The Feel-Good Post

I was straightening out my bookshelves—you know, aligning everything, re-sorting, wondering, 'why'd I buy that?' and whatnot— late, late, late last night. For whatever reason, I plucked Edward Said's Culture & Imperialism down from up high and brought it with me to bed. The receipt was still inside, and I felt a little ridiculous when I saw that I'd bought it in 1997 (at the Border's on State St. in Santa Barbara, if you must know) and hadn't truly read it yet.

When I hit the part in the introduction, the part where he points out that "The power...to block other narratives from forming and emerging" is one of the ways that imperialists do their, um, evil imperialist things, I started to think about all the current busting out we're doing, people! Shall I count some of the ways? In no particular order:

1) Bino A. Realuyo just won the 2005 Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry.
2) Barbara Jane, Evelina Galang, and Tony Robles all have books coming out.
3) Marianne Villanueva's Mayor of the Roses from Miami U. Press.
4) Kundiman-ites doing their Kundiman thing, even as I type.
5) Sarah Gambito's Matadora from Alice James Books.
6) Luisa Igloria's Richard Lemon Poetry Fellowship.
7) Eileen Tabios' whomping 200+ downloads of "Songs of the Colon," a digital chapbook from Ahadada Books.
8) The Forbidden Book by Abe Ignacio, Enrique de la Cruz, Jorge Emmanuel, and Helen Toribio from T'boli Publishing.

I know I'm missing a dozen other things, big and "small" (add them in the comments, if you like!!), but you get my point.

Is this a corny post? I'm just feeling so kum ba ya, so ding-ding, so Polly Positive (evil twin of Nellie Negative) today. And it doesn't happen all that often, so indulge me.

*love ya like McFadden & Whitehead love Philly*