AMONG THE ECONOMY'S MARGINS

Well, I woke up all grumpy from last night's dream -- apparently, I was shopping at Walmart, and stumbled across a stack of my book Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole in their book section. Each was deep-discounted to 50 cents per book. On the one hand, I was ecstatic to see my poetry book at Walmart--yes Ma'am I believe in poetry infiltrating huge supermarkets, and Walmart's is the largest public corporation by revenue!. On the other hand, 50 cents per?!

Fortunately, I woke up to an email from one of my devoted, loving publishers: Mark Young of Otoliths Books. Mark sez, "Have you seen THIS (scroll down)?"

I'm no longer grumpy....

Meanwhile, I moiself recently bought the following books:

DEMENTIA BLOG by Susan Schultz--gift to a friend dealing with her mom's dementia

THE ROMANTIC DOGS, poems by Roberto Bolano

UNPACKING THE BOXES: A MEMOIR OF A LIFE IN POETRY by Donald Hall

NARROW ROAD TO THE INTERIOR, haibun by Matsuo Basho & Translated by Sam Hamill

Actually, Basho came free, courtesy of Copperfield Books's Black Friday special of "Buy 3, Get 1 Free". Yadda.

But I also bought WIND IN A BOX by Terrance Hayes -- significant for passing the test of being bought on its own merit (so to speak). That is, sometimes I check out books because of buzz about them, like Bolano's, or because I'm a fan of biographies, like Hall's. For Hayes, I was flipping through the poetry section of the bookstore and the poems reached up from the pages, smoooooched me, and flirted, "C'mon--don't you want to bring me home?" Well, 'twas a fabulous kiss....so I brought him, er, the poems ... HOME.

*****

Speaking of margins, "I'm a crappy gardener because of language poetry"--scroll down. As an aside, what I might admire most about Langpo are its poets' intelligence. But Pinoys who think I'm a language poet might want to think about the implications of a Filipino (let alone a Pinay) supposedly being a language poet -- such would be a rather airhead position if you want moi opinion, and of course you do, di ba?