back (?)

Almost a two-week hiatus there, almost unheard of. Jeepers. My only excuse – well, there are several:

•General work-related busyness: a flock of papers to grade, a set of midterms ditto, novels to teach that I've never taught before & am unsure I have anything interesting to say about.

•Pedal-to-metal work on a longish essay on of all things gardening poetics: LZ, Ronald Johnson, Cole Swensen, Ian Hamilton Finlay. Great fun, tho harder work than anything I've tackled in some time. This one is by no means put to bed, since I'm sure there'll be at least a couple rounds of revisions, but at least it's drafted & sent off to the editor.

•We adopted a kitten. Not exactly adopted – rather found, lonely & mewling, in the back yard. The vet identifies her (a grayish tabby, very very fuzzy – I can see pulling cat hair out of my mouth for years to come, & Ba'al knows this is the end of dropping my black jeans onto the floor & expecting them to be wearable next morning – & of course very cute) as about 5 weeks old. Still generally feral, but beginning to warm up to the idea of being in a people house.

But mostly work-related busyness. The task at hand is rereading The Portrait of Lady, & coming up with something interesting to say about it for next week. And of course gearing up for the next essay deadline, this one perhaps the most challenging of all the 5 or 6 things I've foolishly committed myself to this fall. I will try to get back to blogging more or less regularly, but no promises: there are certainly enough books of poetry I want to write about, not least the sumptuous new Bloodaxe Briggflatts, which should be on everyone's stocking-stuffer list this Hanukah.