Heavens, I left a book off of my ridiculous simultaneous reading list the other day: Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee by James Tate. Add the Schuyler to the list and I am in the middle of way too many books. Has anyone read The Route as Briefed? I’m enjoying Tate’s prose, which honestly is so much like his poetry that I don’t discern a heck of a lot of difference.

I failed to waste the day completely, but this is perhaps because Ladybug came home from camping earlier than expected and I was able to goof off with her for a while. I must say that I like being around her more than I like not being around her.

Thieves in Myanmar are stealing womens’ hair. The filchers target women in crowded areas, sneak up, and snip away. This is somewhat awesome. I mean, it isn’t, but it is.

The ginormous hard drive I use for music only is full. That’s 180 GB, or about 180 days of music without a repeat (unless I happen to have two copies of the song because of Greatest Hits collections or soundtracks). Seeing as how I would like to add some more songs to that drive, I suppose I will have to do some paring down. The completist in me, the obsessive collector, cringes at the notion of deleting the half-star (yes, I rate by half-stars) and one-star tracks that belong to full albums, even though I usually skip through them. Who owns the most stinkers in my iTunes library? Poi Dog Pondering has more half-star tracks than any other band, I think They Might Be Giants and Paul McCartney tie for one-star tracks. But I’ve probably only rated about 1/6 of the library. I have grand dreams of one day tagging/rating everything just so. But that is 36,000+ items… so it’s not a weekend project. I had a lot of it rated before I lost all that data in August because of iTunes 7.

Other random stats:

• Five-star tracks: 435
• Four-star tracks: 700
• Three-star tracks: 1646
• Most played: “We Used to Vacation” by the Cold War Kids and “Greeting Card Aisle” by Sarah Harmer, 21
• Last added: “One True Vine” by Wilso” and the new Polyphonic Spree album
• Now playing: “Heart of Gold” by Tori Amos (3 1/2 stars)

I’m not entirely sure what possessed me to do so, but when I woke up this morning, I immediately reached to the bedside table for James Schuyler’s Collected Poems, and I spent a little more than an hour and a half reading. I cannot say why it was that I woke with such a need to read those poems.

However, it now seems quite possible that I won’t do anything else worthwhile today (other than, of course, taking my mother out for Mother’s Day). When I first woke up, I felt thoroughly relieved of this cold that I have been carrying around for more than a week, but as I read, the drip returned, and I now feel as fully congested as before.

I realized this weekend that some of my subscriptions finally ran out. So, I subscribed to one new magazine; I’m still waiting for another to publish its first issue since AWP. I’ll probably need to subscribe to at least one more poetry mag before it’s all said and done. Now taking suggestions in the comments section.

Is it possible to go a whole day without a single useful thought? If so, I think I achieved that glorious nirvana today. My crowning achievement: answering a text message from Dan.

I have been thinking recently that with the preponderance of poet-bloggers who are out there hacking away at their blogs and seem to have ample online time, it’s sort of amazing that there aren’t functional message boards where these conversations can be more… well, conversational.

Obviously, there’s no shortage of message boards for “writers,” places where people are fawning over drafts of their online friends’ greeting card verse. I recognize how elitist I sound– how elitist I am– when I say that these boards serve a purpose, but it’s not the purpose of which I speak. I’m not interested in poetry boards for sharing poetry– if I really needed that, I’d get a writing group going. I’m thinking more of a central place where you could get some of better minds in the poetry blogosphere talking to each other about the interesting things they observe, rather than talking at each other. (This statement ignores the fact that some interesting conversation does happen in comments sections, because those conversations never last more than a day or two, while good conversations in message boards usually have a life of 4-10 days.)

Such a set of forums could not just spontaneously occur, of course– one or more of the active hubs in the poetry blogosphere would have to make a concerted effort to populate those boards. Message boards generally fail quickly without a dedicated community “hub” aggressively building them.

When I say “hubs,” I refer to a crude taxonomy in which you can basically divide people in the poblogosphere into three categories:

• observers– people who do not actively blog, but read and comment on blogs
• nodes– people with low-traffic blogs who are active but not immediately recognizable to most participants in the poblogosphere (like, say, me)
• hubs– people with higher traffic blogs who direct a lot of the traffic that runs through our community, either through discussion of poetry (Poetry Hut, Silliman), or by noting some of the interesting conversations that are happening, which may or may not be poetry-focused

You probably know who a lot of these hubs are– they show up in the majority of poetry blogrolls, whether or not the blog is poetry-focused. Some are “important in the real world,” which in turn, makes them attractive reads, while others’ digital presences have made them relevant to the larger conversation. I expect that this is a function of the newness of the poetry blogosphere and the fact that many of the giants of the poetry world are non-participants in the virtual community (Chaucer excepted). (Besides, those giants’ inaccessibility is both lamentable and desirable at the same time– it makes them easier to gossip about, in so many ways. Imagine if Tina Fey were to post in your 30 Rock discussion boards. What use would the rest of you be?)

It seems to me that if one established hub blogger, or several fairly recognizable hub bloggers were to commit about a month to poetry message boards, establishing norms for the community and identifying the police (who would be tasked with chasing away the newbs who come to post their own verse), the community would evolve in new and interesting ways. Of course, “interesting” would likely be synonymous with “horrifying” in so many ways.

Really, I’m just thinking out loud here. It’s a slow day, and a little gossip or in-fighting would be ever so entertaining.

In lieu of that, here’s Chaucer’s recent take on one of my favorite little poems:

THYS IS JUST TO SAYE

by Nostre Trespuissant Kynge Richard II

We haue had y-slayn
the knightes
that were in
Newgate

And which
ye were probablie
wisshyng
vs to pardoun

Forgyveness
nevir!
The lawe of Engelonde is ower will and lieth in ower breest, knave.

I is understanding some of this lol.

After some fuss, I managed to update my blogroll yesterday. Today, the updates are gone. Well, drat. Guess I’ll update again tonight. Is it just me, or has Rick Barot’s old URL been taken over by some guy named Lloyd? How does this happen?

Ladybug is out with the girls this weekend, which I think means that I will spend my Saturday drafting a paper about Frank O’Hara. I’m reading Lunch Poems again for bookshop. I read this book in my first semester as an MFA student, and I am pleased to return to it. Several students asked for O’Hara while I was teaching, and I learned a thing or two from their criticism. I welcome the chance to return to him as an active reader.

Bill and I are looking at the microfiction landscape, trying to decide whose work to solicit for future issues of Inch. I posted a call for subs on a message board I used to haunt, and was immediately assailed by a nay-sayer who believes that fiction cannot be interesting in so short a space. Others responded before I could– it was really kind of a swarm of support for microfic. I don’t know what I would have said in response; I might have just asked Philip McFee for permission to post his entire story from Inch #2, which was one of my favorite short pieces ever.

I cut out on work today to hit the ballpark with McFee. The Bulls had an 11 AM game with the Norfolk Tides in a matchup of Triple-A teams whose major-league affiliates have spared them absolutely no talent. Seriously, JR House was the best prospect on the field. Yep, this guy.

It was “Education Day,” which meant that just about every school between here and Lumberton bussed students to the baseball game. The program advertised a “day of learning and baseball.” Michael defied me to spot where the learning was occurring. I found only the baseball.

Still, we had seats about three rows behind the on-deck circle for the Tides, and it was a brisk, well-played game. Bulls 3-2, all three runs coming in the sixth after Michael predicted a breakout inning and I scoffed at him. All hail the prognostications of McFee.

I’ve spent the last couple hours doing a little work and sorting through submissions to Inch. Poetry submissions are outnumbering microfiction about 10-to-1. Whoa.

Despite its availability through several file-sharing sites, not to mention one of my officemates, I went ahead and purchased Bjork’s new album. I’d listened to a bit of it, and was immediately enchanted. Her music, like most good poems, opens up to you in time in ways that you never expected when first listening.

I’m not usually one to be in the middle of several books at one time, but I’m currently dividing my attention like never before. Seriously, here’s the list of books that I’ve started but not yet finished:

• The Holy Spirit of Life: Essays Written for John Ashcroft’s Secret Self by Joe Wenderoth
• The Complete History of New Mexico: Stories by Kevin McIlvoy
• Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Phillips (though highly recommended, I may not progress further than the 70 pages I’ve already read… it just wasn’t my thing)
• Neck Deep and Other Predicaments: Essays by Ander Monson (who gave a terrific reading at AWP)
• Siste Viator by Sarah Manguso (Jeneva Stone gots the nod for recommending this one)
• Thanks for Sending the Engine by Elisa Gabbert (a NaPoWriMo book… and to think, all I wanted to do with my NaPoWriMo work was burn it)

I’m holding up well on a promise to myself– I had submissions returned Saturday and yesterday, and I put two more in the (e-)mail today. Six subs out at any time.

Oh, what a long April!

I’m usually extended about as far as I can go, but April was a case of over-extension. For some foolish reason, I wouldn’t let go of NaPoWriMo, which I completed successfully, writing 31 poems in 31 days (yeah, I began a day early). Some days I definitely mailed it in, but I did something new each day, and while I didn’t get much worth keeping, I am proud of about seven of the drafts and may even have one complete poem out of the whole thing. My writing partner in this whole confounded exercise ended up with about 20 (!!) good drafts, and she totally showed me up. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have quit, but we definitely kept each other going. She also did one-a-day for the entire month.

While doing that, stepping it up at work, and dealing with the deluge of drafts from students in their final month of class, I put several things on hold. Press activity for Bull City was minimal, though I did manage to keep orders current and get a little bit of promotional materials out. I also saw Philip’s mock-up of the next book’s cover, which is stellar. I am super-excited, and have a meeting with someone on Thursday to talk about shaping up some of the press’s core business. I also have a line on a new intern, but given how the last few interns have worked out, I’m not going to get real excited about that.

Kitchen Press has a new book out– considering how much I’ve enjoyed their stuff thus far, I’m excited about it. I also got a big package from Big Game Books mid-month, and everything in it was beautiful. Maureen Thorson knows a thing or two about making a chapbook! (One of my students hand-stitched a chapbook, and I was completely delighted.)