I threw naked in there so you’d read this. There’s really no nudity…but you might as well continue on, because there’s some good stuff here.

This week I’m launching a new project. Wednesdays will continue to be a weekly rant about writing, and life, and inspiration, and all the strange, obscure references to pop culture I can muster while still being relevant to the topic (it’s an art form people).

But every Thursday I’ll be starting a new post series called Verseday.

I’ll be posting a poem each week that I’ve written either recently or dusted off from some old file folder. You’re welcome to contribute your criticisms and comments.

In addition I’ll be hitting up some of my talented and nimble-worded friends and colleagues for poetic contributions. This whimsy will continue until I gather a good pool of work and I’ll select the finest pieces, mine and yours, to publish the first ever Beautiful Stuff Poetry Anthology (I’m thinking of a snappier title as we speak).

So if you love poetry, if you write poetry, if you’d like a chance to be a part of a gathering of words and ideas, drop me a line.

The only requirements for entries are that they have to be yours, previously unpublished, and be something you’ve sunk some part of your soul into. Humorous or dark, nature-inspired or industrial driven, pious or chocked full of the f-bomb, I’ll look at them all.

I’ll set up a Facebook page to more easily contact me specifically for Verseday Submissions. Not every poem will be selected (there’s only 52 weeks in a year after all, and I want a little of the glory too) and if you send me anything that’s horrifically violent (shockingly awful gore etc.), racist, or otherwise unjustly hateful, you probably won’t be hearing back from me.

With that in mind, keep an eye out here at The Beautiful Stuff and on my author page (S.E. Reichert on Facebook) for links to the submission guidelines.

This week’s blog was taken up by a lot of hoopla for Verseday but I want to spend the limited time left talking to you about HOME.

Home is something we humans have an odd sense of connection to. Home is where your heart is. You can’t go back Home. Home for the Holidays, Hearth and Home. Home Sweet Home. Home alone. Home again. Homeward bound. Home safe.

For some home is a physical place, for some it’s a person, some it’s a meal or a smell, or a sound. For some, it has negative connotations, a place where they suffered fear or abuse. For some it was a place that moved with changing guardians. For some it was a grandparent’s arms, or a roommate’s couch. For every person, there is a different sense of it and some of us still haven’t found it.

What does home mean to you? Is it a place you can close the door on the world and take off your bra and relax? Is it the person who’s smile and voice lowers your heart rate and washes you over in calm? Is it the wiggling furry body of a dog, anxiously excited to see you EVERY SINGLE TIME you walk in the door?

Is it a church, a synagogue, a mosque? A quiet corner where you meditate or yoga your little heart out?

Is it turkey dinner? Is it Sunday football? Is it the smell of fresh cut hay, or campfire? Is it the sound of a river rushing down a mountain’s craggy side? What makes these things home?

I’m inclined to believe that we build home at the first instrumental moments we are aware of a sense of place, safety, and worth.

When the pitch of your sister’s laugh is the same as your own. When the smell of Swedish meatballs cooking on the stove came with your mom’s hug after a tough day.

When, in the midst of personal crisis, spiraling depression, and loss of self and worth, a mountain takes you in and shows you how meaningful and symbiotic you are to the world.

Home is the lightness and comfort that settles into your heart when you don’t have to question or fear that you belong.

Next week, I want to touch on this again, and am looking for comments and replies about your version of home, and what it means to you. Good and bad. Warm or ugly. Tell me all.