A Quick Mini-Review of Knox' Latest

The book is The Mystery of the Hidden Driveway from Jennifer L. Knox on Bloof.

If you've got this blog in your reader, you know I've raved about Knox for years. She's like Wonder Woman, only with blond hair, and an invisible cocktail glass.

I've been digging into her latest book, and it's unexpected. It's like you've been at a party for hours, and everyone's been drinking and having barbecue, and the keg is kicked, but that's okay because someone brought over a case of two-buck Chuck, so it just kept on going. The kids are doing whip-its in the garage. There's one person there cracking the whole place up, and everyone loves her/him. Then everyone leaves or passes out, and it's just you and this person, and they pour a fresh drink for you.

It's intimate, and s/he starts telling stories from war--every painful trauma you only get when you're alone with a person like that, and there's been so much laughter, that now it's got to be balanced out because that's just how we do things. Some people would be looking to get the hell out of the place, but it's terrifying but safe.

That's a quick review.

If that sounds like something you'd be into, click on the link above, buy it, and check it out.

Life in the cube.

New stuff is brewing...

Commute

Nearly lost you.

A pile of house across the street

The sink at the shop where I play with motorcycles

I have a new poem up!

Hey Everybody!

Sorry I'm a slacker with this space. But I've been busy with Cooper Dillon, and love all of you for your support of us, as well as other small presses.

I have a poem up at The Nepotist.

Peace,

A.

Sometimes plants get sad

My new work-friend

Spotted while having a milkshake for lunch.

The Rolltop Work Bench

And We Will Ride Again

Interview with this goof

Dig us Cooper Dillon peeps at the Bloof/Cooper Dillon/Noemi event at Green Spaces in Denver.

The lovely Carrie Olivia Adams just posted up an interview with me at Constant Conversation. Check it out, and keep going back for more interviews with the small press community.

And check back here--I might have a few things to say about the AWP in Denver, now that my body has returned to a reasonable height above sea level.

Small Press Party in Denver!

Mark your AWP calendar for Thursday night!

7-10 PM
Green Spaces Colorado
1368 26th Street

We're throwing a small press party in Denver, featuring Bloof Books, Cooper Dillon Books & Noemi Press.

Readings by:

Shanna Compton
Peter Davis
Jill Alexander Essbaum
Jennifer L. Knox
Gary L. McDowell
Danielle Pafunda
Nate Pritts
Sandra Simonds

& more TDB

RSVP at the Facebook page here.

Update:

This event will also now include Ada Limón!

Your Philip Graham Fix

I meant to post this up a few weeks ago, but you know how it goes...

There's an interview with Philip Graham, of U of Illinois-fame in The Morning News.

Drink you juice.

from Hunger Moutain

Hunger Mountain, the Vermont College of Fine Arts journal of the arts, is now accepting submissions for the new "Stage and Screen" section of its (relatively) new online journal. I'm writing to pass along the call for submissions, and ask that you consider sending us work. If you know anyone whose work might be a good fit for this section, please let them know about us. Also, I would greatly appreciate it if any of you with related blogs, or who are part of communities of writers/filmmakers/

theaterfolk/puppeteers/animators/video artists/etc., might post our call to help us spread the word. You can find Hunger Mountain here: http://www.hungermtn.org/ and the Stage and Screen section here: http://www.hungermtn.org/stage-and-screen/.

Thank you so much for your time!


The call:

Hunger Mountain is now accepting submissions for the Stage and Screen portion of our journal. Please submit a print submission consisting of a a typed, double-spaced manuscript no more than 10,000 words, or a video submission, consisting of a description of your project and a link to the video (we cannot accept files over 500KB). We welcome an array of examples of and responses to work on “stage” or on “screen”: film, theater, performance art, dance, dance film, animation, television, etc. We’re looking for both traditional and experimental work, including, but not limited to, video art/short film/recorded performances; excerpts from plays/screenplays; interviews of artists working in the field; critical reviews; and lyrical, personal or critical meditations about the genre/s. We like work that demonstrates an engagement with the world beyond its borders, clear stakes, and a beating heart. Please see submission guidelines to learn how to submit using our online submission manager.


Thanks for sending us your work and helping spread the word!

All best,

Megan Savage
Stage and Screen Editor, Hunger Mountain

Now Open

I was having the most wonderful dream as the rain sounds where coming through the window and walls that I was going to a deli with Amy Guth. Then I woke, and Ada Limón reminded us all that it's National Poetry Month.

Happy happy poems.

Cooper Dillon Books is now taking submissions of Full Length and Chapbooks. All the details are here for you.

Will I be seeing your lovely face in Denver?

My friend Alfred

Work work work

If you're in NYC Tonight and on the 29th

Thursday, March 4 at 7PM at Pacific Standard
Ada Limón with John Burnside & Lindsay Turner
Pacific Standard Bar
82 Fourth Avenue
Brooklyn, NY
(between St. Marks and Bergen Streets)
http://chinmusicpoetry.blogspot.com/

Monday, March 29 at 7PM at KGB Bar
Ada Limón with Meghan O'Rourke
85 East 4th street
between Second Avenue and Bowery
http://kgbbar.com/calendar/events/kgb_poetry35/

And here are two new poems in Eleven Eleven Journal (From California College of the Arts)
http://elevenelevenjournal.com/Poetry/ada_limon.html

This Just In: If you're in NYC tonight!

Friday, February 12 // 7:30pm

Poetry by Duane Esposito (9pm)

Duane Esposito is an Associate Professor of English at Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York. He has an M.A. from SUNY Brockport and an M.F.A. from the University of Arizona. In 1994, Diane Glancy selected his work for an Academy of American Poets Award. In 2003, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His poems have appeared in dozens of journals, magazines, newspapers, and one or two anthologies/textbooks. New poems are on the way. He has published two books of poetry: The Book of Bubba (Brown Dog Press,1998) and Cadillac Battleship (brokenTribe Press, 2005). He lives on Long Island with his wife & children.

Open Mic from 8pm-9pm

RankingIY DJs throughout the night

Fort Useless is at 36 Ditmars Street in Brooklyn, one block from the Myrtle Avenue/Broadway stop on the JMZ trains

Stay

I wanted to pass on to you this article by Jennifer Michael Hecht. She posted a variation of it, 1/11/2010 on Best American Poetry, and it's been getting around.

Her poems are fantastic. My personal spiritual beliefs differ from her's, but there's really no denying she's on to something with the whole "Don't kill yourself" thing.

Give it a read, and consider some of the wonders we have.

Here's a poem from her second collection, Funny:

Prosody on Comedy

Tragedy is when all the stage is all good will

and all will wrongly, like too many winter coats

in too few seats on the subway, no one will

give up a thing yet all feel a remote

and stinging sorrow for the standers. Still,

tragedy is the ship sunk, bobbing heads afloat

together in the drink, all happy now to fill

their lungs with air and dream of lifeboats.

No bouts now. All their coveted papers and pills

as wet as once were their eyes, dry as ghost's

now, a low slung. Comedy is why they're still

together, in an ocean wide as wind and sky her host.

As we float, the deepness of the ocean tugs our bones.

In comedy we rush the crowded stage and act alone.

****

The poem originally appeared in Poetry, and Funny was a winner of The Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry from the University of Wisconsin Press.

If you're in NYC this weekend...

I kinda love Kazim Ali. He's a magnificent writer and has been incredibly kind on the few occasions I've been fortunate enough to hang out where he happens to be. I got to see him on a panel at AWP '08 where he read just a little bit and brought down Midtown. He's reading twice in NYC this weekend.

Details:

Friday, February 12th, 5:00pm:

Kazim Ali, Tao Lin, Maaza Mengiste

At the Lillian Vernon Creative Writers House

58 W 10th St., New York, NY,

Sponsored by New York University Creative Writing Program.

Saturday, February 13th, 2:00pm:

Kazim at the Four-Faced Liar

165 W 4th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues)

He'll also be at Squaw Valley this summer, and hopes you think about applying.

Bookslut & The Wonderfull Yeare

Nate Pritts is interviewed over at Bookslut. Check out the whole piece where he gets into some nitty-gritty about The Wonderfull Yeare.

Cooper Dillon is taking orders for the book right this minute. They will ship by Feb. 16th, fo' sho'.

As if there wasn't enough to love...

Gary L. McDowell (of They Speak of Fruit fame, now available at Cooper Dillon Books) has won the Orphic Prize for his full-length collection, American Amen!

Full story over at his blog RIGHT HERE.

If you'd like a taste of what's to come from Dream Horse Press, head to Cooper Dillon and get your chap on!

If You're in St. Louis on January 23rd...

A good reading with some good people. Flyer's above, and more details are over at this lovely blog right here.

An Essay (& reading if you're in NYC on the 17th)

Ada Limón has a courageous essay of affirmation up at InDigest. It's called Listen. Give it a read.

She's also reading with a whole bunch of wonderful people in NYC on 1/17. The details:

Boog City presents

Launch Party for

The Portable Boog Reader 4

annual poetry anthology

with 72 NYC poets and now D.C. Metro area poets

all new to The Portable Boog Reader

Sun., Jan. 17, 7:00 p.m.

$5

Zinc Bar

82 W. 3rd St. (Sullivan/Thompson sts.)

NYC

WITH READINGS FROM PBR4 CONTRIBUTORS

N.Y.C. poets:

Ivy Johnson * Boni Joi

Steven Karl * Ada Limón

D.C. poets:

Lynne Dreyer * Phyllis Rosenzweig

Curated and hosted by Portable Boog Reader 4 N.Y.C. editors

Sommer Browning, Joanna Fuhrman, David Kirschenbaum, and Urayoán Noel,

and D.C. editors Cathy Eisenhower and Maureen Thorson.

Directions: A/B/C/D/E/F/V to W. 4th St.

For further information:
212-842-BOOG (2664), editor@boogcity.com

PBR4 (BC61) features the work of 48 New York City and 24 D.C. Metro area poets.

The physical issue will be available 12.30.09, and the online pdf that same day at:

http://welcometoboogcity.com/boogpdfs/bc61.pdf

The Devastation by Jill Alexander Essbaum is Now Available

Cooper Dillon Books is happy to bring you Jill Alexander Essbaum's long-poem chapbook, The Devastation.

Head on over to the Cooper Dillon Bookstore and start 2010 off right!

PS - Expect this blog to have a name other than my own soon. Ms. Rachel Dacus was kind enough to plug it and link it up, and it seems goofy that I never named this space. More to come as it comes.

Peace, babies!

Welcome to the New Year

Kick it off by reading Jason Schneiderman over at the Best American Poetry Blog.

My brother asked me the other day what my resolutions were. He got annoyed when I told him I don't make them because I don't think we need to wait for a day-to-come to make our lives better. Why should our resolve be waivering until the new year?

Just saying.

As for this blog, the resolve is the same as it ever was: expect announcements regarding other artists around the entire community whom I'm excited to support. The links to the right bring you to people who are making magical stuff, and I hope you enjoy it.