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* QUILTBAG celebration at the poetree comm all week long. See here for how the week is being organized.

* This week's writers' challenge at the comm "to write a poem about the longest day or longest night. It can be about the activities of the day, time itself, waiting, or anything else connected to the topic."

* Tina Nguyen has compiled a showcase of five-line poems posted during May 2012. I am honored to have one of my pieces included in it.

From the May Mid-South District (of the Unitarian Universalist Association) newsletter (should've posted this last week, but note that it takes place every Saturday, in Atlanta):

Atlanta Area Mobile Library Project Update

Join us Saturday, May 19 at Plaza Fiesta to celebrate the official launch of the Mobile Library - Fiesta de Libros! The library project had its soft opening April 14 and has been received with great enthusiasm and appreciation by the children and their parents. We are very proud of this UU project and we want to celebrate the launch with our UU community. The celebration will be from 1:00pm to 2:00pm in front of the playground by the food court. We will have musical entertainment, community speakers, including Rev. David, and a Ribbon Cutting ceremony. Bring the family and friends, celebrate with us and enjoy all that Plaza Fiesta has to offer!

The goal of the mobile library project "Fiesta de Libros" is to expose children to age-appropriate bilingual literature at Plaza Fiesta (a Latino mall off of Buford Highway). The idea of the program is to create a library-type setting where the children will be encouraged to browse the book selection, sit down and read, take a book home or exchange one of their own books for a new book. Fiesta de Libros will be set up every Saturday from 1pm to 5pm at Plaza Fiesta.

If you are interested in supporting this project, there are three ways in which you can help:

1) Donate books - Bring books for children up to the age of 12 written in Spanish, English or both languages.

2) Sign up to be a Saturday volunteer - You, your family, friends, or organization can sign up for one of the Saturday shifts to staff the library. The shifts will be from 12:30pm to 3:00pm and 3:00pm to 5:30pm.

3) Join a committee - Join one of the five committees to help administer the program.

Please contact Laura Murvartian at Laura_Murvartian@Bellsouth.net or 770-841-9672 for further information or to sign up as a volunteer.

My tribe: we set up libraries and "smuggle" books. Onward!

The signal boost (via Sam Henderson): Rose Lemberg could use some help getting to Wiscon, and she's offering handcrafted books to the six highest bidders in an auction that runs until Sunday night. I would especially encourage those of you with totem animals to take a look, since Rose will be creating images of shapechangers, and the winning bidders will each select one of the animals to be featured.

(Full disclosure: I have a vested interest in Rose's presence at Wiscon, since The Moment of Change includes one of my poems.)

Paris and New York: Vahram Muratyan's visual comparisons of Paris and New York are droll and colorful. The link will take you to his blog; my library just acquired a copy of the book. Paging through it, I was reminded again and again that true graphic designers have an arsenal of techniques and pictorial vocabulary that I find a pleasure to recognize and admire. (Put another way, it's a delight to see Muratyan's constructions of images that seem at once both quirky and inevitable.)

London and New York: Truth be told, I don't actually get most of the references in section 9 (except the first and the last, which pretty much tells you which sections of the newspaper I actually read), but figure it might amuse a number of you who are either acquainted with both cities or better looped into current goings-on.