Woo-Hoo

Vince has a poem, "Death Itself is Rather Abstract," up at Merge. Congrats! It's a great piece.

Finland, Finland, Finland

It's been a long, almost jobless fall for Tom (insert parental wailing, gnashing of teeth), but at long last he has gainful employment! The national tour of Spamalot is coming to the Morris Civic Theater this week and he's been hired to play bass (insert great parental rejoicing.) This will put him in gas money and books for the whole semester and maybe even lead to a few more jobs (insert angels singing.) And he gets to play The Finnish "Fisch Schlapping Song." All is well with the world.

Tree of Life

Jojo will be turning 18 on January 12th. For this momentous occasion she has been dreaming of getting a tattoo. I want to thank all of you who have encouraged her in this quest. (Your names will not be forgotten.) Be that as it may, she's looking at a Norse World Tree/Tree of Life to put around her ankle. It sounds fairly cool. She explained to me all the mythology behind it, the golden apple, immortality... But I think she could have just written a poem.

Email Glitch - Update

I've been getting various and sundry reports for the past few months that my outgoing email is not being delivered, randomly. If you wrote me and I didn't respond, drop me a line. I can receive emails just fine. I'll respond to you using another account that seems to be working.

So, in short, I haven't intentionally been ignoring anyone. Sorry for any inconvenience.

*

I think I've fixed the problem. Unfortunately, it looks like it's been going on for more than a few months. Maybe even more than a year! It wasn't malware, as I suspected, but an advanced settings tab that I needed to make some refinements to. Darn computers.

Sorry for all the weeping (Rachel ;). I really do return emails. Faithfully.

R.B. Kitaj

The Neo Cubist - R.B. Kitaj

I'm enjoying the painting book I received on Christmas.

Maybe some poetry will come out of it. Who knows?

My Top 20 List - Plus 1

The Best Poetry I Read in 2008

(In no particular order, except Frank Stanford is the king.)

The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You – Frank Stanford

The Light the Dead See – Frank Stanford

Ooga-Booga – Frederick Seidel

Itinerary: Poems – Reginald Shepherd

Internal West: Poems – Priscilla Becker

A World Beyond Myself – Rutger Kopland

What Water Left Behind – Rutger Kopland

The Salt Daughter – Christine Hamm

Figured Dark – Greg Rappleye

Dog Language – Chase Twichell

The Snow Watcher – Chase Twichell

Orange Girl – Simone Muench

Sleeping Woman – Herbert Scott

High Windows – Phillip Larkin

Alive Together: New and Selected Poems – Lisel Mueller

Necessary Stranger – Graham Foust

Glass, Irony and God – Anne Carson

The Beforelife – Franz Wright

For Love: Poem Nineteen Fifty to Nineteen Sixty – Robert Creeley

Deepstep Come Shining – C.D. Wright

A Murmuration of Starlings - Jake Adam York

FGWC

Tuesday, December 30th, 6:00 p.m. The Hammes Bookstore at Notre Dame.

See you there.

Four Cat Night

Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a great one! I can't believe it's here. Again.

The Time

And let's not forget about the animals.
Who is pulling that sleigh, anyway:
Gender of Santa's Reindeer.