My Friends or Friends of Friends Wrote Awesome Poetry Books in 2012 part 2

Curtis Perdue, You Will Island (H_NGM_N) Nick Sturm, Beautiful Out (H_NGM_N) Alexis Orgera, How Like a Foreign Object (H_NGM_N) Ben Kopel, Victory (H_NGM_N) Evan Glasson, Vital Pursuits (H_NGM_N) Brandon Shimoda, O Bon (Litmus Press) Paige Taggart, The Ice Poems (Double Cross Press) B.C. Edwards, To Mend Small Children (Augury Books) CA Conrad, A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon (Wave Books) Corina Copp, Pro Magenta (Ugly Duckling Presse) Mary Austin Speaker, 20 Love Poems for 10 Months (Ugly Duckling Presse) Chris Martin, Enough (Ugly Duckling Presse) Caroline Cabrera, Flood Bloom (H_NGM_N) Ben Pease, The Wichman Cometh (Monk Books)

The Equalizer

Please forward this email and attachment to interested readers. If you'd like to sign up for The Equalizer mailing list to receive sections as they're released throughout October 2010, please email theunrulyservant@gmail.com. Visit michaelschiavo.blogspot.com for more information, including updates & links to websites that will be hosting some or all of The Equalizer sections. Feel free to post this PDF to your blog or website. Please include the names of contributors in your post.


The Equalizer 1.1 available online via HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson. Features: Summer Block, Jim Behrle, Macgregor Card, Mark Bibbins, Emily Anderson, Aaron Belz, Don Share, Cody Walker, Christopher Salerno, Amick Boone, Adam Clay, Buck Downs, Stephanie Anderson, Owen Barker, and CAConrad.


The Equalizer 1.2 available online via HTMLGiant and Maureen Thorson.Features Matt Hart’s “Write This Today While You Were.”


Oct. 7: The Equalizer 1.4 featuring a selection of John Gallaher's Guidebooks.

Here, There, All Elsewhere

Ben Mirov, the finest of gentlemen & a wonderful poet is reading everywhere this month. I saw him read in a stairwell for AWP. Check out his blog for details & locations. Tonight he's reading with Sampson Starkwether. Speaking of Sampson, last night I was at Colin Cheney's book release party & someone thought my name was Sampson... Speaking of Sampson, have you seen his new chapbook? Check it out over at the Immaculate Disciples Press.

Okay, back to Ben. Next week he's reading with Christie Ann Reynolds who has poems in the brand new ish of Sink Review along with Daniel Lin, Janaka Stucky, Evan Commander, Jeremy Czerw, Rob MacDonald, Dara Cerv, Emily Toder, Christopher Salerno, Andrew Mister and reviews about Dan Hoy's Glory Hole and Jon Leon's The Hot Tub,Underground National by Sueyeun Juliette Lee (Factory School, 2010),The City Real & Imagined by CA Conrad & Frank Sherlock (Factory School, 2010,Andrew Mister's Liner Notes.

I wrote two of those reviews.

One more thing about Ben. When I saw him read at AWP it was in a stairwell around 1am & he read for H_ngm_n who has also just put out a new ish. Check it out here.

Around the Internet & Saturday Real Time

New ish of SOandSO! Pretty Damn Good!

Also one of my fave poets, Christie Ann Reynolds over here

Vanitas Blog has Ceravolo's "Ho Ho Ho Caribou" with photos- check it out here

Ross Brighton has some great stuff on his blog about Ariana Reines which is over here

An interview with CA Conrand & Frank Sherlock here

SATURDAY LOOKS LIKE THIS:
THE ENCLAVE XXVIII

FEATURING: RENATO ROSALDO, ARACELIS GIRMAY & JARED HOHL

Saturday, February 27th @ 4 PM
Cake Shop
152 Ludlow Street
New York City
Free
For info: www.myspace.com/enclavianmatter


RENATO ROSALDO started writing poetry in English and Spanish while
recovering from a stroke in 1996. His first book of poetry, Prayer to
Spider Woman/Rezo a la mujer araña, received an American Book Award
(2004). Individual poems have won the El Andar poetry contest (2000)
and the Many Mountains Moving poetry contest (2005). He teaches at New
York University. As an anthropologist, he is the author of Culture and
Truth and Ilongot Headhunting, 1883-1974.

ARACELIS GIRMAY is the author of the collage-based picture book,
changing, changing (Braziller, 2005) & the collection of poems, Teeth
(Curbstone, 2007). Her work has been published in Ploughshares,
Callaloo, The Massachusetts Review, & MiPoesias, among other journals.
She has been awarded a Jerome Foundation Travel & Writing grant & a
GLCA New Writers Award for Teeth. A Cave Canem Fellow, Girmay also
serves on the board of the Acentos Foundation.

JARED HOHL is from Iowa. His fiction has appeared in The Apocalypse
Reader, The Agriculture Reader, The Washington Square Review, and
Torpedo, a literary journal based in Melbourne, Australia.
***********************************************************************
Handsome Black Cold Ocean Front Reading & Party Saturday

Black Ocean and Coldfront Magazine are celebrating the release of the new HANDSOME by co-sponsoring a poetry reading slash dance party at COCO 66 in Greenpoint on Saturday, February 27.

Weather reports are inconclusive.

Featured poets will be: Brianna Colburn, Jordan Davis, DJ Dolack, Shafer Hall, and Justin Marks

The reading will be followed by a DANCE PARTY. DJs Tobychoo & J. Cannibal will spin funk, garage, freak 40 and 60s soul. Get down so you can get down. Or at least have a few...

As Richard Chamberlain once said: “Realistically, it doesn't hurt to be good-looking, especially in this business.”

215 Invades 212

THIS Sunday, CAConrad & Frank Sherlock cordially invite you to the book party for The City Real & Imagined (Factory School, 2010) at ZINC Bar, introductions by Thom Donovan.

All details at this link: http://events4cri.blogspot.com/2010/01/january-31st-2010-nyc.html

We look forward to seeing you there, have a great weekend!
CAConrad & Frank Sherlock

EarActionTime

Action Yes! Goes Weimar

"Dances of Vice, Horror and Ecstasy": A special section devoted to the poetry and art of the scandalous cabarets performed by Anita Berber and Sebastian Droste in Weimar Germany.

Abstract comics!(Including a preview of Andrei Molotiu's upcoming anthology from Fantagraphics Books.)

"Always/Only/A/Plenum": Tim Wood's essay on Robert Grenier and Grenier's response.

Translation of writers Agrafiotis, Dragincescu, Froger, Lamat,
Rubinstein, Sacré.

Per Bäckström's essay " "Crush the Assholetters Between the Teeth": Språkgrotesk in Henri Michaux and Gunnar Ekelöf."

"Dead Can Dance," Geoffrey Cruickshank-Hagenbuckle's ruminations on Decadence.

As well as poetry, visual poetry, collages and prose from Downing,
Lundwall, Yankelevich, Schapira and others.
--------------------

EARSHOT!

Season Finale!
Friday, June 26th @ 8 PM
@ Rose Live Music
Hosted by Nicole Steinberg
$5 + one free drink

Featuring:

CAConrad (Advanced Elvis Course, The Book of Frank)
Tim Peterson (Since I Moved In)
Elsbeth Pancrazi (New York University)
Maria DiLorenzo (Hunter College)
Liza Monroy (Mexican High, Columbia University)

Rose Live Music is located at 345 Grand Street in Brooklyn, between Havemeyer and Marcy. Visit their website for directions: http://roselivemusic.com.
-------------------------
POETRY TIME


LILY BROWN
MATHIAS SVALINA
JOSHUA MARIE WILKINSON
+VIDEOS BY BRANDON DOWNING
JUNE 27 8PM
SPACESPACE
390 SENECA AVENUE
http://www.poetrytimeatspacespace.blogspot.com

Prune juice- live a little

There are so many readings this week. I'll prolly only make it to my friend tim's and the earshot one on Friday- but here's the list of what's going down this week:

Event: Joshua Beckman & Elena Karina Byrne!
"This Monday @ KGB"
What: Listening Party
Host: KGB Poetry
Start Time: Monday, March 23 at 7:30pm
End Time: Monday, March 23 at 9:00pm
Where: KGB Bar
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tuesday, March 24 2009
7:00pm
Field Magazine 40th Anniversary Reading

An evening to celebrate the famed magazine published by
Oberlin College, featuring Martha Collins, Angie Estes, Cathy Park Hong, Carol Moldaw, Charles Simic, Jean Valentine, and Jonah Winter, with editor David Young
Co-sponsored by The New School Graduate Writing Program

The New School
Wollman Auditorium
66 West 12th Street
Free | www.poetrysociety.org | rob@poetrysociety.org | 212-254-9628
Subway: 1/2/3 to 14th Street, or F/L/V to 6th Avenue/14th Street, or L/N/Q/R/W/4/5/6 to Union Square
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

I'm (CA) reading next week in NYC and hope you can make it! It's part of the READINGS AT CHRYSTIE STREET RIDE AGAIN SERIES hosted by the amazing Lauren Ireland!

www.thereadingseries.blogspot.com

saddle up:

CACONRAD & IAN DREIBLATT

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25
HOME SWEET HOME
131 CHRYSTIE ST.
7 PM SHARP
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Hello lovely and local writers, artists, and friends,

I (Tim) am reading from my novel-in-progress this coming Wednesday, March 25, at Bar on A as part of the Guerrilla Lit Reading Series. Also on the program are Susan Buttenwieser and Sam J. Miller, both of whom seem radical in every sense imaginable. You can read up on them and the series here: http://guerrillalit.wordpress.com/ Bring your friends, Romans, and good country people. The reading starts at 7:30 and is free.

Bar On A (or "Barona," nobody seems to know) is in the East Village, at 170 Avenue A, between 11th and 12th. The nearest train is the L (1st Ave); Essex St (F, V, J, M, Z) and Union Square (N, Q, R, W, 4, 5, 6, and L) will get you there in a 10-15 minute walk.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear spring chickens,

Just a small reminder that March is Small Press Month and EARSHOT's got your small press fix! Both readings this month are official SPM events, and the next one is on Friday, March 27th at 8 PM! As usual, you can find us at ROSE LIVE MUSIC, on 345 Grand Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn!

Our two small press superstars will be AMY LEMMON, author of Saint Nobody and representing Red Hen Press, and DOROTHEA LASKY from Wave Books, author of the acclaimed collection Awe! Three MFA readers will round out the evening in spectacular fashion, including Tanya Rey of short fiction-collective One Story!

Admission is a paltry $5, which scores you a free drink! Don't miss it!

For the entire Small Press Month event calendar, visit http://smallpressmonth.org.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
please indulge us with your presence...


THE ENCLAVE XX: THE FESTIVAL OF DREAMS DREAMT BY NO ONE

FEATURING: TED MATHYS, CHRISTOPHER LOUVET & CHRISTOPHER R. BEHA

Saturday, March 28th @ 4 PM
Cake Shop
152 Ludlow Street
New York City
Free and open to the public

TED MATHYS is the author of The Spoils, forthcoming in April from
Coffee House Press, and Forge (Coffee House, 2005). A recipient of
fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York
Foundation for the Arts, his poems have appeared in American Poetry
Review, BOMB, Conjunctions, Fence, Jubilat, LIT, Verse, and elsewhere.
Originally from Ohio, he has lived and worked in Hong Kong, Berlin,
and New York and currently studies international environmental policy
in Boston.

CHRISTOPHER LOUVET's poems have appeared in Best New Poets 2008,
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and elsewhere. He lives in Miami Beach
and manages information systems in Washington, DC. Find him at
www.louvetian.com.

CHRISTOPHER R. BEHA is an assistant editor at Harper's Magazine. His
essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review,
The Believer, Tin House, Bookforum, and elsewhere. He is the author of
a memoir, The Whole Five Feet, and the co-editor, with Joyce Carol
Oates, of the Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction.

"There was no one in him; behind his face (which even through the bad
paintings of those times resembles no other) and his words, which were
copious, fantastic and stormy, there was only a bit of coldness, a
dream dreamt by no one." -????

Know where this quote comes from? Come to the Cake Shop on the 28th
and find out.

The Enclave is a writers’ collective based out of New York City that
aims to present the newest writing on the cutting edge to the public.
We host monthly readings at Cake Shop in the Lower East Side. For more
information on this reading and other upcoming Enclave events goto:
myspace.com/enclavianmatter.

I Should Be Grading Papers or Working On My Manuscript But

here I am... still drinking coffee in bed & blogging to you. Before I started typing this, I felt like this posting had Tao Lin potential-- now I know I was misguided in my imagination.

There are at least two presses I need to send my manuscript to but I don't have a printer- so printing is a problem (or at least requires me leaving my apartment & going somewhere else. I used the public library last week to print up a chapbook & that super-sucked!) which made me miss the Litmus submission deadline. I don't think that my stuff is really Litmus-y, but I love the press and to have them read my manuscript and maybe like a few poems would have made me happy. Ho-hum. I did send out my chapbook.

Speaking of submitting, you know who's blog I been reading recently? Molly Gaudry. It's full of pictures and lots of press/journal submission information.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There's a lot going this week. This is from my friend Geoffrey Olsen:

Hello,

C. Spencer Yeh, cosmic noisy violin force, is playing with Michael Johnsen tonight at 8pm in the Issue Project Room.
It is only $10! Here is info.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

FRIDAY, February 20, @ 7pm
@ Pete's Candy Store, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
http://www.petescandystore.com

Pete's Reading Series with CAConrad, BEN MALKIN & JENNIFER KNOX
RELEASE of CAConrad's THE FRANK POEMS http://BOOKOFFRANK.blogspot.com

(there's no chance that I get out of Staten Island in time to see this but it looks like a damn good time!)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
EARSHOT'S 4TH ANNIVERSARY!

Join us for the merrymaking and festivities at Rose Live Music in Williamsburg, Bklyn!

Friday, February 20th @ 8 PM
Hosted by Nicole Steinberg

Featuring:
~*The Live Nude Girl in the Devil's Territory Tour*~
Kathleen Rooney (Live Nude Girl)
Kyle Minor (In the Devil's Territory)
Jillian Brall (The New School)
James Yeh (Columbia University)
Laren McClung (New York University)

Rose Live Music is located at 345 Grand Street in Brooklyn, between Havemeyer and Marcy. Visit their website for directions: http://liveatrose.com/.

EARSHOT is a bi-monthly reading series, dedicated to featuring new and emerging literary talent in the NYC area. Visit http://www.earshotnyc.com

(I like that title, but Friday will likely be another nudity-free evening for me)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Speaking of Tao Lin:

	Saturday, February 21, 2009
Time:	7:30pm - 10:30pm
Location:	erika's loft
Street:	williamsburg
City/Town:	Brooklyn, NY

Contact Info

Phone:	9178654875
Email:	viofem@gmail.com

Description

Tao Lin
He is the author of a novel, Eeeee Eee Eeee, and a story collection, Bed, which were published simultaneously by Melville House Publishing May, 2007. He is also the author of two poetry collections, you are a little bit happier than i am, which won Action Books' December Prize in 2005 and was published November, 2006; and cognitive-behavioral therapy, which was published May, 2008 by Melville House Publishing. A chapbook of poetry, this emotion was a little e-book, and one of stories, Today the Sky is Blue and White with Bright Blue Spots and a Small Pale Moon and I Will Destroy Our Relationship Today, were published by the Internet press Bear Parade in 2006..

His forthcoming books include a novella, Shoplifting from American Apparel, to be published September, 2009, and his second novel, Richard Yates, to be published early in 2010. Both books will be published by Melville House Publishing.

His writing has appeared in Noon, Nerve, Vice, Esquire, The Stranger, 3:AM Magazine, The Mississippi Review, Bear Parade, The Cincinnati Review, Other Voices, Fourteen Hills, and other magazines.

He is the editor of the literary press Muumuu House, founded in October 2008, which will publish poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and gmail chats online and in print and co-edits with Ellen Kennedy a literary press called Ass Hi Books.


Todd Colby

Colby's poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Aloud!: Voices from the Nuyorican Poet's Cafe and Verses that Hurt. He is the author of Ripsnort, Cush and Riot in the Charm Factory, all published by Soft Skull Press. He teaches at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Ben Arthur
If you’re going to take some time off after two years of relentless touring, you might as well stay busy. Or at least that’s what Ben Arthur thinks. But recording a follow-up to 2004’s Sony/Red-distributed Edible Darling wasn’t enough for Arthur.

“Writing a novel was something I had always wanted to try, so I just sat down and gave it a shot,” Arthur says.

Meanwhile Arthur finished his new album, Mouthfeel, at Dubway, the same studio where he recorded Edible Darling. He had some great help on the songs, with guest vocals provided by RCA’s Rachael Yamagata, and bass playing by Ollabelle’s own Byron Isaacs. Arthur also had production help from DJ Big Wiz, the beat master who adds so much to the music of Def Jux recording artists Aesop Rock and Lif.

National Public Radio says of the new record, "The quirky optimism that marked Ben Arthur's album Edible Darling has aged and darkened on his long-awaited second disc [sic] Mouthfeel. A slippery disc in sound and meaning...which burrows intimately into love, pain and loss."

To get the word out about the new album, Arthur toured internationally, playing in clubs, high schools, house concerts, bookstores, colleges, and on radio and television. He did interviews and live performances on Sirius, WMMM, WCBE, WMRA, WNRN, WCNR, WBSD, and SACC TV, and songs from Mouthfeel have been airing on WXRT, KCUV, KVRB, WDST, CIDR, KTHX, WQKL, WRLT, WXRV, WZEW, and others.

One of the high points of the Mouthfeel tours was being featured on the internationally syndicated radio program Acoustic Café, which airs on 75-plus stations in the States alone, and on Voice of America worldwide. He also recorded his third half-hour special for XM Satellite Radio and Ben’s song On a Sunday was NPR’s “Song of the Day.”

For the first time in his career, Ben’s music was also featured on internationally broadcasted television. He licensed five songs to ABC, four to Showtime, and is now a regular contributing composer for the soap opera, Guiding Light on CBS.

“Like everything good that has happened with my work, writing for Guiding Light was a result of hard work,” Arthur jokes. “Well, that and the fact my daughter plays with the children of the Music Director!”

That humility and clear-eyed honesty extends to Arthur’s lyrics. Often brooding and dark-laced, images of betrayal, sex, humiliation, faith, yearning and death float behind a super-melodic pop facade. “Tattoo” an upbeat acoustic number, is about sex, love…and suicide. Like much of Arthur’s work, it looks mortality square in the face: “Like Abraham, one day I awoke and realized/That along with the will, the hand, and the knife/The throat was also mine.” “Exit Wound” shares similar themes, though in a more dark-toned bed. Yet, listening to “The Sun Also Rises”—Arthur’s impassioned duet with Rachael Yamagata—you hear an uplifting message of hope and deliverance underneath the distorted electric guitars and driving rhythm.

Rolling Stone says, “Ben Arthur has the looks and hooks of John Mayer.”

Maybe the critics like the duality in Ben’s music. “There’s nothing in my work that doesn’t smack of some pretty grim, difficult stuff,” he says matter-of-factly. “Most of my songs are a marriage of contradictions: bleak and difficult sentiments lurking under upbeat, melodies.”

Arthur first picked up a guitar when he was 14 and immediately began writing songs. In Charlottesville, where he attended the University of Virginia, he developed a local following, and eventually shared the stage with Tori Amos, Shawn Colvin, Bruce Hornsby and fellow townsman Dave Matthews. In fact, Matthews’s collaborators Boyd Tinsley and Tim Reynolds played on Arthur’s first album, Curses and Rapture.

“I prefer lush images,” he says. “I don’t like songs that are too specific, too literal. What interests me is ambiguity and mystery, the spaces between the sentences. Like in ‘Strawberry Fields’: ‘I mean, er, yes, well, no, that is, I think I disagree….’ that’s the way people talk. I’m most fascinated by the underlying contradictions in people’s motivations, the way they deal with one another.”

In fact, the melodic element of his music is so strong, the hooks so catchy, that it’s possible to miss the underlying lyrical complexity and contradiction in his words. All of which is fine by Arthur.

“People can hear what they want in my music,” he says. “Like in Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’, some people hear a patriotic anthem and others hear a protest song. If that happens with my music, I’m fine with that.”

“Actually,” he laughs, “that sounds perfect.”

Ben will be releasing his first novel, (The Lure of the Distant Sound), and fifth album (a live collection called Roadkill) in March at Joe’s Pub in New York City, and will follow this with another international tour.

Live performances, interviews, fan-made videos and covers of Ben’s songs by other musicians can be found online at MySpace (where his songs have logged 28,000 plays), Facebook, iLike, LastFM, and linked to his YouTube channel. The list of Ben Arthur stations set up by his fans on Pandora internet radio currently totals 50 pages.

come dressed in glitter, silk, velvet, latex no cover, otherwise the usual 4 bucks...just to continue last years anti valentines day theme...the more outrageous the better!!!

(i might make it to this)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I think there are readings happening on Sunday too, but I'll try and post again on Saturday as this posting is getting too long.

Are You a Dom or Sub or Both?

I recently read Nick Courtright's blog Tier 3 and his thoughts on submissions sent my own mind wandering. I think it's a good post- gets one to think about ego, the role of poems kept or shared, and the intrinsic vs extrinsic nature of writing/creating. The comments are definitely worth checking out as well.

One of the things Courtright touched on was the "act of submission or submitting" and the fact that he feels dread-- you know that feeling like he's doing something wrong. I think this is because of the nature of the word itself. Submission is to put yourself or poems to the will of another in hopes of approval/reward. This is why Subs and Doms consist of a subsection of sexual deviance (deviance here conveys a good thing as the act of deviance is compared to the moralistic right). There are those that have a burning need to be dominated and this domination, in turn, results in pleasure, and there are those who get off on the dominating i.e. control every emotion/physical action/reaction. My assumption is that Courtright prolly doesn't visit or desire to spend much time with Doms and to take it out of the sexual realm-- he prolly doesn't even surround himself with a bunch of bossy, demanding friends which is why he feels such dread when it comes time to submit. He toys with the thought of hoarding all of his poems so that they are discovered and published only after his death ala Dickinson. This, appears to me my friends, as the ultimate form of control- the easiest way to keep him-- which the creative process is a manifestation of. Once he's dead then something greater than life has taken over and his hands are clean.

Yet, like a lot of us, Courtright does submit. He gives in to the unpleasantness of it all and fills out those SASE, folds those poems, writes those cover letters, attaches his document and hits send. Why? Simple because he reads and respects the journals and wants to be included (no matter how painful the process) in the ongoing conversation that each journal puts forth. Most of us not only find an ego-pleasing thrill to see our names in print or on screen, but an even greater thrill when we recognize and respect the company we are included in. Certainly when Sink Review published my poems I was even more excited when I realized that I was included with J. Mae Barizo, CA Conrad, Julia Cohen/ Mathias Svalinas, and Nicole Steinberg (who edits LIT, which is a journal I once read for).

So this leaves me with a few questions:

What if journals came up with another name? Something other than submission? A name not so easily rooted in binaries of Master/Slave context? Would those that dread submitting feel better? (& you have to dread submitting- not getting rejected- there is a huge distinction between the two)

For the poets that also edit journals does this give you a chance of ultimately evening out your Dom/Sub tendencies, therefore keeping a harmonious ying/yang effect?

Should I be doing something better with my Saturday morning like drinking coffee and eating breakfast and having real-life interactions?

Present Prescence Presents Past Flashed

Friday I eased on up out of bed and met Veronica at the Grand Central Terminal then we departed on a quick train trip to PS.1. There were many many highlights (some of which can be read on Veronica's blog) so I just suggest you go check it out yourself. It's definitely one of the better exhibits in the New York Metro area. One of the exhibits consisted of Complaint Choirs. I sent this link to my friend, Nicole, in HK and she said Hong Kong doesn't have one 'cause no one complains there- she's funny. I replied yeah no complains in the US either.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Friday night I met Deep Disco and we took in the Olympic ceremonies. Pretty awesome stuff.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I missed a picnic & a bike ride on Saturday (I still haven't fixed my bike) but went the poetry reading at Melville House which was quite good. Then I met up with my friend Ship and we went to O.C. to hear our astrologies... but the reader did them in groups of 6 to 8 so nothing too specific was obtained... although she mentioned that Aquarius are pretty much fucked for money culminating in a large-scale disaster on September 15th. Hmmm.... Should all Aquarius play the lotto on the 15th just to give the stars a cosmic chuckle??
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Sunday I streamed the USA vs China basketball game. The result of this is that I didn't make it to CA's BPC play/reading performance, but I maintained a shred of Philly cred by attending Juliette's Corollary Press reading. Juliette is super-sweet and just oozes warmth- writers must feel lucky to have her as their editor/publisher. Tisa Bryant read and we both know that we know each other but couldn't figure out how....Do you know how Tisa and I know each other?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Now here we are Monday. Tonight's reading looks like this:

7x7

7 poets at

7 min at

7pm at

7th St.

& First Ave

The International Bar

back patio

120 1/2 1st Ave

Monday August 11

Gary Parrish

Lydia Cortes

Brenda Iijima

Greg Fuchs

Marcella Durand

Phyllis Wat

Jonas Mekas

hosted by stephanie gray

Suck City + 215

2020 VISIONS: LEVI RUBECK, PAUL HLAVA, AND NICK FLYNNFebruary 29 – 6:30 PM

Levi Rubeck is a poet and charmer from the gray grasses of Wyoming, where his favorite animals Thor and Seabass still yearn for freedom from terror. He is currently a MFA candidate at New York University, writing poems about everything except Wyoming. He has eaten rattlesnake but does not necessarily recommend it.

Paul Hlava was raised in southern California, where it does not snow; however, sometimes ash falls from the sky from a nearby fire. He graduated from the University of California, Riverside, where he worked as the nonfiction editor for the school’s art and literary journal, the Mosaic. He is now in the creative writing program at New York University.

Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City (Norton, 2004) won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award, was short-listed for France’s Prix Femina, and has been translated into 13 languages. He is also the author of two books of poetry, Some Ether (Graywolf, 2000) and Blind Huber (Graywolf, 2002), for which he received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Library of Congress. Flynn’s poems, essays, and nonfiction have appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, and the New York Times Book Review, and been heard on National Public Radio’s This American Life. His film credits include “field poet” and artistic collaborator on Darwin’s Nightmare, which was nominated for a 2006 Academy Award as best feature documentary. Flynn teaches at the University of Houston.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I, seemingly like everyone else, dig Nick Flynn but I won't be able to make this reading.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CA Conrand & other 215ers ( my birthplace yo) will be invading Alphabet City on Saturday in the name of peace which is cool since the city of brotherly love is completely oxymoronic but I definitely feel their collected anti-gangsta & if I don't die moving this Saturday- then I'll try and ring that liberty bell

Thom Donovan's PEACE ON A has invited PhillySound http://PhillySound.blogspot.com

BE THERE FOR A GREAT NIGHT OF POETRY!
Saturday, MARCH 1st 8pm 166 Avenue A (btwn 10th & 11th) APARTMENT #2

PhillySound READERS WILL BE:

CAConrad
Mytili Jagannathan
Dorothea Lasky
Chris McCreary
Frank Sherlock
Kevin Varrone
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Contest Minded?

Due tomorrow:

Third Coast- Judge: James Tate
Cut Bank- Judge: Michele Glazer (who enough peeps just don't read 'tis a shame)
Summer Literary Seminar- Judge: Robert Hass

Digression begins here:

(I've been offered measly peasly stipends every time I've entered this contest (never actually hitting gold) except for the last time Bob Hass was judge- that time I didn't even rate- 'tis okay 'cause you know that Thomas Sayer Ellis' poem "All Their Stanzas Look Alike" well Hass' books recently have all looked alike... which isn't to say that I don't absolutely love his early work... just think we are at opposite ends of aesthetics but naturally I'd love to break bread with him in Kenya, (although the political climate in Kenya is absolutely heart-breaking right now)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

& what's up with the negativity towards my boy, Obama, in traditional garb- um those comments are trying to respell implicit racism as patriotism- in other words to those dissing & hating Obama FUCK YOU & YOURS!

The Enclave Wrap-up

The reading went well. I'm pretty sure it was the absolute nicest day thusly this summer so the fact that some people choose to spend it in a dark bar on Saturday afternoon is the mark of the devoted. All the readers did a nice job and it was a personal pleasure to read with CAConrad (another illadelph born OGP). I picked up and have already read his chapbook consisting of "Frank" poems. Good stuff. Odd. Wit and introspective intellect in the fuck-offish way- i.e. so perfect punk I felt new again.

Since I have such a long commute to work I've been reading the journals Lilies and Cannonball and Jubilat (which has a poem by David Sewell (also graduated from NS same year as I) and two poems by Prageeta). The new ish of BOMB has an amazing interview with the artist, Kristen Mamma Andersson- though my one fey knock would be that perhaps Christian Hawkey (yes the poet) did write a bit too much and I felt as if I read more about him than the subject of the interview... oh well

Me + poesia + m.i.c.= The Enclave June 23rd-Free

So I didn't make it to the opera tonight but I did see Panda Bear last night (amazing!!!!) and now I'm updating my blog. Come out for this reading- it'll be fun (do I always say that?)


THE ENCLAVE READING SERIES: FESTIVAL of the GLOW WORM*
featuring
C.A. Conrad
Iris Smyles
Christen Clifford
Steven Karl
Molly McCloy
Chris Louvet

hosted by
Jason Napoli Brooks and Scott Geiger

Saturday
June 23, 2007
3:30 - 6:30 pm
Kenny's Castaways
157 Bleecker St.
New York

Free!

The Enclave is proud to present its most impressive program yet (and considering the high quality of its past programs, this is a serious claim to make). Please join us for an afternoon with six of the East Coast's most innovative fiction writers, poets, and performers.

Bios...

C. A. Conrad' s childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. He escaped to Philadelphia the first chance he got where he lives and writes today with the PhillySound poets. Soft Skull Press published his book Deviant Propulsion in 2006. His book The Frank Poems is forthcoming from CHAX Press in 2008. A small selection of The Frank Poems was translated into German by the Berlin poet Holger, and is now available from YPOLITA Press. He is the author of several other chapbooks, including (end-begin w/chants) , a collaboration with Frank Sherlock. You can see his work online at http://CAConrad.blogspot.com

Iris Smyles is a writer and cartoonist whose fiction may currently be seen in BOMB magazine's Spring issue. She was awarded the Doris Lippman Prize for her recently completed novel in 2007, and her acclaimed comic book, The Naked Woman, is availableonline and in select New York City bookstores. She teaches creative writing and literature at The City College of New York and Marymount Manhattan College. She is the editor of Smyles & Fish magazine (www.SmylesAndFish.com)

Christen Clifford is a writer and performer who has performed her solo work at The Culture Project, The Uno Festival in Victoria, Canada. and at the National Theatre of Slovenia in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She won "Best of Fringe" at the 2006 San Francisco Fringe Festival and The Audience Choice Award at the 2007 Frigid Festival. She's been an actor in plays Off Broadway, independent films, and has probably had about twenty lines total on soap operas. She's been a mainstage storyteller at The Moth and various other storytelling shows in New York. Her writing has been published in Salon.com, Nerve.com , Blue, and in the anthology Everything You Know About Sex Is Wrong (Disinfo) and she has a piece upcoming on Smith Magazine's Memoirville. She has received fellowships and residencies from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Ragdale Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her work has received support from Time Warner and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council as part of the Hourglass Group Solo Lab. She just got her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and won the 2006 New School Chapbook Award for Nonfiction. Clifford just found out she is a 2007 fellow in Nonfiction Literature from the New York State Foundation for the Arts. She is married to writer McKenzie Wark adn has a 3 year old son, Felix and they lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for over 15 years until they got priced out and had to move to Queens.

Molly McCloy, a non-fiction writer from Arizona, has been published in Nerve.com, Slate.com , and MrBellersNeighborhood.com. She recently won the Storytelling Slam sponsored by the NYC-based storytelling organization, The Moth.

Steven Karl received his MFA from The New School. His poems and reviews have appeared in Real Poetik and Lit online. He has an article forthcoming in Teachers & Writers Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn.

Christopher Louvet writes code in Miami, FL for computers in Washington, DC. His poetry has appeared in The Bitter Oleander, Tigertail: A South Florida Poetry Annual , and online at McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

*
I heard a glow-worm, big as a house, say to me: `I will give you the light you need. Read the inscription. It is not from me that this supreme order comes.' A vast blood-coloured light, at the sight of which my jaws clacked and my nads fell inert, suffused the air as far as the horizon. I learned against a ruined wall, for I was about to fall, and read: `Here lies a youth who died of consumption: you know why. Do not pray for him.'
Wanna know this comes from? Come to The Enclave: Festival of the Glow Worm...June 23