But my lack of time right now doesn’t keep me from buying books and stacking them up in my study. May 17th, and I’ll have time again. Fifteen days until:

Robert Graves, The White Goddess
Brenda Shaughnessy, Our Andromeda
Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon (I have no words for how excited I am)
Meg Wolitzer, The Interestings
Adam McOmber, The White Forest (our May book club book!)
C.D. Wright, Steal Away

…as well as everything else on my reading log page. Bounty.

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Just found out I was a finalist in this year’s Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition. Congratulations to the two winners!

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At this point in the semester, if you are not my grading, my seminar paper, or my novel, we are officially not allowed to talk or hang out. I’m sorry, blog. But we can still pass secret notes and maybe even do some tin-can telephone later.

It looks like sometime in the night a deer nosed its way up to the back glass of this cabin. There are lots of apples under the snow for it to eat; I wonder if it found any.

My review of Paige Ackerson-Kiely’s My Love Is A Dead Arctic Explorer is up at Devil’s Lake. Short version: it’s a terrific book, go read it. And I have new work forthcoming from Iron Horse Literary Review and Salt Hill — thanks so much to those editors!

We’re in the home stretch of this academic year: less than two months. And then the giant spaceship that is prelims will come down and announce its absolute takeover of my summer.

This has been the best night ever! First there’s you taking me to ice cream, then there is the ice cream, then that monster jumps out of the freezer and you’re all brave and “Fred, watch out!”, and then we get to chase it down into the sewers, which are just so bleak and oppressive and…homey. And, and I could build a condo down here.

File under: found prose poetry. Or, reasons to rewatch Angel.

If, however, the syzygy necessary to get me to Boston actually occurs, I’ll be reading for Ink Node on the night of Thursday, March 7th. I have a major crush on Ink Node; it’s one of the ways I’ve discovered a lot of my poet crushes (and then bought their books and then crushed harder). They’re put together an amazing lineup, and I’m honored to be invited. If you’re interested, you can read my poem “Liebestod” from the most recent Tin House at Ink Node here.

I’ll also be participating in a panel on Women Poets on Mentoring, talking about my experiences working with the incomparable Rebecca Dunham with Allison Joseph, Shara McCallum, and my dear friend Tyler Mills. You can find us on that same Thursday, at 4:30, in room 108 on the plaza level of the hotel. Here’s a description:

R251. Women Poets on Mentoring. (Allison Joseph, Rebecca Dunham, Brittany Cavallaro, Shara McCallum, Tyler Mills) Women poets today have a wealth of literary models to turn to in their reading. Cultivating relationships with other female poets during key stages in their development is, however, equally important. Female mentors can fill a crucial role in helping other women reflect on writing, pedagogy, professional development, and even lifestyle choices. Panel members will reflect on their own mentor-mentee relationships as well as discuss how individuals and writing programs might foster such connections.

Hope to see you there!

I’m beginning to notice that my taste in music is either precious/ethereal instrumentals or the most obnoxious songs on the radio. I’m just slotting this in between We Are Never Getting Back Together and, like, all the Kanye West.

File under: spinning chicken.

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Excited to have work forthcoming in Barrow Street and Poetry Northwest – thanks so much to those editors. Excited, too, to be Poem-A-Daying in February again, because I think I’m finally seeing the whole shape of this second manuscript.

Dream Song 14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no

Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

John Berryman