Friday, February 28, 2020

Viva Retirement!


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Dianne Borsenik is retired! The Big Day was January 31, 2020, and as of February 2, 2020 (0-2-0-2-2-0-2-0), I am a sixty-five year old retiree on Medicare, and I'm ready to rrrrrrrrrumble! The future is wide-open now, with time to devote to all those things I love most. I've already written three "retirement" poems, based on Wallace Stevens' Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. They are

13 Ways of Looking at Retirement, With Only 19 Working Days to Go
13 Ways of Looking at Retirement from the Other Side (After the Party)
13 Ways of Looking at Retirement on Yet Another Monday Off Work

And, I've written a poem for all my friends, in celebration, with love.

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Ice Cubes

Friends are ice cubes in the cocktail of life.
We chill together, tinkle and clink our way

out of the shaker and into the glass, mix
with sass and effervescence, irreverence

and unabashed joy; we entertain one long-
pour, united in spirit, no matter the garnish.

Crush us, we stay frosty; swizzle-stir us, we
go with the flow. We get juicy, we get saucy,

we get what it means to melt together as
we age, diluting the bad times, enhancing

the good times, just enough bump and
tumble to let them know we were here.

Friends are ice cubes in the cocktail of life.
This is our celebration. This is our Happy Hour.

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The poems mentioned above are part of a new poetry manuscript I'm working on, also titled Ice Cubes. Other poems in it include

What You Need
I Tell James Not to Hit Jesus as We Circle the Walmart Parking Lot on Halloween
Lori Says Her Father Liked to Camp, But Doesn't Know He'd Want to Be a Bullet
Coming from the Cafeteria, I See Gerard Butler Walking with His Head Down, and I Wonder

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I'm excited about what's possible in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. Some of my plans include the following appearances:


Poet-in-Residence at Loganberry Books
13015 Larchmere Blvd, Cleveland, OH
Saturday, April 11, 2020
12:00 to 4:00 p.m.


Featured Writer at the Ohioana Book Festival
Columbus Metropolitan Library
96 S. Grant Ave., Columbus, OH
Saturday, April 25, 2020
10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.


Featured Reader at Words & Wine
Steele Mansion Inn
358 Mentor Ave., Painesville, OH
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

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NightBallet Press is active, with a number of manuscripts being formatted and edited, with an eye to publishing one title a month.

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I'm acting as a judge for a local poetry contest. I have an independent editing job, aside from the press. I just applied for a fellowship. I have poems accepted for publication in Chiron Review (summer issue), Goddess (a National Beat Poetry women's anthology - this year), and What But the Music (a Baby Boomer music anthology - late spring).

Both James and I celebrated big birthdays this month of February (he turned 70 years old), and we've celebrated Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, and Mardi Gras, as well. We had a retirement party at Speak of the Devil, and I feature-read at Poetry & Open Mic at the Arabica Bistro in Amherst, Ohio. Went along on a road trip to Toledo and saw/read with friends, and on another road trip visited Muskingham University to participate in a panel and classroom study group. I joined the Winking Lizard Tour of Beers, and I'm forty-six beers away from a golf umbrella...and only ninety-six beers away from a Winking Lizard jacket! LOL

I'm keeping busy. I'm having fun.

All we need now is for it to warm up enough to put the top down on the convertible!
 
Viva Retirement!

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