Newsliness: I’m in Famous Reporter! See below.

Welcome to the second summer of the year. Well, my second—the first was the bipolar (seriously—0 degrees to 30 in a couple of days?!) Wisconsin summer way back in May/June. I’ve been dreading the Australian variety because that means Sweating and Christmas Decorations and…well, that’s about it, isn’t it?

Anyway, it’s here. This morning the front lawn had exploded into dandelions. A red dragonfly approximately the size of France flew by. Nesting birds have spent the last three weeks using my skull as target practice.

I have put my togs on. Not being I like swimming, or because I’m going near any kind of body of water, but because it seems like the only appropriate uniform for the sort of day when I’m going to be doing a lot of overdue housework—and homework—and my little Queenslander maintains a steady temperature of Surface of the Sun.

But! I do have reason to celebrate. I have a huge bucket of finest gelati (nectarine, lemon, cardamom) and I have finished the linguistics class I should have dropped out of months ago. The only thing I got out of it was a variety of phonological puns (see blog title)—they were good. Beyond that, good riddance.

And today I have a date (another one! she came back!) with Simone de Beauvoir. Taking the phone off the hook, kids.

Last but certainly not least, Ralph Wessman at Famous Reporter has published a chat we had regarding poetry and Stuff and Things. You can read it here. In it I claim that dead poets are copying me, amongst other things. And, re-reading it now, I realise I had (another) Gillam fangirl moment in the interview, too. Ah well, it happens.

Bucketsfull of amazing poets can be found in Issue 40, including Geoff Page (squee!), Graham Nunn, Max Ryan, Nathan Curnow, Ross Donlon, Kent MacCarter, Cameron Hindrum, Sarah Day, and Anthony Lawrence. But you’ll have to buy the journal to get all the goods—and you should.

There’s also a poem from yours truly in the print version. (You might have seen it before if you’ve got my chapbook, but I think it’s twice as nice to see it in Famous Reporter.)

Stalking the Moon

We sail under the moon
and it sails through the sky
oblivious—or not wanting
us to know that it has noticed us.
We neither lag nor gain, passing under
the arched backs of bridges
(lazily curious or curiously lazy
in our skyfishing).

We lace backwards and forwards
across the waist of the river,
tying ourselves to the city in case
the moon should dive
(we’ll be a steady net to catch it)
or turn and lift us up
(looking into its face would surely be
too like a mirror)
and swing our steamboat from its anchor
like a censer in a dark cathedral.

The moon only looks over its shoulder
and hurries when morning comes
(with torchlight strong enough
to scan a row of beds for stragglers)
to urge its late body, full with travels,
into a slow descent.

And there is no doubt that the sun
is gaining on us, too.

  (Still, we follow.)

Good luck with summer, guys. Haul out the barbeque, roll out the slip ‘n’ slide and put ice in the kiddy pool. Then send me photos of you in your cossie and silliest apron, in the backyard, covered in suds and eating a burger. Don’t forget your hat; plovers and sunshine want your brains.

Er, signing off.

—Z