I’m never political here, but I think that’s about the change. Americans seem poised to elect someone for president who isn’t even remotely qualified.

I’ve been very busy finishing up a book about MLA documentation. Coyote Canyon Press hopes to publish it as a paperback original this September. Yes, I know, It’s a pretty quick deadline, which means the book pretty much has taken over my life — the implications of which are long hours at the computer. It can be a lonely life and not an exciting way to spend your summer vacation, but inspiration helps. Lately I’ve been watching the great Arthur Rubenstein play the piano. Wish I might grow old as gracefully as he.

In the early days this Irish group had a lot more energy.

I haven’t been around here too much this summer. Hope yours is going well.

Please help support the work I do as a teacher and purchase a copy of this book of wonderful poems by Robert Frost. I selected and edited the poems and wrote the explanatory notes, and Coyote Canyon Press did a great job with their high production standards.

Order from Amazon.com.

Order from Barnes and Noble.

Order from Amazon Canada.

Order from Powell’s Books.

Order from Amazon UK.

Order from Amazon Germany.

Throughout the summer I’ll post news and events related to the book, which should be a steady seller since interest in Robert Frost has been a constant for the past half century.

I remember clearly the day Nixon resigned.

On this day in 1972, five men were arrested inside the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) office. They were later charged with attempted burglary and attempted interception of telephone and other communications. On September 15, a grand jury indicted them and two other men (E. Howard Hunt, Jr. and G. Gordon Liddy) for conspiracy, burglary and violation of federal wiretapping laws.

The purpose of the break-in is slightly complex, but here goes. Former Howard Hughes business associate John H. Meier, working with Hubert Humphrey, wanted to feed misinformation to Richard Nixon. Meier told Richard Nixon’s brother, Donald, that he was sure the Democrats would win the election since they had a lot of information on Nixon’s illicit dealings with Howard Hughes that had never been released. Meier told Donald Nixon that Larry O’Brien, the Chairman of the DNC, had the information. This provided the President with the motivation to order the break-in of O’Brien’s office as he wanted to see if anything was going to break before the election.

All seven men arrested were either directly or indirectly employees of President Nixon’s Committee to Re-elect the President, CREEP, and many people, including the trial judge, John J. Sirica, suspected a conspiracy involving higher-ups in the government. The scandal revealed the existence of a White House dirty tricks squad, which was behind an orchestrated campaign of political sabotage, an enemies list, a “plumbers” unit to plug political leaks and a secret campaign slush fund associated with CREEP, all with high-level administration involvement. It brought into the open the involvement of Attorney General John N. Mitchell in the dirty tricks, funds and cover-up, as well as key White House advisers, all of whom went to prison for these crimes, for sentences of one to four years. The jail terms had been shortened on the basis of the high level of the convicted, and their cooperation in the hearings.

Coyote Canyon Press is publishing a book of Robert Frost’s early poetry, for which I did the editing, selected the poems, and wrote explanatory notes. The idea was a simple one: gather up the poems from Frost’s first three volumes and write notes for the poems that needed some sort of explanation. The title of the book is SELECTED EARLY POEMS. This is a first publication credit for me, with my name on the front cover, and I’m still not even sure how to contain my disbelief and excitement over this.

Here’s a brief overview of the book: In 1913, Robert Frost published A BOY’S WILL, his first collection of poems, a series of sharply rendered scenes of New England rural life. A second volume, NORTH OF BOSTON, followed in 1914 and contained some of Frost’s most brilliant and best-loved works: “Mending Wall,” “After Apple-Picking,” “The Death of the Hired Man,” “Home Burial,” and “Birches.” In 1916 Frost followed up these two volumes with MOUNTAIN INTERVAL, which included many of his most moving poems: “An Old Man’s Winter Night,” “The Hill Wife,” and “The Road Not Taken.” The book I edited for Coyote Canyon Press republishes all three of Frost’s first collections originally published in the United States by Henry Holt and Company, New York. My explanatory notes reveal Frost’s complex relation to modern and classical poetic traditions, his knowledge of science and philosophy, and his tremendous ear for the rhythms of English, which enabled him to write the finest blank verse since Milton.

The book should be available through Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble in about two weeks. I’ll provide links when the book hits the stores.

My students had to draw a creative map of the places in THE GREAT GATSBY. I gave them a worksheet with a list of what needed to be on their maps, and then told them to be creative. To my delight, many of them were. Here are some of the results.

Here’s the link to The Great Gatsby Study Guide that we will be using as we read the novel in class.

This little video my journalism students shot in 2004 contains the voice of Sandy Ibos coming over the loud speaker. Sandy loved to make after-school announcements. It was something she looked forward to.

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