Year end practices, audits, comparisons, future prognostications give me pause to check out my little blog's net worth. Right-o. My little blog is worth the price of a standard family-sized mini-van, stripped bare of all the bells and whistles. Oh well, I couldn't be more proud of it.
Evie Shockley's "a half-red sea" is thematically layered and saliently rich. A subtle presence of grandness surfaces in many of the forty-seven poems. For example, consider the magical use of "(e)" in the word "land(e)scape" in the wonderful poem "Elocation (or, Exit Us)":
the city's infra(red)structure sweats her, a land(e)scape she can't make, though she knows the way. she's got great heart, but that gets her where? egypt's always on her right (it goes where she goes), canaan's always just a-head, and to her left, land of the bloodless dead.
Upon first seeing this (e), it was a "wow" moment, like peering into the seemingly endless face of the Milky Way on a summer night sky. Whether the reader vocalizes the "(e)," Shockley captures the sense of entrapment. In "Elocation," the narrator has a deep-seeded longing to escape from her station in life, or the land of her upbringing. I love the notion that the "(e)" is purely ornamental, not vocalized. It's a modern depiction of Everyman, who walks the path of life being moved about by the centrifugal forces of the landscape he/she belongs to -- cultural, racial, societal, national, or religious.
As I noted last week, the most influential people of 2006 are not the Internet-savvy "You," as TIME MAGAZINE would like us to believe. On the contrary, I feel there are much more significant candidates. I couldn’t even pick just one noteworthy person so I want to share with you all of my candidates for your review. My choices for Person of the Year 2006 are, in no significant order:
The Amish Community: In the opening days of October, a disturbed young man, husband, and father stormed into a small schoolhouse in the Amish community of West Nickel Mines and shot five girls. The families of the victims and the surrounding Amish community mourned with such grace that they refrained from judging Charles Roberts and even reached out to his wife Marie. IN a world full of short tempers and intolerance, the Amish Community deserves recognition for mourning with such Christian love in the face of unfathomable tragedy.
The Dixie Chicks & "The Long Walk Home": For defying the evasive country music media, powerbrokers, producers, and fans, and for even ignoring death threats: The Dixie Chicks. They came back strong, releasing one of the best CDs of 2006, "Taking The Long Way" and starring in the acclaimed and award-winning documentary "Shut Up and Sing." They are nominated for the high trifecta of the Grammies-- Song of the Year ("Not Ready to Make Nice"), Record of the Year ("Not Ready to Make Nice"), and Album of the Year ("The Long Road Home")!
Al Gore and "The Unconvenient Truth": In 1988, TIME Magazine named our endangered planet as the person of the year. It was the year that the environmental movement gained its legs. This year, Al Gore, armed with an alarmingly prescient and intriguing powerpoint presentation he himself assembled, brought the issue of global warming from the campaign-only sidelines and onto center stage and into the living room of America, gaining his message international acclaim and best documentary awards by national film critics associations and a favorite for Oscar. His message is clear: If we don’t slow down our output and accumulation of carbon dioxide and other pollutants, the results of extensive global warming will be catastrophic.
The American Immigrant: As the House passed a stiffer and more divisive national immigration policy, millions of immigrants marched in many of America’s major cities in April. "We Are America" was the united voice of millions of immigrants as they marched upon state houses. Jaime Contreras, president of the National Capital Immigration Coalition, said of the purpose of these marches: "What we want to achieve is to send a very strong message to the Senate, to the Congress in general and this administration that immigrants are fed up, that we are tired, that we work very hard...We come to this country not to take from America, but to make America strong. And we do not deserve to be treated the way we have been treated."
Since then, the Republicans passed a bill stating the national language is English, the border with Mexico has been reinforced, national guard troops have been called in to help build a fence, and 14 meat-packing plants across the states were raided and illegal immigrants arrested and taken away to undisclosed locations.
Harry Reid and the New-spined Democrat: Coming off of a huge showdown with the Republican Majority last Novemeber, in which Reid shut down the Senate in order to request an investigation of spurious intelligence that the White House used to persuade very good and patriotic American citizens to "pre-emptively" go to war, Reid continued to show back-bone in June, vowing to block pay raises for members of Congress until the minimum wage was increased. His display of courage seemed to transform the Democratic leadership and body politic and help make them relevant. He could well be dubbed the father of the movement that spawned the "questioning" mindset that slowly and methodically brought visibility to everything that was wrong with the Republican game plan and eventually help win the House and Senate for the Democrats.
The American Voter: The props of the 2006 midterm elections culminated from years of disintegrating American pride, trust in its government, and you name it and it probably fits. Voices of discontent rose out of every nook and cranny of America – in the heart of the cities, in the suburbs, in the rural farmlands and small towns that support them, and even amongst all party affiliations, cultures, age groups, classes, and religious tenets. A convincing majority had had enough of the scandal-ridden congress; the unbearable cost of health-care; the embarrassing and sickening failure’s of Katrina; out-of-control gas prices; and the worsening economy.
More than this, however, people were tired of supporting an unpopular Iraq war and less than confident in the President and his administration’s management of it. Combine this with the still fresh and lingering effects of the revelations of our US Military’s role in the torture at Abu Graib prison and the passing of the torture law this past September that authorized torture and rescinded habeas corpus, and all of this created a perfect storm that brought record-breaking number of young voters out to vote, record number of campaign donations and volunteer work that urged people to come out and vote.
In the end, American voters stripped the control of the legislative branch of government from the Republicans and handed it the Democrats.
1. Family and I spent a weekend in Park City, home of the 2002 Olympic ski venues. We stayed at The Canyons and had a wonderful experience. We put my 10 year-old son into his first ski class. He passed four levels by the end of the day. He’s amazing.
2. While up there, I finished reading (again) the delightful collection of poems "Wanton Textiles" by Reb Livingston & Ravi Shankar. I’ve started writing a review for it. Hope to have it finished by the end of the week.
3. Will be posting my nominations for PERSON OF THE YEAR 2006. Maybe tomorrow.
4. I’ve been working for the sales and marketing department at work, putting in longer hours creating, writing, and deploying HTML-rich e-mail "blasts," as they fondly call them. I’m also helping the department prepare the company for the big CES 2007 show in Vegas in three weeks. And yes, I’ll be there introducing visitors to our sweet home security cameras. What this really means: I haven’t been reading and reviewing books as prolifically as I have wanted.
5. I have been reading PF Potvin’s "The Attention Lesson," Annie Finch’s book of essays, "The Body of Poetry: Essays on Women, Form, and the Poetic Self," and Linda Tomol Pennisi’s collection of poetry "Suddenly Fruit."
6. Started a poem about immigrants. Bleeding over it.
7. Aspirations to write a review for the extraordinary and poignant film Babel.
You. The collective "you" – the captain of the Information Age -- the Information creator, propagator, user, modifier, and commentator. This is the PERSON OF THE YEAR by TIME MAGAZINE for 2006. The writer, Lev Grossman, congratulates you by saying "Welcome to your world."
"The ‘Great Man’ theory of history," Grossman writes, "is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that ‘the history of the world is but the biography of great men.’ He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year."
But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.
Take me for a silly curmudgeon of a fool. But this news feels flat, especially formulated by a news media to congratulate the mediocrity of man in order to keep man from seeing and understanding the truly noteworthy. It even suggests that money was the motivator behind this.
Yes. "You" drive this new global intellectual economy. Yes. "You" influence disperses ideas and shifts attitudes around the globe faster than it takes someone to make a sandwich for lunch. (That is, if you have the latest, high-powered tools and a bit of visibility.) And maybe that is what this is all about: visibility. The chance that the no-body in the world can be the some-body. And maybe my real concern is that Grossman’s focus is too much on the YouTubers and MySpacers who I have never come across in my Internet surfings and will never come across because I simply have no desire listening, watching, or reading about someone’s droll day-to-day activities, shenanigans, or self-aggrandizing preening.
I’m sure Grossman means well. After all, he seasons his article lightly with comments about bloggers writing "about [the] state of mind or the state of the nation" and this experiment of WEB 2.0 "[harnessing] the stupidity of crowds..."
However, when it comes right down to it, Grossman's argument could have been more convincing. Where is the talk about the national and global impact of think tanks, such as one of this year’s most influential, MoveOn.org, which used the web to mobilize and empower volunteers of all walks of life to participate in contacting a record number of like-minded voters to vote, helping to shape the outcome of this mid-term election.
Grossman could have highlighted the media-noted rise of Keith Olbermann’s popularity due to his brilliant commentaries and their presence on YouTube. But he shies away from lending weight to the "you."
Grossman could have even enhanced his article by researching and including data on the rise of Wikipedia and the surge in online literature and poetry. For example, Britain’s Salt Publications, which focuses on poetry and short literature, reached two impressive milestones – generating over 1 million hits in October and 7 million hits in the past twelve months.
Indeed, the success and/or power of the web touches more than just the pedestrian that Grossman makes one to believe. And that is why this year's person of the year seems anemic.
It has been over two months since I've posted a continuation of my novel 40. This post falls in sequence after the post 40: Vegas.6. This excerpt marks the beginning of the tentative chapter "Shadow Dreams," which is an extensive dream sequence where the narrator, Mark Byatt, has gone in search for his wife and kids.
In the beginning there was nothing except the scintilla of an awakening awareness that I existed in a dark space void of sound and void of any hope of light. I floated in this strange womb circling the heart of what, I did not know and for how long, I could not tell; maybe mere minutes or maybe years or even eons. Yet, in the endless waiting, space expanded and the limitless darkness stretched. And from this stretching I sensed that the particles that held nothing in form thinned. I began to see the blueprint of a dream being drawn beyond my reach. The lines of life beyond the diaphanous sepia scrim became increasingly apparent. Lines took on dimension. Dimension grew depth. And depth revealed a long city street I had frequented many times. It was the main route that took my family and I anywhere: the grocery store, clothes shopping, fast food meal for the kids, and an out-on-the-town meal with Janet. We had to cross it to get to her mom’s or dad’s house. We crossed it to reach the highway, the thorough-fare that took us to the Olympic city, Salt Lake City, in the north, and Las Vegas, to the south. I was walking this main street, heading north.
The sidewalks, always prepared to guide pedestrians into their favorite stores and to show off store fronts and overly priced merchandise in displays windows were feeling out of sorts because of the absent of folks. They barely responded to my shuffled footfall, which greedily kept the echoes all to themselves.
The streets were filled with vehicles coming and going. Street lights as far as the eye could see kept the intermittent timed cycles for breaking up the flow of traffic in its masses. One light would change from red to green and the subsequent lights followed suit, one right after the other and the lanes of backed up trucks, mid-size cars, sports cars, SUV’s and hummers sped off to the next red light.
I walked through the city park and found myself amidst giant old oaks whose roots looked like they had tried to pull themselves out of the ground in order to walk away. Their long, twisted and gnarled girth seemed engraved with the unsettling images of children and the old.
I walked by the playground. All the components connected like one of those mouse playgrounds, complete with slides and stairs and tunnels and swinging bridges and climbing rope and climbing walls and handle bars that kids try out their dexterity by crossing from one side of the playground to the other without falling onto soft wood chips scattered inches thick underfoot. Surveying the empty playground, I knew I had visited here numerous times with my children. And at this remembrance, I found myself walking down an entirely different street, toward the home of my mother-in-law.
The film awards are already upon us. This past week and weekend, four film associations released their end of year awards and/or nominations: Independent Film (Spirit Awards), LA Film Critics, New York Film Critics, and the National Board of Review. For this post, I want to highlight the awards by the National Board of Review.
The National Board of Review, the first film awards of the year, awarded The Departed the Best Director (Martin Scorsese) and Best Ensemble Cast awards. However, Clint Eastwood’s film, not yet released, Letters from Iwo Jima, won for Best Picture.
Cars won Best Animated Film.
Vovler, starring Penelope Cruz, won Best Foreign Film.
An Inconvenient Truth won Best Documentary.
The National Board of Review also list their best ten films of the year. Other than Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, the shortlisted films are:
Babel Blood Diamond The Departed The Devil Wears Prada Flags Of Our Fathers The History Boys Little Miss Sunshine Notes On A Scandal The Painted Veil
One of the end-of-year traditions I’ve paid attention to but rarely participated in has been the Person of the Year Award. This year, I’m participating.
Most media and print organizations have jumped aboard the tradition. But it is TIME Magazine that birthed it. Their coveted Person of the Year award has been in existence since 1927 and has recognized presidents, world leaders, statesmen, business visionaries, ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things, a musician, and even inanimate objects.
U.S. Presidents that received the TIME honor, on average, received it twice. Presidents honored include George W. Bush, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Ronald Regan, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
World leaders and dignitaries were acknowledged by TIME as well from the beginning years. In the list, you will recognize "The Peacemakers": Mandela, De Klerk, Rabin and Arafat (1993), Mikhail Gorbachev (1989), Corazon Aquino (1986); Lech Walesa (1981); Ayatullah Khomeini (1979); Anwar Sadat ( 1977); Queen Elizabeth II (1952); Winston Churchill (1949); Joseph Stalin (1942); Adolf Hitler (1938), and Mohandas Gandhi (1930).
Other U.S. statesmen were recognized for their impact during disaster, economic upheaval, and cultural vision. These include familiar faces like Rudolph Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Gen. William Westmoreland (1965), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963), George Marshall (1947), Hugh Johnson (1933), and Charles Lindbergh (1927).
Every so often, TIME has also recognized groups of ordinary people that have changed the face of America in one aspect of the other. These groups consist of The American Soldier (2003); The Whistleblowers (2002); U.S. Women (1975); Middle Class (1969); U.S. Astronauts (1968); 1966: Young People (1966); and U.S. Scientists (1960). They even honored the Hungarian Freedom Fighter in their 1956 award.
Even inanimate objects received recognition: G.I. Joe (1950); The Computer (1982); and our endangered planet (1988), for the new era of environmental activism that was reborn.
The least recognized figures were religious (John Paul II and Pope John XXIII), business visionaries (Melinda and Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and Walter Chrysler), and one single solitary musician famous for his one name, Bono (2005).
The purpose of TIME Magazine’s prestigious award, according to their definition, is to highlight "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year."
For 2006, TIME is allowing readers the opportunity to nominate their choice. The list consists of: George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Kim Jong II, Al Gore, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez, Nancy Pelosi, and The YouTube founders.
How significant are these awards? Enough that it is even betted on in Vegas and Sportsbook.com, the leading online betting avenue. Their take on this year’s award is Google’s Chairman and CEO, Eric Schmidt, whose net worth is estimated at $5.2 Billion, and is a 9-2 favorite.
Other favorites include US Vice President turned environmental guru, Al Gore (5-1 odds) and CEO of Apple computers, Steve Jobs (7-1 odds). Even controversial nominations that have had an impact on global politics this year exist, such as North Korea's Kim Jong-II (10-1 odds), Hamas' Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah (10-1 odds), and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (20-1 odds).
Stay tuned for my nominations and choice for the 2006 Person Of The Year.
THRILLED. The Grammy Nominations were announced today and the Dixie Chicks were nominated for the high trifecta of the Grammies-- Song of the Year ("Not Ready to Make Nice"), Record of the Year ("Not Ready to Make Nice"), and Album of the Year ("The Long Road Home")!
Read CNN’s take on the nominations here. Read a full list of nominations here.
I just new it was an excellent CD with Grammy potential of this caliber! Read my review here.
Watch the video of the nominated song and record of the year:
I’m also thrilled for the nominations for Corrine Bailey Rae -- Song of the Year and Record of the year for "Put Your Records On." You can see the video here.
Her song "Like a Star" was one of my favorite songs of this year. See beautiful video here.
With the health of the world’s superstar tenor Luciano Pavarotti at a critical juncture (due to pancreatic cancer), there has been much media interest regarding the current tenors on the opera circuit and on the pop-opera scene. The biggest question asked is simply: is anyone skilled enough to replace him? USA TODAY, for example, in their November 27, 2006 article, lists these acclaimed possibilities: Salvatore Licitra, Marcelo Alvarez, Roberto Alagna, Rolando Villazon, and Juan Diego Florez.
This natural and resonant analysis of vocal talent and popularity naturally opens the comparisons of the traditional operatic style against the newer, and more lucrative pop-opera variety, which includes the likes of Vittorio Grigolo, Josh Groban, Russel Watson, Mario Frangoulis, Andrea Bocelli, and IL DIVO, to name a few. And this critic could compile a novels-length of reviews unabashedly cavillous of the pop-opera genre.
IL DIVO has always had their critics. But despite them, they are one of the most successful of the genre. In fact, they only trail Groban in success. And 2006 has given them plenty of it. In their short two-year career, they have sold more than 12 million albums worldwide, scored 26 No. 1 chart positions internationally, and garnered some 104 gold and platinum awards around the world. Just over eleven short months ago, their second album, Ancora, debuted at #1 on the U.S. Billboards chart, selling over 150,000 units. And they’ve wrapped up a successful sold-out world tour and an extensive U.S. tour with Barbara Streisand.
Amidst this significant time and backdrop, IL DIVO releases a highly unimpressive Siempre.
One of our oldest department stores in America, Sears, has an advertising slogan that reads: "Come see the softer side of Sears." Siempre, could have the same slogan. It is so "soft," so formulaic and safe, it might skip any air-play and graduate immediately to taped elevator or department store tracks. A more fitting title might be "Embate" or "Aburir." That’s "Dull" or "Boring" if the English to Spanish translator I used worked correctly.
Having been an advocate of David, Urs, Sebastian, and Carlos, I’ve been quite flummoxed the past few days, trying to pinpoint what specifically is wrong with this CD. Though many critics have blamed the guys’ vocal abilities, that’s simply low-ball, inaccurate, and nothing but over-bulbous arrogance on its way to another "look at how mean I can be" donut shop for the haut monde. Of course, I highly doubt the upper-crust go to donut shops but I just love the idea of them over-eating on their own self-importance. Anyway, I digress.
In a nutshell, after bleeding over this a few days, I determined that what is wrong with Siempre is: 1) a lack of dynamic song selection; 2) horrible recording quality; and 3) seemingly lack of interest or passion.
Lack of Dynamic Song Selection
Maybe the entire IL DIVO management was rushed into making this CD by their record label so they could capitalize on Christmas sales. Or, maybe they wanted to go completely "ballad" with this album. Whatever the reason, Siempre lacks quality songs. More precisely, compared to their first two highly classy CDs, IL DIVO and Ancora, there is a dearth of classical pieces.
The producers of these successful CDs -- Steve Mac, Dave Krueger, and Per Magnussan -- offered a richly layered sampling of classical, neo-classical, and pop songs. Siempre unfortunately lacks this. There is nothing comparable to "Nella Fantasia," "En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor," "Ave Maria," "Pour Que Tu M'Aimes Encore," or "Ti Amera," to name a few.
And though the pop-operatic groups of today are infamous for covering other people’s songs, this is the first IL DIVO album in which the covers selected didn’t offer anything new or better. Take for example "Nights in White Satin (Notte Di Luce)." The Greek Tenor Mario Frangoulis sang it on his 2002 album Sometimes I Dream. Though the four-part harmony in the middle piqued my interest, the bombastic closing was too overdone, leaving me longing for Frangoulis’ version. And "Carusa." Covered in 2003 by US Tenor Josh Groban on his album Closer. Again, Groban’s was more memorable.
Horrific Recording Quality
I didn’t even get through the first track before I noticed the echo applied to the vocals. Fast forward to second track. Echo still there. Third track. Yes. Fourth track. Yes. Every track on this CD sounds as if the guys were singing into tin cans, or, more fittingly, recorded while standing in a tile-covered shower room. The rich tone of their voices is lost. The effect is annoying, like finger nails on chalkboard. I listened to IL DIVO and Ancora to make sure I hadn’t totally lost my mind. I hadn’t. Neither of those CDs have this sound quality applied to them.
Lack of Interest or Passion
The producers and/or directors behind these voices have done an exemplary job creating a dramatic effect to many songs, an inviting interest and intrigue that brings the listener into the song, as if walking them into it hand in hand. Consider "Unbreak My Heart (Regresa A Mi)," or the soaring, heart-grabbing feeling in "Every Time I Look At You."
The ten songs of Siempre lack this feeling. They didn’t speak to me. And they definitely did not intrigue me. At times, it was all I could do to finish listening to a song. The vocals seemed like packaged performances.
Also, there seemed a lack of direction. Consider the opening track, "Nights In White Satin." Just after the half-way mark, either the arrangement of the song suddenly became unimpressive or the beautiful orchestration and four part melody became drowned in Carlos’ rich, but overpowering baritone voice.
In the prologue to a collection of poetry that I’ve been reading, there is a quote by D.H. Lawrence that reads: "...when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got say, and say it hot." In regards to Siempre, it seems, IL DIVO was obviously not moved by any passion for this project. There are few moments of grandness throughout but the vast absence between them these moments loses momentum and any passion. Siempre does not inspire.
Though "siempre" means "always," this Siempre is forgettable, something I thought I would never say about an IL DIVO album.
****
* Siempre (Columbia) debuted at No. 17 with 108,000, its fourth top 20 album in just over a-year-and-a-half.
1. I need to record my recent post Eating My Garden Pumpkins for Bob Marcacci's MiPoradio show called The Countdown. I've had a bad cold & cough and you can hear it in my voice. If it isn't better by tomorrow, I'll record anyway.
2. I'm making final edits to my review of the new IL DIVO Siempre album. Will hopefully publish that tomorrow.
3. I've been reading the poetry collections "Suddenly, Fruit," by Linda Pennisi and "Wanton Textiles" by Reb Livingston & Ravi Shankar. I'll be writing reviews for both books.
4. I was likewise thrilled to receive the poetry collections by PF Potvin, "The Attention Lesson" and Annie Finch's "Calendars." I hope to be reading them by the weekend.
5. This is the week of work Christmas parties for both my wife and I, along with two different school Christmas programs.
My favorite duet is "Endless Love." The original version was sung by Lionel Richie & Diana Ross. This version is sung by Luther Vandross and Mariah Carey, live at Royal Albert Hall. It was an MTV special. The original "Endless Love" was a theme song for a major motion picture? Can you name the film?
In the comments section of my Happy Feet post, Lee Herrick mentioned the name Donald Munro, the film critic for the Fresno Bee. So I sought out the Fresno Bee newspaper today and found an article on a Fresno area poet, Brian Turner, who is also an Iraq war veteran.
The article was highlighting the recent news that Turner was one of few winners of the national Lannon Fellowship Award
for his work "Here, Bullet," which was written while he was serving in Iraq in 2003 - 2004. In the article, Turner said:
"I wrote the bulk of the book — all but three poems — while I was in Iraq. Unlike what people see in the movies, my time there was a year of boredom punctuated by moments that were very intense. Poetry was the perfect vehicle to capture those moments in art form."
"Here, Bullet" has also garnered the Beatrice Hawley Award (2005), the Northern California Award for Poetry (2006), the Maine Literary Award for Poetry (2006, and the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Poetry (2006).
As a sampling of his poetic style and voice, consider his poem "Ashbah," which was one of three poems that appeared in an NPR interview in January 2006:
Ashbah
The ghosts of American soldiers wander the streets of Balad by night, unsure of their way home, exhausted, the desert wind blowing trash down the narrow alleys as a voice sounds from the minaret, a soulfull call reminding them how alone they are, how lost. And the Iraqi dead, they watch in silence from rooftops as date palms line the shore in silhouette, leaning toward Mecca when the dawn wind blows.
Turner’s poetry has been published in Poetry Daily, The Georgia Review, Crab Orchard Review, Rattle, ZYZZYVA, Atlanta Review, and many others. Some of the poems in "Here, Bullet" appear in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with the feature-length documentary film of the same name. Turner is an English composition instructor at Fresno City College.
For additional reviews regarding "Here, Bullet" and Brian Turner:
, Abigail Licad.
Candidates for Lannan Literary Awards and Fellowships are nominated by a network of writers, literary scholars, publishers and editors. Since 1989, the foundation has awarded more than $11 million to 161 writers and poets.
