Yes, I’ve put the ad in the paper for the dreaded moving/garage sale for next Saturday. Getting rid of our stuff will put us a little step closer to being ready to move! We’ve moved a lot while we’ve lived in the Northwest (six times in eight years) but this is our first cross country move since 2000, and that was a corporate move (paid for by my company.) So we are crossing our fingers that everything goes well. I do hope that the positive parts of the move (better health for me, lower cost of living) outweigh the negatives (leaving all the people! And my otters!)

And, to finally do some poetry chapbook reviews, as I have promised. First up, Rita Maria Martinez’ chapbook from March Street Press, “Jane-in-the-Box.” A series of poems that catapults Jane Eyre and other characters into the present, I knew I was going to enjoy this, especially (sorry C. Dale – here’s that blurb thing) when I read the blurbs by two favorite writers, Denise Duhamel and Nin Andrews. The sensual “In the British Museum” and “The Jane and Bertha in Me” were two poems that really stood out. From “The Jane and Bertha in Me:”

“The Bertha in me believes leathery hands barnacled
with gypsy rings are an omen of fertility…

while the Jane in me wants to extract Rochester’s teeth
with her Tweezerman, stow them in a jar…

so she can feel his presence, so she can lay
that satchel on her pillow and wake each morning

to the prayer of his teeth marks on her pale cheek.”