Night #9. East of Tok, AK. 3780 miles. Stopped in Whitehorse to walk around a bit. Bought some essentials. Shoe laces. Bear bells. Rain gear. Ate a burger at the local hotel! A thought the waiter had pretty eyelashes. There was baseball on the TV. I need to catch up but the only game was Toronto vs Baltimore. The Canadian station. It costs about $80 - $90 to fill up the tank here. I'll never complain about gas prices in the States again. Yeah I will. The roads are bad. Potholes, big bumps, and gravel in parts. I noticed that the right side of the road on the way to AK is always more worn than the left. That should tell you something. All those convicts escaping and never coming back. Crossed the border into the AK. It is good to be in America again.

Night #8: Continental Divide, Yukon. 3250 miles. Saw 4 black bears and one moose on the road. Tented on the side of the road. Ate mac and cheese. The Yukon is pretty. Nobody lives here. 1/3 of Memorial Stadium lives in an area twice as big as New England.





Also, I found some interesting words about the Tate tradition (as it relates to The Man Suit and other books) from Johannes.

Night #7: West of Smithers, BC. 2675 miles. Stopped in Williams Lake, BC, and chatted it up with the locals. Learned some new vocab. Picked up the accent. Tented in a campground worked by a guy who didn't care. Free firewood. Free electric/water. Free showers. We washed our nasty clothes and got clean. Aaah. The car no longer smells like funk. A swole up from mosquito bites. Smithers, by the way, is right next to Burns, BC. Matt Groening, I'm on to you.

Night #6: Green Lake, BC. 2200 Miles. Stopped for a bagelwich in lovely Bellingham, WA. Listened to the Cubbies beat Seattle on Mariners radio while waiting 2 hrs at the border. We made stale PBJs in the car. The mountains are crazy pretty up here. The Molson is cheaper than the Bud Light. And everybody talks funny, eh.

Night #5: West of Leavenworth, WA. Cascade Mountains. 1750 miles. Drove through the Northern, ID (oh man) and the Cascades (oh man) where we stumbled upon Leavenworth, a little Bavarian village that floats on sausages and bier. I love fake Europe. Painted-on Europe. Found a nice little creek to tent on.

Night #4: Missoula, MT. 1350 miles. Brandon made potatoes, bacon, and eggs. We talked Poetry with Greg's summer poetry workshop. We read Caroline Knox poems to each other. New Lakes reading in K and R's beautiful back yard. Mountains in the background. Julie's new poems are strange and awesome. Mathias' intros were the best ever and the best there ever will be. Dead Man projected on the fence. The skeleton gloves came out. Breakfast at Dauphine's. West on 90 from here.

Night #2 + #3: Bozeman, MT. 1100 miles. Hung w/B and slept on his futon. Went to the cinema. Saw Hostel 2 and Knocked Up. One was "eh...not so much" and the other was "um...no." Ate soup at the Soup Garage.

Night #1: Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming. Saw a moose near our campground. Tented 10 steps from a little creek. Hiked in the morning.

Might have to add this to the to-do list: Midnight Sun Baseball.

If I haven't told you already, A and I will be driving from our little shack in Lincoln to Mt. McKinley in the AK and we're leaving Friday. This is a long trip. We'll be hiking around of course, and tenting almost every night. I'll be reading some poems with Julie Doxsee and Mathias in Missoula on June 12. Other than that, there'll be very little human contact. Very little civilization. We're taking a break from humans. No shaving. 3 pair of underwear. We should be back in mid-July at some point. This is a long trip. I google-earthed it and it makes the whole earth spin a little bit. Anyhoo, we're running around this week trying to get stuff together before we go, and trying to get stuff done so we can leave with a clear mind, y'know? So that's where my head is right now. I'll say goodbye on Friday, but I'll be sure to update you from the road of course. With pictures, observations, anecdotes, and insights. And I'll tell you all about Octopus #9 here pretty soon.

1. Monica Fambrough tells me something that may change yr gift-begging plans. Wave Books now offers annual subscriptions to their softcover titles (subscriptions were previously only available for hardcovers). You get all six 2007 titles for $60.
2. If you sent a manny to Octopus Books in April, I'm going to the bank today to deposit your check. Thanks. We're just now starting to dig in. Full stride. For half of you, your manny is making a road trip to Alaska with me.
3. When I picked up the mannies/checks/misc materials from Alisa, the Octopus screener/intern, I found a few gifts in the pile. So I'll be cracking open these books on the trip as well:

When A and I left Cleveland (Akron technically) 3-4 years ago the Cavs and the Indians were the bottom feeders of their respective divisions. We picked a fine time to leave (Sigh).

PS. I'm a fan of the Indians, but not a fan of the Chief Wahoo logo. I want to make that clear.

I've been interviewed by Kate Greenstreet. I have proof.

Would you please buy me the entire catalogs of Palm Press and Make Now Press? Thanks.

Congrats K.

My sister graduates from high school this weekend. She is very cool and I'm proud of her. Today is her grad party and I'm very excited because I'll be living one of my dreams. I'm in charge of the hot dog roller machine. I'm not joking. I will be a hot dog roller machine operator today. Jealous?

A is living her dream: she's operating the cotton candy machine.

Ideas for concept manuscripts:

1. A manuscript titled Steady Improvement. The first poem is a dirty limerick. It's centered. And it uses a font called Vivaldi. The next poem is an attempt at a sonnet. It's about love and heart and about never giving up. The next one is a trick haiku with "bla bla bla bla bla" as the last line. The next one is an attempt at a ghazal using a line from Night Ranger and is all about giving up. The next one invents a new form known as Seahorsing. And so on. You get the picture. It becomes mediocre, readable but forgettable. Then there are a few sparks. Then it ends with a poem with werewolves and black holes.

2. A manuscript titled Help! I'm Trapped. Each poem is a clue to where the poet is trapped against his/her will. The editor of the press to which this manuscript is sent figures this out, assembles a team of assistant editors who bring in oversized charts and maps to the coffeeshop where the manuscripts are read. After a few weeks or so, the team finds the poet on the brink of starvation deep inside a dark cave behind a fallen boulder and saves his/her life. It is a really good manuscript, but it is only named a finalist.

My good friend, Hadara Bar-Nadav's book of poems, A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight, is being paired up with the Suit on Amazon. If you have my book, you should get hers--Amazon recommends you do. If you don't have my book, you should also get hers. She is in KC now so it is nice we get to hang out in the Amazon together, side by side.

Also, there are some new chappies on Press Press Press you should know about. Hot off the press press press.

Mathias comes back from his long road trip today. So I imagine we'll be splitting up some April manuscripts and talking issue #9. #9 should be up before I take off for Alaska (June 8--the day my sister turns 18). If you were going to do a piece for us for #9, that slow downward sliding door is nearing the ground, Indiana Jones.

Gonna pull some more weeds today. Listen to tunes. Tunes and weeds. Maybe I'll send some poems out later. I've been writing a lot lately and I haven't sent out since last fall.





Got The Hot Garment of Love is Insecure by Elizabeth Reddin in the mail yesterday. I ate half of it up last night and am saving the other half for tonight. It made me write a poem about a black hole. I badly want the other two books (pictured above) from UDP too. I need to go sell some blood now.

I was reading through this new mannie of mine and realized that there is only one simile. I love similes though. Good ones. Tonight is simile night. Ok.

Also, this is one of about 10 fantasy covers I've got swimming around the old noggin.

Do you like good poems? Do you like to watch good poems being read? Do you like me (and Mathias Svalina and Joshua Marie Wilkinson and Julie Doxsee and Nathan Bartel)? Episode #3 from Rabbit Light Movies y'all.