Warren Wilson’s winter 2008 faculty has been posted.

Poetry: Betty Adcock, Debra Allbery, Marianne Boruch, Jennifer Grotz, Brooks Haxton, A. Van Jordan, Maurice Manning, Heather McHugh, Steve Orlen, Barbara Ras, Ellen Bryant Voigt (Visiting), Eleanor Wilner

Fiction: Wilton Barnhardt, Maud Casey, Charles D’Ambrosio, Anthony Doerr, C.J. Hribal, Victor LaValle, Michael Martone, Debra Spark, Megan Staffel, Dominic Smith, Peter Turchi (Director)

I was thoroughly planning to write down names on my preference form for the first time this semester. But, a couple of the names I fully expected to see aren’t there, and more than a couple names I really didn’t expect are there, too. Now I don’t know how I would narrow it down! In the past, I’ve usually gone to residencies without having read work by most of the faculty; this semester, there are only two poets I haven’t read yet. I bet I can fix that before January.

The final results are in: I’m growing a beard, and by a margin of one vote to none, Ladybug will be growing a soul patch. She revealed last night that she began years ago. I can hardly see it, but I’ll trust her.

She heads to Italy today for work. Yuck. At least there are kitties in the house.

I’m engaged in another poem-a-day month, the first one I have done where I haven’t posted the poems somewhere public. I have three co-conspirators this time, including the lovely Ruba Ahmed, who did this with me in June. So far, everyone’s phoned it in at least once, but everybody has also nailed it right on the head at least once.

I’ve used the month as an excuse to give myself some formal challenges– rhyming, imitation, blank verse. I’ll probably attempt others, though likely on the weekends when I have time to write. Working a full day makes it hard to concentrate on one of these as long as I would like.

Deborah Ager did something in April that I thought was cool– she didn’t post the poems, but did post the titles. So, here are mine thus far:

Oct 1 – House With Chimaeras
Oct 2 – Expert Advice for Your Flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Chicago-Midway
Oct 3 – Expert Advice for Your Televangelism Ministry
Oct 4 – While Jobless, I Eat Snack Foods With Famous People
Oct 5 – Bayside
Oct 6 – Shit-Town
Oct 7 – Actaeon
Oct 8 – Box and Whisker Plot