Eduardo has amazing news — this and that.
Sometimes pure talent does go places. I'm looking forward to this guy's first book. Click on the label below to see what I mean.

THE REAL FOOD

SAINT ANTHONY'S CHURCH

Instead of a large oak door, a loom. Instead
of mosaic windows, wedges of fruit.

Instead of a poor box, a loaf of bread. Instead of holy water, gin.
Instead of pews, beds. Instead

of hymns, gossip. Instead of the Stations-of-the-Cross,
instructions on how to build a kite out of canvas, sticks. Instead

of an altar, a butcher's table. Instead of the nailed palms of Christ,
the warm hand of my father on my shoulder.

Eduardo Corral
in Three Candles Review

Now here is one brilliant poem -- by none other than fellow poet-blogger Eduardo Corral. Hey, hey, we have a true poet in our midst! I'm going to watch out for anything else this man has to offer...

I am reminded of an a North American aborigine (otherwise misnomed Indian) who said to a missionary who was trying to convert him, "If your God is so great, why do you keep him locked up in a little house? We pray to our God under the sky, in the forest, by the rivers and lakes!"

So with this poem. The contrasts surprise not only through their precision and beauty but by the conclusion the author leads us toward. There are a number of St. Anthony's, but the one in this title is obviously Saint Anthony of Padua, the saint for whom St. Anthony's Feast is named and who is traditionally invoked for the recovery of things things lost. In this poem, themes and images are one -- and the images so beautiful, that while the poem (despite that pious title) is actually an attack on the institutional self-aggrandizement of the Catholic Church, it's also a celebration of the beauty of Catholicism, of a Latino heritage, of the closeness of father and son ( father can be taken two ways -- but as I take it, the small "f" father is the real Father, the big "F" Father, a kind of imposter). Actually (backtracking a bit here), "attack" is a rather simplistic description -- the poem is also an appeal for a deeper, more authentic spirituality, recognized by the Catholic Church and exemplified by Saint Anthony himself.

Anyway, enough exegesis (or attempt at exegesis). That same friend of mine tells me he actually cried when he read this poem (I sent it back to him as a response to the one below, saying "this one's of a whole other order...). I'm more dry-eyed than he is, but this is one poem I would have loved to have written. But of course, one would have to have been brought up a Catholic to write it.

Interesting that both this poem and the one in the post below advance by a series of contrasts to an arresting but wholly natural resolution. Unlike the poem below, however, this one would never have been taken by The New Yorker. It provides the real food.

Blogroll

As the old Tom Paxton song goes,

Are you going away
With no word of farewell...

Well, that's what he upped and did. Though he did announce his intentions the previous week..

Good luck this summer, Eduardo, with the manuscript. I look forward to seeing your new website in the fall.

This made me realize -- time to update my blogroll.

Since the last time, some people have moved out of the fave's list, some into it. Those who've moved in: Anne Haines (Land Mammal) is as warm and terre-a-terre as pomme de terre comfort food in a howling winter for fellow "emerging" poets, especially fellow middle-aged "emerging" poets like myself... a number of her posts (particularly on writers' groups) I've found very useful; AJPL is a bright young fella I have a lot of intellectual fun with so I find myself frequently curious to see what he's up to; Anthony Robinson has moved his blog back out of retirement and has proven to be very poignant and very engaging in his commentary, so up he goes. Emily Lloyd, always worthy, is back into the crowd of "Other Worthies" until she decides what she's doing with her blog, which should be soon, she tells us; Cris Lott (Cosmopoetica), because although I like his writing, he doesn't post frequently enough.

C Dale, you're great, your tips have been invaluable and your insights superior-- but you're on probation. Seems to me your blog has become rather too much a diary blog lately. But I still find myself dropping in on Avoid the Muse every few days...

A big addition to the blogroll: a list of on-line magazines (I'll only hyperlink some of these; I'm getting tired...). Listed alphabetically, it includes some very high-level "establishment" ones, like Slate and Blackbird (the latter strikes me as rather an online version of American Poetry Review -- everyone there is very much a "career" poet, MFA'd, Breadloafed, etc.), the conservative looking Melic Review, which looks at least at first glance like an online Poet Lore; The Page, which besides being a voluminous review has an impressive links list of other online poetry publications; then dignified/funky lit zines like How 2, Rock Salt Plum, 42 Opus, Verse, and the cute and terribly pink No Tell Motel; finally post avant hipster reviews like Shampoo, Exquisite Corpse, Jacket and Malleable Jangle (the latter two out of Australia, incidentally). Quite an assortment. This is as much as anything else to help my own exploration ... if they're at my fingertips, maybe I myself will get to know them better and eventually submit to some of them! (Having them bookmarked hasn't been enough).

Other important resources (under Other Poetry Websites): Poetry Net, a great online selection of important contemporary poets, with bios, pictures, etc; and (what an oversight not to have this until now), the Quebec Writer's Federation website.

By the way, yesterday my site meter recorded this blog's 4,000th visit since last September when I set up "digs" here. Seems things are picking up exponentially; the month of May saw exactly (yes, exactly!) 1,000 of those.