I went to the AWP Conference for the bookfair only. Outside of a reading that featured Will Alexander and Harryette Mullen, I did not attend a single “panel” or talk.

I did pick up a considerable number of books I look forward to giving attention to in the next couple weeks. In the meantime, I want to mention an author whose book I only spotted after I had already exceeded my budget. On the final afternoon, Peggy Dobreer had asked me to read at their table some of Murray Mednick’s poems in his recently published collection, LIVING POETRY (from Slow Lightning Press). When I looked up from the page at one point, I could see a member of the small group that had paused in the passageway listening intently. Very intently. Afterwards, I asked his name, and only later did I realize that he was the author of the book I had taken a photograph of 15 minutes earlier. I didn’t want to forget in the midst of life’s flurry of instantaneous erasures about a title and book cover image that had caught my eye at Slow Lightning’s table.

In the not too distant future, then, this book, too.