Going to Vienna and Other Poetry

Well. I've booked the flight. I'm spending Valentine's Day and more over at the wife's place. Since the husband is scheduled to attend the World Organic Trade Fair in Nuremberg, I thought it was a good idea to take advantage of his absence and meet up with the other spouse.

If anyone of you will be around Vienna or are within a 2000-mile radius, do come over! You can stay at Mental's place with me while she works, does the cleaning and plays Emily Haines' The Maid Needs a Maid on loop. Well, she did (or was going to) say that her house is my house.

Recent acceptance:

Really thrilled to announce that Other Poetry, a UK-based print journal accepted my poem, A Driving Student Intrudes on Fallen Nuts. They talk of a six-week response time at their website, but it was much longer than that. They do reply though — which is the important thing. Very nice professional manners, too!

      Submission date: 17 October 2006
      Final-round notification: 24 January 2007
      Acceptance date: 31 January 2007

Currently reading:

Four Fires by Bryce Courtenay... and loving it! Borrowed it offhand from the library because it looked thick enough to last me a long time [oh, I know what you dirty-minders are thinking — be ashamed of yourselves]. It's rather Steinbeckish and Thorn-Birdish — but with a lot more humor, sass and ass:

      We'd be walking, my hand buried in his big, calloused fist, him shuffling with his bit of a limp and me hopping and skipping, the wind rustling high and fierce in the big old gum trees above us, making a sound like waves lapping on some distant seashore, when, without warning, my granpa would let go a rip-snorter! A real tearing sound that could last five seconds with a stuttering cluster of encores to follow.
      'Oh, my gawd, the hippobottomus is following us again!' he'd exclaim, turning to glance backwards and then waving his one hand furiously in front of his nose, 'Bugger's gorn again, but you can smell where he's been!' He'd point at the ground below his bum, 'He was right there before he escaped, did you see him, Mole?'
      I'd shake my head. 'What's a hippo-bottom-us look like, Granpa? I'd ask, the game begun for the hundredth time.
      'Smelly creature, big round bum like your grandmother's,' he'd confide, 'Don't want to meet him face to face, could blow a little fellow like you right off the mountain.'

Teehee. The reading gets scatological at times... but it is the saga of a family of garbage collectors. No kidding.