Overheard at AWP: Wednesday edition
"I knew a girl named Bethany* and she was a total asshole!"
* Name changed to protect the asshole. So if your name is Bethany, it's not you.Labels: that conference thingy
A work in progress...
BEST OF THE MICROPRESSES @/in/around AWPAlso, if you're interested in Bloof Books, we don't have a table. Look for me though. I'll be a walking bookstore--hawking copies of
Drunk by Noon, A Gringo Like Me, For Girls (& Others) from my tote--special event price $10 each!--& bestowing limited advance copies of
My Zorba on potential reviewers.
Danielle Pafunda will also have copies of
My Zorba in her bag to show off/give to reviewers.
Labels: bloof, that conference thingy
REMINDER: Meet our lovely contestants LIVE!
MICROPRESS POETRY PAGEANT
FRIDAY FEB 1 @ 8PM
STAIN BAR
766 Grand Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(L TRAIN to Grand Street, 1 block West)
FREE! PUBLIC! PRIZES!
No AWP badge required!
BLOOF BOOKSCOCONUT BOOKSNO TELL BOOKSHugh Behm-Steinberg
Jenna Cardinale*
Shanna Compton
Bruce Covey
Jill Alexander Essbaum
Shafer Hall
Jennifer L. Knox
Sueyeun Juliette Lee
Reb Livingston
Danielle Pafunda
PF Potvin
Ravi Shankar
(Sponsored by Lulu.com, the place for people to publish. Empowering
anyone to create, buy, sell and control their work with the click of a mouse.)
* Unfortunately cannot attend in person, yet will be attending in spirit, which is also good company.Labels: bloof, that conference thingy
"Please note that your sobriety will be challenged at many of these venues."
Did anybody else notice that on
the AWP offsite event page?Labels: funny
In sash of satin she sways & sashays...
Reb "Your Ten Favorite Words" Livingston's isn't quite finished. Her status requires additional bling.
Labels: bloof, silly shit we do to entertain ourselves
The future of our road trip depends on it.
Hey, if you're in/near Des Moines, or Iowa City, or Central Illinois, or Minneapolis, or St. Louis & feel like having your brain picked, please drop me a line? (Email at top right.)
Ms. Knox, Ms. Pafunda & I are coming through there in April and have some spots to fill to complete our little tour, is why.
Roadside attractions & chowhound tips more than welcome too!
& how excited are we for part 2 of "Funcie in Muncie"? Oh, very. Who knew Muncie was the funnest town in the Midwest?
(The schedule so far is
here. Some local stuff coming up too!)
Labels: bloof, how we roll, readings
Sleeptasking
Insomnia does WONDERS for my to-do list.
Publishers Weekly reviews For Girls (& Others)
"'For Girls,' the first of the two sequences that make up the book, responds to, reacts against and takes many phrases from an 1882 'health manual' with the same title: its advice on fashion, bodies and morals gives rise, in Compton's hands, to quirky but politically pointed verse. 'Comedy of Manners,' the second sequence, [...] hints of romantic narrative, frequent sarcasm, riffs on found texts and ambitious range of diction (from elaborate to vulgar) all serve Compton's consistent interest in how and whether the culture will ever let girls grow up."
Link to the full review (& thanks to C. Dale for the tip!)
Right now, you can only get the book
here or via
Powell's (because it's still not yet showing up in the distro system, alas).
Pretty much every page on this site is now out of date, most especially the blogroll. It's on my (very very very very) long to-do list. Sure it is.
Labels: bloof, for girls, reviews
Told ya it was hot
A limited number of advance copies will be available for reviewers (sorry, no sales yet!) from Danielle or me during you-know-what. (D will actually be attending the conference, so
stay tuned for details.)
The official release date is April.
Labels: My Zorba, that conference thingy
2 new reviews of Drunk by Noon...
...& both terrific, naturally!
Ben Mirov in
Coldfront sez, "[
Drunk by Noon] is a series of beautiful failures linked together by the imaginative desire to fail again and again in highly enjoyable and creative ways."
& "Not since I first read James Tate have I encountered a poet who is able create a world that is at once so bizarrely asymmetrical to ours and yet somehow uncannily accurate in its portrayal of humanness."
&
many other nice things.Chris Purdom in
PhilArt compares
Drunk by Noon to a very wild ride of a careening cable car & recommends,
"It's that good. Seriously. Go buy a copy. Now."Shall I remind you that the Grand Opening Specials are available through the end of this month, at the
Bloof Store? Drunk by Noon is also available via
Powells.com (as well as the physical store in Portland, OR),
Amazon.com, these great booksellers, or your favorite store can order it for you via Ingram.
Labels: bloof
Busy as a certain micropress logo
Still working with D on
My Zorba so that we can have a few advance copies ready by you-know-what.
To which, I am not really going. But I will be at Stain Bar, Friday Feb 1 at 8:00 PM.
Like Reb said. & we're not kidding about the tiaras.
Still reading
Infinite Jest (have taken many breaks) and also
this behemoth, of another stripe entirely.
Bloofy updates & hopefully a big old DIY post to come by the end of this weekend, too.
Working on My Zorba
It's gonna be great. Wait'll you see.
Sent D the first-pass proofs last night.
Here are some of the previously published poems (some in earlier versions):
--in Coconut
--in Apocryphal Text
Labels: bloof
VotePoke
Are you registered to vote? VotePoke will check for you, prepare your form if not, and let you poke your friends. It's not too late to register to vote in the primaries of New York and New Jersey (for instance, and many other states too), so get poking, pokey.
NB: The postmark deadline in NJ is Tuesday, Jan 15.
VotePoke.org
An interview with Jennifer L. Knox...
... by Jason Jones is up at
Bookslut.Labels: bloof
Naivete bruised residual whoops.
A sclera. A rictus. A dud.
When deciduous a raffle button,
an unhuffed galleon of mirth.
A thunderous. A sprinkle. A shawl.
With many crocheted little buttons.
Unless a finger's thinking
a hangdog sack catches on a fence.
A diamond angle. A right sad accident.
No bit...
...for yesterday. Because I went to a slam instead. T'was fun.
Robbie Q. be funny.& speaking of slam,
Cristin's Words in Your Face is finally out.Labels: recommended
Happy new year
Um, hi. I'm feeling shy in front of my own blog. Funny.
Even though the daily bits I've been posting are mostly
eh, I'm going to stick with it until I crack this unproductive streak. My excuse? That old saw "garbage in, garbage out."
Sina has posted the interview we did. Very interesting questions. (Thanks, Sina!) A few poems from
For Girls (& Others) too.
& speaking of interviews, look to
Bookslut on Thursday. Jason Jones will be posting a (really funny) interview with your friend & mine,
Jennifer L. Knox. One more thing I should probably mention here (wow, I have too many blogs):
Bloof Books now has a Facebook group. Sign up for (infrequent) news and event invitations. Danke.
It's back to the writing-about-shoes factory for me...
Labels: bloof
And some winters
there were no snows
upon the ground.
The tawny geese
waddled about
not knowing when to begin.
The squirrels fattened
but never slept.
A faded green
lingered
on most of the lawns.
"Spring will be
less exciting, or
will we even notice?"
the man asked
of the handsome crow
rummaging through
a mound of blown leaves.
Crows know no seasons.
When one lives
in an old house
it helps
to be or to be
romantically involved
with an electrician.
But
I do
& am not.
There's a cat in my suitcase
I said to my friend A.
Somehow we were in Germany.
Or maybe like Russia.
K secretly was a rock god
on the drums but he'd never told us.
So after tipping our waitress
(a Polish model whose name I can't recall)
we went to the show. A & I danced
in vintage dresses & boots.
When I went to pee, the bathrooms
had bathtubs with millions of tiny tiles
& blond punkrock kids
sitting on their edges shooting up.
Labels: dream
Paste the creep.
Mash juice ever slips up on an evening.
A hovering hum may bring the people down.
Fondle it away vicariously, with pulpy seeds.
The morning's cold dish too quickly billowed.
Ring a primer inwardly while wading.
Sow only euphonious whinnies for a year.
To herself at five
she could only answer
run-on questions
To herself at ten
she'd have recommended
other books
For herself at fifteen
leanelegant, poised above
a shift in tense,
she waits
The fraction of an administered
dose unchanged. On waiver in vivo
the extent to which human. The current
understanding of the mechanisms
is no fault. A undersea environment
rich in potent generals. Who among
the nutritive company so bioavailable
so rotationally grazed. Three organizations
are superior to a million organisms
floating lonely in a watery theater.
A raft of apple studded mawkish skins
A draft more often uttered than unloud
Which lack presents the ruddy leaf of gall
So juiced, the press a might less savor fall
& shook some puddled favors to mere dips
However earthen she did roll
A query stirring in a hill
Whose eager geyser never spilled
But quivered sharply all turmoiled
Until a loner's much regard had born
A missing lister must retard
No udder rowing purring of beloved
A pictured fuddle outfitted with a bell
As over loving as the churled mock mail
For new year's fetid unguent quelled
