mason-dixon line

I'm reading Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon right now. Total insanity, and I keep losing the thread of the plot, but his language is so over-the-top that I just can't put it down. Plus, it meets 2 of my criteria for an engaging novel: it's historical fiction and it's gigantic--so big it barely fits in my bag. I have a weakness for long novels (I once read someone describe it as being 'a literary size queen'), but if the story is good, I want to stay immersed in it for as long as possible. I just read George Eliot's Middlemarch, and, again, it's nice to have a book that hangs around for a week or so, and isn't devoured in a day.

waiting for nighttime

It is 90 degrees in Oakland right now, which means that it is 90 degrees in my apartment right now. The fans in the living room only serve to move hot air around. Like a convection oven. There is no chance of getting any work done. I've decided to accept it, and take the afternoon off. It's time to go to the movies.

Deep South in September

I just found out the release of Deep South will be delayed until September.

Please spread the word that we are currently seeking academic/critical articles on a poetry theme, deadline being August the first.

You can send submissions here.

Coffee Bites Glass

Did you know that if you put a hot liquid in a glass container, the glass can shatter and break? Yeah, me too. So why did I go and pour coffee into a glass mug? Perhaps I thought having Starbucks written on the side of the glass made it coffee-safe. Since there were 2 cups left in the pot, I grabbed a glass big enough to hold all of it. So there I am standing in the living room, pouring a cup of coffee, when I hear a loud crack, and then coffee begins puddling beneath me. I just stand there for a second, gaping and dumbstruck, thinking, I should have put the milk in first, and then walk quickly to the kitchen, trying not to dribble coffee on any laptops or laptop accessories in my path. On the plus side, I lost enough coffee on the floor that what is left now fits into a standard-issue coffee mug.

Laureates

When I tell people that I'm a poet, they often ask me if my ambition is to be Poet Laureate. It's like they see some sort of poetic hierarchy in place, and think that naturally I would want the CEO spot. Of course, poets aren't all that interested in Laureate laurels. Perhaps because they realize it's mostly a figurehead position. And there's not much money in it.

The position carries an award of $35,000 and a $5,000 travel allowance. It usually lasts a year, though poets are sometimes reappointed.
--New York Times, June 14, 2006

Not exactly enough to set the soul on fire.

I'm thinking about Laureates today because the Library of Congress is choosing Donald Hall to replace Ted Kooser as Poet Laureate. Hall is generally described as a New England poet in the mold of Robert Frost. I guess it's an improvement.

hesitant travel plans

Adam and I have been talking about taking a trip for at least six months now. Sort of a graduation thing, but also just because we've got some time on our hands before either one of us settles down to full time work. Originally we'd talked about going in June to Rome or somewhere along the Mediterranean, maybe Turkey or Greece or the Iberian peninsula or even Croatia. It's now looking like September will be a good time for us to go. And we're talking Buenos Aires, Argentina. Neither one of us has been to South America. It's a lovely, cosmopolitan city. And, owing to the unfortunate collapse of its currency in 2001, a very affordable option. So we're still in research mode, still talking about it, still very hesitant to commit to any idea, but it's starting to coalesce as a plan.

Deep South in July

My poem "Lamentations" will appear in Deep South in July. It's an online journal published by the University of Otago in New Zealand. I never made it as far south as Dunedin when I was there, but I hear it was a lovely town. The poem has certain cross-Pacific currents (which is why I sent it to a NZ journal). Not a very big deal, but proof that I've been trying to send more work out in the last month.

spanish dreams

I dreamed in Spanish last night (which I haven't done since Spanish 4 in high school). We had gone to Mexico and I was running around asking simple phrases like, "donde esta el banco?" Toward the end, I was having these long involved conversations and struggling to remember words. Upon waking, of course, it all disappeared, so I don't know if I was actually speaking Spanish or just dreaming in gibberish. I'm not sure how or why, but I think I may have tapped into whatever part of my brain remembers all those Spanish classes a long time ago.