TATRANEWS

November Newsletter

Dear Friends: Winter is upon us here in Vermont, and as we approach the holidays, the dreaded virus is still with us. Despite the horror all around, Marcia and I are still relatively well off -- we have a lovely place to hibernate in and can still go for walks and breathe good clean air. Not seeing friends and family though is difficult, but the news reports hold out the hope that a vaccine is just a few months away ... With the troubles the publishing industry has been going through, the two releases I had slated for the latter part of this year -- the short story collection, The Mind Spins, and a second edition of Arctic Meltdown -- look like they will happen in 2021 now. In the meantime, I have been working on a sequel to Arctic Meltdown, (working title Arctic Inferno) and a fifth poetry collection to add to the pipeline of publications. I am excited to report that I am being interviewed by Mandy Jackson-Beverly for The Bookshop Podcast at 5pm EDT on Wednesday, November 18th, so you should be able to listen in then and / or after at: https://thebookshoppodcast.buzzsprout.com/1400590 Her interviews are top of the line, so highly recommended. I was put in touch with her by the New York Journal of Books, for which I am an active reviewer. You can see some of my reviews at: https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/recent-reviews I am also very pleased that Cyberwit, the international publisher of my fourth poetry collection, Extinction Rebellion, has published my poem, The fog is rolling in ... , in a little booklet called Insights: A Notebook that can be ordered at: https://www.amazon.com/Insights-NOTE-BOOK-Pere-Iba%C3%B1ez/dp/9388319273/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=insights+cyberwit&qid=1605408635&s=digital-text&sr=1-3-catcorr I will leave you with one of the poems from Extinction Rebellion, that, unfortunately, is once again timely as the COVID-19 virus continues to rage causing devastation across many countries. A Doctor’s Dilemma In an otherworldly stupor I survey the ICU ward— as the epidemic explodes, COVID-19 exacts its toll: the unwell entombed in their beds, sucking life-sustaining oxygen out of those scarce ventilators, monitors flashing and ringing, each grim breath a fight to survive until the next, or the very last. I dread the coming invasion, when I will be forced to play god, and decide who gets the machine just freed up as another corpse is wheeled away to the morgue: the diabetic and deaf child, the uncompromised grandfather or the mother with breast cancer, while I send the rest to the grave. This is not what a doctor does: I am an executioner. Thank you to my friend Christina Starobin for the title suggestion. Everyone, please stay safe and well, Geza