Author, Carol Novack, sadly no longer among us - except for her extraordinary written works. Lucky us. We got to know and care about her, either in person or through her writing.

I met Carol this year at Zoetrope. I was enchanted with her New York style, and we were soon exchanging opinions on everything from gourmet cooking to politics. No way to push this talent into a corner. She knows what she likes and lets everyone know. Here's some of what she says of herself:

I'm a native New Yalker with acute wanderlust who lived six formative years in Sydney. I've worked as a criminal defense/constitutional attorney for too many years, championed street artists' right to sell in the streets of USA's "cultural capitol," without getting arrested [yes, I fought city hall & won] and burned out, and I just got a Masters Degree in Social Work, with a concentration in community organizing and development. Writing all those social science papers was excruciating. Now all I want to do is write creative pieces and play.
My chapbook of poetry, Living Alone Without a Diction'ary, was published in Australia. I also published poems, prose and stories in several Australian anthologies and magazines, including The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets, and received a writer's grant from the Australian government. Last summer, I returned to writing after too many years of producing much too little.
Appreciate satire, irony, absurdity, and whimsy. Favorite writer is Sammy Beckett. Other favorites include de Maupassant, Mansfield, Parker, Rilke, Barthelme, Ionesco, Dostoievski, Mann and Yeats.
My prosepoem, Field Exercise, was accepted for publication in Issue 3 of the print mag, WILD STRAWBERRIES, and my fresh new flash, Getting Religion, was just accepted for publication in the on & offline SMOKELONG QUARTERLY.

Here's Carol's poetic response to Oink from the Sty's poem, This Is For You.

i know little piggy!
shrewd piggy with his muck brown eyes
the one who knows how to look at the red sun
in the center of black holes
without burning
the one who sees the wind trying
tango and fox trotting in the eye
of tornados.

i know little piggy!
clever piggy never goes to market
watches from our side of the fence, hiding
knows how to make himself invisible
weeps when dumb creatures are rounded up
for slaughter—all for the promise
of a morsel of a promise.

i know little piggy!
i've seen him discarding mirages
like useless scraps
offered by merchants of gold
tupperware
searching for his lady love
& finding her
in his arms.

piggy looks at his succulent feet
& paints his toes rainbow colors
looks for his pots and pans
& cooks wild leaping green things
with hot peppers
who pop on your tongue
making you delirious
to taste everything
on your plate... .

i know little piggy!