Somebody Loves Us All

Photo: Joseph Breitenbach / The Chronicle

The pack-out is finished. Our crew compressed three days of allotted time into just nine hours. Impressive. At the risk of sounding self-congratulatory, I'm certain my presorting and boxing had plenty to do with the moving company's record speed.

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Finished the latest review-essay on elegy and murder just under word count and deadline. All things considered, I cut it too close. I hate hate hate being late.

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Between now and our July 21 arrival in Amman, I'm living out of two suitcases. I only planned to open one. How quickly things change...

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Off to Nova Scotia tomorrow to walk in Elizabeth Bishop's footsteps. Taking The Complete Poems and The Collected Prose with me.  Here's a poem in her honor.

Piles & Stacks, Books & Boxes

Hammer Time

Copyright

© I. Bolotin/The Bolshoi Ballet

Copyright

© I. Bolotin/The Bolshoi Ballet

 

 

Bolshoi dancer and ABT guest artist Natalia Osipova was mugged outside the Met four days ago. She's due to premiere as Aurora in Sleeping Beauty tonight. The assailants struck her from behind, hit her in the nose, and then ran.

According to reports, "She had left her passport and money at home and her computer at the Met, but the muggers got away with her point shoes and a small hammer used to shape them."

I'd love to see their faces -- all that trouble of attacking a 5-foot-4 ballerina for a pair of Freeds or Griskos (pointe shoes) and a small metal instrument.

Ms. Osipova will next perform with the company in Romeo and Juliet on July 10. Merde!

Microscopes Are Prudent

 My review-essay, "Fine Invention," on women poets engaging the subjects of science and ecology is featured in the latest West Branch. Here's an excerpt:

Science and faith, animal and human nature; the methodical study of the material world versus the steadfast belief in an unknown higher being; the power and risk, recklessness and responsibility that come via interactions with the environment: these are the subjects of poetry’s ongoing conversation about the natural world. From satellites monitoring wind in Earth’s atmosphere to the changing migration of wildlife attributed to global warming, with scientific discovery and ecological change the tensions at the forefront of a new nature poetics evolve. With disparate subjects and a wide range of poetic strategies, Susan B. A. Somers-Willett’s Quiver, Elizabeth Bradfield’s Interpretive Work, and Jennifer Atkinson’s Drift Ice update the central tensions introduced by Rich, Moore, and Niedecker. Rather than politicize a scientific icon, propose a set of moral attributes, or sketch ecological vulnerability, Somers-Willett, Bradfield, and Atkinson personalize the nature poem. But what happens when scientific and ecological matters are made intimate?

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The journal also runs a fantastic annual column by Garth Greenwell, whose most recent installment covers poetry by Jack Gilbert.

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Currently reading:

From Beirut to Jerusalem (Thomas L. Friedman)
Romney's Order (Atsuro Riley)

When Mama's Around

"blackberry, blackberry, blackberry"

There & Here

I'm off to the airport in a few hours to pick up my mother, who's flying in from California to visit and help us prepare for Jordan. Our packing survey is Friday. The movers come next week. K. and I have been sorting items and recording our inventory. We still need to sell a vehicle and -- oh, I don't know -- the house!

Our travel schedule as of late has been particularly hectic. Between late May and the first week of June, we spent six days in Washington D.C. for overseas orientation, and the rest of the time with family and friends on the west coast. As the majority of stops were only one night (we visited nine towns spanning two states in just one week), I felt like we spent more time in the rental car than with loved ones.

Although there were many highlights at the various parties and goodbye dinners, the most creative award goes to my friends in SoCal who photoshopped our heads onto life-sized posters in various desert and Middle Eastern scenes. They also made cardboard stock cut-outs in our likenesses, so that K. and I can "attend" stateside gatherings over the next three years.

So many thanks to everyone for their time and well wishes! We're going to miss you so much!

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While I was cruising around California and Oregon, my fabulous friends were kicking ass. Congrats to:

Robin Ekiss, whose Mansion of Happiness has been awarded Shenendoah's final Glasgow Prize for Emerging Writers

Jeff Hoffman, recipient of the 2010 New Issues Prize for Journal of American Foreign Policy

Peter Campion, winner of the 2010 Levis Reading Prize for The Lions