A Couple of Quick Links

Conference planning is in full swing, with the conference itself one week away. My appearances here may be hit or miss until Nov. 1, but I will try to pop in from time to time. Before I submerge myself in generating receipts, tallying lunch counts, putting together name badges, and so on, I wanted to post these two things.

One. Josh Robbins has some great poems up over at Still: Literature of the Mountain South. I was unfamiliar with this journal until I read about it on Josh's blog. It's always great to find a new journal of place, even if it isn't my place exactly. Josh also shares the great news of being in Best New Poets 2009. Check out his work for a fine time on the web.

Two. Charlotte Pence has a post up that extends the conversation about the poet's relationship to the reader. She breaks down M.H. Abrams' The Mirror and the Lamp, a book that is now on my list to read. I also like her opening, which discusses returning to her book manuscript and "tak[ing] a bomb to" it in order to see "where the pieces fall." Lovely.

Oddly, and without me thinking about the connection until just now, both Charlotte and Josh are doctoral students at the University of Tennessee, and they both work as editors for GRIST, another great journal that once saw fit to publish a poem of mine. (Everyone should now break into "It's a small world after all.")