"The Murder of Mary Russell" by Laurie R. King

You may recall that I was so excited/concerned/thrilled/worried about the title of the latest novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes that I actually posted about it last year when King revealed the title and cover art.  Well, it finally came in for me at the library, and I devoured this book in two days.  One night, I stayed up until almost midnight reading it, without realizing how time was flying.  I finished it the next day.  Although I've only read it once so far, I thiiiiiink this might be my second-favorite book in this series, edging out The Game.  

Much of the book is a flashback of sorts detailing the history of Mrs. Hudson.  Yes, Sherlock Holmes' landlady from Baker Street, now his housekeeper in Sussex.  King has created an inventive, dark, and surprisingly believable backstory for Mrs. Hudson, basing it on the fact that there's a man named Hudson in the canon story "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott."  In King's hands, he is revealed to be Mrs. Hudson's father, and you know, I just don't feel like spoiling this story too much because I would have been really mad if I'd known much more than that myself going in.

Well, except I'll tell you this:  the story revolves around con artistry.  And I am perilously fond of confidence men, grifters, matchstick men, hustlers, and flimflammers.  Which is why this book drew me in so quickly and deeply.  Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell kind of float on the periphery of this one for a long time, very intensely tied to the plot, but at the same time staying a bit in the background for 200 pages.  Holmes gets page time in the flashbacks too, a young Holmes working his first case, which is charming.  But I wasn't bothered by their absence because the story King wove around Mrs. Hudson was so compelling.

Particularly Good Bits:

"The smiling countryside," he said bitterly.  "Its potential for sin has always filled me with horror.  Now I have added to its lonely secrets" (p. 172).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  R for more scenes of sensuality than are typical of this series, and also violence and some language.

Jane Eyre Read-Along: Chapter 1

The first copy of JE I owned
myself had this cover.  My friend 
Julie gave it to me for my 18th 
birthday, and I took it to college.

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I just lost everything I'd written about this chapter.  ARGH!  A whole, beautiful, completely finished post down the tube because I got interrupted by a little mouse who should have been asleep an hour ago, come to complain that he was lonely.  Sigh.


Okay, well, I will try to reconstruct my thoughts.  But it's 10:30 at night and I'm pretty tired, so I apologize right now if this is disjointed or whatever.

I think the very first line is splendid.  "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day" (p. 11).  No possibility.  Because, for Jane Eyre at this point in her young life, there are no possibilities at all.  She's a penniless orphan stuck living with relatives who don't want her, some of whom actively dislike her.  No possibility.

In the second paragraph, she surprises us.  "I was glad of it," she says.  Right from the start, she is different, isn't she?  I mean, compare her to Jane Austen's heroines, who all love to wander around outside in every sort of weather.  Jane Eyre doesn't like long walks because they make her feel sad and inferior.  She would rather stay inside and read.  But this marks her as different.  And her aunt disapproves of different.  Mrs. Reed wishes Jane would be "lighter, franker, more natural."  Which tells us that Jane seems dark, secretive, and unnatural.

Those three adjectives are soon confirmed.  Jane hides herself away behind heavy drapes (secretive), preferring the dreary view and a book full of bleak pictures (dark), and she enjoys trying to understand a volume of paintings far above her comprehension level (unnatural).  In fact, the most ordinary-sounding picture we get a description of, that of a lonely graveyard, she can't understand at all -- ordinary sentiment escapes her, but the wild and weird pictures, she has a real feel for.

Don't you think those first three paintings are so representative of what's to come in this story?  Surely "the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray" (p. 12) is meant to portray Jane herself, standing alone against so many troubles.  And "the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast" is Rochester, shattered and lonely and isolated.  But then that "cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking" -- is that Rochester's first marriage?  Is it what happens to Jane and Rochester's relationship when she learns the truth?  I don't know.

But then there's John Reed.  Oh, ick.  What a terrible person he is.  Fourteen years old, tormenting his helpless cousin, on the road to becoming a perverted piece of scum.  He disgusts me.

And what an ending to this chapter!  "Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there" (p. 16).  ACK!  So ominous and scary!

Favorite Lines:  I was then happy; happy at least in my way (p. 13).

Possible Discussion Questions:  Do you think I'm all wet when it comes to interpreting those paintings?

Are there helpful and good lessons to be learned from reading about things like child abuse?  Can we learn anything useful from characters like John Reed?

Jane Eyre Read-Along: Preface to the Second Edition

Welcome to my Jane Eyre Read-Along!  I've been looking forward to this all year :-)  Jane Eyre is my absolute favorite novel.  I've read it all the way through five or six times, beginning when I was about sixteen, so twenty years or so ago.  But I've been known to read my favorite parts over and over and over, so some sections I'm very familiar with indeed.  I also studied it in college, and I'll be using some of the notes I made then for this.  If I get time, I might even dredge up some of the papers I wrote for that lit class and share them.  We'll see!

This was the cover on
the very first copy I read,
around the age of 16.

So... I'm a book nerd, and I read prefaces and introductions and notes and such-like.  Which means I'm going to open this read-along by discussing Bronte's "Preface to the Second Edition" today because it holds some interesting thoughts.  And because I always want to do a bit of housekeeping the first day of a read-along, and that can make a chapter post untidy and cumbersome.

First, the housekeeping. If you're new to my read-alongs, here's how they work: I will post about each chapter in turn, usually every 2 or 3 days. You can write up your own thoughts in the comments on those posts, discussing the book with me and each other. I encourage you to reply to each others' comments!  

I generally include a question or two that I think people might like to discuss, but you can choose to answer it or not, and bring up any of your own thoughts and questions too.  If you also want to post things on your own blog as we go, you're most welcome to, but it's not required.

Also, I'm not going to mark spoilers.  Anywhere.  I assume you have a working knowledge of this story.  I'm sorry, but I just can't pussy-foot around, nodding and winking and saying, "I can't say anything now, but this will be important later!"  This book is rich and meaty, and there's a lot of foreshadowing and so on that will pretty much require that we allude to future events as we go along.  However, I Will Not be mean and post spoily things unnecessarily, so if this is your first time reading the book and you don't know how it ends, please don't give up now.

Finally, I'd love to have some of you contribute guest posts!  I'm particularly interested in reviews of the various movie versions -- I'd love to include as many as possible.  If you can think up something else you'd like to write about, suggest it in the comments and we'll see!  I'm usually pretty open about them.

Now, on to the preface.  When Jane Eyre was first published, it received mixed reviews.  While some people like William Makepeace Thackerey (to whom Bronte dedicated the second edition) praised it highly, others condemned it for being un-Christian, unladylike, even coarse.  This preface is her refutation, as it were.  And I think that when she says here that "Conventionality is not morality" (p. 6), she's summing up the entire novel.  Throughout the story, Jane Eyre defies convention when it conflicts with her moral beliefs.  She acts according to her beliefs, even when (especially when?) doing so makes her life more difficult, even miserable.

Bronte also touches on the idea that "appearance should not be mistaken for truth" (6).  We're going to see that theme over and over in the book too, of appearance versus reality.  Jane Eyre appears little and weak, but she is as strong as tempered steel.  Mr. Brocklehurst appears virtuous, but is spiteful and vindictive.  And on and on and on.  We'll come back to that idea often, I'm sure.

Finally, she mentions people who think that "whatever is unusual is wrong" (p. 5).  The romance between Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester is most unusual.  Jane Eyre was, at that time, a female character unlike any the literary world had seen before.  A story in the style of Gothic romance which doesn't involve a wilting, helpless heroine was unusual.  All these reasons, and countless others, kind of freaked out people when this was published, and that reaction in turn led to Bronte writing this preface.

Okay, that's all for today.  I'm hoping/planning to post about chapter one tomorrow, but it'll be Memorial Day here in America, and I might not get to it until Tuesday.

Possible Discussion Questions:

Have you read Jane Eyre before?  

Have you seen any movie versions?

Do you generally read prefaces and introductions and suchlike?

"Much Ado About Anne" by Heather Vogel Frederick

Since I'm reading all the Anne books this year, I figured this was a good time to pull out Much Ado About Anne and read it too!  Like the other two books I've read in this series, it was an enjoyable read.  I like the girls in this club better and better with every book, and even though I hadn't read one in over a year, I was able to slip right back into the series with no hitches at all.  

I don't have a lot to say about this book -- it's a fun, fast read, but digs into some deeper issues here and there too.  One girl's widowed mother decides to get married again, which leads to some good insights into what that feels like for all involved:  daughter, mother, and step-dad-to-be.  

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  G.  Like the other books I've read in this series, it's clean, wholesome, and thought-provoking.  I can recommend it with no reservations.

What My Kids are Reading #6

Man, it's been a long time since I posted one of these.  We finished school a little over a week ago, so now I finally have a bit more time for posts again.  (We usually finish off mid-May and then start again mid-July because May and June are lovely weather here, but by mid-July it's so hot and sticky outside we're all just staying inside most of the day anyway, so might as well be doing school.)

Here are some of the books my kids have been enjoying lately!  My mother-in-law brought the first Traction Man book along with her when she visited last week, and my girls loved it so much that we found the sequels at the library.

Sarah (6) and Tootie (4)

Traction Man is Here written and illustrated by Mini Grey -- a little boy gets a new action figure for Christmas and takes him on imaginative adventures all around the house.  It reminds me a little of Toy Story and my own childhood.

Traction Man Meets TurboDog "" -- the little boy's parents decide that Traction Man's trusty "dog" pal, Scrubbing Brush, is germy, so they secretly throw him away and replace him with a "better" toy.

Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey "" -- the little boy takes Traction Man and Scrubbing Brush to the beach, where an overenthusiastic dog sends Traction Man on an epic journey.  This one is my favorite, but they're all such fun to read.

Sam (8)

Gone-Away Lake and Return to Gone-Away by Elizabeth Enright -- I got Gone-Away Lake as a birthday present when I was about Sam's age, and read it over and over.  I didn't know there was a sequel until Sam found it at the used book store a while back.  I need to read both of them one of these days.  From what I recall of the first book, two kids find an abandoned town or something?  

Coding with Scratch Workbook by Dr. Jon Woodcock -- I got this for Sam to use while school is out because he really wants to learn to code, but I don't know much about it.  Two of Cowboy's brothers are computer coder dudes, and they both highly praise Scratch for teaching kids about it, but I didn't know enough to really help Sam do cool stuff.  He LOVES this book, and did all the projects in it in less than a week.  I got him another book in the same series that does games on Scratch, and he's starting that one now.


I'm not reading anything longer aloud to them all just now because we're still trying to figure out our summer days and when a good time for that would be.  I'm working on creating our summer reading program, and hope to have that done later this week, at which time I'll probably haul out a longer book to begin with them all.  If my summer reading program idea works out the way I want it to, I might post about it, we'll see :-)

"And Now Tomorrow" by Rachel Field

I can't believe I hadn't read this before now.

I mean, I spent like 20 years trying to find the 1944 movie version after seeing part of it on TV when I was a teen.  I knew it was an adaptation of a book.  But I never tried to find the book until after they'd released the movie to DVD and I'd finally seen the whole thing.  Silly me.  All the years I've spent without this enriching experience!

Because wow, did I love this book.  I also love the movie, but the book is even better.  It's broader, and we get to hear the protag's thoughts and insights and feelings in such deep, compelling ways, which a movie can never match.  (But the movie has Alan Ladd.  No book can quite match that, either.  However, he so precisely matched the book character that I had a very easy time imagining him while reading, which was most pleasant...) 

And the writing!  A slow, simmering feast, like a beef roast you've cooked for hours until it is tender and succulent, each bite filled with flavor and nutrition until it bursts.  You'll see below how many passages struck me as so remarkable, I want to write them up and remember them.

And the love story!  Understated, buried beneath layer after layer of dialog and action, but flaring out bright and sure by the end.  I'm going to have to read this again just to study how Field managed to write it that way.  There's no overt romance, just this slow realization of understanding, mutual compassion, and eventually attraction.  Fascinating stuff.

I suppose I should tell you a little bit about the storyline itself at some point, shouldn't I?  Since this isn't exactly a widely known book anymore.  Wealthy Emily Blair grew up used to life unrolling smoothly before her.  Life in Blairstown revolved around the mill her family owned and managed.  Mill workers lived on one side of the river, the more well-to-do folks lived on the other, and the Blairs ruled everyone benevolently.

Then, Emily contracted meningitis when in her early 20s, and lost her hearing as a result.  At the insistence of her family and her fiance, she traveled the country searching for a cure, but to no avail.  So she returned home determined to get married and make the best of things.  She had learned to read lips very well, and could make her way in the world with some semblance of normalcy.

But she returned to find Blairstown a changed world.  The Great Depression was just hitting the country, and the millworkers wanted to organize a union, were resisting pay cuts, and everything was generally tense and unpleasant.  Also, Emily's fiance Jeff kept putting off the wedding, saying they needed to wait until things at the mill settled down.

In the midst of all this chaos and unwelcome change, a young doctor named Merek Vance entered Emily's life.  He had formerly found great success in restoring hearing loss through a serum he had created, and he wanted to try it on Emily.  She refused.  Then she agreed.  And the once-predictable course of her life was changed forever.

I did something with this book that I truly never do.  I flipped to the end and read it before I got through the first chapter.  I basically never read the ending of a book first.  Never.  I consider it cheating.  However, the beginning chapter or two made it sound as if Emily was NOT going to end up marrying the person she ends up with in the movie, and if that had been so in the book, I knew I would have thrown it across the room in disgust (even though my copy is 50 years old) and been annoyed with the world for days. 

That doesn't mean the movie didn't make any changes from the book.  They trimmed all the unionizing of the mill right out, along with an entire important character, which makes sense since the movie was made during WWII and the country was doing its best to forget the Great Depression altogether.  Also, all my favorite lines from the movie are not in the book, so I can now lay them squarely to the credit of my beloved Raymond Chandler, who co-write the screenplay.  But a lot of the stuff with the mill workers reminded me or Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, only in the 20th century, which made it especially interesting to me.

I'm counting this for the Classics Club because it fits my criteria of being more than 50 years old, well-known, and being written by a well-known author who influenced other writers and/or society.  And Now Tomorrow was published in 1942, the year that Field died, so it's certainly old enough.  Not only was it a best-seller at the time, but of course, Rachel Field had previously won the Newbery Award for Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, and she posthumously received the Caldecott Medal for Prayer for a Child.

Particularly Good Bits:

There is a fascination in places that hold our past in safe keeping.  We are drawn to them, often against our will.  For the past is a shadow grown greater than its substance, and shadows have power to mock and betray us to the end of our days (p. 1).

In the life of each of us, I told myself, there comes a time when we must pause to look back and see by what straight or twisting ways we have arrived at the place where we find ourselves.  Instinct is not enough, and even hope is not enough.  We must have eyes to see where we missed this turn or that, and where we struggled through dark thickets that threatened to confound us (p. 4-5).

...that was the trouble with small towns, one was too much a part of them ever to escape from one's self (p. 89).

"Always on the go, you young people," she reproved across the silver coffee service.  "No stability or sense about you.  It's as if you were all too busy tracking down happiness ever to meet up with it" (p. 222).

No hardy perennial has the enduring quality of hope.  Cut it to the rots, stamp it underfoot, let frost and fire work their will, and still some valiant shoot will push, to grow again on such scanty fare as it can find (p. 241).

In the adult world to which I suddenly realized we all belonged, I supposed a triangle would be substituted for the outline of a heart.  Well, after all, what was a triangle but a heart with the grace taken out of it? (p. 255)

Memories will withdraw into their right perspective if we let them have their way (p. 350).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for some mild curse words.

This is my 39th book read and reviewed for the Classics Club, and my 7th for the Women's Classic Literature Event. 

Would You Rather, LOTR Edition

Cordy is hosting a LOTR Week on her blog, Write On, Cordy!  For the event, she's posted this tag, which I thought looked fun, so here are my answers...

1. You have been tasked with your own quest, your own fellowship has been gathered, and you have the pick of one last member, would you rather choose Eomer or Imrahil to join you on your journey? 

Eomer.  I mean, I do love Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, but he's only my like 7th favorite character, and Eomer ties with Gandalf for my 3rd favorite.  Plus, if I was with Eomer, we'd be on horses.  Beautiful, splendid, magnificent horses of Rohan.

2. Would you rather have to track an army of Uruk-Hai, or climb the 'stairs'?

Track the Uruk-Hai.  No giant spiders involved there.

3. Who would you rather slap/shake/glare some sense into, Denethor or Wormtongue?

Denethor, because I love both his sons, and I need him to quit treating them so badly.  ::Glares::

4. Would you rather attend Bilbo's birthday and have to dance a jig or have to sing a solo at Aragorn's coronation?

Dance a jig, probably.  The coronation is WAY too important an event for me to screw it up by hitting a wrong note.

5. Would you rather soar on an Eagle's back to pick-up Frodo and Sam or participate in the last march of the Ents, courtesy of Treebeard's shoulder?

I'll take the eagle ride, thanks!

6. Would you rather have to face an enraged Oliphant or Shelob?

An Oliphant, every time.

7. Would you rather have to wear the full armor of Gondor for a day or the full armor of Rohan for a day?

Rohan!  Cuz again... I'd probably get a horse.  Also, I like their armor better.

8. Would you rather have an axe or a bow?

Definitely a bow.

9.Would you rather visit Lothlorien or Rivendell?

Rivendell!  My favorite place in all of Middle Earth.

10. Would you rather have to get through the Mines of Moria or take the Path of the Dead? (In each situation, you are with Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. Haha, so, you're not alone!)

The Mines of Moria, just because I'd get to hang out with my beloved Boromir for a while.

11. Would you rather stay and help rebuild the Shire, or sail to the Undying Lands?

Hmm.  I don't know!  I like the idea of both.  I feel like I'd probably stay in the Shire, though, as I have a great drive to be helpful and useful.  Plus, Sam is my second-favorite character in LOTR, so I'd get to hang out with him longer that way.

If you want to join in the festivities, or just fill out this tag, visit Cordy's post here :-)

"Lost Lake House" by Elisabeth Grace Foley

I sometimes hate reading books on my Kindle app because if I don't blog about them right when I finish them, I forget to review them because I don't have a physical book sitting on the desk to remind me to write up a review.  Sigh.  Such is what happened with Elisabeth Grace Foley's latest novella.

This doesn't mean I didn't like this book!  Because I did.  It's set during Prohibition, an era I find fascinating.  There's almost a little bit of a Gatsby feel to it, like some of the people at Lost Lake House could also be those hanging out at Gatsby's parties.  And, of course, it's an updated version of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses."  That's one of my favorite fairy tales.

Lost Lake House revolves around Dorothy, teen daughter of a wealthy widower who is also a busy local politician and staunchly pro-Prohibition and anti-dancing.  Dorothy is young and restless.  She loves dancing, but her father won't let her attend even respectable society dances, so she sneaks out of the house night after night to go dancing at the Lost Lake House, combination nightclub and speakeasy.  

Then there's Marshall Kendrick, a nice boy who works for the Lost Lake House as a groundskeeper and boatman, earning money to help his Depression-stricken parents and siblings.  He gets sucked deeper and deeper into the speakeasy's illegal activities.  But when he sees Dorothy in the clutches of a wolf named Sloop Jackson, Marshall has a crisis of conscience, and together the two of them try to escape the illicit whirl of dancing and alcohol that fills Lost Lake House.

This is a fun story of a glitzy era gone by, but with some serious things to say about disobedience, truth, conscience, and whether or not innocence can be protected if it rushes headlong after experience.

Particularly Good Bits:

On cloudy nights like this the lake and sky and island all melted into a uniform invisible black, so the blazing golden windows of the Lost Lake House seemed suspended in the middle of the lake like a floating fairy palace.

Did they find something there that they really liked, or were they merely part of the facade, putting on a reckless show for each other and for the quiet, unseeing wooded shores of the midnight lake?

Dorothy looked up at the moon almost with dread -- its light had never seemed so bright and revealing before.  Under the lights of the Lake House she had never seen it at all.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for alcohol use and a man trying to force a girl to kiss him.

Mailbox Monday -- Birthday Edition

My birthday was a little over a week ago, and Cowboy couldn't figure out what to get me for a long time, so I said, "Oh, just find something on my Amazon wish list, it's bursting with ideas."  

So he checked out my Amazon list and decided to get me ten different books off it, focusing on the out-of-print ones we could only get used, but putting a few new ones in the mix too.  He wanted me to get a package or two in the mail every day for a whole week, and it pretty well worked!  I think there were only two days I didn't get a surprise from him, and some days more than one!

Top to bottom, they are:

Aspects of the Novel by E. M. Forster -- sooooo looking forward to digging into this once my writing/revising hangover passes.

The Silent Gondoliers by William Goldman -- this is supposed to be very funny, and it's from the guy who wrote The Princess Bride and set up in the same way, ie that it was originally told by S. Morgenstern.

Westward the Women by Nancy Wilson Ross -- I'd kind of forgotten this was on my wish list.  I'm curious as to whether it bears any resemblance to the movie of the same name.

Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy by Flora Thompson -- I've heard a lot about this trilogy, and more about the TV show based on it, and I'm hoping it'll be really fun.

Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson -- obviously, a prequel to Anne of Green Gables, but other than that, I can't remember what I've heard about it, or even where.  I'm hoping to read this during My Year with Anne, if I can squeeze it in.

The Quest for Shakespeare by Joseph Pearce -- someone's attempt to figure out what Shakespeare was really like, I think.

The Lavender Cookbook by Sharon Shipley -- I tried cooking with lavender for the first time last year and had mixed results with recipes I found on Pinterest, so I'm hoping this will lead to more successes.

The Anne of Green Gables Treasury by Carolyn Strom Collins and Christina Wyss Eriksson -- a collection of a bunch of Anne-related stuff, like a map of Avonlea, a timeline of her life, how to do crafty activities mentioned in the books, and so on.

Tolkien's World -- a coloring book.  Yes, it's true.  I'm an adult colorer!  One of these days, I'll do a post about all the different adult coloring books I have, and which ones I like versus which ones have disappointed me, and so on.

EDIT:  I just realized I left one out!  Sam absconded with it, and I forgot to get it back for the photo and post.  It's Mr. Bliss by J.R.R. Tolkien -- a picture book about a man in a tall hat and his yellow car, which Joseph recommended to me a while back.

I'm linking this up with Mailbox Monday, which is always such fun :-)  Have you gotten any new (or at least, new to you) books lately?

Poetry Month Celebration 2016 -- The End

Well, instead of doing a recap post for this final week, I'm just posting ALL the links from the whole month here.  I'll be deleting the official page later this month to make room for my Jane Eyre read-along's page, so this way, all these links will not be lost!  

Thanks so much to everyone who participated!  This event was a much bigger success than I ever hoped.  I'm happy there are so many people who dig poetry and wanted to celebrate it with me.  Whether you contributed a post yourself, filled out the tag, or just read and commented on other people's posts, you made this event lots of fun!

Contributed Poetry Posts

Two Favorite Poems -- Joseph
"The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes -- Hannah
Why I'm Celebrating Poetry -- Hamlette
Haikus by Matsuo Basho -- Hannah
"The Morning of Life" by Victor Hugo -- Cleopatra
Australian Poetry in WWI -- Carol
"No Coward Soul is Mine" by Emily Bronte -- Hannah
Poetry, a Gift to Our Children -- Silvia
Poetry Efforts #1 -- Hannah
Poetry Efforts #2 -- Hannah
"The Lovebird" (original poem) -- Joseph
Poetry Efforts #3 -- Hannah
"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou -- Hannah
"All That is Gold Does Not Glitter" by J.R.R. Tolkien -- Hannah
Galvanized by Leland Kinsey -- Lory
Poetry and Baseball -- Joseph
"Narnian Suite" by C. S. Lewis -- Cleopatra
"As I Walked Out One Evening" by W. H. Auden -- Hannah
"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley -- Hannah
"Sonnet XVIII" and "Love Sonnet XI" -- Hannah
"The Boy in the Moon" (original poem) -- Joseph
"Sonnet 6" (original poem) -- Hamlette
A Selection of Poems -- Hannah
"High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. -- Joseph
"An Anglo-Saxon Riddle" (original poem) -- Cleopatra
3 Reasons Why You Should Go to a Poetry Reading -- Suzanne
A Pride and Prejudice Poem (original poem) -- Naomi
"Ode to Dr. Seuss" (original poem) -- Joseph
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne -- Brona Joy
"Today" (original poem) -- Kara
"A Curious Inbetween" (original poem) -- Kara
"Known" (original poem) -- Kara
"All You Who Sleep Tonight" (original poem) -- Hamlette
Nature Poetry -- Carol
"The Horse Show at Midnight" by Henry Taylor -- Joseph
Poetry and Prose in Shakespeare's Plays -- Hamlette
"The Crew of Columbia" (original poem) -- Joseph
My Favourite Poets -- Rose
"Mythopoeia" by J. R. R. Tolkien -- Joseph
Three Dashes of Poetry -- Heidi

FORTY POSTS!  People, you are amazing.  That doesn't even count all the tags y'all filled in and added to the link-up.

Thank you, thank you, one and all!