Poison Pen Reading Series vs. Every Other Reading Series in the USofA [Hint: It’s the Best reading series west of the Mississippi (or east for that matter)]

I want to say Happy Birthday to the Poison Pen Reading Series in Houston TX. They turned 6yrs old yesterday, and I got to read at their birthday celebration, along with Miah Arnold and ZZ Packer.

Miah and ZZ brought the house down (which was to be expected). And I had an absolute blast reading between them . . . but what I really marvel at is a reading series like Poison Pen. No joke, it is my favorite place to read in all the world. The Poison Girl–the bar that hosts the series on the last Thursday of each month– has a bourbon selection to rival all others, and is cool in all the ways you want your bar to be: cool people, cool wall of pinball, cool garden patio.

The readings are what readings should be. There’s no cheese plates, there’s more Lone Star than Pinot Noir, there’s a giant Kool-Aid Man statue adorning the corner of the “stage.” And the crowd is full of people who honestly just like to read, and hear things read at them. Yes, many of the people at the readings are University of Houston Writing Program students, faculty, alumni, but that is a small part of the nearly 100 in attendance last night–the majority are locals who like literature and booze, more often than not at the same time.

So, thanks to David MacLean, Greg Oaks, Casey Fleming and Scott Repass for supporting good poems and good stories . . . here’s to another 6 years . . . and another.

Poetry Poetry Poetry . . .y . . .y . . . y! [monster truck voice] Reading Trifecta

So this Thursday–April 12th to be exact–I’m totally excited to be doing the reading trifecta here in Big Rapids. I’ll be embarking on this endeavor with the one, the only Glenn Shaheen.

We’ll be reading at Crossroads Charter Academy in Big Rapids at 11am. This is a private, school assembly affair–should get around 200 “captive” students–It’ll be like being a rock star (sorta).

Then we’re doing a booktalk/signing at 4:30 at Great Lakes Book and Supply. Come hear us speak awkwardly about our poems. This event’s where you get all the secrets/inside info in preparation for . . .

a READING at 7:30 @ The Old Jail. Scooby, Shaggy, and the rest of the Mystery Inc. gang will be there to watch us read our poems and pull the mask off of Old Man Roberts who’s trying to lay claim to the gold deposits found in the abandoned mine on the outskirts of town.

Glenn, who is a superhero of poetry–he’s faster than a speeding enjambment, able to leap tall Bildungsroman in a single bound (too easy? maybe, but what the hell)–will put the “razzle” back in dazzle, all while reading from his award-winning debut collection Predatory. You can find more info, as well as sample poems at glennshaheen.com. Buy Glenn’s book now.

I’ll be doing my best to put the bizarre back in Bizarro. Up will be down, black will be white, sad will be . . . well, less sad–as I read selections from my own debut collection, Etch and Blur (buy me), as well as from a book-length sonnet sequence about Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers (?).

You really should get out to one of the two public events on April 12th. there will be plenty of spectacle, and lots of below-the-surface-tension.

These events are sponsored by The Literature in Person Reading Series, The Michigan Poet, ArtWorks, & Great Lakes Book and Supply

A Reading I’ve got coming up in April

A Reading I’ve got coming up in April

Me and badass poet (and cool lit mag monger) Glenn Shaheen will be reading in April at Literary Life Bookstore in Grand Rapids. Check it.

It’s a Proof . . .

Look what the stork dropped into my mailbox today. It’s the real life-hold-in-the-hands proof of Etch and Blur. Stupendous.

Kenneth Koch on the internets

I just came across this website of all things Kenneth Koch,

as shared by David Lehman on the Best American Poetry blog (who apparently shared it via Ron Padgett). It has photos,  biography, detailed bibliography, and various videos and audio of Kenneth Koch reading from his work and discussing The New York School.

It is truly excellent, and well worth the time you will lose exploring it. So explore away . . .

ps – Kenneth Koch remains one of the most highly underrated poets line-breaking American English–funny, irreverent, heartbreaking, earnest, proof that there is nothing more serious than a joke . . .

“A serious  moment for the match
is when it bursts into flame . . .”

Cover Proof of Etch and Blur

I found this in my email the other day . . .

 

 

Nothing left now but the printing . . . I think it turned out quite nicely.

Of nothing, nothing, nothing–nothing at all

One of my favorite sonnets for sure. One kick-ass writer. 3 Pulitzers? Really?

The End of the World

—Archibald MacLeish

Quite unexpectedly, as Vasserot
The armless ambidextrian was lighting
A match between his great and second toe,
And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting
The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum
Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough
In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb
Quite unexpectedly to top blew off:

And there, there overhead, there, there hung over
Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,
There in the starless dark, the poise, the hover,
There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,
There in the sudden blackness the black pall
Of nothing, nothing, nothing — nothing at all.

A Couple Not-New Poems Dressed Up to Look Like New . . .

Waywiser Press has been real cool about promoting its finalists/semi-finalists of The Anthony Hecht Prize, with BIOs and poems from everyone on that list.

I’ve got a couple of poems up there right nowhe Eds. at Waywiser were cool enough to include me even though I had to pull my manuscript out of the running (unlike another press I won’t name–who struck me from their short list b/c I’d just placed the mss. elsewhere (whatever)).

Anyway follow the link here (The Anthony Hecht Prize 2010) if you want to check the poems out. And check out the other good poets with good poems you’ll find here.

Update on the Progress of Etch and Blur

Things are moving forward nicely on the new poetry collection. I just sent off the Final (final final, I swear) revisions to Brick Road Poetry Press. Added one poem and subtracted one poem. Hopefully the added poem I shuffled in there will stay “shuffled in there.” It’s a decent poem (and a much better fit to how the manuscript shaped up), so it should be no problem.

Also been working on cover images. A very good situation, in that I’ve got some input into the cover of my book. But it is also a bit daunting. I’ve got a few mocks done up and a few images I’ll be sharing with Brick Road. It is starting to get moving toward an actual, live, hold-in-your-hands book.

Author photo: now there’s something that hasn’t been quite as fun. Nothing like taking a bunch of photos, combing through them, looking for the one that makes you look less like a jackass. hee haw . . .

And last but not least . . . Etch and Blur is ready for pre-order, on Brick Road Poetry Presses website. They’ve got a really cool promotion going that gets you free shipping, as well as a chance to get current Brick Road titles at half off. So all you poetry enthusiasts head to Brick Road Poetry Press and check it out. They have some good  books out right now, like M. Ayodele Heath‘s debut collection Otherness.

Here is some video of his book release reading in Atlanta–Heath is a helluva poet, well worth checking out.

ICFU

“Instant Contempt For the Understandable”

I like that. What a great phrase, and even better as textspeak. You know, “I laid it out in words she could understand, and she went all ICFU on me.”

Seriously though, Austin Segrest has written a nice little piece in The Missouri Review about what happens when poets from within the white walls of academia work hard (too hard?) to distance themselves from the language/jargon of prosody. The backdrop of Segrest’s piece is a review that Mark Halliday did of Tony Hoagland’s latest book.

Segrest’s piece – Halliday, Hoagland and the Creative Writing/Scholarship Divide

Halliday’s Review of Hoagland’s book (originally in Pleaides)