Say Goodbye - Win This Book

That's how we live,

                  always

     saying goodbye.

— Rilke, 8th Duino Elegy


For months, I've been dipping in and out of Ten Poems to Say Goodbye, by Roger Housden.

It's a thoughtful offering, a slim but deep book. And it's the last in Housden's Ten Poems series — Ten Poems to Change Your Life; Ten Poems to Set You Free; Ten Poems to Open Your Heart; Ten Poems to Last a Lifetime — in which he highlights the beauty and magic of poetry.

In Ten Poems to Say Goodbye, he examines and honors work from some my favorite poets: Ellen Bass, Pablo Neruda, Dorianne Laux, Jack Gilbert, Gerald Stern, Robert Hayden, e.e. cummings, Leonard Cohen, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Jane Hirshfield.

And though the topic is heavy, the exploration is touching, conversational, valuable, and real.

I'd like to share this book with you. No strings. No complicated entry requirements. Simply leave your name and contact info in the "Post a Comment" area below by Sunday, June 3rd. I'll randomly draw one name, and announce the winner on Monday, June 4th, 2012.

 

Thankful Thursday: Near Miss

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

Sometimes I am thankful for the near miss — the check that doesn't bounce, the tree that falls inches from the house, the benign tumor, the car door ding instead of the side-sweeping crash. Crisis, big and small, averted.

This week a friend (for whom I am thankful) sent me a poem, with this perceptive note: I like the poem for many things, among them its reminder of the hair's breadth we always are from not-being.

Thanks

Thanks for the tree

between me & a sniper's bullet.
I don't know what made the grass
sway seconds before the Viet Cong
raised his soundless rifle.
Some voice always followed,
telling me which foot
to put down first.
Thanks for deflecting the ricochet
against that anarchy of dusk.
I was back in San Francisco
wrapped up in a woman's wild colors,
causing some dark bird's love call
to be shattered by daylight
when my hands reached up
& pulled a branch away
from my face. Thanks
for the vague white flower
that pointed to the gleaming metal
reflecting how it is to be broken
like mist over the grass,
as we played some deadly
game for blind gods.
What made me spot the monarch
writing on a single thread
tied to the farmer's gate,
holding the day together
like an unfingered guitar string,
is beyond me. Maybe the hills
grew weary & leaned a little in the heat.
Again, thanks for the dud
hand grenade tossed at my feet
outside Chu Lai. I'm still
falling through its silence.
I don't know why the intrepid
sun touched the bayonet,
but I know that something
stood among those lost trees
and moved only when I moved.

— Yusef Komunyakaa

 

What are you thankful for today? 

 

A Poem Each Day: What I Learned

I didn't want to write a poem every day.

When good, disciplined (read: over-achieving) writers gear up for the annual rite of writerhood — the Poem-A-Day challenge to celebrate National Poetry Month —  I steer clear. I dread adding another thing to my "didn't live up to it" list. But this year, as April rolled around, something shifted. A friend — not a poet, but a novelist — asked if I would write a Poem A Day with her. I set my resistance aside and said yes. I'm glad I did because I learned so much:

1.
Write drivel, dreck, and dregs.

I was a reluctant participant. I agreed to join the Poem A Day bandwagon with one critical caveat: I can write junk. I can write sloppy drafts and then, later, consider revision. For now, this month, I will simply write.

All month my partner and I exchanged what we called, "drivel, dreck and dregs." It's our minds that hold us back, of course, and starting each day with permission to write junk allowed us dive in and play, and cast the internal (and eternal) critic aside.

2.
Structure is good.

In writing, as in life, structure is my friend. In my professional life, I compose a daily To Do list. I rarely accomplish everything on my list, but the process helps me filter and focus, and provides a frame for the day.

My writing life benefits from the same routine. Every day for a month, I jotted my list, leading with Write poem. This is the magic of hand and mind. Structure, agendas, lists — these are my best writing tools.

3.
Writing is exercise.

I don't like to run, but I always feel better after a run.

Alas, the same holds for writing. Many times I don't want to write; I'm not "feeling" it. I'm too tired, cranky, or busy. Much to my surprise, in the practice of daily writing I found the strongest work resulted from the days I had little time and/or desire to write.

Like a run, I know now that I've gotta push through. With a jog, the first 10 minutes are the most difficult; my body is sluggish and my mind resistant. In writing, the same holds true. If I can get past the 10 minute mark, if I can carve out a slice of time to write, I can usually unrattle my mind and body and get to the good stuff.

4.
A writing partner makes all the difference.

I would not have taken part in this project without a friend urging and encouraging me on. It's critical to choose your writing partner wisely, establish "rules," and cross your fingers for a good fit.

Before we began, we agreed on some ground rules:

1) Show up daily

2) We are allowed to write junk

3) Offer only encouragement

This was not the time to critique work; these were poems too fresh for the scalpel. At the same time, we agreed not to cheerlead. We could comment, or not comment, without pressure or obligation. Some days we applauded and others we simply said, Thanks for showing up.

The trust of a kindred spirit deepened my appreciation for poetry, and for my friend. In my month of writing, there may be one or two poems worth reworking, but it's the exchange — the sharing of poems and process — I value most.

Did you take part in the Poem-A-Day Challenge? How’d it go?

 

Thankful Thursday: Why I Write

 It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.


On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for the way one thing leads to another. Of course, and always.

A chance meeting leads to a conversation, leads to introspection, leads to examination. Hours later, rushed and heavy-hearted, I am in a writing workshop with nature essayist Kathleen Dean Moore. She's speaking softly but fiercely, and I am gathered on the edge of every word.

The world is invested in renewal, she says. Everything blooms, grows, dies, and tries again. What is the role of the writer?

She shares this manifesto. We read it aloud, line by line, in a circle, our voices rising and falling — grasping, getting, giving. On days when the world spins with questions, it's comforting to examine and then hold, if even briefly, a slice of certainty.

Why I Write

by Terry Tempest Williams
from Writing Creative Nonfiction

I write to make peace with the things I cannot control.

I write to create fabric in a world that often appears black and white. I write to discover. I write to uncover. I write to meet my ghosts. I write to begin a dialogue. I write to imagine things differently and in imagining things differently perhaps the world will change. I write to honor beauty. I write to correspond with my friends. I write as a daily act of improvisation. I write because it creates my composure. I write against power and for democracy. I write myself out of my nightmares and into my dreams. I write in a solitude born out of community. I write to the questions that shatter my sleep. I write to the answers that keep me complacent.

I write to remember. I write to forget. I write to the music that opens my heart. I write to quell the pain. I write to migrating birds with the hubris of language. I write as a form of translation. I write with the patience of melancholy in winter. I write because it allows me to confront that which I do not know. I write as an act of faith. I write as an act of slowness. I write to record what I love in the face of loss. I write because it makes me less fearful of death. I write as an exercise in pure joy. I write as one who walks on the surface of a frozen river beginning to melt. I write out of my anger and into my passion. I write from the stillness of night anticipating-always anticipating.

I write to listen. I write out of silence. I write to soothe the voices shouting inside me, outside me, all around. I write because of the humor of our condition as humans. I write because I believe in words. I write because I do not believe in words. I write because it is a dance with paradox. I write because you can play on the page like a child left alone in sand. I write because it belongs to the force of the moon: high tide, low tide. I write because it is the way I take long walks. I write as a bow to wilderness. I write because I believe it can create a path in darkness. I write because as a child I spoke a different language. I write with a knife carving each word through the generosity of trees. I write as ritual. I write because I am not employable. I write out of my inconsistencies. I write because then I do not have to speak. I write with the colors of memory.

I write as a witness to what I have seen. I write as a witness to what I imagine. I write by grace and grit. I write out of indigestion. I write when I am starving. I write when I am full. I write to the dead. I write out of the body. I write to put food on the table. I write on the other side of procrastination. I write for the children we never had. I write for the love of ideas. I write for the surprise of a sentence. I write with the belief of alchemists. I write knowing I will always fail. I write knowing words always fall short. I write knowing I can be killed by my own words, stabbed by syntax, crucified by both understanding and misunderstanding. I write out of ignorance.

I write by accident. I write past the embarrassment of exposure. I keep writing and suddenly, I am overcome by the sheer indulgence, (the madness,) the meaninglessness, the ridiculousness of this list. I trust nothing especially myself and slide head first into the familiar abyss of doubt and humiliation and threaten to push the delete button on my way down, or madly erase each line, pick up the paper and rip it into shreds-and then I realize, it doesn't matter, words are always a gamble, words are splinters from cut glass. I write because it is dangerous, a bloody risk, like love, to form the words, to say the words, to touch the source, to be touched, to reveal how vulnerable we are, how transient.

I write as though I am whispering in the ear of the one I love.

 

What are you thankful for today?


What's on your agenda?

To Do

Start here.

Show up.

Be present.

Be honest.

Work hard.

Work up.

Work out.

Stand tall.

Stand up.

Stand out.

Speak softly.

Seek love.

Seek help.

Help others.

Help yourself.

You are.

You can.

You wish.

You want.

Clear out.

Clear up.

Dry up.

Dry out.

Drive by.

Walk in.

Stroll through.

Get up.

Get lost.

Breathe deep.

Breathe hard.

Breathe in.

Know yourself.

Be yourself.

Begin again.

- In answer to the question, "What's on your agenda?"
  by Drew Myron


Thankful Thursday: Steal

On this Thankful Thursday, I am thankful for permission to steal.

Today's steal sponsored by Poets & Writers, where this week's writing prompt calls for a cento.

Latin for patchwork, a cento is a poem composed entirely of fragments and lines taken from other poems and/or written sources. As a fan of collage, this prompt really perked me up —  and gave me permission to wander through poetry books and borrow great lines. I discovered the process of collecting (or stealing) is as much fun as writing (or, in this case, arranging) the lines.

Here's my cento:

This season won’t last 1

There are times when
the mind knows no wholeness.2
This is the enclosure (flesh,
where innocence is a weapon) 3
where the air has a texture
of drying moss.4

Dearest. — I remember how 5
my mind carried the night, wailing. 6
You’re only as sick as your secrets. 7
There is unexpected sun today, 8
or something like that. 9


Sources:
1. Margot Lavoie - March madness
2. Laurie Sheck - Nocturne: Blue Waves
3. Amiri Baraka - An Agony. As Now.
4. Susan Stewart - The Forest
5. Frank Bidart - Ellen West
6. Drew Myron - Lessons, winter
7. Brenda Shaughnessy - Your One Good Dress
8. Elizabeth Alexander - The Venus Hottentot
9. Adrian C. Louis - Looking for Judas

All lines, except 1 and 6, culled from The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry. 

It's Thankful Thursday! Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise. Please join me in a weekly pause to appreciate the people, places & things that bring joy. What are you thankful for today?


Start Now?

     In this season of fresh starts, what are you creating?

     A book, a poem, a painting, a home?

     Are you jotting lists, stacking stones, making plans?

     Does your head spin, heart race, hand shake? 

     Do you wonder, wander, worry?

     Tell me, I'd really like to know, what stirs

     your imagination, what stretches your mind?

 

 

On Sunday: Try This


Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

              (for Kellie Jones, born 16 May 1959)

Lately, I've become accustomed to the way
The ground opens up and envelops me
Each time I go out to walk the dog.
Or the broad edged silly music the wind
Makes when I run for a bus . . .

Things have come to that.

And now, each night I count the stars,
And each night I get the same number.
And when they will not come to be counted,
I count the holes they leave.

Nobody sings anymore.

And then last night, I tiptoed up
To my daughter's room and heard her
Talking to someone, and when I opened
The door, there was no one there . . .
Only she on her knees, peeking into

Her own clasped hands.

- Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones)

 

For years, I've carried lines from this poem in my head: Nobody sings anymore . . . Things have come to that . . . I count the holes they leave. I love the title, how it suggests backstory to events deep and complex, and the way the poem offers everyday acts that, in their simplicity, turn reverent and illuminating.

This is the thing about poems: We can carry them in us, and draw our own (and changing) conclusions. We can pluck lines and make our own meaning.

Try this: Pick a line from this poem and use it as your own. Let it launch you into new work. Where will it take you? What words will you follow?  If you like, share your fresh words here, by posting them in the comments sections below.  Or, if you're feeling shy, email me --- dcm@drewmyron.com.


Tell me a (short) story

For readers and writers, will the fun never end?

Hot on the heels on National Poetry Month, we roll into May and National Short Story Month. Now in its sixth year, Short Story Month was initiated by the Emerging Writers Network, a site offering reviews and interviews. 

Joining the festivities, Fiction Writers Review is hosting The Collection Giveaway Project, a community effort to champion great short story collections.

To celebrate, I'm revisiting some of my favorite short stories, and looking for new collections to add to the list.

Death is Not an Option
by Suzanne Rivecca

In her 2010 debut, Rivecca delivers piercing prose. "Most of Rivecca’s ruthlessly frank and lonely characters have left religion, and the saving they seek in this modest, engaging and disquieting collection is from the plague of isolation," explains the New York Times Book Review. 

 

Music Through the Floor
by Eric Puchner

"The nine stories in his debut collection are executed with such fluency, constructed with such surprising plot twists and blessed with so many bright, memorable lines that they rise above the contemporary din," the New York Times Book Review says of this 2005 collection.

 

 

Birds of America
by Lorrie Moore

A New York Times Book of the Year that is "at once wise, punchy, funny and sad," writes Powell's Books. "With language that is clever and crisp, Moore deftly strips the disguises and barriers we spend our whole lives building and exposes us for the quirky, vulnerable and often confused individuals we are."

 

My Life in Heavy Metal
by Steve Almond

"The big thing in Almond's stories is that his characters really like to have sex," notes the The New York Times Book Review. "Almond writes well about the act itself, a pretty rare talent. But his stories take off when he . . . looks beyond the bedroom at the world around him."

 

 

Chilly Scenes of Winter
by Ann Beattie

I came to appreciate short stories in the 1990s with the discovery of Ann Beattie, a master in the art and ache of yearning. She takes what her publisher calls an "uncannily accurate look at the nostalgia suffered by people yearning for deeper feelings in a culture that turns feelings into cliches."

 

Do you read short stories? What are some of your favorite collections?


Big Poetry Winners

And the winners of the Big Poetry Giveaway are . . .

Diane Lockard
won Fuel by Naomi Shihab Nye

Tara Mae Mulroy
won Sweet Grief by Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron (that's me!)


This was great fun; thanks for playing.

Wind-down & win

April is winding down, and with that National Poetry Month comes to a close. After a rush of readings, writing and events, I'm exhausted, in that good, full-of-words kind of way.

But wait, there's more!

Let's finish on a high note — with the Big Poetry Giveaway. I'm giving away two great books; enter the drawing by midnight on Monday, April 30, 2012. I'll announce the winner on Tuesday, May 1st.

Go here to enter for the chance to win.

 

Clip, Carry, Share

Are you ready for Poem in Your Pocket Day?

Call me goofy, but I love this annual opportunity to share poems with abandon. As part of National Poetry Month, the Academy of American Poets celebrates Poem in Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 26, 2012.

The idea is simple: select a poem you love, carry it with you, and share it with friends, family, neighbors, co-workers and more. I also like to share poetry with strangers, and sometimes leave poems on car windshields (instead of a ticket, a poem!), in mailboxes (instead of a bill, a poem!), and often pop a few in the mail to farwaway friends.

This year, I will carry the poem above. Need a poem? You can print this page and clip, carry and share it with others. Already picked your poem? Please, will you share it with us?

 

Sweet Grief

Sweet Grief, a collaboration of paintings and poems, opens tonight at the Windermere Gallery in Seal Rock, Oregon. Can't make it to the show? We've created a book featuring the 12 paintings paired with 12 poems.

From the Sweet Grief Introduction:

Sweet Grief: Paintings and Poems on Love and Loss

by Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron

Dying sucks.

A creative collaboration began with those two words.

The collaboration — 12 paintings paired with 12 poems — is the work of Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron, two women who met in 2005 and bonded over an appreciation for children and families in need. At Seashore Family Literacy, the nonprofit organization that Senitila created and runs, Drew serves as writing instructor.

Sweet Grief began in the summer of 2011 when Senitila’s husband of 33 years was diagnosed with cancer. David McKinley died just a few months later.  

At what turned out to be his last visit with Drew, he was clear and direct.  “Dying sucks,” he said. “I’m not gonna lie.”

Later, with her friend, Senitila was pragmatic: “Death is not a crisis,” she said firmly. “It’s a beautiful part of life.”

With that in mind, Senitila and Drew explored love and loss through their art. What was initially specific to David’s death became a larger meditation and appreciation for the weighty beauty of being with the ones you love to their very end.

“Grief is a beautiful thing,” says Senitila, “not something to be afraid of, but to enjoy because it is still a gift. We think that only mystical people have a meaningful understanding of death. But it’s not true. To look at death and grief as a gift is not reserved for those who have a defined spiritual journey, but for everyone that has known love.”

 

Special edition exhibition book - $10

 

 

Thankful Thursday: Three Things

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

1.
I'm running. Bedraggled (read history here), I am ready to surrender to my wheezing lungs when a runner approaches. She's fast and beautiful in that slender-lean-young runner way. As we pass each other, she raises her arm to a high-five. No words are exchanged, just my stunned smile and a sudden lift in my step. Thank you Anonymous Runner for a kind gesture that encouraged me on. 

2.
“Grief is a beautiful thing, not something to be afraid of, but to enjoy because it is still a gift," says artist Senitila McKinley. This Saturday night, Senitila and I will debut Sweet Grief, our collaboration of poems and paintings. The show runs April 20 - May 20, 2012 in Seal Rock, Oregon, and we've also published a book. I am thankful for this heart-changing project with a heart-changing friend.

3.
It's been a full week. When I get wrapped up in deadlines and demands, I'm thankful for this survival strategy from Jessica Hagy at Indexed:

 

Enough about me, what are you thankful for today?
 


On Sunday

God

Maybe you're a verb, or some
lost part of speech
that would let us talk sense
instead of monkey-screech

when we try to explain you
to our loved ones and ourselves
when we most need to.
Who knows why someone dies

in the thick of happiness,
his true love finally found,
the world showing success
as if the world were only a cloud

that floated in a dream
above a perfect day?
Are you also dreaming our words?
Give us something to say.

- Michael Ryan
from New and Selected Poems

 

Last week I tell a friend about poems I am writing. He is heartbroken with the death of one he loved. I do not find beauty in this pain, he says. There is no sweetness in my grief.

I don't have enough words, or the right words, to console. Each death is our own. But later that day, in my purse, among gum wrappers and old receipts, I find this poem.

Some days words arrive, and I accept them as precious gift.

 

Writers give voice to their words

An enthusiastic audience, lively writers, great musicians, and spring weather made Off the Page, on April 6, 2012, a great success.

In its sixth year, Off the Page continued to offer an encouraging spirit of creative expression. Writers from the central Oregon Coast — Lincoln City, South Beach, Waldport and Yachats  — shared their work to a capacity crowd of 80 people at the Overleaf Lodge Event Center.

Many thanks to the writers, singers, songwriters, and the wonderfully supportive crowd for helping Off the Page soar. Our words came out of the dark and cloistered journal and into the world. Thank you.

Tim LoweryNina, one of the young writers from Seashore Family Literary

Richard Sharpless Khlo BratengSusan Fagalde LickBarton Howe

Thankful Thursday: Words Bloom

Vocabulary of Dearness

How a single word
may shimmer and rise
off the page, a wafer of
syllabic light, a bulb
of glowing meaning,
whatever the word,
try "temperature" or "suffer,"
any word you have held
or traded so it lives a new life
the size of two worlds.
Say you carried it
up a hill and it helped you
move. Without this
the days would be thin sticks
thrown down in a clutter of leaves,
and where is the rake?

Naomi Shihab Nye
from Fuel *

 

At Seashore Family Literacy this week, the young writers and I took an unexpected journey, gathering words like flowers for a bouquet that grew fuller with each new bloom.  

What's another word for rusty, I asked? One youngster jumped for the thesaurus, another for the dictionary, and our word hunt began. Rusty led to strident, to tempersome, to drowsy, to frazzled, to daft, and finally to lackadaisical, a word completely unrelated to rusty but the jackpot word nonetheless. (We then spent 10 minutes on spelling and pronunciation).

The next day, a young writer burst into the Writing Room:  I used the word today, she said. I used lackadaisical!

On this Thankful Thursday, I am grateful for shimmering words, and minds eager to use them.

It's Thankful Thursday.
Gratitude. Appreciation. Praise.
Please join me in a weekly pause
to appreciate people, places & things.

What are you thankful for today?


* You could win this book in the Big Poetry Giveaway.


Just what is Off the Page?

Off the Page is on stage this Friday night.

But wait, I see that confused look. You wonder: Is it writing group, workshop, event, or blog?

Answer: All of the above.

Off the Page was first a writing group, that turned into a literary event, that spawned a workshop, and also this blog.

A brief history
I was hungry (read: desperate, lonely) for writing companions when I moved to Oregon in 2004, so I put out a call. That call created a writing group that, for two years, gathered monthly in my home. We'd eat soup, chat, and then dive into writing exercises. We shared our work with each other. In essence, we created and encouraged.

We were a mixed bag. Some of us had never been published and some were professional writers. Some were accomplished professionals -- an actress, a stock broker, an architect. Some were retired.

After we had written together for over a year it seemed time to share our work with a larger audience, and a reading event was born. The first year about 40 people showed up to see us nervous and shaking as we shared our poems and stories. The next year 50 people packed the coffeehouse.

As my circle of colleagues expanded, so, too, did the annual event. After several years we outgrew the cafe and moved to the Overleaf Lodge Event Center, a larger but still intimate venue that holds 80 people. Last year, much to my surprise, it was standing-room only — and to hear largely unknown writers!

What this tells me is that people are eager to support creative expression. And I am beyond grateful for the warmth and encouragement. 

While the initial writing group has long passed — lives change, people move on — the spirit of Off the Page remains. The premise is simple: Writing needs air.

Writing needs air
Over the years, writing has allowed me to wear many professional hats: newspaper reporter, editor, grantwriter, corporate communications, copywriter, and publicist.

I am also a poet who, for years, wrote in the dark, keeping my writing as a deeply personal, never-to-be-revealed part of myself. When I began to take my poetry seriously, I discovered that writing needs air. It needs life. It needs to come out of the cloistered journal and given space. It needs to come off the page and into the world.

And once words lift off the page, they are free to float into ears and soar into hearts.

This is the power of a small start. Just a few words on a page, and then a few more . . .

 

The Big Poetry Giveaway

It's National Poetry Month, and time for the Big Poetry Giveaway.

Initiated three years ago by Kelli Russell Agodon, this annual event celebrates poems, blogs, and the love of books.

How it works: Participating bloggers host a drawing in which they give away two poetry books — one of their own, and one by their favorite poet.

How to win: Simply post your name and email in the Comments area below. The contest runs April 1 - 30, 2012. Two names will be randomly drawn, and winners will be announced on May 1, 2012.

After entering my book giveaway, hop over to Book of Kells to discover the full roster of book drawings. Last year, the list featured more than 50 giveaways! The more blogs you visit, the better your chances to discover — and win — great poetry books.

Enter now, to win these books:

Fuel
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Of the handful of poets I strive to emulate, Naomi Shihab Nye tops the list. Author and editor of more than 20 volumes of poetry, her work pulses with a calm urgency in which she "lends a fresh perspective to ordinary events, people, and objects." Fuel, published in 1998, is her most acclaimed collection.

 

Sweet Grief
by Drew Myron and Senitila McKinley

Two friends and a dying husband are at the heart of a powerful collaboration of paintings and poems exploring love and loss.

The collaboration is the work of Senitila McKinley and Drew Myron (that's me!), two women who share a tenderness for children in need. At Seashore Family Literacy, the nonprofit organization Senitila created and runs, Drew serves as writing instructor.

In 2011, Senitila's husband of 33 years was diagnosed with cancer, and died just a few months later. As a means to express the sense of individual and collective loss, over a period of six months Drew and Senitila created Sweet Grief, an art exhibition and accompanying book featuring 12 paintings and poems offering a range of darkness and light, from the heavy weight of loss to the bright glow of gratitude.

These books could be yours — for free!
To enter the book drawing, just add your name and email in the Comments section below. The contest runs April 1 - 30, 2012. Two names will be randomly drawn, and winners will be announced on May 1, 2012.