoirs are free to cast themselves as the hero, and Hardin has accomplished something that not many others have achieved. Three and a half stars rounded up.

"Escape was always my real addiction, the one true high. Books were just my gateway drug. Sex just got me pregnant. Food just made me puffy. Vicodin just helped me pretend I was happy. The heroin, though, that gave me everything I had ever wanted--peace, joy, escape.
Until it didn't.
And everything I knew and everyone I loved was gone."

I reread Elizabeth Strout's Anything Is Possible because I wanted to refresh my memory about the characters before I started Strout's latest book, Tell Me Everything. I felt the same as when I initially read it in 2017, so my review following is the one I wrote then. With Anything Is Possible, Elizabeth Strout has truly perfected her already great string of books in the form of linked stories. Olive Kitteridge was wonderful; My Name is Lucy Barton was even better, and Anything Is Possible is practically perfect. There is Strout's usual excellent prose as each chapter carefully elucidates a different character with an intimate look at their lives, but I think what I especially liked was how much this book added to Lucy Barton's story. It can be heartbreaking, poignant, sometimes heart-rending, and at times even appalling, but through her understated and evocative writing, Strout manages to make the reader understand the characters presented here and Lucy Barton herself in depth. We are introduced to Tommy, the maintenance man at Lucy's elementary school, Lucy's brother Pete, Patty Nicely of the Pretty Nicely girls, and several other characters originally mentioned in My Name is Lucy Barton. They seemed like minor characters in that book, but loom much larger in Anything Is Possible. Lucy herself makes an appearance in the story entitled "Sister", shedding more light on her family dynamics.

This book helped me better appreciate the wonder of learning Lucy's background and full story the way Strout has chosen to reveal it in two separate books. It's hard to imagine how she'll top this with her next novel, but she is certainly an author I'll keep reading.

Tell Me Everything has probably been my most anticipated book this year. I got excited when the cover design was revealed, and even more excited when I requested and was approved for an ARC. Once I had the book in my hands I wanted to read it in one sitting but somehow still savor it to make it last.

Strout tells us more of Bob Burgess' story; remember him from The Burgess Boys? But the book is about so much more and so many more people, including Bob's wife, Margaret, and his first wife, Pam. It's also the story of how Bob comes to defend a local man accused of murdering his mother. There is a small mystery about who committed the crime, but it's more about the changes that Bob helps the accused man make in his life. Bob's brother Jim also appears in this novel with some important revelations for Bob.

Bob meets Lucy Barton frequently so they can take walks together. Their relationship is one of good friends who share a special emotional intimacy until possibly, they don't. This part was a bit worrisome for me, but it all came together wonderfully at the end. In one of my favorite developments, Lucy Barton and Olive Kitteridge get together to tell each other stories about "unrecorded lives". I will be thinking about these stories and their meanings for a long time.

I greatly enjoyed revisiting many of Strout's past characters, especially Olive, Lucy, and Bob, and their interactions with each other now that many of them live in Crosby, Maine. Because Strout has caught the reader up on many favorite characters, this book feels as if it could be an ending to the Lucy Barton series. There were parts of the book that felt as if they might be moving too slowly, but Elizabeth Strout's novels have never been page-turners or plot-driven. They are stories of humanity, love, loss, empathy, and true human connections, and in these respects, this is one of Strout's best. Four and a half stars rounded up.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for providing me with a copy of this book. It will be published on August 13, 2024. 

"Lucy stood up and pulled on her coat. "Those are my stories," she said, and then bent down to put her boots back on. "But you're right. They are stories of loneliness and love." Then she picked up her bag and said, "And the small connections we make in this world if we are lucky." And then to Olive's amazement, Lucy said, smiling at her with a gentleness on her face, "And I feel that way about you. A connection. Love. So thank you."
Olive said, "Wait." As Lucy turned, Olive said, "Well, phooey. I feel connected to you too. So there. " She stuck out her tongue."

For anyone not familiar with Elizabeth Strout's Lucy series, this book is not the best place to start. You'll have a much better appreciation for the characters and their backstories if you read the previous books in order: 

Olive Kitteridge (not technically part of the Lucy series but you'll be familiar with Olive Kitteridge who shows up in Tell Me Everything)

Olive, Again (nice to read but not entirely necessary)

The Burgess Boys (not technically part of the Lucy series but you'll be familiar with Bob Burgess who figures largely in Tell Me Everything)

My Name is Lucy Barton

Anything is Possible

Oh William!

Lucy by the Sea

It looks like a lot of books but I think they're well worth reading (and some of my favorites)!

In case you're interested, there is a giveaway on Goodreads for a copy of Tell Me Everything. 

I hope have an enjoyable weekend and you're reading something good!

National Poetry Month: A Poem About Color

To celebrate National Poetry Month, several of us are sharing poetry with you on Thursdays in April. Today's topic is about something we can all use more of, wherever and whenever we can find it - color! Green, fuchsia, white, cotton-candy colored blossoms; I'll take them all. 

Instructions on Not Giving Up

Ada Limón

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out

of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s

almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving

their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate

sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees

that really gets to me. When all the shock of white

and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave

the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,

the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin

growing over whatever winter did to us, a return

to the strange idea of continuous living despite

the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,

I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf

unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

====

Ada Limón. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 15, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

You can read more about the poet here. 

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Be sure to check in with Kym, Kat, and Sarah for more poetry full of color today, and join us next Thursday for more poems in celebration of National Poetry Month. (And remember that any time is good for poetry, not just Thursdays in April!)