Kathleen Rooney » Kathleen

Word For/Word…

Kathleen — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:51:30 +0000

…volume #19 has just been published, and it has new work by Annah Browning, Kristina Marie Darling, Shira Dentz and many more, including two Robinson poems by yours truly. Check the whole thing out here, or here if you prefer to read online things PDF style. Thanks to Jonathan Minton for putting the issue together and to Corey Lafferty for engineering the interface.

Momus says…

Kathleen — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:06:57 +0000

…that on the web, everyone will be famous to fifteen people. There were way more than fifteen people…

….at the DePaul Poets reading at the DePaul Art Museum last night…

…and perhaps by posting their pictures here, their internet fame will grow and grow. Dan Stolar emceed the event…

…and Chris Green went first, reading a poem about a brush with fame called “In the Locker Room, I Introduce Myself to a Naked Mickey Rourke”…

…and then I read a bunch of poems, co-written with EG, about Paris Hilton:

David Welch read next…

…and Mark Turcotte batted clean-up:

Thanks to Miles Harvey for putting the reading together, to Eric Plattner for all the photos of the readers, and to everyone for coming and letting me take your photographs–you looked great.

Radio On!

Kathleen — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:40:47 +0000

DePaul University has an award-winning student radio station known as Radio DePaul. On Fridays, they broadcast a program called The DePaul Writers’ Series, and tomorrow, between 10 and 11 am, I’ll be on it to discuss For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs among other subjects. Tune in, won’t you?

Winner winner chicken dinner.

Kathleen — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:23:22 +0000

Rose Metal Press is thrilled to announce that judge Randall Brown selected the manuscript Shampoo Horns by Aaron Teel as the winner of this year’s sixth annual short short chapbook contest. You can read about the terrific finalists and semi-finalists here.

Aaron does not, in fact, win a chicken dinner (that would be gross), but he does get to have his book printed in a limited edition with letterpressed covers, along with an intro by Brown. The book will be available this coming July, and you can sign up to receive a copy by becoming a supporter here. In fact, while you’re there, you can also help us reach our 2012 subscription drive goal of $12,000–there are just 12 days left, and any and every amount helps RMP bring more innovative works in hybrid genres into the hands of readers.

A mind of winter

Kathleen — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 01:57:05 +0000

If you live in or around Chicago, you might have noticed that it’s snowing here for the first time since last winter. Winter, as everyone knows, is the second best of all the seasons, so this fact in and of itself is nothing to fret about; however, the inclement conditions mean that this evening’s Poems While You Wait event that was supposed to take place in conjunction with a screening of the Louder Than a Bomb documentary at New Trier High School in Winnetka was put on hold. Our intrepid typewriters were all ready to go, but they understood the superintendent’s decision–safety first:

Stay tuned for news of a possible rescheduling for later in the Spring.

Lucky Friday the 13th

Kathleen — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:41:17 +0000

Leigh Stein is coming to Chicago this Friday, January 13, to read from her debut novel, The Fallback Plan, at Women & Children First, and I’ll be reading with her. You should watch her book trailer here, and then this panda photograph will begin to make sense. You should also come to the reading at 7:30 this Friday.

Fame is brilliant?

Kathleen — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:44:18 +0000

Do you believe in New Year’s Resolutions? Was one of them to go to more reading series? Might I suggest the P. Fanatics Reading Series hosted by Mason Johnson at Cole’s Bar in Logan Square:

Status updates from the deep

Kathleen — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:23:04 +0000

The latest issue of Arsenic Lobster has gone live, just in time for the holidays. Take a break from wrapping/unwrapping your presents and contemplating your New Year’s Resolutions and read some poems by Kate Greenstreet, Arielle Greenberg Bywater, and Carol Guess & Daniela Olszewska among others, including EG and me.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon.

Kathleen — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:53:49 +0000

Ever since I read “The Idea of Order at Key West” by Wallace Stevens, I’ve wanted to visit Key West. This desire only increased when I read later that Stevens a) quarreled drunkenly there with Robert Frost in February of 1935, and b) broke his hand there on Ernest Hemingway’s jaw in 1936. Thus, this past week was basically a dream come true–the end of the rainbow, if you will:

And speaking of Hemingway, here he is with Martin…

…and here I am with our 33rd President, Harry S. Truman, who also loved Key West so much that he spent 175 days of his presidency there:

Lots of non-literary, non-presidential individuals also love Key West, and it’s not hard to come up with compelling reasons why, including, but not limited to: chickens roaming freely about the streets (left over, we were told, from the days when cock fighting was legal; thankfully, now there is a $500 fine for harassing a chicken)…

…the sunset, which everyone everyone everyone tries to photograph…

…and polydactyl cats…

Let’s get a closer look at that superfluous digit:

Forty-four of these cats roam the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum, but, sadly, you are under no circumstances permitted to pick them up:

Thanks, Wallace Stevens, for calling my attention to a pretty amazing place. And thanks, Hemingway, for having a thing for adorable cats with six toes.

The tax year…

Kathleen — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:12:59 +0000

…is almost over. Donations to Rose Metal Press are tax deductible, and our 2012 subscription and support drive is now under way. Think about it.

Then, head over here and contribute; any and all amounts are helpful and welcome. Also? If you partner with us, the “current progress toward our goal” number will go up. It’s like a very slow yet extremely fulfilling video game. Thanks to everyone who has already contributed!