Plot trauma

I have an addiction
to reading fiction…

I spent a large chunk of the weekend reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. How large? Think about how thick that book is.

Along about page 650, I was having a really hard time putting it down, and I started getting testy.

"No, I need to read it now! I have to find out what happens."

Now I am reading Girls in Pants, the Third Summer of the Sisterhood—another novel, another kids' book. (When I was a kid, I plunged into summer reading. Now, as a parent, I seem to be reading the bidding of my kids. My mandatory list...)

But after my long poetry-only reading period, I was a bit startled at how a good narrative, a fast-moving plot, could wrap me around its dramatic little finger.

Can poetry be a page turner? Or should it even be?

*****

Without any plot worthy of Machiavelli or the Medicis, I've updated the sofa with some poems inspired by visits to Italy and France.