A busy week...

Out of town guests (my very kind mother in law was here to play with Mose and let me get some work done) meant a trip to the Botanical Gardens! What a GOOD GOOD thing to do in winter! All warm and summery and sweet.


In other news, I am booking readings. Northeasterly in June, and Northwesterly and Midwesterly in May. So far I am MOST freaked and happy about the 92nd Street Y! Hosted my MAKOR! (the organization I'd love to work for if I ever return to the world of Jewish communal work).


Also, of course, a visit to IOWA!!! To read LIVE from Prairie Lights!!!


Now if only I could find a Seattle reading for the week of May 20th, when I'll be in town for my cousin's bat mitzvah...


Anyone know anyone in Seattle?


Also hunting readings in Portland and Eugene (late May), Philly/Baltimore/DC/Boston (mid-late June) and Chicago/ St. Louis/ Minneapolis (early May) Or anywhere driving distance from such places.


Anyone???


In a perfect world I'll have Jewishy and poem-y readings on each leg of the trip. But I must say that a Jewish Community Center might pay for gas, while fun poetry bar-readings don't always pay for beer.

It's official...

I edited an anthology...


And PW said this:


This anthology of 18 essays takes for granted that Jews will intermarry, and that the children of intermarriages will be "halfs," or half-Jews. Being a half, says Snyder, is not second best; it is not a pale imitation of being really Jewish. Rather, "half" is an interesting, incorrigible, perplexing and profound moniker in its own right, a label that somehow captures the existential angst that all people experience. Read cover to cover, the anthology begins to feel suffocating in its predictability—smart folks reflecting smartly about their struggles with identity. But many of the individual essays are engaging, funny and provocative. Dena Katzen Seidel describes, in a strikingly detached tone, the emotional abuses doled out by her flaky mother, a Christian Scientist. Novelist Thisbe Nissen explains that every New Yorker is a little bit Jewish, while Renée Kaplan observes that the only deal her mismatched parents ever made and kept was the agreement to raise the kids Jewish. "My half-Jewishness is a memento of that short-lived moment of concord between the two," she muses with a touch of melancholy. Half-Jews will see themselves and their families in this book, and they will laugh, and maybe even cry, while reading.


Read for yourself!!!

On Daphne & Jim...

Catherine Meng said:



I'd never thought about this same "structure" in poetry terms & it works, especially well when rendered this deftly. There is a narrative, but it is criss-crossy & switchbacked, working its way through the poems like a bread trail in a forest of hungry poetry birds.


Which was exactly, EXACTLY the point! That narrative is not easy, need not be. That a path has all manner of branches. That you can stop and look out the window.


Especially in retrospect, when you get to rearrange, remember in any way...

The best feeling...

...is to receive an email from someone you've never met, telling you that your poems made the stranger cry... that poems can make people cry. In particular, that the poems you wrote, wrought from a difficulty, froim an ache, from a difficult part of your life... made someone cry and think and feel.


Redeeming. Redeemed.


This is what I thought poems might be... when I was 16. It is not all bad, being 16. It is not all stupid, caring about things enough to want to cry and reduce others to tears...


In other news, since I am being all gushy, I feel the desire to put down the word I've been thinking lately. About mortality. Yes, mortality. And paradox.


There is something about creation, most especially about creating a person, that makes me feel ripped in two.


On the one hand, I really do feel differently about dying. I feel like somehow I have "accomplished" something that makes my life worth having lived, even if I die tomorrow. I look at Mose and I feel a (s)welling up of love... and the excitement of his potential, and it all feels okay... the knowledge that my time is limited, but that his will extend beyond mine, and so extend my reach in the world.


And then I feel a clutch of fear, that I will die, and leave him alone. And it is worse than what I felt before he was born, the fear of not being missed, or of disappearing without a trace.


I hope there's a heaven.

Mose and Laurel...

Would like to come and visit you. They will make you dinner and bring you a present.


In April. Or May.


If you will help them set up a reading in your town.


Laurel will be doing the readings, not Mose.


Mose can read, of course, but he's shy...

I can't help it...

I have to show him off...


But I'll try not to do too much of this. If you want more Mose, you know where he lives.

Dusie...

Have you read Dusie???


Have you read this Lisa Jarnot poem in Dusie #1?


In other news... if you made an attempt to buy Daphne & Jim and the site wasn't working, try again! You can purchase it online from the press now...


In still other news, my copies of The Bedside Guide arrived, and it's INCREDIBLE! It really really is. It's like, a book I want to read before going to sleep. Not many poetry anthologies can claim that. Honestly. I'm just being honest...


Move over Agatha Christie...

Hot stuff....

We all know Reb rocks the web. But now she rocks dead trees too!


Buy her hot anthology, which has a hot poem by hot moi.


And in other anthological news, Cate and Dumanis have been rocking Sarabande with their Legitimate Dangers.


Meaning, of course, that we bloggers need to get cracking on our Illegitimate Dangers! Right? CDY can be the bridge...

The last cat...

I'm letting the last cat out of my bag, since the contract arrived in today's mail. I've been afraid to jinx it, but I think I'm safe...


I SOLD A PICTURE BOOK!!!!


Like, to a wonderful independent press that does beautiful books.


Pinch me.


(Now if only I knew someone who could look over the contract)

#1 Reason to Blog...

Because sometimes, your husband reads your blog and walks in the door with JUST what you wanted!!!


In other news, Mose gave me the BEST birthday present, one COLIC-FREE evening, all smiles and coos and cuddles.


Dinner at the Thai place in East Atlanta, calls from many loving friends and family members.


Can't complain.

No longer prime...

Because I'm 32 today. AND it's my anniversary.


I want ice cream cake. Why? I dunno.


In other news, Mose still can't change his own diapers...

Drumroll!!!

Daphne and Jim are hot off the presses, over at the Burnside Review!!!


Also, the chappy is available at Powell's, though the press will get a bigger cut if you buy direct.


In any case, I'd be honored and pleased and tingled and bewildered if you'd purchase a copy. This is, in every sense, my first book! This project has been a big deal for me... is a very personal, intimate project. Has taken me into flights and funks, required that I process some of the biographical and literary issues in my synapses. I'd love to know people are reading it.


And if you write or blog about poetry, and you'd like a review copy, please let me know. I'd be happy to wing one on its way...

A song I wrote....

Being tired makes a Mose feel cranky.
Being tired makes a mom feel spanky.
Being tired makes a body hate to stay awake.
So sleep little Mosie, sleep little Mose, and try to dream of cake.


Being tired makes a Mose feel cranky.
Being tired makes a mom feel spanky.
Being tired makes a body want to go to bed.
So sleep little Mosie, sleep little Mose, but please don't squish your head.


In other news, page proofs for "Half/Life" are finished, and "Daphne and Jim" is winging its way to me from Burnside Review...


Stay tuned for details on the poetry chapbook, as I'll expect yu to buy one and support the Mose Poma college fund!!!


Pretty please?