WhimsyLand

You shall be known by the company you keep.  As I read through my contributor's copy of Verse, I'm pleased to be in an issue with Seth Abramson, Beth Anderson, Jenny Boully, Maxine Chernoff, Xue Di, Landis Everson, Ray Di Palma, James Galvin, Barbara Hamby, Bob Hicok, Cathy Hong, Timothy Liu, Peter Markus, Andrew Mister, Ethan Paquin, Steven Schroeder, G.C. Waldrep and many, many other fine poets.  This is a monster issue, almost 300 pages of excellent work, wrapped in a bumblebee cover.  In addition to the poetry, there are over a dozen reviews of work by Ted Berrigan, Shanna Compton, Jennifer L. Knox, Timothy Liu, Gustaf Sobin, and John Yau, among others.  I've just paged through a score of poems.  More tomorrow.

I'm still reading Ms. Manguso's The Captain Lands in Paradise.  Like a lot of recent work that I've read, it is combination of prose poetry, microfiction, and overheard conversation.  I don't yet trust my first reaction — that most of the work is subdued and with an artificially imposed flatness of affect.  Now, before all you Manguso fans out there beat up on me, what I'm describing is my education, not a slam on Sarah's work.  Some of the work is most immediately reminiscent of Matthea Harvey, and not surprisingly two pieces were published in American Letters & Commentary, where Ms. Harvey is a poetry editor (in fact, The Rider, which I didn't think was that strong, but was selected for inclusion in BAP 2001, so what do I know).  Some of these poems I have liked immediately.  Some I have struggled to understand what I'm supposed to be feeling.  Or thinking.  With The Babies, I found myself saying to myself more often than not:  What the hell was that about?  With the work in The Captain Lands in Paradise, I find myself occasionally thinking:  OK, but why would I care?   In the case of Ms. Mark, I needed perhaps more homework and a more open attitude.  With Ms. Manguso, perhaps I need to get used to listening more carefully, remembering that this is not Dean Young or Albert Goldbarth.  More when I figure it out.

It's still bloody cold here.  Usually, in January, we get a respite from winter with days in the 50's and blue skies most of the time.  Not recently, though.  Our state is seriously confused with my poet buddy Ally enjoying a high of 50 in Walsenburg 200 miles south of us, and those of us on the Front Range shivering in the 20's.  My son Derek still wants to drive south to Albuquerque to get that drum set, but I'm keeping my eye on the Weather Channel.

I just received the damnedest cool promo gear from Rebecca.  It's a entire box of matches, just like you used to pick up at restaurants, that say Radish King in white on a field of black.   Also a CD of her lyrics set to music and a couple of signed copies of books that Junie took on the plane with her to read and put on her Good Poetry shelf.

Yes, I'm now officially Junie-less, so I'll be blogging more.