Break in case of emergency

If you were ever to need a poet to leap over a bar, you could do worse than Michael Quattrone.

If you were ever to need a poet to hide under a bar, I could probably manage that. Jen Knox could also help out.

If you were ever to need a poetry venue in which to be hear shouts of "He tried to kill me!" and "I swear I'll burn this place to the ground!" go check out KGB.

And if you were ever to need a poet to serenely continue reading his last poem, right from where he stopped when the chaos broke out, as if nothing much had gone down, well, CAConrad's your man.

Reading report to come.

My life in nearly

So this is me with my to-do list, perpetually. Back taxes, nearly. Bookkeeping, not yet. Trip planning, nearly. Hey can I get paid for that class I taught in June, again. Oh shit another 2 weeks go by without answering any emails, even the fun ones, always. And no poems. Who has time for poems!?

I fiercely hope that under an Obama administration my organizational tussle with whatever planets muck me is resolved, preferably in the first term, and that poems once again hold sway. Like, I could try reading some! A banner day! Let's get some fanfare!

Veganniversary

Just realized I've been vegan 6 months, as of today.

And I have not died from lack of protein, go figure. Actually, I have never felt better. (Mostly thanks to this book & this one.)

And I have learned to make all manner of luscious things that have even my nonvegan friends and family going wow. (Many courtesy of this book.)

My grocery budget has been cut by 1/3. (Beans and tofu are quite thrifty, as are in-season veggies, particularly from our CSA.)

Best of all, completely cutting dairy has significantly reduced my allergies. Ahhhhhh! Breathing rocks!

Hurry up and wait

We made what I think are the final edits to Warsaw Bikini this weekend, tweaked the cover a bit, took out the interior artwork, added the ISBN and barcode, fixed a couple of minor typos. New proofs are on the way, express.

Fingers crossed!

Waiting for the printer is always the hardest part.

Yo, Georgia! UPDATE: & North Carolina!

We--and by "we" I mean Jennifer L. Knox, Sandra Simonds & myself--will be heading your way in about a month: Friday, November 14.

We're gonna go visit Bruce Covey, the world's tallest poet, and do a reading at Emory University, which has a beeeeyooootiful campus. And hopefully we'll see Laurel and Collin and Kodak and Laura too. We had a blast downthataway in 2005. (Hey, is there decent vegan food in Atlanta?)

Trying to decide if we should fly or drive though. Driving the space-age hybrid is more economical since we'd be HOV, but we can't think of any place else to stop and maybe get in another reading as we zip through VA/NC/SC. You got any ideas?

UPDATE:

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14 @ 8:00 PM
Sandra Simonds, Jennifer L. Knox & Shanna Compton
Hosted by Bruce Covey
Emory University
Bldg/Room TBD
Decatur/Atlanta, GA


SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15 @ 7:00 PM
Patrick Herron, Jennifer L. Knox & Shanna Compton
Minor American Reading Series
Hosted by Kate Pringle & Maggie Zurawski
Location TBD
Durham, NC

(Big thanks to Evie Shockley & Kate Greenstreet for their help, and to Kate & Maggie for fitting us in!)

Funniest moment

Watched on MSNBC (of course). And at one point, 2 kids behind Chris Matthews held up signs saying

"Never gonna give you up"

"Never gonna let you down"

Yeah, got rickrolled on live teevee.

Multiple choice

If you missed the debate, find it online. Several times, Gwen Ifill (who I think did a good job in general) gave Palin *multiple choice* questions. Perhaps she was attempting to address the worries that she was "in the bag."

Whatevs. I watched the whole thing. Palin still doesn't make sense. She was breathing in a very rushed, odd way much of the time (visibly nervous, especially in the beginning), but managed to bluster right through spots that would have been silence or sputtering had she not improved on her mistakes in the Couric interviews.

Was she better? Yes. Did she sound like she knew what she was talking about? No.

And ugh, the winking! Her accent was comically exaggerated, alsohhhhh.

By the way, Bosniaks is not only a perfectly fine word, it's the correct one.

Guys, Can You Please Help Me Get a Rape Kit?

           For Mel Nichols

America, my head is made of African ivory and Tennesse marble.
We just overloaded the little fluff head
in a practice debate on a ruffly green lawn
surrounded by a metaphorical desert.
Somewhere, a candidate shines like a factoid oasis.

Tonight should be like taking a pistol to a wrestling match.
The risk is not in overreaching,
but overcoming. Words are what someone else
tells you to say. But America knows who the real
me is in my own words without the script.
Just call me racism n sexsim.

All I know for sure is patriots don't vote for Muslims, or
for those who seek the interconvulutes of my poor cerebrum.
Leave the chihuaha without a bone to chew on.
Jill American lands a fair point: Libs are such wimps.

In other words America, I am dumb, just like you.
I excite the militarized bone. I am vast,
and contain variety. Also some mediums.
All the ones that have been put in front of me
over the years are the ones I have understood.
I am indiscriminating. I reared my head up from a little child.

Tonight I will turn my TV off.
It seves as a impenatrable barrier.




With apologies to whoever wrote the first line as it appears here. Didn't realize it was already a poem when I flarfnabbed it. I just couldn't resist it!

The poetry of Sarah Palin