The Icecream Truck Is Back Press

This weekend was jam packed with readings, babies, playgrounds, dinners, music, & M's college friends.

I went to things & took some blurry photos:

Knuckle bumping lions
Justin Taylor & Farrah Field

Bret Price
Christian Peet
Cindy King
Amy King





Akron/Family:


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You have exactly one month to submit to one of the coolest new magazines:

Microfilme Magazine is not a print journal and not an online journal. It’s a microform. A journal you’ll actually have to take to the library to read, to handle with cotton gloves, magnify, shine light through, rewind and fast forward through with a crank, splice if it tears, put diazo treatment on should it get the pox, keep in a cherished, acid-free clam shell box at a steady, tepid temperature of 64° F so as to preserve it for the next half-millennium, which, coincidentally we know, is the life span of your poems. Half a millennium or until magnification becomes obsolete.

Please send poems, fiction, art, essays, or ephemera that can be projected by the magic lantern of a microfilme reader to microfilmemagazine@gmail.com by April 30, 2009.

We look forward to reading your work!

Yours truly,

Jeff Downey, David Bartone, & Zach Savich
Editors, Microfilme Magazine
140 Sunset Ave
Amherst, MA 01002

microfilmemagazine.blogspot.com

***

This reading is happening tonight at KGB:

Nin Andrews & Sally Ashton
7:30pm

***

This reading is happening Tuesday:

7PM

Reading with New Issues poets:
Myronn Hardy, Alexander Long, Martha Rhodes, Sandra Beasley, and Elaine Sexton

at McNally Jackson
52 Prince Street
NYC

***

Saturday morning, as documented by Cindy King:




Wolf blanket.

Go To Yardmeter.blogspot.com Okay? Press

conversation overheard today at work between two people in cubicles who can't see each other:

person 1: I'm frustrated.

person 2: Yeah?

person 1: I'm frustrated because sometimes my brain doesn't work properly.

person 2: Yeah I hear you.

***

It's Friday. Did you know giraffes have really long tongues?

Get Lost in the Forest Behind My Child Press

I'm going to the Stain reading tonight featuring these lovely poets: Joel Chace, Elena Georgiou, Stuart Greenhouse, Cindy King, Christian Peet and Brett Price.

I'm excited. I wore a dress.

**

The new issue of Six Finch is kicking.


In one of Paige Taggart's poems from this issue, a line goes:

your poem leaning into my poem, I put people inside
my achievements, I called our hair a dance when we turned down
the mountain

**
So good.
**

I went to see CAConrad read:


and Ian Dreiblatt:


Does anyone want to buy this for me?

Art of Field Recording Volume II is a four disc set with a 96 page book that contains essays and annotations by Art and over 100 illustrations and photographs by Art and his wife Margo. Art took a similar approach to Harry Smith in assembling the music: the discs are divided into Accompanied Songs and Ballads, Unaccompanied Songs and Ballads, Sacred, and a Survey disc that has a little bit of everything.

***

When Your Funeral Was Taking Place in the Next Ohio Press

This has been a silly week in some regards.

Although how are you feeling about the resistance from members of the House Financial Services Committee who do not want stricter rules and regulations for hedge fund traders? Partly I feel like if you are against stricter rules for a system that is out of control, than clearly you're only thinking of your own profits, but partly I worry that stricter government regulations means 1) well, more power for the government and 2) does this just mean the people in the government who would oversee this stuff would just become more corrupt with payoffs from hedge fund CEOs?

15 Lobster Plates Press

I'm going to this tonight. Will I see you there?:

CACONRAD & IAN DREIBLATT

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25
HOME SWEET HOME
131 CHRYSTIE ST.
7 PM SHARP

CAConrad had poems in the last issue of Saltgrass!

I like this song by wavves:



(My contact is hurting my eye but I don't have any contact solution and I don't want to go out and buy a $8 bottle of it. Can we share? Is that gross? Never mind then.)

Scottie Pippen Is Taller Than I Remember Press

Things discussed after dinner with the amazing poet Cindy King:

How tall is Scottie Pippen?
Scottie Pippen is 6 foot 8 inches.

Coffee. Coffee in beer, not beer in coffee.

Is she lanky? But she doesn't wear heels.

Beehives & queen bees.

The size of your head.

How tall is Spud Webb?
Spud Webb is 5 foot 6 inches.

Is fried ice cream dipped in batter before it's lit on fire?

That is an unattractive mermaid:

Celebrate Lincoln's Bicentennial! Press

Our trashcan is a bag. A glowing fire-bag!


AHhhhhh.


I promise to "regroup" and come better prepared tomorrow.

Gold Diggers of Milwaukee Unite! Press

I have a few observations:

1) Everyone is either pregnant or just had a baby (or two).

2) Now would be a good time to buy a foreclosed home.

3) Soft tooth brushes, while they feel wimpy, are actually better for your gums (okay, this isn't an observation, it is information conveyed to me via my dentist).

4) Even though I am no longer 6 years old, I still hate my dentist.

5) I am just not the type of person to have nail polish stick to my nails.

6)You should really go watch the 3rd episode of Sunset TV, it will only take 5 minutes, and "Sunday's Best Chicken Broth" and "Sunday's Best Chicken Bath" will make you laugh, promise. I'm just waiting for my friend to become heinously famous.

***

Horses Should Be Given Apples & Not Punched In The Face Press

Are any of you hungering to write a book review or two?


Idea A:

I think a book review would be awesome that discusses in relation to each other: 1) Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feathers by Kim Hyesoon translated by Don Mee Choi (Action books 2008) and 2) With Deer by Aase Berg translated by Johannes Göransson (Black Ocean 2009).



Idea B:

Another interesting pairing might be 1) Cole Swensen's Ours (University of California Press 2008) and 2) Lisa Robertson's Occasional Work and 7 Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture (Clear Cut Press 2003)



Have you read these 4 books? Do you see what I mean?

***

I'm reading Zach Schomburg's The Pond (Greying Ghost).

These were lines that particularly made the baby bats living in my lungs squawk like a hungry thing:

Now I am a year and 3 months in an open field when I learn:
if there is a shadow of a tree and no trees around
I am the tree.

**

I have a habit of leaving a place
I don't know how to get back to.
I have a habit of leaving the place.

**

It is difficult to tell what will happen next.
Maybe we'll hold hands
and walk down to the pond.
Maybe a bat will fly into the pond
and swim around
like it's having fun
but then it'll struggle and start to die.
We'll watch it start to die.
We'll agree that we understand how the bat feels.
We'll say I know the feeling
but we won't know the feeling.
The feeling we'll know
is more like being on a chair
with really long legs
sinking slowly into the pond
on a beautiful day.

**

Turns out, it was the wrong
kind of body for a funeral.

*****

100 Years Ago 100 Years Ahead Press

I went to elementary school today to have lunch with a 1st grader. It was here that I learned what's in store for us all:

Ragged Apple Press

Tonight I'm going to hang out with two babies (and the two parents of the babies). Then off to the gym. Then off to finish this movie:

Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

I'm really enjoying it so far. The friends and fellow musicians that are interviewed actually have something to say.
***

Obama is going to be on Leno's Tonight Show.

I find that weird.

Is he going on Leno because Leno is a Republican and Obama wants more support?

***
There are a number of readings coming up:

Monday, March 16 2009
6:00pm
New York Quarterly Reading Series

Michael Quattrone, Matthew Yeager, April Puciata
Hosted by Ted Jonathan

Cornelia Street Cafe
29 Cornelia Street
$7 (inc. drink) | www.corneliastreetcafe.com | www.nyquarterly.org | tjonathan@nyquarterly.com | 212-989-9319
Subway: A/C/E/F/V to West 4th, 1/9 to Christopher/Sheridan Square

***

Monday, March 16 2009
7:30pm
KGB Bar Monday Night Poetry Series

Larry Felson & Linda Gregg
Hosted by Laura Cronk, Megin Jimenez and Michael Quattrone

KGB Bar
85 East 4th Street @ 2nd Avenue
Free | www.kgbbar.com | lauracronk@gmail.com | michaelquattrone@earthlink.net

***

Wednesday, March 18 2009
6:30pm
The NY Center for Independent Publishing

In celebration of Small Press Month and the release of the 150+ poet international anthology edited by Robert L. Giron, "Poetic Voices Without Borders 2" (Gival Press), a special reading with Clifford Browder, John Del Peschio, John Domini, Isaac Goldemberg, Donna J. Gelagotis, Marta López-Luaces, Thomas March, Mercedes Roffé, Thaddeus Rutkowski, Ron Singer, Rodrigo Toscano, Barbara Louise Ungar, and anthology editor Robert L. Giron, reading from the anthology and their current work
Hosted by Karin Taylor of The NY Center for Independent Publishing, Intro by Tim W. Brown, Emcee Robert Giron

The New York Center for Independent Publishing
20 West 44th Street (5th/6th Avenues)
Free | www.givalpress.com | givalpress@yahoo.com | 212-764-7021
Subway: 4/5/6 to Grand Central/42nd Street, or B/D/F/V to Bryant Park/42nd Street

***

Friday, March 20 2009
7:00pm
The Multifarious Array

Tony Mancus, Myronn Hardy & Jess Mynes
Hosted by Sommer Browning

Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Free | www.petescandystore.com | sommerbrowning@hotmail.com | 718-302-3770
Subway: L to Lorimer, G to Metropolitan

***

Tuesday, March 24 2009
7:00pm
Field Magazine 40th Anniversary Reading

An evening to celebrate the famed magazine published by
Oberlin College, featuring Martha Collins, Angie Estes, Cathy Park Hong, Carol Moldaw, Charles Simic, Jean Valentine, and Jonah Winter, with editor David Young
Co-sponsored by The New School Graduate Writing Program

The New School
Wollman Auditorium
66 West 12th Street
Free | www.poetrysociety.org | rob@poetrysociety.org | 212-254-9628
Subway: 1/2/3 to 14th Street, or F/L/V to 6th Avenue/14th Street, or L/N/Q/R/W/4/5/6 to Union Square

***

EARSHOT + SMALL PRESS MONTH = ♥

Friday, March 27th @ 8 PM
@ Rose Live Music
Hosted by Nicole Steinberg
$5 + one free drink

Featuring:

*An Official SMALL PRESS MONTH Event*
Amy Lemmon (Saint Nobody; Red Hen Press)
Dorothea Lasky (Awe; Wave Books)
Adam Fitzgerald (Columbia University)
Christine Kanownik (The New School)
Tanya Rey (One Story/New York University)

Rose Live Music is located at 345 Grand Street in Brooklyn, between Havemeyer and Marcy. Visit their website for directions: http://liveatrose.com/.

Post-Biotic Press

Unrelated to poetry, I had a lovely afternoon in Coney Island on Saturday.









Do you transcend the level of child sensation?

Because you are real?

Because you are aggressively natural?

Do you have an uncluttered personality?

Sympathetic but Freaky Press

I googled "drawings of awesome trees" and this is what came up:



Am I losing my way?

***

Gossip:

Alaska: Engagement Is Off for Palin’s Daughter

The engagement between Gov. Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol Palin, 18, and Levi Johnston is off. Mr. Johnston, 19, told The Associated Press that he and Bristol Palin mutually decided “a while ago” to end their relationship. Mr. Johnston declined to elaborate. The two are the parents of a boy, Tripp, who was born Dec. 27. Governor Palin revealed her daughter’s pregnancy days after being named as Senator John McCain’s running mate on the Republican presidential ticket.

***
Are you surprised that they are not actually getting married? Or are you surprised that Palin didn't strong arm that poor boy into marrying her daughter?

I'm hoping that having an 18 yr old single daughter with a baby might stop Palin from trying to run for presidency in the next election. Although hypocracy hasn't seemed to slow her down.

Catch Phrase Press

These are some phrases my friends or co-workers use that I like but cannot use myself without sounding weird:

"all up ons"
Ex., "He was really flirting with her, he was all up ons."

"hot mess"
Ex., "I like to go on vacation with the Iverson family, they're a hot mess."

"rickety old witch"
Ex. "Come to lunch with me, you rickety old witch."

"Daggers!"
Ex., Person 1: "Uh, there aren't any free cookie samples at Zarro's today."
Person 2: "Daggers!"

I'm going to try and use "hot mess" more often because it sounds so gross! Science fact.

Crush Master Press

Blogs that are new or I recently learned about and/or are just straight up sites I crush on (and previously didn't have in my links):

Jared White: http://jaredswhite.blogspot.com/

Ben Mirov: http://isaghost.blogspot.com/

Farrah Field: http://adultish.blogspot.com/

Andrew Hughes: http://andrew-thenewleft.blogspot.com/

***
More chapbooks!

Zach Schomburg's chapbook, I Am a Small Boy, from Factory Hollow Press recently came out. Only $7.


Mathias Svalina has a chapbook, The Viral Lease, with Small Anchor Press. $9.50. Although I ordered on line, but then had it delivered in person, and got my $1.50 in shipping returned to me. As well as a half-eaten pack of gum. So this is a trustworthy and breath-conscious press.

Each cover (of 100) has a different photo by Jon Pack, so you might even have to buy more than one.