So, last time, the votes said sharing something I had written myself wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, so here it is.

Manning, 1997

The eagle-eyed among you may recognize the location and date in the title as being a high-school ski trip, and you’re not wrong, although it was never quite like this in real life. But wouldn’t it have been nice if it was!

Why another childrens’ poem? I don’t know. I haven’t been up to the grownup stuff lately. I feel like I just keep seeing people reposting that Maggie Smith poem about life being short but keeping it from your children, and it’s so good, but I can’t read it out, not with that one line, and besides everyone already sees it at least once a week anyway. So, instead, Shel Silverstein. “Sick.” A classic. My favorite out of Where the Sidewalk Ends ever since I was a kid.

It’s funny. I never really wanted to get out of school as a kid, even when it was the worst and the site of all my torments, because it was the site of all my victories as well - the only thing I was good at was school - and now that I’m an adult who might occasionally want to call in sick to my whole life, Saturdays continue not to be an improvement on the week.

“Sick,” by Shel Silverstein

OOH, there’s poll functionality! Okay, so: is it ego to read something I’ve written myself?

I cannot stress enough how annoying I am about to become with polls. I am rubbing my hands with glee.

This is perhaps Canadian poet Dennis Lee’s most batshit children’s poem of all.

“On Tuesdays I Polish My Uncle,” by Dennis Lee

Trying something here. We all know I have a radio face, and I’ve heard some needlessly complimentary things about my speaking voice, so what if I talk to you, here in the middle of the month? Say I read you something, an excerpt maybe of what I’m reading? A poem? If I’m feeling really feisty, something I wrote myself even? Yeah? Well, let’s give it a try. If the analytics say no one’s liking it, we’ll try something else.

So I wrote that above last night, and I was going to read a bit of the book I’m currently reading, right wherever I was at when I finished my reading for the day, but I’ve just hit an unexpectedly steamy patch, and that’s not… this is not that kind of newsletter!

Instead, I’ll give you the poem I came closest to memorizing, which I would like to replace in my brain meats as my go-to, since it is by someone I don’t actually like all that much. She was personally unpleasant to someone I care about, and she signed that dumb-ass open letter a couple years ago or whenever it was, from all those big writers and academics complaining about how unfair it was that people could object to them for e.g. being TERFs, and decide not to buy their books anymore, despite continuing to have the biggest platforms in the world.

So: in short, I have had Margaret Atwood’s “Siren Song” in my head for, apparently, ever, and look, I can’t argue, it’s really good, and here it is, but it’s also got to go. Your recommendations are welcome!

I’ve been sitting here psyching myself up to hit send on this thing for like an hour. Goddammit.