Happy Blogday to Me!

Chevaux de Bataille

(shuh-VOH duh ba-TAH-yuh) 1. A favorite topic; hobby horse

Quotidian

1. Ordinary, everyday

Wednesday was the two-year anniversary of this blog. Put another way, I posted my first entry in this space on March 23, 2003. That entry, and many to follow, were political in nature. In July of that same year, I started writing poetry again, and posted that work here. And through it all, I've often returned to one of my life long passions: faith & spirituality.

Those are the themes I continue to focus on and cycle through: poetry, politics, and religion. I don't seem constitutionally capable of focusing on just one, although I have been told this space might be more successful (in terms of hit rate) if I narrowed my focus.

About this time last year, I created a "Best of 2003-2004" page. I invited nominations for the "best of"; receiving none, I simply selected entries I like the best, or felt still held up. I've read through the entries through the past year with a somewhat jaundiced eye. The last few months have been marked by serial entries, which makes the selection of the "best of" problematic.

However, I am taking nominations for the "best of" 2004-2005, and hope to have a page up sometime next week. Any series, or part of a series (e.g., the "Pictures from Winfield") may be nominated. As well as any "stand alone" entries or poems.

Any poem, or sequence of poems, may also be nominated. Most of the poetry written the past year is collected on these pages: April 1, 2004–Sept. 9, 2004, and October 6, 2004–March 23, 2005. Strikingly, there were only two poems from the ill-considered "12 Days of Poems" that I felt worth archiving. If you'd like to nominate others from that series, I'm open to suggestions.

According to one source, I have an average of 21 visitors a day. So I feel relatively safe in making this offer: the first five people who e-mail me their nomination will receive a copy of the Bolivian Postcard chapbook. Write me at jacsongs, and include the word "Nomination" in the subject line. Be sure to include your postal address if you want a copy of the chapbook.

Many thanks to my regular readers, and especially to those faithful who leave comments. The feedback is a large part of what makes this exercise worthwhile.