Fortunately, you do not have to travel to northern New Mexico to get your own copy. I am sure they'd be happy to sell you one. But you can also get it at the usual online sites and at Bookshop.com, which supports independent book stores, and which I recommend.
It's a pretty good read, if I do say so myself.
I am eager to learn all Anita has to offer, and I look forward to meeting and learning from and with my workshop mates. She has set forth a fairly challenging schedule of things to read and discuss and do, as close to a real class syllabus as I have faced for decades. I hope these old eyes and this old brain can take it.
Our first assignment has been to read poems recited at the Kennedy, Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden inaugurations. (Carter’s was actually read at the Inaugural Gala the night before.)
Anita only assigned the poems of Democratic presidents, which seemed unnecessarily partisan. So I checked it out and discovered that since JFK started the Inaugural poem practice, only Democratic presidents have programmed them. Here’s yet another divide for us to overcome: Democrats like poetry, Republicans don’t. (I tried for a moment to imagine what a poem appropriate for former President Trump might sound like, but just couldn’t find the words.)
Of course, we will not actually be at Ghost Ranch, and all the Zooming in the world will not compensate for that loss. If we were there, I fear I would discover they are hiding Ghosts and Gold: My Story of Ghost Ranch. (Tentative sequel title: Ghosted by Ghost Ranch.) Maybe it's better I won't be there.
Nevertheless, starting tomorrow: 3 hours a day for 5 days, plus three 1 and 1/2-hour extra sessions, all distanced. But as close to my heart as Ghost Ranch itself, which I still love.
