SPECIAL GARRETT CAPLES SPECIAL

Of course Jackson Pollock had only been channeling Garrett Caples, as this resounding read as a feature over at PhillySound reveals!

To celebrate this wonderful article, Meritage Press is pleased to announce a September special for Garrett's Meritage Press book, COMPLICATIONS. Normally retailing for $16.00, you can order it direct from Meritage Press for 50% off and free shipping within the U.S. Good through the end of September, make $8.00 check out to "Meritage Press" and send to

E. Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574

How can you not want to take up this offer when Garrett's feature includes this excerpt:

"Mildred Begley" was my great-aunt who died in her 80s. She was a wonderful person and I was sad because she's the type of person who slips through history, making her mark on her immediate friends and family but leaving nothing behind. I thought maybe I could preserve something, even though it's not a very straightforward elegy at all and doesn't give much sense of her as a person. I also enjoyed using her name as a title-it sounds like an Anthony Trollope novel. As for the older poets: "Dub Song of Prufrock Shakur" is dedicated to both Philip Lamantia and Robert Creeley, who died within a few months of each other. Mostly Philip-inspired, as we were pretty close, but Creeley is certainly in there. I remember telling Barbara Guest I liked Creeley's work, which she really hated, as it turned out. But I told her that my interest was largely formal, which is true; obviously our vocabularies and sensibilities are quite different. She approved of this, saying something like "That's very wise," a typically dual-edged type of Barbara statement. Barbara is the subject of "A Young Girl Recalls Meeting Erich Von Stroheim," as well as the speaker. It's based on her actual experience and, being a huge Von Stroheim fan, I couldn't resist writing it after she told me the story. She was still alive when I wrote it and I showed it to her; she approved, thank god. Really it's kind of audacious writing a poem in the voice of a living master, but again, I couldn't help myself and I'm very glad I wrote it as it was one of those stories that she never got on paper and it deserves telling. "‘I Have Seen Enough'" is another one about Philip but dedicated to Nancy Joyce Peters, the co-owner/publisher emeritus of City Lights who was married to Philip. I got to know her only after he died, when I helped her put his papers together for the Bancroft Library. This was basically the beginning of the process by which I eventually started editing for City Lights, so it was a real pivotal moment in my life. That poem was one of the few that was actually written more or less in the time it takes to read it. Everything in it-the strange encounters with birds, etc.-really occurred.

Nifty, eh?

(As an aside, Philip Lamantia once wrote in my journal. He wrote by drawing in a bird...)

I WROTE A BOOK FOR MY SON'S HOMEWORK

So much about Michael's homework focuses on the person he most spends time with -- that would be Moi. As a result, his sixth grade was a bit farcical: I had to cook to help him do homework for two classes: art and Spanish. I had to cook! I made carrot cake and coq au vin, which is two of the five recipes I know. That leaves me with three recipes to last him through high school graduation. Yes, as I write this, I am trying to learn adobo (did you know brown sugar is the secret ingredient? Yes, visit my blog and learn even culinary secrets! Such is the expanse of the One Who Does Not Cook!).

Anyway, now, Michael is interviewing me again for a math project. He has to interview a person about said person's profession and the role of math in that person's profession. Then he has to make a poster with at least one image that relates to the topic. Well, there are no coincidences, right? A wonderful synchronicity is how this homework was assigned almost immediately after my newest book came out -- and how will that book cover look on his poster?



The interview will necessarily focus on the algebraic relationships formed through poetry. Another synchronicity, right in the book is my translation of a kari edwards poem which is mostly numbers and with an equation as an epigraph. Woot! If A + B = C, won't you come make C with me!

*****

Meanwhile, it's fun to teach Michael his manners by using visual art. His New York relatives sent him another book--a fabulous kids' book about Giotto as a boy; here's the terrific book cover:



And here is Michael's "Thank-You-Drawing"--thanks Eve, John & Cerise!

WOOF EKPHRASIS

Jim McCrary -- who believes Dogs Rule! and yep they do! -- has written the first play ever inspired by Achilles and Gabriela. And if you read through his one-act tome below, you'll see how he captured so niftily the spirit of the image that raised his pen:

A One Act Play (in verse)
Scene 1 – Archilles and Gabriela are walking through a row of dormant pinot grapes. Its a quiet winter day on the mountain.

Archilles – Yo Gabriela!
Gabriela – (Ignores him)
Archilles – Yo Gabriela.
Gabriela – Not now.
Archilles – Yo Gab…
Gabriela – (silent)
Archilles – Yo yo yo Gab!!!
Gabriela – (silent)
Archilles – Yo yo yo sister!!!
Gabriela – (silent)
Archilles – Yo Gab...yo yo yo yo
Gabriela – QUIT Yo-ing me!!!

McCrary -- you can dawg Moi anytime!

"GOOD IDEAS ARE MAD"

Today's drawing is another by Michael as he continues to gather art world luminaries among his new pals. The very lucid painter Squeak Carnwath recently sent Michael a book bag (which he generously gave to his Mom) and her latest art monograph, PAINTING IS NO ORDINARY OBJECT. After perusing the book, Michael chose a favored image to draw, to wit:



And here is Michael's drawing:



What I love about Michael's drawing is how he changed the text on the Carnwath painting from

GOOD IDEAS R NOT MADE
THEY ARE STOLEN

to

GOOD IDEAS
THEY ARE MAD

or maybe that's GOOD IDEAS / THEY ARE MADE -- either way, it's a terrific if inadvertent riposte. I say "inadvertent" because, with his currently limited English knowledge, it may be that Michael is seeing words-as-visual-art as *purely* as anyone can. As I recall Charles Bernstein once saying somewhere, he found it difficult to look at words as visual art since he inevitably reads them as well (I paraphrase).

Anyway, here is the latest Relished W(h)ine List, affected by reading 13-year-old boy stuff and impacted by my ongoing fascination with life in the Pioneer West days...


CITY SLICKER'S SPRING/SUMMER GARDEN HARVEST (to date)
14 bunches of yellow table grapes (these table grapes have been around for about four years; they're finally releasing something edible)
9 bunch of red flame table grapes
33 red cherry tomatoes
164 golden cherry tomatoes
134 red heirloom tomatoes
13 yellow heirloom tomatoes
4 peaches
5 artichokes
120 green onion stalks
14 onions/scallions
87 strawberries
39 yellow squash
25 zucchini (2 the size of infants, 2 the size of canoes)
195 basil leaves
75 lemon cucumbers
26 cucumbers
25 pepper leaves
14 green bell peppers
11 jalapeno peppers
30 mint leaves
85 basil leaves
30 yellow squash leaves


PUBLICATIONS
BRIGHT EXISTENCE, poems by Brenda Hillman (I'm woefully late to Hillman's poems, which I'm finally starting to relish)

THE LONG LOST STARTLE, poems by Joel Toledo

GUARDIANS OF THE SECRET, poems by Lila Zemborain, Trans by Rosa Alcala (I read many poetry books and most of the time I read randomly. Entonces, most books I read are not those to which I'll tend to return. I find that I will always welcome returning to read poems by Lila Zemborain)

TERMINAL HUMMING, poems by K. Lorraine Graham

HEATHEN, poems by Lesley Wheeler

RAPTURE, poems by Susan Minot

THE SEVEN AGES, poems by Louise Gluck

THE ANGELS OF BREAD, poems by Martin Espada

WAITING FOR SWEET BETTY, poems by Clarence Major

HOW TO PAINT SUNLIGHT, NEW POEMS by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

UNSWEPT ROOMS, poems by Sharon Olds

PAINTING IS NO ORDINARY OBJECT, art monograph by Squeak Carnwath with essays by Karen Tsujimoto and John Yau

A BOY NAMED GIOTTO, children's book named Giotto by Paoli Guarneri with pictures by Bimba Landmann (this is a fabulous kid's book and also would be a great way to enhance a love for visual art)

MO AND JO: FIGHTING TOGETHER FOREVER, a "Toon Book" (I occasionally read what is checked out by Michael from the library)

INDIANA JONES AND THE SPEAR OF DESTINY (graphic novel; see above parenthetical)

FRANKENSTEIN: A GRAPHIC NOVEL (see above parenthetical)

LITTLE TOWN AT THE CROSSROADS, novel by Maria Wilkes

ON TOP OF CONCORD HILL, novel by Maria Wilkes

ACROSS THE ROLLING RIVER, novel by Maria Wilkes

LITTLE CITY BY THE LAKE, novel by Maria Wilkes

LITTLE CLEARING IN THE WOODS, novel by Maria Wilkes

LITTLE CITY BY THE LAKE, novel by Celia Wilkins


THE DESIRES OF HER HEART, novel by Lyn Cote


WINES
1994 Philip Togni cabernet NV
1995 Philip Togni cabernet NV
2006 Aubert chardonnay NV
2006 Dutch Henry chardonnay Los Carneros
2005 Travigne house cabernet
1997 Clarendon Hills Shiraz Brookman Vineyard
2003 Clare Luce Abbey Estate cabernet NV
2005 Stony Brooks Chardonnay
2003 Jones Family Vineyards cabernet
2006 Rombauer chardonnay

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! SO PROUD!

Of course the hubby took off from work and we both dropped Michael off for his first day of school. Of course we took a photo. And of course we embarrassed him (note the hoodie drawn over his head), posing him in front of the school among the hordes of kids. But he should be just glad we'll never have baby photos of him posed in outfits designed for future blackmail ...

IF MOI WAS THE VARIABLE "X", HOW MIGHT YOU DEFINE MY APPROPRIATE EXPONENT?

School starts tomorrow for Michael and I am so proud....of moiself! In three months, I have crammed four years of math into a 13-year-old boy! He barely knew subtraction five months ago; today, he is at par with his peers, doing geometry and algebra! Last night, we had to do a refresher course in Scientific Notation -- do please feel how thrilled I am at writing that phrase -- refresher course in Scientific Notation...!

Okay, let Moi stop patting moiself on the back: but of course I'm mostly proud of Michael. How many 13-year-olds would have allowed someone to inflict this kind of math torture for nearly every day for three months? He has a HUGE work ethic! Nonetheless, I am so pleased to send him off to school tomorrow as I was really REALLY reaching my limit of doing teaching by being a half-chapter ahead...

And he's still a terrific artist, of course! Here is his drawing of where he immediately hung up a poster of Jasper Johns' "Flag" in his bedroom -- the poster is another gift from his Aunt Eve and Uncle John. That's his Lion bedside lamp and edge of his bed along the left-side...:



What a lovely way to commemorate his first view of Jasper John's Flag. It's interesting he made less stripes than on the actual flag and I'm also intrigued by how he uses color to focus.

I think there's a lot to learn in using color to focus -- speaking as one who's often relied on ekphrasis, it can be considered part of ars poetica!

WAY BETTER THAN A THOUSAND VIEWS OF MOI

is this about-to-be-released 1,000 VIEWS OF GIRL SINGING!

...GIRL SINGING is global music produced, in many cases, among strangers from nearly 50 poets worldwide....based on a song, that is poem (inspired by a Jose Garcia Villa poem), I wrote when I was exploring poem-as-song back in the day. I certainly didn't know back then that the poem's desire for audience inherently means the poem-song is really a chorus (or, at a minimum, a duet).

There are poems who just talk the talk. Then there are poems who are lucky enough to find a reader who paused and paid attention for as long as that poem required to release its full blossoming, in this case, on the universal e-stage -- THANK YOU John Bloomberg-Rissman (if you click on John's blog-link, btw, you can see an encyclopediac -- gorgeously ambitious! -- hay(na)ku sequence in blossom-progress...)

Relatedly, much gratitude to Ernesto for his post about both 1,000 VIEWS OF GIRL SINGING and FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA. Ernesto's view is arguably the healthiest writing I've seen among the texts addressing the role of blogging in poetry. Do nota bene in particular his eloquence on the joy of sharing and collaboration!

I was also glad to see Ernesto's post because I was among that group of bloggers who began blogging before hordes of poets got into blogworld. Back then, it was a different zeitgeist...even as it's been fascinating to see what happens to the mix when more capitalist concerns (from selling books to selves) enter into the fray (tho, not to worry: Poetry not only survives everything, but it can blossom from anything).

PENCIL IN BALI!

I'm always happy when I see my poems invited into someone else's project because ... we love to be invited! And now I've got another reason for being delighted that my poems appear in the anthology NOT A MUSE, published by Haven Books of Hong Kong which, oh my, publishes "books for readers with a modern mind"! The very modern Moi is purring because NOT A MUSE is to be launched at the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in Bali!

Said festival is apparently "world famous" but I cheerfully confess I never heard of it because I don't generally pay attention to "literary festivals". If you're a poet and don't have the imagination to launch a lit festival in your own abode (if lit festival is what you want vs public acclaim), then how imaginative are you? But I digress.... So, well, nonetheless, it's Bali and I wouldn't mind this boondoggle at all! Boon that doggle as in

Linger over a literary lunch or candle-lit dinner in some of Ubud’s elegant hotels and gracious homes featuring our acclaimed writers and visiting chefs. Enjoy poetry under the shade of a Buddhist stupa and late night martinis and readings in one of Ubud’s legendary bars. Be dazzled by some of the finest performance poets in the region in grass-roofed venues surrounded by ricefields. Watch plays and theatre in Ubud’s temples set in frangipani and lotus gardens.

Frangipani anyone? I mean, I won't be there but Dear Public, You're invited, too! And if you go I just know you'd go to check out my poems in NOT A MUSE versus going to check out Paradise. I just know that when you hit that beach, that book will be in your tote bag snuggling up to your sunscreen. Yes I just know all that! You, that!

OLD...AND ETERNAL... FAVORITE SONG

Thank you Mark for posting one of my absolute favorite songs of all time.

HERE where

I love you in a place where there's no space and time

BECAUSE MY DOGS ARE INSPIRATIONAL

they might inspire a poem! If you write said poem, email it to Moi at GalateaTen@aol.com and I'll send you books from the Meritage Press List! Here are Achilles and Gabriela (a close-up photo HERE):



(Offer good through August 2009.)

THE TEST OF THE UNCOLLECTED

A side-effect of being so prolific and having had the blessing of interested book publishers (and thank you all) is that I can keep re-testing my assumptions on how to put together a poetry collection. Maybe it was at the tenth or eleventh (or third) or whatever poetry book that I got bored with the constant tinkering of HOW TO ORGANIZE that poetry book. Without at all challenging the wisdom of trying to be disciplined/intelligent with crafting a poetry collection, I've discovered myself less interested in constantly maneuvering a particular poem here, a particular poem there, deleting a poem here, deleting a poem there etcetera -- for me (and I'm just speaking for myself, not other poets), the process has become precious....and tedious.

The paradox (how I love the paradoxes in Poetry) is that once I got relaxed about the whole thing, the nature of poetry reveals itself -- specifically how, like Life, the all of it is interconnected. I recall this debate about how one creates a poetry collection thematically or just as a compilation of individual poems (I've done both). And then there's the approach I tried to take to moi newest book FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA -- the deliberate non-approach (though of course that's an approach of sorts, too). I just went through the files to the extent I have "poetry files", yanked out the poems not previously published in a book, and ... put them in book form, Fullstop. I also did this process as rapidly as I could, its hours of organization a deliberate challenge against the days or weeks or months that one could spend mulling over a particular book's formation (I've been there, too). Which leads me to think:

To collect a bunch of uncollected poems is, in a manner of speaking, another test of whether a poet has, as a saying might say, done it right. Does a collection hold together under the random manner in which it was formed? I always suspected that if Poetry is inherently a matter of interconnections (what we Pinoys also call pakikiramdam and what I lately have been calling algebraic as a result of three months of tutoring a 13-year-old boy in four years worth of math), such a book can hold together -- also recall Gertrude Stein's observation (I paraphrase) about how a word arbitrarily placed next to another word will rub together for some unexpected frisson if not generate some meaning. Many poets have written under such an inspiration -- it's not that ambitious, I thought, to create a book on that basis, too.

Well, whether or not I succeeded -- whether or not FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA coheres -- is not up for me to say. It's up to you, Dear Reader. So, hopefully, you will read my new book -- INFORMATION HERE. At the moment, it's mostly available through Amazon.com though it should appear in the future at other places like SPD.

(A Special Offer for this Blog's Readers: Email me, at GalateaTen@aol.com, proof that you ordered my new book and I'll send you a free copy of my prior 2009 book, NOTA BENE EISWEIN--slightly dinged copies, thus unsellable by the publisher, but still viable copies.)

*****

FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA includes a triptych of poems written during the summer I hung out with Philip Lamantia. These poems, like many of my poems, probably would have evaporated in the ether if Sam Rasnake, had not solicited me for poems in his wonderful Blue Fifth Review (thank you Sam -- many a poet knows that editors matter!). Stumbled across one, which led me to the other two....said Triptych has the only blurb I solicited for this book, from none other than the Ideal Poetry Reader himself, Steven Fama.

And speaking of editors who matter, thanks as well to John Bloomberg-Rissman which took one of the poems in the book to generate 151 multi-genre responses or translations from 47 poets worldwide to create the anthology 1000 Views of "Girl Singing", which is being released (possibly now as we speak) by Leafe Press (U.K.). The anthology should be out soon.

I cite these two examples of the continued algebraic connections Poetry makes possible. May you all experience those connections, too, in loving ways.

FAMILY POETICS

Michael likes to pick up the snailmail and sort through it. He typically reads each recipient's name out loud from each piece of snailmail. So, a week or so ago, I mailed him some stickers as I thought he'd get a kick out of getting mail. He did! He raved and raved over receiving mail -- he still has the envelope on a cherished part of his desk, long after the stickers were used!

So I'm really moved and pleased that his new Uncle John and Aunt Eve of NYC have decided to start sending him mail. There is no other person out there who'd have a reason for mailing my son, except his Mom of course who observes him every day that he sorts through Galatea's mail ("What's Galatea Resurrects?" he once asked, making Moi grin).

Anyway, after receiving his first mail from John, Eve and Cerise, he drew them a Thank You drawing -- to wit, he drew the part of our house where Eve has four paintings hanging. Eve, of course, is the brilliant artist Eve Aschheim. Here's Michael's drawing:



Naturally, Moi preens on his behalf and nudges y'all: Ain't it brilliant?!!! The two thingies on the floor, btw, are Achilles' chewed-up frisbee and Gabriela's bone.

Followers of Eve's work might recall some of the images -- the paintings we have are from the time Eve was doing work like THIS LOVELY "PALE CLEAR". John, of course, is the FABULOUS POET HERE.

Family Poetics is hard to beat!

GOING LIVE

Because I do much e-blather, peeps may not know that I've been hibernating from the po-world for what's soon going to be three years. It'll be that long that I won't have done a reading or other po-events requiring me to go live in person.

Well, hibernation is hard to maintain if one keeps releasing books. So, on Sept. 21 (7 p.m.), I'll be visiting as part of SFState's "Writers on Writing" series (which looks to be NOTA BENE EISWEIN's first textbook hook-up -- thanks to the prof Bob Gluck!). On Oct. 17, I'll read as part of Litquake at Fabric 8 (thanks to curator Karen Llagas), which invitation I accepted mostly because it will be on a weekend, thus allowing me to bring Michael to his first poetry reading!

More events stuff coming up on through to next year, as I'll have to support the Spring 2010 release of THE THORN ROSARY. But consider this a heads' up: after I do what I feel I should do for my first and thorny "selected poems" book (released through Marsh Hawk Press), it's likely I'll drop back into non-virtual hiding. So catch me in person while you can. And of course I'd be grateful if, indeed, you care to clasp my non-metaphorical hand.

As for what I do outside po-world? Well, it's just some ... high-stakes poker played without looking at the cards, which doesn't leave mi cuerpo mucho tiempo for otras actividades. Sip: tonight, the lovely 1994 Forman Cabernet NV...

THE CONTINUED SUCKING OF POETRY ECONOMICS

I get it. As a poetry publisher, I so totally get it and it HURTS where I get it! I get No Tell Books' "Free Tarot Reading or Dream Interpretation Offer" for customers who buy a poetry book. As they say:

No Tell Books is trapped in the same pot along with hundreds of other small presses. We’re all jumping up and down yelling, HELP US, BUY A BOOK, WE’RE MELTING! // Pleas have gone unanswered...

Anyway, No Tell Books' offer is amazing and you are wise to take advantage of divining your future through poetry. Having said that, No Tell Book's unique approach made me curious as to how moi Meritage Press is doing during this recession. Well, it is dismal.

SPD is the primary source of revenues for Meritage Press. I get an annual check from them -- the 2009 check reflects a 64% drop from my 2008 check. So far this year, I've sold just 21 books viz Amazon and 10 books viz Lulu. Outside of these *distributors*, I've had two individual customers and one retailer-customer purchase another three books. I've also had three authors continue to purchase their own books (but I give moi beloved authors special discounts that don't do much for Meritage Press' bottom line.) These 2009, to date, results aren't that good when I've got 21 titles to sell...

Still, there are highlights. Okay, just two highlights. Nearly 50 copies of Pinoy Poetics were sold as textbooks for a summer class this year at Sonoma State. And Prau was used as a text too in the spring semester. Yeeeee-hah! These orders are likely to make 2009 Meritage Press' second year in the black (though it only takes a buck to have a positive financial result, mind you, which means I'm a long way from recouping costs of previous years when the press used to lose $5k or so a year).

But the other reason why the press is not (yet) melting is because I've deferred publishing much new books this year. Sales income is supposed to generate funds for doing new books -- and such has not occurred this recession (income has been used just to cover existing fixed costs).

Next year, I do hope to publish new books but have only two books scheduled -- way below my desired output. (Which of course only means that these two books are very very special to have slipped through the financial squeeze -- but such specialness is a story for another day.)

So what should I do now? I want to concoct some sort of "Special Offer," too. But the most successful I could dream up is probably a glass of wine with each book and such poses logistical difficulties.... but, okay, lookit, if you purchase a Meritage Press title during the rest of this month, let moi know (GalateaTen@aol.com) and I'll send you a "Wine Drawing". I wouldn't call it a "special" offer -- it's me drawing by spilling from a glass of wine. In this recession, that'd be an expensive drawing and you'd be lucky to have it for the price of a Meritage Press book!

That's about the best I can do, Folk-Peeps.

*****

I should implicate moiself. My poetry-buying also has been quite diminished of late. Recently, I've only purchased one poetry book, THE SUBURBAN ECSTASIES by Seth Abramson -- only the second purchase that's occurred as a result of something I read on a poet's blog (the first such blog-inspired purchase were the books of Reginald Shepherd). This isn't an honor of sorts -- many of the poets I admire blog and I would buy their books whether or not they blog; Abramson and Shepherd are two poets brought to my attention viz blogland and I found stuff on their blogs interesting enough to check out their poetry.

(I also bought Abramson's book before the recent brou-haha he got involved in so don't add my comment as a comment on that borehaha). So, anyway, I got Abramson's book because I was curious as to what kind of poems are written by someone who writes as he does on his blog (grin). Well, the surface gestures are elucidating (though that's a personal mo to moiself): the hardback, the fact that this "first book" is actually a book-length poem....

I haven't read the book yet, but a random opening of it surfaces this which I much appreciate:

The only way to paint a boulder in the surf
                  is as though it were alive--

cooling the moving flesh
with colorlessness, then down to its verb,

Where was I before I rudely interrupted moiself? Oh yes, I was saying: I, too, should buy more poetry books -- how else to muster the enthusiasm to push the books I write and/or publish, yah? Self: you are nota-bened!

THE BEAUTIFUL MIND OF TOM CLARK

is quite evident at his blog HERE and at the Vanitas Blog where he's currently guest-posting. I've been enjoying much of Tom Clark's ekphrastic writings -- he's certainly one of the more deeply enchanting practitioners of image-inspired poems out there, from a flying flock of Barnacle geese to extending the evocativeness of Egon Schiele . Have a good time exploring! And thanks Tom for the clarity of your particular Faith.

GO CUCUMBER THIS!

Yesterday as I was turning off into moi country road, a neighbor stopped me to ask if I liked cucumbers. When I said Yes, she gave me a bag of lemon cucumbers because, she said, "I have too much in the garden."

I thanked her even as I mentally heaved and sighed. Here Moi am, a self-proclaimed (thus self-aggrandizing) "Keeper of Keys", living in one of the world's most fertile areas and I have difficulty eking out a harvest that would not bring shame to my name. I mean, even when I think I've achieved something creditable in the vegetable category -- to wit, two zucchinis the size of human infants because of course I'm also crappy at knowing when to harvest (isn't it pathetic how I call it "harvest" when I pinch a basil plant for four leaves), it's only to come up with "unacceptable vegetables" because who knew that zucchinis shouldn't grow that big because I never judged whether big is better.... It's just fortunate I'm not ashamed of being ashamed.

The New Poetry may have been counting tomatoes, but I tell ya: the New Pathetic is being able to count strawberries...

Anyway, here's my latest Relished W(h)ine List:

CITY SLICKER'S SPRING/SUMMER GARDEN HARVEST (to date)
23 red cherry tomatoes
144 golden cherry tomatoes
14 red heirloom tomatoes
3 yellow heirloom tomatoes
4 peaches
5 artichokes
120 green onion stalks
14 onions/scallions
81 strawberries
31 yellow squash
19 zucchini (of which two have been the size of a human baby)
145 basil leaves
33 lemon cucumbers
23 cucumbers
25 pepper leaves
10 green bell peppers
4 green chili peppers
30 mint leaves
60 basil leaves
30 yellow squash leaves


PUBLICATIONS
POSTCARDS TO BOX 464, poems by Amanda Laughtland (in manuscript). Here's Moi unedited blurb:

Created from postcards sent to long-time family friends over a span of 50 years, Amanda Laughtland's Postcards to Box 464 offers manifestations of affection which so enchant that we are pulled into their intimate space. We feel as if we were "the Coopers", recipients of the original postcards -- reading these poems makes one feel liked as much as obviously loved! Distilled into a chap with fittingly spare but evocative drawings by Jen May, the poems read like a travel diary as well, and as such a journal is a page-turner. The "found text" even transcend their original context through inadvertent humor: "Through some / misunderstanding, the hotel / didn't hold my room. At present // calling around for a bed tonight. / Way it looks, I'll end up in Berkeley." Laughtland's craftsmanship and emotional commitment makes this project luminous -- in her "labor of love," her generous love achieves what poetry can: a seemingly effortless making of attraction.

INCLINED TO SPEAK: AN ANTHOLOGY OF CONTEMPORARY ARAB AMERICAN POETRY, Ed. Hayan Charam

SING, MONGREL, poems by Claire Hero

ROCK CANDY, poems by Jenifer Rae Vernon

NOTES ON A LIFE, memoir by Eleanor Coppola

CABIN FEVER: SHACKS AND SHELTERS, HUTS AND HIDEAWAYS, photographic study by Marie-France Boyer

BUTTERFLIES IN THE WIND: THE TRUTH ABOUT LATIN AMERICAN ADOPTIONS, memoir by Jean Nelson-Erichsen and Heino R. Erichsen

THE PUMPKIN PATCH: A SINGLE WOMAN'S INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION JOURNEY, memoir by Margaret L. Schwartz

ADOPTING ALESIA: MY CRUSADE FOR MY RUSSIAN DAUGHTER, memoir by Dee Thompson

A BABY FROM BOGOTA, memoir by Lois A. Herman

THE LIMITS OF HOPE: AN ADOPTIVE MOTHER'S STORY by Ann Kimble Loux

CONTAGIOUS, novel by Scott Sigler

TURBULENCE, novel by John. J. Nance

FINAL APPROACH, novel by John J. Nance

LEFT TO DIE, novel by Lisa Jackson


WINES
1985 Clerico Ciabot Mentin Ginestra
2006 Dutch Henry chardonnay
2004 Dutch Henry "Argos"
1994 Tinto Pesquera Ribera Del Duero
2006 Termed "Toro" Tempranillo
2007 Dashe zinfandel
1990 Frederic Esmonin Gevrey-Chambertin Estournelles Saint-Jacques
1996 Jones Family Cabernet
2003 Muller Catoir Riesling Spatlese
2004 Saxum Bone Rock syrah
1995 Pesquera Alenza Ribera Del Duero
1985 Clerico Ginestra
1991 Laurel Glen Cabernet Sonoma Mountain
1975 Ch. Leoville Las Cases
2001 Blankiet cabernet Paradise Hills Vineyard
2006 Mondavi cabernet NV
2006 Mondavi merlot NV
2006 Mondavi chardonnay
2007 Pride Viognier Sonoma Valley
2005 JJ Prum Graacher Himmelreich Auslese

WHEN MERITAGE DREAMS OF PELICANS

Reading Mark Young's PELICAN DREAMING is encouraged by Tom Hibbard's review at Big Bridge, evocatively titled titled "Magritte's Razor".

Do check out other offerings from my loving and loveable press which reveals what can happen from poets who make instead of simply inherit language (hence, the press itself is named after "meritage," a word created to describe the Bordeaux-style of wine-making that uses California-grown grapes).