Things have been a bit busy around my house lately. We sent Son #3 off to graduate school in Washington earlier this month, and he seems to be doing well so far. Two weeks ago, though, Son #1 tripped and suffered a serious injury near his Brooklyn home – a fractured patella. He needed major surgery and ended up coming home with his mother, who spend several days with him up there. We provided nursing care while he recovered – on top of having a vertical line of staples in his kneecap and a clunky immobilizing leg brace, he suffered from nausea and a spinal headache for several days. He’s starting to adjust to his limitations, but it will be tough for him for a while. Among other things, he can’t return to his apartment, which has a long flight of steps and no elevator, and his job is a long commute from his home. My wife drove him to New York today to see his doctor and to try to teach his first class since the injury. We realized these past couple of weeks that you never stop being a parent, and never stop wanting to take care of your kids. I’m glad we could be there for him.
Poetry: Not writing a lot these days, but I’m anxiously awaiting the release of my new chapbook, Breathing Out. If you’re not already sick of hearing about it, and still want to get a copy, here’s the link to the publisher, Finishing Line Press. I did get confirmation that my poem “Trivia” was accepted for the next issue of US 1 Worksheets, and that I have been invited to submit work to a new online journal, the Fox Chase Review. I’m honored because submissions are by invitation only, and there are some pretty respectable poets from the area who have been published there. My merry band of bards, the Quick and Dirty Poets, had an invitational reading at the Mt. Holly Fall Arts Festival a couple of weeks ago - it was a swell time.
Speaking of local festivals, if you are in my area (Philly/South Jersey), check out the Collingswood Book Festival this Saturday, October 3rd.
I’m glad to hear that the Dodge Poetry Festival has been revived and will take place next year after all. I’m not crazy about the location (Newark) because it won’t have the idyllic feel that Waterloo Village did, but I’m happy that it will at least be held somewhere.
I registered for Peter Murphy’s Winter Getaway writer’s conference in Cape May next January. I attended this three-day affair a few years ago and had a great time. This one boasts two top-notch poets giving special workshops: Stephen Dunn and Mark Doty. Dunn has been there the last several years, but this is Doty’s first appearance at the conference. I just missed getting into his workshop (I’m high on the waiting list) so I will plan to take Stephen Dunn’s workshop instead. I know several people who have workshopped with him and they say he’s really good, so I’m looking forward to it.
Music: WXPN is starting their countdown of 885 “Desert Island Songs” – as I explained before, the premise is to pick 10 songs that you couldn’t do without if you were to be stranded on a desert island. The songs near the bottom of the list have been interesting and diverse, and generally really good, but I might make a list of songs that have been played that would make me want to swim for the mainland. “New York, New York” would be the first one on that list.
Baseball: Looks like my Phillies are on their way to their third consecutive division title, but not without making me bite my nails. Their once-comfortable lead over Atlanta has shrunken a bit due to their listless offense the last several games and Atlanta’s hot streak. As I write, though, their magic number is down to 1, so they could clinch as early as tonight. I’m not extremely confident they’ll get back to the World Series again this year, though, as there are a few question marks, the biggest one being the bullpen. Brad Lidge went from superhero to goat in one short year, and there really isn’t another consistent closer on the staff. We’ll see, but I’m afraid it may be another Dodgers-Yankees World Series. At least the network ratings folks would be happy.
Poem of the Post: Since I blog so sporadically, maybe I should stop calling this the "poem of the week" or "month", or "quarter" or whatever. It's the poem of this post, no matter how frequent or infrequent it is. This poem, a bit of nostalgia for now-departed summer, as well as an earlier, more innocent time, appears in the new issue of Edison Literary Review:
Mosquito Truck
In my neighborhood
with the exception of the ice cream man
no one attracted kids
like the mosquito truck guy.
He’d cruise down the streets
in that battered gray tanker
with “County Pest Control” stenciled
in no-nonsense black on the side.
Behind him a nozzle spewed a cloud of insecticide,
pluming and roiling like a sudden white fog.
And we were close behindon our red and blue Schwinns
plowing through this haze
pretending to be jet fighters
cutting the cumulus toward the stratosphere.
Who knows what we were inhaling
on those muggy summer evenings?
I’m sure DDT was in the mix.
But these were innocent times
before cancer was something everybody got,
before we wondered what was killing
all those fish and birds,
before we worried what our enemies
might put in our air,
or what we had done to it ourselves.
All that mattered to us at the time
was imagination, aspiration, purpose.
We would plunge oblivious
through those dangerous fumes,
pedaling willfully toward the unknown.
1 comment:
I also remember the mosquito trucks of the 50's and early 60's. All of the kids in the neighborhood looked forward to their unannounced appearance and chased after them, enthusiastically. The activity was a highlight of the summer. In 2005, I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a terminal disease associated with chemical exposure. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? CC
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