25 November 2009

The great figure.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I am sharing with you this photo of my shadow juxtaposed with a pile of spilled pickles on wet concrete. I hope it encourages you somehow to work pickles into your holiday festivities. Or, better yet, to find something ugly enough to be beautiful.

Book news:

The 2008 Akron Poetry Prize winner, The Wild Rose Asylum: Poems of the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland by Rachel Dilworth, is now available from the University of Akron Press and other retailers. Rita Dove made the selection, and the amazing Amy Freels designed the book. Please check it out!

The Nervous Filaments (Four Way Books, February 2010) by David Dodd Lee is now available for pre-order on Amazon. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy. I am also very excited to share the word that David's new book, Orphan, Indiana, is forthcoming from the Akron Series in Poetry, as one of my editor's choice selections from this year's reading period. Full details will appear soon on the UA Press website.

Non-book news:

I am currently eating a school of cheddar and pretzel goldfish crackers, which have been mixed together in a coffee filter (without coffee) for my enjoyment. I highly recommend this as a snack.

I wrote a new poem yesterday, and even though it's very much a draft, I'm so happy to be writing. I have a lot of reading to do over winter break, but I hope to spend a lot of time on new poems, and putting my manuscript together.

End-o-term just might be my favorite part of the semester, until the grading kicks in.

The piles of leaves have finally been removed from my devil strip, tree lawn, parkway, or whatever you call it, thanks to the City of Akron. My yard looks great. I hope the universe doesn't consider this an invitation to send snow.

6 comments:

Karen J. Weyant said...

I've been waiting forever for Rachel Dilworth's book -- can't wait!

Have a wonderful holiday!

Suzanne said...

Good on ya! I love David's poems. Happy Thanksgiving!

marybid said...

Thank you, Suzanne!

Karen, if you look at the UA Press site you can preview a chunk of the book. It's amazing!

Anonymous said...

From the photo, these look more like the ears from Carolyn Forche's poem, The Colonel.

marybid said...

Bernadette...oh my! :)

But I thought those looked like dried peaches.

Lyle Daggett said...

Like "dried peach halves", Carolyn Forche wrote.

When I saw the pickle photo here, after looking at it for a minute I thought they kind of looked like raw mushrooms.

As it happens, for Thanksgiving tomorrow (at my sister's place -- everybody in the family lives here in town) I'm bringing the pickles and olives.

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