Sunday, October 26, 2008

I've been on call again this weekend. Two babies yesterday, and six babies today. Busy! Fortunately all of them are doing pretty well. Nothing more serious than a little jaundice, a little ABO incompatibility, a little r/o sepsis.

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It is just gorgeous out! It's been that way all weekend. I just love it. Clear and sunny and blue, the maple trees and witch hazels and red buds around town are just glorious: incredible shades of red, gold, ochre, bronze, topaz, magenta.

Across the street in the park this afternoon there was a Halloween Party for all the neighborhood kids. It's kind of odd to see kids and parental units all dressed up in scary costumes in the middle of the day, in eye-squinting bright daylight, playing Halloween games in a pea-patch (rather than in a cemetery or a haunted house). But I think I like it.

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A poem of mine, "October Journal" will be featured tomorrow on KUOW. It seems very apropos for the season, eh? I'll send a link to the audio later.

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I've been reading Stephanie Hemphill's Your Own, Sylvia: a verse portrait of Sylvia Plath. It's a biography of Plath told in poems that dramatize the key events in her life, or are in the voice of different people in her life. It's a great read; riveting, in fact. A pot boiler full of gossipy bits. With considerable prose footnotes at the bottom of each poem, documenting the event or person(s) being referred to. Sometimes the footnotes were more interesting than the poems, unfortunately, and I found myself skimming the poems to get to the footnotes; but all in all I think the format works very well. A biography told in poems. Who would have thought!

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2 comments:

Anne Haines said...

OMG! I absolutely need to read that Plath book. That's very similar to the kind of thing I have in mind with the project I'm working on currently, except my character is fictional. I hadn't thought about doing footnotes though... that could solve a few of my narrative problems. Hmm.

I'm going to check the library for this book RIGHT NOW.

Collin Kelley said...

It's finally becoming autumn in Atlanta as well. The leaves are turning, it's cool and crisp during the day and starting to be cold at night. This is my favorite time of year.