A few months ago, I posted about posting poems I had written for poetry competitions, but which I rejected, as their own collection on my poetry blog. It was just to see what would end up there, and, ultimately, if I would make any “mistakes” to reject poems I would want to use later, but wouldn’t be able to since by having been posted online, they would be considered “published” and ineligible for most poetry competitions.
collection
Bernie Sanders’ Mittens Memes Analysis
The day Joe Biden finally took office was, no doubt, going to be a joyous one for many Americans and other people around the world. However, how joyous was it going to be, or could it be, considering we had just come out of four miserable years, and an even more miserable couple of weeks? It’s hard to turn around from long time trauma just like that, as if nothing had happened, especially with a doom and gloom pandemic raging keeping us generally apart from others far more than we’d like to be. But then Bernie Sanders showed up in his hand-knitted, eco-friendly, sustainable, and adorable mittens, and we were all suddenly reminded how beautiful and fun life, the world, and we humans could be! We suddenly had the unorganized, virtual party we couldn’t have right now to celebrate the new American Presidency and the floodgates of joy just didn’t reopen, the dam completely broke to let it that joy held back for four years all come out. I call it the #BernieSandersMittens dam!
Haiku Collection about Return to Viet Nam Completed
I have a separate blog where I write poetry, with annotations to some poems to give either context or full story to them. I just finished annotating a collection of poems from an epic trip I had over 4 years ago to visit my home country of Viet Nam for the first time since I left as a child in 1980, and I wanted to share it for any readers here who might care for such writings.
Just over 4 years ago, in 2015, I returned to Viet Nam to visit for the first time since escaping the country as a young child in 1980. During this trip, I did a lot of reflection, as well as took notes on people, sights, events, etc. It was an overwhelming amount of information to retell, but I tried to summarize a rough version of it in a collection of 64 haiku formed poems, with annotations, I called Tales of an Expat Tourist. The poems are haiku formed because they are only haiku in form of 3 lines and some order of 5-7-5 total of 17 syllable lines, not following other requirements like lack of use of similes. I generally only write haiku for form, anyway, punctuating with dashes like Emily Dickinson.
I had completed the collection a few years back, writing annotations afterward that took longer. Unfortunately, I forgot about finishing it along the way, thinking I had finished annotations and postings. A search for something in one of those poems showed most had still been in draft posts, never published because I had not annotated them. After a marathon session today, I’m happy to say I have completed them and wanted to share news of that in this post. That’s because to get the poems ordered the way I wanted, I had to artificially back date them in a certain way that was set up a few years back, so they would not appear in the general feed for many readers.
If you care for such poems, thoughts, reflections, etc. I hope you’ll give them a glance or read, and I hope you’ll like some of them. Thank you.
My Haiku Collection about my Trip to Viet Nam
I have just started to the haiku collection I wrote mostly in March 2015, during my life changing return to Viet Nam, 35 years after fleeing as a child refugee. It is called Tales of an Expat Tourist.
This is the backgrounder to the collection on my poetry blog. It has a link to the first of 62 haiku in the collection, with notes to give more information on its subject matter, as will be done with all subsequent haiku in the collection.
If you like poetry, very personal travelogue style writings, Viet Nam and/or Vietnamese culture, I hope you will give it a read. Thank you.
My Winter Dress Pants Collection
Ah, men’s dress pants. What can be done with them for design without getting disapproving looks for “unprofessionalism”? Not much, really. Even a stripe down the side or something makes them athletic and too casual. Flashy colours makes you look like you’re going dancing, even if it’s a hip look. Colour block you look like you’re going out dancing or for a fashion show. Even jacquard style tone on tone is regarded as being a bit much by some. So what can one do?
Digital Citizen 