You are William Blake! Wow. I’m impressed. Not
only are you a self-made artist and poet, but
you’ve suddenly become a very trendy guy to
like. It’s not that we doubt that you have all
your marbles, it’s just that we’re not quite
sure what you did with them to come up with
those terrifying theological visions. The
people of your time were nowhere near as
forgiving as that, and all your neighbors
thought you were a grade-A nut job. But we
love you, so rest happy.

Which Major Romantic Poet Would You Be (if You Were a Major Romantic Poet)?
brought to you by Quizilla

Hmph. It’s a good thing I got Blake – he’s pretty much the only Romantic poet I can stand, except for a little Coleridge.

Have you read a book lately that was so good you just sat down and started writing about it? I had that happen recently with a book by Dana Levin, Wedding Day. Fantastic stuff, dark, twisted, funny, ultimately asking a lot of questions about American poetry, what it is, why we write it. I have to quote a little bit of it here, from a poem “Ars Poetica:” “Six monarch butterfly cocoons/ clinging to the back of your throat-/ you could feel their gold wings trembling.// You were alarmed. You felt infested./ In the downstairs bathroom of the family home,/ gagging to spit them out-/ and a voice saying Don’t, don’t –“
Anyway, wish I’d come up with that poem. Another don’t-miss poem is “Quelquechose,” which was published in the 2005 Pushcart anthology. My review of Levin’s book will be in the next issue of 88.
I turned in my final homework packet for school, so now I have officially started my six month break from homework. I hope I can keep up my writing without the extra push I’ve gotten accustomed to. I’m also hoping when I go back in January I’ll be completely well, not distracted by the constant tests and dr appts, etc.
I’ve been trying positive visualizations for my health and stuff, and I think it worked – I found out I won a small sweepsteaks for which the prize was a Stila lipgloss set. Not quite the book contest I was hoping for, but close, right? I’ve just got to aim those positive visualizations a little higher next time.

(Warning: Mini-Blog-Chapbook-Review!)
Congrats to blogger and fellow poet Steve Mueske, who recently (and happily) had his manuscript A Mnemonic For Desire, accepted for publication by Ghost Road Press! I recently received Steve Mueske’s chapbook, “Whatever the Story Requires” from Pudding House, which deals with subjects of mortality, music, Evil Kneival dolls, and the insect world, is a collection of simple grace and understated melancholy. One of my favorite poems was “After Reading of an Amazing New Device That Brings Back the Dead in Lifelike Holographic Images.” These are some excerpted lines: “…and there Aunt Mertle/ bends to the bright task of baking rhubarb pies…and soon Uncle Fred,/ dead these seventeen years, is splitting wood for the fire…Here cousin Matthew will never know/ the slice of a boat propeller, and Anne can safely ignore/ / those pricks of pain in her arm.” Good stuff. I love discovering the work of other bloggers that I might never have seen otherwise; one example is I remember being blown away by Suzanne Frischkorn’s chapbook, really lush and magical and eerie, which I can also highly recommend.
I’ve been on a reviewing roll; just finished up a review for the journal 88 and reviewed Tom C. Hunley’s The Tongue for Raven Chronicles.
Okay, back to your regularly scheduled Mother’s Day Activities. Enjoy your brunch and try to dodge those guilt trips!

So, Kate Gale at Elliot Bay Bookstore – Amazing reader, if you get a chance to see her read (she’s touring around with her new Tupelo Press book) go, go go. Esp. the poems addressed to her son and daughter, just killer. She’s one of those readers that avoids the dreaded poetry voice, doesn’t linger lovingly over her own syllables, just bangs the poems out with energy and really draws you in. A lot of very funny stuff her in her poems too. I bought her first book and am waiting til I finish it to buy her second. She also spent a lot of time answering questions about poetry community and how to built one (she’s active as a PEN president, I think, runs her own press called Red Hen, as well as the new L.A. Review, and runs a couple of reading series in LA. Wow!) I have been thinking a lot about poetry community, how I can be more involved while I am still “convalescing,” how to support local groups and magazines, etc etc. I have volunteered with several magazines over the last few years, including Seattle Review and Raven Chronicles, but have had to cut back lately, and I miss it.
At the Seattle Poetry Festival at Hugo House I got to hang out with the lovely and talented Martha Silano, who I hadn’t seen in a while, as well as man other poetry-friends and acquaintances. Went to panels on starting a literary magazine and on publishing poetry. One of the local mags I am really impressed with is Cranky, run by Amber Curtis; she talked about her print run, profit margins, the process of starting it up – to me it’s a real success story, and when she talked about it I thought Yes, that’s do-able, I could try that too. My favorite part of the festival was the fact that, along with a “grilled cheese poetry” booth, they were selling actual grilled cheese sandwiches all day, which made the whole place smell delicious.

So today I turn 32, officially entering the dreaded zone of “the mid-thirties.” On the last day of Poetry Month, which I think is very appropriate. “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs,” etc etc. I got my contributor copy of The Iowa Review yesterday (along with a record four(!!) rejections) that I saw also had poems from fellow blogger Laurel Snyder. And as an unexpected gift, the girl from the reading sent me her paper – on me! Thanks! How many times does that happen in life?
Glenn is taking me out for a nice dinner at Earth & Ocean tonight, for which I might actually get dressed up and everything.
Anyway, enjoy the last day of poetry month! Tomorrow I’ll attend the Seattle Poetry Festival, and Kate Gale’s reading at Elliot Bay, but today is an all-relaxation day.