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Wednesday, November 30, 2005

If you're not reading the other blog...


...you might be missing lots of announcements re: DIY and micropress publications. Do you have it bookmarked or blogrolled?

And stay tuned for info on the poetry chapbook workshop I will be teaching in the spring at the New School. It starts January 25 and is 15 weeks. Registration begins soon.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Monday, November 28, 2005

Speaking of mainstream media coverage for poetry...


...Maggie Nelson was just on 48 Hours over the holiday talking about Jane. In a completely freaky turn of events, the police finally solved Jane's murder while we were in the process of publishing Maggie's book--a mixed-genre-but-mostly-poetry look at her aunt's life. If you missed the show, you can read the report (or a version of it?) here.

48 hours might just be interested in the sensational murder mystery angle, but Jane is a formally innovative, moving piece of writing. Promise.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Hiatus


Be good. I'll be here.

Misfire


Crazy
balls need
surfaces to bounce

Nothing
happening? Throw
yourself at walls

Enjoy
mad knocks
Still walls still

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Home & ready to read one last time...today at 2:00!


Shanna Compton & Jennifer L. Knox
with Tom Haushalter
Saturday, November 12 at 2:00
Frequency Series
Hosted by Shafer Hall w/ Sam Amadon
Four-Faced Liar
165 West 4th Street
FREE

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

Jacques & Juliette


Poet and food writer Juliette Rossant posted my poem "To Jacques Pepin" (and called me on its lying line) over at Superchefblog. If you're a foodie (Tony, Jordan, Matt) you'll want to make superchefblog a habitual stop, for sure. Very yummy stuff.

Thanks, Juliette!

Monday, November 7, 2005

Proof that we are doing what we say we are doing...


...here, courtesy of Clay Banes.

Snow showed = no show


GIANT bummer. We did not make it to Ashland today. We made it as far as the Target (truly an all-purpose destination, with excellent cell phone reception, road atlases, comedy CDs, inclement weather supplies, and clean restrooms) in Redding, CA. Kasey called to say the pass over Mt. Shasta might be closed due to freakishly early snow, and indeed the Highway Patrol said we could probably only get to Ashland today "if we could fly." Alas, we are not so skilled. We started to ignore this "official" advice, but my friend Jim even went online to view the Mt. Shasta live web came--a solid swirling mass of blizzardness. He lived in Ashland for 4 years and said that without chains we'd uh been fools to attempt that shit.



So craptastic crankiness ensued, plus Santa Fe Chopped Salads with sides of Tortilla Soup and Two Chicken [Veggie*] Tacos (crispy), until we realized Ashland will endure for us to visit it another day. Seventy-eight phone calls later, we found lodgings in Vallejo, CA and turned the Chevy Malibu wagon (in Champagne) southward. But we will get to Ashland someday. We will not be defeated. Some of you dear readers may remember that Mt. Shasta has tangled with me once before and lost. (JetBlue finally did do right by us, so now they rock again, but SHASTA SUCKS. What a blowhard of a mountain! Damn!)

PS: Jen reports that the drugstore next door to the Ramada Inn has safety caps on all the liquor bottles, which are removed at the register. Apparently, some people can't wait.

PPS: Oh, and last night we saw David Hess--albeit not for nearly long enough.

*[This post has been modified because I have since gone vegan.]

Just a quick one before we go...


Greetings from the West Coast. Just realized I haven't reported on the two readings so far, Saturday night in Santa Cruz and last night in Berkeley. Both were fantastic (thanks for coming, all!) and we met lots of nice new folks and sold some books.

Santa Cruz is a beautiful city--complete with sea lions lolling around under the pier [photos to come] and an amusement park on the beach. S & I stayed at a great place with gorgeous garden and a little patio. Even got some writing done. Jen stayed with her friend Nick in San Jose, who came down for the reading too. Hit all but one bookstore in town and scored Creeley's Collected 1945-1975 (lots of stuff I didn't have, including pieces published only in magazines), The Vandals by Alan Michael Parker (our Davidson, NC host a few weeks ago), and best of all, Lush Life by Bill Berkson. It's #623 of 750 copies, from Kenward Elmslie's Z Press. A bit of foxing on the back cover, and a scar from an antitheft tag inside, but for $9 I couldn't pass it up. Also, Jim Maughn suprised me a copy of his DIY chapbook With Out Much. (Don't know if it's available for purchase, but if it is, I'll add the link to the other blog!)

Then yesterday we drove up to San Francisco, where we immediately hit City Lights (and I got Captive Audience by Bob Perelman, A Thousand Devils by Kasey Mohammad--Jen and I fought over it, I won--and Susan Wheeler's novel Record Palace. Damn, I love that store. Noted with delight Justin's chapbook displayed face out in the consignment section! Wanted to also get the Koch collected, but thought better of packing it. Then Cafe Vesuvio for a beer, an Italian joint up the street for lunch, and coffee from Cafe Trieste before heading to the hotel for a little nap. The reading last night was great fun--despite one INSANE dude in the audience heckling, harrassing, and stinking up the place. Got to congratulate Ilya on his amazing award in person, meet Pappy Rob's friend Bree (sp?), Jen's friend Roxy, hang out with Chris Stroffolino, and finally meet Clay, who's a doll. Went for a few drinks at Beckett's (deep-lined portraits of the writer everywhere and Irish-style snugs) till I got terribly sleepy. Perked up for some pool-sitting after our 30 minute Bart trip.

In a bit we head up to Ashland to see Kasey. Jen's gonna freeze because she packed for CA and Texas, not Mt. Shasta. And the forecast all the way up 5 is rain turning to snow in Ashland this evening. But surely we'll spot a Target from the HOV lane...

Saturday, November 5, 2005

Matt Madden's 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style


Matt Madden's new book 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style has just been released by Chamberlain Bros. (an imprint of Penguin) with a fantabulous cover and interior designed by Charlie Orr (naturally). You might remember some of these comics from LIT. Following the example of Oulipian Raymond Queneau, Matt renders the same simple story in 99 stylistic variations. The book's amazing, and beautifully done. Peep at some samples here, and then click on over to Powell's or your local bricks-and-mortar store to get your copy.

Ron Hogan (of Beatrice.com) has written a great launch party report at in his Galley Cat column at Media Bistro. (And thanks for the link, Ron! Nice to meet you. Good luck with your book's launch next week, as well!)

Five stars for Danielle Pafunda's Pretty Young Thing...


...from Kevin Killian at Amazon. (Thanks, Kevin! And if you're one of the few poetry peeps not reading Kevin's reviews at Amazon regularly as you sashay through the blogsphere, check them out. Click here to see the complete list of nearly 1000!)

Friday, November 4, 2005

My third leg helps me balance! (Updated, and with no time for one of those cute little maps.)


California & Oregon, here we come.

Jennifer Knox & I take off again Friday AM today, heading for the West Coast.

If you're anywhere near Santa Cruz, the Bay Area, or Ashland, OR, we'd love to see you!

Saturday, November 5 at 7:30 PM
New Cadence Series
Hosted by Jim Maughn
Louden Nelson Community Center
301 Center Street
Santa Cruz, CA
FREE

Sunday, November 6 at 8:00 PM
Pegasus Books
Hosted by Clay Banes
2349 Shattuck Avenue
Berkeley, CA
(510) 649-1320
FREE

Monday, November 7 at 7:00 PM
Emergent Forms Series
Hosted by K. Silem Mohammad
Southern Oregon University
Hannon Library
Meese Meeting Room #305
FREE for students, $5-10 for public

Tuesday, November 8 at 2:00 PM
Informal colloquium
Hosted by K. Silem Mohammad
Southern Oregon University
Decker Writing Studio
Central Hall, 3rd Floor (Room 240)
FREE


(After that, Jen takes off for Austin, where she'll be reading at the University of Texas (details here). The husband & I are tacking on a few vacation days in Northern California. Aw yeah.)

We'll all be back on 11/11, and hope you local folks will then join us for our homecoming reading:

Saturday, November 12 at 2:00
Frequency Series
Hosted by Shafer Hall w/ Sam Amadon
Four-Faced Liar
165 West 4th Street
FREE

Thursday, November 3, 2005

Poem from Clay Banes


i shelved your book
next to billy collins
and jennifer's book next
to ted kooser.
so don't say i never
did anything for you.

the weather in california
will be lovely, and in
oregon it will rain.



[Thanks, Clay! See you in Berkeley!]

Wednesday, November 2, 2005

Getting there...& more tour reportage


Making actual progress. Started on the laundry so I can pack (again) and got all the trip details and confirmations sorted out (again). Got a catsitter and finished the essay that's already past due (though it's way too long; still, I can cut that down by tomorrow).

But I still haven't had time to tell y'all about all the fun we had in Milwaukee with Cam and Sarah and Scotty and Matt, and with Kelly at Broad Vocabulary, and the multiple Pauls and Johns. Or about the ridiculously sized crazy cocktails at At Random (those photos don't do the place justice, trust me--it's so David-Lynchian in there, signed crooner photos on every wall, white flocked plastic poinsettias, and lots of tinsel, elderly couples mixed in with the hipsters) or the fantastic food and tons-of-fun reading at Cafe Lulu.

And I haven't had two seconds to tell you about our visit with Anne-Marie, Mark and their beautiful sons in Oak Park, or anything about the reading at the very swank Green Mill. (Really wish we could've stayed for the slam. Alas, given the um, circumstances, it wasn't an option!)

And I wonder if I'll ever have a moment to transcribe all the great lines I plagiarized from Gabe, Lucia, Robbie & Michael after the reading (in a gallery full of candy-pink pop-up books and other art over which I wanted to linger) in Normal, where all the students eat only pizza and hot dogs.

Ah well. These brief snippets will have to do. I do have a few more pics to post, and I've promised myself to take lots more photos on this third trip. Perhaps the weather will cooperate. Digital cameras are computers after all--they don't like rain!

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Hyperbole or totally f*cked?


I owe about 47 people approximately 83 things. By Thursday PM.

More coffee please!

PS: The security guard in the lobby is asleep. Attack now!