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Before getting back to the travel catch-up, I also owe everybody an update on the Stafford Challenge. I’ll finish off April here and write a separate post about May. (And, later on, one about June. But I intend to do some other catching up between the May and June posts.)

The April guest poet was Kevin Prufer. His talk focused on images and what they mean. He distinguished between image meeting abstraction vs. image meeting another image. He used a few poems by Russell Atkins to illustrate this. I thought it was interesting that he drew pictures on a whiteboard to make the idea more concrete. He also talked about the use of white space (e.g. breaks between parts of a poem) and moving white space around when editing the poem, which he referred to as “moving with the silence.” Overall, it was an interesting talk, though I’m not sure how useful it was to me.

As for titles of poems for April 11th on, here they are.

Week 13:

11 April 2026 - Zip Ode #2: MyTo-Do List

12 April 2026 - Notes On My Phone (Written on 25 March 2022)

13 April 2026 - Marshmallows

14 April 2026 - Telephones

15 April 2026 - Tax Day

16 April 2026 - Early Voting Haiku

17 April 2026 - Reunion Happy Hour

Week 14:

18 April 2026 - 50 Years Later

19 April 2026 - Amtrak Acela

20 April 2026 - Underwear

21 April 2026 - Traveling When Old

22 April 2026 - Collective Poems

23 April 2026 - Occupation Tapestry (Jersey)

24 April 2026 - Jersey Zoo

Week 15:

25 April 2026 - Guernsey Ferry haiku

26 April 2026 - Bathing Pools, Guernsey

27 April 2026 - Relationship Rhyme

28 April 2026 - Poetry Reading

29 April 2026 - Ferry Noises

30 April 2026 - The British Museum

1 May 2026 - Shakespeare’s Deaths

Note that this post got delayed a little over a week because of a power outage just before I left for a short trip to California. I’m going to get caught up real soon now.

I have another trip (to Australia) to write about. It will have three parts and I hope to get started on it in the next few days. But I want to do a bit of other catching up first. Let’s start with the ever popular celebrity death watch.

Belated Celebrity Death Watch: I only recently learned that Scottish singer/songwriter Adam Mcnaughton died in early December 2025. What first brought him to my attention were his two Shakespearean songs - Oor Hamlet and The Scottish Song. I had the interesting experience of seeing him perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival back in 1998.

Celebrity Death Watch - April 2026: Dave Mason was a founding member of the rock band Traffic and wrote some of their songs. Patrick Muldoon was a soap opera actor. Alan Osmond was the eldest of the Osmond brothers. Dirk Kempthorne was a senator, governor of Idaho, and secretary of the Interior. Donald Riegle was a congressman and senator from Michigan, notable for his opposition to the Vietnam War (which led him to switch from the Republican to the Democratic party) and for co=sponsoring the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (with Bella Abzug). Nedra Talley sang with The Ronettes. David Allen Coe was a country singer and songwriter, responsible for writing “Take This Job and Shove It.” Gordon Snell was a British children’s author but is probably more famous for having been married to Maeve Binchy. Gwen Farrell was the first licensed woman boxing referee. Alex Ligertwood was the lead vocalist for Santana.


Michael Tilson Thomas was one of the most distinguished orchestra conductors of our times, as well as a pianist and composer. Some of the orchestras he was affiliated with during his career included the New World Symphony London Symphony Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. I was privileged to see him conduct a few times and particularly appreciated his insightful spoken introductions to the pieces he conducted. He was on my ghoul pool list and earned me 18 points.

Nicole Hollander was a feminist cartoonist, best known for her comic strip Sylvia. She retired in 2012, but her comics have retained their relevance. She also drew a lot of comics about cats, including illustrating several books by Allia Zobel.

Celebrity Death Watch - May 2026: Greg Hyman co-created Tickle Me Elmo. Martin Weisskopf was a scientist, specializing in x-ray astronomy for NASA. Judith Barnard co-write several novels, e.g. Deceptions with her husband, Michael Fain, using the pseudonym Judith Michael. Aryeh Stern was the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. Michael Pennington was an actor and co-founder of the English Shakespeare Company. Bobby Cox was a Hall of Fame baseball manager for the Atlanta Braves and Toronto Blue Jays. David Burke was a British actor, best known for playing Dr. Watson opposite Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. Abraham Foxman directed the Anti-Defamation League from 1987 through 2015. Mark Fuhrman was an LAPD detective, best known for allegations of manufacturing evidence in the O.J. Simpson trial. Rex Reed was a film critic. Clarence Carter was a singer-songwriter, best know for the song “Patches,” which is (in my opinion) one of the sappiest songs of all time. Claudine Longet was an singer and actress, most famous for shooting her boyfriend, an Olympic skier. Edmund Phelps won the Nobel prize for economics in 2006. John A. Lent founded the International Journal of Comic Art. Dennis Lecorriere was a founding member of Dr. Hook. Michael M. May was a theoretical physicist who became the 5th director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and later co-directed the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford. Peter G. Neumann was a computer scientist who studied how computers failed and how to make them fail less often. Piper J. Drake wrote speculative fiction. Maribeth Sisco was a folklorist and storyteller whose work centered on her Ozark heritage. Cleve Moler created MATLAB. Kyle Busch was a NASCAR driver. Ted White was a science fiction writer. Robert Daley wrote both crime fiction and true crime books.


Ted Turner was a media titan and also owned the Atlanta Braves. I think only MIT-affiliated people of my age remember that TBS was originally (as WTBS) Technology Broadcasting System and was the MIT amateur radio station. Turner bought it (leading it to become Turner Broadcasting System) and MIT’s radio station to become WMBR (which stands for Walker Memorial Basement Radio).

Manny Nosowsky was a crossword puzzle constructor. He had more puzzle published in the New York Times than any other constructor.

Sonny Rollins was a jazz saxophonist. He was a defining figure of the genre and was awarded a lifetime Grammy Award.

Celebrity Death Watch - June 2026: Peabo Bryson was a Grammy award singer of Disney duets. Marjane Satrapi was a Iranian writer, best known for the graphic novel Persepolis. Lady Pamela Hicks was a bridesmaid and, later, lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II. James Bradley wrote historical non-fiction, notably Flags of Our Fathers. Lee Raymond was the chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil from 1987 to 2005. Bob Packwood was a senator from Oregon for over 25 years who resigned after allegations of sexual harassment and assault of women. Alan Hale was an astronomer and co-discoverer of Comet Hale-Bopp. Mary Hooper wrote historical fiction for children. Dee Palmer was an arranger for Jethro Tull. Danny Simmons was an abstract expressionist painter. Justin Cary played bass guitar for Sixpence None the Richer.


Anthony Stewart Head was an actor and singer. He was best known for playing Rupert Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He also appeared in other television roles and a seres of coffee commercials.

Jane Yolen wrote fantasy, science fiction and children’s books. She also collected folk tales. In 2012, she became the first woman to give the Andrew Lang lecture at the University of St. Andrews on the subject of “Folklore vs. Fakelore: An Imagine Conversation with Andrew Lang.” Her 450th and final book is scheduled to be published in July.

David Hockney was an influential painter. In 2018 his painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures sold at Christie’s for $90 million, making it the most expensive artwork by a living artist to be sold at auction. (This record was later surpassed by a sculpture of Jeff Koons, proving that there is no accounting for taste, or lack thereof.)

Gene Shalit was a movie critic, known primarily for his appearances on The Today Show. As someone with thick curly hair and a fondness for puns, I related to him. (Thankfully, I don’t have a matching mustache.)

Yaakov Agam was an Israeli sculptor, best known for his brightly colored kinetic and optical art. I particularly liked his fountain in Dizenoff Square in Tel Aviv, which also served as a useful landmark when I stayed at a hotel nearby.

Family Death Watch: My sister-in-law, Cynthia Banks, died in late March. This wasn’t particularly surprising, as she’d had heart issues for some time. In fact, one of my brother’s friends had refused to go to their wedding because he thought my brother was making a mistake and would just spend all his time as a caretaker. By the way, I have heard nothing at all about any plans for a celebration of life.

Friend Death Watch: I knew Marleen May from the Loser community. She had gotten ink several times in the Invitational and was a frequent attendee at Loser brunches and other events like the Flushies. I was able to go to the last day of shiva at her very impressive house (and give a ride to another Loser). I will miss her sharp wit and enthusiastic spirit.

I knew Kate Miller from my Needles & Crafts group (which meets on-line every other week). I hadn’t known until I read her obituary that she had a degree in Petroleum Engineering and had worked as a gas pipeline inspector for several years.

I also learned recently that my former colleague, Kevin Walker, died of cancer last year.

Finally, Joan Brown Swift died a couple of days ago. I knew her from the Virginia Storytelling Alliance. She was a kind person and a great storyteller. I have particularly fond memories of her tandem telling with her late husband, Mack.