FRIDAY, January 17, 2014
I’m very pleased to report that the “Kickstarter” campaign to raise funds for Jennifer Bartlett’s biography-in-progress of Larry Eigner has been successful. I have been following the steady growth of the money pledged to her research fund, and by late this afternoon the minimum needed to make all the pledges operational was surpassed. I was fairly confident three days that I would not have to send out a last-minute appeal; by January 14, 89 backers had pledged $4,580, compared to slightly less than a week earlier (when 69 backers had pledged $3,385). Another dozen backers by late this afternoon lifted the total number of people supporting Bartlett’s project to 101. An average donation of $50 a person, therefore, has turned out to be sufficient to make this fundraiser a genuine act of community action. I send out my appreciation to everyone who helped to make this possible.
On a personal level, I worked on correcting some typographical errors that had slipped into the English text of my book that Mantis Editores will be publishing sometime this year. José Rico wrote recently to let me know that Robin and he have decided to call the bilingual collection, Pruebas ocultas, which will extend the title of my first (and only) full-length book collection into the accretion of my life’s work. They have also reiterated their desire to have me visit Mexico City and to meet and talk with poets there under the aegis of the Fundación para las Letras Mexicanas, which awarded José Rico a two-year grant to work on his poetry. Given the schedule I face at CSULB this spring together with the other events already lined up, I’m not certain when the trip to Mexico City will take place, but now I’m grateful that I got a passport again a little over four years ago and at least I don’t have to deal with that detail.
About Bill Mohr