Light saving 🔦
Well, it's broken.
Remember when I fell on the stairs and thought I cracked a rib and while checking it out, they found my bursting appendix? Well I also hurt my hand then, preventing the full fall, and since August, it hasn't stopped bothering me. I can't do a push-up, can barely hold the steering wheel. So, back to the Dr. I go only to find that I shattered something called a "hamate."
Bodies, amiright?
Speaking of, I have a new poem, Transport, up at Ekstasis Magazine that you should check out. I had read a poem by Robert Hedin called "Transcanadian" and thought I'd try something along those tracks. I do this sometimes. Viewing poetic work as a grand conversation across time, I've been trying to respond to others more, rather than always bringing up new topics. Maybe I'll make a whole collection of these and call it After All (Robert Lowell has a series of "After" poems I'm calling back to.) The other title I'm kicking around for poem book #3 is a bit of a mouthful--how would it look on a book spine 😝--but I kind of love it:
This Gift Card has Already Been Redeemed
Which do you like better?
Also, I just appeared on the wonderful Faith and Imagination podcast with Matthew Wickman. I'll link to it next time--they're cleaning it up I suppose--but you can check out the other episodes meanwhile, wherever you get your podcasts.
Oh yes, and later today, I'm appearing on my favorite drive-time radio show at WORD-FM. Listen to other appearances here.
Meanwhile, I'm preparing a course on Victorian Literature for Winter term. It's been a few years since I've taught the period, so I'm starting from scratch and, you guys, it's so much fun for me to do. I'm thinking we'll break up the readings by movements covered weekly, thus:
Week 1 | The Introduction |
Week 2 | The Pre-Raphaelites |
Week 3 | The Spasmodics |
Week 4 | The Clerics |
Week 5 | The Novelists |
Week 6 | The Politicos |
Week 7 | The Critics |
Week 8 | The Adventurers |
Week 9 | The Domestics |
Week 10 | The Aesthetes |
Big fun ahead! Join us if you can, current SPU students.
Poetry News
Scott Cairns has a new poem book, Lacunae, out just now. You guys, I don't know how, but he just keeps getting better. I prefer most poets' first or second books (Dickman, Lerner, O'Shaughnessy) but Scott's most recent two are his best. Would that we could all age so well 🍷
Jeremiah Webster has a new one as well, Notes for a Postlude, for fans of the Beats and the Hebrew Prophets, especially and not coincidentally, Jeremiah. What's more, there's a reading coming up at Brick and Mortar books, Kirkland, on Fri Nov3 (today!) at 6pm. I'll be going and would love to see some of you there.
Annnnd, there's a new poem book, Zeno's Eternity by Mark Jarman. I thinking of writing a full-length review of this one, so for now I'll just leave the news here.
Reading
The Men Can't be Saved by Ben Pukert
Holy Moly Carry Me by Erika Meitner (among the best poetry I've read this year)
How to Wash the Dishes by Peter Miller (a weirdly consequential book that changed my thinking about chores)
Listening
Bon Voyage
The Right Amount
Miss Angie
100 Million Eyeballs
Of Montreal
Hissing Fauna, are you the Destroyer?
NB: these are all over a decade old; I just missed them mostly the first time around and, apparently, I have just aged out of contemporary music.
Oddments
There's a new Mark Rothko show in Paris that looks to be a once-in-a-generation kind of thing. I'm very tempted. Some friends and I are scheming a road-trip.
Head-scratcher: I read this woeful entry from Alan Jacobs about a book (about a hymn), that I had just taught in my Faith/Lit class. One shouldn't be surprised about such things anymore I suppose, but I was.
That's all from here. Next time, expect links to those recent interviews, a Thanksgiving report, and whatever news accrues in the interim. Thanks for reading, as ever.