Eatin' Pho and Writin' Poetry at the Marble Collegiate Church

Stephanie and I have decided to have a negativity fast. Thus, I have stopped perusing imdb message boards and only visit the site for trivia, news, and basic information. I avoid rottentomatoes.com entirely. I've curbed my reading of cinematical.com (at least the many bitchfests they have). This new decision is just another way I've decided to avoid spirally into meloncholy like I frequently did last year. It started with my obtainable resolutions and less stringent reading list. (Last year's looked like the reading lists of several college courses smushed together.)

Interestingly enough, our fast coincided with that of the Forths from the syndicated comic strip Sally Forth. The current storyline revolves around the family being snowed in and Sally deciding that 2009 will be a positive year. Today's strip referenced Eeyore and Norman Vincent Peale, and the punchline pointed out that no one will get the references. I got both references positively and without looking anything up so I was pleased at my cultural literacy. Thus, the whole experience of reading the daily comic strips proved positive. Mission accomplished! (Now, where the hell has that banner gotten to.)

This week I ate tripe and tendon for the first time. Both were in a noodle soup that I ordered at a local Korean restaurant. Tripe is one of the jokes of the Food Network and usually works it's way into every competition show. Naturally, I was curious and ordered the soup. It was interesting, chewy with a rough texture. It had taken on the flavors of the broth, garlic, and herbs of the soup. The tendon was a bit more disturbing with an almost gelatinous quality. I get real pleasure out of exploring or sampling something new. Every time something new is introduced to me, my frame of reference widens and I feel more like I'm a part of the world. (I think this is part of being a Four.) Now, I realize that eating tripe and learning about physics or joining the Green Belt movement aren't quite the same thing, but I'm still pleased.

I also learned about "prose poetry" after I inadvertently wrote a prose poem. (At least that's the conclusion Stephanie and I drew.) One of my resolutions for 2009 is to write more than I did in 2008. While I haven't written as much as I would have liked, I'm already ahead of where I was this time last year. I've written four poems and started three others. I've also written down ideas for three more.

At this point, I'm really focusing on exploring what I think poetry is. I haven't given it much thought, and truthfully, I haven't read much of it that wasn't specifically assigned in a class. So I read a book of Thomas Lynch's poems last week and feel extremely inspired. (This is why I have three ideas written down.) Lynch's poems are largely narrative and deal with death and the moments of everyday life. Much of my poetry is self-referential and deals with things that I feel or am going through. This year I'm branching out and toying with fictional situations and feelings that I don't have. I'm not going to venture into abstraction just yet. The first few poems that I wrote after I decided that writing poetry is something I should do were laden with imagery and pontification. Now, my poems don't feel so written and deliberate. Somehow, this feels a bit lazy, but I don't really care at the moment.