Radio Silence

I've been a bit non-present again, I realize.

I was working pretty hard on an entry on mentorship that's gotten completely off track as I've been unable to get ahold of one of the subjects of the entry. It has made me a bit glum to look at an entry which is primarily about someone who hasn't emailed me back in two months.

I'm not dead, really. Weave issue 03 is ready to ship from the printer, the TypewriterGirls are heading to the Bowery Poetry Club in January and I wrote a draft of a new poem recently.

Mihnea and I will be heading out to Cook's Forest for three days after Christmas for some relaxation time in a cabin. Though, I wonder if it still counts as a cabin since it has a whirlpool tub. Tiny hotel, maybe? I've joked that it's our honeymoon/Christmas/Valentine's Day. We opted for no TV in the cabin. There will be lots of writing. Lots of snuggling. I'm using that whirlpool.

I have a bunch of submissions floating around out there right now. For some reason I'm on the edge of my seat about them over the past couple of days. I have one submission that's been out there for four months. I used to get upset about these things. Now I'm an editor.

Reading in 2009

I've seen a lot of people making lists of their favorite books of 2009 and I was trying to think of what my favorite books of 2009 might be when I realized something a little bit depressing -- I didn't really get to do all that much reading purely for pleasure in 2009.

I did make sure that I sat down and read At Night, the Dead by Lisa Ciccarello, and this weekend I plan to give The Spare Room by Dana Guthrie Martin my full attention, but maybe it would be better to just list the books I read for pleasure this year. period.

I did a lot of reading a poem here and a poem there from books, so I'll really only be listing books I actually read cover to cover. Not all of them were even published this year. I am made of book reading fail.

- The aforementioned At Night, the Dead by Lisa Ciccarello from Blood Pudding Press
- No Water by Renée Alberts from Speed and Briscoe
- The Ice Lizard by Judith Johnson (one of the best books of poetry I've ever read. Judy Johnson is fantastic.)
- Inside Bone There's Always Marrow by Rachel Mallino from Maverick Duck Press
- Buffalo Dance: the Journey of York by Frank X. Walker (one of my top 10 favorite poets of all time. I gushed at him at AWP last year. Yes, I totally fangirled.)
- Horrific Confection by Juliet Cook (get your copy to hold in your hands while you can! She's running out!)

Oh dear lord, those might be the only books that I chose to read this year and actually read cover to cover. That is extremely depressing. This is one of the problems with being an editor and review writer - I am constantly reading books and work that are not necessarily of my choosing, and there seems to be a constant influx of this. I've actually fallen woefully behind on some of my reviews due to all the other craziness of the past few months, and in addition, there are many people who have been waiting for a response from Weave for a lot longer than I would like. If you're out there reading this, we haven't forgotten you!

To be fair, if I wasn't a review writer, I would never have discovered Frank X. Walker and there would have been no AWP fangirling.

If your book is not on the above list and I purchased it this year, do not be sad. I probably read it in parts and stare at it longingly as I dash from room to room of my apartment, either chasing after my son or trying to locate something that has gone missing at just the moment I need it. Or it is currently in the possession of one of the Weave assistant editors, waiting to have a review of it written. Joel just absconded with I think three more books. For the most embarrassing life of me I cannot remember which ones. I do recall being very happy about one of them, thinking, oh but it would be lovely if he wrote a review of that one!

I did a bit of writing on Tuesday. Not much, but I've begun, at least, to get myself back in the poetic head space.

My just-before-the-new-year resolution is to read more just because I want to. I will start this weekend. I will let you know how it goes.

Barefoot and Listening

My chapbook, Barefoot and Listening, has been published by Tilt Press and is now available from their website!! Hooray!


I am so very very very excited about this. This is my first chapbook publication and represents years of work on my poetry. I'm extremely happy with all of the work that Rachel Mallino and Nicole Cartwright Denison have put into their press and into this chapbook and I feel honored to be published by them.

So check it out! Pick up a copy! Nothing would make me happier.

Whirlwind

It's a wonderful week and it's a crazy week at the same time.

First, the happiest of news - my husband got his green card yesterday!!! Hooray! This is the most wonderful of news and overshadows any bad news/feelings. Seriously. One of the bad things that happened on Tuesday, thought, was that my car got towed (a $45 lunch for two turned magically into a $200 lunch) and I couldn't even really get upset about it.

Other happy news - two TypewriterGirls performances this weekend! The first one is this Friday at Remedy in Lawrenceville - Karen Lillis and Laura Davis will be reading, and there will be various other TypewriterGirl shenanigans. Doors open at 9:30.

On Sunday it's TypewriterGirls Save the Libraries! Doors open at 5:30pm at the Carnegie Lecture Hall in Oakland. It's for a good cause. You should be there. Sandra Beasley and Nancy Krygowski will read, Phat Man Dee will sing, Christiane D. will perform, Dave Doyle will balance things on his face, Moquette Volante will perform, and Crystal and I will be up to our zany antics with guest appearances from Sean Collier and Franco Dok Harris. You for sure want to be at this one.

My friend Kevin is coming out to Pittsburgh this weekend to see the TypewriterGirls shows and hang out in the city. I don't get to see Kevin too often and it will be very nice to have him around!

I've actually taken off work tomorrow to get ready for the upcoming TypewriterGirls shows. This is not the first time I've taken off for a show, but it's the first time I've taken off for show rehearsal.

Very Good Things are, of course, happening elsewhere in the poetry world, too.

- The lovely Rachel Mallino has just had her next chapbook picked up by Dancing Girl Press! Hooray and congratulations, Rachel!!

- My Weave co-founder Laura Davis has a new blog. Check it out -- it's all poetry-related and stuff

- The New Yinzer Presents has a reading coming up! I'm in it with fellow Weave editor Joel Coggins, the always-amazing Renee Alberts, and much much more!

- Juliet Cook has a new chapbook coming out from Slash Pine Press called Fondant Pig Angst. I have ordered it. You should order it, too.

- Dana Guthrie Martin's chapbook The Spare Room is out right now from Juliet's press, Blood Pudding Press. It's another one that I demand you go purchase right now. Dana's work is absolutely stunning. Always.



I haven't been writing as much as I should, but I have ideas and after this weekend I'll have a little breather. And that will be good.

Also - my chapbook from Tilt Press, Barefoot and Listening, should be coming out soon!!

The TypewriterGirls at Kerouac Fest '09 - part 5/5

Poetry by Gary Snyder as performed by Crystal and me

And that's the end! I hope you enjoy!

The TypewriterGirls at Kerouac Fest '09 - part 4/5

The rest of improv poetry! Hear the audience continue to shout about anal beads and Crystal continue to valiantly ignore them. Now with songs about the Bad Monkey Farm.

The TypewriterGirls at Kerouac Fest '09 - part 3/5

Coming up next: More improv poetry!

The TypewriterGirls at Kerouac Fest '09 - part 2/5

Part 2! This time it's the last Diane DiPrima poem, comedy as written by the lovely Crystal, and some sound poetry by Hugo Ball and a Dada manifesto by everyone's favorite Tristan Tzara.

The TypewriterGirls at Kerouac Fest '09 - part 1/5

Myself, Crystal, and Tracy Mortimer performing at Kerouac Fest 2009. More videos will be up soon!


In this video, we are performing Diane DiPrima's More or Less Love Poems. Future videos will have sketch comedy, some audience participation improv, and us performing some of Gary Snyder's work.

Of course, the real question here is why I can't get my husband to wear a skirt.

I sent out some submissions yesterday, something I haven't done in a few months. It feels good, primarily because submitting means that I have new poems that I'm happy enough with to send out into the world.

Worked on editing yesterday, so no new poem last week. I will write one this week.

I have (yet another) project idea bumping itself around in my head. The second chapbook manuscript I'm working on is taking itself in a different direction from where I thought it would go and is taking a much longer time to put together than I thought it would, so of course the best thing for my creative energies to do is to want to switch gears. Of course. Mid-project.

Perhaps (no, for sure) I should just be happy that my brain isn't devoid of ideas. I did go through a very brief period there where I had that terrifying thought of "oh god, what if I'm just out of ideas for poems?" It's funny, really, but because I'm not the fastest writer when I go through exceptionally long periods of poetic silence I do get that nagging voice in the back of my head. It's right up there with the "you're not really a poet" voice. Very silly in the light of day.

The TypewriterGirls' October hiatus is almost over and we will be coming out of it with a bang. Crystal and I are performing at the annual Chattering Bones party in Windber, and on the 10th we'll be taking our comedy to The Alternative Comedy Show at the Brillobox. Then, at the beginning of December we'll be holding a show as a benefit for the Carnegie Libraries of Pittsburgh. Funding's been reduced and they're going through a difficult time, and we love an excuse to have a crazy show for a good cause.

I have decided to dress in drag for Halloween. It makes me quite happy, really, and Halloween is as good an excuse as any to do it. I tried to convince my husband to also go in drag and I almost had him, but he's decided against it, tragically. I swear, we would have been adorable.

Boo, husband. Boo.*











*not really. He's awesome.

Catch up

My son will be spending the whole week in Cleveland and I have committed myself to doing some major catch up while he's away. There are many things to do;

• Get issue 03 of Weave finalized and sent out to the printer (!!!)
  
• Work on my 4 drafted poems
  
• Write up an evaluation for one of my interns (this really should be the first thing listed)
• Do some housework. The husband would be so pleased.
  
• Read! I have a book on Allen Ginsberg's Buddhist poetry that I'm really enjoying, that whole literary theory thing to plug away at, and more poetry than I can realistically shake a stick at.
• Do my best not to go overboard purchasing books this week. I can only read so many at a time.
• Obtain cover art for my chapbook. Very important.

There's also (conveniently) a poetry reading to go to on Wednesday, time to spend with my friends, and exercising that must be done now that I'm not constantly coughing.

It's good to know that even when I don't have a 4-year-old to worry about I can still run myself ragged.




Other Lovely Things

• If you haven't done so yet, you should head over to the Tilt Press website and purchase their 2009-2010 chapbook subscription -- and not just because my chapbook will be a part of it!
• GUD is having a pumpkin carving contest. Had I any skills at all I would enter this. You may have skills. You could enter. You could win books.
• There's a nice review of Weave issue 02 up on New Pages.
  

The seemingly monthly update

And again it's been a Very Long Time since I last wrote. But I will persevere! Even in the face of clearly not being the best at keeping up with a blog I will continue to -- um -- write once a month?

In my defense the past 30 days have been a whirlwind of crazy. Weave closed for submissions, I've been working on layout, trying to write a little bit (failing mostly, to be entirely honest. It's not been a productive month in the world of poetry), I decided to give myself a crash course in literary theory (we're only up to deconstruction. It's clearly not going very quickly), and I had 3 TypewriterGirls events the weekend before last (yes! three!). And of course there's my 40-hours-a-week job that's got nothing to do with poetry/publishing and my child needs some attention, you know, every now and again.

Oh yes, and I'm sick.

I decided to do this crash course in literary theory because I'm trying to get back into academic reading so that when I do apply for graduate school (whenever that may be) it won't be a huge shock to go from reading just poetry and little else to suddenly reading critical work by the bookfull. I've come up with a little "class" for myself on poetry, prophecy, and shamanism that I'm pretty excited about. Hopefully I can finish with my book on literary theory at some point and start reading the books taunting me from my shelf.

And of course all is not doom, gloom, and lack of time to breathe! Many wonderful and awesome things are happening in the world!

First, this year's chapbook subscription from Tilt Press is now available and my chapbook, Barefoot and Listening is first up! My lovely friend Heidi is working on a cover design, about which I am very excited. I'd already been thinking to ask her when I mentioned the book to a couple other friends, both of whom said "Oh! You should ask Heidi to do the cover!". This is because she is just that awesome.

My lovely, talented, fellow TypewriterGirl, and all-around best friend Crystal Jean Hoffman was nominated for her very first Pushcart Prize by Goldfish Press! She is an amazing poet and it is a well-deserved nomination.

Also - how excited am I to see this? Very very.





In other fun news the new issue of Goblin Fruit is up and the fine ladies who edit Goblin Fruit are switching journals with the editor from Mythic Delirium and for one issue will be editting one another's journals.

Also, Pank has one more day left in their chapbook competition! Hurry! There is still time!

My Big News

I've been practically busting with the news that my chapbook, Barefoot and Listening, will be published by Tilt Press as part of their 2009-2010 series of chapbooks. I could not possibly be more excited. Ever since I first picked up Julie Platt's In the Kingdom of my Familiar I wanted Tilt to be the press to publish Barefoot and Listening. I'm extraordinarily excited, honored, and lucky that they chose my manuscript.

Here's the full list of poets and manuscripts as posted on Tilt's website;

Margaret Bashaar, Barefoot and Listening
Dan Rosenberg, A Thread of Hands
Krystal Languell, The Mean Particle
Susan Yount, House on Fire
Rachel Abramowitz, One's A Crown

Now I have to decide what cover art I would like -- a very exciting dilemma!

The Manuscript (again) and submissions

Still working on poems for the second manuscript. However, the more I work on it, the more poems I want to write for it, so in spite of having written two poems and drafted one over the past week or so for this project, I'm still standing at 5 that need to be written. I wonder if I will ever be done. The main character has also shifted from one character to another, completely unintentionally. I'd be a little upset (I liked the original main character a lot) if it were not for the direction that this gets to take the writing itself.

I don't have any outstanding submissions right now and that is a very strange feeling. I'm the kind of writer who always has work out at one journal or another. I feel like I must be slacking or something. I'm hesitant to send out these new poems because I want to work on publishing this manuscript once I'm done with it (but who knows when that will be, really) and I'm hesitant to break from work on this manuscript to work on poems on a different theme (and what's the point of writing something just so you can send it out? That may be one of the stupider thoughts that has come to my head in a very long while - writing something not for my current project just so I can have something to send out. I've had a couple of requests for work, but seriously. Bad idea.). Still, it's a very strange feeling. It makes me antsy.

I've been making some new writing friends, which is also a very good feeling. I've been having lunches with some lovely people and I can't wait to spend more time with them. It's always wonderful to find new, fantastically creative and talented people you can connect with.

And on that fuzzy note, it's time I went back to work.

Manuscript the second

So I'm working on manuscript #2 and I actually wrote two new poems for it in one day. I'm pretty excited about working on this second one now. I'd like to write maybe 2-5 more poems for it. I feel like there's a bit in the middle that needs some work. The end is lovely -- it's everything I wanted from this manuscript. The manuscript itself is a sort of a story of one character who has evolved and changed names in my poetry over time. She used to be a replacement for me but now she has a whole life of her own and this set of poems tells her story. Now that I have some distance from the poems that started the whole thing I've really been able to edit them and sculpt them into what I've wanted them to be all along.

A couple of these poems are up at Thirteen Myna Birds. However, I think only two of them remain up as of right now, so check them out before the next flight formation makes them fly away!

I never thought I'd actually be working on two manuscripts at once. Though perhaps it's just a way to avoid having to write every day -- instead of getting the writing together I organize and re-organize the manuscript, add poems, delete poems, love poems and hate them in the same 24 hour span of time, try to decide if that poem from my junior year of college is awful or awesome, you know. It's all very engaging and fun for me, especially this group of poems. The first chapbook was more laborious -- I knew what was going in the manuscript but didn't quite know where or when. This one has just been fun - tossing poems in and out, shuffling them around, writing new ones to fill in the blanks and steer my girl where she needs to inevitably go. The poems aren't playful -- they're actually much darker on the outset than my other set (check out the first poem of mine over at Thirteen Myna Birds if you wish for an example), but I love working on it nonetheless. My husband was worried that working on these poems was going to make me all dark and dreary, but instead of a dark and dreary wife he's got a poetry-obsessed wife right now. (Well, all the time, really)

SPF went very well. We at Weave met some really awesome people, sold a good number of copies, and generally had a lot of fun. Adam and the others over at Open Thread did some amazing work and I really appreciate everything they've done for the literary community in Pittsburgh with this festival. It was also lovely to hang out with some of my favorite writing people for a couple of days.

There are a lot of lovely things on the horizon.

small press festival and more

First and foremost there is a wonderful literary event - a small press festival - coming up here in Pittsburgh this weekend. It promises to be one of the most awesome Pittsburgh literary events of the year -- there's to be a bookfair, panels (which I am on one of), a workshop being run by Laura and myself, and events all throughout this month. If you're in the area you should stop on by! It's only $5.00 for panels and workshops and the bookfair is free.

I've begun to slowly, hesitantly send out my chapbook to a couple of presses. I'm very nervous and the amount of email checking that has been going on here is obscene. I like my manuscript and I really feel it works well as a unit. Now I just have to hope that an editor agrees with me.

My husband is going on retreat for the month of August and I'm not looking forward to it. He's a huge help with my son, he makes me food and coffee in the morning, he takes care of me when I've had a really bad day at work, he helps me not despair over things, and he's generally just nice to have around. I'm really really really going to miss him. Is that selfish? He says this is important to him so I'm trying to have an open mind about it, but it really makes me sad to think of him being gone for 6 out of 7 days of the week. I'll survive of course, but I'll be glad when he's home for more than one day out of the week. I'll miss him.

I've been writing a bit lately. Had a very nice workshop this weekend with Crystal, Renee and Laura. I think I've started a new poem. I hope I have.

Thirteen Myna Birds

5 of my poems are up (ephemerally) over at Thirteen Myna Birds! I have a particular fondness for one of them, too. I'm very glad it's found such a lovely home!

http://13myna.blogspot.com

Aging

So I've noticed the first tiny fine line on my forehead. Of course I freaked out at first. Then I calmed down. Then I got indignant because I still get tiny pimples on my forehead and I mean come on that's just unfair.

I want to age gracefully. No hair dying or plucking or face lifts or botox. There's one woman I work with who is probably in her late 40's or early 50's who has aged so gracefully - she has white streaks in her hair that are lovely because she wears them so well and so boldly. She has lines on her face that she has not tried to cover or hide or strip away. She's beautiful and she is her age and she's just elegant. This is how I want to be.

Now if I can just find the strength to be it.

Small Children and Writing

Over the next two weeks I will have my son with me full time. On one hand this is absolutely wonderful -- we get to work on potty training (something I question his father's devotion to), we get to do fun things together (this weekend we went to the aviary and went out for ice cream with my friend Crystal), and Ben tends to be an all-around good time. You know, except for that potty training thing that we're still having trouble with. It's always something. Before it was sleeping through the night. Now it's the potty. In fact, I am currently sitting with Ben as he sits on the potty.

Now to the down side -- I fear I will get no writing done for the next two weeks. As I've lamented in previous posts it's not like I have a terribly high writing output to begin with, and I fear that none will get done at all these next two weeks. Perhaps I should be working on poetry rather than a blog post?

I'll probably stay late after work, go to a nearby coffee shop and write until the daycare is about to close, and perhaps I'll get a little bit in after he goes to bed. I'll manage. The weekend is usually when I write (this is when his father spends time with him), but his father will be at a convention next weekend and needs me to watch him, and this weekend I got to have him for the 4th of July (and he wasn't at all scared of the fireworks, though he did repeatedly tell my husband and I that we needed to be careful not to get burned by them), so it is to be busy busy mommy time!

Do any of you with kids have any tips on balancing having a child and getting writing done? He's 4 so he's not really all that able to entertain himself most of the time. I haven't had to develop these skills because of my arrangements with Ben's father, so any advice would be appreciated.

Subscription Drive over at Weave, SPF, publishing, etc.

First, if you have not yet checked it out, I would like to direct you to Weave Magazine's subscription drive. We're attempting to get 30 subscriptions in 30 days and we've fallen a couple subscriptions behind, so we'd really appreciate the purchase if you were to make one! Subscriptions are at a discounted price for the next 4 days only! $12.00 gets you two issues of Weave. $19.00 gets you issues 1-3. So go forth and purchase!

I'm also very excited to say that four of my poems are going to be published in an anthology edited by Naomi Shihab Nye titled Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25. I'm thrilled to get to be a part of this anthology and cannot wait to read the rest of the anthology. The book is to be published by Greenwillow Books, which is an imprint of HarperCollins. Exciting stuff.

In some local poetry news, Pittsburgh will be hosting a small press festival called SPF this upcoming July. The festival is being directed by and was conceptualized by the good people over at Open Thread. If you have a small press and are in the area you should consider getting a table before the July 1st deadline. There are a lot of presses already signed up and, of course, Weave is happily one of them.

I am so very thankful that it is Friday and I am no longer at work. It is a bit sad that I go through the entire week anticipating the weekend. Don't get me wrong - I am extraordinarily grateful for my job. I like my boss. The work isn't terrible. But auditing is certainly not something that makes me get up in the morning all excited. Ever. Maybe some day I'll be able to afford to go to graduate school and get my career redirected somewhat. Or perhaps it's just a grass-is-greener sort of thing and I should be happy with the work I am doing. I'm editing Weave with Laura, I'm running The TypewriterGirls with Crystal, I'm writing, and I'm publishing. Really, I've got nothing to complain about. I just get so despondent at work sometimes. This heavy feeling between my chest and my stomach. If only I could just get past it.

On a less depressing note, this weekend my friend Bill and I are sitting down to talk about the cover art for issue 03 of Weave. I've sent him a bit of the poetry we've accepted and he may be creating a response to the work as the cover. He also does portraits with the poet Huang Xiang that you can take a look at through the above link, and we're also talking about potentially using one of those. I'll also be heading to Windber this weekend for my friends' performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is bound to be an interesting time.




I've noticed I'm terrible at titling my blog posts. Perhaps I should just abstain entirely.

Busy busy busy

I finished up two drafts of poems this weekend, which is quite a lot for me. I usually don't work on more than one poem at a time, either, so this is sort of a breakthrough in a moderately pathetic kind of way.

I know I don't write nearly as much as I should and this has been proven by the fact that I am literally out of poems that I am happy enough with to send out the door in hopes of publication. I have five poems that are in varying stages of completeness, but none that are truly submission-worthy right now. And of course there is the glut of poems that will never see the light of day.

I was looking forward to doing a round of submissions to a number of literary journals I really like that are open during the summer months, but, barring a miracle, this will clearly not happen. My writing hasn't been able to keep up with my submitting.

Submitting is so easy, so, so much easier to do on my lunch break when my mind is still half auditing. It's quicker, it gives me an instant sense of accomplishment, and it doesn't involve switching from that part of my brain that deals with numbers and the rules of hospital accounting to the part of my brain that works creatively. I also get a weird sort of high from having five to ten submissions out at a time, even when they come back as rejections. I can't quite explain it, but I definitely get some kind of rush from it.

Lately I've been feeling pressure (from myself alone) to produce more, as though I am not busy enough already between the TypewriterGirls, Weave, being a mother, working for 8 hours a day, the Pittsburgh Small Press Festival (SPF), and the writing that I do do. Clearly I need to put more pressure on myself.

There is just so much that I want to do, so much that I want to write. I don't have enough time each weekend to get it in and still relax a little bit, and I certainly don't have time during the week.

This is all very frustrating. And let's not even get in to my chapbook angst.

In other new altogether holy crap Gary Snyder is going to be at next year's AWP. I must shamefully admit that I have only recently begun reading Gary Snyder's work, and in part because I saw him in a documentary on Buddhism, but really The Call of the Wild is just as lovely a poem as my dear friend Crystal assured me it would be.

I'm in a panel proposal for the 2010 AWP, so there's a decent likelihood that I will have to be there (oh, the tragedy). Crystal and I are already looking into plane tickets. Hah.

I feel like something is about to happen.

Wow, it's June

And I haven't written here since March. So much for actually being a blogger.

I've never been good with keeping up with a blog. I have these ideas that seem grand when I come up with them and then for one reason or another they don't work out.

But I will persevere! I will try to be more reliable!

The past few months have been very busy for me. I got married. Bit of a time-devourer, that. We had a very fun wedding after party and were fortunate enough to also have a Buddhist ceremony, in addition to the legal ceremony. I cried a lot.

There have also been two TypewriterGirls shows (The TypewriterGirls Try Drag and The TypewriterGirls Try Politics) since March. Both went exceptionally well by my estimation - good crowd, great readers and performers, great music, and amazing friends.

I always love putting on TypewriterGirls shows and working with Crystal. She's hilarious (unlike me) and constantly full of energy for the shows. We've been lucky in that we have found talented performers and poets like the lovely Mary Biddinger. We have also had wonderful audiences with good energy who enjoy themselves and are happy to get involved (after a few swigs of whiskey, sometimes). I feel all fuzzy after a show, and that's probably a good thing. In fact, I think I'm still on the high of Sunday's show, The TypewriterGirls Try Politics, today, and I can't wait for the next one.

Show highlights:
- Sing-along/burlesque to "16 Tons"
- Recitation of the Exquisite Corpse which lead to "all the CEOs in all the world" getting behind every detail of the Employee Free Choice Act.
- Citizen Kane... In space!
- Culminating the evening with a rousing and passionate round of Bohemian Rhapsody at the end of the dance party.



You know you want to come to a TypewriterGirls show.

The Month of Busy

April is going to be the most insanely busy month that I've had in a while.

First and foremost, I'm getting married. May 16th. Very soon. I'm very excited, but also in "rush around like crazy" mode.

I have a dress, a registry, rings, a party space, an officiant, marriage license, wonderful DJ, and a guest list.

I do not have clothing for Mihnea, or catering picked out. There will be no ridiculous and non-tasty cake.

We wanted so much to keep the wedding on a budget, and I think we've done all right so far. The party is the most expensive part and my mother is paying for that. I got two dresses, each for under $40.00. The rings were a bit more expensive than anything else, but I expected that. I did not, however, expect to pay $80.00 for a marriage license. Ouch.

Also, the Weave issue 02 release event will be taking place on April 26th. I am very excited about it, but it is another event to get my proverbial ducks (poets?) in a row for. The party should be very very fun. If you're in Pittsburgh you should of course check us out. So far we have Frank DePoole, Andrew Mulvania, Damian Dressick, Michelle Stoner, and Alayna Frankenberry lined up to read. Should be a good show if that list is any indication, in my humble opinion.

Crystal's putting together some sure to be awesome sketches for the show and we may have a very special music act coming on board. It's all very exciting.

Two days before that, on April 24th, is the second Poetsburgh reading wherein Weave Magazine and Open Thread collaborate and lovely, lovely poets read. We'll be at the Zany Umbrella Circus' space this time around.

And on April 18th I'll be doing a reading in Cleveland for Burning River at Visible Voice at about 7pm.

Oof.

Busy Busy!

Post-AWP wrap up

My third AWP was by far the best yet. Here are some highlights:

- I got to meet Frank X. Walker, perhaps my current favorite poet. He ranks up there, for sure. He signed my copy of When Winter Come and I got to tell him his book was the best I had read in a very long time. He also stopped by the Weave table and was very, very sweet.

- The whole Affrilachian poetry reading, in fact. Every one of those readers was fantastic. Patricia Smith read an absolutely amazing crown of sonnets. I got the chance to tell her this.

- The Weave table! I burned out a little by the end of each day, but I got to meet a few more of our contributors for the first and second issues there; Michael Ogletree, Karen Schubert, and Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán. Also, Weave sold fairly well (especially, I have been told, for our first AWP!) and we have some new subscriptions! Yay!

- Getting to escort Mary Biddinger on stage at the Anti/diode poetry reading.

- Meeting the absolutely lovely Dana Guthrie Martin (another issue 01 contributor) at the Anti/diode poetry reading.

- Talking to M. Bartley Seigel, the editor of Pank, whose third issue features two of my poems. He is also lovely. I'd gone to a panel he was on last year and recall completely agreeing with his editorial policies. Also, he gave me a free Pank tshirt! It has a typewriter on it!

- The one and only panel I was able to go to; Poet as Oracle. It was amazing. They talked about stepping out of the ego when writing poetry and poetry written during meditation (among other things, of course). The panel really spoke to me and reflected a lot of what I have been trying to do in my own poetry lately. It was wonderful.

- Starting up the dance party on Friday and Saturday night with Crystal. There were people who thought we had been paid to do so.

- Spending part of Saturday with my old friend Natalie who I literally had not seen in ten years. We worked at Girlscout camp together. It was wonderful to get to catch up with her.

- Hanging out with the lovely people of Akron; Mary Biddinger, Jay Robinson, Frank DePoole, and Eric Morris. Hopefully I will get to see all of them again very soon!

- Guerrilla poetry readings for Judy Johnson. Fantastic. Also lunch with Judy Johnson. Also being informed that the TypewriterGirls can now "officially" be affiliated with 13th Moon Press. Also planning a reading with Judy Johnson for April.

And, of course

- Spending the week with my two favorite girls; Crystal and Laura

I know a lot of superlatives were used in this post, but it's because I had such an amazing time and got to meet and spend time with so many amazing people that I can't help but gush a little bit. Pictures to come.

Hope your AWP was fantastic, too!

New Issue of Goblin Fruit...

...is live and contains a lovely poem by the ever-so-talented Susan Slaviero.

Apotropaism is also an interesting one -- though my favorite part of Goblin Fruit is always listening to the readings posted with the poems. I haven't had the chance to take a listen yet, but certainly will at work tomorrow. I always find a poem that I didn't properly appreciate until I heard it.

This is one of the things that I love about journals like Goblin Fruit, The Dirty Napkin, and The Pedestal Magazine (to name a few) -- they give the poet the opportunity to send in a recording of them reading their poem, which I think is a simply lovely idea. It's one of the advantages of the internet. Not only is a poem readily accessible to the general public, but it can also be multimedia in such a way that it shows a poet's multiple talents and gets not only the poem out there, but also the poet's voice and reading. I don't think it is an idea that is properly appreciated by enough poets.

So take a look and a listen!