I was stunned this week to find Hotel Almighty on The New York Times’ list of ‘New and Noteworthy’ poetry releases. I thought I was looking at a fake page. But there it was between Marge Piercy and Billy Collins. It’s particularly astounding considering the doomsday articles I have been reading about the overwhelming raft of books being published this month, which is dismaying for anyone with a new book. I was happy to have any attention at all.

Mostly I’ve been happy for the support of other poets buying and reading and posting about my book. That makes me glad. Much of the book’s appeal is that it’s different. And colorful.

Elsewhere, I’ve had two poems published this week at Random Sample. They are part of a series I’ve been doing from the Dutch novella Sleepless Night, which I chose because ‘Sleepless Night’ makes a good, flexible title for any number of poems (and because I had the book at home). To make these poems, I use the same approach I followed with those in Hotel Almighty, but this text has been more difficult to work with. Less sparkle, fewer good nouns. I’ve given up any number of times. I think I’m in the midst of the last one now. It’s a holiday in Spain and since I live in Spain on paper, I have the day free to work on it.

Other poems from the ‘Sleepless’ series were recently at the online journals Diode and Figure One. Another is due tomorrow at Zócalo Public Square and two more in the next issue of Guesthouse.