The Big Poetry Giveaway 2015: The Results! With Pictures! And Exclamation Points!

I held the drawing for the blog's Big Poetry Giveaway on Saturday, but because of life and children and grading and sunshine I wasn't able to get to the computer to post the results (and recap the excitement of the drawing!) until now.

First, in preparation for the drawing, I attempted to gather all of the books I'll be mailing out tomorrow (or Tuesday or Wednesday, because let's be honest, the end of the semester never goes smoothly or as anticipated):

As you might be able to tell, I wasn't successful with my gathering. Ooh, quick, let's play, "Which part of the Big Poetry Giveaway 2015 is missing?"  I'll wait.

 . . .

Yes, that's it! It's The Black Sea by Stephanos Papadopoulos. I left the copy I was giving away at the office (I've since picked it up), but for the sake of the photo I substituted with Papadopoulos' first book, "Lost Days," the cover of which -- fun fact -- features a fine painting by his father, the Greek artist Nonda.

Then I wrote out all of the names of the people who commented on my blog during April on little scraps of paper. Then I found a pretty bowl (which sits uselessly on a bookshelf most of the year, collecting dust), and more picture-taking ensued. Yay!

From left to right, starting with the cover with the pig on it: Fabulous Beast: The Sow by Yours Truly; Zoonosis by Kelly Boyker; Little Songs and Lyrics to Genji by Adam Penna; By Fire by Jessica Cuello; Lost Days (substitute for The Black Sea) by Stephanos Papadopoulos; and the Winter 2014 issue of The Gettysburg Review.

Then I had to wait for my assistant to return from a walk to the bakery. So I checked some email:

This is super exciting, isn't it?

Eventually they returned . . . and my sister was still in a good mood! It was a Big Poetry Giveaway miracle!

Then we had to wait for my assistant, and HER assistant, Vampire Toddler, to finish their doughnuts. (Donuts? Whatever. SUGAR.)

V.T.'s pre-nap meltdown, courtesy of that huge white-frosted confection, was epic. Thanks, Nettie's Bakery!

I feel like I'm writing one of those cooking blogs, where you must scroll down through annoying photograph after photograph, and you're just like, get to the recipe already, damn you!

So anyway, as you can see from my lovely assistant's excellent Vanna White impression, Karen Weyant and Guy Traiber, the author of the blog Utopian Fragments, were this year's winners. Congratulations, Karen and Guy! I'll be contacting you both shortly for your mailing info!

And thank you to everyone who visited and commented on the blog. I hope you had some fun discovering new blogs, and that maybe you'll return to this one at some point.

Me, I'm going to go weep grade papers now, and then pass out, because crying grading is so very very tiring.

Two more weeks of this nonsense to go!