Happy Easter Weekend, to those of you who celebrate it – and those who don’t, check out the wacky Easter candy anyway. I mean, shiny marshmallow chicks? Who doesn’t love that?
Sorry I have been away this week. I’ve been fighting off a cold and trying to get a backlog of work done. Thanks to all of you who have bought my new book, and you well-wishers, and those who sent me e-mail – many thanks! Remember to contact me if you want to do a book swap and if you want a review copy, to e-mail editor@steeltoebooks.com. I’ve already emptied one box of books and I’m starting on the second. Have I mentioned frosty chocolate milkshakes for everyone? Or pink-frosted cupcakes. We’ve got to celebrate the good! The news is so depressing lately I just want to shield my eyes from the various news sources. It would be so not smart to enter into a war with Iran. There’s a large number of young progressive Iranians (many of whom are pro-democracy, pro-Western, whatever – at least they are right now…) who are not our enemies. It’s just the people at the top who are the problem (sound familiar?) I just hope the folks at the top of our government remember that. If we go in with military force then how can we hope to “win the hearts and minds” of Iran’s people? And I’m not saying there aren’t problems in Iran – in, of all places, the May issue of Oprah Magazine, which is not usually where I get my international news – there’s a profile of a heroic Iranian woman lawyer trying to raise the legal age limit for marriage for girls (it used to be nine – it’s now twelve) and publicly defend the families whose little girls have been raped and murdered, only to be charged money when the rapists go to jail. True! Under the current law regime in Iran. Fairly horrible stuff. But if you nuke Iran, you’re going to be killing heroes like her indiscriminately with the jerkwads. Fact.
An interesting and intelligent debate was spawned after Publisher’s Weekly ran an article about online poetry journals and blogs and the article failed to mention a single woman. I checked my blog roll, which is almost exactly fifty percent women and fifty percent men, and I think that’s typical of the online breakdown in gender, so I don’t understand how women got completely ignored. Interesting takes on it on Kristy Bowen’s blog and Anne Boyer’s, as well as a bunch of others. On the plus side, I’m glad someone at Publisher’s Weekly talked about poetry blogging and such, since it’s been a thing since well, I don’t know, 2003? Hmm, does that mean poetry blogging is officially over since it’s been recognized by a major media outlet? Soon everything will be co-opted by Old Navy or something. Coming soon: Poems about Fleece!
(Also, a note: if your book is classified as “feminist theory” rather than “poetry” – um, what does this mean? Have I secretly been writing theory instead of poetry and just been unaware of it? So, if you’re looking for the book in a regular bookstore, it’s under “feminist studies” or something like that. Bizarrely. Well, it could just as easily have ended up in the comic-book section, I guess, so I shouldn’t complain.)
The funniest (and saddest) Jim Behrle cartoon ever: But you thought Jim was the only poet-cartoonist on the net? Check out Margaret Atwood’s cartoons at http://www.owtoad.com/comics.html. Also see her non-cartoon – the Rocky Road to Paper Heaven publishing “tips/sermon.”