GALATEA RESURRECTS' POSITIVE ENERGY!

As we all know since I not only blathered about it but SUPER-BLATHERED about it, the current issue of Galatea Resurrects contains 108 poetry reviews (it would have been 110 but my e-desk is so messy I omitted two which will appear nonetheless in the next issue). Anyway, with over a hundred poetry reviews, what else is next for good ol' GR? How to top that?

Big-brained John Bloomberg-Rissman actually asked me that question -- how to top it! So I shared with him an idea I've had for a long while: for one person to do a humongous amount of reviews in a compressed time period. The reason this idea excites me is that, being an experienced maximalist (cough), I know that scale matters and if one puts one's attention to something for a prolonged period of time, something else happens as a result of that concentrated focus.

Well, of course I've also accepted that my idea is not practical. Who's got the time to do such a project and especially at the munificent compensation (not!) that I dole out for GR reviews?

But synchronistically, John and I had that conversation just as he was about to retire from his super-librarian job! So he promised to do one engagement each day for February for 28 reviews! (We forgot about leap year).

Well it has been so fascinating for me to observe as he sent in his reviews because 28 reviews, too, suffice to reveal that "kick" that occurred mid-way through his reading process as a result of what I call "scale" or super-concentration. Then, amazingly to both of us, after he finished 28, he was still in the mood! So I'm about to mail him another 22 books! He wants to review 50 books total!

So in addition to its usual run-up of reviews, the next issue will present John as a single-reviewer of poems from 50 books and I believe the result will amaze and impress you as much as it has Moi! This surely is an admirable follow-up to over a hundred new reviews by a horde of reviewers!

(Not to mention how I welcome the diminishment of the ever-growing pile of review copies slipping through the doorway and asking to be read--thank you, John!)

Things are always positive-energy over at Galatea Resurrects. Another wonderful development is that I've received, so far, two reviews written by students at MacAlester College. Their intrepid teacher and fabulous poet Kristin Naca had arranged for some of her students' review assignments to be considered by GR--next issue will feature two such reviews! And, ahoy ye poet-teachers, this is an offer to you all: if any of your students writes a paper deemed good enough to be a published review, I am here to offer such a venue!

And to the rest of ye 9.5 billion Peeps of mine, more poetry books are available and longing to be reviewed. More info over HERE.