Friday Poetry Blog Review Week 29 on Celebrating A Year (By Leo)

I’ve been a blogger for four years and eleven months now, and I’ve crossed milestones, celebrated most of them, but never actually celebrated each year in all its glory. Well, today I review a blog which has been going for two years and into its third. The title of this blog celebrates each year of its existence, and aptly termed “Celebrating a Year”, and it’s owned by Marilynn Mair, or mairmusic, as her penname tells.

Who’s the conductor of this orchestra?

Mandolinist of international acclaim, recording artist, professor of music, and author of “The Complete Mandolinist”, Marilynn Mair conducts the symphony of poetry at this orchestra. She is a performing artist since over three decades, representing the United States in music festivals across the world. She has over a dozen highly acclaimed CDs of solo and ensembles. She is also held in high regard as teacher and scholar, currently a professor of music at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island.

The Third Year Symphony:

Marilynn says that the blog was made to keep creativity in focus in daily life, and perhaps to create moments from her busy life to engrave in memories. The symphony, “Celebrating a Year” was started on 16th October 2008, also her birthday. Since then it has had posts regularly till this month, not missing out on a month in between. Starting with sonnets, the blog has branched out in its forms, including rondeau, villanelle, pantoum, and decima . The design of the blog is the simplest I think that Wordpress offers and I think it suits very well. The single sidebar has details of the years gone by and what additions she had planned/ is planning to add to her blog. It also has a small description about her, a link to her music website, details of the forms mentioned above, the tags of forms to search, the pull down menu of archives and a subscription button to get her post updates via mail (I’ll recommend this)

The Notes of the Symphony:

Anybody who has read Marilynn can probably vouch that the poetry in the blog is captivating. A blog started to capture memorable moments has given readers some memorable poetry as well. If the poetry is the cake, the sharing of the various forms in the blog, its details so the readers can have a go at it if they’re interested… well, that’s the icing on the cake. I think the most preferred form for her has been sonnet, which she began in the first year, and the most recent has been the pantoum; but for me, the best form she does is the pantoum. There are three poems only in that genre, but I find it a challenging form and am yet to get it right, having started to try it after reading “An Interesting Change” in September.

It is also very nice to see the poetess use her own photography in the posts, and the camerawork here is quite exquisite. Other than poetry, at times there is just a simple description of the photograph too, but in my opinion, there is a bit of poetry felt even in that. If she’s on a poetic break, the photographs are accompanied by a small paragraph so the photo’s essence is framed in words as well. For this coming year, she will be sharing some of her performance with us in “Musical Sunday” at the blog.

Suggestions:

Well, the template is fine… I’ve found it attractive every time I visit it. In addition to Musical Sunday, I hope we see some other forms of poetry from you as well. It’s a learning experience, that sidebar!

The Critic of the Symphony:

I’m Leo; author of I Rhyme Without Reason, co-host of Review Tuesdays here at Jingle Poetry along with Someone is Special. Hope you enjoy reading about the blogs, and do go read them too. Marilynn, it has been a pleasure and honor to review such a beautiful blog. Do let me know how you found it, or if I went wrong somewhere!