Stefanie had a great post recently on creating a personal poetry anthology and oh the memories this brought because I used to collect poems all the time. I’d find a poem in a magazine or book and I’d write it out or make a photocopy of it and stash it away to go back to read time and again.

I haven’t done this in years but I love this idea because I want to be able to go back to those poems that meant something to me. Whether I treasured the poem because a friend shared it with me or because I had just discovered a new poet, my anthology was the poetry journal I could go to at any time and know that I’d find a poem I needed to read for whatever mood.

I think the reason I haven’t done this in so long is really because of my blog. I tend to mention poems here and there but it would be nice to start collecting them again.

I’d like to take this up again but with some adjustments. I never recorded where I first read/heard the poem, or who shared it with me. I think it would be interesting to keep track of that sort of thing. I won’t be doing any poetry analysis because well I don’t really know how but I wouldn’t mind writing down a couple of words on why this poem meant something to me. Essentially, this collection becoming another journal.

In case you were wondering, in this little journal I had some poetry by Pablo Neruda, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Dorothy Parker, and Rainer Maria Rilke to name a few.

So I’ll keep you posted. I’ll try to do a check in on my poetry anthology in the next few months and we’ll see how it’s going. How about you, do you do something like this too? Any ideas or recommendations? Or have you read a good poem recently that you think I should include in my journal?

Tonight was the first meeting of the year for my mystery book group and I think we started the year off just right. The book we discussed was Don’t Ever Get Old by Daniel Friedman. I had some mixed feelings about this one when I finished it over the weekend but after our discussion I kind of like it a bit more. Isn’t it funny how that sometimes happens? I’ll try to do a bit more of a write up on it soon.

In the next couple of months we’ll be reading mysteries set in Italy and Iceland. One of these is from the World Noir set so I’m especially looking forward to that one.

Of course while waiting for book group to start I had to check out the mysteries aisle to see what books I need to add to my list:

• India Black by Carol K. Carr. I’m not very big on spy stories but this is a historical mystery series and I do like the idea of a female spy. I think this would be fun. Anyone read this series?
• Phantoms of Breslau by Marek Krajewski. I don’t think I’ve read anything by a Polish crime author so this is definitely going on my list. The book is set in 1919 Breslau.
• Dead to Me by Cath Staincliffe. This is a modern police procedural set in England and according to a blurb I read about it, it should appeal to fans of Deborah Crombie books, so that would be me.

Oh and I did mention the other day that I wanted to start a new mystery and decided to go with Lost by S.J. Bolton. So far, it’s just as good as I was expecting.