I have an embarrassment of riches of blogger poet chapbooks – Ivy Alvarez’s charming ten-poem collection What’s Wrong, kind of a suite of broken love poems, and Alison Pelegrin’s gritty, bittersweet, street-wise Squeezers. I highly recommend both – I can honestly say I got more out of these collections than the last ten literary magazines I have read. This on top of Miss Frischkorn’s chapbook of last week, which I would read again and again just for the mermaid poems (which I understand are also in the new issue of Margie?)
I’ve been missing my little brother lately. He lives 3000 miles away and hates talking on the phone, so. He was always a weird kid, in his teenage years he would listen to a mix tape of Toole and Beethoven, neither of which I would have chosen to listen to (sorry Rebecca!) but I gained an appreciation and affection for both because of him. For his vast collection of old X-Men comics, his superior knowledge of the coolest video games, his uncanny knack for remembering details about the old obscure early eighties cartoons and shows we used to watch together (Fraggle Rock? Danger Mouse? Warriors of the Wind?) For Christmas a couple of years ago I received a toy from him that was my favorite toy when I was about eight and he was five. Someone stole this little object from me (called a Nyamy kitten, produced for about nine months in 1980) when I was on a girl scout camping trip, and I cried and cried for literally weeks about losing this toy, the only thing I had asked for at Christmastime that year – of course by the time it was stolen the toy was no longer on shelves, something to do with the flammable metal filings the toy was stuffed with. Well, now my Nyamy kitten is back, flammable innards and all, thanks to my little brother. What kind of person remembers a thing like that twenty years later?
Now that I’m healthier I’m getting a chance to socialize more – I’m going to like thirty poetry-related things in the next three days, it seems like. It’s nice to get to interact with poet-people again, makes me feel like less of an alien. I’ve sent off a bunch of queries to different magazines since I have the energy to write again, about travel and food and technology, respectively. It’s amazing how much more productive I am! Hrmph – I think I had forgotten “normal, un-sick me” has a rabid do-something energy. I actually dusted my house. E-mailed old friends to see what’s up. Rearranged photos, cleaned up paperwork, paid bills. Now if I could only channel that into writing some poems…

Oh, and I now have a cool new form so you can sign up for news about my book (and, maybe later, readings associated with said book…) – check it out if you’re interested – https://webbish6.com/poetry/contactform.htm