Here are the results of a poll reported by The Guardian of the most irritating phrases in the English language:

The saying "at the end of the day" has been voted the most irritating phrase in the English language. Close on its heels was "at this moment in time."

The constant use of "like" as a form of punctuation was third.

"With all due respect" was fourth. "To be honest with you", or "To be perfectly honest" fifth. The phrases topped an informal poll held by the Plain English Campaign among 5,000 supporters in 70 countries.
(Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004 John Ezard)

I can't help but think of Lu Chi, China’s Aristotle, who wrote in the third century A.D, "One can make music and still lack all harmony."*)

NEWS FLASH: My novel, "I Love You Like a Tomato," is now out in mass paperback (only $6.99) and I’m very pleased with the new cover and the look of the book. Please do check it out.

We’ve extended the deadline for the next issue of ROADSPOETRY, the new online poetry journal. Check it out at ROADSPOETRY.com and submit your work.

The great Lu Chi also wrote in his Wen Fu,
"A common song sung to a great melody
is another way to find beauty.”*

* translated by Sam Hamill

A Writersword today for you about the tool of memorization:

Here are a couple of interesting thoughts from Socrates, who said reading is but words in which sign and meaning overlap with a certain precision, but it’s the reader who does the real work because the reader must interpret, comment, associate, refute and embrace what’s there in the written word. Socrates claimed that the reader is the one who does the lasting work, for there must be exegesis, symbolic and sensory association made, and these rise not from the text itself, but from the reader’s mind. It’s the reader who prolongs and passes along memory because the reader does the remembering age upon age, and memorizes the words and ideas. Socrates, of course, believed discourse to be the pre-eminent tool of learning.

Then there’s Petrarch, who in his Secretum Meum, has a dialog with St. Augustine in which Augustine tells him, "... There's such a mob of lettered men ... But if you'd jot down a few notes in their proper place, you'd easily enjoy the fruit of your reading." He went on to tell him, "Whenever you read a book and come across any wonderful phrases which you feel stir or delight your soul, don't merely trust the power of your own intelligence, but force yourself to learn them by heart and make them familiar by meditating on them, so that whenever an urgent case of affliction arises, you'll have the remedy ready..."

Which brings me to this interesting medical discovery: A second century Roman doctor named Antyllus, claimed that those who had never memorized verses sometimes have great pains eliminating. He said memorizing verses with a keen memory gets rid of noxious fluids in the body simply by breathing.

Well,heck, why not try it?

I hope to see you this coming Sunday, February 15, at the House of Italy in Balboa Park (San Diego) where we'll be having an "I Love You Like a Tomato" festa. I'll be reading, signing and discussing, and there will be food (Italian, of course).

It's always good to see you and hear from you.
Keep healthy (and memorize something beautiful.)
Con affetto, Marie

Walt Whitman pointed out that our task is to read the world, since that colossal book is the only source of knowledge for mortals. Goethe wrote, "See how Nature is a living book,/ Misunderstood but not beyond understanding." But humans, made in the image of God, are also books to be read. The act of reading serves as a metaphor to help us understand our hesitant relationship with one another. We read each other as open books, for example. Lady Macbeth said to her husband, "Your face, my Thane, is as a book where men may read strange matters." 17th century poet, Henry King, wrote of his wife, "Thou art the Book/ the Library whereon I look/ Though almost blind ..." Addressing himself to God, St. Augustine wrote how angels, without the syllables of time, read only God's will, choosing it, loving it, and their reading never comes to an end. In reading we make a book our own, and the end is that book and reader become one, text and reader intertwined. The writer is not the sole inventor, according to Emerson who said, "One must be an inventor to read well."

Please read well and check out ROADSPOETRY.com for our second issue of this new on-line poetry journal. We feature the wonderful poems of Scott Cairns and Sydney Lea plus other dynamic poets you'll enjoy reading (and the act of inventing).

And if you're in the San Diego area, please come and see me this coming Saturday, January 17 at ScottJames Books in Mission Hills for a great Italian fiesta with homemade Italian food, wine and me reading from my new novel, "I Love You Like a Tomato" and signing books. The time is 6-9 pm. The address is 914 W. Washington Street. Call for directions: 619-291-5860 and check out the store at: ScottJamesStore.com.

Con affetto, Marie