jackpot

I've been trying to figure out what to read next after struggling through, finishing, and ultimately loving Let the Great World Spin. I want to believe that this has never happened to me before, that reading novels has never before felt like work. But I know this isn't really new; it's just an extended phase. So after turning to Robert Creeley and Stephen Dunn and Mary Oliver for solace the last few weeks, I finally figured it out this a.m. I was in the middle of teaching The Joy Luck Club when I walked by my bookshelf and saw exactly what I wanted to read:The Odyssey. Not a novel, not just any poem. Pages and pages of epic poetry. I actually picked it up and hugged it to me, mid-point. Bruder gave me this Robert Fitzgerald translation, so maybe I was sending her a little love, too.
Haven't read this since eighth grade, and I can't wait. mmm. Here are the opening lines:

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in ways of contending,
the wanderer, harried for years on end,
after he plundered the stronghold
on the proud height of Troy...

The Odyssey has been in my head anyway since I'm planning to show Cold Mountain to my seniors as we finish up Brooks's Civil War novel, March. Jackpot, indeed...