The 2008 A-List

2008 came and went. With just under 72 hours remaining to '08, I thought I'd enumerate a few memorables (in random order, of course.) Won't you take a walk down memory lane with me? [Trumpet playing] I humbly present to you my the "A-List." This list represents significant happenings that I haven't been able to recount until now.

1. Kay Ryan is selected Poet Laureate of the U.S.
2. Carol Cissel and Kyle Semmel join the managment team here at the Writer's Center.
3. Charlie Jensen becomes our new director.
4. I attend my first Lucille Clifton reading.
5. Barack Obama becomes our President-Elect.
6. Celebrated author David Foster Wallace commits suicide.
7. The movie The Great Debators brings the life and times of poet Melvin Tolson to a new generation.
8. Elizabeth Alexander is selected as the inaugural poet.
9. Eartha Kit dies.
10. Poet Patricia Smith becomes a National Book Award Finalist for her recent collection of poems, Blood Dazzler, a meditation on the aftermath of Katrina.