2nd place - we try harder

I placed second in this month's IBPC competition with a ghazal, a form I love. Here's the judge's commentary with a link to the poem at the bottom of the page. Laura Polley took first place with a gorgeous poem (that I voted for btw).

On Friday I leave with the kids for a two-week vacation in NJ/NY. We're staying with my mother, and will spend a weekend up in Ghent NY with my brother. Very probably we will be in Philadelphia, too, which is great not only because my sister lives there but also because of the incredible used book store in her neighborhood.

Meanwhile I have some books I'm looking forward to waiting at my mother's.
Mystery in Spiderville by John Hartley Williams
The Great Enigma - Tomas Tranströmer
High Lonesome - Joyce Carol Oates
Gulag: A History - Anne Applebaum
The Other Lover - Bruce Smith

And, although I always hope to be writing, I don't know how much time I'll have, so I was glad to finish a poem-a-day forum today (10 days). My poems were: Morning Fragments * From the Top Bunk * Here on Business * Autumn, Reading Kolyma Tales * God Have Pity on the Smell of Gasoline * Snake Kiss * Buzz * Tinnitus Ditty * Iron * Hear What I Hear