Google Is Just Not That Into Me

It turns out that google is just not that into me after all.

My pages will rank high when I search, but not when you search.  Unless you follow me on Google Circles. So let’s follow each other on Google Circles.

I noticed there was a little man icon next to my post on happiness that came up second when I search google for “happiness.”  So I did a google search to find out what that icon meant. It means google recognizes me and gives a high rank to things that I might be interested in, for instance, my own posts. And the posts of people who are in my google circles.

I knew it was too good to be true that google really and truly did love me.

Click here to learn more about joining google circles.

If you join, you can click the g+ button at the bottom of posts to share my post with your circles.

The above are some of the icons for google cirlces/google plus.

Google Loves Me

I’m amazed! I’m delighted!

I was looking for pictures for my poem today “Living with Less” which is about happiness not being found in things, but in intangibles. 

I was looking for a picture to illustrate the poem so I googled “happiness.”  I was the third result. Little-old -e came up third!  I don’t quite know how that happened.  That is so exciting.

The link was about my poem “The App for Happiness.”  However, the link didn’t take you to my poem but to my bio page. 

After I was done with my posts for the day, I decided to try again. This time I came up second. The link takes you to the poem I did today, “Living with Less.”  The previous listing for “The App for Happiness” was no longer on the first page. That’s odd!

I don’t really understand it, but I’m glad to see that google thinks I am important. So there, Wikipedia!

I’m so happy.  Google loves me.

 

I found this picture at http://www.fwdnation.com

 

Sex Defeats Mitt Romney

At the top of my News Print Poetry blog, there’s a bar across the page that lists the most popular posts over the previous 30 days. Ever since I posted “Republicans Don’t Especially Love Mitt Romney,”  about two and a half months ago, that poem has led the list. Everyday, without fail, it was the poem with the most hits.

I found this picture at http://notionscapital.wordpress.com



The Mitt Romney poem was "#1 with a bullet" even though the permalink (the name that search engines see) gave the name of the post as “suffering.”  I wrote that before I learned to use catchy names, especially for the permalink.

Today I noticed that a poem about the death of Helen Gurley Brown, the author of “Sex and the Single Girl” and the publisher of “Cosmopolitan,”  “Sex is OK” is now in first place.

So "Sex" has defeated “Romney” for the first place position.

The poem is entitled “Sex is OK” because those were the words in the headline of Brown’s obituary. I titled this post “Sex Defeats Mitt Romney.” I bet you were expecting something a little different than what you actually read here (if you are still reading) when you saw that title. I also bet that the title of this post moves this post into the number one position on this blog real soon.



 

I Haven't Failed ...

"I haven't failed I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  That’s a quote from Thomas Edison, the prolific inventor.

I used this quote in picture format to illustrate my news print poem today entitled “Scopes.”   Read it at http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com/2012/08/scopes.html

Sometimes I do poems that are mini pep-talks. Today’s poem was one of them. I really needed to receive that pep-talk. Especially the part about patience and perseverance.

My readership is growing, but it feels that the growth comes so slowly.  Patience!  I will find a way to make it happen. Perseverance!  

Sometimes I feel like I am getting close to that 10,000 number. I’ve been putting a lot of time into learning SEO, Search Engine Optimization. When google, yahoo, and bing etc. can find me, it builds readership. I am starting to see results.

So I will keep at it, and with a little help from my friends, I’ll be a widely read, and hopefully profitable, blogger.  Success!

I found this at http://bloggers.com

 

One Picture is Worth A Thousand Words

Sometimes it is difficult for me to decide what picture to use to illustrate a poem. Yesterday was one of those days.

I had four very different pictures, and each picture could give a different meaning to the poem. 

I finally settled on the bride and groom, but I could have used the trolls, or the picture of Glenn Close and Michael Douglass portraying their characters in the movie “Fatal Attraction”, or the old-timey postcard.

All four pictures show couples, but the poem takes on a whole different meaning because of the associations we have with each picture. It is akin to the connotations of words.

Use the comments section to tell me which picture you think works best with the poem?  Be sure to include your reasons for picking it.  

 Commentary
 

Ha!
Just kidding!
      Or . . .
          maybe not.

Go up to a couple:

Say to one of them,
You know,
        you could
               do better.

 © 2012 Catherine Giordano

 

http://www.cappex.com

 

 

http://img.ezinemark.com

 

 

 

 

 



I Wanna Be A Prom Queen

I always wanted to be prom queen. Not pretty enough. Not popular enough. Never happened. (Besides I don’t think my high school in New York City even had prom queens.  It’s probably more of a suburban thing.)

Now I just want to be Queen of the blogs. 

My blogs have been getting more hits lately, it’s been building slowly, too slowly. I want to grow exponentially. 

I work hard writing for my blogs, and now I need to make my blogs work hard for me. The blogs have begun to earn a little money for me—maybe enough to pay for a movie once a month, if I don’t buy the popcorn. 

If I am going to earn a meaningful amount of money (like maybe enough for a tank full of gas), I need a lot more readers. If you like anything I write, please forward the link to your friends. Please like my blogs and/or individual posts on facebook and plus me on google circles, and repin me on pinterest, etc. Please write a comment on the blog itself. 

Make me Queen for a Day every day.  It can happen.  But, I need your help. 

Thank you so much. Also, if I see my numbers grow, it will make me think that people like what I write.  My ego could use a boost.

 

 I found this picture at http://img.xcitefun.net

 

P.S. My other two blogs are http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com and http://premiumcablereviews.blogspot.com

P.P.S. If you really, really, want to make my day, and you have a bit of money to spare, please buy one of my books on amazon.com

June, Moon, and Meaning

Percy Shelly

I was recently talking to a fellow poet, and we got onto the topic of light verse.  Is it art or is it drivel? I said that even light verse has to have meaning; he said that the ability to rattle off rhymes is also a talent. He mentioned Ogden Nash to illustrate his point.

Ogden Nash proves my point, not his. I began reading Ogden Nash in high school. First of all, Nash doesn’t just rattle off rhymes; his writing is clever and funny.   

For instance, here is one of his most famous little poems:



CLICK HERE

"Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker."
 

Nash is not just delighting us with a clever rhyme; he is commenting on the social mores of seduction. I could probably write a PhD thesis on the meaning in that little poem--about love and sex and the relationships between men and women--but I won’t because I know if you think about it for a minute you’ll see what I mean. 

THANK YOU FOR LIKING, SHARING, AND TWEETING THIS POST  

For more quotes about love, see

How to Find Love: The 45 Best Quotes by Famous People on Love

 

 

To prove my point that it is easy to rattle off rhymes, I decided I would composed a little poem in a couple of minutes off the-top-of-my head. I intended it as a send-up of the moon-June cliché. However, when I wrote it down and read it, I realized that although I had intended to write doggerel, I was actually commenting on the social mores of love and sex and the relationships between men and women myself.

What can I say? Even when I try to be nothing but frivolous, I’m deep.

Here’s the poem I wrote.  What do you think?

 

The Moon in June

It was a lovely night in June.

And yes, you guessed it, there was a full moon.
My sweetie gave my lips a peck.
And then he began to nuzzle my neck.

At first it was just a low growl,

but soon it became a full-throated howl.
I thought, “It’s nothing more than lust.”
But it wasn’t—it was canis lupus.

 

 



 

Wordstock Festival

Join the fun at Wordstock at DeLeon Springs in Florida.  Poets from around the world are planning individual events to take place simultaneously on September 29th in a celebration of poetry, art, and music to promote social, environmental, and political change.

At only $5 for the whole weekend, it’s the best deal ever. 

And you gotta love it, if only because of the clever pun in its name.

It is being held at the Bamboo Arts Center from September 29 -20.  The address is 4490 Cave Lake Road DeLeon Springs, FL 32130 The phone is 386-956-1329

More information availabable at www.facebook.com/wordstockpoetry

Twelve Chairs

I am planning to be part of the Twelve Chairs Project. Maybe you will want to take part also.

Twelve Chairs is a comprehensive, practical, and innovative course for poets. The program is called the Twelve Chairs because only 12 hand-picked students/colleagues will be enrolled.

There will be 30 seminars in all. We will meet 15 times a year for six hours per session. Each session will be devoted to a single topic, such as sound, metaphor, rhetorical devices, technique, and more, including how to get published.

·         It is targeted for experienced poets seeking to broaden the scope, sound, and vision of their work; for poets who want to make use of all available resources in to advance their understanding and talents.

 

·         It is also targeted for experienced writers of all kinds who want to develop as poets.

There will be 30 seminars in all. We will meet 15 times a year for six hours per session. Each session will be devoted to a single topic, such as sound, metaphor, rhetorical devices, technique, and more, including how to get published.

The Twelve Chairs seminars include lectures, lots of show-and-tell, freewheeling

discussions, exercises, and elective at-home assignments  to help you bring your writing to the next level. (I should say “next levels” because you will undoubtedly progress rapidly from level to level.)

Al Rocheleau, the author of on writing poetry: for poets made as well as born has developed the course and will be the instructor. He’s a charismatic teacher and  a widely published poet.

Twelve Chairs is like getting an MFA only it is a lot less expensive (you will be pleasantly surprised at how low the cost is), it gives you twice as much as you would get from university classes, and it is much more fun.  

There are a few chairs remaining.  Maybe one of them has your name on it.

If you want more information, contact Al Rocheleau via email at ARRO40@aol.com.



Monday, Monday, Can't Trust That Day

“Monday, Monday, Can’t trust that day.”  That’s a line from a 60’s song by the “Mamas and Papas.”

 
Monday is the worst day for news print poetry. I usually struggle to find the poem for the day.
 
There are two main reasons for this. (1) The Orlando Sentinel is especially thin on Mondays.  (2) The “B” section of the paper is about finances.  Financial news is important, but it seldom makes for a good poem. Usually, there’s just not enough emotion in it.
 

“Every other day, every other day,
Every other day of the week is fine, yeah
But whenever Monday comes, but whenever Monday comes
You can find me cryin' all of the time.”

I’m cryin’ ‘cause I’m strugglin’ to find the poem of the day in Monday’s paper.

Strange Searches

Blogger gives me stats about page views and other things.  One of the other things is the search words that landed someone on my page.

Someone searched "zombie mermaids."  Interesting!  Why is someone looking for zombie mermaids. That search might have taken them to my poem Zombie Apocalypse http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com/2012/06/zombie-apocalypse.html or to my poem "Mermaids." http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com/2012/08/sex-is-ok-helen-gurley-brown.html

Someone searched "free sex girl picture."  Ughh! They were probably looking for porn. Yuk! I guess they were disappointed when all they found was my poem about Helen Gurley Brown who wrote a book entitled "Sex and the Single Girl." How icky! http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com/2012/08/sex-is-ok-helen-gurley-brown.html

And two people searched for "Catherine the Great young."  Back when I was young, I used to call myself, "Catherine the Great," but now I go by just plain "Catherine."

The people who used these searches probably weren't looking for my blog, but I hoped they stayed to read a poem and I hope they enjoyed it.  (All except the "free sex girl picture" person--you can stay away form my blog.)

I found this picture at http://ecx.images-amazon.com

The actual Catherine The Great wasn't all that good looking so I used this picture. I prefer that you associate me with Cathrine Zeta-Jones.

. . . And the Pony is Lame

Yesterday I said newspapers are the Pony Express of the Internet age.  Today, I add "and the pony is lame".

The annoucemnet of Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate is yesterday's news.  A small headline only one column wide, no mention of Ryan's name in the headline, no picture.  At least it was on page one--but less than 3 inches.  A story abut campaign finances got more inches. The Ryan story continued on page 4, but claimed only about a half page. And that was it.

It made it hard for me to find material for my poem. I had to write about Ryan. It is a significant event for the 2012 election, and my mission is to write a poem for all significant events. 

The picture is from https://secure.assets.bostatic.com/Blog/20120811_five_things_paul_ryan.jpeg

Read the poem at
http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com/2012/08/romneys-vp-pick-paul-ryan.html

Newspapers: The Pony Express of the Internet Age

I hate it when really big news breaks after the Orlando Sentinel has gone to press. Romney announced that Paul Ryan will be his VP pick this morning, but I can't do my poem about it because it is not in the newspaper.  I expect it is up on the Sentinel's website, but my rules say I can only use what is in the newspaper.  So tune in tommorrow.  I'm sure there will be lots about it in tommorrow's paper.

http://waltcurlee.homestead.com/pony-express-print-72dpi_op_631x474.jpg

This blog is supposed to be about poetry, but I can't resist commenting on politics. I don't get it. Why Ryan? Does Romney need to convince the base that his flip flops are sincere and he really is a severe conservative now in order to rally the base?  But the base is already fired up by their hatred of Obama. Romney needs to woo Independents. Ryan will allinate them. Romney should have played it safe with Portman. The Democrat politicos are thrilled with the selection of Ryan.

I think Romney chose Ryan just because he likes him.

And he made his pick early because he really needs the help. Perhaps we'll all be talking about Ryan instead of Romney's taxes for a few days.

Finding a Poem: Feast or Famine

Today, it was famine.  A dearth of false starts, and finally settling.  Although the poem about aging that I finally wrote is not all that bad.  Read it at: http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com/2012/08/upbeat-aging-live-to-100.html

Yesterday, it was feast.  I found four stories to use for the poem of the day.  It was hard to pick just one.  Here is one of the ones that I did not post.

Running

Running,
full-speed,

as fast as you can—                                          
Exhilaration.

Running,

utterly pure,
just you alone—
Heart blessed.

Running,

close to flying,
strong and free—
Endorphin-infused joy.

© 2012 Catherine Giordano

My Dilemma Over a Poem about Religion

Today I did a poem news print poem based on the show "bare". It is playing at the Breakthrogh Theater in Winter Park. It is a play about teenaged angst made all the angst-ier
by the fact that the teens go to a religious school and have to factor religon into their hormonal soup. I striped away all the review parts and left the teenaged angst parts.

My dilemma concerned what picture to use. I wanted to use the photo of Richard Dawkins' Book, "The God Delusion, but that would eliminate all ambiguity from the poem.  And one mark of a good poem is ambiguity. So I went with a different picture.  A young woman staring up at the sky as if looking for answers. 

See the picture  and read the poem at http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com/2012/08/teens-looking-for-god.html

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/76/The_God_Delusion_UK.jpg

Decisions, Decisions, Poetry Decisions

Some days it is a difficult choice when I am deciding what story to write about.  I like to choose the most important story of the day, if I can.  But whatd I do when there are two or more important stories?

For instance yesterday, the rover, Curiosity, landing on Mars was a major story, one people will want to remember.  But there was also a story about the Sikh killings in Wisonsin and I wanted to write about that also.

I decided to go with the mars story and hope there would be something abot the Sikh killings in the paper today.  I lucked out.  There was a column about these killings.  Even better luck--today's story made for a better poem.

Be sure to read it at http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com/2012/08/sikh-killings.html

August Poetry Project--New Thoughts

Everyday I send out the news print poem of the day.  I make my own postcards so I can include the picture.

I've been getting a picture postcard each day.  Some days, the picture and the poem match up,  Today I got a postcard from Seattle Washinton.  It was a picture of the city with Mount Rainier in the backgroud.  The poem was about Mt. Rainer.

Yesterday, I got a postcard with a Texas license plate on it.  There was a clever poem about the trials of moving from one city to another city, both in Texas.

It's fun sending the poems and fun getting the poems.  And maybe the recipients of my poems will want to read more and they will go to http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com

I'm always excited to get new readers and followers.

August Poetry Project (Con't)

I received two more postcards with poems on Saturday. 

One of the post cards was very cleverly done.  It was cut from a cereal box, and it had been carefully postioned to show a delicious looking spoonful of cereal.  What a good idea--Using the cardboard packaging from a pantryitem to create a picture postcard.

Suggestion:  If you do this, up the cleverness factor a notch or two by writing a poem to match the picture. There's a lot to work with in this picture--the silver sppon, the flakes and oats, the raisens, the mikly white milk and the words "Great Tasting & Heart Healthy."

On of the suggestions for the poetry project is have your poem answer one of the poems you have received. Since the person who sent this card is towards the end of my list, I'll have plenty of time to come up with a poem that matches the picture.

Wikipedia Makes Me Sad

I was on Wikipedia in the found poetry catefory for about two minutes.  I did an "edit" to put myself on the page.  It was short and followed the wikipedia style.  I saw it there. 

Five minutes later, I went to admire my name in the wikipedia, and it was gone.  I felt proud that I had figured out how to do an edit and also proud that I was on Wikipedia.  I've been erased.  Now I feel sad.

Does anyone know why that happens?  Aand , more importantly, how I can get the post to stay put.

Oh well, al least my blogs still exist.  You can still read my poems at http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com

Postcards, Pictures, and Poems.

Postcards from the August Poetry Project

I signed up for the August Poetry project. (See the 7/25/12/ post.) I got a head start and began mailing
out a poem a day to the people on my list at the end of July. Yesterday, I mailed my seventh card, but I still hadn't received any. I started to think that maybe people weren't keeping their commitment. Today I got three postcards, each with a nice poem on it. Not just plain postcards, but each with a great picture on the front.

I looked at the pictures and the poems, and it was like two of the poems had switched cards. One was light verse about how the internet dominates our lives and it had a picture  of a 1941 movie poster for the film "The Monster and the Girl." 

The other card had a touching poem with a wry twist at the end about a friend who died from Lou Gehrig's disease. This one had a picture of the famous New Yorker cartoon, depicting two dogs at a computer and captioned "On the internet, nobody knows you are a dog."

Now clearly, the dog cartoon belonged with the internet poem and the dying-of-a-terrible-disease poem belonged on the Monster card. (The analogy is that the disease is the monster and the girl is the writer of the poem.)

Weird coincidence, don't you think?

I liked all three of my cards and all three poems.  I'll be rushing to the mailbox tomorrow morning.

Read the poems at http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com

A Whole Lot of Clicking Going On

My arm hurts. My right arm.  The arm that has the hand that has the finger that I use for clicking.

It takes a lot of clicks to put new content on three blogs, especially when I post daily on one and about three to five times a week on the others.

It’s not just putting the content up. I post pictures on two of the blogs to add interest to the site. I have to click on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus to get the word out. Finally, I pin the pictures on Pinterest as another way of getting the word out.

 

So now I need you to click. You already clicked to get to this page.  Check out my other blogs. Check out the sidebars and the items at the bottom of the page. You might find something worthy of a click (maybe my book covers.)

Plus I have added a little poll as a sidebar on each of my other sites.  Vote for your favorite poem on http://newsprintpoetry2012.blogspot.com and for your favorite show on http://premiumcablereviews.blogspot.com . 

Like me on Facebook, retweet me on Twitter, plus one me Google Plus.  Please help me get more popular. Thanks for whatever help you can give me and thanks for reading.