Matthew Hittinger's Blog

I have three poems in the first issue of Scythe, edited by Joe and Chenelle Milford of The Joe Milford Poetry Show.

The poems are: "Red Crescent" from The Erotic Postulate; "Sitting in a WaWa Parking Lot" from Skin Shift; and "5th Avenue Stretch" from Impossible Gotham.

This first issue features poets who have read on The Joe Milford Poetry Show.  Too many great names to list all the contributors, just go check it out.  And great work editing and putting this together Joe and Chenelle!

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I'm not going to do a top ten list, or limit this to books published in 2009 as I discovered a lot of wonderful work this year published since 2007.  I'm sure I've forgotten some books here (it's hard to remember what you were reading back in January and February) so this is by no means meant to be comprehensive.  Just some titles that come to mind (or are still stuck in my mind).  There are also some non-poetry titles mixed in there that I enjoyed.

So in alphabetical order, here are some of t...

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On a bit of a whim last night I decided to calculate how much money I've invested with the poetry book award contests since I started sending out my manuscripts in 2004.  Bless the organizational skills I inherited from my mother, I've  actually kept spreadsheets with all this raw data.  At first I wasn't sure I wanted to know the damage, but now that I have tracked all the numbers it's actually not that bad.  I have no illusions about the business of it all, and since I do consider this an i...

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Head on over to Gently Read Literature where you can check out the November reviews.  I have a piece up on Laurie Sheck's multi-genre novel A Monster's Notes.

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Didi had a poet painting marathon last weekend and did a new portrait of me:

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Gregory Woods, author of the critical study Articulate Flesh: Male Homoeroticism and Modern Poetry (a well-worn copy of which sits by my desk) has reviewed the anthology Ganymede Poets, One for Chroma: A Queer Literary and Arts Journal.

Woods highlights some of our work:

So what impresses me here, before we even begin on the content, is the quality of the verse. Christopher Gaskins, for instance, impresses me not so much for what he says as by the way he says it in lean, sinewy, unsentimental...

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Stumbled upon this new review of Platos de Sal in the October-November edition at berniE-zine.

Here's a preview:

A finely-crafted story in verse that deftly explores the subtle ways in which we reveal ourselves to, or hide ourselves from, those we love.

Go check it out!

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And here we are, at the end of my trip already.  Five days was too short.  I must really take longer vacations.  That Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving and American Columbus Day and my last day in Montreal.  The city felt empty, especially when Michael took me up to the roof of his building so I could get some cityscape shots.

The mountain:

Far out in the distance there is the school where Michael teaches and commutes to each day:

This was pretty much the view a few floors down from Michael's...

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After that very romantic evening on Mount Royal, we spent Sunday morning lazing around and enjoying the view from Michael's apartment and balcony, eventually going out for some Indian brunch at Le Taj and then hitting up the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.  There was this huge John William Waterhouse exhibit going on with that damn Lady of Shalott painting plastered all over the place (which only makes me think of Elizabeth Bishop's wonderful poem "The Gentleman of Shalott").  I've never cared ...

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Saturday was slow going after being out so late, but we dragged ourselves out to meet up with Michael's friend Vani who we convinced to accompany us on a long walk that eventually took us through the Old Port.

But first, some sculpture.  Here is a sculpture of a hand on Michael's coffee table:

Michael had many opportunities to buy more hands that weekend, but he resisted.  I still think a hand collection would be creepy and fun.  And here is Michael posing with a sculpture of a woman and a...

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