So what did Ravi Shankar say about my 2008 AWP Quickie Contest-winning poem "I have forgotten all my Spanish" in volume six, issue one of Redivider?

This:
"Reminiscent of Ron Padgett's work in its deceptive simplicity and reflexive irony, "I have forgotten all my Spanish" establishes a credible voice and explores the subliminal space between waking and dreaming by delving into the interlingual transcription of desire. The ending of the piece is spot on, with its evocation of a Puerto Rican girl whose very otherness complicates the speaker's conscious and subconscious identity. Plus it's damn funny!"

Thank you much, kind sir!

Go ahead and read my review of Noelle Kocot's Sunny Wednesday over at Tarpaulin Sky. It's a good book, and a good review. There's just goodness all over the place.

Check out my "Best Poetry Books of 2009" list over at No Tell Motel's blog, No Tells.

10-15-09
Never Forget

You should go and pick up a copy of Copper Nickel #12 and read my poem "Things I Don't Like Talking About" to find out what it is I don't like to talk about. Seriously, Copper Nickel puts out a really nice looking mag chock full o' nice work. Go check it out.

So, many years ago I was standing at the window of my kitchen in my old apartment spying on the people across the courtyard from me because I was bored. Then I wrote a poem called "The Courtyard" about it. And then Swink published it. What a great story.

So, many years ago a girl named Tessa drove me around a Vermont farm on a tractor. Then I wrote a poem about it called "Poor Tessa, The Tractor Girl." And then H_NGM_N came out today with a fantastic new issue and included it in it. What luck that I love H_NGM_N and they love me.

The Northville Review was nice enough to publish my poem "Rolling", which is always nice. It's one of the oldest ones I have so it's nice to finally see it in (electronic) print. Thanks to Erin over there.

I don't usually tell stories about my poems, but this one's kind of funny. The poem itself is true - it really happened, although it's much funnier when I tell the actual story. You really need to see how my brother flailed his arms. Anyway, I used to use it as an example of how a poem doesn't have to rhyme when I was teaching in Paterson and the kids loved it. I had never sent it out anywhere, but the kids would tell me how much they wanted to see it in print so they could feel like they knew me before I was "famous." So I hope one of my old students runs across "Rolling" and I hope they've finished their homework.

I think that when they start singing "Tiny Dancer" in Almost Famous is one of the greatest things ever recorded on film. I like the part in Natural Born Killers when the Cowboy Junkies song "If You Were the Woman and I Was The Man" is playing in the background. I think they were on a bridge. That's right up there as well. I also really like when "For What It's Worth" plays during a shot of a helicopter flying low over rice paddy fields in any movie about the Vietnam War. It doesn't qualify as a Vietnam movie if it lacks that scene.

I thought I was having a brain aneurysm or a stroke the other day. Perhaps it was neither.