WhimsyLand

That's the title of a great album by Alison Krauss, in case you wondered.  Yes, I've been indisposed, more's the pity.  I did hear from CDY with amazing new stats on the increased number of submissions to The New England Review which pushed it up a level to a 6 on the "toughness scale" on the Difficulty Rating.  I have to explain all the time that a) I'm not the sole source of these determinations and b) it's not about quality or superiority or Godliness, it's just difficulty.  By which I mean, if you want to submit your poem packet, this is a rough measure of your likelihood of getting accepted.  It depends upon the level of competition (are you and Bob Hicok vying for a slot?), the number of submissions they receive, and the number of poems they publish for a year.  The last reason is one reason Threepenny Review is ranked so highly, for example.

I have to mention (well, I don't have to, but I'm gonna)  that two poets from the recent issue of Many Mountains Moving have appeared on Verse Daily:  D. Antwan Stewart and  Joseph Lease.

For the record, I have new copies of Colorado Review, Barrow Street, and ZYZZYVA to report on, which I will do tomorrow, come hell or high water.  Also synopses of very good issues of The Atlantic and Harpers.

I'm leaving Monday with Derek for Chicago.  This week, alongside my usual 75-hour work week when Junie's not in town, I've managed to read submissions and get ready for the trip.  This entailed undoing the damage to the Standard Green Boulder Outback which was inflicted in a precise manner as detailed by my son Ky in a response to a recent post (Derek busted the door, Eileen busted the bumper).  I just got the little beastlette back from Valley Subaru after chatting up the mechanic who worked on it.  He says the little guy is in great shape mechanically and has another 150,000 miles on him, should we take due care.  That's good news as I will be driving it to Chicago and then to Eau Claire to add its diversity to the the Junie Family Auto Borg.  I am making a list, which shows how serious I am about the trip, as I never make lists if I can help it, trusting to the heavenly angels and my ability to recover from adversity.  I've gone back and forth about the "all sales final" thing with Klipsch and actually received new speakers for Der, which will consume probably half the storage space.  I've found my old subwoofer and Cath has found my old amp at her house, so that gets packed in.  Then, there's supplies for the road:  snacks and Izzies and fresh fruit and maybe a bottle of wine for when we hit the Iowa Holiday Inn.  Der will be scouring my house and Cath's for old stuff to throw up on eBay:  subsets of his giant comics collection, figurines that tie into popular online megamultiplay games, perhaps swords and other battle gear they got from me in a pliable moment.  I'll be a day or two on Chicago and then on to Eau Claire to be with Sweet Junie for a couple of days (probably fixing household annoyances and luxuriating Panera's for breakfast), then back to Colorado with Junie on Northwest, assuming they haven't gone bankrupt like everybody else.

More tomorrow.  Gotta throw some big scallops in the three-day paella and find a bottle of Tempranillo.