Come see about me.

If you're in Denver next week, please check out the diode/Makeout Creek reading and the Jones Theatre of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. I will be reading with some really awesome folks. Hope to see you there!

Proof.

I don't quite know what to think about AWP being next week, but I know that I am all kinds of busy. Not even a glimmer of where I will be (and when) during the conference, aside from the places I'm supposed to be. I will be at the Barn Owl Review table a lot. Details forthcoming.

Behold our proofs! Who knows how much blogging I'll be able to do in the near future, but I will definitely give you a peek at the new issue.

Invective against invectives.

I have spent far too much time away from Wallace Stevens. Where has he been all of these years, aside from his influence, which seems to pervade at least half of the poetry I enjoy reading, if not all of it?

We're on Harmonium for my MFA class, and I have the strangest sense of deja vu, as if I'm back in grad school studying for my comps again, and about to hop on the #8 bus and ride home and sunbathe on the roof.

I feel a lot healthier today, after almost two weeks of being sick. I'd rather be sick now than at AWP, however. Apparently AWP is right around the corner. You should definitely put this on your agenda, if you'll be there.

Offsite poetry reading at AWP Denver,

hosted by Mary Biddinger & Michael Dumanis

Friday, April 9, 2010

6:30 pm - 8:30 pm

Paris on the Platte Cafe & Bar

1553 Platte St., Ste 102

Denver, CO

Free admission & appetizers, cash bar

Readings by:

Allison Benis White, John Bradley, Ashley Capps, Oliver de la Paz, Heather Derr-Smith, David Dodd Lee, Elyse Fenton, John Gallaher, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Helena Mesa, Mathias Svalina, & Allison Titus

Sponsored by:

Cleveland State University Poetry Center

The University of Akron Press

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Unrelated: happy weekend to all.

in Just

This week has been an absolute whirlwind, but of the non-work-related sort, for the most part. I've been home with the kids much of the time, taking care of the sorts of things I usually can't due to my work schedule. I was able to get some basketball + beer + cheeto time in today, and I am hoping the weekend is more of the same. Tomorrow I have to go back to the office, though, after a week away. I don't want Monday to be a major disaster.

Barn Owl Review #3 is off to the printer. Check out the glorious cover here.

This has not been a good week for my sinuses. I hope yours are much happier than mine.

Light at the end of the something.

When I leave here in 20 minutes I will be "on spring break." However, given the pile of work that will be accompanying me, and the fact that I will barely have childcare next week (though my daughter does have school, which will warrant the usual 5:20 am wake-up time), I think that calling it a break is really pushing it.

I'm also totally sick again. Back to back bugs. Maybe if I sacrifice some of the final remnants of snow in my yard, I will be able to have good health again.

But which pile to ignite? They're all disappearing. We have a lot of sticks and branches to pick up this week.

I'm looking forward to my un-break anyway. Had a spectacular response from BOR #3 contributors, who read their galleys with great speed and got back to me right away. I've never been a Managing Editor before, but I've done all of this stuff before, one way or another.

The other day I was thinking (yet again) about how much of my office work background I use in my life as an editor and administrator. It rivals the doctorate in terms of necessary education. I did have to get used to using a newfangled fax machine, though. I miss the old screechy sound.

Here's a little galley peek. Did I mention that everything is going to be different this time around? Except, of course, the awesomeness, which will always be there.

Dirty snow.

It's so ugly, and so beautifully so. Here's a look at a dirty snow pile, and a partial downtown Akron skyline this morning. My son and I were hanging around on the roof of a parking deck taking some pictures. We do that once in a while. Next week is spring break, and it's going to be kind of a different one since I'll have the kids home for a lot of it, but that's cool. The weather lately has been spectacular. The icicles have left the premises. I know it will snow again, and I don't care, but my hyacinths do. They never learn.

Uncontrolled burn.

Remember all of my sorrowful posts about not writing? Well, forget about them. I'm writing again, four new poems this week, and at least one more in the works for the weekend. Everything cleared up for me on an exceptionally unpleasant and challenging day last week.

And here we go again.

I'm so happy about this, but of course not sure what I'm doing, other than writing a series of poems on certain themes, using exactly 16 lines and some repetend. I plan to have the manuscript finished by the end of the summer. I hope that some of the poems are not 16-liners. A book composed entirely of 16-line poems might be ridiculous, or ridiculously awesome.

Now, of course, I feel annoyed doing anything (well, not anything, exactly) but writing poems. I've found a way to keep a word file open, and hop back into it between annotating student poems. The most important thing is that I am having a lot of fun. I just wish productivity wasn't such a roller coaster for me. Or a steroid binge. Or a purge. Whatever.

Tonight I get to take Michael Martone out to dinner, and then he's doing a craft talk at UA. This is one of my favorite aspects of the job.

Maybe a poem or two will pop into my head while I'm there.

Have you seen the sun? Doesn't it feel good?

Barn Owl Review #3 is at the designer's. We'll have a cover to share with you soon. I really think you will like this issue.