Geaux Saints

I can't tell you how exciting it is around here today--the Dome is all ready to go for tonight's game. Downtown is shut down, people are all out in the streets going nuts in their black and gold. The pregame show starts at 5:30. I think kickoff is at 7:30. Today in the paper they ran a picture of the dome lit with purple, green, and gold lights. It was really beautiful.

I know some bad things went down in the dome, but today and this game and all of the excitement leading up to it is symbolic of something very important to the area. People have been talking about the saints, and this game in particular since last spring when we learned the opening date in of the dome.

I've heard lots of talk about how tonight's game is just a temporary bounce back, that the Saints are doomed in the long run--all kinds of negative stuff. Well, keep it to yourself, at least until tomorrow. I hope none of ya'll are wasting space in the Dome tonight.

Flaming Fire

Thanks to all of my well wishers.

I just got my blurb from Fairchild this morning. I think it may be the only one I need.

In other news, there was a fire in my office building on Saturday, and classes were cancelled on Monday as a result. I was probably more excited about this than I should have been, but a day off was just what I needed. I did no poetry or school stuff. Instead I did a week's work of errands, including a visit to my old friends at Helm Paint Supply so that I could get what I needed to paint my front door. I ran out of steam with the rebuilding right at the front door, but it's fixed as of yesterday. This was before noon. I had two hours before picking up the kids, so I started ripping wallpaper off of the walls in the hall bathroom so that we can redo in there. Peeling wallpaper is my crack cocaine. Bryan had to force me to go to bed last night because I just couldn't stop.

Big Muddy

I've known this for a week now, but now that my contract is in hand, I think it's time to announce that my manuscript Big Muddy River of Stars was chosen by B. H. Fairchild as winner of the Akron Poetry Prize. The book will feel released next fall by University of Akron Press.

I feel pretty good about this. Fairchild wrote one of my favorite books of poetry ever--I never dreamed he would be writing a blurn for my next book.

Also this week came a letter from the Southern Review that they'll be using two of my newest poems, and these are Katrina poems, in the forthcoming special issue Writing in the South.