May 11, 2013

I was lying on the massage table yesterday when it occurred to me that I had not deducted the rent on my studio– by far the largest single deduction–from my taxes. Aside from the stupidity of the oversight (which my accountant also had not noticed), what I wondered was why it should have come to me then and there, when I was thinking of anything but that. I had been bothered by the comparative modesty of the return, and perhaps had been searching the corridors of memory subconsciously.

Finally yesterday, a quite productive day at the studio. Afterwards, in the flush of accomplishment, I opened a bottle of exceptionally good white wine. That was about 5:30. I don’t know exactly when I went o bed. But I rose at 4:40 this morning, having slept a good long time and having had hours of REM, the images of which still people my mind.


KF emails that I’ve won 3rd place in the William Matthews poetry contest– out of the money, but still a delight.

Also, in the email today: Congratulations! The Editors of Nimrod International Journal are pleased to inform you that your poetry entry, including the poem "Under the Morning Star,” has been selected as a finalist for The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry. There were 568 poetry manuscripts submitted to the Nimrod Literary Awards competition for The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry.
The finalists will be submitted to the poetry judge for 2013, who will select the first and second place winners; those results should be forthcoming by the middle of June at the latest and we will notify you as quickly as possible. We hope that you will not sell the poems to any other magazines while we await the results, as Nimrod will publish the winning manuscripts and as many finalists as possible. The winners will also be brought to Tulsa in October for our Awards Celebration and Writing Workshop, this year on October 18-19th, 2013.
Once again, congratulations! We will be contacting you again as soon as we have the results.
Best,
Fran Ringold
Editor-in-Chief