*** UPDATE*** Phoebe’s Greg Grummer deadline has been extended to January 15th! See http://www.phoebejournal.com for details ****

Forgive my absence from blogging but I’ve been quite busy traveling and sitting in on interviews with potential poetry faculty, and (of course) writing “the book”.

Some photos and notes from my travels to Central Park are forthcoming, but I have many messy notes to sort through before I can form thoughts enough to share them with you all… needless to say I have been feeling Olmsted so very clearly since spending a whole day wandering the landscape he crafted.

In the meantime, I wanted to take a minute to speak to (one of) my other job(s), as the Poetry Editor of Phoebe: A Journal of Literature and Art. We just finished putting together our spring issue and we’re starting to look toward selecting work for fall 2010. We’re currently accepting submissions to the Greg Grummer Poetry Award for this fall issue, and I’d encourage all of you poets to apply.

Our judge this year, I am truly honored to say, is the poetic powerhouse Rae Armantrout whose collection Verse has earned her a position as finalist for the 2009 National Book Award. I cannot tell you how thrilled I was when Rae accepted our invitation to judge this year’s contest.

Here’s the flyer:

Greg Grummer Poetry Award

As you submit your entries and anxiously await the results, keep an eye out for our spring 2010 issue in print. We just finished sending acceptances and ordering the pages, now it’s just layout and sending it to the printers! Us poets have a translation special feature with collaborative translations from Charles Bernstein and Odile Cisneros, Forrest Gander and Aljaz Kovac, homophonic translations of Beowulf from Theodora Danylevich, and more “traditional” translations from Ranjani Murali and Krista Ingebretson. Other poets who will be published in the issue include Dina Hardy, Keith Montesano, Megan Gannon, Stephanie Ford, Karina Borowicz and MUCH MUCH MORE! Look out for it in early spring 2010!