TAKING A BREATHER

...thus, I blog! I'm swamped. I'm copyediting my two 2007 books at the same time (one is a Fall book but production begins next week). And these are thick books -- the Spring book will be about 400 pages and the Fall book to be between 300-400 pages. Then, I'm reviewing a new title to be published by Meritage Press -- another groundbreaking project: STAGE PRESENCE: CONVERSATIONS WITH FILIPINO AMERICAN ARTISTS edited by Theo Gonsalvez (more on this book later, except to give you the appetizer that it includes Eleanor Academia--Whoooo!)

Anyway, with the few breaths left in my breather, I just want to point you to this fabulous interview by Ric Carfagna of Vernon Frazer (at BIG BRIDGE) The interview is useful for, among other things, discussing a poetry book that is arguably my favorite discovery in 2006 (though the book was published in 2005): IMPROVISATIONS by Vernon Frazer.

I'm pleased to have another chance to recommend IMPROVISATIONS -- it's too often the case that the work that's advancing poetry is not what elicits attention. This would seem to be an occupational hazard for something so dismissed by culture -- such that, for example, certain National Book Critics Circle critics, if this article is correct, can't even be bothered to care enough about poetry to vote on it because to vote requires that they have to educate themselves on something in which they have no interest: poetry.

But then again, maybe the way the NBCC crits address poetry (letting the poets handle it) may be the right way. After all, I just read a fiction writer present herself as an expert on poetry and the ignorance displayed is simply, uh, breathtaking, but also not likely to be challenged because, who cares about poetry?

Well, ooops. Certainly didn't mean for this blog post to be a rant (heh). So, turning full circle -- if you care about poetry, do check out -- as I was saying earlier -- IMPROVISATIONS by Vernon Frazer.