Random Weekend Goodness (with a little bit of suck)

April 18, 2010

The suck, of course, is the fact that I have the worst cold ever. It feels like someone pumped cement up my nose and let it harden in my sinus cavities. Awesome. And I have to get on a plane and fly tomorrow for work, which is always a superhappygoodtime when you have a cold. Thank god it’s only a two-hour flight. I feel awfully sorry for all the people around me, trapped in an enclosed space with me and my germs.

Have you read the new PANK and Collagist issues up online yet? Because they both kick ass. Top form and top writers in both, as usual. Check them out.

I have been reading Gerald Manley Hopkins again today. Hopkins and I have only one thing in common, as far as I’m aware: a passion for language. Hopkins was such an absolute innovator when it came to use of language in his poetry.  Light years ahead of his peers, really. If only he hadn’t become a priest and had to write every damn poem about god with a capital G. I know, I know, he wouldn’t be Hopkins without the priest thing, and probably his ecstatic love of god filled him the need for that bursting, unrestrained, joyous symphony of sound that he uses so effectively. But I do wish I could read the poems he wrote (and then burned) before he was a priest. I know he strived for a more disciplined form, like Milton. But the poor man–he had to have been a wild, burning spirit way down underneath the robes and flesh and all that.

My growing pile of stuff to read keeps growing, and growing, and yet I keep buying more stuff. Speaking of which, Hoarders: Buried Alive is on tonight. Speaking of which, although I love hoarding shows, it always pisses me off when the organizing specialists they bring in act like the books are just part of the hoarding problem. I mean, sometimes, sure, they clearly are. But these are books! You don’t need to get rid of your books! I am the first person to give or throw things away (we just did a major purge this weekend, in fact) and if Chris and I had to pack up and leave tomorrow for some reason, we would have a car filled with almost nothing but clothes and books. And the beasts, of course. And our electronics. But mostly just books. (And, okay, to be honest, there’s no way we could get all of our books into one car. But how about a very large moving truck? Yes, yes, we could do that.)

Just added to the growing pile: Annalemma (yes!), American Short Fiction (yes!) and Chad Simpson’s new chapbook (yes!) which will be at least a quick read since it is muy pequeno. But oh, so good if the rest is anything like his “Let X” story that was published in Esquire a couple of years ago. Plus it was blurbed by Matt Bell and Scott Garson (who both coincidentally have forthcoming books I have purchased and am waiting for with no little bit of excitement).

Speaking of chapbooks (are these transitions awesome or what today? I have a cold, okay? Pity me and my brain fog.) I finally got around to reading Aaron Burch’s PANK-contest-winning chapbook, and boy is that thing fantastic and solid and full of grace and nuts and bolts and familial feeling and hard-won beauty. Wow. I’m working on a more coherent version of my thoughts on it and will post it someday, but just wanted to say now while it’s fresh that this read was some read.

A kind of neat thing happened to me: I was one of the runners up for the HTML GIANT Many Books Contest. I thought this was pretty cool, since all the writers who won or placed as fellow runners up put me to shame.  I do like the story very much; it’s one of my favorites, so I’m very proud that it got as far as it did. It’s called “For These Humans Who Cannot Fly, ” and it’s going to be published along with the winner and runners’ up stories on a lovely website. So, thanks, kindly folks at HTML GIANT. You all made my weekend snazzy and sunny, despite the fact that I was hacking up a lung. Thanks!