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Katrina Roberts

catpajamas, a blog

The 4th Annual Big Poetry Give Away!

April 6, 2013
Tags: Poetry, books, April
Visit Susan Rich's The Alchemist's Kitchen
Ok, so I admit, I'm terrible at "blogging"; I guess I'm writing stuff down elsewhere, instead... but once again I thought I'd dust off this page to participate in the Big Poetry Give Away poet Kelli Russell Agodon started four years ago, during National Poetry Month, curated this year by Susan Rich.

Poetry bloggers give away two books (one of their own, and one by another),
so I thought I'd sign on to give away:

1) Friendly Fire, published by Lost Horse Press, Selected as the Winner of the Idaho Prize by Robin Becker, and a finalist for the Washington State Book Award.
2) Commons by Myung Mi Kim, published by University of California Press.

If you'd like to be entered into the contest for these books, please add your name and e-mail in the comments section, and I'll put you into my grandpa's old fedora or our Mad Hatter's Tea Party Hat, or whatever I can find to draw names randomly from sometime during the first two weeks of May. Then I'll send out the prizes...



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The 3rd Annual Big Poetry Give Away!

April 1, 2012
Tags: Poetry, books, April
Oops, where did this post from last year go?
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In like a lion, out like a...

March 30, 2012
Tags: rain, pajamas, books, Grandma
(... from the early 19th century Urdu & Persian... from pay 'leg' + jama 'clothing.')


My grandma had a shelf of books at the top of the stairs in the house in Connecticut where I first knew her, books with covers and pages cut to the shape of three naughty kittens who'd lost their mittens, and three little pigs shoring up their various walls against the huffs and puffs of a wolf, or the peak of a roof beneath which ruffles gave a glimpse of such sharp teeth... She made the most wonderful sugar cookies, saucer-sized and bejeweled with raisins; her hands were truly as soft as silk.

It's been raining for days and I miss my Grandma. Something about the continual burble and poik on the roof and against the windows, my eyes bleary from tears, and the bubble of the percolator we woke to, my brother and I in bunk-beds. I would like to lounge around in silk pajamas, but I can't take my kids to the library like that, nor run for more milk or apples, nor teach my classes.

I love the way storms sweep across the face of still waters. She slipped away from me like that; already too far, then beyond far. Her voice is still in my ear. And the beautiful script of her cursive trekking across snowy pages folded in my desk. That was the last day of winter.

In summer, we all smile together in moments when we catch glimpses of harbor seals, their smooth dark Labrador heads, the ripples they make just in their moments of sliding under.

With April on its way, I thought I'd start something...

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