It Is Forbidden to Enter the Garden Carrying Flowers Press

A few things that are happening to me:

I have started to drink the juice of baby coconuts. I am ashamed.

I’m waiting for my hair to grow long enough to put in a ponytail. This is one of my goals. Should I be ashamed? This is a surprisingly difficult goal. I see scissors glinting at me all the time, beckoning.

Are all goals partly shameful? Or just mine?

Ok, what else.

Oh yes, this is the important one. I’m starting a new political party. It’s called The Americans. So, you can vote Democrat, Republican, Tea-party (gag me), OR American. From all of these choices, don’t you think people will want to vote American?

Because if they don’t vote American, aren’t they being un-American? And that would be terribly embarrassing.

Basically, voting American would be voting to kick a lot of assholes out of government and purify democracy. It's the democratic party not for fakers. The rhetoric of this party is duplicitous with good intentions. Hear me out. Everything is phrased exactly the way people wan to hear it: we want America to have the #1 education system!, #1 healthcare!, #1 justice system, #1 democracy, etc etc. And then you get what you vote for, major overhauls in every area of our society. Yay! Vote American!

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In other news, please come to this reading Saturday evening:

This Saturday, October 23rd, The Bad Shadow Affair presents: Danielle Pafunda, Andy Fitch, Laura E. Wright & Aby Kaupang


7:30pm

at Lost Lake Lounge

3602 E. Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80206


Aby Kaupang is the author of absence is such a transparent house (forthcoming from Tebot Bach, 2011) and Scenic Fences | Houses Innumerable (Scantily Clad Press, 2009). Her poems have appeared in VOLT, Verse, Denver Quarterly, The Laurel Review, Parthenon West, Aufgabe, 14 Hills, Interim, Caketrain, and others. Contact her at aby.cooperman@yahoo.com

Danielle Pafunda is author of Iatrogenic: Their Testimonies (Noemi Press 2010),My Zorba (Bloof Books), Pretty Young Thing (Soft Skull Press), and the forthcoming Manhater (Dusie Press Books). She's a member of the board of directors of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, a contributing member of the lit/art/crit blog Montevidayo, and an assistant professor of gender & women's studies and English at the University of Wyoming.

Jon Cotner and Andy Fitch are the authors of Ten Walks/Two Talks (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). They recently completed another collaborative manuscript called Conversations over Stolen Food. Fitch’s Not Intelligent, but Smart: Rethinking Joe Brainard is forthcoming from Dalkey Archive. Fitch lives in Laramie, WY, where he’s an assistant professor in the U. of Wyoming’s MFA Program.

Laura Wright is a poet, librarian, and volunteer firefighter. With Anne Waldman she recently co-edited “Beats at Naropa,” an anthology of talks from the Jack Kerouac School; she and Anne are currently working on another anthology with the working title “Cultural Rhizomes at Naropa.” She lives in Nederland, Colorado, with 2 large black dogs and 1 large white cat.