C. S. Carrier

2011-05-30T12:08:00.000-04:00

I have a poem up at Leveler. It'll be up for one week.

I wrote the poem years ago in memory of my friend, Mandy Buchanan, who died after a fall from Cullowhee Falls. I had another friend who died in the same accident, but I haven't yet written anything for him.

The Editors of the journal have written a nice analysis of the poem. They note qualities of the poem I wasn't fully aware of when writing it, and they note qualities of the poem I was fully aware of when writing it, such as the role of repetition and reiteration. It's nice to see the Editors write so adequately about what I was attempting with the poem.

2011-03-30T15:29:00.000-04:00

Dear Barack Obama,

I still believe in changing the political system and that there are ways to do so, but find your attempts too few or nonexistent. Also, you haven't followed through on promises made, e.g. closing Guantanamo. I think I would like my vote back.

Sincerely,
Chris

P.S.: I realize that the political system is a flawed organism and the task you set for yourself herculean, but still...

2011-03-09T11:53:00.000-05:00

Dear James O'Keefe,

Just because you clandestinely taped one NPR executive expressing vitriol doesn't mean that you have "exposed the true hearts and minds of NPR and its executives." All you've done is "expose" the biases of one individual.

Your conclusion is an example of the Hasty Generalization fallacy. It may also be an example of the Biased Sample fallacy. In any event, use of such fallacies is ill-advised as they aren't logically sound, illustrating a deficiency in critical thinking ability. I'd suggest revising before people draw conclusions about you.

Sincerely,
C. S.

P. S.: Thank you for your hard work; exposing "true hearts and minds" via hidden cameras and elaborate skits isn't easy.

2010-12-23T19:44:00.000-05:00

I'm in Waynesville, NC for Christmas. I grew up here. My moms lives here. If she didn't, I wouldn't come back. There wasn't much for me when I was here, and there isn't much for me when I return.

The town has changed, certainly. It's bigger, and there are more people. There are new police and fire stations. There are myriad arts and crafts stores (emphasis on crafts). There's a nice coffee roastery/cafe. There's a bookstore, Blue Ridge Books.

There used to be another bookstore, Osondu, where I gave a reading in 2009. I discovered today that Osondu closed because it'd been bought out by Blue Ridge Books. I was disappointed because a town needs more than one bookstore. It was comforting that Osondu had at least been taken over by another bookstore.

2010-12-14T22:07:00.001-05:00

The University of Minnesota Twin Cities said thanks, no thanks.

The Rutgers University Camden said thanks, no thanks (to a Visiting Professorship).

Hobart and William Smith Colleges said thanks, no thanks.

Shippensburg University said something in a pseudocryptic email.

Georgia Southern University said I'd made it past the initial screening.

California State University San Bernardino said send more materials.

2010-12-10T12:37:00.000-05:00

Adam's reading at Inescapable Rhythms on Wednesday night was great. There was a nice spread of food: cookies, brie, caviar, strawberries, wine. We take care of own at Inescapable Rhythms. Adam read well from Color Plates, a book I'm liking more and more.

There were new faces in the audience, many of whom read and read, or performed, some songs and performance poems. I read "The Mind's Ordinary Task" from After Dayton, a poem I never read, not for any mistrust I have for it, but for it's longer length. I need to practice reading it in order to get the pauses and intonations right. I'd initially planned to read two newer poems and Ted Berrigan's "Red Shift."

After the readings were over I walked into the Real Art Ways gallery, to a smaller room where David Wojnarowicz's "A Fire in My Belly" was being shown. The video is amazing, and I encourage folks to see it. This video was part of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery's exhibit "Hide and Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture," a show that explores the role of gay identity in art. It was a part of the show until Republican lawmamkers, namely John Boehner and Eric Cantor, cried wee wee wee and threatened arts funding, leading the NPG to remove it.

The bigotry exhibited by legislators, particularly the Republican ones, around this issue, not to mention others, is beyond pissing me off. It's shameful and disgusting in America, 'Merica, "land of the free," a country that prides itself on its freedom and plurality, that is a defender and warmonger of democratic values. Land of the free my ass. Dear John Boehner, looks as though your new fame and power is transforming you into one of those.

2010-12-02T20:17:00.000-05:00

Adam Golaski @ Inescapable Rhythms

Wednesday, 12/8
7 pm

Real Art Ways
Hartford

Special book release party for Adam's Color Plates!

Adam Golaski is the author of the aforementioned Color Plates, recently published by Rose Metal Press. His Worse Than Myself was published in 2008 by Raw Dog Screaming Press. He is an editor for New Genre and Flim Forum Press.

Hear Adam read from Color Plates. Buy the book from him. Eat and drink some stuff. Be merry. Stay for the open mic that will follow.

2010-11-26T22:05:00.000-05:00

We're in the Berkshires for Thanksgiving. We're staying at a resort called Vacation Village in the Berkshires, across from Jiminy Peak. The slopes are visible from the window. They've been making snow since yesterday. It snowed for about an hour this morning.

Last night, we had a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. Wild mushroom and tempeh fricasee, garden vegetable gratin, and brioche stuffing. We were supposed to have an arugala salad with cranberries and walnuts but forgot. It took so long to make and being in a foreign kitchen didn't make it easier.

Earlier today we went to the mall to have the car checked out and had to wait for several hours. To pass the time, we went to the cinema. We watched Love and Other Drugs then sneaked in to watch Burlesque. Now I'm watching The Wizard of Oz.

I'd planned to catch up on some reading: John Woodward's Rain, Eric Baus' Tuned Droves, Matthew Rohrer's A Green Light, and Christine Hume's Alaskaphrenia. But again, I'm watching The Wizard of Oz.

2010-11-11T11:15:00.000-05:00

I was glad to see those who came to the Inescapable Rhythms reading last night.

Ken Cormier gave a different kind of reading. He sang, chanted, read. He involved the audience. It was engaging and fun.

For the first piece, he sat in a chair at the front of the room, offcenter. There was a portable stereo in another chair at the front of the room, offcenter also. He seemed to be reading along as the voice on the stereo, presumably his, read the "poem." I say "poem" because the it was poem in the form of an introduction to a poem that was about to be read. The piece made fun of poets who, before reading the poem, give a protracted and annoying introduction to it, an introduction that explains the poem and its genesis and larger significance. Throughout the piece were snippets of applause, illtimed applause. The piece reminded me of Alicia Askenase's poem "State of Union," found at PennSound.

The next IR reading will be a book release party for Adam Golaski's Color Plates, just published by Rose Metal Press. I'd love to see the room exploding with audience. Adam is an excellent writer and reader. Anyone who comes will see, hear, that. Anyone who comes, presumably, will get a good deal on the book, as well as support a local reading series and artist. What could be better?

2010-11-05T18:04:00.001-04:00

The NEA has said no to my Fellowship application.

2010-11-04T10:52:00.000-04:00

Alan Michael Parker @ Cardin Reading Series

Thursday, 11/11
12:15 pm

Wilde Auditorium
University of Hartford

Alan Michael Parker is the author of two novels, including the forthcoming Whale Man (WordFarm, 2011) and Cry Uncle, along with five collections of poems, Days Like Prose, The Vandals, Love Song with Motor Vehicles, A Peal of Sonnets, and Elephants & Butterflies. He is also Editor of The Imaginary Poets, and co-editor of two other volumes of scholarship. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, The New Yorker, Paris Review, and Pleiades, among other magazines; his prose has appeared in journals including The Believer, The New York Times Book Review, and The San Francisco Chronicle. Alan Michael Parker is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a Pushcart Prize, the Fineline Prize from the Mid-American Review, and the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. Since 1998, Alan Michael Parker has taught at Davidson College, where he is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing; he is also a Core Faculty Member in the Queens University low-residency M.F.A. program. He lives in Davidson, NC, with his partner, the artist Felicia van Bork, and their son, Eli.

2010-10-29T14:07:00.000-04:00

Ken Cormier @ Inescapable Rhythms

Wednesday, 10 November 2010
7-9 pm

Real Art Ways
Hartford, CT

Cormier > teacher > performance poet > independent radio producer > musician > The Tragedy in My Neighborhood (Dead Academics Press 2010) > Balance Act (Insomniac Press 2000) > Nowhere Is Nowhere (Cosmodemonic Telegraph Records 2009) > Radio-Bueno (Elis Eil Records 2002) > God Damn Doghouse (Elis Eil Records 2000) > The Lumberyard, a radio magazine of poetry, prose, and music, which aired on WHUS in Connecticut from 2005 to 2008 > Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Quinnipiac University

2010-10-28T10:14:00.001-04:00

I teach, and have often taught, two courses at the University of Hartford: Introduction to Literature and Introduction to Creative Writing.

Both courses are requirements, as I understand it. Students must take the Intro to Lit, and they must take a writing intensive course, such as Intro to Creative Writing. It seems to me many take the creative writing course not for an interest in writing but for a perceived ease.

I appreciate the challenge inherent in teaching courses populated with students indifferent to the material and/or the university.

It's one thing to teach material to students interested in the material or in learning, and it's another altogether to teach material to students indifferent to the material or to learning.

While I appreciate this challenge, it also frustrates me. I think it'd be nice to teach courses with students who wanted to be there, who cared about the material, who cared about learning, who cared about being at the university.

The educational system has done such an effective job at producing drones. And it's demoralizing.

I'd like to teach courses with students who cared about literature and writing. I'd like to teach courses with students who understood the difference between receiving a schooling and pursuing an education. O, what heights we'd hit.

2010-10-25T23:11:00.000-04:00

This evening in the laundromat, the one over by Pho Boston, where we had dinner then did laundry.

There was a television tuned to a local news channel, one of those news channels that has a few segments which are looped continuously, complete with annoying commercials, PSA's, and music.

On the weather segment, the meteorologist says: . . . early morning Futurecast, where we show you tomorrow's weather today. . . .

Can't it just be a forecast? Why Futurecast? Isn't a forecast a prediction of the future, of what is believed to occur tomorrow or on days hence?

2010-08-05T14:23:00.000-04:00

Lisa Olstein @ Inescapable Rhythms (openmic to follow)

Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT

11 August 2010

7pm

Lisa Olstein is the author of Lost Alphabet, named one of the nine best poetry books of 2009 by Library Journal, and Radio Crackling, Radio Gone, winner of the 2005 Hayden Carruth Award. New poems have appeared recently in Glitterpony, jubilat, Indiana Review, and elsewhere. Cold Satellite, an album of songs based on her lyrics and poems is forthcoming from singer-songwriter Jeffrey Foucault. She is the associate director of the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-founder, with Dara Wier and Noy Holland, of the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts and Action.

2010-07-09T23:49:00.000-04:00

Literary Death Match 28
July 15, 2010

How many words are there for “gauntlet”? That’s a question for the wordsmiths we’ve summoned to the battlefield for LDM NYC ep. 28. Get ready to retire your rhymes, hang up your hyperbole, and prepare for a poetry explosion.

Three fearless judges will stoke the smokin’ literary bonfire: mega-watt poet Jeff McDaniel (Best American Poetry 1994 and New (American) Poets), high priestess of visual wordplay Kay Rosen (MoMA, The Whitney Museum, The New Museum) and Slam Master Flash Lynne Procope. Sparks are bound to fly between our sizzling hot readers: sonic spinner and chihuahua lover C.S. Carrier (After Dayton, Lyric, and The 16s), one-man soul train Jon Sands, the “hilariously spunky” poetess Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Founder of the Urbana Poetry Slam series, and verse virtuoso Michael Morse (as seen in The Iowa Review, Ploughshares).

Hosted by:
LDM NYC Exec Producer Ann Heatherington and Melissa Broder, author of When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother, and creator of The Polestar Poetry Series.

Where: Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery (map)
When: Doors at 7 pm, Show starts 8:05 pm sharp!
Cost: $7 in advance, $10 at the door, $5 with a valid Student ID
No one under 18 will be admitted

2010-05-18T15:51:00.000-04:00

I just received my contributor's copies of the anthology, Disco Prairie Social Aid and Pleasure Club, just out from Factory Hollow Press. It's a hardcover, measuring about 3.5" x 5" and containing work from 143 other poets.

Magcloud is now selling Postcard Feat, a chapbook of postcards I wrote with Yago S. Cura. The correspondence occurred over the course of a couple months in late 2007. Each of us produced the images and texts for the postcards, Yago by drawing/collaging and I by photographing.

2010-05-17T13:05:00.000-04:00

These devices, as exemplified by the above examples, create emphasis, urgency, sonic joy, and structure.

The repetition emphasizes the poems’ themes or subject matter, the complexity of those ideas or concepts. For example, Whitman’s use of anaphora and parallelism creates a catalog that reinforces the poet’s ideas about the beauty of the body, the significance of Abraham Lincoln, and the complexity of American democracy. The same idea appears in Bernstein’s poem, which is comprised of 95 sentences beginning “War is.”

These devices create urgency, that what is being written is barely containable in words and in the body, as in Ginsberg’s and Lorca’s poems.

The repetition also emphasizes the poems’ words as well as the sonic and often arbitrary nature of language, of signs and signifiers. For example, Jarnot’s poems “Song of the Chinchilla,” “You, Armadillo,” and “Aardvark,” revel in the sounds of the words chinchilla, armadillo, and aardvark and question the relationships between the word and its referent.

These devices create a formal structure, an organizing principle without which the poem would dissipate like ether, as in Salamun’s “I See,” Smart’s “Jubilate Agno,” and Jarnot’s “The Bridge.” Organizing a poem with these devices is similar to organizing a poem with a metrical pattern or rhyme scheme.

2010-05-14T15:51:00.000-04:00

Of the poems I adore most, those that provide the most excitement and resonance are those that employ one or more repetitive rhetorical devices.

Smart’s “Jubilate Agno.” Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” among others. Lorca’s “Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias.” Ginsberg’s “Howl.” Baraka’s “When We’ll Worship Jesus.” Salamun’s “I Have a Horse,” “Jonah,” “Sunflowers,” “Dead Men,” “Who’s Who,” and “I See.” Notley’s “At Night the States.” Brathwaite’s “Negus.” All of Jarnot’s Ring of Fire, but particularly “The Bridge,” “Sea Lyrics,” “Song of the Chinchilla,” “You, Armadillo,” and “Aardvark.” Gizzi’s “Revival,” “Chateau If,” and “Plain Song.” Spahr’s Fuck You, Aloha, I Love You and This Connection of Everyone with Lungs. Mullen’s “Any Lit.” Bernstein’s “War Stories.”

What is it about these devices, these repetitions that I find so interesting as a reader and as a poet?

2010-03-22T16:06:00.000-04:00

Why can't poets get treated, i.e. get paid, like rockstars? Do we equate poems and songlyrics because we're afraid of poetry?

Why can't there be more than two political parties in the socalled greatest democracy on earth? Aren't there more viewpoints out there? Why must it be so expensive, making elected office an endeavor only the rich can pursue?

When will women win their reproductive rights? Can't women surely have the freedom to do what they want to and with their bodies?

Can't doing our taxes be simpler? Really?

Can't we just do what other democracies do and dissolve our legislative body and hold new elections when said body is being stupid? Why not establish termlimits?

How much longer will I have to live in this city? Why can't this city be cooler? Can't it have a really cool vegetarian restaurant like It's Only Natural in Middletown or Bela in Northampton?

What more must I do to get a tenuretrack job? Maybe we should just eliminate tenure? Isn't it a rather antiquated model? Doesn't it produce an academic environment full weird politics and entitlement issues and cuttthroat careerism?

When will I be able to walk into a supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks? What are good looks?

2010-02-16T21:53:00.000-05:00

I'm happy senator Evan Bayh isn't seeking a third term. All other senators and representatives--Democrat, Republican, whatever--should stop after two terms.

Evan Bayh's assessment of the current state of affairs in Congress--the rampant dysfunctionalism brought about by career politicians who are constantly move worried about reelection than pragmatic governance--is right on. Big ole stinking shitpile.

The partisanship and constant bickering, the procedural votes and filibuster threats, in order to score political points serves no end but that of scoring political points and keeping a system in place that benefits no one but lobbyists and their constituents and the careerist politicians.

Term limits are a cool idea. I think the early leaders had it right when they established termlimits for the president. They were afraid of one person acquiring too much power. Too bad they didn't foresee the possibility of powerhungry senators and representatives.

2009-12-26T22:23:00.002-05:00

Tuesday, December 29, 7pm

The Rotunda
4014 Walnut Street, Philadelphia
Click here for directions

Please join us to hear a bevy of local and visiting poets for 2009's MLA Off-Site Poetry Reading. Performances start at 7pm and will go until approximately 10pm.

The reading is free, ADA accessible, and open to the public.

(To reach the Rotunda from the Marriott Hotel, take the Market-Frankford subway line to 40th and Market or the #21 SEPTA bus to 40th and Walnut.)

2009-12-16T13:12:00.001-05:00

Schools with jobs that have decided not to pursue my candidacy:

    Saginaw Valley State University

Schools with jobs to which I want to apply:

    Kent State University
    Malone University

2009-12-03T16:02:00.001-05:00

Schools with jobs to which I've applied:

    George Mason University
    University of Houston
    Cornell University
    University of Oregon
    Nebraska Wesleyan University
    University of Tampa
    University of North Carolina Greensboro
    Bennington College
    University of Massachusetts Lowell
    Saint Lawrence University
    Penn State University York
    North Central College
    Eastern Michigan University
    Saginaw Valley State University
    High Point University
    Phillips Academy
    Texas Christian University

Schools with jobs to which I wanted to apply but didn't for unknown reasons:

    College of Charleston
    University of Nevada Reno

Schools with jobs to which I want to apply:

    University of Connecticut
    Quinnipiac University
    Gettysburg College
    St Mary's College (x2)
    Ashland University
    Gilman School
    Wichita State University

Schools with jobs that are no longer pursuing my candidacy:

    George Mason University

Schools with jobs to which I wanted to apply but didn't because I felt I didn't have a chance in hell to get:

    Brooklyn College

Schools with jobs for which I'd love to interview:

    All of them.

2009-11-24T11:02:00.000-05:00

The reading in Providence was a good time. Kate Schapira, though under the weather, was a gracious host. She gave each reader a copy of her Heroes and Monsters. Ada Books was a gracious host, too.

I sat in the front row, about three feet from the poetry section, and while Kate was introducing me, I looked at the shelf and saw Christine Hume's Musca Domestica looking back at me. Buy me, it said. And so I did. I'd been looking for this book.

I'd developed a headache about an hour before the reading started. It abated slightly as the reading progressed then came back more fully afterward, which was a drag because that's most hobknobbing happens.

I met the other readers, and they were nice. And they read well. Deborah Bernhardt, a Four Way Books pressmate, read from Echolalia and newer poems. James Copeland read from unpublished work. In one poem he presented the image of a dog walking sideways, and all I could do for the rest of his reading was imagine my Merwin walking sideways.

Deborah read first, James second. I volunteered to read last because of the headache, though I often volunteer to read first, as a way of keeping the nerves in check.

I read poems I usually read, poems from After Dayton, which is what I'm trying to promote. I also peppered the reading with poems from the second manuscript, also something I usually do. This time I read a poem from the manuscript that I've never read at a reading. I need to practice reading that poem.

I read well. Things I need to not do when reading: fidgeting between poems, e.g. touching my hair or face; explaining the law of universal gravitation, even in the limited way I've been summarizing it; announcing the number of poems left, which wasn't something I did this time.

Providence was excellent. I wish Dawn and I had had a longer visit. While we didn't see enough, she did drive me around some of her old haunts. We snacked at AS220, which had done away with its taqueria, but nevertheless had excellent food. We went to Symposium books and to dinner at Julian's after the reading. I liked Providence a lot and would certainly enjoy living there.

2009-11-17T09:39:00.001-05:00

C.S. Carrier

Deborah Bernhardt

James Copeland

read their poetry to you

Saturday, November 21st, 6 p.m.

at Ada Books (717 Westminster St., Providence)

About them:

C. S. Carrier's the author of the poetry collection After Dayton, published in 2008 by Four Way Books. He's also the author of Lyric, published by horse less press, and The 16s, published by Katalanche Press. His poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Bird Dog and Word For/Word. He has degrees from Western Carolina University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He lives and adjuncts in Hartford, CT. He has a Chihuahua named Merwin and a blog named O Say Can You Chihuahua.

Deborah Bernhardt's first collection, Echolalia, was published by Four Way Books in 2006. During her 2008-2009 Second Year Poetry Fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, her project was her new manuscript. Her recent poetry can be found in Issue 16 of Free Verse and forthcoming in the January/February issue of Tikkun.

James Copeland is from New York, was educated in Connecticut and California, and currently works at Ugly Duckling Presse in Brooklyn. He is the author of the chapbook "A Constructing Egg", and as a founding member of the Paff-Butrin Orus collective he has performed at Dixon Place and Galapagos Art Space.

Like all our readings this one is boosted by RISCA. Thanks, RISCA!

2009-10-30T14:13:00.002-04:00

Polestar #15

Sunday, November 1, 2009
5 pm

C.S. Carrier
Roddy Lumsden
Emmett Tracy

CAKESHOP
152 Ludlow
(between Stanton & Rivington)

Trains to:
Delancey-Essex Sts (F, J, M, Z)
2nd Ave-Houston St (F, V)
Grand St (B, D)

About the poets:

C. S. Carrier is the author of the poetry collection, After Dayton (Four Way Books, 2008) and the chapbooks, Lyric (horse less press 2007) and The 16s (Katalanche Press 2007). He was born in Dayton, Ohio and grew up in North Carolina. He attended Western Carolina University and the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His poems have appeared in many journals including American Letters & Commentary, Bird Dog, Coconut, Pleiades, and Word For/Word. He has a longhair Chihuahua named Merwin. He lives and teaches in Hartford, CT.

Roddy Lumsden has published five books of poetry, most recently Mischief Night - New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2004) and Third Wish Wasted (Bloodaxe, 2009). Originally from Scotland, he lives in London where he is a Core Tutor for the Poetry School. He has done editing work on several prize-winning poetry collections and for the up-and-coming small press tall-lighthouse, for whom he edits the Pilot series of chapbooks by Britain and Ireland's best younger poets. Identity Parade, his major anthology of recent UK / Irish poetry is due in 2010. Lumsden is organiser and host of the monthly reading series BroadCast in London, which specialises in themed multi-poet events. In 2009, Poetry magazine awarded him the Bess Hokin Prize. An Eric Gregory Award winner and former Vice Chair of the Poetry Society of Great Britain, he has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and was awarded an International Fellowship at the Banff Center in Ontario in 2001. He works as a puzzle and quiz writer and popular reference compiler / editor.

Emmett Tracy is a Dublin-based poet, educated in North Carolina, Massachusetts and New York City. His poems have appeared in Island (Tanzania), Seam (Cambridge) and various anthologies. He has received fellowships from the UCross Foundation (Wyoming) and Williams College (Massachusetts). His recent readings include National Poetry Day Ireland, Abyat Marrakech (sponsored by the Goethe Society), and the Heartland Reading series which he co-organized with poet Tom Haushalter. He currently splits time between the Atlas Mountains (Morocco), Cullowhee (North Carolina), and Dublin.

2009-09-22T09:50:00.002-04:00

The current economic reality is unfriendly, even more so than usual. What I mean is that it's always been hard as an artist, in good times and bad, to make art and make a living. All I want is to make poems.

Based on the current financial environment and a recent conversation with Dawn, I've decided to follow my athlete brothers and sisters into the world of corporate sponsorship and endorsements.

I'm willing to consider any sponsorship/endorsement deal. If corporations do their part to fund me and my art, I'll do my part to endorse their products.

I have a blog and a Facebook page and will soon have a website on which I can drive the products of my sponsors. I can endorse products at readings I give, and I'm not above product placement in poems.

While I'd consider anything, I'd prefer to work with corporations already involved in my life. For example, I write with Sharpie pens and sometimes use Ticonderoga pencils; a deal involving these companies would make a lot of sense.

I use Moleskin notebooks. I use Apple computers. I use paper but don't have a particular brand at this point. I'm open to offers, particularly those from companies that manufacture recycled, cottonfiber, and hempbased papers.

As I also wear clothes, I could see having a deal with clothing manufacturers. Ben Sherman, ASICS, Levi's, Diesel, Banana Republic, Armani, Gucci, Fruit of the Loom. Also, food and drink: Silk, Odwalla, Smart Water, Guinness, Whole Foods.

2009-09-22T09:10:00.002-04:00

Word for/Word #15 is now up.

Includes work by Matthew Klane, Brooklyn Copeland, Larry Sawyer, Mg Roberts, and others. Also, a poem of mine and an interview of me by Elizabyth Hiscox.

2009-09-16T22:53:00.002-04:00

I looked at the MLA Job List today. I was physically sickened by it, the lack of prospects for next year. Too bad I'm not a fiction writer or nonfiction writer. No, I'm a poet with an MFA.

If I couldn't get a job, even an interview in a good year, a year with a lot of openings, I'm surely fucked this year. There are some openings for poets. There are a few that excite me. But I'm not optimistic at all.

University of Oregon, George Mason University, and the University of Houston--these are exciting. I'd love the Oregon job. Then there's the position at Brooklyn College--holy crap. I'd most definitely be down for that. And I'd most definitely be an excellent fit for that program. But I won't even get an interview.

In any event, looking at the Job List today made me consider even more going back to school for a PhD in Creative Writing. I've been thinking about it for a couple years, even researching programs and soliciting/downloading materials.

I spent a lot of time today thinking and writing about why I would want to pursue a Phd in Creative Writing and whether or not I had it in me to succeed in a Phd program. I have good reasons for pursuing a PhD in CW. Many of the reasons resemble reasons I had for pursuing an MFA in CW. Environment, community, focus, stimulation, time to write, teacher training.

The reasons for doubting myself aren't good, but they're powerful nonetheless. Being a PhD student doesn't seem to me as though it would provide the kind of living situation I've been wanting since leaving grad school. I'm tired of getting by. I'd like to move towards buying a house and starting a family.

That reason doesn't hold much water. I recognize that. But the other reason for self doubt is--I've never been the best student. I've always opted to spend my time on poems, on trying to have experiences. I've never been good with deadlines, writing papers, theory. Do I have it in me to dedicate myself the way I feel I would need to? Do I possess or can I come to possess the academic rigor necessary to succeed?

I think I do, given the right program, the right environment. I can do anything I decide to do. I'm a fucking Capricorn. I've got fucking horns and fins.

My list of PhD programs looks like this: University of Illinois Chicago, University of Denver, University of Houston, Florida State University, University of Cincinnati, University of Nebraska Lincoln, University of Southern California, SUNY Albany, SUNY Buffalo, University of Georgia, Western Michigan University, and Illinois State University.

2009-09-03T21:28:00.002-04:00

I'll be the featured reader for the Inescapable Rhythms Reading Series, 14 October 2009. It'll be at 7pm at Real Art Ways in Hartford.

There will be an openmic after my show.

I'll read from After Dayton. I'll also read some newer poems.

I'll sell books. And rock panties senseless. I may even be persuaded to lay hands and kiss the foreheads of infants.

2009-08-13T09:02:00.002-04:00

I went to the Inescapable Rhythms reading last night. It was at the Alchemy Juice Bar. In fact, it was in the building next to Alchemy, some center for social consciousness, which is affiliated with Alchemy. It was IR's last night at Alchemy, as next month IR will move to Real Art Ways. In case you don't know, IR is held the second Wednesday of every month. As far as I can tell, it's the only regularly scheduled reading series in Hartford and worth attending. I've been twice, last night and the reading in July, which was headlined by Ravi Shankar. In case you can't tell, the readings consist of a headliner, who reads for about half an hour, and an openmic session, in which participates read for about five to seven minutes. I've been twice now and have been surprised by the quality of work, particularly by the openmic readers. There have only been two readers, one each time, that I wasn't interested in. That's a pretty good ratio. Last night was a fiction night. The headliner was Dan Pope, whose work I was not aware of. Dan was followed by an openmic session that consisted of maybe six people, including moi. Dan read two short stories, one in which some friends go to a drive-in to watch Deep Throat and one in which a man and a woman and a dog are driving from Providence to Denver to start a new life. I liked both pieces, particularly the second one. The dog in the story is an angry dog afflicted with hip dysplasia who at the end begins talking to Al, the main character, who had recently consumed a pill of questionable color. Of the openmic readers, I liked the short story that Kristin, the cohost, read: beautifully textured and poignant story about two women in Mumbai. I liked Adam Golaski's pieces. There was a woman there, Alexis, who read two epistolary pieces to old buildings in her postindustrial hometown, which I found out later was Holyoke, MA. They were interesting, particularly the idea and salutations of each piece. I'd tried to generate a short story, since it was fiction night, but couldn't get anything that wasn't shit. So I read a short story, "Blind Girls" by Jayne Anne Phillips, and a poem of mine with a "narrative thread," as I put it. The poem is a new one that will be published soon by Word For/Word, alongside an interview of me by Elizabyth Hiscox. I was surprised by the positive response it got. Several people commented on it afterward; many called it sexy. I can dig that. The next reading is September 9, and I won't be able to make it because of my night class. Drag.

2009-08-05T23:34:00.002-04:00

I drafted a poem today. It had meerschaum in it. It had Michael Jackson in it. It had the Luftwaffe in it, barreling down on Guernica. It began "God's head in graphite." I like that. In fact, I like the first four lines of the poem. I like the poem less as it progresses. It needs a lot of refining. It has all these disparate elements, and I wonder how they will end up making a whole. In fact, many of my poems, particularly the recent ones (and by recent I mean the last couple years), are made of disparate elements, and I've spent a lot of time wondering about how these poems hold together. I wonder if this "problem" would be "solved" by a witty use of a title. I wonder if this "problem" would be "solved" by an intelligent use of a regular verseform. I wonder if this "problem" needs a "solution."

2009-07-25T20:05:00.001-04:00

I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands: one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands: one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

2009-07-05T15:11:00.003-04:00

Southern Excursion 1.0 (6/11/09-6/29/09)

Number of days it took: 19. Number of states involved: 12. Number of miles: 3210. Number of dogs that went with: 2. Number of thunderstorms passed through: 3. Number of laser shows seen at Stone Mountain: 1. Number of dogs that went with: 2. Number of poems written: 0. Worked on: 1. Number of grandparents I met: 2. Number of grandparents that impressed me: 2. Number of Dawn's siblings I met: 5. My siblings that she met: 1. Number of moms involved: 2. Dads: 1. Number of plants we came back with: 8. Birdnests: 1. Number of nights slept on the airmattress: 2. Number of nights we couldn't sleep on it because it wouldn't inflate because I plugged it in wrong: 1. Number of different beds slept on: 6. Number of nights spent in Hagerstown, MD: 1. Number of times we passed triplets of crosses on hills beside the Interstate: 9. Number of said triplets in VA and NC: 7. Number of giant paintcans passed: 1. Number of times we stopped just for sweet tea: 1. Number of times we saw Foamhenge: 1. Natural Bridge: 0. Fewest dollars it would've taken to see Natural Bridge, which would've included a tour of the wax museum, the Native American village, and a creation story involving Natural Bridge and Bible verses: 18. Number of times we ate at the Pink Cadillac, a fiftiesinspired diner near Natural Bridge: 1. Number of Cadillacs, pink, in the grass in front of the Pink Cadillac: 1. Number of unexpected wakes we went to: 1. Unexpected funerals: 1. Number of shirts I bought at a thriftstore in Roswell, GA: 1. Number I wanted to buy: 3. Number of summits climbed along the Blue Ridge Parkway: 3. Number of them climbed with dogs: 3. Number of ticks removed from my body: 1. From Merwin's: 2. Number of times I heard the phrase "I'm not taking responsibility for this decision": 4. Number of times that hearing it was too many: 5. Number of times Merwin and Bailey fought: 1. Number of times I left my keys on the roof of the car: 1. Number of times I found my keys still on the roof of the car: 1. Number of miles my keys traveled on the roof of the car, and through a torrential thunderstorm, no less : 357. Number of times Bailey crawled in the front passenger seat because of a thunderstorm: 2. Number of margaritas I drank: 4. Number of times we did laundry: 3. Number of pairs of socks left in Roswell: 1. Number of games played: 5. Number that were cardgames: 3. That were Yahtzee: 1. That were Scrabble:1. Number of points Dawn scored on one Scrabble turn: 80. Number of movies we saw at the theatre in Louisville, KY: 1. In Dawn's mom's livingroom: 2. Number of times that Dawn went swimming: 3. Me: 1. Number of times I floated on my back for more than 3 seconds: 2. Number of blocks I had to carry Merwin one afternoon in Louisville when it was wicked hot and he'd decided enough was enough: 4. Number of fastfood restaurants we ate at: 3. Number of bushels of peaches bought at a farmstand in north Georgia: 1. Number of days to consume said bushel: 4. Number of peach cobblers Dawn and I made: 1. Number of compliments received on said cobbler, especially from Grandma Gloria: priceless. Number of times I felt like a failure. 4.52. Number of arguments: 0. Number of times we aggravated each other: 47.7. Number of times we had to turn around: 2. Number of times Bailey vomited in the car: 1. Times Merwin vomited in the car: 0. Number of times we camped in the wilderness: 0. Number of pairs of shoes we took: 6. Number of pairs I took: 2. Number I actually wore: 1. Number of times we went to the Gap: 2. Number of caves or caverns visited: 0. Number of art galleries: 2. Number of times I felt a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: too many to count.

2009-05-28T11:23:00.000-04:00

May 29th @ 7 p.m. – Stain Bar – Williamsburg, Brooklyn

our last event at Stain Bar – the bar is closing! come for the sendoff!

***C. S. Carrier, Jennifer Firestone, Erica Kaufman, Matthew Klane, Maya Pindyck, Laura Sims***

C. S. Carrier was born in Dayton, OH and grew up in western North Carolina. His book,After Dayton, was published in 2008 by Four Way Books. He is also author of The 16s(Katalanche Press, 2007) and Lyric (horse less press, 2007). He adjuncts at the University of Hartford and lives in Sunderland, MA with a Chihuahua named Merwin.

~~~

Jennifer Firestone is the co-editor of Letters To Poets: Conversations About Poetics, Politics, and Community (Saturnalia Books). She is the author of Holiday (Shearsman Books), Waves (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs), From Flashes and snapshot (Sona Books). Her work has appeared in HOW2, LUNGFULL!, Xcp: Streetnotes,, Fourteen Hills, Dusie, 580 Split, Saint Elizabeth Street and others. She is an Assistant Professor teaching poetry at Eugene Lang College at The New School for Liberal Arts, and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their baby twins.

~~~

erica kaufman is the author of several chapbooks, most recently censory impulse (an excerpt of her long poem of the same title) (OMG, March 2008), civilization day(Open24Hours, Winter 2007) and censory impulse (an excerpt of her long poem of the same title) (Big Game Books, Fall 2007). kaufman holds an MFA from the New School and was the winner of the 2003 New School University Chapbook Contest. kaufman is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the CUNY Graduate Center. she lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan and teaches at Baruch College.

~~~

Matthew Klane is founder and editor of Flim Forum Press. His new book is B_____ Meditations (Stockport Flats Press) and his chapbooks include The- Associated Press, Sorrow Songs, Friend Delighting the Eloquent, and The Meister-Reich Experiments(online at www.housepress.org). Other work can be found in Plantarchy, string of small machines, and online at Otoliths and Word for/ Word. He currently lives and writes in Albany, NY. For more: www.matthewklane.blogspot.com.

~~~

Maya Pindyck is a poet and visual artist living and working in Brooklyn. Her poems have appeared in Sycamore Review, Mississippi Review, Bellingham Review, and other journals. She is the author of Locket, Master, which won a Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship in 2006, selected by Paul Muldoon. Her forthcoming first collection of poems, Friend Among Stones, won the Many Voices Project Award and will be published by New Rivers Press. In 2005, she co-founded Project Voice, an evolving compilation of abortion stories which aims to deflate the abortion stigma. Maya holds a B.A. in philosophy and studio art from Connecticut College, an M.F.A. in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and an M.A. in education through the New York City Teaching Fellows program. She currently teaches at a public high school in Brownsville.

~~~

Laura Sims is the author of two books of poems: Practice, Restraint, winner of the 2005 Fence Books Alberta Prize, and Stranger, forthcoming from Fence Books in April of 2009. Her book reviews and essays have appeared in Boston Review, New England Review, Rain Taxi, and The Review of Contemporary Fiction, and she has recently published poems in the journals Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, CAB/NET, andCrayon. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches writing at Baruch College in Manhattan.

~~~

stain
766 grand street
brooklyn, ny 11211
(L train to Grand Street,
1 block west)
718/387-7840
open daily @ 5 p.m.

~~~~

Hosted by Amy King and Ana Božičević

2009-05-26T12:01:00.002-04:00

I moved from Sunderland, Massachusetts to Hartford, Connecticut. I moved into a thirdfloor apartment near the University of Hartford. I moved into a West End apartment near Elizabeth Park and where Wallace Stevens lived. I moved into an apartment with Merwin, Dawn, and Bailey. I moved into an apartment with navy blue, cream, and red walls and a closet painted with weird yellow paint and bathroomesque graffiti. I moved into an apartment with a livingroom with the big window that overlooks the street, which I turned into a studio, a commandcenter, now called The Bridge. I moved into an apartment with more rooms than I need or have stuff for. I moved into an apartment with a guest room and a half bath that I hope my friends will take advantage of. I moved and will have a room dedicated to bicycles and crafts. I moved to Hartford after ten years in the Pioneer Valley. I moved to a city with what seems to be a small, perhaps nonexistent, arts community, an underwater river, and one of the highest poverty rates in the country. I moved to a city that doesn't have, as far as I've been able to ascertain, an ongoing poetry reading series. I moved to Hartford and will miss the Pioneer Valley, the poems I wrote there. I moved to Hartford after six years of commuting from the Pioneer Valley, averaging three days a week, an hour and ten minutes each way. I moved and began growing an avocado tree and will soon begin growing a Venus Flytrap. I moved and will start using the typewriter again, now that it has space. I moved and scared the crap out of myself. I moved and bought shelves from Ikea, a store I'd never bought anything from or even been into before. I moved and bought a big ass trestle table with Dawn, a table which will need a lot of sanding and refinishing and which will probably outlast either of us on this earth.

2009-05-02T13:27:00.002-04:00

I saw this review of After Dayton yesterday, thanks to a heads up from Ryan Murphy.

I saw this review of After Dayton a few months ago, thanks to a Google search of C. S. Carrier.

I'd like to see more reviews of After Dayton in the coming months. I'd like to see reviews from those that hate and love poetry. From academics and laypeople. From the New York Times and Vogue.

I'd like to see Oprah choose After Dayton for her Club. I'd like Barack Obama to read it.

2009-04-29T23:33:00.002-04:00

War is not the answer to terrorism. War is not the answer to depression. War is not the answer to Wall Street fuckups. War is not the answer to feeling disconnected from god. War is not the answer to god, the answer for god, and the lack thereof. War is not the answer to "Where's the beef?" or "Dude, where's my car?" War is not the answer to swine flu or bird flu. War is not the answer to computer viruses. War is not, no matter what George Bush says, the answer to any question. War is not the answer to oil shortage. War is not the answer to figurative language or the Spanish language, untranslatable languages or dead languages. War is not the answer to the desire for sex. War is not, not, not the answer to marmalade. War is not the answer to suicide. War is not the answer to killing the self. War is not the answer to television and rampant commercialism. War is not the answer to poetry. War is not the answer to the lyricpoem. War is not the answer to the question, and is not the answer to the answer. War is not the answer to why we enable others to treat us as less than human. War is not the answer to the physics problems I had to solve in highschool. War is not the answer to fighting, to peace. War is not the answer to financial problems or sexual dysfunction or flatfootedness. War is not the answer to Dwight Howard or D Wade. War is not the answer to why we think poems are riddles.

2009-04-25T22:50:00.002-04:00

War is not the answer. Chicken is not the answer. Poetry is not the answer. Suicide is not the answer. Life is not the answer. A gun is not the answer. A wad of money is not the answer. The television, with reruns and American Idol, with CNN and commercials, is not the answer. Fleece is not the answer. Zhang Ziyi is not the answer. Raquel Welch is not the answer. Oprah is not the answer. Jesus is not the answer. God is not the answer, neither is Allah nor Yahweh nor Shiva. The GPS is not the answer. The Civic Hybrid is not the answer. 33 miles per gallon is not the answer. The bumpersticker is not the answer. The Chihuahua is not the answer, though it's cuter than almost anything else. The cock is not the answer. The vagina is not the answer. Cuba is not the answer. Capitalism is not the answer, and neither is socialism. The cellphone is not the answer. The Tech9, the AK47, the RPG, the Glock--none of them is the answer. The poem is not the answer, though it's close. The painting, the photograph, the song, the sculpture--none of them is the answer. Going to New York is not the answer. Going to Paris, going to Rome, going to Berlin, going to Barcelona. Drinking Jack, snorting coke, meth. Fucking is not the answer, though it's fun. Though the stiletto is hot and could pierce the neck, it is not the answer. Though the wind through the window is nice, and the foxes in the distance, not the answer. Though the parsnips newly planted in the field across the street, and Tea Leoni running from velociraptors, and the cat resting on the back of the sofa near my head, not the answer. And the night with beer sans the beloved.

2009-04-24T11:34:00.003-04:00

It’s ridiculous to charge a pet deposit on top of a security deposit for an apartment. It’s ridiculous when people say poetry makes no sense. It’s ridiculous to not have a crush on Lisa Edelstein and Natalie Portman. It’s ridiculous to throw trash on the ground, particularly when there are objects like trashcans in the world, particularly when they’re as prevalent as they are. It’s ridiculous to live in a place where healthinsurance is beyond affordable, particularly when the law says you must buy it. It’s ridiculous to not appreciate art. It’s ridiculous to not know the difference between a passive and an active verb construction. It’s ridiculous to think my Merwin isn’t adorable. It’s ridiculous to live in a free society that abuses the rights of others in order to preserve the rights of those in that free society. It’s ridiculous that America doesn’t spend more on education and the arts. It’s ridiculous that poetry doesn’t sell for thousands of dollars like paintings and photographs do or earn fivefigure advances like fiction and nonfiction works do. It’s ridiculous that Hartford doesn’t have a more visible literary community, given the literary history found there. It’s ridiculous that spring is slow to spring this year. It’s ridiculous in this courtyard, amongst the fish floundering about. It’s ridiculous that I don’t exercise more, or at all, given my diet and family history of heartdisease and diabetes. It’s ridiculous that I don’t get more parades in my honor. It’s ridiculous the way Susan Boyle sang “I Dreamed a Dream,” and I mean ridiculous in that it was sick what we she did. It’s ridiculous that my students don’t work harder to make their essays more eloquent. It’s ridiculous that my students think that eloquence isn’t something I should expect from good, collegelevel writing. It’s ridiculous to think eloquence shouldn’t be expected. It’s ridiculous that I’ll sometimes try to use the force to bring objects to me from across the kitchen. It’s ridiculous that I haven’t written a poem today or that I didn’t write one yesterday. It’s ridiculous that words and language aren’t more like paint, clay, steel, or crayons. It’s ridiculous to think of a poem as a riddle, an equation, a code to decipher, and that if the answer isn’t found that the poem makes no sense. It’s ridiculous in this iceberg. It’s ridiculous to be an adjunct and to be exploited so. It’s ridiculous the death of horses, the torture of suspects. It’s ridiculous tsunamis in the diaphragm sweet like a parasol, like a bell floating through the Atlantic. It’s ridiculous the way I feel.

2009-04-12T12:38:00.002-04:00

Finally. A good idea: Powerhouse Project

Finally. Thinking outside the box, outside the grid. Thinking, building, creating something new. Making something. Life, perhaps.

I spent hours today reading about Mitch Cope's and Gina Reichert's project. I read almost every inch of the website and encourage others to do the same. It made me think a lot. It began to inspire me. Every few minutes I would unleash a "Yes!" and make my Merwin prick up his ears. My housemate would scoff. Her response: But it's Detroit.

I read the mission statement of the Powerhouse (Ph) Project. I read Mitch's blog. I watched the ABCNews segment linked at the Ph website. I listened to the NPR stories, also linked at the site. I'd first heard about the Ph on All Things Considered several weeks ago.

What is it about this story that strikes me?

That people saw a dire situation--the recent foreclosure crisis and erosion of their communnity--and decided to act to turn it into something positive. That they acted, have acted, are acting, in the face of a potentially debilitating situation. That they're creating.

That people are building their community, that they're engaged in their community with their hands and heads, demonstrating to others in the community and elsewhere that it's possible to live in a way that counters the sterile sense of community that seems all too prevalent.

That people are thinking out of the box, out of, or off of, the grid. That they're foregoing the standard way of powering a house, a home. That they're conscious of the environment.

That people are aware--of their surroundings, of their effect on those surroundings, of the effect of their surroundings on them and others. That they're aware of possibility.

Ultimately, this just makes sense to me. On a gut level, a chromosomal level. It's responsible, active, engaging, empowering.

I found myself thinking: This, this is something. This is something I could do. To be part of something like this. How could I be part of this?

2009-04-04T01:55:00.002-04:00

I'm reading tomorrow in Waynesville, NC. At Osondu Booksellers on Main St. At 3 pm. It'd be nice to have people there. It'd be nice to have people there to listen and furrow their brows. It'd be nice to have be there to buy books and support an independent bookseller.

I'm reading Sunday in Asheville, NC. At Malaprops at 3 pm. It'd be nice to have people at Malaprops on Sunday listening, furrowing, buying, and supporting.

2009-03-31T21:03:00.002-04:00

The poet is a profane display. The profane display is a collection of words that swells in the poet's belly. The poet sits at the typewriter and types words. The poet breaks into rain, which turns land green. The land is regenerated, and so are its people. The people fill their bellies with rain then swell with words, words that are both profane and sacred.

2009-03-30T22:37:00.002-04:00

The poet is an element of death. The element of death is a family name. The poet dresses himself in silk then immolates himself in front of the typewriter. The poet sings words, and more words. The words turn into elements. The poet uses the words to bring death, to bring life, the silk of it, and the fire.

2009-03-18T18:30:00.002-04:00

You can't be a serious artist if you listen to Tool, Metallica, and Alice in Chains. You can't be a serious artist if you don't listen to Radiohead, Okkervil River, and Joanna Newsom. You can't be a serious artist if you watch "American Idol" or "The Rock of Love." You can't be a seriously artist if you don't watch Kurosawa or Herzog. You can't be a serious artist if you don't drink beer, any beer, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Sierra Nevada particulary. You can't be a serious artist if you eat or have ever eaten at McDonald's and KFC. You can't be a serious artist if you don't shop at Whole Foods and if you don't eat whole grains. You can't be a seriuos artist if you don't shop at vintage clothing stores. You can't be a serious artist if you don't go to coffeehouses and drink espresso and eat cranberry walnut scones. You can't be a serious artist if you write poems about Britney Spears. You can't be a serious artist if you don't write poems with horses in them. You can't be a serious artist if you make work that's political or tries to engage in social issues. You can't be a serious artist if you know more lines from music and film than from poems. You can't be a serious artist if you wear Prada and La Perla. You can't be a serious artist if you don't fuck everything in sight, if you don't have countless sexual experiences. You can't be a serious artist if you go to the gym more than you go to the studio. You can't be a serious artist if you can't sleep through the night or if you don't have insomnia. You can't be a serious artist if you get married and have kids. You can't be a serious artist if you own a Chihuahua. You can't be a serious artist if you don't know what's meant by the phrase "to mine the past." You can't be a serious artist if you don't know the word "glean." You can't be a serious artist if you like sports, if you like watching basketball in March or going to Fenway Park in October, if you like playing soccer in the Harlem Y or tossing the football in the backyard. You can't be a serious artist if you eat chickenfingers and frenchfries. You can't be a serious artist if you have a blog or a Myspace/Facebook profile. You can't be a serious artist if you don't read and understand Wittgenstein and Derrida. You can't be a serious artist if you don't speak French or Spanish or any language other than your own. You can't be a serious artist if you make work that challenges the nonartist. You can't be a serious artist if you make work that doesn't risk annihilation. You can't be a serious artist if you make work that doesn't kill.

2009-02-27T14:22:00.002-05:00

The lyricpoem is invented by hedonism. The lyricpoem isn’t invented by hedonism. The lyricpoem is a movement through the asterisk of wax. The lyricpoem isn’t a movement through the asterisk of wax.

The umbrella looks like the color of snow, which snows like blood through the knuckles, the locomotive, and through the sutures of the orchid.

I write because of the asterisks. I write because of the words. I write because of the provocation. I write to provoke blood and fleece democracy of jailers and their keys.

+ + + +

Bleach invents me. Bleach bleaches my blood and voice. Minimumwage and workingclass knuckles define me. Minimumwage and workingclass knuckles barrage my eponyms.

The lyricpoem is a shovel, an asterisk. The lyricpoem waxes snow and its orchidlike thought.

I’m not a painter. I’m not a percussionist. I’m not an astronaut. I’m not a painter, percussionist, or astronaut because of words. I’m a lyricpoet because of words, those I like and those that provoke my knuckles and their hedonistic fleeces.

+ + + +

The wheatsheaves are jailed between the teeth. The eponyms are jailed between the teeth. Thought is jailed between the teeth.

Provocation, movement, hedonism, and association are locomotives sutured to an umbrella that bleeds my mouth.

The lyricpoem provokes the skull and its eponymous ideas of democracy. The lyricpoem isn’t a snowshovel, a suture, an asterisk, or a fleece. It isn’t a waxy key, even though I am.

I write because I like to. I write because I don’t like to. I write because I need to.

+ + + +

I shovel the thought from its paper. I shovel the teeth from their bleach. I shovel the voice from its god. The shovel is defined as words and the sounds of words.

The barrage of eponyms fleeces the associative locomotive. The barrage of eponyms and the associative locomotive are defined as thoughts.

I use the lyricpoem to invent my umbrella and provoke god, wheat, wages, and knuckles. It’s the same way percussionists, painters, or astronauts use percussion, paint, and space to invent their umbrellas and provoke god, wheat, wages, and knuckles.

+ + + +

Democracy is teeth wrapped in waxpaper. Democracy defines bleach and shovels it into my knuckles. Democracy invents me with a barrage of orchids and sutures.

I write lyricpoems because of the words I am. I write lyricpoems because of the words to be sheaved. I write lyricpoems because of the words barrage of provocation. The knuckles, the snow, the eponym, and the ideas of god all provoke me.

I’m not a painter. I’m not a percussionist. I’m not an astronaut. I’m a lyricpoet.

+ + + +

Locomotive means locomotive unless association reinvents the definition. The same goes for barrage, shovel, fleece, and snow. The same goes for all the words in the lyricpoem.

My words are shoveled into my knuckles by the lyricpoem. I’m shoveled into the lyricpoem by my words and their sounds.

The lyricpoem is definition, navigation, hedonism. The lyricpoem is minimumwage and workingclass. The lyricpoem is suturewax and orchidblood.

+ + + +

I don’t paint. I don’t drum. I don’t navigate space.

I do invent words with my mouth. Without the u, mouth becomes moth. Without the m and the h, mouth becomes out. Without the m, the o, and the t, mouth becomes uh.

To be a lyricpoet is to be an umbrella of wheatsheaves, an association of sutures. To be a lyricpoet is to be an asterisk of shovels, an eponym of locomotives.

God and hedonism are definitions. The skull and the minimumwage are jails. Words and the sounds of words, like snow, make me write the lyricpoem and move it mouthfirst into democracy.

2009-02-27T09:50:00.004-05:00

Levis Prize in Poetry

2009-02-20T08:53:00.004-05:00

I went to AWP. I'd never been to AWP. I had a good time, an exhaustingly good time. I've been to MLA, which isn't nearly the same. I'd certainly do AWP again.

I spent money on books and journals, money I didn't really have. I was happy to be supporting small presses, however. I bought Rising, And So, Tuned Droves, Undersleep, Pioneers in the Study of Motion, Irresponsibility, and Dog Girl. I bought chapbooks by Kate Schapira, Lytton Smith, Jessica Fjeld, and Maureen Thorson. I bought issues of Ninth Letter, Copper Nickel, Salt Hill, and Make. I bought Ellie Ga's Classification of a Spit Stain and Laura Solomon's Blue and Red Things. I ordered Alex Lemon's Hallelujah Blackout. I ordered books from Wave Books, where I also entered a drawing.

I heard Ada Limón, Alex Lemon, Wayne Miller, Ben Doller, Forrest Gander, Brenda Hillman, Rae Armantrout, Bruce Covey, Larry Sawyer, Jen Tynes, Gina Myers, Reb Livingston, Ken Rumble, Zachary Schomburg, and Adam Clay read.

I saw Rob and Natalie and Baus and Ashley and James and Dockins and Ethan and Dara and Peter and Monica and Michael and Valerie and Daisy and John and Amanda and Farrah and Jared and Kevin and Noah and Joshua.

I saw Anna Moschovakis, who apparently recognized me. I wondered if it was because she saw my nametag or she remembered meeting me at a 6x6 reading a couple years ago. I told her I'd like to know her reations to After Dayton, and she said she'd like to know my reactions to I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone.

I met Sommer Browning, Claire Donato, Elisa Gabbert, Jennifer Grotz, Kim and Adam Clay, Jon Thompson, Robyn Schiff, Matt Henriksen, Jen Tynes, Gina Myers, Bruce Covey, Larry Sawyer, Reb Livingston, Ada Limón, Alex Lemon, Zachary Schomburg, Sarah Dodson, Phil Jenks, Sally Ball, and Elizabyth Hiscox.

I hope Sommer Browning didn't think I was a dick. I was nervous and didn't know what to say and asked about potentially reading at Pete's, which I'd asked about previously in an email. I wasn't trying to be a primadonna. I hope I wasn't needlessly a dick or primadonna to anyone.

I was particularly happy to have met Ada Limón, who, I'm not embarrassed to say, I have a harmlessly small crush on. I would say the same about Gina Myers and Elisa Gabbert.

I wish I'd heard/met Prageeta Sharma, who was supposed to have read at the Milk/Coconut offsitereading.

I signed books with Farrah Field on Friday the 13th. I loved that I signed with Farrah and that we signed on Friday the 13th. I didn't have high expectations, which meant that I wasn't disappointed by, but rather pleased with, the turnout. I signed probably 7 or 8 books.

I went to the Diode/Anti- offsitereading. I was at the refreshment table after the reading, where, among other things, Matthew Guenette read "Sestina Aguilera" and Mary Biddinger was escorted on stage by peignoired nymphs. I was plucking grapes from a tray when a woman came up beside me and began plucking grapes from a tray, the same woman I'd noticed standing by the door during the reading. I became ridiculously nervous. I made a couple small comments, and she made a couple small comments. I realized later that she was Sandra Beasley. I wished I'd been more engaging.

I wished I'd participated in an offsitereading. I wouldn't mind participating in one next year.

I had ideas for potential panels/readings for next year's AWP: 1) a panel on the repetitive rhetorical device in lyric poetry with Tomaz Salamun, Lisa Jarnot, Charles Bernstein, Alice Notley, and Juliana Spahr, among others, discussing/reading their own work and/or discussing/reading the work of Peter Gizzi, Alice Notley, Harryette Mullen, Kamau Brathwaite, Allen Ginsberg, Ted Berrigan, Sylvia Plath, Federico Garcia Lorca, Gil Scott-Heron, and Walt Whitman, among others; 2) a panel on Black Mountain College entitled "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Black Mountain College"; 3) a Four Way Books/Ugly Duckling Presse offsitereading; 4) an offsitereading by graduates of the UMass MFA Program; 5) a tribute to Barbara Guest or Kamau Brathwaite or Robert Creeley or Noah Eli Gordon; 6) a tribute to Merwin, the poet and the Chihuahua.

2009-02-04T21:14:00.016-05:00

2009-01-31T11:28:00.003-05:00

Four Way Books at AWP 2009

Tables 465-466
Hilton Chicago, Northwest Hall, Lower Level

Books at Great Discounts
Submission Information

Friday Afternoon
Author Book Signings

1:00-2:00
C.S. Carrier, After Dayton
Farrah Field, Rising

2:00 - 3:00
Catherine Bowman, The Plath Cabinet
Daniel Tobin, Second Things

3:00 - 4:00
Joel Brouwer, And So

4:00 - 5:00
Paul Otremba, The Currency
Eileen Pollack, In the Mouth: Stories & Novellas

2009-01-29T15:53:00.001-05:00

I read at The Bowery Poetry Club on Sunday, 25 January 2009. I had never even been there before. I like it. I would go there more, particularly if I lived in the city.

I read to a crowd of a few dozen. I saw Anna and Emily and Zach there. I saw Hana there afterward, for she'd arrived late. I was happy Priscilla was there, and wearing such beautiful fur boots, boots she allowed me to touch, oolala. I was happy Lila was there. I was happy Dottie came with. I was happy I stayed with her in Queens, Sunnyside to be precise. I had never been to Queens and was impressed by the little of it I saw. I wish Yago and Amanda would've been there. I wish Christa would've been there. I wish Veronica would've been there.

I read first. Nancy Pearson read second. D Nurkse read third. And Bob Holman, who founded The Bowery Poetry Club, like thirty years ago, and who complimented me after, read fourth. I liked all the readers. I liked Nancy Pearson's new poem, the one she read that hadn't been published in a book. I remember its ending. I think D Nurkse read a little long, though I liked his work. I was happy Bob Holman gave a performance, more than a reading. I liked the Picasso poem he sang with guitar accompaniment. I liked its humor.

I, of course, read from After Dayton. I am trying to promote it after all. I read poems from it that I usually read: Azalea, Tomaz Salamun (If You Exist), Lyric, Sometimes, Marry Me. I read The Numbers of Dead too, making a joke about how it is included in my next manuscript. I read the other Lyric, the one with the moth, but I read only every other line starting with the first. I liked the juxtapositions and new phrasings this produced. I may do it again or use the same technique with other poem.

I killed. I was worried I'd read how I did when I read in November for the Bookrelease/Birthday Party--shaking uncontrollably, choking slightly, bantering distractingly. I didn't shake though. I didn't barf. I just read my poems, let them speak for themselves, something I usually do or like to do, something I learned from Dara Wier and James Tate and Peter Gizzi and Tomaz Salamun, among others. I usually hate banter, and so I was happy to not do that. I let the poems come out the way they come out. I used my voice, unfiltered. I was in a zone, something echoed by others who'd heard my read in November.

I went to Bar B after, with others: Martha, Ryan, Priscilla, Cathy, Lytton, and Jamie, among others. I liked the place. I would like to eat there in the summer. I liked being able to talk to Ryan and Priscilla and Lytton. I like them. I was struck, then intrigued, by Priscilla's comment that I came across as forward and confident when engaging women. I certainly don't see it. I told her part of what I explore in After Dayton is this deficiency, as it were.

I signed books, one for a woman named Rosaline/Rosalyn (spelling) from Providence who told me she was reading soon in Providence for a series curated by Kate Schapira, a series I should consider, seeing as how I'd like to read in Providence. I told her I'd try to contact Kate. I haven't been successful yet with that.

I got on the train directly after in to return to Sunderland. I read, on the train, the first forty pages of Priscilla Becker's Internal West, a gift from her for which I gave a copy of After Dayton. I couldn't stop reading Internal West, which won the 2000 Paris Review Prize. I adored it, its voice, imagery, song. I was smitten with the poems. I wanted to feed them grapes, curl up under a blanket with them, watch the sun through the window with them, press them to my neck. I am happy she and I are pressmates, and I'm stoked for her next book, coming in Spring 2010.

I was sad to leave. I was sad to leave the city and my people. I was returning to a place that doesn't do much for me socially and professionally and poetically anymore. I wanted to stay in New York. I wish I were there now.

2009-01-13T17:49:00.007-05:00

2009-01-05T15:01:00.002-05:00

I want my poems to sound like swarming cockroaches. I want my poems to be spears. I want my poems to do what Pantera's music, especially A Vulgar Display of Power, does. I want my poems to be vulgar displays of power that interrogate vulgar displays of power. I want my poems to do what Tool's or Stravinsky's music does. I want my poems to break legs then mend them in new ways. I want my poems to breathe sulfuric acid. I want my poems to be sulfuric acid. I want my poems to narrate my bewilderment, as Peter Gizzi would say. I want my poems to be like cyborgs, or the gears of cyborgs, or the neural nets of cyborgs, learning, learning, learning. I want my poems to burrow into the brain via the ear canal and the Erie Canal. I want my poems to have heart, to halve hearts. I want my poems to prognosticate, to nostrodamusize. I want my poems to play. I want my poems to come from limestone caves, the walls of which glow with glow worms and pulse with bats. I want my poems to be ugly. I want my poems to be percussive. I want my poems to percussively ugly. I want my poems to skate on thin ice. I want my poems to fall through the ice then become icebergs, icebergs that batter the sides of ships. I want my poems to spin. I want my poems on the ones and twos. I want my poems jumping double dutch in the school yard. I want my poems to like, like words and the possibility of words. I want my poems to live the materiality of words. I want my poems like San Francisco, like Paris, like New York. I want my poems to engage the intellect as one would engage a Rubik's Cube. I want my poems to defame categorization. I want my poems to kick the radio star and the movie star to the curb. I want my poems to walk the streets of Harlem at two a.m. looking for James Baldwin. I want my poems to be like the end of "Sonny's Blues." I want my poems to magic. I want my poems to dunk the ball like Shaq, to drive the lane like MJ, to swish from downtown like Bird. I want my poems to ollie the graves of my grandfathers. I want my poems to ain't going to take it, as Dee Snider would sing. I want my poems to Alice Cooper all over the place. I want my poems to be language equivalents of e equals m c squared, or force equals m times a. I want my poems in geosynchronous orbits around the earth. I want my poems to taste like pommes. I want my poems to taste like iron melting into steel. I want my poems to risk annihilation and to actually annihilate themselves. I want my poems to kill.

2008-12-15T18:02:00.001-05:00

When I write a poem I want the words in foreground. When I write a poem I want my words to be more the way clay is for Rodin, or paint is for Basquiat or Pollock, or notes are for Coltrane. When I write a poem I want to express my bewilderment, as Gizzi would say. I want the poem to recreate for a reader the conditions that exist in my in the process of imagining or finding what will suffice, as Stevens would say. When I write a poem I want a reader to feel my bewilderment with the world and with my process of engaging the world. When I write a poem I want to be irreverently reverent. I want to sing myself and the body electric, as Whitman would say. When I write a poem I want to flinch. I want to surprise myself. I want language to surprise me. When I write a poem I want the world to bristle. When I write a poem I don't want to know the answers. I don't want to look for anything. When I write a poem I don't want to prove anything to anyone but myself and/or poetry and/or the reader, mon lecteur. When I write a poem I'm writing my words. I'm having an experience with them and because of them. When I write a poem I want to have an experience with you, mon lecteur. When I write a poem I want blood, pulse, adrenaline. I want breathing. When I write a poem I write the supreme fiction, as Stevens would say. When I write a poem the I ceases to be an I. When I write a poem I'm making love to you, mon lecteur, literally and figuratively. When I write a poem I'm asking whether or not I'm here and under conditions and I here. I'm asking myself whether or not I think, and if so, do I exist, as Descartes would say. When I write a poem I'm conjuring poltergeists to rattle and hum. When I write a poem I write it because it's fun to make up things, to ponder what is and what might be. When I write a poem it's because I want to build a machine of words, as Williams would say. I want to build a machine in which there are no ideas but in things, as Williams would say. When I write a poem what I'm doing is writing a poem.

2008-12-11T11:06:00.002-05:00

If I were in charge, a president would be elected to a five year term and would not be eligible for re election. If I were in charge, no politician would be eligible for re election.

If I were in charge, every school, be it elementary, middle, high, or university, would have a poet in residence. If I were in charge, every school would have a painter, musician, photographer, novelist, dramatist, in residence.

If I were in charge, every one would have health insurance, affordable and comprehensive health insurance.

If I were in charge, I'd forbid words like czar be used to identify government officials and the words commander in chief to identify the president.

If I were in charge, creative writing courses would cease to be called creative writing courses and begin to be called imaginative writing courses. If I were in charge, people would understand all writing is creative, but not all is imaginative.

If I were in charge, paper would be made from hemp, not from trees.

If I were in charge, adjunct professors would be paid more appropriately than they are, and they'd certainly have affordable and comprehensive health insurance.

If I were in charge, I'd build an army of teachers, not an army of soldiers, and place those teachers in schools so students could benefit from more specialized and individual instruction, so teachers wouldn't be over worked and under paid.

If I were in charge, I wouldn't bail out American auto makers with a $14 billion loan. If I were in charge, I'd do more to require auto makers to manufacture environmentally and fiscally responsible autos. If I were in charge, electric autos would the norm, not the exception.

If I were in charge, national elections would be national holidays. If I were in charge, I'd make it so not only the rich could run for and win public office.

If I were in charge, governors wouldn't be allowed to appoint successors for vacated legislative positions. If I were in charge, constituents would vote for said successors.

If I were in charge, every one would have a wider knowledge of poetry, visual art, and music. If I were in charge, art would play a more significant role in the way we understand other subjects.

If I were in charge, any one would be able to marry any one. If I were in charge, I'd strongly encourage no one to marry better 30. If I were in charge, I'd strongly encourage every one to procreate less.

If I were in charge, Americans would work less and vacation more. If I were in charge, America would siesta. If I were in charge, America would adopt a four day work week and three day week end.

If I were in charge, church would play no role in government. If were in charge, I wouldn't settle for any thing less than the absolute separation of church and state.

If I were in charge, being an artist would be more celebrated.

2008-12-06T16:00:00.002-05:00

All I want for Christmas is for Ron Silliman to review After Dayton.

All I want for Christmas is the Assistant Professorship at the College of Staten Island.

All I want for Christmas is the Assistant Professorship at the University of California San Diego.

All I want for Christmas is my heart to grow back.

All I want for Christmas is a new pair of shoes, Diesel or Ben Sherman.

All I want for Christmas is to be able to read at the Kelly Writers House.

All I want for Christmas is a professional website, a dotcom, a domain name.

All I want for Christmas is a healthy Chihuahua.

All I want for Christmas is her.

All I want for Christmas is teeth, all of of them, hopefully none of them made of gold.

All I want for Christmas is the Assistant Professorship at Montclair State University.

All I want for Christmas is the Assistant Professorship at Eastern Michigan University.

All I want for Christmas is a review of After Dayton by Jen Tynes and/or Noah Eli Gordon.

All I want for Christmas is Yago and Sejal and Pallavi and Michael and Julie and Jason and Veronica and Christa.

All I want for Christmas is to write a poem, one as rad as Priscilla Becker's "Blue Statuary" would be rad.

All I want for Christmas is to resurrect "mondo" and reinject it into the lexicon.

All I want for Christmas is The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan, Grave of Light, Collected Poems of Anne Sexton, The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest, and The Complete Poetry of César Vallejo.

All I want for Christmas is an original Jean-Michel Basquiat and/or Frida Kahlo.

All I want for Christmas is an original W Tucker and/or Corey Arnold and/or Joan Linder and/or Lila Subramanian.

All I want for Christmas is a reading at The Poetry Project and/or Pete's Candy Store.

All I want for Christmas is a spanking.

All I want for Christmas is for Guillermo del Toro and/or Alfonso Cuarón and/or Alejandro González Iñárritu to make a film adaptation of the poems of Federico Garcia Lorca.

All I want for Christmas is pumpkinpie.

All I want for Christmas is a date with Jessica Cauffiel and/or Marisa Tomei and/or Natalie Portman.

All I want for Christmas is six white horses.

All I want for Christmas is to move to New York.

All I want for Christmas is you.

All I want for Christmas is my own personal jesus / someone to hear my prayers / someone who cares / someone who's there.

2008-11-08T17:32:00.002-05:00

Words make me bleed. Words make trucks come out of my arm like diamonds. Words are vivisection. Words are iteration. Words protrude from the spine like antlers. Words are like antlers, velveteen then smooth, dull then sharp, sometimes hung on walls above mantles. Words make me into a sun. Words make suns then throw them from the wharves. Words are blond ponytails. Words give me direction when compasses are broken. Words are better than compasses. Words never break and are constantly broken. Words get me out of bed in the morning. Words surround me. Words flow through me like spears or water or waterspears. Words wound then heal. Words heal. Words salvo words. Words make me bend in numerous directions simultaneously, like the Agents Smith dodging bullets in The Matrix. Words sound like guitars, the hands of Django Reinhardt. Words love me, fellate me. Words shove my hands down their skirts. Words are flashcards. Words are flashcards in coffeehouses. Words are flashcards in coffeehouses dreaming of electricsheep. Words maim the air, they maim the eardrum. Words pulverize the brain, they reduce the heart to ash. Words are never trustworthy, even on their best days. Words are bigger than I, bigger than you. Words are I and you, separate and together, conjoined, tunicked. Words, you shine your Maglites into my retinas which look like potatosalad. Words, you eat potatosalad when no one's looking. Words, I love potatosalad, and thus I love you, fear you. Words that fall asleep on the sofa. Words that curl up on the chest, Chihuahuas fraught with loss. Words that die, that never die. Words that require persistance. Words that drink bottles of wine and tousle on the subway from Tribeca to Harlem, only to have their pictures digitized. Words that are fleece. Words that are fleeced. Words hate me with all their might. Words hold me over firepits. Words tickle me with orchids, purple orchids like those in the window, purple orchids in silent lucidity. Words hot for teacher, that will possess your heart. Words named for light. Words pronouns. Words tropes. Words geometries. Words Jurassic. Words St Helens. Words Reaganized. Words serious and serial, selfsimilar. Words rain. Words politics. Words Hussein. Words Earl Grey. Words word. Words verbs. Words Paris, France. Words fall through lightboxes, evaporate on mirrors. Words end up hypnotizing the atmosphere, evaporating on mirrors. Words revivify the tongue, even Philomela's. Words recapitulate belief in god, only to shove it into a plethora of distended bellies, bellies that precede death. Words corrode like iron, like chains on swingsets, leftover from childhood, from the birthcanal, the resonatingchamber of exploded plasma, everpersistant and everblooming.

2008-11-04T16:36:00.002-05:00

I ain't no surrogate. I ain't no housekeeper. I ain't no political pundit. I ain't no harpsichord, strings intact or some busted free. I ain't no millionaire. I ain't no sportcoat hanging on a hook. I ain't no savior, crucified or otherwise. I ain't no quitter. I ain't no spirit floating through the atmosphere, lungs full of turpentine. I ain't no turpentine. I ain't no faggot. I ain't no hegemony. I ain't no body to be loved, only torn apart, pulverized, dehydrated, and poured into a skin sack. I ain't no whitey cracker. I ain't no Poet, no Academic. I ain't no reason to leave the house on a Friday night. I ain't no rapper, chemical engineer, firefighter. I ain't no salvager of placentas. I ain't no double negative. I ain't category. I ain't no picture on a wall, digitized, uploaded onto Facebook or O Say Can You Chihuahua. I ain't no body you can't love or have a fling with. I ain't no body devoid of emotional availability. I ain't no narcissist, no matter what you read here, no matter how much money I get paid. I ain't no backstabbing moneygrubbing pipsqueak. I ain't no moist towelette shoved between the thighs. I ain't no crow, peregrine falcon, blue heron, cardinal, or woodpecker. I ain't no rat, crab, billygoat, snake, or grizzlybear. I ain't no what you talkin bout Willis. I ain't no the revolution won't be televised. I ain't no patsy. I ain't no scotchtape or scotchtape dispenser rocketing through the spacetimecontinuum, tail frozen like a samuraisword.

2008-11-02T15:35:00.001-05:00

One of my dearest peeps, Christa Parravani, is a photographer, an excellent and most gifted photographer.

You should come to her first solo show, which opens on Thursday, November 6 and runs until December 11 at Sara Tecchia Roma New York. The exhibit is called Spoon River: New Photographs by Christa Parravani. Yes, the Spoon River of the title is a reference to Edgar Lee Master's Spoon River Anthology, and that's all I'll say about that.

You should come to the reception on Thursday, November 6 at 6pm. It'll be totally rad, probably the most fun you could have with your clothes on. You should come.

You should come because art is important. You should come because I've seen the work, and it's resplendent, transformative, and unsettling, unsettling in the way that art should be.

You should come because you can, because you live there, in the city or near it. It'll be a hopskipandajump away.

You should come and bring your eyes, glasses too, if necessary. You should dress appropriately, in nice clothes, if for no other reason than to feel good about yourself, and because Christa likes nice clothes. Just don't upstage her, as if you could, no offense.

You should come and bring your wallets, checkbooks, coinrolls. You should buy her work because your home deserves it, as does your brain. And that's that.

2008-10-29T13:47:00.002-04:00

I'm reading this Friday, Halloween, at Amherst Books, in Amherst, MA. I'm reading at eightoclock in the afternoon. I'm reading from After Dayton for the first time in public. I'm reading poems in public on Halloween--scary rad.

I'm reading Thursday, November 20, one week before Thanksgiving, at McNally Jackson Booksellers in NYC. I'm reading at sevenoclock in the afternoon. I'm reading from After Dayton and celebrating fifteen years of Four Way Books. I'm reading then eating cake.

2008-10-22T14:54:00.000-04:00

She sits in the frontwindow of Amherst Coffee. She sits on the other side of the room from me. She sits over there, unaware of me, unaware of my eyes. She sits there with her red hair, curly and pluming from under her hat.

She has a spider on her hat. She has black boots and black scarf around her neck. She has an Apple laptop glowing against her face. She has a smile that lets out light like a reactor lets out radiation.

She smiles, and I collapse. She smiles at the computerscreen, and when she turns to catch me noticing her, imagining her perfume, the insteps of her feet, wondering about the scope of her intellect, her compulsions. She smiles at a textmessage. She smiles, and I smile.

She makes me want to run through the streets, arms waving, screaming. She makes me want to write words. She makes me want to eat them as I would chickenwings or popcorn or frenchfries. She makes me into a jabberwocky.

She follows me home and moves about the house, poking through the closets, the mailstacks. She follows me because she wants to kill, and perhaps because I want her to kill me. She follows me, praying for tulips. She follows me into the dark aqueducts, the desperation that flows through me, my pulverized insides.

She's a hammer to my glass. She's a hatchet to my sapling. She's an aneurysm to my brainstem. She's a meteorite to my continent. She's a spear to my hipbone. She's a plaidskirt to my nightterrors. She's a lorazepam to my adrenaline. She's an x to my y.

She keeps me safe in unsafe times, times like these, when everyone has fallen ill and bereft of each other. She keeps me locked in a hyperbaricchamber, just out of reach of the air and the snow that lilts through it. She keeps me then throws me away. She keeps me so I don't have to.

She embraces me and my need to make poems. She embraces my need to joke, even at seemingly inappropriate times. She embraces my honesty and restless need for honest and direct communication, even if it means communicating things ornamented with razors or bludgeons. She embraces my cultural junkyism.

She walks from her chair to the bar, accompanied by Miles Davis. She walks, accompanied by my admiration, my fear of rejection or my fear of acceptance or both. She walks across the room, through time, as though it were a slight nuisance. She walks through me, a large python around her waist, which she soon places upon my shoulders.

2008-10-21T11:37:00.004-04:00

After Dayton is now available from Four Way Books and University Press of New England. It can also be ordered at independent bookstores such as Amherst Books, Malaprops Bookstore/Cafe, McNally Jackson Booksellers, and City Lights Bookstore among others.

2008-10-16T10:59:00.002-04:00

If I die. If x. If I think this sucks. If I think my book sucks or that book sucks. If what's this. If I get lupus or catch gonorrhea, with wings like a cherubim. If I once was a man from Nantucket, and two tears in a bucket, mother, mother fuck it. If I crawl on all fours, o slave, o hoopjumper, especially if I do so because I suck. If I'm waiting for a meteor or a comet or a nuclearblast or an aneurysm. If I'm narcissistic like me. If I think it's about me. If everything I read. If I believe. If I vote or don't vote. If I write with reckless abandonment. If I write x, not the variable or the metaphor, but the actual letter, o handwriting, o commodification of art. If I'm burning up on the inside. If I'm burning because I killed the hope inside me. If I believe I have that much control. If x because x. If x because chickens and salmon and spinach salads and tarragon. If soup and muffins. If the Chihuahua chewing the shriveled bull cock, on the floor beside the sofa I sleep on, or on my chest on the sofa I sleep on, or between my legs on the sofa I sleep on. If I could only remember. If it even mattered. If I feel like a bargain, if. If I want to embrace apathy and fauxnihilism. If I stop. If I stop again to think. If I end up on the cover of a magazine. If I end up in a trashcan or in the scat of crows. If I write about me and my book. If azalea and propeller. If divorced from the actual letters. If I cared, if I couldn't care less. If I douse myself with kerosene. If I drink beer. If I snort blow. And if nothing is solved or even absent from thought. If I want to bludgeon the Senate. If I want a debate that involves presidential candidates in a squaredcircle employing Figurefours and Cobraclutches and Suplexes. If I die before x, if x dies before me. If Tristan, if Iseult. If there's a prison in the harbor, glistening with red iodine. If there's a happyending. If this, if that, if piss, if casts. If I get a whiff of what the sun shits down on me in the early morning. If McCain sucks, if Obama sucks, my country tis of thee, o brother, o Tripoli. If warmongering, cockswinging capitalism, neoconservative evangelical cockswinging, testosteronemongering, o god ruining government. If my time thinking about me is a waste. If there's a bloodorange hovering above, if there's a. If redaction. If canticle. If privy to. If I suck, which I do. If I am a poet, and x is not. If I am an academic, and x is not. If I say in this instance. If I say it and if it isn't true but false, but fiction. If I want to. If I don't. If in the span of time or the next life or god's face on the grilledcheese. If the way I feel right now is the best I'll ever feel. If the stapler on the desk is glowing, but I'm not even sitting at a desk or at a desk with a stapler and that staplers can't fly or speak or glow. If I'm just using my imagination. If I see myself in x. And if I don't. And if I didn't want to. And if as if. If mayhem, pandemonium. If fantasy, imagination. And if it gets a bad rap because of expectation, because if in a blog I'm supposed to be true, myself. If it, imagination, is rooted out because it's the best part of being human. If plasticcups, not the real ones, but the imaginary ones or the ones I saw when I was 12 that have now come rushing back into my life, at this hour, under this dysfunction. If sexualconquests and sexualconquistadors. If this doesn't get me hired. If it gets me judged because I use the I. If I say myself, and I say x. If x says me, and I say me, and I say x, and x, x. If I say hey, and x says ho. If I say hip, and x says hop. If I'm a poet, o writer of supreme fiction.

2008-10-09T18:24:00.003-04:00

If you vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. If you don't vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. If you buy and sell stocks. If you buy and sell fear on the stockmarket, and if your buying and selling is the problem. If you approved a mortgage to someone you knew could ultimately pay it. If you shaved all your head because you were sad, because your insides had been pulverized. If you spent a year hoping she would learn to see you as the best alternative. If you play cards and drink whiskey and eat pretzels. And if you beat your spouse with fists or with words. And even if you don't. If you burn your retinas on computerscreens. If you vote for McCainPalin, the twoheaded antichrist. If you use words like antichrist to describe presidential candidates. If you fantasize about the women in the window of the coffeehouse, how her eyes might look if you could spend time really looking at them. If you fantasize about the barista at the coffeehouse, the one with the bobcut or the one with shiny shoes. If you teach composition but are more qualified and better able to teach poetry. If you write a poem then burn it on the terrace. If you adore your Chihuahua and coo him to sleep. And if he barks at the wind or tries to eat the cat's neck. If you constantly try to remember how to survive. If you take pills. And if you forget to take them, and you start having visions of faces under the water. If you sit on the futon listening to the stupidity, to McCain saying my friends again and again, to McCain lying about Obama's taxplan. If you can't pay for healthinsurance, but the law says you must. If you fear honesty. And if you say one thing but do another. And if you touch yourself just before dawn because no one else will. If you travel to Paris, and if you move to New York. If you're tired of applying for academic jobs. If you wrote a book of poems and then read from it to a handful of people. If you looked in the mirror and saw your face had become a propeller or an azalea or a crowbar. If you use the Internet to reach out to people because you don't or shouldn't drink. If you use alcohol as a device for reaching out to people because you can't handle the awkward silences or because you can't be yourself. If you can't be yourself. If you can't be like blood. If you give up on people. If you think the bailout bill is a good idea. If you think 25 mph is a good idea. If you shoot kids hunched over their homework. If you think you're not responsible for Britney Spears and her instability. If you watch television because you can't sleep and find someone selling the spaceprogram for three monthly installments. If you sit up in bed and tell him you think you falling in love with him. If you walk in to the bathroom and shave your mouth to keep the words alive. If you want her to stay with you. If you want to date an artist. If you rest your ear on the mattresses and walk around in La Perla. If you want to petulant. If you narcissus. If you can't stab the moon in the eye with bobbiepins. If you wait long enough I'll be gone. If you can't say what you mean. And even if you can. And even if you want to but can't. If you billow in the sky. And if you billow into the sky after death.

2008-09-24T00:20:00.003-04:00

Sara Tecchia Roma New York

Exhibition

Spoon River
New Photographs by Christa Parravani

November 6 - December 11, 2008

Reception for the artist Thursday, November 6, 6-8 pm

2008-09-23T10:57:00.002-04:00

Poetry Reading

Friday, 31 October 2008

8:00 P.M.

I will read from After Dayton

(Halloween, baby; my first time reading from the book, in Amherst or anywhere, for that matter, as it's scheduled to be released that day)

Amherst Books
8 Main Street
Amherst, MA 01002

Phone: 413.256.1547 or 800.503.5865

For more info: books@amherstbooks.com

2008-09-19T21:43:00.002-04:00

Four Way Books Birthday Party!
Save the Date

November 20th, 2008
7pm - 9pm
readings beginning promptly at 7:30pm

Celebrate 15 Years of Four Way Books

with short short short readings from their books:
C. S. Carrier, Eileen Pollack, Kevin Prufer, Daniel Tobin & Alissa Valles

and 1 poem each from their forthcoming books:
Priscilla Becker & Farrah Field

Cake and Wine Reception
Book Signings to follow the readings

McNally Jackson Booksellers
52 Prince Street, NYC

for detailed directions please visit hopstop.com

2008-09-17T20:55:00.003-04:00

I hate when commercials insult my intelligence. (Most every commercial.)

I hate when McCainPalin calls itself a reformer. I hate when Palin distorts or omits the truth regarding the Bridge to Nowhere and the selling of the governorjet on ebay. I hate when nobody calls Palin out for her views on abortion, evolution, sex education, environmentalism, separation of church and state (or lack thereof), or nepotism.

I hate when the Dow loses 450 points.

I hate when I wake up and feel alone, as if the universe had stopped to let me use the bathroom at a rest area in Virginia then driven off.

I hate when presidents and presidentialcandidates refer to themselves as the commanderinchief. (It establishes a warmongering, colonizing mindset. It prioritizes force. It especially sucks given that congress has gone all wussy on us and allowed despotism freerange. The world would be a better place if warmongering were the purview of congress--if congress had to vote unanimously to make war and if it then exercised oversight over the president's execution of said war.)

I hate when carmanufacturers boast about 20mpg. (It's not a milestone; it's pathetic. Boast when its 100mpg. Boast when a car doesn't use gas at all.)

I hate when bigoil posts the largest profits in humanhistory while other companies and individuals post some of the largest losses in humanhistory.

I hate when I fall in love with an emotionally unavailable woman. I hate when I fall for a woman nowhere near my zipcode. I hate when I can't meddle up and talk to the woman sitting beside me at Amherst Coffee. (All the time.) I hate when I can't ask out the barista at Northampton Coffee and thus crush on her from afar. (All the time.)

I hate when a cellphone rings with some loudass ring. (In fact, I hate that the cellphone has become the sixshooter of the new millenium.

I hate when guns and bullets, especially bullets, are too easy to come by. (As Chris Rock says, we don't need guncontrol, we need bulletcontrol--all bullets should cost $5000, because if they cost that much, fuckers would reconsider busting caps.)

I hate when the United States calls Georgia a victim and so defends it as a beacon of goodness, when in fact Georgia has committed any number of egregious acts to subdue and control South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

I hate when the United States embraces the proselytization and missionary mentality then invades Iraq in the name of democracy. (It's a slap in democracy's face. And Iraq's. And Thomas Jefferson's.)

I hate when waterboarding and warrantlesswiretapping are the modus operandi of a supposedly civil society.

I hate when newsmedia don't cover events, like the colonialism of Iraq or presidentialelections, in an unbiased way.

I hate when consumerculture and capitalism take young women, like Britney Spears and Rihanna, and objectify then devour them.

I hate when my mohawk doesn't mohawk correctly.

I hate when the Red Sox lose, especially because of its bullpen.

I hate when I don't have enough money to buy shoes or groceries or education. (All the fucking time.)

I hate when people don't do what they say and don't say what they mean.

I hate when laws are passed criminalizing saggypants.

I hate when my left shoulder hurts.

I hate when I go so long without sex.

I hate when people on bicycles don't follow the rules of the road. (Like riding towards oncoming traffic.)

I hate when I can't afford healthcare. (When will the United States realize how shameful it is that the richest country on earth can't provide basic healthcare for its citizens?)

I hate when the United States spends tenbillion a month colonizing Iraq and runs up a ridiculous debt.

I hate when artists purport one aesthetic priniciple over another. I hate when supposed artists say that what their spouse or lifepartner did to them caused them to be unable to make art.

I hate when academia rears its ugly, pusfilled cock to lay a smackdown on adjuncts. (Talk about pay inequality.)

I hate when people get the definition of irony wrong. (Alanis Morrisette, though I do love her dearly, had it wrong. If it's not irony, then it's coincidence. Usually people mean coincidence when they say irony.)

I hate when people dismiss the idea that words in a poem can be used for musical value or that a poem, because it uses language in new and unexpected and expressive ways, doesn't make sense. I hate when people can't appreciate surrealism and dadaism. I hate when people consider poems and songlyrics the same. (Read some poems for Christ's sake.)

I hate when I have to resort to using the word hate to feel better.

2008-09-04T12:07:00.001-04:00

Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press WriterWed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.

Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

___

Associated Press Writer Jim Drinkard in Washington contributed to this report.

Copied from Yahoo! News.

2008-09-03T23:36:00.000-04:00

Fighting in Vietnam was not fighting for me. Fighting in Vietnam did not protect America. Fighting in Vietnam was a hemisphere away. Fighting in Vietnam was fighting for money and political swagger. Fighting in Vietnam only made McCain part of the nationalistic, imperialistic, hegemonic machine. Fighting in Vietnam showed that McCain knows how to follow orders. Fighting in Vietnam did not make McCain a hero. What would have made McCain a hero—to have stood up and said I don’t believe fighting in Vietnam is the way to protect America and I refuse to do it. What would have made McCain a hero—to have stood up and said I prefer peace, and prefer to make peace by waging peace. Fighting in Vietnam did not make McCain a hero. Getting shot down while fighting in Vietnam did not make McCain a hero. Being imprisoned in a prisoncamp after getting shot down while fighting in Vietnam did not make McCain a hero. And it did not entitle him to be president—maybe it entitled him to sympathy and a thank you, but not the presidency.

2008-08-24T16:46:00.002-04:00

The McCain Campaign is stupid. More specifically, the new attackad from the McCain Campaign is stupid. It's a stupid, smokeandmirrors parlortrick. It's stupid to attack Obama for not choosing Clinton as a runningmate. It's stupid to attack Obama for not choosing Clinton because she criticized him during the primaries. It's stupid because Biden was very critical of Obama during the primaries. It's stupid of the McCain Campaign to try to capitalize on the Democratic Party's apparent schism between Obama and Clinton supporters. Actually, it's not stupid, but smart. Actually, it's pathetically chickenshit. The election should be about issues. The McCain Campaign should try to win by engaging ObamaBiden on the issues. But to do that would be stupid because the McCain Campaign and Republican Party can't look good when engaging ObamaBiden, or any candidate, for that matter, on the issues. The McCain Campaign and Republican Party don't look good bathed in the light of the issues. ObamaBiden and the Democratic Party don't look perfect bathed in the light of the issues, but they do look better. It's smart to play on the schism because the McCain Campaign believes voters are stupid enough to let themselves be played by such a maneuver. Voters shouldn't be stupid enough to be swayed in such a way. Voters shouldn't be stupid enough not to vote. Voters shouldn't be stupid enough to vote for any candidate without knowing where they are on the issues. Voters shouldn't be stupid enough to think that a candidate is going to encapsulate all their hopes and beliefs about the issues, especially in a political system that only values two parties. It'd be stupid of ObamaBiden to not attack the McCain Campaign on the issues. ObamaBiden should get more specific about its plans and the issues. Issues are paramount, more so than a feeling of hope. There should be a reason for optimism. It'd be stupid of ObamaBiden to think that because it has a website and a Myspace page and a Facebook page and a general technological savvy, such as texting the name of the VP choice, that that would be enough to win the election. ObamaBiden can't afford to be stupid. The country and the world writ large can't afford it. I can't afford it. ObamaBiden would be stupid to think that because my beliefs are more aligned with those of the Democratic Party that I'm going to vote for it.

2008-08-16T17:39:00.002-04:00

Is there anybody out there who would want to write a review of After Dayton?

Is there anybody out there who would want to translate After Dayton into another language? Particularly: French, Spanish, Italian, Hindi, Farsi, Slovenian, Swahili, and Arabic.

Is there anybody out there who would want me to read from After Dayton at their school, in their town, at their local bookstore?

Is there anybody out there who would want to read After Dayton then, upon finishing it, offer me a job teaching in a creative writing program? Will travel. Maybe: Columbia College, SUNY Purchase, Adelphi, Brooklyn College, University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University.

Is there anybody out there who would want to read After Dayton then, upon being so moved by it, offer to have sex with me? Writing poems can be about wooing women.

Is there anybody out there who would want give me a grant or other financial support to write the book after After Dayton?

Is there anybody out there who would like to request that their library purchase After Dayton for circulation?

Is there anybody out there who would prefer to order After Dayton from an independent bookstore as opposed to a chain bookstore? It'd be okay if you didn't. Buy it nonetheless.

Is there anybody out there who would want to write songs or poems praising either After Dayton or me or both? Would anybody be inclined to screen or stitch lines from After Dayton onto a teeshirt or baseballcap?

Is there anybody out there who would want to be my friend or lover after reading After Dayton?

Is there anybody out there who would want to say thank you or shake my hand or buy me a drink or all of the above for writing After Dayton?

Is there anybody out there who would want just to read After Dayton and linger over the words?

2008-08-13T10:49:00.002-04:00

Russia invades Georgia. Russia invades South Ossetia. Georgia invades South Ossetia. South Ossetia invades the United States. Russia invades the United States. The United States invades Iraq. Iraq invades Kuwait. Albania invades Serbia. Serbia invades Georgia and South Ossetia. South Ossetia and North Ossetia invade each other above sealevel. Russia invades North Ossetia. Serbia invades Kosovo. Kosovo invades Serbia which invades Russia which invades Chechnya. Chechnya invades Russia and the United States. Russia invades Georgia and Albania and Ukraine. Ukraine invades Ukraine, too far away to invade Georgia or Chechnya. Serbia invades Bosnia, Bosnia invades Greece which responds by invading Turkey which responds by invading Armenia which responds by invading Azerbaijan. Iran invades Iraq. Russia invades Afghanistan. Palestine invades Israel and Israel invades Palestine. Iran invades Lebanon. Iran invades Syria. Syria invades Lebanon. The United States invades Lebanon. The United States invades Iraq. The United States invades Afghanistan. Pakistan invades India. India invades Pakistan. Germany invades Poland and Czechoslovakia and Austria and Hungary and France. The United States invades France and Germany. Russia invades Germany. Great Britain invades everyone. The United States invades everyone, even those that aren't yet countries.

2008-08-07T16:46:00.003-04:00

When you looked at yourself in the mirror today, what was the first thing you thought?
What a sexy motherfucker!

How much cash do you have on you?
I'm a poet and an adjunct professor at the University of Hartford--what's cash?

What's a word that rhymes with "DOOR?"
Poor.

Favorite planet?
Earth? Maybe the undiscovered planet?

Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
Natalie Portman.

What is your favorite ring on your phone?
Ring around the rosy / a pocket full of posies / ashes, ashes / we all fall down.

What shirt are you wearing?
The tangarine and white plaid one, the polyester one with the butterflycollar, the one that exposes my hairy man bib.

Do you "label" yourself?
Don't we all? Again, I'm a poet.

Name the brand of your shoes you're currently wearing?
Gola.

Bright or Dark Room?
"White Room."

What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?
I only think of myself.

What were you doing at midnight last night?
It was illicit. All I'll say is that it involved something furry and a jar of chunky peanutbutter.

What did your last text message you received on your cell say?
"Booty call? 15 min? Ur place or mine?"

Where is your nearest 7-11?
534 yards due east. Over the river and through the woods. It's the closest place for beer, Doritos, and condoms.

What's a word that you say a lot?
Fuck.

Who told you he/she loved you last?
Damn her.

Last furry thing you touched?
A gerbil.

How many drugs have you done in the last three days?
It's been three days?

How many rolls of film do you need developed?
I'm au digital.

Favorite age you have been so far?
Patience is a virtue.

Your worst enemy?
Me. Then George Bush, then Pat Buchanan.

What is your current desktop picture?
"Profit" by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

What was the last thing you said to someone?
Give me the cock ring, or the gerbil's toast.

If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to fly what would it be?
Isn't this obvious? I'm a poet. Of course I'm taking the million. Being able to fly doesn't pay the bills.

Do you like someone?
Yes.

The last song you listened to?
"Boogie Man" by KC & the Sunshine Band.

2008-07-30T01:26:00.000-04:00

What is your favorite word?
Verb.

What is your least favorite word?
Can’t.

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
Words, shoes, the stars, wit, Basquiat, jellyfish, silk thongs, the bottom of the ocean, bagpipes, intellect, Lisa Jarnot’s poems, poems in general, paintings, Medeski Martin & Wood, “I have a dream,” French Fries, and Kate Beckinsale.

What turns you off?
Cliché, unoriginality, lack of imagination.

What is your favorite curse word?
Fuck.

What sound or noise do you love?
The sound of typewriterkeys typing.

What sound or noise do you hate?
Crying.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Architecture, mechanicalengineering. Freedomfighter. Percussionist.

What profession would you not like to do?
Urinalsmith. CEO of anything. Any kind of politician. Despot.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
This poem kicks ass.

2008-07-09T13:06:00.001-04:00

Again, I wish a meteor would rocket through the sky, land on my head, and either pulverize or vaporize me. I've had enough.

2008-07-06T19:10:00.000-04:00

Charles Bernstein: I embrace a poetics of bewilderment. I don't know where I am going and never have, just try to grapple as best as I can with where I am. The poetry that most engages me is not theoretically perspicacious, indeed it has a poetics and an aesthetics but not a predetermining theory; it is multiform and chaotic, always reformulating and regrouping. Competence is less important to me than responsiveness, mobility; ingenuity and invention more important than solutions to predefined problems.

J William Fullbright: In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

Craig Stecyk: Skaters by their very nature are urban guerrillas: they make everyday use of the useless artifacts of the technological burden, and employ the handiwork of the government/corporate structure in a thousand ways that the original architects could never dream of.

John Olson: Words are invisible but we can see the images they make in our minds.

Julian Schnabel: A lot of what I do is about being in the moment and I think that's hard for people to get. I like it when things suddenly affect the painting. I mix up this red and it affects the whole painting or this little bit of white falls down there, and something changes the whole nature of the thing. The residue on what happens, that's what's in the paintings.

Dwight Eisenhower: Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Benjamin Franklin: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

2008-06-27T17:33:00.002-04:00

She'd be highly communicative and articulate, able to write and speak cogently about anything, including difficult and unpleasant anythings.

She'd be a talented artist, preferably a visualartist, but perhaps a writer, dedicated to her craft and to pushing the envelope.

She'd be honest, not just with me but with others--honest about who she is and what she wants and what she feels.

She'd be intelligent, always hungry to learn new things about herself and her world, a believer in the power and necessity of education.

She'd be unselfish and compassionate, giving help to her people and to me when necessary.

She'd be openminded to different aesthetics, political viewpoints, religions, and cultures; she'd be openminded to different ways of negotiating a relationship.

She'd believe in me as a poet, and she'd believe in my poems.

She'd be fashionable and have an attuned sense of style, able to dress down and dress up, equally comfortable in vintage or Jacklyn Smith or Chanel.

She'd be witty and quicktongued.

She'd have a welldeveloped sense of humor, an irreverent, crude, and refined sense of humor, a sense of humor she wouldn't balk at turning on herself.

She'd have a superb, extraterrestrially resplendent smile and eyes to match.

She'd be sexually liberated and have a healthy sexual appetite.

She'd be, preferably, a nonsmoker and nondrinker, and if not a nondrinker, at least a nonalcoholic.

She'd be happy with me being me--shy, weird, irreverent, moody, dorky.

2008-06-24T12:20:00.001-04:00

I wish a meteor would rocket through the atmosphere, land on my head, and pulverize me into dust. I've had enough.

2008-06-17T14:54:00.001-04:00

Q: What do you do?
A: I’m a poet.

Q: Do you publish?
A: Would I be a poet if I didn’t?

Q: Have you written anything I might have read?
A: Do you read contemporary poetry?

Q: What kinds of poems do you write?
A: Cool ones, I hope.

Q: blank expression
A: If I had to say what they were, I’d say they were lyric poems.

Q: So you write songs?
A: No, I’m a poet who writes what would be called lyric poems.

Q: Do you write poems about the South?
A: I don’t write poems about the South, but there’s no doubt the South is in my poems.

Q: So, what are your poems about?
A: Words.

Q: Why do you write poems?
A: Because I must. Because I can’t not write poems. And because I’m hijacked by words.

Q: Who are some of your favorite poets?
A: Gizzi, Jarnot, Ginsberg, Mullen, Salamun, Stevens, Notley, Berrigan, Breton, Godfrey, Olson, Hejinian, Creeley, Plath.

Q: I’ve heard of Sylvia Plath. I think Shel Silverstein is great.
A: Why?

Q: It’s easy to read.
A: blank expression

2008-06-15T14:51:00.002-04:00

I want to write poems that invade life, that invade assumptions of what poems can do, that invade the brainpan with fire.

I want to write poems that love words, that invade words and their signs, that dissect words, frankenstein them, and make them more like the enigma that words are.

I want to write poems that kick readers' teeth, that invent readers, readers' teeth, and new words for their teeth.

I want to write poems that woo women by getting into their heads, their hearts, and their diaphragms, not their pants.

I want to write poems that are democratic, that are open to interpretation, open to freedom, that keep freedom open to interpretation, interpretation open to freedom.

I want to write poems that call the government into question, that call the politicians into question, that call the citizenry into question.

I want to write poems that question god, that kill god, that resurrect god, that suggest the possibility of multiple gods or no gods at all.

I want to write poems that say I am, that say I think, therefore I am, that say I came, I saw, I conquered.

I want to write poems that love the world, that show my love for the world, that express my bewilderment with the world and the things and words of the world.

I want to write poems that inhabit the world like a chihuahua: small, discrete, loyal, tenacious, and bigger than its reflection.

I want to write poems that embrace entropy, that embrace algebra, that embrace slang, that embrace popculture, that embrace astrophysics, that embrace plutonium.

I want to write poems that are made of words, not ideas, or made of words first and ideas second, words like drums, ideas like the air after the drum is struck.

I want to write poems that melt her, her heart, her words, her eyes, her ears, her sleeppatterns, her ideas, her imagination.

2008-06-08T15:20:00.000-04:00

“All my life I’ve been searching for something / Something never comes, never leads to nothing / Nothing satisfies, but I’m getting close / Closer to the prize at the end of the rope. // All night long I dream of the day / When it comes around, and it’s taking away / Leaves me with the feeling that I fear the most / Feel it come to life when I see your ghost”

“It's the politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us that we have to think, act and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us, the assumption that young people are apathetic, the assumption that Republicans won't cross over, the assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don't vote, the assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate, whites can't support the African-American candidate, blacks and Latinos cannot come together.”

“It is not too late to seek a newer world. / Push off, and sitting well in order smite / The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds / To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths / Of all the western stars, until I die. / It may be that the gulfs will wash us down; / It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, / And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. / Though much is taken, much abides; and though / We are not now that strength which in old days / Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,-- / One equal temper of heroic hearts, / Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

“With my feet upon the ground I lose myself / between the sounds and open wide to suck it in, / I feel it move across my skin. / I'm reaching up and reaching out, / I'm reaching for the random or what ever will bewilder me. / And following our will and wind we may just go where no one's been. / We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been.”

“When you feel your life ain’t worth living / You’ve got to stand up and / Take a look around then a look way up to the sky / And when your deepest thoughts are broken / Keep on dreaming, boy, ’cause when you stop dreaming its time to die / And as we all play parts of tomorrow / Some ways will work and other ways will play / But I know we can’t all stay here forever / So I’ll write my words on the face of today”

“I am 43. When will I die? I will never die, I will live / To be 110, & I will never go away, & you will never escape from me / who am always & only a ghost, despite this frame, Spirit / Who lives only to nag. / I'm only pronouns, & I am all of them, & I didn't ask for this / You did / I came into your life to change it & it did so & now nothing / will ever change / That, and that's that. / Alone & crowded, unhappy fate, nevertheless / I slip softly into the air / The world's furious song flows through my costume.”

2008-06-08T13:48:00.002-04:00

Four Way Books

June Reading Period--Poetry and Fiction Submissions

In June, we read full-length poetry collections and novellas or short story collections. During our June reading period, manuscripts are not read anonymously. Manuscripts are selected by the editors of Four Way Books. Each manuscript may be mailed or emailed between June 1 and June 30 2008, accompanied by a $15.00 processing fee made out to Four Way Books. Poetry manuscripts are generally between 45 – 80 pages of text. Fiction manuscripts are generally between 150 – 200 pages of text. In recent years we have selected: Sarah Manguso's SISTE VIATOR (2006), and C.S. Carrier's AFTER DAYTON (2008). If you submitted to our contest, you may also submit during June. We have different readers in June. We accept submissions electronically and by mail.

For Submitting by Mail

Please make sure that your cover page includes the title, your name, and contact information. Manuscripts will not be returned. If you want to receive written word of our response through the mail, please include an SASE. Otherwise, we will respond by email, if you provide us with your email contact info. Please include a reading fee of $15.00, either as a check payable to Four Way Books, or attach a print out of your payment confirmation emailed from our web site. (Go to our Reading Fee Form to pay via credit card. Available in June). Wordprocess your manuscript on white, 8.5 x 11 paper. Legible typeface. Send to: Four Way Books POB 535 Village Station New York NY 10014

For Submitting Electronically

Please make sure that your cover page includes the title, your name and contact information. Submit your entry fee via the June Reading Fee Form, and follow the directions for online credit card payment on our secure site. Email the manuscript as a single attached document (either a Microsoft Word document or a Rich Text document) to june@fourwaybooks.com. Be sure to include your Reading Fee Confirmation Number in the body of the email. Name the document with your confirmation number (i.e. JN1032.doc or JN1032.rtf) Please title your email: JUNE READING PERIOD SUBMISSION

2008-06-04T15:25:00.002-04:00

Why can't we talk more about Shirley Chisholm?

Why can't we have a healthcaresystem that's notforprofit and open to all?

Why can't we have cars that get 100 mpg? Why can't GM resurrect the EV1?

Why can't we be perfect for eachother?

Why can't we go into the supermarket and get what we need with our goodlooks?

Why can't we use our megawealth to build homes and schools and hospitals instead of building an military to wage colonialism in other countries?

Why can't we be sexually liberated? Why can't we be artistically liberated?

Why can't we fund the arts better, like they do in Minnesota? Why can't we have art that invades life?

Why can't we float on air?

Why can't we park our cars better?

Why can't we evolve past the deathpenalty? Why can't we have convicted felons repay their debt by performing communityservice, like planting trees or cleaning streets?

Why can't we manage our anger better?

Why can't we get god and faith out of the politicalsystem? Is it too much to ask to have a candidate who doesn't mention god and faith at all?

Why can't we have a military that's for defense and humanitarian purposes only?

Why can't we remember that once upon a time, recently, the Department of Defense had been called the Department of War, and that it was changed because the word "war" made us thinking of waging war instead of preserving security?

Why can't we see that preemptive strikes are not in keeping with the idea of preserving security?

Why can't we be multilingual citizens?

Why can't we turn off cellphoneringers? Do they have to be obnoxious?

Why can't we decriminalize marijuana? If it works in Amsterdam, can't it work here?

Why can't we acknowledge the ineffectiveness, dare I say, stupidity, of mandatory sentencing?

Why can't election day be a national holiday? What does it say about how important, or unimportant, we think voting is if we can't make it a national holiday? Isn't Memorial Day a national holiday? Isn't Labor Day?

Why can't neighbors not suck?

Why can't we publicly fund elections and get corporatemoney out? Maybe then people other than the wealthy could run for public office?

Why can't we take out the "under god" out of the Pledge of Allegiance?

Why can't we make affordable paper from hemp?

Why can't we know what nouns are?

Why can't rapists be castrated?

Why can't we turn off the airconditioning?

Why can't we make commercials that don't insult my intelligence? Can't commercials be about the products/services they're selling/promoting?

Why can't we stop calling the winners of sporting events in the United States world champions?

Why can't we all love Yago Cura? And Dorothea Lasky? Why can't we all love Tomaz Salamun? And Lisa Jarnot? And Harryette Mullen? And Alice Notley? And Freddie Mercury? And Mos Def? And Christa Parravani? Can't we all kill like they kill?

Why can't poetry be taken more seriously in academia? Just because I'm a poet doesn't mean I'm incapable of teaching sans academic rigor?

Why can't we just cure HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis?

Why can't we give equal weight to tragedies that occur in nonEnglishspeakingcountries as those that occur in Englishspeakingcountries?

Why can't we stop and smell the lilac?

2008-06-04T10:45:00.003-04:00

What if we were to elect more than one president at a time? What if we were to have as president, not one person from one party, but several people from several parties? At least several people from the two major parties? What if we were to elect a presidential panel, a panel that would make decisions as a group for the good of everyone? What if we were to elect Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Bob Barr, Ron Paul, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Ralph Nader, Jesse Ventura, Eddie Perez, and Stephen Colbert? What if we were to make a President Panel, so that the president wouldn't powertrip and act like a despot?

2008-06-02T18:43:00.000-04:00

Post deleted.

2008-05-24T12:41:00.003-04:00

Poems, invade life. Poets, invade life. Teachers, invade life. Teachers of poetry, most definitely, invade life and students.

Words, invade life. Things, invade life. Lovers, invade life. Poems, which are made of these things, invade life and all lives.

Actions, invade life. Actions, invade life, like poems do, like words do. Actions, invade life, and life, invade actions. I'm making this up as I go. I hope it invades life, at least in some miniscule way.

Poems, invade poets and teachers and teachers of poetry. Poems, invade words and things and lovers and everything in between. Poems, invade actions and hope.

Art, invade life. Politics, invade life. Dreams, invade life. Dreams and politics, come invade art, most definitely art that seeks to be an art of life. Or a life like art.

Sex, invade life. Sex, invade art. Sex, invade poems and poets and teachers, invade words and things and lovers. Sex, invade me. Invade me so that I don't wither. Invade me so that I can invade life.

Eyes, invade life. Ears, invade life. Tongues, invade life. Lungs, invade life. Come so I can invade god, so I can invade my lover. I miss my beloved and her life. How they invade me.

2008-05-21T12:40:00.002-04:00

I'm in North Carolina wishing I were back in Massachusetts. I wish I was outside in the yard playing with the dogs and praising their peepee and poopoo.

I'm in North Carolina for the death of my grandmother. She was 78 and awesome. That she died shortly after Mother's Day sucks. That she died a yearandahalf after my grandfather sucks. That tomorrow would've been their 60th wedding anniversary sucks.

I'm in North Carolina at a coffeeshop in Froglevel called Panacea. I wish you could've come. I'm having an iced blended mocha. It's really good. It's not as good as the iced blended from Rao's in Amherst, but good nonetheless. I always come to Panacea when I'm in Waynesille because it reminds me of home. Also, the baristas are cute, as is much of the clientele.

I'm in North Carolina, not your arms. I'm in North Carolina, not your dreams. I'm not in your eyes or your mouth or your hair. If only I could be in your words.

I'm in North Carolina. I'm sleeping on a sofa in my mom's livingroom. The sofa isn't a sleeper. This morning I was awakened by the bickering of my brother and his wife. Before that, I was awakened by my sisterinlaw waking my nieces for school.

I'm in North Carolina. Waynesville, the town I grew up in. It's changed a lot over the years, as have I. I've changed into a poet, a liberal, soymilkdrinking poet. In fact, I've always been a liberal, soymilkdrinking poet. I just couldn't let it show in Waynesville.

I'm in North Carolina because North Carolina is in me. If I bleed, I bleed Tarheel blue.

I'm in North Carolina, and if you were here, we'd pack a picnic and drive up to Waterrock Knob. We'd lie in the grass and write poems in your notebook. We'd fuck under the rhododendrons and disappear into the dusk. We'd watch the stars and dodge the meteorites.

I'm in North Carolina. But I'm thinking about Ted Kennedy and how hard it's been to be a Kennedy. I want to shake Ted's hand and tell him thank you.

I'm in North Carolina, and words have followed me. Poetry has followed me. Anaphora has followed me. The lyric has followed me. And you, you've followed me too.

2008-05-14T15:25:00.002-04:00

I want to write a poem. Then another and another. I want and need to write poems and more poems so I don't die.

I want people to like my book when it comes out. I'd like to be invited to read from it. I'd like to be invited to teach because of it.

I want my neighbor to chill out with the oversensitivity to noise. We live in a community. There will be noise. If it's too much there's always the woods, which are sometimes quite full of noise. There's always an island in the South Pacific.

I want Merwin to learn to not poop in the house. It'd be nice too if he'd learn to live forever. I'm considerably attached. I want to use Merwin to pick up women. Or at least one woman.

I want American troops out of Iraq. I want American troops out of Afghanistan. I don't want America troops to ever enter Iran. American troops should carry breadbaskets and rivetguns instead of rifles and nightvision.

I want Barack Obama to be elected President. I like that he wants to talk to countries America doesn't like. I like his apparent belief in the power of diplomacy.

I want a sugarmama, someone willing to take care of me, at least financially, so that I could worry about nothing but writing poems. I'd prefer someone attractive, like, say, Natalie Portman or Jennifer Aniston or Jessica Cauffiel or Scarlett Johansson or Halle Barry. In fact, in a perfect world my sugarmama would be the actual Natalie Portman or Jennifer Aniston or Jessica Cauffiel or Scarlett Johansson or Halle Barry. I'd prefer someone who'd let me do my thing most of the time.

I want to teach in a grdauate Creative Writing Program. Something prestigious, though not so prestigious. NYU, Columbia, Brooklyn College, Columbia College Chicago. It'd be nice to teach students who actually wanted to be in a creative writing/poetry workshop, students who gave as much as they got.

I want my apartment to not be so cold. I want my apartment to be a sanctuary, not a prison.

I want to travel to Italy and Spain and Slovenia and Argentina. I want to travel to England and Germany and India and Vietnam. I want to travel to Hawaii and Alaska and Puerto Rico. I want to travel to Paris, again and again and again.

I want my next car to be a hybrid. I want my next car to be 100% electric. I want my next car to run on water or carbon. I want my next car to get at least 50 milestothegallon.

I want to be able to eat icecream. Lactose intolerance is a painintheass. I wouldn't mind seeing a cure for diabetes and Alzheimer's.

I want to grow feathers at will. Maybe I'd learn to fly. Maybe I'd burst into flame and rise from the ashes.

I want Rauschenberg back, and Creeley and Ginsberg and Coltrane. I want Cara back, and Ryan and Cindy and Dan and Mandy.

I want to be in love, if I must, with a woman like C. Someone talented, someone intelligent, someone funny. Someone compassionate, someone feisty, someone sexual. Someone with eyes. Someone with words.

2008-05-11T12:26:00.002-04:00

My neighbor is driving me crazy. I'm a prisoner in my own apartment. I live in a duplex with thin walls. I have Chihuahuas. Sometimes the Chihuahuas bark because, as Chihuahuas, as dogs, even, they're territorial. If another dog walks past the yard, the Chihuahuas will bark at that dog. The Chihuahuas will bark if they hear a noise they don't understand. That's what makes them good guarddogs. It is, in fact, part of what makes them dogs. There's a difference to nuisancebarking. And I agree, nuisancebarking is a nuisance. The Chihuahuas, to the best of my knowledge, since I can't know what happens in my apartment when I'm not here, have curbed their nuisancebarking tendencies. My neighbor has always complained about the Chihuahuas' barking. She's left numerous notes on the door complaining about the barking. She's left long notes, packets, even, about the barking, techniques to curb the barking, copies of cityordinances about barking. I'm afraid all the time that she's going to try to have the dogs legally removed or have me evicted. I'm tired of notes on the door. I'm tired of feeling like a prisoner. I'm tired of feeling always on edge about the barking. I'm tired of feeling like I have to helicopter over the Chihuahuas. I'm tired of being frustrated with my dogs for being dogs. I'm tired of my neighbor's unreasonable expectations. She wants the world bent to her will. Again, I don't like nuisancebarking. It's a nuisance. I wouldn't consider the kind of barking the Chihuahuas do to be nuisance. If the windows weren't so shabby and drafty, maybe the naturalbarking wouldn't carry. If the walls weren't so thin, maybe the naturalbarking wouldn't be as noticeable. Perhaps my neighbor should put up some sheetrock as soundproofing on her side if the adjoining wall. Perhaps she should replace her windows with doublepanewindows. Perhaps she should invest in earplugs. Perhaps she should just relax. There are all kinds of noises in the neighborhood that are a nuisance, but I'm not getting worked up. People talking on the street, loud automobiles, my neighbor talking outside the livingroomwindow. There's noise, and it's a natural consequence of living close to people. If the neighbortensions keep up, I'll have to move. And I don't want to move. Part of me fantasizes about buying the property and evicting my neighbor, or raising the rent to force her out. But that's immature. Like ranting about her and the situation on this blog.

2008-05-03T08:54:00.003-04:00

"Long is the way, and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light."

I want to get Merwin a leather studded collar, something badass, with spikes or nails, something punkrock.

"The surrealist object is not practical..." According to Dali art should invade life.

I'm thinking of going back to school to get my phd. I have a terminal degree and publications and teaching experience. But, apparently, these don't matter as much as the letters p-h-d would when attached to my name. I was told that because I'm a poet the phd would give me credibility. Apparently, a phd would allow the academy to take me seriously because it's hard to take poets seriously otherwise. I was told that the phd wasn't really necessary for prosewriters. Apparently, prose is a more legitimate endeavor.

Schools I'd go to to get a phd: University of Denver, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, SUNY Buffalo, and the University of Illinois-Chicago. School I most want to go to: University of Illinois-Chicago. I'd be interested in working with Jennifer Ashton and Christina Pugh. I'd prefer Chicago to the other cities.

"My mind is a sacred cow, bleeding in the ellipsis."

I found After Dayton at the University Press of New England website. I found it while googling myself. Yes, I google myself from time to time. There's a picture of the book. It says that the book isn't in stock and will be available in September 2008. There's a paragraph under the picture that describes the book. Kind of rad.

"next to of course god america i". next to of course america god i. next to of course america i god. god next to of course america i. next god to of course america i. next to god of course america i. next to of god course america i. next to of course god america i.

2008-04-16T22:40:00.003-04:00

Stop, collaborate, and listen. Ice is back with a brand new invention. The title's different. The colors are different. But the words are still words.

April is the cruelest moth. Yes, moth. It breeds lilacs out of the dead land. It makes the cock swell with hope.

I have a Chihuahua. He's a longhair. He's twelve weeks. His name's Merwin, and he's named after W. S. Merwin. He was almost named Ted Berrigan. He was almost named Ahab. He's smart. He doesn't bark. He's insanely cute. He's white with brown ears. He's awesome.

The jobsearch left a shittaste in my mouth. The University of Hartford didn't hire me for the tenuretrack poetry position after I'd given the last five years of my time and career to it and its students. I'm an excellent teacher and an excellent poet, and I think the University of Hartford has made a big mistake. It's odd that the search committee would stress the importance of academic service and teaching ability, but then not hire me, someone who'd showed a devotion to both service and teaching.

Fallon Community Health Plan, my recently acquired health insurance provider, is refusing to pay for my Lexapro. My doctor thinks it's the best drug for me. All the research suggests it's the best drug for me. But Fallon, concerned more about its bottomline than my health, wants me to take Celexa, a cheaper, generic alternative. I pay a lot for health insurance and should get what I need. Especially since the Commonwealth of Massachusetts requires me to buy health insurance.

I got pageproofs for After Dayton in the mail this week. I have nine days left to proof them and return them to my editor. It really feels like I will have a book published. I was thinking it might have been an elaborate joke.

It's for the best that the University of Hartford didn't hire me. Teaching there would've been a waste of my abilities. I'm better than that. I should be teaching in a creative writing program at an Ivy League university or a renowned liberal arts college.

I recently traveled to Paris. It was my first time out of the country. I went by myself. I stayed in a hostel in the eighteenth arrondisement. I saw the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, Montmatre, and the Centre de Pompidou. I saw Notre Dame, the Pont Neuf, the Musee Rodin, and the Moulin Rouge. I saw the Louvre, the Musee Picasso, the Sacre Coeur, and the Musee de l'Erotisme. I saw Pere Lachaise, the Pantheon, the Sorbonne, and the Champs Elysees. I spent all my money and loved every cent. If only I could live in Paris.

The heart's a complicated palace. It's burned to the ground more easily than it's built from it. The heart has few defenses and what it does have are ultimately inadequate. If only there were ways to upgrade.

2007-10-24T15:23:00.000-04:00

C,

I've been thinking of your eyes, which are like glaciers. I've been thinking of their amber. They've broken me, and I'm better light because of it.

C

2007-09-21T12:02:00.000-04:00

I've been advised to take down the blog. The reason: I'm going to be on the jobmarket and shouldn't have the blog because it might provide potential searchcommittee members with a wrong view of me or a reason to pass me over. The blog may make me look amateur, unsophisticated. I think I'll have to take the blog down. I'll do whatever I need in increase my chances of landing a tenuretrack assistantprofessorship.

2007-09-07T20:40:00.000-04:00

I'll be reading with Michael Carr and Lori Shine as part of The So and So Reading Series at The Distillery in Boston next Saturday, September 15. Should be a shitstomping good time. It'll be at 8pm. It'll be free. We'll be too sexy for our verbs. Come love us, love us.

2007-09-07T20:35:00.000-04:00

The last month has been tremendous.

2007-08-02T19:22:00.000-04:00

I actually enjoyed The Simpsons Movie.

I recently saw Soldiers in the Army of God. Wow. Now that's a scary movie.

I recently finished reading The Little Book of Guesses by John Gallaher. I enjoyed it. Especially the prose poems that show up towards the end. Nice.

I recently (on the bus to Ohio this weekend) finished Down with the Ship by Ryan Murphy. This was my second time reading it. Even more beautiful this time around. Especially "Poems for Pitchers."

I also read on the bus a new Howard Zinn book, The Unraveling of the Bush Presidency. It's a short history of the Bush Presidency since September Eleventh. I liked it. My family in Ohio would've hated it. They would've found it insulting, profane, Communist, unAmerican. (An aside: they refer to CNN as the Communist News Network.)

My next read will be Juliana Spahr's This Connection of Everyone with Lungs.

2007-07-30T12:59:00.000-04:00

I'm in Ohio. O hi o. Lebanon, OH. I'm with the family. The family is what it is. The family is Ohio, Ohio is the family. The family cometh, Ohio cometh. I'm the family, I'm Ohio. It's all in the family. Sometimes the family is scary. Sometimes Ohio is scary. Sometimes they're both ostracizing. The family is ultraconservative, I'm not. The family is ultrareligious, I'm not. The family is devoted to Fox News, I'm not. Ohio is sometimes these things. I've been having a good time. I've also been itching to get back home.

2007-07-17T18:27:00.000-04:00

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." "Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a defeat, for it is momentary." "God is with those who restrain themselves." "Speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace." "Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal."