I got an email from Bernadette Mayer’s partner, Phil Good. He said his longtime friend from Jersey Bill DeNoyelles had written a great review of Bernadette’s recently published Studying Hunger Journals. I could find it on the Exquisite Corpse web site:

http://www.corpse.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=678&Itemid=34

After the book was released, I had invited Bernadette and Phil to be on my radio show, Across the Borderline, on WBCR-lp, where we talked and then read some of the book’s incredible passages.

I called Bill and told him I loved his essay. I told Phil G that Karen and I wanted to have a celebratory dinner for Bernadette at our place in Great Barrington. On November 5, Bernadette, Phil, and Brenda Coultas and her partner Atticus came over. We called Bill DeNoyelles and everyone had a chance to gab with him.

At the table I said how gratifying it was to have my two teachers at there (I took Brenda’s workshop at the Poetry Project and Bernadette’s workshops at her home). Two writers whose work I love and respect. We toasted Bernadette.

Then we ate the delicious dinner that Karen had prepared, and the conversations wound their way from the Occupy Wall Street movement—with Atticus and Brenda recounting their visits to Liberty Square—to Area 51, Roswell, and the possible presence of aliens and UFOs.

It was noted that Trembling Pillow Press in New Orleans is releasing Phil G’s new book of poems Untitled Writings from a Member of the Blank Generation. Bernadette and Phil are going down to NO to do a reading.

Eventually the guests toddled on out to their cars, heading home to Woodstock and East Nassau.