mimsy and outgrabe

April is the worst month. It should be so spectacular and fun with National Poetry Month and all, and I'm a frenetic ball of stress. Every. damn. year. But here's a lovely poem from Gregory Orr, who I *heart*. He's a gorgeous man, a wonderful poet. Carry on! As you were!

These: A poem by Ryan Black in AGNI Online. Another poem, by Anya Silver, in my inbox thanks to Poem-A-Day through Poets.org. Still laying out the student magazine, barely keeping up with class prep and committee work, totally and thoroughly NOT keeping up with grading, and writing scraps here and there. I did, however, come up with an idea yesterday for having our Eastern Campus journalism students contribute to and edit the East End Elements (student magazine) blog, which is good because I REALLY NEED ANOTHER PROJECT RIGHT ABOUT NOW. Also, my house is a shameful depository of laundry and dog hair. Everyone's fed and at least 60% clean, though. That's something, right?

One of my poems was chosen for the April edition of Stirring: A Literary Collection , guest edited by Margaret Bashaar, the editor of Hyacinth Girl Press. Shamefully, maybe, I didn't know anything about this magazine until M.B. invited me to submit a few poems to the issue she was guest editing -- and I like the journal a lot. (Not just because they chose one of my poems! Although, you know, it helps.)  I like its approach -- it's monthly, but it doesn't publish a ton of work at once. There's just enough here to read, to ruminate on, to appreciate or dismiss -- but either way, the work printed here doesn't get lost in a sea of other pieces. While I like many of the printed, perfect-bound journals out there, many of them are on my "to read" tables (that's right, I wrote tables, the plural!). I just can't manage to move through each issue quickly. But a magazine like Stirring: A Literary Collection is easily digested in a sitting -- and can le