First off, know that we always keep our promises.  Yesterday afternoon, with Rafael Nadal grunting in the background, we narrowed our 40 “quarter-finalists” down to 19 “semi-finalists” for the Rattle Poetry Prize, so we’re right on schedule to announce the winners on September 15th.  We’d hoped to choose the winner at that meeting, but this year the decision is proving difficult, with no clear-cut favorite, as there has been in years past.  I’ve read through each poem 6 times now, with reads 7 and 8 coming later today.  It’s nearing the point where I could recited them on command, but we’re still unsure which we like best.

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Angie Ledbetter is picking editors’ brains in seven parts over at Roses & Thorns (the blog of Rose & Thorn magazine), and I’m one of the lab rats.  Others include editors from Hayden’s Ferry and Monkeybicycle, Reb Livingston of No Tell Motel, and our old friend (from e.4) John Amen–nine of us in total.

I don’t know how much general readers will be interested in what we have to say, but I personally can’t wait for the subsequent installments.  I’ve never been particularly social with other editors–I avoid book conferences as much as possible, where most mingling takes place, and I didn’t rise through the ranks of other staffs to get here…I kind of came out of left field.  So the truth is, I have no idea what other editors think, and I can only assume our experiences are similar.  I can’t wait to see whether or not that’s really the case.  And I’ve seen the questions coming up: there are some interesting ones.

(I’m definitely going to win the award for worst metaphor.  I’ve already got a nominee in “plague cart” and I’m sure there are more to come.  For some reason, every time I do an interview the metaphor machine whirs to life and I start spewing out the kitchy half-formed comparisons that litter my quotes like lawn art.  See, there I go again.  I don’t really talk like this.)

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On Saturday, I posted the list of book received for review from August, and I’m really hoping someone wants to review John Kinsella’s Divine Comedy.  It’s such a beautiful, thick, expensive book, and the longer it sits on myself the longer I feel like I’m smothering a puppy.  (Damn, maybe I do really talk like this…)

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The cowboy/western issue is closed, but if you’re a kind of desert writer, you should send some work to Phantom Seed.  The call for submissions is here.  I really love collections of poetry that have a cohessive topical focus–themed issues like Runes, themed journals like Alimentum, themed anthologies like Between the Heartbeats.  Phantom Seed fits the bill, and Ruth Nolan is one of those few editors I’ve socialized with, being somewhat local.  I can vouch for her.

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There’s something else I was going to mention, but it’s completely slipped my mind…