So glad you have signed up to receive the For Random Learning Comes Newsletter! This is the fifty-second edition. Previous editions can be found on the blog's Newsletter page. I send it out weekly, so if you don't get my email on Saturday morning, please let me know! (Check your junk and spam folders too.) My five latest posts are at the end of this newsletter, latest first. *** This week I wrote one poem relating to the school shooting in Uvalde, TX, which killed 19 children and two teachers. Like you, I'm sure, I am sick of hearing news like this and my bitterness may have transferred onto the page. The poem is called Scores. President Biden, when he spoke about the incident, used the old-fashioned word "scores" to describe the number of children who have already fallen victim to school shootings such as this. A score is a group of twenty. He did not mention the exact number, but the subtext was, that soon we will be counting in hundreds. My poem is written as if the current president were speaking, although of course I am putting the words into his mouth that I think should be spoken. Still, he did a pretty decent job of summing up the problem, without any help from me. This is not my first foray into this most political of political topics, although each time I hope it will be my last. At the end of the poem, you will find links to several other incident-inspired writings of mine. Or should I say "incident-triggered" writings? That would convey the reluctance with which I write and the repellant nature of the subject matter. To speak of a trigger in such a context may well be in poor taste. As is the contemptible, morbid, gag-like reflex, of us all, to produce poetry (or writings, or podcasts or news reports)to try to process the occasion, as if that helped anyone or changed anything. These types of incidents traumatize us all, but none more than the parents and families who long to reinstate the abridged lives that might have been. And yet we cannot seem to help ourselves in our public expressions of ersatz grief. And so I hope the families will forgive us our joint wailing and gnashing of teeth. We long for a group mourning. But really, those most hurt are small in number and long for their privacy. Perhaps silence is the proper course, since no words we say ever seem to provoke the action needed. But if you have been reading my blog, you know this is not the route I generally choose. I hope my poem will not come across as too coarse or too unfeeling or, as so many say, too soon. I think writers cloak their feelings in words only because the feelings are too horrible to look on, in the buff. *** If you haven't signed up for my newsletter yet, I hope you will consider doing so. And tell your friends! There's a blue signup form on every page. You can also follow my Twitter account, @AndreaLedew,which posts my previously published blogposts, poems and flash fiction several times a day . This will give you an idea of just how much mischief I've been up to over the past five or six years. Thanks again for your continued readership and support. It means a lot to me. Have a great week! Andrea The links below will take you to the five most recent posts. The blue logo takes you to the homepage. The section on English Majors has the most recent stuff.

Unsubscribe | Manage subscription