The weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful

It's time to boast a little. I've had possibly the best poetry two weeks I can imagine:

I gave my reading at the Attic Owl, which was a success. Everyone was very receptive and entertained, I think, even though I may have read a little too long. Even two professors from the university came and enjoyed themselves.

I met Linda in New York, where we went to the AWP bookfair and met with friends. I got a lot of good information from journals and got to see some Bucknellians after too long a delay. Most importantly, I got to see Linda.

I finished the second cantica of Evangeline.

While in New York, I received an email from the co-director of the Northrop Frye festival, which is the biggest literary event in Atlantic Canada. He invited me to do two readings and a school visit, for which I will be paid.

I received another email there from The Louisiana Review, who will be publishing two poems of mine ("Feu-Follet" and "Searching for the Grave of Walt Whitman") this spring.

Linda and I returned to Moncton where I received a message from Ken McClane. I was cooking a Cajun feast and could not answer the phone. Mr. McClane is on the creative writing faculty at Cornell University and called to notify me that I was accepted as 1 of 4 poets in the MFA program with full funding (tuition and stipend) and a two year lectureship after I graduate. Cornell is the most selective school in the country and consistently ranks at the top of the list for every criterion. There is almost no way that Linda and I won't be moving to Ithaca right after the wedding.

This will make this semester travel more quickly Thank God. I will visit Ithaca in three weeks. Then I will see Linda in New Orleans right before Holy Week. After Easter, I'll have less than a month in Canada. This leaves me with little time to finish the rest of Evangeline, but that's fine. I probably need a little more distance from Moncton to really write about it, as I did with New Orleans, Chauvin, and America.