New Review of The Hunger Season

The good folks at Prick of the Spindle have posted a review of my latest book, The Hunger Season.

I found the review to be surpringly insightful and thoughtfully written.

You can read it here.

That's all.

Down This Crooked Road

Down This Crooked Road is now available. It is a poetry anthology I edited with RD Armstrong of Lummox Press. I hand picked the poets myself, and I truly think they are currently producing some of the best work out there. All of these writers I can't recommend enough:

MK Chavez, Christopher Robin, Father Luke, Miles J. Bell, Hosho McCreesh, Christopher Cunningham, and um, me.

The collection is currently available through the Lummox Press site, as well as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Ordering info. and some sample poems are available here:

Down This Crooked Road



I'll be reading in Santa Cruz on Friday, Oct. 16 with Christopher Robin and RD to help celebrate the release and hopefully sell some of the things. On October 17th I will be reading as part of the Litcrawl event here in San Francisco, which closes out the annual Litquake festival. More on that later. That's all for now.

Hunger Season Now Available

Some News:

The Hunger Season, my new book of poetry, is being released by Sunnyoutside Press on August 20th. They are currently accepting pre-orders, if you are interested in receiving the book on or around the release date. More information here:

http://www.sunnyoutside.com/releases/042/o.html

The Hunger Season is my first full length book of poetry since Words For Songs Never Written was published in 2007. David from Sunnyoutside and myself put a lot of time and work into the collection, and I'm really happy with the results.

If you like my work, and/or are interested an supporting one of the best independent presses out there, please consider having a look. I humbly thank you.

I'm having a release party/reading at Modern Times books here in San Francisco on Wednesday Sept. 9. If you're in the area, come on out, I'd love to see you. I'll be reading with Joie Cook and Chelsea Martin, both really amazing writers.

What To Wear During An Orange Alert has posted a review/interview concerning the new book.

I just finished co-editing, along with RD of Lummox Press, an anthology of some of my favorite poets: MK Chavez, Christopher Robin, Father Luke, Hosho McCreesh, Christopher Cunningham, Miles Bell, and, um, me. It's called Down This Crooked Road and should be available sometime in September. More info. soon.

O, and I got laid off again.

Love,

Bill

Pomes & Pitchurs & Stuff

It's true, I haven't updated for some time. But I knew it would be thus, so I'm not stressing too much about it.

Have been working the new job, which is decent enough. The way things are right now, especially in California, I'm truly grateful for a paycheck. Nice to be working at a little independent bookstore again. The owner is a bit neurotic, but aren't they all.

Anise has the summer off, so have been spending a lot of time hanging out with her, so haven't been getting as much writing done, but I'm managing here and there.

Spent today sitting around with Anise and drawing while listening to Bill Evans and Eric Satie. As pleasant a day as I've had in quite a while.

The fruits of my scribbling:

And, what's more, to prove I have not been complete creatively idle these past many weeks, I have a new poem posted at Rusty Truck.

As well as a new piece on Poesy Magazine's site. (My piece is the second poem that appears on the page). The poem appears in the hardcopy version of the new issue as well, which is guest edited by Debbie Kirk. It contains quality work by a lot of good folk, and the issue remembers the late poet Dave Church. Give it a look, why doncha?

What else? O yeah, I'm on another Cormac McCarthy kick...working my way through the Border Trilogy. I'm about a third of the way through The Crossing, and it might be my favorite yet. We'll see.

That's all.

Report from the North Beach "Poetry" Festival

Last week I attended something that billed itself as the "North Beach Poetry Festival". To put it kindly, during the two days and 10 hours or so of the event, I didn't see a lot of poetry. But there was this.

And so it goes.

Another Reason I Like Living in San Francisco

A cool little independent bookstore a few blocks from my place is closing down. Last night they hosted a little farewell event. Art, wine, beer...and this girl who did interpretive dance to punk rock songs. I was rather smitten. This crappy little video doesn't nearly do her justice. In person she was rather wonderful. But, for what it's worth, here ya go.

Ferlinghetti is Kind of a Dick.

Yesterday I was sitting outside Cafe Trieste with a beer. Because, you know, if you're a “poet” in San Francisco, that's where you go to drink your beer. Actually, you're supposed to drink wine or some complicated coffee drink, but, rebel that I am, I drink the beer.

Anyway. Lawrence Ferlinghetti was inside talking to some old poet guys. At the table next to me was a young man drinking a glass of wine, reading a book of poetry he just bought from City Lights. He looked to be the hippie/bohemian type, probably from somewhere else, he just didn't have that San Francisco vibe about him.

Eventually Ferlinghetti walked out of the Cafe with a younger woman. His wife, daughter, caretaker, I don't know. The young man's table was right outside the door. I believe this was the moment he had been waiting for.

“Mr. Ferlinghetti?” The young man said, as Ferlinghetti came out of the cafe, “Mr. Ferlinghetti?” Ferlinghetti was just inches away , but he chose to ignore the young man and continue on his way. The young man called out to him one more time, and the lady who was with the old poet kind of stopped him, turned him around and pointed out to him that the young man was trying to get his attention. Ferlinghetti paused, turned around and looked at the young man with a blank face and perhaps an air of slight annoyance, then turned around and kept walking.

The young man and myself exchanged glances, shrugged, and he said something along the lines of, "Oh, well. That's' the way it goes."

Now, I realize I am not as famous or as old as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and may well never be as famous or as old as Lawrence Ferlinghetti, but it seems, even if he didn't want to take the time to talk to the young man, he could have, at the very least, acknowledged his presence with a wave, a nod, a smile, something. But just to completely ignore him seemed more than a little rude. The poor kid probably just wanted to sheepishly mumble something like, "Mr. Ferlinghetti, I really like your work.." and maybe quickly shake his hand or something equally harmless.

Ferlinghetti wasn't being mobbed by a bunch of people, and the young man was very respectful and not in his face or anything. He just seemed a bit disappointed that someone he admired turned out to be kind of a jerk. And, admittedly, perhaps I shouldn't judge too harshly. Maybe the old boy was having a bad day. Whatever. But some kind of acknowledgement doesn't seem like it would have been too much trouble.

Anyway, whilst I is on the subject, for all his fame, Ferlinghetti was never that interesting of a writer. He has had a lot of books published, sure, because he started the freaking' publishing company and all, but he, to my knowledge, has never written anything particularly groundbreaking or profound. He is famous for opening a cool bookstore and having a lot of famous, more talented friends. Anyway. Those are just my thoughts on the matter.

Don't even get me started on Jack Hirschman.