Baby in position...we are counting days now...anytime within the next two weeks...

And yay! I finally found the perfect card for announcing the birth of Joel's little brother or sister :) Very pleased, I am.

Got this in my mailbox today. Congratulations, Luisa! Yay!

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

James Hearst Poetry Prize
429 Entrants - 1914 Poems


FIRST PLACE
Luisa A. Igloria - Norfolk, VA - "Venom"

SECOND PLACE
Gail Thomas - Florence, MA - "Learning to Walk Again"

THIRD PLACE
Marianne Patty - Dunwoody, GA - "The Only Mermaid on the Moon"


HONORABLE MENTIONS
Kelli Russell Agodon - Kingston, WA - "If You Awake After I've Gone"
Daniel Lusk - Jonesville, VT - "Sabbath Fool"

FINALISTS
Robert Abbate - Concord, NC - "Tishbite Pottery Fragments"
Susan Elbe - Madison, WI - "Some Music"
Rebecca Foust - Ross, CA - "Strip Mine"
Jessica Garratt - Columbia, MD - "Woman Drives Past, Crying"
Paula Goldman - Shorewood, WI - "If Dickinson Had a Husband and Wrote Villanelles"
Cristine A. Gruber - Riverside, CA - "When the Time Comes, I Wish to Die in June"
Terry Hertzler - San Diego, CA - "Not Quite Déjà Vu"
Michael Kriesel - Aniwa, WI - "Zen Amen"
Melody Lacina - Berkeley, CA - "Copy Editing the Catalogue Raisonne of George Inness"
Karen Lieneke - Tucson, AZ - "The Memory of Water"
Mark Minster - Terre Haute, IN - "Krasnyi Ugol (The Beautiful Corner)"
Erin Murphy - Hollidaysburg, PA - "City Birds Are Losing Their Songs"
Sean Nevin - Tempe, AZ - "The Black Carpenter Bee"
Robert Peake - Ojai, CA - "Radish"
Jane B. Rawlings - Bernardsville, NJ - "Dawn, Leaving Venice"
Faith Shearin - Baltimore, MD - "Smoke"
Tana Jean Welch - Tallahassee, FL - "Locusts Are Swarming"


First place wins $1000, second place $100, and third place $50. Winners and finalists will be published in the North American Review's annual "National Poetry Month" March-April issue. Copies may be ordered by e-mail at or by FAX at (319) 273-4326. Since the prize entry fee paid for a subscription, entrants will receive this Hearst Prize issue automatically.


Judge TED KOOSER is a poet and essayist, a professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and most recently, US Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006. His writing is known for its clarity, precision and accessibility. He worked for many years in the life insurance business, retiring in 1999 as a vice president. He and his wife Kathleen Rutledge, editor of The Lincoln Journal Star, live on an acreage near the village of Garland, Nebraska. He has a son, Jeff, and a granddaughter, Margaret. His most recent books are Flying at Night (poems) and The Poetry Home Repair Manual (a guidebook for poets).


A renowned "farmer poet," JAMES HEARST was an NAR contributing editor and poetry professor at the University of Northern Iowa. He published many poems, stories, articles, and books before his death in 1983. His twelve poetry collections include Country Men (1937), The Sun at Noon (1943), Man and His Field (1951), Limited View (1962), Snake in the Strawberries (1979), and the posthumously published Selected Poems (1994). Hearst's definitive collection, The Complete Poetry of James Hearst, was published by the University of Iowa Press in 2001.

Read Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor's, Mail Order Bride . Now up on Haruah.

waiting

waiting...

tomorrow or

the day after...

pain is

part and parcel of

carrying life

birthing life

tending life

i am still waiting.



##

Here's an interesting article.

http://bostonreview.net/BR25.6/hynes.html

Exciting New Year

Yippee! The computer has finally been moved back downstairs! Now, I can catch up on emails, on writing, and on a whole lot of stuff I've missed out on while the computer was up in the attic :) I am doing a happy dance.

The baby room is almost ready :) We have a new closet for our clothes...and while it's not half so luxurious as a walk-in closet, it's almost there. Jan spent all weekend putting the closet together. We love IKEA! We love their PAX wardrobe system.

Now, our bedroom is taking on a look that says, this room is also inhabited by a woman. I am very pleased about that. Pleased too that we took our time with deciding how to change things and pleased about taking the time to think over details before changing things around. I definitely am liking our bedroom's new look, and I won't mind being stuck up there for two weeks after birth.

Waiting around for that baby to come. My belly is bigger than a basketball, and it takes on odd proportions at certain times of day. Also when the baby kicks, you can see where it is kicking.

Walking is hard work. It's puff-puff-puff work. But the miraculous thing is how biking still goes pretty smoothly. So, I took Joel to school today, inspite of the rain.

I was thinking up all sorts of wise and witty things to post here, but it must be part of expectancy...all those wise and witty things just flew out the window. I'll probably have to get myself a butterfly net one of these days, a very fine one that will catch all those thoughts before they fly away.