Documentary

bird



breakfast (recipe)



brr



better



blue



bright



bodega



bites



bad movie



buzz

To be continued, I guess

So I said I'd be writing more about reading, and then haven't had time to do that.

I finshed this though.

I will continue with this series, read at least the second novel, to give the characters a chance. (It's a highly respected series so benefit of doubt extended). But I found myself disappointed in this first installment; it was slow and there was lots of setup for not so much payoff. The white guy problems of the detective were not all that interesting. To be fair, I think I have been spoiled by Stieg Larsson and Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö, who for the mere reason of their Swedishnish and a shared genre I can't help but compare.

I've picked up this one now, which is not at all Swedish, and shares a certain southern extravagance of language that deeply pleases me, as in Faulkner and McCarthy, though not quite *that* lush, more Hannah or Powell sort of sentences, though that's not really right either. Brutal beauty, so far. (Typically the character is described as a brunette but they've chosen a blond for the movie, which I haven't seen.)



Winter's Bone, Daniel Woodrell

Continuing with the other books too, from the previous books post. (I typically read many things at once, a habit from school I guess, but sometimes a novel will pull me so far in everything else waits until I am "back.")

Nothing more penetrating to say at the moment, should anyone be looking for that kind of thing.

Louis CK was great Friday night though. I think he has a cold, but it didn't tamp him down all that much.

Knox your sox off, part 3

Crossposted from the Bloof Blog:

Order here.

We have a limited number of early copies in right now, and first-come orders will go out right away. After those run out, purchases will be preorders and will go out as soon as the shipment comes in (approx 2 weeks).

The official pub date is not till December, so the books will not be available anywhere else (Amazon, etc.) for another 6 weeks, give or take.

Why are you just sitting there?
You know you want one.
You can't wait!

More from "The Argument Is Love"

My hand is cramping now.

From "The Argument Is Love"

From "The Argument Is Love" (Editors)

It's like I forgot how

But I haven't. I've just, apparently, switched over to Facebook for brief musings and digital ephemera. It's not a statement. It's just easier to use FB discreetly at work than Blogger, which has a screen-hogging interface.

But also I wanted to make an effort, concerted in fashion, to write more prose about books. (I just got Stephen Burt's Close Calls with Nonsense, but that's part of addressing this impulse not the root of it.) I have resisted, repeatedly, articulating many of my opinions on poetry (which is not to say poets, though those opinions are much less literary). This is a resistance I would like to investigate, for personal reasons, but I suppose it has to be done "aloud." And if I don't overcome it, or decide not to, well, maybe I can write about why. Instead.

So right now I will just list some things I am reading. Not all of this will be poetry. I never only read poetry. That would be, like, an affectation or something.



C. D. Wright, Rising, Falling, Hovering
Henning Mankell, Faceless Killers
Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Everything Is Every Thing
Aase Berg, trans. Johannes Göransson, Remainland
Susan L. Smalley & Diana Winston, Fully Present

This is just a list. More, about some/all, later I guess. Back to work.

And we're off.

Please check the Bloof Blog for updates throughout the tour. We'll also be doing some reports from the road as guests on the Best American Poetry Blog.

And finally, please note that if you order a book from bloofbooks.com in the next ten days, it will probably not ship until the 24th. The whole staff will be in the rental car.

Hope to see you out there. Do say hi!

One week from today...

...we kick off the book tour.

Feeling a little overwhelmed, but really everything's going pretty smoothly at this point. Making progress each day. Got a free car upgrade (hybrid Camry, boyeeeee!), Pricelining some sweet hotel deals, books look gorgeous, etc.

Tonight I'm going to see the PIXIES on their OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT SHIZ IS 20 YEARS OLD tour.

Here's the schedule:

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• 9/14 Muncie, IN @ 7:30 PM
Peter Davis, Jennifer L. Knox & Shanna Compton

Ball State University
Bracken Library, Room 104
RSVP on Facebook!

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•9/15 Nashville, TN @ 7:00 PM
Jennifer L. Knox, Peter Davis & Shanna Compton

Davis-Kidd Booksellers
The Mall at Green Hills, Suite 281
2121 Green Hills Village Drive
RSVP on Facebook!

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• 9/16 Atlanta, GA @ 8:00 PM
Peter Davis, Jennifer L. Knox, Sandra Simonds & Shanna Compton

What's New in Poetry Series
Hosted by Bruce Covey
Emory University
Few Hall Multipurpose Room
RSVP on Facebook!

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• 9/17 Tallahassee, FL @ 8:00 PM
Sandra Simonds, Shanna Compton, Peter Davis, Scott Sweeney & Bruce Covey

The Warehouse
703 West Gaines Street
RSVP on Facebook!

---

• 9/19 Washington, DC @ 3:00 PM
Peter Davis & Shanna Compton with Magus Magnus

In Your Ear Series
Hosted by Maureen Thorson & Buck Downs
DC Arts Center
2438 18th Street NW
Admission $5
RSVP on Facebook!

Note: The line-up has changed. I'll be reading instead of Rachel Zolf, who unfortunately can't make it.

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• 9/20 Baltimore, MD @ 8:00 PM
Shanna Compton, Peter Davis & Jennifer L. Knox

Cyclops Books
30 West North Ave.
RSVP on Facebook!

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• 9/21 Philadelphia, PA @ 6:00 PM
Peter Davis, Jennifer L. Knox & Shanna Compton with Nicholas A. DeBoer

New Philly Poets
Hosted by Debrah Morkun
Fergie's Pub
1214 Sansom Street
RSVP on Facebook!

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•9/22 Ewing, NJ @ 4:00 PM
Jennifer L. Knox, Peter Davis & Shanna Compton

The College of New Jersey
TCNJ Library Auditorium
2000 Pennington Rd.
RSVP on Facebook!

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• 9/24 Brooklyn, NYC @ starting at noon...
Peter Davis with too many great people to list!

Welcome to Boog City Festival & Small Press Bookfair
Unnameable Books
600 Vanderbilt Ave.
[Link for full info TK]
[FB link TK]

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• 9/25 Brooklyn, NYC @7:30
Peter Davis with Eileen Malone & others TBD

Earshot
Hosted by Nicole Steinberg
Rose's Live Music
345 Grand Street
RSVP on Facebook!

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• 9/25 Manhattan, NYC @ 6:00 PM
Jennifer L. Knox with Ada Limon & Jason Schneiderman

New York University
Lillian Vernon House
58 W. 10th Street
RSVP on Facebook!

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Doesn't that all sound like fun?

Truncated

Oh, and of the tour dates a few posts down...we're now starting with Muncie. The first 5 just didn't come quite together in time.

We're planning another trip in the spring, so hopefully we can do those then.

Because we're definitely going to miss ya.

Revisions

So you know how when you "complete" a manuscript, but then you can't help yourself and keep writing more that fits in the series that is already 30-poems long?

Yeah, well, I am doing that. I'm just gonna go with it. It'll be out in February (Bloof, 2011). It's gonna be called THE SEAM ROVERS.

There's gonna be a preview chapbook, of mainly poems from the other sections, like a sneak peak, and a set list for the tour. It's at the printer right now. It's called Good Morning, Romantics. It will be sold/gifted/swapped only on the book tour, in a numbered sum of 50.

It will probably look like this:




But I am testing 2 other covers and might change it. If you have an opinion, well shit, that's what the comment boxes are for.

It feels so quaint to be typing things into this old-timey blog. Hi people.

How stuff happens

Many simultaneous things, the way I seem to work best.

My new book: I'm pretty sure about the title, but not quite ready to say yet. (I just want to live with it some more. I say it to myself while brushing my teeth, etc. Mental beta testing.)

Sections I and III are complete, if not quite final. II should be complete this weekend. Then next Friday we leave for vacation, during which I plan to finish section IV and give all four sections another typewriter polishing. I'll give it to my reader-editors when I get back on the 15th. Got a cover idea.

I owe everyone I love an email, at minimum.

I read from I and III last week at the Flarf deal (tho they're not technically all that flarfy). By the way, that was fun. Article in Comedy Beat.

I'm working extra this week, which is kind of a bummer since I'd rather do Jen's and my stuff. But weekend starts tonight at 6:00, whew! Her book is done, we're proofing and tweaking the design. I think I can order test copies before I go.

The tour now looks like this, for which you can lay blame on Jen and me hitting happy hour last week:

Pittsburgh 9/8: looking for something
Milwaukee 9/9: working on something
Minneapolis 9/10-11: working "
Chicago 9/12: working "
Champaign 9/13: booked
Muncie 9/14: booked
Nashville 9/15: booked
Atlanta 9/16: booked
Tallahassee 9/17: working "
(Open date) 9/18: thinking
Washington DC 9/19: booked
Baltimore 9/20: working "
Philadelphia 9/21: booked
Ewing 9/22: working "
NYC 9/23: attending Best American Poetry launch
Brooklyn 9/24: booked
NYC 9/25: booked (2 events, one for Pete, one for Jen)

Details on all will go on the Bloof events page real soon.

Oh, but first!

Wednesday, Aug 4 (next week)
Chloe Cooper Jones, James Yeh + me
Four Faced Liar
165 W 4th
NYC
6:30 PM
Free

Speaking of comments

...I just realized my comments are only showing on the main page, not on the posts individually. I don't have time to try to fix that right now. Not intentional. Comments are still available.

Oh, look, it's kinda like old-school blogging.

Respondents who say "just don't look" or "just go elsewhere" not only are lacking in basic reading comprehension skills (she says she has, and interviewed others who have, done both), but they are typically missing the point.

If we can agree that, at some point in the last X number of years, the internet became, for whatever % of the poetry-writing population, their primary location of interaction with their peers on whatever level (critical exchange, professional networking, or plain old silly socializing, usually in some combo), and we can now say that some of those people, who found the promise of the internet exciting and enriching in any of these ways, have now become re-isolated, in a pre-poetry-on-the-internet fashion, thanks to tons and tons and tons and tons of bad behavior, what is the then that follows?

We're not making this up. Contemporary sociologists and grad students galore are writing about Internet Disinhibition Disorders and Cyberbullying and etc. There will be work in these fields to follow about this other side of the coin, this re-inhibition of, well, whatever is the complement (not to say opposite) of the CFB.

Yeah, OK, we agree that poetry is not the only niche to suffer here. That is a duh point. And yes, the Huffington Post or Eschaton or Drudge or fill-in-your-blank daily newspaper may indeed be "worse." But what's your point there? I am not counting on political spatting on the internet for making culture. I am not counting on that for anything. (The internet and social networking are politically relevant and were instrumental in getting Obama elected (for instance); but it wasn't the snarky bullshit parts that did that; the CFBs and other toxic BS do nothing but exacerbate fatigue and wear out the good-faith participants.)

It remains interesting (and I'd also say important) to consider, though, who "just doesn't look" and where they can go when they "just go elsewhere."

I know some of these answers, personally. So do you.

Independent day sale

Any 2 Bloof Books for $20, this weekend. Details at the Bloof Blog.

New at the Bloof Blog

• Early reviews + shiny new Add to Cart buttons re: Peter Davis's Poetry! Poetry! Poetry!

• Hypothetically speaking of Charlie Orr & his poetry book designs, both real and imagined

• A picture of cake

• An uncorrected press release

• Spiffy new layout with NEW! IMPROVED! in-progress blogroll

More stuff I do besides blog

One of the many things I do besides blog

(And I corrected the spelling before it went national.)

NaPoWriMo commences at the Bloof blog

Next week! Bloof @ AWP in Denver.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7 • 7:00-11:00 PM

Pussipo/Dusie Press/Stonecoast Femiganza

Danielle Pafunda & Shanna Compton reading with Bronwen Tate, Ann Bogle, Jennifer Karmin, Marthe Reed, Annie Finch, Amy King, Cara Benson, Mackenzie Carignan, Deborah Poe, Ana Bozicevic, Teresa Carmody, Kate Durbin, Megan Volpert, Elizabeth Hildreth, Anna Aguilar-Amat, Sarah Rosenthal, Krystal Languell, K. Lorraine Graham, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Robin Reagler, Cheryl Pallant, Lara Glenum, Deb Marquart, Elizabeth Searle, Mel Nichols, Jesse Glass,
& j/j hastain

Packing House Center for the Arts
835 E. 50th Ave
Denver, CO

FREE | AWP registration not required
RSVP @ Facebook

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THURSDAY, APRIL 8 • 7:00-10:00 PM

Small Press Party with Bloof Books • Cooper Dillon Book • Noemi Press

Danielle Pafunda, Jennifer L. Knox, Peter Davis, Sandra Simonds & Shanna Compton reading with Ada Limon, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Claire Hero, Gary L. McDowell, Nate Pritts, and Shya Scanlon

Green Spaces Colorado
1368 26th Street (@ Walnut Street)
Denver, CO

FREE | AWP registration not required

RSVP @ Facebook

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FRIDAY, APRIL 9 • 12:00-1:15 PM

Gurlesque Anthology Reading

Danielle Pafunda, reading with Lara Glenum, Cathy Wagner, Dorothea Lasky, Cathy Park Hong and Elizabeth Treadwell

Hyatt Regency Denver
650 15th Street
3rd floor: Mineral Hall

A reading in celebration of Gurlesque, a new anthology of contemporary women poets and visual artists now out from Saturnalia Books.

AWP registration badge required for entry.

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FRIDAY, APRIL 9 • 5:00-7:00 PM

Black Warrior Review / Blue Hour Press Offsite Reading

Shanna Compton reading with Christopher Cheney, Miriam Cohen, Nick Courtright, John Gallaher, James Grinwis, Emily Kendal Frey, Brian Kubarycz, Sabrina Orah Mark, and Alexis Orgera

Mario's Double Daughter's Salotto
1632 Market Street
Denver, CO

FREE | AWP registration not required

RSVP @ Facebook

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FRIDAY, APRIL 9 • 7:00 PM-late

Meadowlark Poetry Marathon

Peter Davis reading with Rachel Loden, Kate Greenstreet, Amy King, Aaron Belz, Arielle Greenberg, Daniel Borzutsky, Amy Guth, Ana Bozicevic, Susan Schultz, Chad Parmenter, Katie Degentesh, Geoffrey Gatza, Janet Holmes, Tony Trigilio, Julie Dill, Tony Robinson, Reb Livingston, Ben and Sandra Doller, Steven Schroeder, Aaron Kunin, Kathy Ossip, Charles Alexander, Luc Simonic, and Chris Davidson

Meadowlark Bar
2701 Larimer Street
Denver, CO 80205

FREE | AWP registration not required

RSVP @ Facebook

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FRIDAY, APRIL 9 • 7:00 PM-late

WILLA (Women in Letters and Literary Arts) reading

Danielle Pafunda is reading with Kim Adinozzio, Mary Akers, Erin Belieu, Ana Bozicevic, Jami Brandli, Barrie Jean Borich, Nickole Brown, Kara Candito, Mary Cappello, Jennine Capó Crucet, Carolyn Forche, Ru Freeman, Lara Glenum, Cathy Park Hong, Olivia Johnson, Lynn Kilpatrick, Amy King, Dorianne Laux, Roxanne Banks Malia, April Manteris, Cate Marvin, Carol Muske-Dukes, Antonya Nelson, Ann Pancake, Jennifer Park, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Patricia Smith, Susan Steinberg, Cheryl Strayed, Ann Townsend, Emily Warn, Leni Zumas

Denver Press Club
1330 Glenarm Place
Denver, CO

FREE $10 | AWP registration not required

RSVP @ Facebook

Dear male poets,

Have you ever had a creepy, condescending, pretentious a-hole of an anonymous Amazon reviewer talk about YOUR breasts?

Well, lucky freaking you.

Cuz this is what that might look like.

I was really surprised, because, I mean: Isn't sexism dead?

I think you should buy a copy of Warsaw Bikini in protest. I know where you can get one: link.

Part 3: Remembering Lucille Clifton @ Delirious Hem

Tara Betts sitting next to Lucille Clifton, 2004. Photo credit: Howard Ramsby

Part Three (March 22, 2010):

Tara Betts
Kazim Ali
Shanna Compton
Deborah Poe

I'm up this week at No Tell Motel.

Update: Oops, not a permalink. Please look for March 2010 in the archives, here.

Incredibly important, poignant & possibly poetic things I feel I really must blog about, like, now

Today's mental soundtrack included some Karen Carpenter, the theme from The A-Team, a little Marvin Gaye, Sparklehorse (so tragic), Alex Chilton & Big Star, and lots and lots of Ronnie Milsap.

I bought a mango from Peru and felt guilty. It's in the kitchen pouting because I won't eat it.

I think I sunburned my forehead. Little overeager re: spring.

Speaking of spring, I saw a really skinny groundhog this morning.

I told some of you some of these things via email. They're so pressing, I have to say them twice I guess, and direct them toward the internet at large.

Wow, the internet is really large. Just google Ronnie Milsap for instance.

There's been some updating activity on Alex Chilton's Wikipedia page today. I haven't had the heart to check Sparklehorse's. Or Barry Hannah's.

Now I'm thinking about death, which reminds me I have another installment of the (beautiful) tributes to Lucille Clifton to put up in a few days.

I think next week is my week at No Tell Motel. Don't worry, I will post again when the poems are up because I learned to do that in grad school. I thought of that to cheer myself up from thinking about the deaths of all these people above. Deaths are not always sad for the people who die I guess. I think the Sparklehorse guy tried really hard, for a long time. Poor dude. Maybe he and DFW can smoke some weed out past Pluto or wherever. Non-planet status probably wouldn't bother guys like them.

That was brief, the cheering up portion. I'm not really in need of cheering, actually. I feel pretty insert expletive fantastic lately. Today was great. I went to the gym, and spent a lot of time outside, I bought some lovely fresh food and felt really lucky about being able to do that, and I worked a little more on the new Bloof book, which makes me laugh every time. And I gave some of my friends some free shit, which is always fun to do. And then Laura C. sent me a link to this and my cheeks turned pink like my forehead, but not from sunburn.

Here's another really great thing I read on the internet this week.

How are you?

& read this daily

Disease Proof

Doc F in a new doc, Processed People

More info here.

And especially here.

At Delirious Hem...

Part One (March 8, 2010):

Naomi Shihab Nye
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Evie Shockley
Alicia Ostriker
GE Patterson
Sharon Mesmer



Part Two (March 15, 2010):

Mairéad Byrne
Mendi Lewis Obadike
Theresa Edwards
Julie Phillips Brown
Cara Benson

Part Three (March 22, 2010):

Tara Betts
Kazim Ali
Deborah Poe
Imani Tolliver
Shanna Compton

Welcome to the Hypothetical Library!

Book designer to the stars (Soft Skull, Top Shelf, Bloof, No Tell Books, LIT, Penguin, et al.), Charlie Orr kicks off a new project designing covers for books that will never exist. Welcome to the Hypothetical Library!

Reminder: Tribute to Lucille Clifton

Dears,

A reminder that I am seeking any/all words of praise, personal anecdotes, close readings, reviews, photographs, audio/video recordings, poems-in-the-manner-of, work dedicated to, and other gushing and love for the Mama Poet who was Lucille Clifton, to be posted on the Delirious Hem blog very soon.

I'd said on/around March 1, but need at least a few more things. There is no lack of love, we know.

Alicia Ostriker has sent me an essay and anecdote. Sharon Mesmer a poem in memorium. Naomi Shiab Nye a poem about hearing Lucille perform. Theresa Senato Edwards an essay. I have written a little mini remembrance with some excerpts from her work.

Do you have anything to add? Would you like to play a song for Lucille? Or paint her an angel? Or just sign a card?

I am going to repost the call to Facebook too, so please DO FORWARD this message or repost at will.

Thank you,
Shanna

Dusie/Pussipo/Stonecoast Feminganza: Wednesday, April 7 in Denver, CO

Film review

Zombieland is the grossest teen-inflected romcom I've ever seen. And I read in an interview with Woody Harrelson that that Twinkie was a vegan facsimile. He's pretty funny. So's that adorable Jesse Eisenberg, but I missed whatshername Juno, because the girls' parts were typically underwritten. They did what they could, and I admired Emma Stone's eyeliner and pout. Overall, not as tickling as Pineapple Express or Hangover, or to compare it to something in the same vein Shaun of the Dead, but still laffy, with a few "I'm totally gonna start saying that a lot" lines. I agree about Garland, TX. The best part is Bill Murray, but I don't wanna spoil it for you.

Lucille Clifton tribute

Hello,

If you're like me, you met Lucille Clifton (via her poems) in a Central Texas public library, back in the early 1980s. If you're like me, you were wowed by her, and emulated her, and later just flat out admired her.

Or maybe you met her another way, in person even, at school or a reading or through correspondence.

We're mostly alike in that we loved her and we're sorry to see her go, but so happy she wrote us all those poems.

I'm collecting Lucille Clifton stuff for a tribute at Pussipo's Delirious Hem.

Taking stuff through Feb 28, to be posted on or around March 1.

Please send your essays, reminiscences, personal photos, close readings, audio/video interpretations, portraits, poems inspired by, etc. to me at shanna [at] shannacompton [dot] com.

Or if you are on the Pussipo list, you may post them (especially large files) to the group's FILES area there.

Feel free to repost/foward this message.

Thanks,
Shanna

PS: new feed link

feed://blog.shannacompton.com/atom.xml

or some readers prefer

http://blog.shannacompton.com/atom.xml

Migration complete

I think I managed to migrate to the new subdomains successfully.


If you visit one of the affected pages, you will see a creepy dead TV like the one above, and get automatically redirected in 15 seconds. Like magic!

Please update your bookmarks/blog rolls from:

      shannacompton.com/blog.html ----> blog.shannacompton.com

Also affected (but I doubt anyone has them bookmarked or blog rolled):

      shannacompton.com/poems.html ----> poems.shannacompton.com
      shannacompton.com/readings.html ----> readings.shannacompton.com

Thank you.