I left Mama Buzz last night with an armful of books and a definite buzz. Two of 'em I won in a raffle! (Brenda Hillman)- others I received with the admission, others came my way by indirect trade with Michael Cross.

They include:
Michael Cross, six beautiful poems (letterpress) on separate cardstock sheets
Michael Cross- "gamut (for lz)" from "Involuntary Visions: after Kurosawa's Dreams
James Meetz "How Beautiful Tragic Weather" (Tougher Disguises)
Josely Vianna Baptista, "On the Shining Screen of The Eyelids" with artwork by Francisco Faris (Manifest Press)
Stephen Ratcliffe, "Sculpture"(Littoral Books)
Brenda Hillman,"The Firecage"(A + Bend Press)
Brenda Hillman, "Loose Sugar" (Wesleyan UP)
Syllogism #5 (edited by Lisa Kovaleski, Barbara Barrigan-Parilla, Carrie Laing Pickett)- Manifest Press, 2001, includes review of Kathleen Frazer's "Translating The Unspeakable:Poetry and Innovative Necessity" plus 31 poets and 3 fiction writers

Today I'm reading Tanya Brolaski's "The High Lonesome: Letters to Hank Williams" (True West, July 2003, tbrolaski@hotmail.com)

"dear hank,

from the distant past. with each separate thrill I begin. we are no common lemony lovers.
you are most murderous under the moonshine, like a stitch in time when no tongue can
accuse me."my heart's dead, and yet I'm livin" still squeaks when I'm close at arrow.
when I'm twelve feet below oyster shells.

I can only wait for you in all of them.

your

eunice"

(p. 6)

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hank,

We're going around in circles. lately I've uprigged my thought on the rail-as-ship and
there are no cardinal directions- when you're selling postcards of the rubble I empty my
pockets for the opry. but does it cure what ails you? I hear the hills would literally come
alive.

Tell me something.

euie"

(p. 14)

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