Elliptical Poetry, furries, etc etc etc

There's been silence over here, but with good reason, I swear!! Last week I was deep in the throes of planning/rehearsing/freaking out over TypewriterGirls Gone Furry. All elliptical time was spent memorizing my lines. Pretty much all my time for about three days straight was spent memorizing my lines, really.

It was all worth it, though - in spite of some minor snags (which all shows have, really) the show went amazingly well. Pittsburghers appreciated it, furries appreciated it, Ohioans Mary Biddinger and Juliet Cook appreciated it, and my brother made a damn fine Sidney Crosby. Also, I wore a gorilla suit in 85 degree + weather and did not pass out. That was more or less an act of god. We had the largest turn-out that I believe we've ever had for a show, and at least ten people have approached me since the show to make sure we'll be reprising this performance for next year's Anthrocon.

Speaking of Anthrocon, I have to say, I do <3 me some furries. Every one that I met was nice and helpful and the ones in fursuits pretty much all let me pet their fursuit, pull their tails, and get pictures. I can't say I personally will be going furry any time soon, but I'll totally hang out downtown when they're back next year.

I'm finally feeling like I'm getting back into the creative swing of things a bit. I say that tentatively, because I haven't seriously worked on anything for so long that I was starting to question labeling myself "poet" (not really, but you know...), but some things have occurred that have pushed me back toward my writing space, which is a space that I need to be in. I love writing and am at my happiest when I am writing and creating. I wonder if my discontent over the past 6 months had more to do with not writing and less to do with any other factor in my life.

A chapbook project I've been working on off and on over the past 4 years is taking off in my mind again. I used to be worried about some of the content, but I'm not now. If you want a small preview of my new old project, check out the newest issue of Pear Noir! - it's got three poems in it from this project, and I'm pretty darned excited about them. With that said, I was on the elliptical machine for 50 minutes yesterday (in spite of Ben's best efforts to distract me) and I read some of that issue of Pear Noir!

Pear Noir! #4 (Summer 2010) - One really great thing that I must say about Pear Noir!'s fourth issue is that it has an amazing sense of cohesion. I find that to be a very difficult thing to find in a literary journal - they're usually much more scattered than, say, a single-author collection or themed anthology, but the folks over at Pear Noir! pulled it off. There's a gritty darkness to every one of the pieces I read (even one about baking a pie). There is some weird shit in here. There's a fiction piece called The Robot Vampire Lioness, and yes, it is odd, off, and borderline-ridiculous (okay, maybe it did a flying leap over the border), but I liked it nonetheless, in that "what the fuck am I reading? This is absurd!" kind of way, and isn't that the best way, in the end? Go get yourself some Pear Noir! and not just because I'm in it.

Elliptical Poetry, Part 5 (1 of ??)

So I'm trying something new - I've decided to attempt to read a full-length book of poetry while on the elliptical machine. Of course, I can't be exercising for the hours that this would take, so I'll be reading a bit at a time. I'll probably go back and forth a bit - I've been enjoying chapbooks too much to let them go for more than a couple days. We shall see how it goes. Monday (yes, it's taken me that long to post this) I was on the elliptical machine for about 50 minutes, but I would guess that only about 20 of those were devoted to reading, the rest to chatting with Mihnea and Ben.





Manatee/Humanity by Anne Waldman (Penguin Poets, 2009) I got to see Anne Waldman and Gary Snyder read at this year's AWP and it was pretty fantastic. Quite different performances from two legendary poets. Of course I got in line for the book signing, and of course I paid a slightly inflated price so I would be able to grin like an idiot and ask Anne Waldman to sign my book (which she did, quite graciously - both she and Gary Snyder were extremely kind). So it is to my shame that only now have I cracked open Manatee/Humanity and gotten past the introduction. My excuse is that, because this book is based on the Kalachakra, I was hoping to read it with Mihnea. I got through the first two sections of the first part of the book on Monday - about 12 pages. Now, what I am about to say, I say in all seriousness - it is fascinating to read this particular collection while planning a TypewriterGirls show about furries. In the section that I've read so far, Anne Waldman is looking at the lines between humanity and the animal kindgdom, as well as what makes us the same. She purposefully blurs the animal with the human and sets her reader in the position of questioning why we treat animals so differently, so horribly, after all. While I will say that, for the most part, I do not see furries as a philosophical movement, I do find that desire to become an animal most intriguing, and not necessarily a deplorable thing. I'm very interested to continue on reading this book.

Yes I did just take one step from Anne Waldman to furries. What of it?






God I hope Anne Waldman isn't reading this...