Few words (for once)

I don't really have words so I will copy and paste the transcript of an email which I have just sent to my cousin and then a few subsidiary comments; apologies for the punctuation etc I can't type anymore...

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I miss you... I read somewhere that you might be featuring on a Hip/Hop album, is this true? If you are then I'm very happy for you. Anything feat you would be the ultimate album for me!

I'm just writing because, sometimes, I hold you responsible for my keeping going with writing in general (you said something to me in that Mexican restaurant at The Crossings that made me believe I could do it anyway, you might not remember...) and recently, without realising it, I have been published in the American magazine: Poetry which, I think, is a big deal in that kind of field. It's national, at least, and in the United States that's a lot of nation. Anyway not only did they print my letter, which doesn't usually happen but they also printed this long, long reply from this poet I criticised (he's in my course textbooks) slagging me off! Hampton this, Hampton that.. For one moment I felt like I was a real writer... I just wanted to let you know, sorry to come out with this out of the blue!!!


Love,

Neil

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These are the links: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/letter.html?id=182589
and the response: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/letter.html?id=182590.

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I don't know what it means but I'm happy it happened... 'Poetry' are the guys that used to publish the letters of Pound and Eliot! Just this morning I was lamenting the fact that my only literary feat to date was a reading of a bit of my juvenelia at an 'evening' in a south-west Surrey bakery, aged 16....

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How do I feel? Aside from happily neurotically insignificant- these weird words of Dylan's sum up today's minor victory:

"Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words"

...and there we have it!