Lisa, I can't answer for anyone but myself--and maybe other american-based
members : we've been giving thanks, for it's Thanksgiving in the US of A.
We have been gathering with our clans to eat turkey with cranberry sauce
and stuffing, creamed turnips, mashed potatoes and peas, hot rolls, baby
carrots, corn on the cob, nouveau beaujolais, and local variants of this
standard fare. Having sat down at the groaning board (is that a misplaced
epithet or some such? for it is we who shall soon be groaning, groaning as
the stuffing is shifted from our plates to our innards), we have given
thanks that we are not in prison, and that those of us who are, will be
paroled shortly; that we are not yet living under a bridge in a cardboard
box; that our football team was leading at halftime; that the earth
hereabouts hasn't gaped and quaked of late; that our rapidly aging vehicles
still run; that we are still capable of putting up with one another after
what seem like several lifetimes; and that we live here and not in
Bangladesh. This done, and some vaguely sacred gestures having been made in
the general direction of an Almighty by a few of those present, at our
house I then said the only Canadian grace I know : "Good drink, good meat,
Good God, let's eat," and all fell to, trencherpersons to a person.
After this , one is incapable of e-mail. One is incapable even of going
downstairs to one's computer, because one will eventually have to ascend
those same stairs or freeze his knees. Two days have had to pass, for this
e-ffusion to occur. (Yesterday was a decompression day, and I was fortunate
to have the poet Bob Grenier visit on that day, and we resumed our
collaborative poem "Both," which so far consists of thinking up sentences
that use the word "both" in some novel, or, that not proving possible,
hackneyed, way. We then read Chapter One of Thos Mann's _Doktor Faustus_
out loud, in turn, paragraph by paragraph, together with the women whose
companions we are, and said a grateful Good night.) But what the excuse is
for the quietness on this List of the % of subscribers living in the U.K.,
I cannot of course say. In fact, there has been a fair amount of activity,
hasn't there? Did you miss it? Do you have a question about poetry, that
you'd like to raise? Please do.
David.
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