Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Poem-a-Day Update and Happy Birthday to Me!

OMG, I am 65 years old today. How could this have happened? Got my Medicare card and all.  I can't call myself "middle-aged" anymore - I am now officially "old".  Oh well - I hear that 65 is the new 55.

My wife and I just got back from a great "destination wedding" of sorts in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. Her good friend and former work colleague has had two weddings in the past two years - first her son and now her daughter.  Both the ceremony and reception were at a local hotel, where many of us guest also stayed (we made a weekend of it and stayed two nights). The ceremony was beautiful and a family affair - her brother-in-law officiated, and his young son and daughter (from his previous marriage) were the best man and maid of honor. It was very cute. The reception was a lot of fun, and I danced more than I have in years. (I usually need at least three drinks to get on the dance floor and not give a damn how I look.) The bride's family also hosted a fire pit party the night before, and the night of the wedding, and treated everyone to breakfast the next morning. We even had time to spend an afternoon at Old Sturbridge Village, a re-creation of a New England rural town circa 1830. It was a fun weekend.

Anyway, on to poetry: I am excited because I got a gig to host an eight-week poetry workshop at a local arts center. And I'll get paid for it! I'm thinking up themes for each session, but I will focus on visual art and poetry, since there is a gallery where we will meet. I'm sure we'll be writing some "ekphrastic" poetry (that is, poetry inspired by a work of art).

I mentioned before that I had three poems accepted into the "Art of Poetry" project at the Hickory Art Museum in North Carolina. For the second time, one of those poems was featured on their website (click here).

I am still running my "poetry marathon", writing a poem a day to raise funds for Tiferet Journal. (See prior post.) If you'd like to read my poems and consider a donation, go to http://tiferetjournal.com/april-2016-poem-a-thon/poems-by-bruce-niedt-2016/
 - click the "sponsor a poet" button if you would like to donate. I'm almost at my $100 goal but just need that final push!

I've written 39 poems in 27 days, with three more days to go. Some of them were written for Poetic Asides, whose Poem-a-Day Challenge I have also been following dutifully, as I do every year. Here is one of them. The prompt was to write a "cool" and/or "uncool" poem:

What Goes Around… (A Double Limerick)

I always collected LPs,
but then came the dawn of CDs.
This new format digital
made me a bit fidget-al;
I got worse when they made MP3s.

Now vinyl has come back in fashion,
and hipsters collect it with passion.
Their needles all jog
to the new analog.
I’m cool again – I think I’ll cash-in!

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