Reviews and interviews, I mean. The reviews are of For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs in the Chicago Tribune, here–thanks, Lynna Williams!–and of That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness for Bitch here–thanks Julia Bloch!
The interview is of Elizabeth Crane in Redivider here–thanks Elizabeth Crane!
That is one of many things learned yesterday at the Book Cellar’s Poetry Night in honor of April being National Poetry Month. Suzy had the audience jointly compose two haiku, just to make sure everyone was warmed up before the show began. The second one went: “Between my shoulders/stardust lingers in my mind/Refrigerator.” See? Perfect.
The audience listened… 
…attentively: 
Laura vanProoyen read… 
….followed by me and special guest, Puppet EG, a test run for Poets and Puppets in Brooklyn in May. Here we are, making our puppet faces: 
Next up was Richard Fox… 
…then Kate Dougherty… 
…and bringing it all back home with a poem about rhinoceri was Robert McDonald: 
Thanks to Suzy for curating, and to everyone for coming out!
….about the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin up on the Poetry Foundation website. See?
“I’ve come to realize that as much as I want my heroes to know about me, it’s more important for my peers to know about me.” That is what my peer Dan Boehl said while we were sitting in a ballroom at the AWP Conference in Denver waiting for my hero Dave Hickey’s lecture to start. In the long and amazing answer to the one question he had time to respond to, Dave Hickey basically agreed. That said, I could not help going up to Hickey afterwards and being all “You’re one of my favorite writers, can I get a picture with you, etc. etc.,” resulting in the following image: 
Thanks, Dave Hickey! Also, thanks to everyone who helped work the Rose Metal Press table (including Caryn and Abby, pictured) and everyone who bought books, which turned out to be a lot of you: 
Also also, thanks to my fellow panelists Ashley Emmert, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Jacklyn Marceau, and Karen McElmurray (not pictured)… 
…and everyone pictured here…
…and here… 
…for coming to talk/listen to us talk about “Exploitation, Empowerment and Everything in Between: Women Writing Sex.” Hope to see you all in DC next year.
The Rose Metal Press table at the Book Fair, the Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry panel on Thursday morning at 9:00, the Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction panel on Friday morning at 10:30, the ”Exploitation, Empowerment, and Everything in Between: Women on Writing Sex” panel on Friday afternoon at 3:00, this off-site reading on Friday evening at the Celtic Tavern/Delaney’s Bar at 7:30…
…and the MAKE it ANOTHER Afterparty late in the night on Friday. Can’t hardly wait!
Probably not. But still, here is my first column for the Southtown Star. It is about unemployment and how the invisible hand of the marketplace appears to be giving my generation the finger. You can read and comment on it here.
…prose experiments by younger american writers is now available as a free e-book from Recycled Karma Press. Elisa Gabbert and I have a couple of prose poems in there, as do William Allegrezza, Nick Demske, Kate Durbin, Adam Fieled, Brandi Homan, Becca Klaver, B.J. Love, Daniela Olszewska, and Kim Gek Lin Short. Thanks to Kristina Marie Darling for editing!
Last night, awesome Chicago-based feminist poetry publisher Switchback Books held a party to inaugurate their shiny new space in the Fulton Street Collective. Thanks to Whitney Holmes, there was a tower of red velvet cupcakes…
…and thanks to Dolly Lemke and Sarah Carson, many copies of poetry books (including Oneiromance, second from the right) were sold: 
Switchback’s fearless leader Brandi Homan shared with the audience what it was like to grow up in Bobcat Country…
…Lina Ramona Vitkauskas (being photographed by Larry Sawyer) regaled the crowd with poems about sweater girls….
…Carlo Matos did his best Fernando Pessoa…
…and Simone Muench performed some poemes noir:
Congratulations, Switchback, on your new home and your fourth birthday! Here’s to many years to come.
Today is my birthday, and so, for no other reason, really, than that everyone keeps telling me your thirties are when you suddenly turn super-confident and can just really “go for it” and do what you want, here are some links to some loosely me-affiliated things from around the old Internet, including:
An interview about the collaborative poetic process of EG and me by William Walsh at the Kenyon Review blog
A profile by Olivia Clarke in the Sunday Chicago Sun-Times
An interview by Katherine Wootton in The Nervous Breakdown
And an omnibus review I wrote of five wonderful, recent-ish collections of poetry by Matthea Harvey, Katy Lederer, Brenda Shaughnessy, Robyn Schiff and Karen Volkman at Open Letters Monthly.
Thanks to Bill, Olivia, and Katherine! Now to find some cake.
It could be Robinson calling…
…is a line from the Weldon Kees poem “Robinson,” but it’s also the title of a new review of For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs by Daniel Maidman over at The Critical Flame. Thanks, Daniel!
And speaking of Robinson, Linebreak published one of my Robinson poems earlier this month. You can read it–and hear Justin Runge read it out loud–here. Thanks, Linebreak!