We Love Events!!

Know of a reading or other public event involving quasi-experimental-post-avant-whatever writing w/in a 200-mile radius of Lawrence, KS? If so, let me know - as you can see, I try to maintain a calendar.

Wanna Hold Your Hand?

You may need a little hand-holding when approaching Things Come On (an amneoir). That's OK - in fact, it's why Wesleyan University Press has developed this "Reader's Companion" to the book. It should help you get your bearings - and maybe keep rhizoming out afterwards.

Conversing w/Kathy Ossip

Kathleen Ossip and I "were talking about death, Richard Nixon, Ezra Pound, growing up Catholic, and docu-poems... You might like to read our conversation over at Bookslut."

For the Coloradoans . . .

. . . or is it "Coloradans"? Or "Coloradians"? Well, if you're in that big square state to the west of Kansas (where the Kansas Panhandle used to be), do come join us for some swell readings next week:

- Danielle Pafunda, Tim Roberts, & I, at the hipster-biker Crankenstein in Fort Collins (215 N College Ave), as part of the Every Eye series, and

- Andrea Rexilius, Eric Baus, Richard Froude, and I, at Counterpath (613 22nd Street, near downtown) in Denver.

This is gonna be good!

_Louise: Amended_ (and polished)

Just finished reading Louise: Amended, by Louise Krug (Black Balloon 2012). It is ostensibly about the author/protagonist's transformation from glamor girl to sadder, wiser neurological patient - due to the necessity to excise a "cavernous angioma" from the pons of her brain stem. But it's at least as much about all the other people in her life - the boyfriend, the parents, the step-parents, friends, brothers, etc. - about their reactions to having a loved one with a serious, debilitating illness, and what those reactions say about and do to their respective characters. By switching back and forth from first to (omniscient) third person, Krug can get inside their heads - and face what they were facing without (herself) flinching. This part is almost scarier than when she looks in the mirror with a half-paralyzed face. You might occasionally flinch, though, as a reader - the prose is spare, straightforward, colloquial, and doesn't pull any punches. Even her own thoughts at the time of her treatments are related in matter-of-fact style - perhaps the trace of having started a career in journalism in a previous life.

"When the bandages are unwound from my head it takes a long time to get to the end. The unwinding happens in circles, and it takes so long I worry that my face will come off, too."

This book feels like it has undergone multiple surgeries, too. Many of the chapters are composed of related, sutured-together vignettes, some of which switch point of view from one person to another. But I suspect it has also had a few "prose removal" operations; the writing is (to change the metaphor) sculptural, almost. Not many adjectives or scene-settings - and when there are, it's done via a single quirky detail in the periphery. And Krug uses the chapter as a unit of composition. Here, for instance, is Chapter Twelve:

"Warner and Janet email.

"The emails begin with 'Hi' and 'Dear.' They end with 'Best.'

"One thing about the trouble with their daughter: It has made them want to be kind."

End of chapter - with all the ambiguity of that last sentence left hanging for the next. Some chapters are longer, of course, but every single sentence is necessary, smart, and sometimes funny. Louise: Amended is a unique, kinetic, & finely-polished book that will be the envy of any of us who have ever tried to tell a life story.

What was the name of that book again? It's by Susan Schultz . . .

My review of Susan M. Schultz' Memory Cards: 2010-2011 Series (Singing Horse 2011) is available for your perusal at Tarpaulin Sky. Conclusion: book is highly recommended.

"An Abecedarian"

Matt Reeck's review of Things Come On (an amneoir) is live at Jacket2. It's an innovative text in its own right (en forme du glossary) and opens up a whole new set of issues, ramifications, and rhizomes in regards to the book. Thanks Matt and J2!

We Don't Need no Stinking Genres . . .

. . . or do we? Can we avoid them? An interesting discussion of these issues is at "We Ain't Written No Poetry" a blog out of a (rhetoric?) class at Emerson College - where my book Things Come On is made an example of - with reference to the work of my colleague Amy Devitt.

one more from 2011

. . . I remembered one more - how could I forget? Historic Diary, by Tony Trigilio (BlazeVox). The story of Lee Harvey Oswald's life, leading up to the JFK assassination, told in (semi)formal verse, with a dash of conspiracy theory thrown in. Rachel Loden's "Nixon" books meet Edward Sanders' 1968. Not to be missed.

O what self-googling is this!

There's nothing like having a book out to get you to "Google yourself." A couple of interesting finds. First, Chris Schaeffer listed my book as his favorite of the year on his "top ten" list, at his blog, Ghost-Modernism. And Charlotte Pence mentioned it in her dissertation abstract (!). I'm so glad the book is being read and that people are finding value in it. Thank you!

(I still need to get a copy of A Masque of Poets, by Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien.)