Association (n): A body of persons who have combined to execute a common purpose or advance a common cause

This year’s AWP in Denver was productive and fun and sleepless and mile high. Highlights include: Ahsahta Press reading off-site at the Magnolia ballroom–especially Ben Doller (new faculty at Mason, we’re excited to have him), Dan Beachy-Quick (always), and Rusty Morrison; Ahsahta reading on-site with Susan Tichy, Sandra Doller, Julie Car, Kate Greenstreet and Rachel Loden; some panels about the MFA and academia that made me feel simultaneously excited to shoot for a PhD and incredibly frightened; Etruscan Press Reading–esp Jennifer Atkinson and Bruce Bond; Orbiting Salt reading with Ryan Call (miss his face) and Blake Butler; off-site randomness with the Typewriter Girls (not that they were good, but the randomness and the company and the escape with too many people in the back-seat of a cab was fun); Joe Hall signing my copy of Pigafetta is My Wife in silver sharpie; hang time with Mason alums and making new friends; talking to authors and editors I like; off-site Denver Quarterly reading with Dan Beachy-Quick, Brian Teare, Cole Swensen and others; HTML Giant festivities (despite the long and blister-inducing walk… I’m dumb); meeting Phoebe contributors; spending too much money on beautiful books (though some I received in trade for Phoebe or was gifted).

Here’s the literary lot:

* Pigafetta is My Wife – Joe Hall (Black Ocean)
* Oh – Cole Swensen (Apogee)
* Bluets – Maggie Nelson (Wave Books)
* Little White Shadow – Mary Ruefle (Wave Books)
* Stone Lyre – Nancy Naomi Carlson’s translations of Rene Char (Tupelo)
* Undersleep – Julie Doxsee (Black Ocean)
* Objects for a Fog Death – Julie Doxsee (Black Ocean)
* New Exercises – Franck Andre Jamme transl. by Charles Borkhuis (Wave Books)

Journals/anthologies:

* DIAGRAM’s 10th Anniversary deck of cards

* Ecopoetics no. 6/7

* NO Colony

* Bat City Review

* Salt Hill

* Fact-Simile

* Nano Fiction (x2)

* Bust Down the Door & Eat All the Chickens #9

* Ninth Letter

Beautiful chapbooks:

* Arbor – Melissa Ginsberg (New Michigan)
* Mistranslating Neruda – Matt Mason (New Michigan)
* Our Aperture – Ander Monson (New Michigan)
* mid winter – Matt Reeck (Fact-Simile)
* Point of Intersection – Joseph Cooper (Fact-Simile)

Also:
* A snazzy Smartish Pace duct tape wallet (gifted to me in trade for Phoebe, and I am so happy)

Oh dear lord there’s a lot to link in here and it’s 2:30am… I hope I actually get to do that. For now there’s always Google.

Greg Grummar Award (n): The annual poetry contest for Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and art, judged by Rae Armantrout

*** UPDATE*** Phoebe’s Greg Grummer deadline has been extended to January 15th! See www.phoebejournal.com for details ****

Forgive my absence from blogging but I’ve been quite busy traveling and sitting in on interviews with potential poetry faculty, and (of course) writing “the book”.

Some photos and notes from my travels to Central Park are forthcoming, but I have many messy notes to sort through before I can form thoughts enough to share them with you all… needless to say I have been feeling Olmsted so very clearly since spending a whole day wandering the landscape he crafted.

In the meantime, I wanted to take a minute to speak to (one of) my other job(s), as the Poetry Editor of Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art. We just finished putting together our spring issue and we’re starting to look toward selecting work for fall 2010. We’re currently accepting submissions to the Greg Grummer Poetry Award for this fall issue, and I’d encourage all of you poets to apply.

Our judge this year, I am truly honored to say, is the poetic powerhouse Rae Armantrout whose collection Verse has earned her a position as finalist for the 2009 National Book Award. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was when Rae accepted our invitation to judge this year’s contest.

Here’s the flyer:

Greg Grummer Poetry Award

As you submit your entries and anxiously await the results, keep an eye out for our spring 2010 issue in print. We just finished sending acceptances and ordering the pages, now it’s just layout and sending it to the printers! Us poets have a translation special feature with collaborative translations from Charles Bernstein and Odile Cisneros, Forrest Gander and Aljaz Kovac, homophonic translations of Beowulf from Theodora Danylevich, and more “traditional” translations from Ranjani Murali and Krista Ingebretson. Other poets who will be published in the issue include Dina Hardy, Keith Montesano, Megan Gannon, Stephanie Ford, Karina Borowicz and MUCH MUCH MORE! Look out for it in early spring 2010!