A few notes from the underground:

–I was surprised and happy this morning to be alerted to a new review of Becoming the Villainess:
http://www.rattle.com/ereviews/gaileyjeanninehall.htm

–The new issue of Calyx (Winter 2008) is out and this venerable Northwest-focused feminist journal published a poem I have some emotional attachment to, “My Little Brother Learns Japanese.” So check that out! Northwest poets Lana Hechtman Ayers and Jenifer Browne Lawrence have their books reviewed (very nicely!) as well.

–If anyone can tell me what language this is in, I’d be most grateful – they sent like 1000 hits to my site in one day? http://blog.b92.net/text/2077/Dani%20pozitivne%20energije/#k157270
(Thanks to Jilly – for telling me it is Serbian! You get the prize! (Prize to be named later…)

–I suspect some of my interests, such as robots and comic books, to be genetic: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080224/NEWS0102/802240361/1058/NEWS01

–Rachel Zucker’s Bad Wife Handbook. Have I mentioned it before? I liked it a lot and may either do an official review or just write about it at more length here. I read Zucker’s book and Matthea Harvey’s Modern Life together the other night out loud, just to do a little compare and contrast. Zucker’s writing looks more experimental, but is actually fairly straightforward; Matthea may seem straightforward, but writes in an emotionally charged but fairly oblique way (and is definitely influenced by the surreal movement more than Zucker.) By the way, both of these poets (on their third books now) are roughly around my age…should this make me feel like an underacheiver?

–I am on a new antibiotic which I think is robbing me of my brain. This leaves me with the intellectual energy to either read the new issue of “Health” magazine OR write a very bad poem.

–I was very happy “Falling Slowly” from the indie Irish muscial “Once” won an Oscar for best song. And I was happy Jon Stewart had the 19-year-old Czech singer back up on stage after the microphone rudely cut her off. Yes, I had the intellectual energy to watch the Oscars, and then write a bad poem.