Congratulations to Jessica Goodfellow, the winner of this year’s Concrete Wolf chapbook contest, which I had the pleasure of judging. Jessica’s poetry is fiercely intelligent, on the experimental side, and displays her knowledge of math. My blurb will be better than that, I promise. Read more here: http://concretewolf.com/2005%20Chapbook%20winners%20list.htm. Their chapbooks are beautiful – take a look at Alison Pelegrin’s Squeezers for proof.
The perfect post-Easter meditation…comparing the Easter bunny and Totoro…Has anyone mentioned how Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro echoes the spiritual hunger and loneliness in Psalm 73? And John 14? The heartbreaking depiction of desire for a comforting God/spirit in the face of disaster…Pretty sneaky how Miyazaki wraps it all up in a round, bouncing, fuzzy-cat-owl creature. This is a theme I can’t get out of my head, especially as I’m still obsessed with Hayao Kawai’s “The Japanese Psyche: Major Motifs in the Fairy Tales of Japan,” which compares the Shinto and Taoist impulses and Japanese archetypes to Western mythological archetypes. This guy is a brilliant religion scholar who wrote a whole book devoted to interpreting fairy tale imagery. I wish I could find him and buy him a coffee! You know how you feel sometimes when you find a book that wonderful?
I think I’m finished with my Louise Gluck’s Averno review for Cincinnati Review. It’s about 2200 words, which is pretty long for a review, but it takes into account the trajectory of her work over time, how this book compares to others, etc. A weight off my mind. Now, onto fifteen other projects! Including finishing up submissions at Silk Road.
I hope those of you in the Portland, Oregon vicinity will stop by to see fellow blogger Peter Pereira (a big time poetry star, what with his winning that Copper Canyon book prize, etc.) and I read at 3 PM on Saturday at the literary Wordstock festival, in the Oregon Convention Center. We will be signing books afterwards, is my understanding. Hey, you should really hear Peter read – he’s a great reader! As for me, I promise to try not to be too boring. I think I’m going to read the funny stuff – keep it light for the crowds, right? Sometimes I get into dramatic mode but I’m not feeling that right now. Also I might read some of my new animé/Japanese fairy tale poems.
Still sickly (struggling to get over tonsillitis before this weekend…) so think good thoughts for me 🙂 Note to self: Next time, schedule book release for a healthy time. Not cold and flu season: note that flu season just peaked in Seattle in the first week of April.