The Note

We've got poems in this issue by long-time regulars Howie Good and super-coolly named Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal.   We've offered up some of Bob Heman's "Information" poems before, but mostly this is an issue featuring the work of new contributors to RHP and we are pleased about that.  

We've also got some work by some poets from India. We get a lot of submissions from India.  Glad to get 'em, but I'm not sure why we get so many.  Or course, there are a lot of people in India.  That could be it.  (Applying that logic in the other direction, that could explain why we don't get many submissions from the Falkland Islands.)

I've worked as a clinical psychologist for 30 years or so and three of my most influential mentors in graduate school were Indians.  I'm glad to have had that experience.  One of my Indian mentors was a particularly interesting guy.  Actually raised in South Africa.  Let's call him Ashok, because that was his name.   I loved this sort of mannered and genial way he spoke. He was a terrible driver, I will say.  I was riding with him someplace one time and he cut off a guy driving a Mercedes.  So, the Mercedes driver whips back around us and as he passed us he gave Ashok the finger and mouthed "Asshole" or something as he roared past.  Ashok said, as if the man could hear, "Ah, my friend.  Do not be so hasty to judge me."

And why is it we all speak to the drivers of other vehicles as if they can hear us?  Who are we talking to, exactly?   I mean, I'm out driving with my wife in the car and I yell at that truck and I say "Hey, you jerk.  Watch where you're going."  Only my wife can hear me say it, and she's not a jerk. 

On an unrelated and entirely personal note.  Look!  I'm a brand new grandparent!

How awesome is this?  Dig the crazy veggie motif with the little toes sticking out.  Anyway, this is Alice, who entered the world on January 1, 2011.  Very cool birthday, that:  1/1/11.  

Mother and daughter and father are doing awesomely.  

We all welcome Alice to the world.  It's bittersweet, only in that the world seems a bit shaky of late.  However, Woody Allen said, and I believe I'm getting this right, "I hate reality but it's still the best place to get a good steak."   Enjoy the steaks, Alice.  When you get teeth.

Dale