Hawai'i in Kansas

Susan M. Schultz recently visited northeast Kansas (from Kane'ohe, HI) - and gave a wonderful reading to an absorbed and appreciative crowd in Topeka. She has written some very thoughtful and generous comments about my book Things Come On, along with a terrific sketch of some people and happenings in the poetry scene hereabouts, at Tinfish Editor's Blog. Here at Blog of Myself (which is, in fact, myself) we (i.e., I) are looking forward to the publication, in book form, of another volume of her Memory Cards (whose prequel is Memory Cards and Adoption Papers).

[Please note that in this context "Cards" refers to small pieces of heavy paper and is not affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals, its owners, players, or affiliates. Though the author may be.]

Surrealism in Topeka

Sort of. Saturday night went to a reading, in a coffeehouse in a Topeka, Kansas shopping mall, by Anne Boyer (The Romance of Happy Workers, Coffee House) and Hadara Bar-Nadav (A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight, MARGIE/IntuiT House). I guess I would call Hadara's poems neosurrealistica (with some emphasis on the realistica), and Anne's poems, while carrying more of an identifiable (representational?) social edge, is still pretty edgy in terms of representationality. In any event, it was a truly surreal experience hearing these poems next door to the nice Republicans buying meat at the Hy-Vee. Didn't a famous microcephalic social critic once say that life is just a blur of Republicans and meat? Well, it is around here. Except perhaps the poetry, which is well worth checking out (see, e.g., the LOCUSPOINT issue, at right).