long sunday

A lot of time spent with student work, good short critical responses to Lorca, good and interesting poems responding to same. It's time consuming but important work.

The local farmer's market actually had fresh poblano peppers! A few weeks ago they said there'd be no more for the season (I've been making chiles relllenos as our Sunday dinner for a good part of September and October, playing with different fillings). But Jesse and I walked over this early afternoon, wonderful fall day, and there they were, a little small, but just right anyway. The day went long and so I won't make them until tomorrow. But that will be fun. They are a lot of work but worth the time (the charring/sweating process can be tedious, so you need some good music and a drink). Looking at a ground beef, black bean, garlic, onion, tomato, sliced steak, various spices filling.

The Lorca heirs were satisfied with our responses to their questions. Too much slow down on production of book may be avoided. Hope so. But the Medina/Statman translation of Poet in New York should be out in January, which was always the plan. I fear the pre-Christmas appearance that was promised may not happen. Reviewers can contact me through this blog and let me know if they haven't received review copies by mid December.

Okay, Bama lost. But it was a good game. That fumble on the sack was a killer.

Lorca all day long

Spent most of today working on the responses/questions of the Lorca family, sending them to Pablo, getting his response to my response, then getting back to him so he could send it off to Sr. Montesinos along with a note thanking him and telling him how much we've appreciated working on the book. A lot of work, but worth it.

Half-time Alabama 20, LSU 17. Roll Tide.

(I've been asked why I'm a Tide fan--I actually have no idea but it's been for so many years--and for some reason I'm partial to the SEC in general. Really messes me up during March when I make my brackets and go for the teams I hope will win over the teams I know will win).

okay, it's been a few hectic days

Finally got to see the new APR and really like the way it looks--they have us listed on the cover and the poems read well. APR generously sent me a whole bunch that I can bring to the ALTA (American Literary Translators Association) conference next week in Dallas and Grove has made up the cards for the book, so I'll begin doing the book promo for real next week.

As for the book, the Lorca heirs have sent in some questions and Pablo and I have been working the last few days to answer them. Some make some real sense and some don't, but it's been interesting to get the take from the family on the work that we've been doing. Their questions may slow down production, but the book will still be a January pub--review copies will be a little latrer than expected (and there may be no copies in time for Christmas).

Managing the world: this is a hard teaching semester for me--teaching 3 sections on Poet in New York (as a reading/creative writing course) a sectrion of writing fellows (these four are all 2 credit, but they take up a lot of energy) and a regular 4 credit intro poetry writing class. Normally today (Friday) is a day I'd have to take a breath but I went to an all-day technology conference that was pretty exciting. The real problem is trying to figure out how to make it all fit into the kind of teaching I do. Blogs actually figure into it (have to figure out how). There was some interesting technology that I think might come in handy for a course I'm teaching next semester on Spanisg Surrealism (the big focus will be from the generation of 27 untuil 1938, though there will be some before--French surrealism, etc, and I'll try and focus on Lorca, Bunuel, Dali, and Miro--I'm still working it out in my head and asking folks for advice). The multi-media stuff will be interesting to work with. I can see maps of Spain with Miro paintings and Bunuel shots emerging out of a Google earth. How this all fits into teaching I've no idea, but I like the imagery.

Tomorow Alabama and LSU. That's a big one for the SEC fan in all of us.