MANURE POETICS

Until this summer, I and the hubby lived as bachelors, e.g. our fridge usually contained hordes of Diet Cokes or Pellegrino water. This summer, we had kids on the mountain for five weeks and I was responsible for feeding them. Gawd, what a challenge, especially since they don't like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which, needless to say, are quite convenient for plumping up a belly. So, fine, Moi took a deep breath and plunged into actually using the kitchen accouterments I'd previously considered to be "sculptures." And now I can, with some pride, say that I can list what apparently are my "kitchen staples" if I am to actually cook, to wit:

olive oil
soy sauce
pinon nuts
rice
tortillas
pasta
pinto beans
salt
garlic
tomatos
frozen peas
frozen pizza dough
vanilla ice cream
chicken (already roasted of course and from the local deli; I mean, Mom taught me how to roast a chicken complete with garlic between skin and flesh but it takes two hours and four different temperatures and Moi's not got the time nor temperament....)
Marie Callenders frozen dinners (the hubby and I once did a taste test of frozen meals; Marie Callenders is the best....)

As you can glean, I have quite a while to go before I topple Martha Stewart offa her pastel plaid throne. And, yes, no doubt pinon nuts would be an unexpected staple for Moi, but I've got basil growing out the gazoo and pesto is easy! And speaking of harvests, you can see some fertilizer in the books section of Moi lates Relished W(h)ine List below -- and I do hope to harvest the bounty from that shi....I mean, preparation, soon.

Which also leads to a relished wine list that doesn't seem to ever shorten. Because fertilizing and harvesting makes me drink.

THE CITY SLICKER'S HARVEST (to date)
12 Santa Rosa plums
50 apricots
68 strawberries
1,312 basil leaves
327 purple basil leaves
267 mint leaves
393 pinches of parsley
3 zucchini
2 yellow squash
1 orange squash
56 tomatoes
40 green figs
2 green onion stalks
15 green peppers
8 Japanese eggplants


PUBLICATIONS
THEORIES OF FALLING, poems by Sandra Beasley

THE SELECTED POEMS OF HAMSTER by Carlos Blackburn

THE ROUTE, poetry/correspondences by Patrick Durgin and Jen Hofer

ACOUSTIC EXPERIENCE, poems by Noah Eli Gordon

SAVAGE MACHINERY, poems by Karen Rigby

TOURMALINE, poems by Dorothea Lasky

AWAKE, poems by Dorianne Laux

LETTERS TO YESENIN, poetry by Jim Harrison

AFTER THE POISON, poems by Colin Kelley

SUBSISTENCE EQUIPMENT, poems by Brenda Iijima

MENTAL COMMITMENT ROBOTS, poems by Sueyeun Juliette Lee and collages by Brenda Iijima

BODY CLOCK, poems by Eleni Sikelianos

THE HEAVEN-SENT LEAF, poems by Katy Lederer

WOMEN POETS ON MENTORSHIP: EFFORTS &AFFECTIONS, Edited by Arielle Greenberg & Rachel Zucker

HARD TIMES IN PARADISE: AN AMERICAN FAMILY'S STRUGGLE TO CARVE OUT A HOMESTEAD IN CALIFORNIA'S REDWOOD MOUNTAINS, memoir by David and Micki Colfax

SLUMMY MUMMY, novel by Fiona Neill

SCREAMFREE PARENTING: THE REVOLUTIONARY APPROACH TO RAISING YOUR KIDS BY KEEPING YOUR COOL by Hal Edward Renkel (sp)

PARENTING WITH LOVE AND LOGIC: TEACHING CHILDREN RESPONSIBILITY by Foster Cline, M.D. and Jim Fay

ATTACHING IN ADOPTION by Deborah D. Gray

RAISING A SON by Don Elium &Jeanne Elium

WELCOME HOME! AN INTERNATIONAL AND NONTRADITIONAL ADOPTION READER, Eds. by Litz Linzer Schwartz and Florence W. Kaslow

TWO LITTLE GIRLS: A MEMOIR OF ADOPTION by Theresa Reid

IN THEIR OWN VOICES: TRANSRACIAL ADOPTEES TELL THEIR STORIES, Eds. Rita J. Simon and Rhonda M. Roorda

FAMILY WANTED: STORIES OF ADOPTION by Sam Holloway

A LOVE LIKE NO OTHER: STORIES FROM ADOPTIVE PARENTS, Eds. Pamela Kruger and Jill Smolowe

FOREVER LILY: AN UNEXPECTED MOTHER'S JOURNEY TO ADOPTION IN CHINA by Beth Nonte Russell

THE ADOPTION SOURCEBOOK: A COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE COMPLEX LEGAL, FINANCIAL AND EMOTIONAL MAZE OF ADOPTION by Cheryl Jones

ADOPTING THE OLDER CHILD by Claudia L. Jewett

PARENTING THE HURT CHILD: HELPING ADOPTIVE FAMILIES HEAL AND GROW by Gregory C. Keck and Regina M. Kupecky

OUR OWN: ADOPTING AND PARENTING THE OLDER CHILD by Trish Maskew

FOREVER PARENTS: ADOPTING OLDER CHILDREN by James E. Kloeppel and Darlene A. Kloeppel

YOUR CHILD'S SELF ESTEEM by Dorothy Corkille Briggs


WINES
2001 Turley Paso Robles zinfandel
2005 Luigi Bosca Reserva Malbec
2001 Jones Family Cabernet NV
2005 Kistler chardonnay Sonoma Valley
2005 Donnhoff Niederhauser Hermannshohle riesling auslese
2001 Etienne Sauzet Montrachet
1990 Val Sotillo Gran Reserva
2006 D.R. Stephens chardonnay
2004 Dutch Henry Argos NV
2004 Dutch Henry chardonnay Los Carneros
2000 Dutch Henry Reserve Zinfandel "Galatea Bottling" (a Jerobaum)
1999 Torbreck Barossa Valley "The Steading"
2006 Dutch Henry rose NV
2000 Judds Hill cabernet
2005 JJ Prum Wehlenuhr Sonnenuhr Auslese
1994 Henschke Mount Edelstone Keyneton Vineyard shiraz 

NO DISAPPOINTMENT HERE!

Due to popular demand, I've extended the SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER for Brian Clements' Disappointed Psalms to Aug. 15, 2008. More details HERE -- do yourself a favor and check it out!

ROSARY POETICS

Squeezed in some work today to work on the forthcoming THE ROSARY OF THORNS: SELECTED PROSE POEMS 1998-2008. I keep thinking about whether I want to use "The Rosary of Thorns" in the title.

I'm not Catholic but I have never forgotten reading about a rosary of Imelda Marcos made out of diamonds. My memory may be wrong -- maybe it was a rosary of pearls instead -- but what sticks in said faulty memory is that diamond rosary -- I can't think of anything more that captures the hypocrisy of religions abdicating what had been entrusted to them.

And the other reason I'm captivated by referencing rosary is this from Archbishop Fulton Sheen:

"The rosary is the book of the blind, where souls see and there enact the greatest drama of love the world has ever known; it is the book of the simple, which initiates them into mysteries and knowledge more satisfying than the education of other men; it is the book of the aged, whose eyes close upon the shadow of this world, and open on the substance of the next. The power of the rosary is beyond description."

I adore this, which for me captures an ideal poetic experience as one engages a poem -- that is, just substitute "poem" for "rosary" in the above.

I didn't know much about Archbishop Fulton Sheen (tho one can google). So far, I haven't uncovered anything that might make me reluctant to have the association. But I don't know how far I want to go with researching him. I'm not averse to text being authored by others. I first typed, in a significant error, text being authored by text ... when, really, there's always someone behind any decontextualization. Such, of course, brings Moi back full circle to the form of the prose poem -- its unmitigated bastardliness, its thorniness, its holy humanity. For it is perfection that would be inhumane.

THE CLOUD BOUQUET

Over Galatea, the clouds begin to part to reveal Operation...a bouquet authored by "m.R. koppp":



This image is part of the From the Annual Records of the Cloud Appreciation Society by Nico Vassilakis and Márton Koppány, a new chap release from Otoliths; click on the intriguing publication description below for more revelations:

Probably only the fabled Prieure du Sion has guarded its secrets as closely as The Cloud Appreciation Society. Now some of its members, tired of the secrecy, have decided to open their texts and visions to the world. In this slim volume, edited by Márton Koppány and Nico Vassilakis, we see for the first time what has previously been hidden in the clouds.

Moi loves to moon y'all....

LIFE IS GOOD

I continue to be swamped but, this evening, managed to hit an art gallery for the first time in months....if not over a year! That's a long dry spell for Moi if you know the Chatelaine. Anway, I stopped by Queens Nail Annex as it was opening up its latest exhibit: "Estacion Odesia", part of the Yerba Buena Center for The Arts Bay Area Now 5 exhibit.

And at Queens Nail Annex, I "discovered" (that is, this artist has been around but I'd not stumbled across her until tonight) Aurie Ramirez doing these brilliant drawings that deconstruct/de-masculinize KISS. Remember rock band KISS of long-tongued men? Anyway, her drawings are brilliant, and then Julio Cesar Morales, the director of the gallery when he's not off being brilliant on his own as an artist, mentioned that Aurie Ramirez happens to be Filipino. Purrr-fect. As I happen to be putting together a subset of Filipino artists within the overall art collection.

GALATEA RESURRECTS ITS PURTY HEAD ... FOR THE TENTH TIME

with a record number of new reviews!!! 68 new engagements with poetry projects -- well, wooot!

Go HERE for the issue. I'll also print the Table of Contents below for y'all's convenience:


ISSUE NO. 10 TABLE OF CONTENTS

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
By Eileen Tabios


NEW REVIEWS
Jeffrey Side reviews WHERE THE THREE RIVERS MEET by Aine MacAodha

Nicholas Manning reviews BEAUTIFUL, UNFINISHED: PARABLE/SONG/CANTO/POEM by M.T.C. Cronin

Eileen Tabios engages ENDGAMES by Márton Koppány

Patrick James Dunagan reviews DERIVATIVE OF THE MOVING IMAGE by Jennifer Bartlett, BEAUTY [IS THE NEW ABSURDITY] by Jennifer Scappettone, DOG GIRL by Heidi Lynn Staples and THE MARVELOUS BONES OF TIME by Brenda Coultas

Eric Hoffman reviews PASSING OVER by Norman Finkelstein

Pamela Hart reviews BONE PAGODA by Susan Tichy

Tim Wright reviews GOING GOING by Jen Hofer

Nicholas Manning reviews PPL IN A DEPOT by Gary Sullivan

Tyrone Williams reviews THE ANATOMY OF OIL by Marcella Durand

Nicholas Manning reviews CORNSTARCH FIGURINE by Elizabeth Treadwell

Eileen Tabios engages & PERSONA, poems by Mackenzie Carignan and photographs by Felicia Ohnmacht

Francie Noyes reviews MIDNIGHTS, poetry by Jane Miller & artwork by Beverly Pepper

H. Francisco V. Penones, Jr. reviews AMIGO WARFARE by Eric Gamalinda

Francie Noyes reviews BLIND DATE WITH CAVAFY by Steve Fellner

Tyrone Williams reviews THE STRAITS by Kristin Palm

Eileen Tabios engages BE THAT EMPTY: APOLOGIA FOR AIR by Alice B. Fogel

Richard Lopez reviews BREAK ME OUCH by Michael Farrell

Tyrone Williams reviews OPEN BOX (IMPROVISATIONS) by Carla Harryman

James Stotts reviews ENTER MORRIS IMPOSTERNAK, PURSUED BY IRONIES by Eugene Ostashevsky

Thomas Fink reviews TRAVELING WITH THE DEAD by Carole Stone

Laurel Johnson reviews THE BLUE MOON SERIES by Rodger Martin

Ryan Daley reviews ... AND THEN engages FLOWERS OF BAD: A FALSE TRANSLATION OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE’S LES FLEURS DU MAL by David Cameron

John Bloomberg-Rissman reviews HORACE: POEMS by Tim Atkins; COVERS by Susan Landers; and FLOWERS OF BAD: A FALSE TRANSLATION OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE’S LES FLEURS DU MAL by David Cameron

Karen Rigby reviews ISLE OF THE SIGNATORIES by Marjorie Welish

Eileen Tabios engages THEORY OF COLORS by Mercedes Roffe

Pamela Hart reviews THE ORCHARD by Brigit Pegeen Kelly

Kristina Marie Darling reviews CHANTEUSE/CANTATRICE by Catherine Daly

Michael Layne Heath reviews WORDS IN YOUR FACE: A GUIDED TOUR THROUGH 20 YEARS OF THE NEW YORK CITY POETRY SLAM by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

Andy Frazee reviews THE CITY VISIBLE: CHICAGO POETRY FOR THE NEW CENTURY edited by William Allegrezza and Raymond Bianchi

Jim McCrary reviews SPADE by David Bromige & Rychard Denner; ART IS WAR by Anne Boyer; THE ROMANCE OF HAPPY WORKERS by Anne Boyer; from THE TRADITIONS by Juliana Spahr; NO FACE by Judith Roitman

Evelyn Hampton engages THE SMALL ANYTHING CITY by Cynthia Arrieu-King

Christopher Mulrooney engages THE DEVELOPMENT OF AERIAL MILITARISM AND THE DEMOBILIZATION OF EUROPEAN GROUND FORCES, FORTRESSES, AND NAVAL FLEES by Paul Scheerbart, trans. by M. Kasper

Eileen Tabios engages FORGET READING by Anthony Hawley

Denise Dooley reviews THE RIVER IS WIDE / EL RIO ES ANCHO: TWENTY MEXICAN POETS Edited and Translated by Marlon L. Fick

Pamela Hart reviews CHILD IN THE ROAD by Cindy Savett

Nicholas Manning reviews THIS POEM/WHAT SPEAKS?/A DAY by Tom Beckett

Eileen Tabios engages ORANGES & SARDINES, Summer 2008, Vol. 1 Issue, Edited by David Krump, Andy Nicholson, Meghan Punschke and Didi Menendez

Karen Rigby reviews THE BOYS I BORROW by Heather Sellers

Eileen Tabios engages RAFETOWN GEORGICS by Garin Cycholl

Laurel Johnson reviews DEFIANCE by Hugh Fox

Jeff Harrison reviews SKINNY BUDDHA by Sheila E. Murphy

Pamela Hart reviews THE MARVELOUS BONES OF TIME by Brenda Coultas

Leny M. Strobel engages PRAU by Jean Vengua

Francie Noyes reviews CLOUD VIEW POETS: MASTER CLASSES WITH DAVID ST. JOHN, edited by Morley Clark, Jane Downs, CB Follett, and Susan Terris

Patrick James Dunagan reviews SHINY, No. 14, 2008, edited by Michael Friedman

Bob Marcacci reviews TWO HATS APPEAR WHEN APPLAUDED by Raymond Farr, OCCASION IN THE MOSAIC DISTANCE by Paul Klinger, [from SLOT (TO PULL AN HISTORICAL SITE FORM YOU)] by Jill Magi, SPECIMEN by Marci Nelligan, INSECT COUNTRY (B) by Sawako Nakayasu, and SOUVENIRS by Bronwen Tate

Derek Motion reviews ORIGAMI SHIPWRECK by Craig Perez and Katy Acheson

William Allegrezza reviews IT’S ALL A MOVIE by Alex Gildzen

Nathan Logan reviews NEVER CRY WOOF by Shafer Hall

Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz reviews AN MAUPAY HA MGA WARAY UF IBA PA NGA MGA SIDAY (Waray poems with English translations) by Voltaire Oyzon

Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor reviews BEIJING BACKGROUND by Bob Marcacci

Eileen Tabios engages ORGY IN THE BEEF CLOSET by Michael Koshkin

Laurel Johnson reviews SUDDENLY, FRUIT by Linda Tomol Pennisi


THE CRITIC WRITES POEMS
"{ . . . from HOMO SENTIMENTALIS : A GUIDE IN VERSE TO MODERN EMOTIONAL INTIMACY}" By Nicholas Manning


FEATURE ARTICLES
FEATURED POET: Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow

Thomas Fink interviews Jennifer Kwon Dobbs


FROM OFFLINE TO ONLINE: REPRINTED REVIEWS
Francie Noyes reviews AVERNO by Louise Gluck

Allen Gaborro reviews STAGE PRESENCE: CONVERSATIONS WITH FILIPINO AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTISTS, edited by Theodore S. Gonzalves

Allen Gaborro reviews PRAU bv Jean Vengua

Juaniyo Arcellana reviews PINOY POETICS: A COLLECTION OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL ESSAYS ON FILIPINO AND FILIPINO-AMERICAN POETICS, edited by Nick Carbo


ADVERTISEMENT
Tiny Poetry Books Feeding the World…Literally!


BACK COVER
Dawg Days of Summer!

GIRL SINGING! WHILE DOVEGLION ROARS AND SOARS!

Synchronicity is frequently interesting. Over at John Bloomberg-Rissman's, more and more poets are singing more and more, extending the aria I was moved to release after reading Jose Garcia Villa's poem "Girl Singing".

And so, how very apt, that yesterday I received a copy from Penguin Classics of the just-released DOVEGLION: COLLECTED POEMS of Jose Garcia Villa, Edited by John Cowen and with an introduction by (Meritage Press author) Luis H. Francia. This is the book for which I'd hoped the recovery project The Anchored Angel would help raise interest among publishers. Well, it's great and it's here! It's a major literary (and socio-political) event....and you will be blessed should you check it out.

MOI AM BLATHERING IN ESPANOL POR

12-year-old Michel and 10-year-old Paola. A beautiful reason to learn -- or at least mangle -- a new language, indeed!

AMAZE MOI, WHY DONTCHA!

Okay, lookit. I would have bet that last issue's record number of 65 new reviews/engagements over at Galatea Resurrects would be an anomaly. I mean, that's a high number, yah?

But as I write this, just two days before the extended review deadline, I've got 60 reviews in hand. I've been promised three more reviews. But think about it you swamped reviewers: two more would tie GR #9's record, and three more would supplant it.

It's not so much that I would be heavily obnoxious blathering about the new record number of reviews if we pass 65 for the issue. It's that I would be even more egregiously obnoxious blathering about how ... GR would have just missed setting a new record -- it'd be ugly. C'mon, ye reviewing Peeps. How 'bout one more? I got over 20 reviews where review copies were sent out but no reviews have come in yet. I know we're all busy but if just couple more peeps send me sumthin'....ya know the rest!

COMO SE DICE "OY VEY" EN ESPANOL?

Apparently, the would-be Spanish-speaking Moi called someone a "dirty body" today when she meant to say "kitchen."

Apparently numero dos, the culprit was Moi's faux Italiano accent.

*****

Okay--some legit bizness. I'm still swamped, so am still willing to take Galatea Resurrects reviews through to Wednesday since it's not like I can pay attention to closing out the issue until at least that time. Comprendez, ye dirty bodies?

HOUSEKEEPING

I'm swamped.

And so are some others so I've extended Galatea Resurrects' deadline to July 14 -- take note, you swamped reviewers!

Secondly, Listen & Be Heard, managed by Poetry Angel Martha Cinader Mims has chosen Mark Young's PELICAN DREAMING as an "Editor's Pick". Thanks for listening, Martha! And such recommendation also is a good reason to remind you of THIS!

Third, I'm on a panel approved for the 2009 AWP involving Bruce Covey, Amy King, Stephanie Young, Stephanie Strickland and Robin Schaer. I'm on a panel but I've lost track what the topic is ... but I'm sure it's a brilliant topic and that it will be a brilliant presentation etcetera yadda.

Fourth, among Small Press Distribution's latest list of "RECOMMENDED NEW TITLES for June 24-July 8, 2008" is The Hay(na)ku Anthology, Vol. II. Yadda. SPD info:
ORDERS: 1-800-869-7553
ORDERS@SPDBOOKS.ORG
FAX: 1-510-524-0852
WWW.SPDBOOKS.ORG
Try Electronic Ordering! SPD is on PUBNET (SAN #106-6617)
Questions? Contact Neil Alger at neil@spdbooks.org

Fifth, I've been speaking mostly Spanish in the last two weeks for a reason I can't reveal yet. The problem is, I don't actually know Spanish....and yet that's the first language of possibly the majority of peeps in Napa Valley. Which is to say, I'm gathering a lot of aghast looks in the area as I go about mangling Spanish here and there. But come to think of it, I mangle English, too -- it's just that my excuse per Ingles is that soy una poeta. My excuse for mangling Spanish? Simply, Amor.

And to end with that word -- The Word -- is to begin again. Amor.

THE BLIND CHATELAINE'S KEYS: HER BIOGRAPHY THROUGH YOUR POETICS

[Hay, naku! New Poetic Form Alert!]

Something I picked up from certain visual artists -- you can either maximize your number of exhibitions or make sure that each individual exhibition is different from each other. Moi, of course, wants it both ways. One way to facilitate obscurity in the poetry world is to serve up books that make a poet difficult to categorize. Once fame is acknowledged (acknowledged in a nano-second) as irrelevant in poetry, I just put out those books as quickly as I can as long as each book hits my own publish-able threshold. I mention "fame" here as some poet has "helpfully" suggested that I'd be more famous if I didn't publish so many books and so gave time to poetry's (presumed) limited audience to take in my output. Well, F*(&)(*&k That Shite!, the Chatelaine thinks even as she smiles sweetly at that censoring peep.

So, anyway, my one-of-three forthcoming books, THE BLIND CHATELAINE'S KEYS: Her Biography Through Your Poetics, hits several of my markers for publication, not just for expanding the notion of narrative arc to disrupt the form of biography; it also introduces a new poetic form: the haybun. Ye hay(na)ku lovers should get it -- it's like Basho's "haibun" except it utilizes the hay(na)ku instead of haiku. And, significantly, the haybun is more flexible/open, insofar as the hay(na)ku is less formally strict than the haiku.

Last but not least, while the book can be considered a poet's poetry project for its direct address of form, the book's social concern is not, one hopes, egocentric (heh: not egocentric though it's a biography) or, ahem, fame-centered. This collection addresses a matter close to my heart and my veins: the plight of orphans worldwide, estimated as high as 200 million. I hope that when it comes out from BlazeVox Books, you will be interested in going through its pages. A book description (for once, I care about "blurbs", per this one blurb in it) is featured below:

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The Blind Chatelaine’s Keys takes its impetus from three impossibilities: (i) biography (and autobiography)—something is always left out, (ii) artistic criticism—the critic’s subjectivity inevitably comes to play, and (iii) pure persona in poems—the poet’s self remains a presence no matter how much a poet may wish to disrupt the “I”.

Eileen R. Tabios, known as “Chatelaine” in poetry blogland, uses others’ criticisms and engagements of her writings to create a narrative arc that serves as a biography. Since the biography is based (mostly) on her poems, it conceptually pushes the idea summed up by Ted Berrigan: “there is a self inside almost all of the poems”.

The Blind Chatelaine’s Keys is also a poetics, but laid out by others based on Tabios’ poems. Not only is this ideal as one doesn’t want to apply proscriptive paradigms on art, but, according to Tabios, it reflects the way of “Kapwa”—a Filipino cultural concept of interconnectedness whereby other people are not “others” but part of what one is. The featured critical engagements were also chosen for what the reviews say about their authors. The results address the Chatelaine’s core poetics: while Rimbaud says, “I is Another,” the Chatelaine cheerfully notes, “Moi is all about Toi.”

When Tabios finally speaks for herself—it is to inaugurate a new poetic form: the “haybun.” While this form is inspired by the “haibun” associated with Basho, the “haybun” relies on the “hay(na)ku”. The “hay(na)ku” is an earlier invention by Tabios which has become a popular 21st century form, undertaken by numerous poets worldwide. Through the haybun, Tabios offers a memoir of a failed adoption attempt, “Looking for M.”, has been praised by adoption professionals, including:

“‘Looking for M.’ is not just deeply moving but also educational about one of the most complicated difficulties in adoption attempts: reactive attachment disorder. Eileen Tabios also reveals her psychic wounds to educate the public about the potentially dire consequences of orphanhood. M.’s story is the story of so many orphans whose interior lives are often invisible. Ms. Tabios gives them a voice through poems I read over and over, saddened that the emotions I feel become physical.”
—Sherrell J. Goolsby, Executive Director of World Child International

A THOUSAND EXTENSIONS OF THAT GIRL SINGING ARIA!

Wow. Instigated by John-Bloomberg-Rissman, the angelic and non-angelic hosts are well on their way to a thousand extensions of Jose Garcia Villa's poem "Girl Singing", beginning with the poem I wrote after it entitled "The Secret Life of an Angel".

Dude: am I blessed or am I blessed!

Thank you, All. Dios ti Agngnina.

TINY BUT HUGELY CHARMING!

Very honored and tickled to get the attention of Gary Glazner (I've never met him but have read and appreciated his book HOW TO MAKE A LIVING AS A POET ) because he sez he's "smitten" by Meritage Press' Tiny Books Project.

So, it seems a fitting reminder re the Tiny Books. Wouldn't you like to know what smites other people into smiles?

*****

Speaking of Meritage Press, am honored and tickled again at all the backchanneled attention. Yes, these books are quality reads! One indication is when you publish a book and then you are approached by a university press who'd like to co-publish it. They offered financially crappy terms (exceedingly crappy terms!) but you know that Chatelaine -- she's likely to be generous even with financially tight university presses just cause it amuses Moi to see how ideas she spins from a mountaintop gets received by the world. More deets later!

GARDENING POETICS, THE MOI WAY

I'm actually attempting a major, as in MAJOR, harvest as we speak (we speakin'?) related to ye olde Conjuration...Hopefully, someday, Moi can discuss in public...but meanwhile:

Groan. Do you know how many weeks -- months! -- it would take for this City Slicker to come up with Cornshake's Bounty HERE?! Plus my strawberries are mostly the size of the tips of my littler fingers' fingernails! Well, one just goes ONWARD! as Creeley once sez: to wit, here's my latest Relished W(h)ines List:

THE CITY SLICKER'S HARVEST (to date)
12 Santa Rosa plums (twelve?! pathetic; to date, the birds have gotten about 40...)
26 apricots
54 strawberries
813 basil leaves
327 purple basil leaves
267 mint leaves
300 pinches of parsley
2 zucchini
2 yellow squash
1 orange squash
6 tomatoes


PUBLICATIONS
THE STRAITS, poems by Kristin Palm

NO PAROLE TODAY, poems and memoir by Laura Tohe

UNBECOMING BEHAVIOR by Kate Colby

THE DRUG OF ART: IVAN BLATNY'S SELECTED POEMS, Edited by Veronika Tuckerova

ONE OF A KIND, poetry by Jack Micheline

THE SENSORY CABINET by Mark DuCharme

WITHOUT PEACE, poems by Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal

KEEPERS OF SILENCE, poems by Luis Cuahtemoc Berriozabal

ROUNDING THE HUMAN CORNERS, poems by Linda Hogan

ITERATURE, poems by Eugene Ostashevsky

IN COMPANY: AN ANTHOLOGY OF NEW MEXICO POETS AFTER 1960, Edited by Lee Bartlett, V.B. Price and Dianne Edenfield Edwards

FOURSQUARE, Jan. 2008, Edited by Jessica Smith featuring Jennifer Chang, Ada Limon, Evie Shockley and Kate Middleton

FOURSQUARE, April 2008, Edited by Jessica Smith featuring Laura Elrick, Katie Kemple, Nicole Zdeb and Cathy Eisenhower

AFTER-IMAGES: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES by W.D. Snodgrass

HOPE'S EDGE: THE NEXT DIET FOR A SMALL PLANET by Frances Moore Lappe and Anna Lappe

FOR BEA: THE STORY OF THE BEAGLE WHO CHANGED MY LIFE, memoir by Kristin Von Kreisler

WALKING TRACTORS AND OTHER COUNTRY TALES, essays by Bruce Patterson

LA BELLE SAISON; LIVING OFF THE LAND IN RURAL FRANCE, memoir by Patricia Atkinson


WINES
2005 Pizzeria Travigne house chardonnay
Blankiet rose (no year mentioned; only privately distributed)
1996 Jones Family Vineyard cabernet
2004 Dancing Hares Vineyard
2002 Spring Mountain NV Estate red wine
King Brut Grande Cuvee Champagne
2005 Peter Michael Cuvee Indigene
2002 Jean Boillot Puligny-Montrachet Clos de la Mouchere
1983 Margaux
1978 Diamond Creek Volcanic Hill
1988 Ch. Filhot Creme de Tete
1977 Graham's Port
2005 Telegrame White Chateuneuf de Pape
2005 Les Monts Damnes Francoi Cotat Sancerre
2002 Vosne Romanee Aux Brulees ler Cru Domaine Michel Gros
2006 Revers marie Pinot Noir Summa Vineyard Sonoma Coast
2005 Marsannay Les Longeroies Vielles Vignes Regis Bouvee (sp)
1993 Yalumba Octavius
2000 Kistler Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast
1996 Dalla Valle cabernet NV