Gifts I received over break (in no order whatsoever):

1. Bookends
2. Books: Dahlberg's Leafless American*, Alan Dugan's Selected*, Simic's Aunt Lettuce* and Noiseless Entourage, Rohrer's Satellite, Noah Eli Gordon and Sara Veglahn's That We Come To A Consensus, Michael Earl Craig's Can You Relax in My House, Aaron Kiely's Best of My Love, Martel's Life of Pi, and p. inman's at.least*
3: Music: Superchunk's No Pocky for Kitty, Matt Pond PA' s Several Arrows Later*, Superdrag's Regretfully Yours*, The Plus Ones*, and Maritime's Glass Floor.
4. Another subscription to Ugly Duckling
5. Investment $ for Octopus #8 (print)
6. Tuxedo t-shirt
7. Buddy Holly Costume glasses and a fake bendable party mustache*
8. A repaired exhaust pipe on my falling apart vehicle
9. A Nebraska hooded sweatshirt and cornhusker victory over Michigan
10. Candy cigarettes
11. A bottle of good wine
12. 2 power ties, a sweater, 2 dress shirts, shoes* and socks*
13. A lovely trip to San Fran and all the kicks derived from that*
14. Bookends

*Gifts I bought for myself over the break.

Museum of Modern Art. Chuck Close exhibit. Some shopping around Russian Hill. Lots of pizza. Good night's sleep. Missed a plane and hung out for while, stranded, in the Oakland airport on Christmas Eve. A good story for another time.

Slept all morning. A long hilly walk to Fisherman's Wharf in a rain storm. Even my undergarments and socks were wet (?). Fish and chips. Sea Lions. White hot chocolate. A boat trip to, and audio tour of Alcatraz. Very interesting. Spent a few seconds in the hole. Can't imagine what a few years would feel like (note to self: cancel plans of going on bloody killing spree). I want to learn more about the Birdman. Dinner at Mona Lisa's in Little Italy with A, M, and P. Then more drinking a Coppola's wine bar down the street. I'm becoming a lover of port. Then P and I broke off, went to Bigfoot tavern for more drinking. The room, today, still has some spin to it.

A bagel with A and M after a morning walk. A lovely afternoon hanging with Graham Foust: Blue Bottle Coffee, a long city hike to Green Apple Books: Simic's Aunt Lettuce, Edward Dahlberg's Leafless American (thanks T for the recommendation), Alan Dugan's Selected (thanks Graham for the recommendation). This Dugan book is brilliant. It may change my poetry life. Sushi with Graham. For the first time I had eel and mackerel. An hour nap amidst city sounds. Video games. Thai for dinner.

Napa Valley. Way too much wine. Bistro Jeanty: creamy tomato soup on a rainy day mmm. Curvy roads at night, bad defroster, belly full of vino. Golden Gate Bridge. College Football 2006 on Nintendo--haven't played video games for a handful of years mmm. Egg sandwich.

Chinatown. Dim sum. Fortune cookie factory. Chinese Christmas CD. Uptown shopping. Virgin: Matt Pond PA. Fake bendable mustache. City Lights Books: Simic's Noiseless Entourage, Rohrer's Satellite. Tost's Invisible Bride was in the "U's" and I moved it back into alphabetical position (you're welcome T). My first cable car ride. Cheese pizza delivered. Guitar Hero.

San Fransisco is painfully beautiful. I need a month, at least. Chinatown today, among other things. Postcards. Christmas gifts. I want to walk around until my legs fall off.

A and I are off to SF tomorrow for a little R & R. Very excited about this. I'll be blogging from there if M lets me use her computer. A may get a pedicure. I may have a little lunchypoo with Graham Foust. Alcatraz, City Lights, etc. If you're in the area, come find me. I'll be rocking my vintage Green Day tee all friggin' week. See you there.

I need a haircut.

Whew. Air. I just crawled from underneath a pile of student papers. Got the grades in. Other administrative stuff. Ok. What next? A haircut. Pack some stuff. Octopus. Reviews for Cutbank.

Mathias gave me some CDs, including Regina Spektor's Soviet Kitsch. Spinning it right now. The jury is still out, but most of them have their thumbs up.

I'm back, with a new perspective, from a difficult weekend in Norfolk. A lot of papers to grade by yesterday. A lot of correspondence to catch up on before our trek to San Fran, leaves on the flat roof to rake and bag (yes, that is what I said), reviews to write, a magazine issue to put out.

A big thank you to Ugly Duckling for sending me Aaron Kiely's The Best of My Love. I've only flipped through it--it looks like a refreshingly odd little duck so far.

A great weekend spent with M and J--got some holiday shopping done, played some board games, etc. It is always good to see them. While shopping, I thought of a few addendums for my onw list:

a. Matt Pond PA's Several Arrows Later
b. A new exhaust pipe
c. A 12-pack of fake teeth

Going to Norfolk for a few days. When I get back, it is catch-up time.

A good Mathias.

Joey Lynch is talking to Michael Busk. Joey is the artist who is responsible for the terrific wall candy. Michael is a budding fiction writer at UNL.

Michael Dumanis is talking to Hadara Bar-Nadav. Two of the most important and fascinating po-bizzers in all of the mid-west.

Anthony's hands (right) selling his chapbook, Afield, to a fan.


Amanda. I vote for this for her book jacket photo. Anybody agree?


Anthony.

The second Clean Part went swimmingly. So many poetry fans (about 50-60) braved the cold to see Amanda Nadelberg and Anthony Hawley read. Joey Lynch's screen prints made for terrific wall candy. All the chairs filled up and a standing room gallery was formed at the back. Amanda and Anthony were wildly entertaining and engaging. The fans were laughing and striking thoughtful poses at all the terrific banter and lovely words.

Amanda stayed with A and I and she was a terrific guest--good firelight conversationalist, clean and tighty, etc, and she came bearing gifts: peanut butter and chocolate spread, hibiscus sugar, and blackberry perserves. She also brought be Michael Earl Craig's Can You Relax in my House, so I can cross that off my list. I had quite a few additional opportunities to spend some time with her talking po-biz. I'm excited about the projects she's got in the cooker. And she's given me a few ideas and reasons for writing poems. A thank you to her.


Some pics:




Denny (the one that is pissed) is pissed. He won Anthony Hawley's book, Afield, in a raffle. Apparently, he didn't care for it.


Terrific artist and 1/3 of Tugboat's propreitorship, Jake Gillespie, is telling Amanda he thought her poems were good.


Anthony is telling clean jokes.


Clean parters, getting comfortable with each other.


Amanda reading.


Anthony reading.

If you guys aren't doing anything tomorrow night, maybe you could come to the Clean Part at 7 in Lincoln, NE. It should be a good time. Amanda Nadelberg and Anthony Hawley will be reading. There'll be free peanuts that you can shell onto the floor, Texas roadhouse style. The poetry will be top-notch. You could win a pie.

They like me

Parakeet thinks I'm good enough for a pushcart and have nominated one of my poems. They're alright in my book. A big thanks. I'm itching for that issue to come out--promises to be pretty killer.

The manny was flirting with Krupskaya and apparently it came pretty close. Thanks to Kevin Killian for the close read and the very encouraging note (sigh). He said things like: "I love it, but I'm not in love with it," and "It's my press, not your manuscript."

Friday evening, A and I burned the night like a Christmas light.


Zach cutting down the ideal balsam fir in the middle of the forest. He hunted for hours. "That ain't a tree. This here. This heersa tree."


A preparing the tree skirt that she spent all week knitting. At this moment we were listening to Kenny and Dolly's Christmas LP. My god that is a beautiful album. I can't hold back the tears anytime Dolly's stirring "Hard Candy Christmas" comes on.


Our stockings. The fire place was on. We drank hot chocolate.


A happy holidays card from D and B. And a happy holidays to them right back.

Holiday Wish List

e

1. OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism by Eugene Ostashevsky*
2. Ryan Murphy’s Down with the Ship from Seismicity Editions*
3. Can You Relax in My House by Michael Earl Craig
4. Richard Siken's Crush
5. Tony Tost's World Jelly**
6. Charles Simic's Aunt Lettuce and/or My Noiseless Entourage
7. Subscription to Ugly Duckling Presse
8. Stanley Kubrick boxset including in Dr. Strangelove, but not Full Metal Jacket.***
9. A Tuxedo t-shirt****
10. Gift $ for an Octopus print project
11. An ipod, of some variety, maybe.
12. A night-time mouthguard
13. A carton or two of candy cigarettes


*these are not available yet. I might be jumping the gun. Preorder?
**I'll be buying this regardless, so.
***not including Full Metal Jacket because it is the only thing of Kubrick's I already own. And all this talk about Peter Sellers has got me salivating.
****this is a hold-over from last year. I will not give up.
Note: Look for addendums to this list in the coming weeks.

Today in class I watched, for the first time, Dr. Strangelove. I'm almost ashamed to admit it (that its my first viewing). I've seen everything of Kubrick's except for this and the Killing, which Tony thinks highly of (it is on my Netflix list though). Anyway, George C. Scott is genius in this movie--has blown me away so far. We watch the second half on Thusday. Can't wait.

I have got to do some reviews. Got a couple lined up for Cutbank, and the Burning Chair, but I'm stuck in scholarly paper hell. I've got the fun part done: the books are read (Knox's Gringo Like Me and Greenberg's My Kafka Century). Just two weeks until I break out the pj pants and do the fun stuff for a couple weeks. Poems, Octopus, and what-not, and a trip with A to San Fran to see M and P. Aaah.

I went to the Devil, I mean, dentist today. My god, I'm sore. Apparently, instead of brushing side-to-side, I should consider brushing up-and-down and in circles. And: I'm a grinder and all my teeth are wearing down--quite a lot of wear for a 28 year old, I'm told. And maybe I should think about paying a bucketload of money for a night-time mouth guard. Oy.

A and I just arrived home from a fairly successful Thanksgiving excursion to Omaha/Council Bluffs and Norfolk, NE. Lots was eaten. Cards were played. Football was watched. I did 21 push-ups in there somewhere as a challenge to cousin-in-law marine. I lost. I have a lot to catch up on now as the semester heat turns up a notch for the next two weeks. But instead A and I ironed some clothes and spent an evening with Saddle Creek from Netflix.


Here is a pic from my messy closet where I stored a poster from a local showing of the Saddle Creek documentary. To its left is Denny's poster from Clean Part, which just propped up for the picture. The furthest left clothing item is my new suit jacket that I'll be wearing to a funeral tomorrow barring a blizzard. I bought it at Herberger's in Norfolk this weekend. What do you think?

I also lounged for a few seconds in front of our very own fireplace. It works now. Thank you, M.

And if you want to hear some archived My Vocabulary radio broadcasts, and hear me and some cooler poets read some poems in those broadcasts, go here.

Two or three years ago I had a brief but heavy fascination with a poet named Wong May after finding a book of hers, A Bad Girl's Book of Animals, at the bottom of a pile in a dusty Ohio bookstore. I wrote a Recovery Project on this brilliant book in the 3rd issue of Octopus (one of my favorite all-time issues I think) that concluded with a bit of a biographical (or anti-biographical note) that read: "She is almost completely undocumented, unphotographed, and unreviewed. She got a BA at the University of Singapore, got her MFA at the University of Iowa in 1968, and wrote three books of poems (Reports [1974] and Superstitions [1978]). In 1978, she curled up into a tiny ball and disappeared." For a while, I was bent on discovering more about May, but she seemed pretty reclusive. She is completely absent, as far as I am aware, from any sort of conversation about contemporary poetry, but has produced three killer books. Anyway, just this week I got an email from a friend of hers who promises to straighten things out. This I know, so far: she is alive and lives in Dublin, Ireland, with her husband. She has two adult sons. She is apparently still writing, but has not published any of it since 1978. A door has re-opened. I'll keep you abreast.

Denny made some killer new posters for the second Clean Part. Mathias and I are excited to litter them about town. Anyway, make your plans now to come to Lincoln on December 8 for the best poetry in the tri-state area. Anthony Hawley and Amanda Nadelberg. Don't disappoint us.

Simon is back and he's tackled Heather Christle in the open field.

Walking from the Union to Andrews Hall yesterday, I heard some loud clunky footsteps directly behind me that had the exact same gait as my own footsteps, the same exact pace, which I found unusual. Our paces matched for too long so I decided to speed mine up a bit, but the pace of our footsteps still matched. I then slowed it down: still the same. Pass me already! Finally, I kinda held one foot in the air an extra beat before I let it down, and they did too. It must be somebody I know putting me on only a few feet behind me, but when I turned around there was no one there. Apparently, it was the damn buckle on my pack, unlatched, and tapping the canvas. I felt pretty dumb and I wanted to tell someone, but I was all alone. So, I'm telling you.

It is now winter outside on my lawn


so I've been growing my beard.

I've been a little down lately. I'm sure it doesn't help that I've been listening to this depressing crap:


Death Cab's Plans


Sun Kil Moon's Tiny Cities (covers of Modest Mouse songs)

Thanks Adam.

A blues-filled weekend in Norfolk. I'll give you more on that as soon as I can wrap my head around it.

But I was greeted with some good mail upon my return: Review copies of Arielle Greenberg's My Kafka Century (Action Books) and Jennifer Knox's A Gringo Like Me (Soft Skull)(Thank you Brandon Shimoda of CutBank), Public Works by Ronna Bloom (Pedlar Press), a very encouraging rejection from Joshua Marie Wilkinson over at the Denver Quarterly, and a postcard from the famous and talented Mary Ruefle which, among other things, said that she found a picture of me purchasing a soda for a youngster in a handmade book at the handmade books festival in Iowa City this week. Kate, you know anything about this? Why don't I?

Dean Young was #1 last night--very funny, very kind. He's a rockstar poet in my book, one of my heroes, but he doesn't act as rockstar as he could. We threw down PBRs and High Lifes together at the Starlight Lounge along with Hadara, Michael D, Anthony Hawley and Becka (sp?), played 50's trivia, talked music (Silver Jews, Sun Kil Moon, Beck) and poetry, I even asked about the fullest his mouth had ever been, and if he thought he could fit 100 plain M&M's in there. He said he probably couldn't.

I was a smidge disappointed in his reading, not because his performance wasn't top notch (it was, and his banter was admirable) but the audience was tired, unresponsive, and too small for a Young reading. Dumanis did such a killer job putting this together, publicizing it, etc, I just wish Lincoln/Wesleyan would have answered the call a little better. They're not going to have too many chances at Dean Young.

In other news: A and I are going to Norfolk, NE, this weekend. I have about 70 papers to grade. I figure Norfolk is a good place to do it.

I'm having dinner this evening with Dean Young before his reading at Wesleyan. That's right. I said it. I'm a little nervous. I'm feeling sick. I have to do things I do want to (we're not talking about Dean Young anymore). I'm sad this week. My lower back hurts and I won't be hungry. I hope I say something insightful. I'm thinking of writing a poem with a line about Christmas in it. I have just the line.

I'm still recovering from this Clean Part weekend: the sleep I lost, the papers I didn't write, the papers I didn't grade, etc. But it was such a good time and I think this reading series thing will only gain momentum. Mathias and I are starting to get big eyes and bounce around some names of our heroes that have mentioned they might come. But that is for a later post.

We ate well this weekend. Indian food at The Oven afterward with Denny and Bri, Ashley, Kim, Michael Dumanis, A, and the other Clean Parters I've already mentioned. Diner food at Kuhl's. I got the BLT. Burgers at Red Robin on Sunday with Kim and Adam before they made the trek back to Arkansas. Pizza at Yia Yia's on Friday. Beer everywhere. I'm spoiled/broke now. I look forward to the next one.

Today, in class, I watched a terrific documentary called East Side Story on socialist propaganda musicals from the 1930's-1960's USSR. Fascinating. I want to write a poem based on some of the clips, using the titles of the musicals like I Don't Want to Marry (1961), Vacation on the Black Sea (1957), and Jolly Fellows (1934). The musicals were so ridiculous, so campy, showing men and women in the wheat fields, shoveling wheat and singing about what an honor and priveledge back-breaking slave labor can be, in order to support the country, or women sweeping up hog entrails in a meat packing plant while whistling about the great and wonderful Stalin. Hmm. Today I go to watch From Russia With Love with Connery as Bond for class.

Meeting A by the fountains now. We're going to have Subway.

The first Clean Part Reading weekend was an enormous success. All three of them poets are brilliant, friendly, and clean (or clean enough). About 35 people showed up to listen, a perfect number for that petite gallery, and they were engaged as the poets were engaging. Mathias and I couldn't have asked for a better reading to kick off the series. Anyway, the rest of the story will be told in pictures. Below are only a very small handful. See Anne's pics for a more thorough story, and Adam will post (many of these are his, that I stole) more of his soon too. And be sure to check out The Clean Part website later this week for a better wrap-up, pics of our raffle winner, etc.

A, A and A. Tired of mingling.



Anne in my dining room, walking away.



Mathias introducing Alex.

Adam wetting his lips for more playful between poems banter.



An interested Alex.


Mathias and Zach: attentive listeners.

Alex reading from Joshua Marie Wilkinson's A Ghost as King of Rabbits at Mathias' place.



Zach reading from the new Gulf Coast with both Alex and Mathias in it.



Mathias and a possessed Kim.



Kim happy in front of A and I's place, A and I discussing pumpkins in the backround.

Mathias and I are feverishly preparing for the Clean Part reading this Saturday night. We're passing around handbills, little miniature versions of our poster tonight, me at Rynn Williams' reading on campus, Mathias at the John D'Agata's reading over on Wesleyan's campus. We're also picking up the peanuts, raffle tickets, etc. It should be a good time. You should come.

The pumpkins I made into magical jack-o-lanterns today after work. The one on the left is telling a joke, winking, and the one on the right is looking at him, laughing. I used one of Denny and Bri's pumpkins, which they brought over last week and we never got around to carving them. A told me that what I did was wrong, but I figured no one would want a post-Halloween pumpkin. Post-halloween pumpkins bum me out--they are so sad. Denny back me up. Comment. Tell me what I did was ok.

Me in the shirt I must wear to carve my magical jack-o-lanterns.

Our neighbors, P and S. S was our first trick-or-treater as homeowners. S went as a Hershey's Kiss. We had about 20 total T-O-Ters. Best ones: Death and the kid Death killed, the Thing from the Fantastic Four, and psychotic 4th of July clown. Lamest: baseball player guy (at least be bloody baseball player guy or Palmeiro on 'roids or something), and boy-dressed-as-girl boy.

The joke-teller and the laugher out front, on their pillars. Next year, I'm putting the old rusty and creaky gate back on its hinges between these two pillars, and cobwebbing the whole gate/fence up. Oh, man.

Our spooky doorstep.

The laugher in a hauntingly bloody red photo, my bloody finger in the shot, trying to cover up the bloody flash.

If you're down with good poems, get your subscriptions to Parakeet. It looks like #2 is about ready to invade the suburbs. An interesting and unlikely collection of poets, it seems. And your boy (me) has 5 poems in there, 4 of which are from my unpublished manuscript [about 1/12 of the thing! (48 poems, but in 72 pages)]. So, if you're interested in reading my manuscript, getting a Parakeet might be as close as you get for years (cross your fingers that this is untrue).

I'm jealous of you, NYC. Don't miss Tony Tost and Lisa Jarnot read Sunday night.

Remember that commericial for Domino's Pizza, where the dog salivates Pavlovian-style and the guys on the couch say "dumb dog," and then the doorbell rings and they all sprint to open the door? That guy that says, "Whoa...Philly cheesesteak," came over to our house last night. He's pretty cool. But we ate chili together.

Reading Coconut 2, Octosubs, Wenderoth's new book of essays. Writing an explication of Rad Smith's Distant Early Warning, a poem either called "William and Mary in the Universe" or "Dirty Sanchez".

Hadara and I met over some of the remaining Octopus submissions. I now have a set list of acceptances and honorable rejections for #7. So, look out.

Today, I will sign up for Spring classes. Here's the gameplan:

1. Seminar in Poetry - Postcolonial Poetics
2. African Lit in English - Modern Anglophone African Writers
3. Creative Writing Fiction Workshop with Jonis Agee

Also, Mathias and I will cover downtown Lincoln with Clean Part posters. And I have a handful of essays to write through the evening, night, early morning. Good thing there's no baseball on tonight to tempt me away.

My front yard full of leaves. I will pick every last one of them up tomorrow. I'll even catch the ones that are still falling in my little brown sack.





















The beautiful red tree in our neigbor's back yard.





















The brilliant posters I was telling you about just yesterday. A striped candle, unburned. A bowl of little candy pumpkins.

Whew. I've just finished a mini-seminar paper on DA Powell's Cocktails. Heavy stuff. My eyes hurt and I'm up to my neck in blood (meaning: I wrote a lot of Powell's important blood imagery, not that when I toil over papers, I bleed a lot). I asked him a few questions in an email and he answered them. Nothing more impressive than conducting a personal interview with the author to help advance the paper a bit--lets hope Professor Raz sees it the same way.

Denny is done with The Clean Part posters. I'm going to pick them up today. Whee! I guess I haven't officially launched the blog for this reading series, and I won't until Mathias and I get some bios and pics up there. So, if you go to this site, know that it won't be launched for a few more days. Hmm. I think that's ok.

A bit it in Wal-Mart. We were pulling apart a pair of very stuck plastic storage containers. On the last strong tug, the containers separated easily and went flying into the air. A landed hard on the cold and dirty floor. There was a lot of plastic crashing sounds and A screamed. Some customers and a blue-vest came to help. They all thought I pushed her down. I was laughing and A was not. Aaah, good stuff.

Denny and Bri are coming over tonight I think. We are going to carve pumpkins. I'm going to make mine look mean.

Today, I got my last installment from Ugly Duckling on my current subscription. Good stuff. Christmas morning feeling, but just the presents aspect, not the love and family feelings. Here's what I got:

Chinese Sun. A novel by Arkadii Dragomoshchenko translated from the Russian by Evgeny Pavlov.
Iterature by Eugene Ostashevsky. My second copy.
Indeed, Insist (a mystery) by Bethany Wright.
Further Adventures of My Nose by John Surowiecki and illustrated by Terry Rentzepis. I've already made it through this strange little thing.
And some other UDP miscellany.

It is Fall break at UNL, so I'm digging in this weekend.

Every other Monday I meet with some terrific poets for coffee and workshop: Hadara Bar-Nadav, Michael Dumanis, and Arra Ross. Yesterday's was pretty valuable--sent me to the old word processor to pound out a few revisions. Michael drove me back to my car afterward and we talked poetry anthologies, particularly anthologies of "new" or "young" poets, the successes and failures of some of the ones we'd read in common (like the Manguso/Davis one) and his own anthology he co-edited with Cate Marvin coming out in January called Legitimate Dangers. This badboy will have 80-some poets and include 3-5 poems from each. My god.

Also of note: Michael has organized a solid reading series at Wesleyan University, where we both teach, for this fall. Check this out:

Thursday, November 3 - John D'Agata
Thursday, November 10 - Dean Young
Thursday, November 17 - Denise Duhamel

A big cyberhug and behind-the-back low-ten to good pal Adam Clay for getting his first book picked up by Parlor Press' Free Verse editions. I'm jealous as hell, but AC is deserving. A real hard working poet. And The Wash (his book) is killer, so watch out.

I, and a small handful of other PhD students, rubbed elbows with Marjorie Perloff today. We discussed Flarf, online v print publications, Jacket magazine, Kent Johnson, poetry hoaxes, poetry blogging (Ron Silliman), etc. I had the roast beef sandwich--MP had the turkey.

Thanks be to Adam Clay for sending me the new Silver Jews album. I love it to the max. Favorite Berman line so far:

How can I love you
if you won't lay down?

My busy days have started. This week I've added the teaching of a Comp 2 class at Southeast Community College on the agenda. So, two different classes in two different places and PhD student stuff. I can do this. I can do this. And I'm blogging now so it can't be too bad, right? I will, this week, find time to send out some poetry manuscripts to a few places on the list, and clean up the basement--make it liveable. If you come over, you'll need a place to stay.

This is what is behind me at the desk I work. This is the room where everything goes down. Meet Malkie the Cat, Pearl the Fern, and Stone Phillips, the rock that anchors our broken shade.

The reunion was strange. It was good to give an awkward half-hug to a few friends from 10 years ago and catch up on a few baby names, to see a few old friends I used to hang with, work with, old flames and crushes. But then there was a whole lot of the: You sell make-up and you want to sell me some right now? You sell karaoke machines? You still work at the go-cart track? You still do meth? To tell you honestly, the whole thing made me a tad uneasy. It was a bizarro world really. I was beginning to remember things that were never meant to be remembered.

But I came back home to hang with our out of town guests, M and J. We went to the Iowa St. v Nebraska football games. Woo-hoo. Played board games. Ate chicken wings. Ahh, people I've befriended as an adult.

Fantast Baseball is over and I got 14th! A big congrats to Jim who finished as our winner.

Tonight, I am headed eastbound to my 10 year high school reunion. I haven't kept in touch with a one of them, and I'm wondering if anybody will have any idea who I am. I'm thinking of playing it gay.

Tomorrow, M and J are in town and we'll be going to the Husker/Cyclone football contest. Should be a doozy.

Trying to clean up the Octopus box--it is so heavy. Rejections and acceptances within the next couple weeks, I hope.

Go Cleveland!

What I want people to say about my poem in workshop: I love your poem. I love you, Zach.
What I want to say sometimes about other peoples' poems in workshop: Maybe try Garamond, 11pt.

It is good to be liked by Jordan Davis. A poem of mine is #1011 on his list. And the hat took a poem. Good.

Mathias and I met today to chitchat about Lincoln reading series details. We have a name. We have details. In due time. Be patient.

Today was a terrific mail day. Brandon Downing sent me some of his poems on disk at Octopus' request, but I also begged him for a copy of Shirt Weapon. Mine was borrowed and not returned, and now the guy is hiding out in Mexico somewhere, or is it New Hampshire? Anyway, this is in the top five favorite books of all time. Did you read Brandon Shimoda's review of Dark Brandon? Do you have Shirt Weapon? Why not?

I also landed Joe Wenderoth's not-yet-published uncorrected proof copy of his new forthcoming book of essays from Verse, The Holy Spirit of Life: Essays Written for John Ashcroft's Secret Self (thank you Lori Shine). That doozy from the new Fence is in here, as well as one I heard him read in (I think--maybe I dreamed it) in Vancouver called "Twenty-Five Ways to Make Love Without Having Sex". I've never had so much fun reading a book that has offended me so brilliantly. It'll offend you too--put it on your Christmas list.

Chris Glomski was kind enough to send his Transparencies Lifted from Noon. I haven't had a chance to read this yet, but the initial scan looks promising. I think I'm going to try to get it review for #7. Any takers?

Happy Birthday to A

Tomorrow: going to hear one of my favorite new poets read, fellow Lincoln-ite Hadara Bar-Nadav. Then off to rock out with Neva Dinova and Tilly and the Wall. The off to A's cousin's wedding reception in Northeast Nebrasky. Saturday is A's b-day. I have a lot of ironing to do. Saw Miss Saigon last night with A. Not a real pick-me-up. Very rascist.

Then I'll be sending the old manny off for another go at it. Where should I be sending it? Anybody have a list of upcoming deadlines?

As Adam said: He and Alex Lemon and Anne Boyer will be doing a reading here in Lincoln. I'm starting a reading series (not sure of it's name yet. Any ideas?) I'll be sure to make official announcements when things become official, but you can start making arrangements for your plane tickets for later October.

partial wish list