The Wordsmith's Forge

I have made bingo down the B, N, and O columns of my 4-4-21 Genderplay "Aspects" card, plus 7 extra fills, only 3 short of a blackout. I also made 1 fill on my "Genderplay AUs" card.

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Today is sunny and mild.

I fed the birds.  I've seen bluejays, doves, and a robin at the feeders.  I've also seen an extremely belligerent cardinal chasing several bluejays out of the south hedge and way up into the trees.

We built up sticks for a fire in the firepit.

Later I went out and put a layer of topsoil and a layer of potting soil into the barrel garden. 

I have said for some time that the current hurricane scale, which has 5 categories, is insufficient and needs a Category 6. Looking at the actual numbers on the scale and in recorded storms, this turns out to be insufficient also. It doesn't need one more category, it needs TWO.

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Folks have mentioned an interest in questions and conversations that make them think. So I've decided to offer more of those. This is the current list of coping skills.

5. Take a walk, or go for a drive.

This gives good options for different levels of mobility, or weather conditions.  Walking outdoors is one of my favorite activities.

Today the clouds are breaking up and the weather is mild.

I fed the birds.  I've seen doves and house finches today.

I built the core of the bonfire for tomorrow.

I've got 4 bags of potting soil and 4 bags of compost for planting season. 

EDIT 4/29/21 -- I weeded the barrel garden.  It's ready to top off and plant seeds.

Today is cloudy and warm.  The wind has died down.  It rained last night, and is supposed to rain again tonight.

I fed the birds.  The bluejays are frequenting the feeder.  I've also seen doves and a robin.

Some of the purple alliums in the purple-and-white garden are beginning to bloom.

I sowed grass seed under the maple tree by the south lot.

EDIT 4/28/21 -- I sowed grass seed in bare patches through most of the south lot.  The west end could still use more.  I saw a large toad in the grass.  :D

EDIT 4/28/21 -- I finished sowing grass seed at the west end of the south lot.

Lily-of-the-valley has flower buds on it.  

I saw SIX bluejays in the forest garden!  :D  They were eating from the hopper feeder and the ground.  So colorful!  I've also seen a pair of house finches and a few doves.

It rained last night, enough to leave puddles.

Today has been sunny, quite warm, and still howling wind.  :/

I put more seed in the hopper feeder and refilled the thistle sock.  I've seen more of the bluejays and cardinals, lots of grackles and doves, robins, and a couple of bold house finches. 

This is the second freebie from the April 20, 2021 Bonus Fishbowl, thanks to new donor freshbakedlady. It was inspired by a prompt from erulisse. It also fills the "clothing" square in my 4-4-21 "Aspects" card for the Genderplay Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the Daughters of the Apocalypse series.

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This is an advance announcement for the Tuesday, May 4 2021 Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "Cookbooks and Cooking." I'll be soliciting ideas for cooks, eaters, farmers, foragers, food scientists, inventors, recipe writers, famous figures in food history, cooks of disadvantaged groups who should have become famous, superheroes, supervillains, failure analysts, ethicists, activists, rebels, wild other people active in the food world, cooking, writing recipes, discovering things, decolonizing diets, building or using kitchen equipment, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, kitchens, restaurants, campfires, barbecue sites, laboratories, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, picnics, grocery stores, farmer's markets, roadside fruit stands, U-pick farms, gardens, food forests, other places where people make food, cookbooks, online recipe archives, permaculture, heritage diets, traditional foodways, culinary archaeology, trial and error, ethnic spice sets, weird food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, new ideas in cuisine, alternate agriculture, lab conditions are not field conditions, ethics of food, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One has to figure out how to feed a diverse, far-flung group of people who sometimes have special dietary needs.

The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past, including some aspects of food science.

A Conflagration of Dragons has the Six Races (plus the dragons) who all have different diets.  This often poses challenges for the refugees.

Daughters of the Apocalypse has people trying to find and prepare enough food to survive, when city libraries are out of reach.

Fiorenza the Wisewoman uses herbs and healing foods to care for her village.

Frankenstein's Family features two scientists running a valley in historic Romania.  Igor enjoys cooking and has gotten at least one of the werewolves curious about cooking the human way.

Hart's Farm is a community with food used as one of the popular bonding methods.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all of whom need to eat.  Primal soups and high-burn soups often have special dietary needs.  Comfort food and healing food are also very popular here.

Or you can ask for something new.

I have a linkback poem, "Ouroboros Insects" (6 verses, standalone).

If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week. (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts. I am now.) Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.


Writing is usually considered a solitary pursuit. One exception to this is a fascinating exercise called a "fishbowl." This has various forms, but all of them basically involve some kind of writing in public, usually with interaction between author and audience. A famous example is Harlan Ellison's series of "stories under glass" in which he sits in a bookstore window and writes a new story based on an idea that someone gives him. Writing classes sometimes include a version where students watch each other write, often with students calling out suggestions which are chalked up on the blackboard for those writing to use as inspiration.

I'm going to host a Poetry Fishbowl on my blog on Tuesday, May 4. I'll be soliciting ideas for thematic characters, plots, settings, objects, and poetic forms in particular. Chances are I'll spend a good chunk of the day, from afternoon to evening or more, alternating between this site and doing stuff offline so my back doesn't weld itself to the chair.


Perks: I will post at least one of the resulting fishbowl poems on the blog for everyone to enjoy, and an extra one if there's at least one new prompter or donor. The rest will be available for audience members to buy, and whatever's left over will go into my archive for magazine submission.

If donations total $100 then you get a free $15 poem; $150 gets you a free $20 poem; and $200 gets you a free epic, posted after the Poetry Fishbowl. These will usually be series poems if I have them; otherwise I may offer non-series poems or series poems in a different size. If donations reach $250, you get one step toward a bonus fishbowl; four of these activates the perk, and they don't have to be four months in a row. Everyone will get to vote on which series, and give prompts during the extra fishbowl, although it may be a half-day rather than a whole day. If donations reach $300, there will be a half-price sale in one series.

I want to promote linkbacks pointing people to the "Fishbowl Open" post on Tuesday. I have a spare series poem available, and each linkback will reveal a verse of "Ouroboros Insects" (standalone). One person can do multiple links if they're on different services, like Twitter or LiveJournal, rather than all on Dreamwidth.

(See the complete list of current perks.)


If you enjoy my poetry -- or if you just love poetry in general, or want to promote interest in cooking -- please mark the fishbowl date on your calendar. Drop by and give me some ideas, comment on the posted poetry, encourage people to come look, whatever tickles your fancy. I hope to see you then!