Who’s This Then?

Magpie’s Shiny Things

Once upon a time Magpie’s Shiny Things was a blog devot­ed to the results of dig­ging the shiny things out the pile of excel­sior that is the internet.

The orig­i­nal of each day’s col­lec­tion was first pub­lished on an exclu­sive mail­ing list devot­ed to the fine art of motor­cy­cle rid­ing in the rain. Well, occa­sion­al­ly about motor­cy­cle rid­ing. Mostly it’s about what­ev­er shiny thing is haunt­ing one of the read­ers and food. Morning Linkage was my week­day con­tri­bu­tion to the clutter.

Linkage went silent in 2012. But the shiny things con­tin­ue to fall out of my brain to land here.

The Magpie and her best bud­dies Dave and Patsy live out­side of Duvall, which is an exurb of Seattle.

They have a lit­tle farm which they share with a motor­cy­cle rid­ing bear,  sev­er­al stu­pid sheep, and a lot of things that live in the woods.

You can send me mail at mag­pie (at-thingy) black­do­gand­mag­pie (dot-thingy) net. I’ll read it just as soon as I — oh, look shiny…

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I believe in the image, the line, the stan­za, the iambic foot, the per­fect word. Assonance, slant rhymes, that the for­mal forms still have a place in mod­ern poet­ry. I believe that Shakespeare wrote the plays. I believe in a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment out­law­ing poet­ry about poet­ry and the use of the word “suf­fuse.” I believe in revi­sion, inter­lin­ear trans­la­tions, pub­lish­ing in print — not on-line, and I believe in long, slow, deep, wet poems that last three days.

(after Ron Shelton)