Reports of my hiatus have been greatly exaggerated

Some of you have duly noted my recent scarcity around these parts. I suppose I owe my Faithful Readers an explanation. The problem is that I don't really have one. Oh, of course I could blame it upon my daily "nutritional supplement" but I'd like to avoid making the connection between my mood and my ability to produce text. Note that I didn't say "creativity" or "artistic impulse." This is, afterall, only a blog. And an increasingly uninteresting one at that.

Don't believe me? Check the archives. Posts about food and poesy galore. I believe I began my blogging career with an extended discussion of food--chile colorado and bacon sandwiches were early highlights. Now I post memes and whine a lot.

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AWP. No AWP posts from me because, well, I didn't go. I know there are some haters out there who will (under their breath, behind my back, never to my face) consider me a careerist hack for even considering attending. But simply put, when I do go, I go to see friends and visit a city I don't get a chance to usually visit. Vancouver is gorgeous! I didn't talk to many poets or attend any readings, but I enjoyed the city and got a chance to catch up with old friends. What's wrong with that?

This year I was especially interested in visiting the home base of Andre 3000 and Laurel Snyder to catch up with my exgf Michele, whom I haven't seen in years, Laurel, of course (my AWP partner-in-crime--literally), Sandra Simonds, and a lot of other folks who I only know through blogging or poetry. I've seen the photos. It looked like more of the same, and of course some folks do go to schmooze and work on their "poetry careers," but that doesn't mean that I have to do that. I certainly don't want to, but I'm not going to trash others who do. At least not too much.

But I didn't go, and that's that. It's okay. I haven't kissed anyone in a long time. Anyway, there's always next year.

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I know I never post on poetry anymore, but I'd like to briefly note that I'm quite taken with Clay Mathews' chapbook Muffler, which landed in my mailbox last week. It's a Nate Pritts production. The poems are by turns funny, outlandish, and make me rather nervous. I think that's a good thing.

Also, the new Court Green is a winner, with a dossier on political poetry, including 8 of my poems from the mostly unnamed 81 poems project, most of which appeared in the Pilot chapbook. There is also some great work by Nick Twemlow and others, though I haven't had a chance to read it all yet.

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More rain here after three days of balmy 65 degree weather and blue skies filled with fluffy clouds. Now it's grey and drear. I don't know how I've managed to live my life in this valley.