Something to do with your NaPoWriMo poems?

...if they happen to be about Portland, OR...

Powells.com celebrates National Poetry Month with an invitation to write a poem of your own. Before midnight on April 30, 2008, submit an original poem — under 20 lines and in some way about Portland, Oregon — to poetrycontest[at]powells[dot]com for a chance to win 26 books of poetry (from small press poets to contemporary prizewinners to classics) and a handy Powell's rucksack!

One of the prize books being offered is For Girls (& Others).

Entrance info here.

Drunk by Noon on the Poetry Foundation blog today

Merci, Lala!

It lives!

Click image to go to Bloof store.

(Powell's, Amazon, and other retailers to follow in about a month.
Or, if you catch us on the booktour, we'll have early copies too.)

We may not be perfect...

...but we certainly are lucky.

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary. And the 14th anniversary of our first date.

Are you ready to NaPoWriMo?

I look forward to the collective insanity.

Even though we'll be on the tour the first 2 weeks of April, I'm still gonna do it.

To make the challenge a little more challenging, I'll be posting my daily poems to the Bloof Blog and probably also reading them on the tour stops.

Maybe I can talk Jen & Danielle into doing that too? UPDATE: Jennifer L. Knox is in. Woohoo. (Not sure about D yet.)

Click the tag below for some history, etc. Thanks as always, Maureen!

If only William Shatner could ride shotgun

If you're ever planning a book tour, go with Priceline for the motels. The name-your-own-price, not the regular search.

I scored decent* rooms in 4 cities for $50-60 each. Including breakfast. Free food is nothing to scoff at, kids. Not when gas is $4 a gallon, especially. (It was $3.19 in KY in October 2005 during the last Knox/Compton/Pafunda tour, because I remember distinctly thinking that was insane.)

*So, like, no repeats of Nashville 2005, i.e. broken beds, jacked cable, nondraining sink, thick layer of dust, and complimentary near-death pittbull experience. Ewwww.

Book design on the DIY blog

Just gathers some of the threads of the conversation sparked by Gary, in case you've not seen it, and includes some additional thoughts of my own with examples.

Yo, Buffalo

Flarf comes to town 3/21. (That's tomorrow.) Don't miss it or you will be simultaneously crying, kicking yourself, and choking on a flaccid tentacle of regret shortly thereafter. Not only will the show be terrific (100% money-back guarantee), but the people rawq.

Happy Equinox

Somebody told the bulbs, because I can see allium poking through the potting mix in the big purple pot on the front porch, and the purple shamrocks from last year in the kitchen window have woken up again too. This weekend, I might just plant some things on purpose. Hoping the spikes (an ornamental grass) will come in strong in the back garden too because those are cool. The gnome has been bored with nothing to tend.

The house next door is for rent. The one across the street is finally being prepped to sell.

Wrapping up the Bloof tour details. We were shut out of Minneapolis by the Alex Lemon mafia. (I kid, I kid.) So though we'll probably stop there on the way to Far(to)go, we won't be reading, unless somebody wants us in their living room!

Marvin (that'd be my cat) had surgery yesterday but it hasn't slowed him a bit. If anything, he seems to be more energetic than before, despite the stitches. The vet shaved M's foreleg for the IV so he looks a bit poodly.

Still have a bunch of vacation-lag emails to get through. Patience is a smurf juice.

Gee, I wonder what provoked this one?

I stood at the podium under the stage lighting looking out into a dark expanse, probably filled with faces, but I couldn't make them out. The next time I looked up from my paper shuffling, the auditorium was a bar or cafe, with railroad-style rooms, two or three of them, maybe like the Ear Inn. I shuffled some more, made some humming, hawing remarks to smattered laughter. I found what I thought was Down Spooky, a dark-covered thin book, and opened it, flipping through to find a poem with which to begin. But it turned out to be an anthology I wasn't in. I stopped on a page containing a poem by _______ (an exciting find, if puzzling in the context, though now I can't remember whose it was). More shuffling. Finally I found For Girls and thought, well that's fine, I'll start with those. But I opened to the first poem and the letters swam around on the page. I attempted to recite from memory and made it through the first three poems pretending to read, concealing my trouble with the swimming pages, but by the fourth poem couldn't go on. I looked up to address a confession to the audience, which I spoke aloud. It woke us both, but I'd already forgotten it. I lay awake for 2 hours or so.

The hero(ine) returns

...insofar as I am the hero(ine) of my own story, & I certainly feel like it after submitting to the emotional buffeting that is V. Woolf's Day & Night--what fun that book was. I also read The Third Policeman (F. O'Brien), and The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque (J. Ford). Oh how I love the vacation-within-the-vacation of novels, how could I forget them so often?

What I mean to say is, I am back! But I am still reading novels. Now it's The Divided Kingdom (R. Thomson). In denial, obviously.

It will probably take me a few days to get through my email, etc.

I also have some photographs.

But get this: FOR A WHOLE WEEK, WE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT THE TIME CHANGE. It did not occur to us until we got home. The clocks were flashing (the power'd gone out in a storm, also evidenced by a good thrashing of our backyard trees' missing limbs, etc.) and when we went to set them against a wired clock we were all like, WTF, how can it be that time?! Are we in a time warp? (me) A wormhole? (him). Yeah, we are funny. 'Twas a very odd sensation for several minutes--as if the minutes themselves were sentient or alien & somehow plotting against us. We "took some time" to hide out in the woods, came prancing back in at our leisure, and Time was all like "nuh uh, you don't!"

A week away

Starting tomorrow, I'll be there. Though that's a representation of the area circa 1900. What my trip will have in common with 1900 is the lack of internet or electronic media of any kind. Ahhhhhhhh.

While I'm away, keep your eyes peeled for the new issue of Galatea Resurrects. I just turned in my review of Cathy Park Hong's Dance Dance Revolution.

Update: So, yeah, I won't be at this, due to a scheduling mix up. (I'd confirmed for the Feb 6 panel, and when it got switched had already made travel plans, bummer.) But Reb Livingston will be taking my place, so that's even better if you've never met her. She's really great at these panel things. It's open to the public.

What better place to confess...

...you like watching your pets masturbate than the Best American Poetry Blog? Don't miss Jennifer L. Knox's blogging debut, today, tomorrow & Friday.

"Birds Do Do It"

Update:Today's entry expresses love for Burt Reynolds, naturally.

Three guesses

The second volume of Poet's Bookshelf, edited by Peter "Funcie from Muncie" Davis & Tom Koontz is now available from Barnwood Press.

My essay from the book featured in the spanking-new issue of >DMQ Review, along with 3 newish poems.

But before you look, allow me to propose a game: the first person to correctly guess 3 of the influences I list--without peeking please--in the comment box below will win a free copy of For Girls (& Others).

I haven't actually received my copy yet, but if it's even half as fascinating as volume one, you gotta run right out. The book contains 101 essays by Sandra Alcosser, Jack Anderson, Philip Appleman, Ivan Argüelles, Rane Arroyo, Mary Jo Bang, Ellen Bass, Luis Benítez, Robert Bly, Marianne Boruch, Daniel Bourne, Andrea Hollander Budy, Mairéad Byrne, Nick Carbó, Maxine Chernoff, Tom Clark, Joshua Clover, Andrei Codrescu, Martha Collins, Shanna Compton, Stephen Corey, Alfred Corn, Barbara Crooker, James Cushing, Catherine Daly, Linh Dinh, Edward Field, Forrest Gander, Robert Gibb, Sandra Gilbert, Diane Glancy, Kenneth Goldsmith, Noah Eli Gordon, Stephen Herz, H. L. Hix, Anselm Hollo, Janet Holmes, Cathy Park Hong, Kent Johnson, Marilyn Kallet, Ilya Kaminsky, Robert Kelly, Amy King, Jennifer L. Knox, Ted Kooser, Greg Kuzma, Ben Lerner, Haki R. Madhubuti, David Mason, Gail Mazur, Joyelle McSweeney, Robert Mezey, Leslie Adrienne Miller, Roger Mitchell, Judith Moffett, K. Silem Mohammad, William Mohr, Carol Moldaw, Jennifer Moxley, Lisel Mueller, Eileen Myles, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Charles North, Kate Northrop, Mwatabu Okantah, Carole Simmons Oles, Jena Osma, Alicia Ostriker, Linda Pastan, Simon Perchik, Bob Perelman, Roger Pfingston, Marge Piercy, Katha Pollitt, David Ray, Judy Ray, Alberto Ríos, Jane Robinson, Robert Ronnow, Jerome Rothenberg, Jerome Sala, Dennis Schmitz, Grace Schulman, Lloyd Schwartz, Purvi Shah, David Shapiro, Reginald Shepherd, Dale Smith, Thomas R. Smith, Kevin Stein, Carolyn Stoloff, Eileen Tabios, Thom Tammaro, Tony Tost, Diane Wakoski, Diane Ward, Barrett Watten, Miller Williams, A. D. Winans, Mark Wisniewski & Carolyne Wright.

uGH

I had that upper respiratory thing a few weeks ago...but this? This stomach thing? If you've got it, my sympathies.

And yes, you can take your temperature with a meat thermometer.