A wave of congratulations

The spring round of awards-finalist listings brings wonderful news. Three poets whose work I love, each of whom was a student of mine at one point or another, are up for prizes. Rick Barot's WANT is up for a Lambda Literary Award. James Allen Hall's NOW YOU'RE THE ENEMY is a finalist for the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Poetry, and a Lambda Literary Award. Jericho Brown's PLEASE is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and for the Thom Gunn Prize from the Publishing Triangle. Whoo hoo!

A spray of confetti also for Liz Bradfield, our friend here in Palo Alto, a Stegner Fellow whose first book of poems, INTERPRETIVE WORK, is also a Lammy finalist, as well as a finalist for the Audre Lorde Prize from the Publishing Triangle.

HIgh-speed Lit Life in NYC

This week feels like a wild ride, with some literary event in NYC every night. Tonight all the National Book Award finalists are reading at the New School; tomorrow night's the big award hoopla downtown; Thursday evening I'll be reading at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at CUNY; Friday night I'm at Teachers & Writers Collaborative with the wonderful young poet James Allen Hall, whose book NOW YOU'RE THE ENEMY came out from the U of Arkansas earlier this year. And sometime while all this is going on we're going to get busy and get all the stacks of paper and piles of books in the apartment in order, since some people from Borders are coming over to make a short video on Saturday. As my mother liked to say, Lord help us and save us. Time for some deep breaths.