Sorry I’ve been away from the blog – I got swept up in politics (the Iowa stuff was so exciting! And I’m just as excited about tomorrow’s NH primary) and socializing (thanks to several friends who made the trek out to see me in my far peninsular corner in the wind and the snow!) and general busywork. I’m still battling a cough and ear thing that has just persisted and persisted, and hoping that our stint of 30-ish weather, bitter cold and greyish skies will break soon for some slightly warmer, sunnier weather. It was 70 today in one of my previous hometowns, Cincinnati. And 60 in NYC…Sigh. Here in the land of rain, fog, bitter cold winds, more rain, occasional blizzards and floods and windstorms, it feels like winter will last forever.
Yes, I am going to AWP (so send those party and reading invitations my way 😉 and I registered just before the crazy thing sold out! I’m not staying at the conference hotel (which I bet will be swamped anyway.) I am looking forward to the bookfair and running into old friends and doing my Steel Toe signing stint with Mary but am nervous about giving the pedagogy paper (eek!) I am also looking forward to NYC, a city that lots of people in the midwest and northwest assume I come from because I talk so fast.
I’ve just been in a bit of a doldrums lately, haven’t been good about writing or sending stuff out, and am still having hassles with Redmond’s post office of disappearing PO box mail, but I did manage to read two worthwhile fiction books – Haruki Murakami’s After The Quake, a terrific and apocalyptic set of short stories set after Kobe’s tragic earthquake where people mysteriously find and lose their souls, and Melissa Bank’s Wonder Spot. Melissa wrote The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing, which I felt ambiguous about – this book had several spots where I rolled my eyes at the author’s self-conscious cleverness, but also several where I nearly cried laughing and also felt that weird kinship where you’re lulled into thinking “this writer is just like me.” One of those pieces was when the narrator says she “likes Hemingway and Fitzgerald, but not Faulkner” and describes dealing with her claustrophobia at plays by eating lifesaver candy, because then she has the feeling that she can “escape through her mouth.” Ha! I bring candy to poetry readings and airplanes for exactly that reason.
Last of all, praise for my publisher, Steel Toe Books. God bless publishers who actually send poets royalty checks every year, especially when they’re broke after Christmas/right before AWP. I know some poets never hear back about their numbers and their promised royalties mysteriously never materialize. Tom Hunley is great about that stuff. And a big, big “Thank You!” to everyone who bought my book and taught my book this year.
Moving Some More…and poetry and stuff…
Okay, now that I’ve gotten the keys and stocked the fridge and made sure the cable and phone worked (they didn’t, but we had the guy come out to fix them) I’m thinking, yay, small town Americana by the sea! Sure I’ll miss those big glitzy (and also, teensy cool) bookstores and big glossy grocery stores, but the ocean will make up for it. Unfortunately, no view of the water from the little slightly dingey side street we live on, but it’s less than a five-minute drive in any direction.
Snuck out of packing for an hour yesterday to see Matthea Harvey at Open Books, who was great, but sadly, had not heard of Astro Boy (a 60’s anime cult figure who has made a comeback on Adult Swim.) I had this theory abour her Robo-Boy poems and their connection to Astro Boy…well, maybe the connection still works, but more in a collective unconscious kind of way. Anyway, she was great and the room was packed, and Oliver was there (hi Oliver!) I did manage to get away without buying any new poetry.
On the way down to small-town-by-the-sea to the new house today, husband G and I listened to Margaret Atwood’s CD of her reading her new book, The Door. She’s a fun, if slightly flat-toned, reader. It helped to hear them as well as see them.
I’ll be delivering a paper at AWP on Pedagogy, it seems. Yay! Now to get those airline tickets and hotel reservations (all the conference hotels are sold out, of ourse, even the new Doubletree one…) At this AWP, I swear I will be neither disabled by back injury (like last year) or sick (like the two years before that.) It’s health all the way for me! And dancing and fun til all hours! I hope 🙂
