The short version: I'm copyediting a book on diabetes, I'm still wrangling my parents' affairs into order, and I just got back from a month in Israel.

The trip to Israel was primarily to attend a college classmate's wedding in Tel Aviv-Jaffa. I also visited Rehovot, Jerusalem, Gush Etzion, Eilat, Petra (Jordan), and Haifa. It was good to get away (with only ONE laptop, for a change), and it's good to be back home. There are a dozen posts at Chrysanthemum so far on various aspects of the trip (which included riding camels, shooting guns, and railing at God), and I may well add to them as I sort through photos and sift through my notes. (Though, at the moment, I feel like I'm barely clinging to the subway strap of the present. Life hurtles on no matter where I am, it would seem. *rueful smile*)

Also, a fistful or two of recs at Vary the Line.

SB #1: Joanne Merriam, editor of twitterzine 7x20, is keen to see more cinquains and American sentences.

SB #2: Don Kingfisher Campbell wants more 10-line, 31-word poems for his Halloween Poetry Contest.

Recent posts:
At Vary the Line, I point you to the September issue of The Flea, which includes a sonnet by Mary Alexandra Agner and Ann Drysdale's Said Yeats's Bones to Hardy's Heart.

At Chrysanthemum, I show off what I cooked for a dinner and a walk among scarecrows and roses, as well as expressing both incredulity and gratitude and quoting Kathleen Norris.

* blogged intermittently at Chrysanthemum and at Vary the Line

* visited Portland, Oregon; Garden City Beach, South Carolina; and Memphis (national tour of A Chorus Line - met up with a friend on the crew).

* slogged through a fair amount of 4 a.m. beta-testing in tandem with assorted copyediting assignments. Still wading through various estate chores. My goal is to haul only one laptop with me to Israel (attending a friend's wedding in Tel Aviv later this fall), where I'm hoping to stay AFK for multiple days on end.

* I'm currently chair of two committees at my church, and treasurer of its endowment. Continuing to read for the Nashville Talking Library; taking a hiatus from volunteering for the University of Chicago. Only one future sermon on my calendar, and that's perfectly fine with me - need to refocus on mortgage-paying projects after the December holidays.

* ironically, my church has started collaborating with the local Conservative synagogue on a couple of musical programs - and I was/will be out of town for them. *facepalm* On the other hand, I expect to (finally) have enough Hebrew in my head by next midsummer to maybe look into joining a High Holidays choir...

* On a unrelated note, it is such a happy feeling to connect people with things that are meant for them.


Recent publications:

Kol Nidre (text and audio) at qarrtsiluni

Three short poems (two new, one reprint) at 7x20

I Hear You With Half of My Heart at my poem rocks

And there are at least six more pieces forthcoming in the near future (woo-hoo!).

So - those of you who don't journal, or haven't updated in a while - what is new and/or primary with you these days?

A sweet and satisfying rest of the year to you all. (I hope to get back to monthly summary posts here, but you've seen how well that's worked so far... *rueful smile*)

Dead Mule's Summer Sabbatical Issue is up, with three of my poems ("The Language of Waiting," "Fuel," and "Sonic Crochet Hook"). Don't miss the Southern Legitimacy Statements of the various contributors.

June Cotner has reprinted my "Prayer for Perspective" in her anthology Serenity Prayers: Prayers, Poems, and Prose to Soothe Your Soul. Haven't seen the book yet, but the check arrived last week, and it will pay for lunches with friends tomorrow and Friday. :-)

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Recent posts at Chrysanthemum (personal blog):

28: recent pleasures, including St. Ann Episcopal's 150th anniversary celebration (special guest Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop)
23: SERMON: Chocolate and Conscience
18: link to samhenderson on getting a job


At Vary the Line, I've just been linking to poetry in the news:
July 1 - Souter taking leave of the Supreme Court (quoting of Robert Frost on both sides)
June 23 - Murray Mound pantoum

At Vary the Line (the group poetry blog):

June 3: the net is lowest in the middle (tennis and poetry)

May 24: Mona Lisait = crack den

May 20: The Red Wheelbarrow

May 16: the poetry building (Rilke in Smichov)

And, during the last third of April, twelve more poems for assorted NaPoWriMo challenges.

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At Chrysanthemum (the personal blog):

April
21: Cavafy / new poems
24: call and consider
26: SERMON: Turtles
30: five things Stephen Colbert and I have in common

May
02: feeding the roses...
06: fifteen books
18: ad te omnis caro veniet
21: three notes from Paris
22: notes from Paris
24: et ses va et ses vient

June
06: starting the note before you sing it
09: A choice is only possible if there are genuine alternatives.
11: helplessly LMAO; words to ward off darkness
16: SERMON: The Red and White and Starry Blue

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General state of the Peg: Where the hell did the first half of June go??? (And how is it past 14h already?) Dealing with a pulled thigh muscle, warding off a sore throat, and trying not to sulk too hard about the whole daft writing compulsion at the moment. (Over the weekend, I wrote over 2000 words (in addition to 1 1/9's worth of sermonage) and was feeling pretty pumped about where things were headed. Then, yesterday, upon doing more research, I realized the whole thing was logistically hosed, which in some ways is a relief (that's 6000 words I now don't have to pursue) but in other ways, not so much (because I came across a phrase that would be <perfect as a title and theme for the gift-prompt that led to me wrestling with the trunked plotbunny in the first place...) And then there is the critique I owe, the poem-of-the-month I need to get into the mail, and last night's exceptionally frustrating nothing-to-show-yet-for-it session of musings on the Coupe de Mousquetaires...) On the plus side, there is a thunderstorm making a terrific racket outside, and our contractor brought by some fresh eggs I'm now going to go fry. And then it will be back to some pedal-to-the-metal PowerPoint wrangling...

mrgeddylee, I couldn't help but think of you earlier this morning: I passed by a bookshop window that displayed a title on metaphysics right next to a gun.

From europe 2009

17 April: I think the dog hates Verdi, and links to three new poems ("All I Want Is Not to Want," "So We Decided to Walk Down St. Claude," and "Flute White")

19 April: my weekend, Harper's index (and what I ate) version. (Detailed (aka chronic-grousing-about-writing) version and two finished poems("Practicing Jump Shots With William Shakespeare" and "Aftermath") at Vary the Line.

Posted a few minutes ago: Restless.

4 April: happy things

5 April: in memory of Bob Smartt

9 April: "Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing" (Robert Lowell quote + links to seven NaPoWriMo poems)

13 April: Easter weekend in New Orleans

16 April: links to the newest four NaPoWriMo poems

Posted at Chrysanthemum since 28 December:

3 Apr: oh, the drama! (or, the creative grind revisited, part nth + 26)

1 Apr: unexpected pleasures

28 Mar: "Knitting About Oracles" (poem)
26 Mar: Nine Things About Oracles (poem)
19 Mar: Sara Davis Buechner on Joseph Bloch
18 Mar: on Herod, Paris, and visual vocab
16 Mar: SERMON: Cults of Personality
16 Mar: Readings: Pomeroy and Wilder
09 Mar: happy birthday, Paula! (a musical setting of "Lo Alecha" + "Step by Step")
07 Mar: the complexity of silence

( February 2009 )

( January 2009 )

30 December 2008: notes from Christmas Country Dance School

At Vary the Line (poetry collective):

April 3: "The Problem With Easter" (poem + notes on process)

April 2: "An Asian American" (poem)

April 1: "Goose, Goose, Duck" (poem)

March 25: "notes on STAR*LINE and Plaths"

February 28: I admire Jennifer Atkinson's "Landscape with Mud Turtle"

February 13: reading Carolyn Miller on Ono Island

January 26: cinquains

January 16: happy birthday (in a few days), Edgar Allan Poe