Thursday, April 30, 2009

Amid the swirl

Amid the swirl of comments and speculation surrounding the strange and disconcerting disappearance of Craig Arnold, I ran across this Facebook group set up by his family. Send good thoughts.
__ __ __

Still grading essays. My final exams (take-"home") were due at 4PM today; a few trickled in until 5:30. I'm actually glad the weather's turned rainy: less distraction. But the garden (and lawn) is a riot of luscious sweet violets, the lilacs next door are opening, the ferns have unsprung. I completely missed seeing the crabapple in bud. Suddenly it was in full bloom. We had such odd hot weather for a few days--everything went into overdrive--hurry, hurry--. So much nicer to have mild days.

Friday, April 24, 2009

New venue for chapbook reviews

Please take a moment to check out the new Fiddler Crab Review, an online site for poetry chapbook reviews.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Deborah Digges

I was very sad to hear about this: http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/poet_tufts_professor_deborah_d.html

BROOM

More than my sixteen rented houses and their eighty or so rooms
held up by stone or cinderblock foundations,
most facing north, with useless basements,
wrought iron fences to the curb,
beat-up black mailboxes--
eagles impaled through breasts to edifice--
or set like lighthouses
some distance from the stoop a thousand miles inland,

or close enough to sea the sea gulls
settled mornings in the playing fields I passed
on this continent and others
as I walked my sons to school or to the train--

more than the kitchen door frames where is carved the progress
of their growth, one then the other on his birthday
backed against a wall, almost on tiptoe--

and more than the ruler
I have laid across their skulls
where the older's brown hair like my own,
or the younger's blond like his father's, covered abundantly
what was once only a swatch of scalp
I'd touch as they slept to know their hearts beat--

more than the height at which, and in this house,
the markings stopped like stairs leading to ground level,
and they walked out into the world,
dogged, no doubt, by the ghost of the man, their father,
and the men who tried to be their fathers,
father their wildness--

and more, even, than the high sashed windows
and windows sliding sideways
through which I watched for them, sometimes squinting,
sometimes through my hands cupped on cold glass
trying to see in the dark my men approaching,
my breath blinding me,
the first born surely the man I would have married,
the second, me in his man's body--

more than the locks left open and the creaking steps,
the books left open like mirrors on the floor
and the sinks where we washed our faces
and the beds above which our threefold dreams collided,

I have loved the broom I took into my hands
and crossed the threshold to begin again,
whose straw I wore to nothing,
whose shaft I could use to straighten a tree, or break
across my knee to kindle the first winter fire,
or use to stir the fire,

broom whose stave is pine or hickory,
and whose skirt of birch-spray and heather
offers itself up as nest matter,
arcs like the equator
in the corner, could we see far enough,
or is parted one way like my hair.

Once I asked myself, when was I happy?
I was looking at a February sky.
When did the light hold me and I didn't struggle?
And it came to me, an image
of myself in a doorway, a broom in my hand,
sweeping out beach sand, salt, soot,
pollen and pine needles, the last December leaves,
and mud wasps, moths, flies crushed to wafers,
and spring's first seed husks,
and then the final tufts like down, and red bud petals
like autumn leaves--so many petals--

sweeping out the soil the boys tracked in
from burying in the new yard another animal--
broom leaving intact the spiders' webs,
careful of those,
and careful when I danced with the broom,
that no one was watching,
and when I hacked at the floor
with the broom like an axe, jammed handle through glass
as if the house were burning and I must abandon ship
as I wept over a man' faithlessness, or wept over my own--

and so the broom became
an oar that parted waters, raft-keel and mast, or twirled
around and around on the back lawn,
a sort of compass through whose blurred counter-motion
the woods became a gathering of brooms,
onlooking or ancestral.

I thought I could grow old here,
safe among the ghosts, each welcomed,
yes, welcomed back for once, into this house, these rooms

in which I have got down on hands and knees and swept my hair
across my two sons' broad tan backs,
and swept my hair across you, swinging my head,
lost in the motion,
lost swaying up and down the whole length of your body,
my hair tangling in your hair,
our hair matted with sweat and my own cum, and semen,
lost swaying, smelling you,
smelling you humming,
gone in the motion, back and forth, sweeping.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

A Celebration of the Chapbook: NYC: 4/23-25

[passing this along; wish I could attend]

April 2009
For Immediate Release

We are excited to announce a wonderful event upcoming on April 23-25 in New York: A Celebration of the Chapbook, a three-day festival featuring panels, workshops and a bookfair. For a full schedule of events, visit http://centerforthehumanitiesgc.org/festival .

This festival celebrates the chapbook and highlights its rich history, as well as its essential place in poetry publishing today, as a vehicle for alternative poetry projects and for emerging authors and editors to gain entry into the literary marketplace. The festival hopes to forge a new platform for the study of the chapbook inside and outside the academy.

We invite you to visit the fair and attend the panels and workshops, all of which are free of charge. Please note that the workshops require registration, and will fill up fast, so reserve your seat now. Visit http://centerforthehumanitiesgc.org/festival for instructions on how to register.

We are seeking volunteers for the festival, and there are still a few spots available in the bookfair. If you’re interested in volunteering, or if you are a chapbook publisher and want to participate in the bookfair, please e-mail abozicevic@gc.cuny.edu.

Join us for A Celebration of the Chapbook – we hope to see you there!

The Asian American Writers’ Workshop
The Center for Book Arts
The Center for the Humanities, The Graduate Center, The Office of Academic Affairs, and MFA Programs in Creative Writing of the City University of New York
Poetry Society of America

A Celebration of the Chapbook

Thursday April 23rd, 2009 - Saturday April 25th, 2009

~ Thursday, April 23 at The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue & 34th St

Chapbook Fair - 10:00am-6:00pm, The Elebash Recital Hall Lobby

Brief History of Chapbooks - 3:00-4:30pm, The Elebash Recital Hall
With Isaac Gewirtz, Curator of the New York Public Library’s Berg Collection; Eric Lorberer, Editor of Rain Taxi; and Michael Ryan, Director of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University. Moderated by Richard Kaye, Hunter College, CUNY

Chapbooks in the 20th and 21st Centuries - 4:30-6:00pm, The Elebash Recital Hall
With Michael Basinski, Assistant Curator of the Poetry/Rare Books Collection of the University Libraries, SUNY at Buffalo; Anne Waldman, Chair and Artistic Director of Naropa University’s Summer Writing Program; and Kevin Young, Emory University. Moderated by Ammiel Alcalay, Queens College, CUNY.

Keynote Reading - 6:00pm, The Elebash Recital Hall
Readings by Lytton Smith, Gerald Stern, Judith Vollmer, Kevin Young and others, with an introduction by Kimiko Hahn.

~Friday, April 24 at The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue & 34th St

Chapbook Fair - 10:00am-4:00pm, Rooms 8301/8304

Chapbook Now: Producing Chapbooks-A Workshop for Poets - 10:00-11:30am, Room 8400 With Rachel Levitsky (Belladonna*); Sharon Dolin (The Center for Book Arts); and Ryan Murphy (North Beach Yacht Club). Moderated by Alice Quinn (Poetry Society of America). To register, call (212) 817-2005 or e-mail abozicevic@gc.cuny.edu – registration is offered on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Chapbook Now: Producing Chapbooks-A Workshop for Publishers - 11:30am-1:00pm, Room 8402 With Jen Benka (Booklyn); Matvei Yankelevich (Ugly Duckling Presse); and Brenda Iijima(Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs). Moderated by Rob Casper (Poetry Society of America). To register, call (212) 817-2005 or e-mail abozicevic@gc.cuny.edu – registration is offered on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Friday, April 24 at The Center for Book Arts, 28 West 27th Street, 3rd Floor

Bookmaking for Writers: A Studio Workshop with Susan Mills and Karen Randall - 2:00-5:00pm
To register, call (212) 481-0295 or e-mailinfo@centerforbookarts.org – registration is offered on a first-come, first-serve basis. There's a $20 materials fee for each workshop.

Bookmaking for Publishers: A Studio Workshop with Susan Mills and Karen Randall - 2:00-5:00pm
To register, call (212) 481-0295 or e-mailinfo@centerforbookarts.org – registration is
offered on a first-come, first-serve basis. There's a $20 materials fee for each workshop.

RECEPTION at The Center for Book Arts, 28 West 27th Street, 3rd Floor - 6:00 pm
All are welcome! Visit the exhibitions at The Center for Book Arts: \’fl \:art, text, new media, Roni Gross: Zitouna at 20, and Spotlight: 2008 Artists-in-Residence.

~Saturday, April 25 at The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 16 West 32nd Street, Suite 10A

Collector’s Show-and-Tell: The Secret History of Asian American Literature Patricia Wakida - 2:00-3:00pm

Publishing from the Margins - 4:30-6:00pm with Tan Lin; Dawn Lundy Martin (Third Wave Foundation, Black Took Collective); and Bushra Rehman. Moderated by Ken Chen (The Asian American Writers’ Workshop). Followed by a brief reading from the Workshop's Postcard Poetry Project.

RECEPTION at The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, 16 West 32nd Street, Suite 10A - 6:00 pm

Participating Publishers: Achiote Press :: Belladonna* :: Booklyn :: Book Thug :: Cuneiform Press :: Dancing Girl Press :: Diagram/New Michigan Press :: dusi/e-chap kollektiv :: Flying Guillotine Press :: hand*held*editions :: Interlude Editions :: Noemi Press :: North Beach Yacht Club :: Octopus Books :: Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs :: Rain Taxi :: Sarabande Books :: Slapering Hol :: Small Fires Press :: TinFish Press :: Toadlily Press :: Ubu Editions :: Ugly Duckling Presse :: Web Del Sol's World Voices :: X-ing Press­ :: and others

For more information visit http://centerforthehumanitiesgc.org/festival

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Vermont! and DC!

Let's all do the Wave.