Happy to learn that two of my poems have been nominated for a Pushcart this year. Thank you to Ronald Kourey of the Hudson Review, and to the editors at Kin. Also, it's a snow day.
From Facebook:
In an era of the selfie, the silent bankrupcy, the family-scatter, an electronic loneliness and the yearning to be known, Facebook's anodyne: it can become:
self-inventer and self-reviser, free shrink, free publicist, substitute mom & uncle, and dreamworld frat pack (someone grates? just skip 'em, block 'em, unfriend 'em).
There's a kind of greed for counts without encounters.. how many "friends" he has! If you hate to hurt feelings, and say yes all the time to requests-- you may actually not know even half of them; if you think of friends as meaning something more intimate, you can't find them for the smileys.
Now and then there are bursts of good writing (not in this immediate posting, I assure you, I'm too cranky today to be writerly). The great glory of social media is that one comes to recognize some wonderful spirits one could ONLY have recognized in this very weird "here"-- they in their rooms, writing up a storm; you in yours, looking for lightning.
- Heather McHugh
