Wind-whipped

Lovely: I am profiled as the "October Spotlight" over at Write From Wrong.

Lovely: Martha Silano writes about teaching "Cherry Tomatoes" over at Blue Positive.

I am just returning from a dash to the post office, to make a 5 PM postmark deadline on a fellowship application. The October wind has blown my hair into total disarray, I'm wearing a favorite shirt that has a bleached spot on it (damn kitchen cleaner!), and--given I never got around to making myself up in the first place today, other than putting my contacts in--I'm feeling a bit ragged.

Ah well. Today is a day to recover. Yesterday I drove to Annapolis for a visit at the Naval Academy, a respite at B B Bistro that featured a bowl of amazing homemade soup (chickpeas, spinach & sundried tomatoes--support your independent coffee shops), and a cozy evening reading at The Annapolis Bookstore (support your independent bookstore, too). The audience at the academy was fantastic, including a classroom of students who had NOT chosen the major of English, not one of them. So I had to seduce them with a "Love Poem for Wednesday" & a "Love Poem for College," and break down the myth of the Minotaur beat-by-beat so that "The Minotaur Speaks" made sense...which is as it should be. Poets should have to work hard.

One of the students pointed out something I'd never thought about (at least, not consciously): all of the amusement park rides in "Another Failed Poem about the Greeks" come straight outta Kings Dominion. Which ideally gives the biographer something to play with someday, should I be lucky enough to merit one. But will anyone merit a biography, in the age of blogs and Facebook updates and aggressive self-reflection?

Ah well. Today is a day to recover. And watch as the wind blows the leaves against my balcony window again, again, again.