Two days, two surgeries

At last I/we have some concrete information: Dad has a new abscess, lower on his spine, on a disc in his lumbar region. Later today it will be biopsied so the doctors know which antibiotic is appropriate to administer, and apparently they'll clean the area as well, somehow--and I don't understand this--clearing away some of his arthritis? The outcome should be that he will be better off than he was before the abscess.

And tomorrow Mom will have her gall bladder removed in an outpatient surgery, my sister Laura taking her to the hospital and staying with her, my sister Joanna bringing her home, and my sister Nancy spending the night to see to Mom's care. My sisters' attendance makes me feel a little easier about being away in the midst of this.

So I'm hoping that this time next week, both my parents will feel better than they have in some time.

Early in my father's illness, I ran a sort of postcard campaign for him, with friends sending postcards from places as disparate as Seattle, France, the Czech Republic, and, of course, Bradford on Avon. As I've received several queries about sending postcards again, here's my family's address: 220 Arlington Drive, Normal, IL 61761-2749, USA. If there are any Stargate, Battlestar Galactica, or Star Trek fans out there, mentioning it will immediately increase my father's esteem for you!

Let me (us, them) out of here

Dad's back in hospital again. Apparently he was at one (for which I still remembered the number, sadly), then moved to the other hospital in town because the MRI was broken at the first. He's in so much pain, I'm told, the strongest pain meds aren't doing much for him. I spoke to my sister Nancy, and we began discussing plans for how we'd handle Christmas if he were still in hospital or rehab. Amid all this, my mother can hardly bear eating because her gall bladder is only six or seven per cent functional; she's due to have it removed Friday.

I was about to say, "When will this horrible year end?," when I stopped myself with the thought: this could go on a long time after the switch from '07 to '08. Oh, please, no.

Uncollected Poems: 1991 (2)

The Staged Confession


Here, have them. I have polished the words
I do not say until they gleam too brightly.
They are yours because I will not own them.
Patience is in the next room, she has
been waiting for this respite. There's dignity
in this awkward generosity, though diminished
(I stare at the flutter of my useless hands.)
Come on, say something. Love? Love?
I did not say that. Gracious, it was
Patience in the next room, crocheting,
yelling it out like an auctioneer, it's her way
of saying, Damn you, I'm not getting up again.
Okay, already. Here: Love. Love.


Carrie Etter
written 28 November 1991
published in West Branch

My upcoming readings &c.

17 October, 7:30 p.m. Shearsman Books reading series at Swedenborg Hall, London. Shearsman launch with Claire Crowther and Rachel Lehrman and launch of Erín Moure's translation of Chus Pato's Charenton.

5 November, 8 p.m. Alchemy reading series at the Globe Cafe, Prague.

11 November, 7 p.m. Irish Poetry Night at The George, Bradford on Avon. Other readers include Donald Gibson, Karen Hoy, and Bronagh Slevin, with additional readers to be confirmed.

16 November, time tbc. Lecturers vs. Students Poetry Slam at the Newton Park Campus of Bath Spa University. Other lecturers reading will probably include Lucy English, Tim Liardet, and Gerard Woodward.

31 January 2008, 9-10:15 a.m. "The Transatlantic Writer: Challenges and Strategies" (panel) at the Associated Writing Programs conference in New York City. The other panelists are Mairead Byrne, Anthony Caleshu, Benjamin Markovits, and Lytton Smith, with Tim Liardet moderating.

23 February, 7 p.m. Launch of Yet (Leafe Press) at Crockett and Powell Booksellers, London. Wendy Mulford is also reading.

The work of dreams

Last night I stayed the night with my dear friend Claire Crowther. We'd been to a tenth anniversary party for The Poetry School and returned to her and her husband Keith's flat in Kingston, where they'd bought cava to celebrate the acceptance of my book (such a kindness). Claire and I stayed up a while talking about poetry and romantic relationships.

Which is why I find it especially strange I dreamt of my father, among, presumably, other things.

I dreamt I saw him walking. I stood in the doorway of my parents' bedroom and saw him walk slowly and stiffly across the room, slightly dragging his right leg.

I am a naturalist. I believe dreams are a process of consciousness, not insight into the future. And yet I want to believe that's what this was, that I can will him better through the force of my unconscious and conscious drives combined.

The Tethers

I am delighted to announce that my first collection, The Tethers, will be published by Seren Books in 2009.

But it's even better than that--I have a whole publishing schedule.

January 2008: Leafe Press publishes my pamphlet, Yet.
Late 2008: Shearsman Books publishes the anthology of innovative UK women poets I'm editing.
2009: The Tethers.
2010 (about a year after The Tethers, but date tbc): Shearsman Books publishes my second collection, Divining for Starters.

It's like I have two first books--more or less "mainstream" work in The Tethers, avant garde work in Divining, and Yet is a selection of poems from Divining.

My great thanks to everyone's who supported me and my work over the years!

Current and Forthcoming Issues

For all the difficulties of this year, it's been productive in terms of my writing and publishing. With Tim Liardet's help in the spring, I remade my first ms, since The Tethers, and I spent a good portion of the summer working on Divining for Starters--it's hardly recognisable from the last complete draft to the current one.

My poems appear in current issues of The Reader, Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics (the prose poetry journal in the States, highly recommended), and The Times Literary Supplement (assuming I can count the 14 September issue as current!). In October, poems will also appear in The Liberal, Poetry Review, and Shearsman, and beyond that, in The New Republic, Stand, and The Warwick Review.

Claire Crowther's Stretch of Closures Shortlisted for Aldeburgh Prize!

Hurrah, hurrah! Claire's first book, Stretch of Closures (Shearsman, 2007), is shortlisted for the Jerwood Aldeburgh Prize for a best first collection of poetry.

Previous blog entries offer selections from the book:

"Pollen"
"Cheval de Frise"
"Lost Child"

Good luck, Claire!

Henry Ross Etter turns 67

Tomorrow is my father's birthday, and luckily today he was moved from the hospital (where he was treated for an infection) back to the rehab centre, which is some improvement. I think the poem below is the best one I've written for him, so I'll include it here in honour of his birthday.

His Pantoum


This is the West Country: if it rains, it rains all day,
winds as fierce as anywhere
sweeping hair into my eyes at every crossing.
When did my father get old?

The prairie winds were as fierce as anywhere
when he cycled thirty miles a day.
When did he get old?
This is his twelfth day in intensive care.

When he cycled thirty miles a day,
I went on with my life, unfearing.
This is his twelfth day in intensive care,
my sixth year abroad,

going on with my life, unfearing.
Sweeping hair into my eyes at every crossing
in my sixth year abroad,
the West Country, where it rains and it rains and it rains.


(published in TLS, June 2007)

Missing Bill Hicks

I was watching clips of Bill Hicks on YouTube as I wanted to find a couple to send to a friend I've recommended Hicks to, and it was refreshing to hear good comedy on political issues. I've been a bit out of the comedy loop since I came to England in 2001, as I couldn't as easily keep up with US comedians and found many UK comedians' accents kept me from following their fast-paced routines very well. Who are the talented political comedians out there now?