Reading, writing, and cooking
Today I am reading with 6 other poets at the Omni ParkerHouse in the Kennedy room for the launch of an anthology WHAT SAVES US: poems of empathy and outrage in the time of trump. I’l be reading with Doug Anderson, Martin Espada [who edited theanthology] Danielle Legros Georges, Everett Hoagland, Rich Michelson, RobertPinsky and Lauren Marie Schmidt.
Woody has an important WOMR meeting, his last as President of the Board so he can’t drive me to Boston. Dale and Stephen are driving me in. They’ll amuse themselves downtown until I meet them after the event andtake them to supper at Parkers restaurant in the hotel. Then we’ll drive back. I hope we’ll be homeby 10:30 tonight.
Tuesday, Woody picks up a natural turkey in Orleans. He has another interview that day. Wednesday, I’ll make maple Bavarian cream. Melenie and Jay will arrive from Easthampton by 5, they and we hope [traffic, traffic, traffic and probably rain. The next morning, Melenie and I will start cooking with a rum pumpkin pie. Woody will take care of the turkey while Mel and I make the stuffing and pot iron tout rond [ whole pumpkin artfully stuffed with lots of gruyere cheese, panko whole wheatcrumbs, onions and cream] – a gorgeous presentation with the whole pumpkin wearing its hat – and Mel will make gravy. I’m not a gravy lover so seem to have no gift for making it.
There will be eight of us which is all we can fit around the table. When we have more at parties, we serve buffet style, Dale and Stephen are coming, Gigi and Ralph and Melenie and Jay. Jay will probably help Woody outside or with the sheds that day while Mel and I are madly cooking.Dale is making scalloped Eastham turnips [a local specialty]. Gigi is bringing a green salad. We’ll have lots of wine. The appetizers will be simple: just our gravlax with crackers, capers and soft cheese.
I’ll be sending my novel with my little tweaks back to my agent. I’ll have to start researching small presses as New York seems to have no interest in a new novel by me.
A week from Monday, I’ll open up the annual June juried intensive poetry workshop for 2020 and start reading mss as they come in. I just finished the new John Le Carre bookAgent running in the field. It’s very political. What he says about Trump is close to what I’d say except he leaves out the contempt for women and the racism. He’s more concerned with Trump’s doing Putin’s bidding in a big way.
I wrote my first poem in several weeks, as I was working every moment I could get on the novel, THE HOUSE AT HOPE’S END. Now I’ll be back to reading poetry and writing it. Dale and I sent out submissions last Monday for the first time in awhile and will do a couple more this coming Monday. This coming week should be on the mild side for the time of year. Woody should be able to put the gardens to sleep. The cold came on so suddenly, it caught us by surprise. i believe it will not freeze again for a week. That would help. He’s been picking up the irrigation hoses and fixing raised beds in the lower garden. I finished off the leeks this week by making them as a vegetable one night and making Celestine soup last night. I have to finish off the Brussels sprouts and the Swiss chard this week so he can plow the main garden. We’ll get one last salad out of my garden before he plows it. I had been cooking Chinese cabbage – what the slugs didn’t devour – the last two weeks, so it’s gone now. Everything I potted is in. Soon we’ll be done with the garden until February, when I begin starting seedlings.