Greetings from Chicago, host of the 2009 AWP conference.
First thoughts, and not necessarily best ones:
1.) Should be AW&WP, now that the organization's official name is "The Association of Writers & Writing Programs." As an editor, I can't help but pause to ruminate upon that Berrymanesque ampersand, which very poetically links writers to writing programs. Or does it separate them... Hm. It'll always be the AWP to me.
2.) Within hailing distance from the conference hotel (lots of hailing here: fellows well met, taxicabs, etc.) I see an astonishing sight, even for downtown Chicago: a HUMMER stretch limo... that's right: a block-long limo made out of HUMMERS, which I'd erroneously thought had become uncool. The driver dashes out to run into... McDonald's, from which he fetches a small bag of... oh, junk food, I presume. Back in the cab of the limo, he passes the rain-and-grease-wilted bag back into the darkness of the long interior behind him. At first I think: some rock or rap star is maxing out inside that limo. But maybe it's one of our great poets, carbohydrate loading for the conference to come. Fun to wonder which poet it could be.
3.) Forbes magazine has just rated Chicago as the 3rd most miserable city in the nation. I suppose if anyone can calculate misery, it's folks who write about money for a living. Most Chicagoans object to that ranking. (2nd is Memphis, which is my hometown, so I think maybe Forbes may be on the right track.) Ok, the weather is miserable, public transportation is iffy and expensive, they tax everything in sight (check the sales tax on your receipts, conference visitors, lest you think I'm making a big deal out of nothing), crime is a local specialty like beef sandwiches and Vienna hot dogs (with NO ketchup, please), notorious politics... and on and surely on. Who cares? Chicago is a great place for writers, you'll see. If you leave the hotel, that is, which you must do.
4.) Already running into folks, even though the conference hasn't officially begun. A great thing about AWP is that you meet people in person whom you'd only known electronically or from their writing; Craig Arnold and I met face to face for the very first time yesterday afternoon and it was as if we'd been friends forever. We had a lovely lunch together... and then I made him sit at a table to finish a prose piece he owes me. He's being a great sport about this. The piece is perfect. AWP magic?
5.) Boxes and dollys. (Seems funny to call them dollies.) Everybody is moving stuff to the book tables... by stuff I refer to what will be called, among conf. goers, SWAG. The folks who aren't involved in the heavy lifting are arriving, suitcases in tow, in a rather subtle, for the Midwest, rainstorm. There's still ice in the Chicago River, and there's a halo of fog around our best skyscrapers.
6.) Hotel check-in, slogging throngs of people in the lobby. When they get into their rooms, perhaps they'll wonder who's in the room next door. One turns to Thomas Hardy on rainy days vexed with questions:
"Who's in the next room?--who?
I seemed to see
Somebody in the dawning passing through,
Unknown to me."
"Nay: you saw nought. He passed invisibly."
"Who's in the next room?--who?
I seem to hear
Somebody muttering firm in a language new
That chills the ear."
"No: you catch not his tongue who has entered there."
"Who's in the next room?--who?
I seem to feel
His breath like a clammy draught, as if it drew
From the Polar Wheel."
"No: none who breathes at all does the door conceal."
"Who's in the next room?--who?
A figure wan
With a message to one in there of something due?
Shall I know him anon?"
"Yea he; and he brought such; and you'll know him anon."
More... anon!
