Ah, Mairead, I am just shocked that all those years in New Mexico when I'd go to
Taos or Santa Fe and drive down highway 44 and take the backroad north of
Cuba through Gallina (chicken), Coyote(coyote), and Regina (queen), that that
was you at the Espanola turnoff, out in the yard of that stucco house, and
looking crosseyed at that sunburnt pig while scribbling furiously in nettles up to
your eyebrows! I'm so glad that after years of questioning the sky your poetic
efforts were rewarded by the Knight Award and publication in the Minto Review,
and, honestly, if I'd known that was you, I'd have stopped and dropped off some
Mentos, as a momento of the occasion.

Happy New Year, and no goatheads!

Rebeecca


---- Original message ----
>Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2005 11:50:25 -0500
>From: Mairead Byrne <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: The suckableness of contemporary American poetry
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Thanks Alison.  No-one else seems to care.  But misquotation is one of
>the poet's crosses.  What Jon wrote was:
>
>Like Gorky I sometimes question my doubts
>outside to the yard and question the sky,
>longing to have the fight settled, thinking
>I can't go on like this
>
>But my poem "Pink Adobe: 21st Century Dawn" actually reads:
>
>Like Porky I sometimes question my doubts
>outside to the yard and question the sky,
>longing to have the site nettled, thinking
>I can't go on like this
>
>Porky was our pig when we lived in New Mexico and although we ourselves
>did not live in an adobe house (though I totally defend anyone else's
>right to do so), Porky sometimes reminded me of an adobe house,
>especially when I would see her rump
>vibrating by the side of our (stucco) house very early in the desert
>mornings when I would get up to write.  "The reference to nettling the
>site relates to my herb garden at the time, I was actually trying to
>recreate 15th century English recipes from an old manuscript I'd found
>(thought I could make a go of it as a business or failing that herbalism
>but it all came to nothing in the end).  Porky liked nettles too.  "Pink
>Adobe: 21st Century Dawn" is a special poem for me in this way.  I was
>thrilled when The Minto Review accepted it and when it won the Knight
>Prize, well, I was overwhelmed.  The money was welcome too.
>
>Hey thanks a bunch for the info on Minties!  I wonder if Oprah's
>boyfriend Stedman is related to the Minties Stedman????  The fact that
>Gates was involved indicates this is a possibility because you know
>Henry Louis Gates is a great-great grand-nephew of
>the Sydney Gates.  Also I'm pretty sure Oprah once said that Stedman's
>pet name for her was "Sweetacres."  Well what do you know!  I feel I've
>been chewing Minties all my life but that cannot be.  Do you think you
>could invite me to give a reading in Australia so that I could try them
>out?  I could read "Pink Adobe" among other things.
>
>Happy New Year -- what a brave little flag *that* is!
>
>Mairead
>
>www.maireadbyrne.blogspot.com
>
>
>>>> [log in to unmask] 01/02/05 12:49 AM >>>
>Hi Mairead
>
>Nothing worse than being misquoted.  Could you requote yourself? I am
>however uncertain.  Would you have to write the poem in order to do so?
>I'd
>love to read it, in whatever case.
>
>I'm glad to know that the Minto Review is the most prestigious journal
>in
>the US, even though I keep misreading it as the Minty Review.  This has
>pleasant and very suckable associations for me.
>
>http://users.chariot.net.au/~dan/minties/about.html
>
>On the quivive as ever
>
>A(lison)
>
>On 2/1/05 12:28 PM, "Mairead Byrne" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I agree with Anny on this.  Though I must say I'm miffed as my poem
>> "Pink Adobe: 21st Century Dawn" (which I might say won the magazine's
>> 2004 Knight Award) published by the Minto Review, was *misquoted* by
>Jon
>> in his admonitory bouquet.
>> Mairead
>
>
>
>Alison Croggon
>
>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>Editor, Masthead:  http://masthead.net.au
>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com