Yeah, skip it if you don't like fantasy baseball. I just won my league, so here's a brief retrospective:

Post-draft lineup:

C-Geovany Soto
1B-Ryan Howard
2B-Robinson Cano
3B-David Wright
SS-Rafael Furcal
OF-Magglio Ordonez, Hunter Pence, Pat Burrell, Matt Kemp
Util-Jim Thome
Bench-Stephen Drew, Jeremy Hermida

SP-Brandon Webb, Justin Verlander, Chris Young, Rich Hill, Jered Weaver, Rich Harden
RP-Trevor Hoffman, Matt Capps, BJ Ryan, Heath Bell

End-of-season lineup:

C-Chris Iannetta
1B-Ryan Howard
2B-BJ Upton
3B-David Wright
SS-Stephen Drew
OF-Carlos Beltran, Adam Dunn, Matt Kemp
Util-Jerry Hairston, Jason Giambi
Bench-Joey Votto, Justin Upton

SP-CC Sabathia, Brandon Webb, Tim Lincecum, Mark Buehrle, Chris Young
RP-BJ Ryan, Brian Fuentes, Mike Gonzalez, Dan Wheeler, Joel Hanrahan

Players who were on my roster all season: Ryan Howard, David Wright, Brandon Webb, BJ Ryan(?!)

Players I drafted and had at the end of the season who were nonetheless not on my roster for a majority of the season: Chris Young, Matt Kemp, Stephen Drew

Other notable players who spent time on my roster in between various trades: Curtis Granderson, Nate McLouth, Ervin Santana, Felix Hernandez, Carlos Guillen, JD Drew

Best draft pick: Rich Harden in the 19th round--almost injury free this year, and a complete beast when he pitched. Runner up: Geovany Soto in the 13th round--a top 5 catcher. Runner up runner up: Wright and Howard 1 and 2. Neither was a big star, but both did fine for me.

Worst draft pick: Robinson Cano in the 6th round--a bad pick anyway because he has a low OBP (which this league used instead of average), but his crap year plus the Yankees' offensive issues made him a total bum. Runner up: Hunter Pence in the 7th--big disappointment after his rookie year. Runner up runner up: Rich Hill in the 12th--barely pitched in the majors.

Best trade: Justin Verlander for CC Sabathia--this trade won me the league, plain and simple. Runner up: Magglio Ordonez and a closer (Capps?) for Carlos Beltran--Magglio didn't have a bad year, but he was hurt while Beltran was running up 25-25 again. Runner up runner up: Jim Thome and Trevor Hoffman for Adam Dunn--another 40-homer season for Dunn, and he has the high OBP.

Worst trade: Rich Harden, JD Drew, and Robinson Cano for BJ Upton and Matt Garza--Cano and Drew and Garza were borderline nonfactors in this, and Upton did solidify second base and steals for me, but Harden was a maniac down the stretch for the Cubs, and he didn't get hurt like I thought he might (can't say the same for Drew, of course). Runner up--Felix Hernandez for Carlos Guillen. This was a forced move after Furcal got hurt, but Guillen ended up being injured and not all that great, while Hernandez was solid (albeit not as solid as Ervin Santana, whom I traded to get Felix). Runner up runner up: At one point I traded someone to get Hong-Chih Kuo.

Best waiver pickup: Nate McLouth--super breakout year for him, and when he started flagging a little in the second half, I trade him for Curtis Granderson. Runner up: Jason Giambi--tailed off down the stretch, but solid OBP and power numbers much of the year. Runner up runner up: Brian Fuentes--my most consistent closer much of the year.

So there you have it. I think this is my last year playing fantasy baseball. It was fun, y'all...

Hey, Anti- has been reviewed at NewPages!

Here's what I expect will be the final Table of Contents for Torched Verse Ends. One item in it is a fake table of contents...

1.

Flee the Beast or Be the Feast
Hayman Wildfire Set by Forest Service Worker
Coal Seam Fire
Storm King
Phoenix, Colorado
Colorado Strata
Crestone Conglomerate
Animal Sentinel Maximal
City Seeking People
In This Country, Trail Breaks You
All the Better to Eat You With, My Dear
Bad Naturelover
Antropy
Stories from the Warming Wars
Through My Shadow
Fifteen Ways to Finish Fish

2.

From the Margins
We Never Did Anything
Open Late
Cut Bait
Fairytale
A Little Schadenfreude
Sweet Mother of Crap, What Did the Bookcase Ever Do to You?
Steven’s Dream House
52 Pickup Lines
Commencement Address Penned on a Bar Napkin
Start Watering Me, Please
Closing at Zoe’s
Cushion
Note for My Brother
I’ve Been Told to Correct My Passive Voice
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory 3
Nightlight as Nightlife
Without Glasses
Advice on the Psych Ward
The Mold Room
Chicago Happened Slowly, Like a Migraine
Albuquerque Low
Coupe, Interstate, Night
Pick Your Punchline
Late Night Driver at Lightning Lizard Pizza
Purgatory, Alaska
Wear Your Hipwaders
Table of Contents, First Draft

3.

Clockwork
Deathmatch Mode
Sturgeon’s Law
Civilization Trivia
If It Bleeds, It Leads
Evening Scene in Colorado Springs
So You Want a Worker
Who Sketches the Sketchers
Self Portrait in a Funhouse Mirror
Here Be Dragons
Riddles in the Dark
You’re Dead at the End of the Story
Robot Rhetoric
Sunshine Suicide
Penultimate Taunt
Prayer to a Higher Horsepower

I've had a poem accepted by River Styx. This is actually the first poem explicitly written for Manuscript 2 to be accepted anywhere. I wasn't going to send these out anywhere until after Torched Verse Ends comes out, but Richard heard it when I read at Hungry Young Poets, and he asked me to send it. Wheeeeee!

Hey, it's finally the long-awaited second in my series of mini best-of anthologies! You may recall I previously put together a mini-anthology of 13 poems by Weldon Kees. This time it's Alan Dugan, and his poems were harder to select because he wrote about seven times as many as Kees. Regardless, here are the thirteen poems, with links when available:

Sixteen Lines on Marching
Love Song: I and Thou
What Happened? What Do You Expect?
Grace for Thursday
On a Seven-Day Diary
Winter: For an Untenable Situation
Prayer
On the Liquidation of Zoology
On Being Easy in the Ritual of Separation
On the Civil War on the East Coast of the United States of North America 1860-64
What a Circus
Portrait of a Local Politician
Swing Shift Blues

These are sorted into the chronological order found in his complete poems (which Google Books has kindly "previewed" about 90-95% of online).

First Dugan poem I ever read: "On a Seven-Day Diary"
Favorites: "Love Song: I and Thou," "Winter: For an Untenable Situation," "On a Seven-Day Diary"
Poems I could most easily replace: "Sixteen Lines on Marching," "On Being Easy in the Ritual of Separation," "What a Circus"
Line I'm likely to steal for my stolen-titles project: "By Christ I am no carpenter" from "Love Song: I and Thou" or "We put the mountains in the valleys" from "On the Liquidation of Zoology"

New at Anti-: Featured Poet Lucky Number 13, Reb Livingston. Three poems await your perusal.

I have the picture that, barring any book design issues, I want to use for the cover of Torched Verse Ends. It's by Page Loudon, perhaps better known to readers of Radish King as the Giant Surfer Child. Here's a low-res version of the picture:



Seems appropriate to me.

Does anyone want to take over the first-book contest list I've been sort-of maintaining? It'll drive site traffic pretty nicely for you, and I have much less interest in administering it now. If you do, please e-mail me.

I mentioned back in June that I had poetry forthcoming in Copper Nickel. At that point it was one poem, but now it's three: "The Mold Room," "Steven's Dream House," and "We Never Did Anything," all from the forthcoming manuscript. Thank you, Jake and CuNi editors.

By my count, that leaves 18 of the 60 poems in the manuscript unspoken for. Now's a good time to ask if you want to publish something by me. Everything must go. I'm craaaaaazy!

Sorry I've been away so much recently. Book stuff, life stuff, not much time for here.

RIP David Foster Wallace. His essay on the right-wing talk radio host is one of the best pieces of nonfiction I've ever read.

• My condolences to Reginald Shepherd's loved ones. This is a major loss for the poetry world.
• Thank you to everyone for your kind wishes on my book. Daniel, we should totally do a BlazeVOX tour.
• The excellent editors of Barn Owl Review have posted an interview with me for some crazy reason. Thank you, Mary and Sara.
• I figured out how to revise the last poem I need to revise for the manuscript, and the last new thing I need to add is coming along nicely as well. Well, last for now...
  

I'm proud to announce that my first book has been accepted by BlazeVOX [books], publisher of such poets-I-admire as Aaron Belz, Nate Pritts, Amy King, and Daniel Nester. The book should be forthcoming in Spring 2009, provided I do my job and finalize the manuscript ASAP. I can't tell you how happy I am to have my book land with a self-described "publisher of weird little books." It just fits. Thank you, readers, for all your support and plain old readership over the years.

Much more to follow, no doubt.

The new poet feature at Anti- is Adrian Matejka. Enjoy the poems and explore the archives if you have time!

Has anyone noticed that Jack Daniel's causes more foam than other liquors when you mix it with Coke (or any soda)? If so, does anyone know why?

I didn't post about this when I meant to before, but if you have a little money you want to use to help a small press, check this out.

I'm writing you an open letter because you're one of the few poets whose e-mail address isn't readily available online, and I don't want to start pestering my poetry pals and pals-of-pals to find someone who has it (it wouldn't take any more than two degrees).

I wanted to say that I adore your poetry, e.g.

• this
• this
• and this.

I would love it if you ever sent poetry for consideration by my little journal, Anti-. Your Harriet bio says you've "basically done nothing, poetically speaking, since February 2006," but I don't know if that means in terms of publication or just flat-out no writing. In any case, if/when you pick things back up, please do keep us in mind. All the best with your captivating and enjoyable writing in any case.

Sincerely,
Steven D. Schroeder
Editor, Anti-

Happy Labor Day! Here is the result of DAYS of my LABOR! I stole the title from Brandi Homan...