Quiet Lightning, Monday Sept. 15

I'm honored and excited to be reading at the Sept. 15 Quiet Lightning. We'll be meeting at Lands End to watch the sunset and then the reading will commence at a nearby location. Sounds like a magical evening in the making. Please join us.

More info. here.

Words Dance # 17 is now live.  They've seen fit to include three of my poems, and each piece is accompanied by an audio file, which I think is pretty neat.  Please indulge.

New Broadside And Other Random Whatnots...

Yossarian Universal News Service's Broadsider magazine has seen fit to include one of my poems in the new broadside series which will officially be relased at the end of the year. Other writers in the upcoming series include Diane Di Prima, Billy Collins and many other talented folk. The entire set of 30 signed and numbered broadsides will be available in December for $100, I think.

I currently have signed (limited to 100)copies of my broadside, "Some of Us" available for $5, which includes postage and whatnot. If anyone is interested in getting a copy, lemme know. I think it turned out rather well, and I'm proud to have my work included in this project.

Other cool things:

Talented Bay area composer Jack Perla has put my poem We Would Fall to music. Here is a video of it being performed by Thomas Glenn. Kinda neat.

I recently took part in The New San Francisco Underground Press and Book Fair. It was a great event, and an article and videos from the evening can be found here.

Last, and certainly not least: If you somehow missed it, here is my performance as Bill "The Hammer" Taylor in the premiere episode of Record Store In Space (A True Story).

I think that's it for now. Thanks so much for indulging me. O, and it's like 92 degrees in San Francisco, which just ain't right.

Anthills V

To those of you not in the know:

The long awaited, much anticipated Anthills V
is now available from the always wonderful Centennial Press. It is a beautiful volume and contains work by myself and many amazing folks, including Amanda Oaks, Nate Graziano, Nick Osdick, Robyn Kohlwey and others. Give it a look...you won't be disappointed.

Or Maybe It's Just the Wine

The thing is, the poetry is already there.

Everyday, everywhere. You just have to know where and how to look. Or, at the very least, you have to want to try.

For some it comes easy; some are born with the ability to see. Others have to work at it. Many don't give a damn one way or another.

I believe the true poet has the ability to use words to create doors or windows or signposts that help reveal the poetry that already exists to those who, for one reason or another, might otherwise have missed it.

Words used in such a way are magic.

The problem is, so often we write stuff that we want to be poetry but it ends up just being cumbersome and unwieldy, serving only to obstruct and cheapen the poetry that already exists. Words become walls of brick and layers of concrete that bury the original beauty underneath.

Sometime the page is best left white.

That's all.

Hello And Welcome To Low Quality Video Theater

Here's a video of myself reading some of my work included in the poetry anthology Down This Crooked Road.

Also, check out the gift shop for Lummox Press. If you don't want to take the time and bother to actually read the book, you can buy a shirt or a mug or a coaster featuring the cover image. And really, what could possibly be a better holiday gift than any or all of these fine products?

Did I mention the refrigerator magnets?

Sometimes.

Sometimes life is okay.

I had a pretty good weekend. Friday night I did a reading with a bunch of good people and had a really nice time. Lots of good feeling and many glasses of free wine. A poet friend of mine who was there told me that she doesn't like the readings that take place in bars. Too many drunk people there who don't give a shit about poetry and just want to be entertained, she says. Me, I'm okay with that. If you can't entertain the drunks, get off the stage. All art is entertainment. If you're up there on a stage in front of people you should be doing something to make them laugh, or cry or feel like they've been kicked in the gut..something. Reading poetry is not unlike juggling or telling jokes while wearing a clown nose. I don't know. I wish more of my readings were in bars. It's nice when I don't have to sneak my booze in. Hell, I don't like reading or listening to poetry when sober myself. But I can understand how it's not every reader's ideal situation. A bookstore that supplies wine is a happy medium. (You rock, Bird & Beckett!)

Though perhaps my ideal poetry reading would be in a crowded bar with the audience sufficiently liquored up, and at the back of the room would be a big gong, and Jaimee Farr, Rip Taylor and Jaye P. Morgan will all be there, waiting.

And my abnormally(for me) social weekend continued on into Saturday. Met a bunch of friends in Dolores park to celebrate a friend's (un)birthday. It was a wonderful day, much sun and blue sky. More wine and good people. It's good to be reminded that there are actually people I call my friends whose occasional company I truly enjoy. Met some good new people as well. I sometimes forget that such things can happen.

In spite of my general distaste for large crowds, I must confess to a love of Delores park on a sunny Saturday afternoon. Just a sea of people chilling out as far as the eye can see. Drinking, smoking, eating. Kids. Dogs. Hippies on giant unicycles. People wandering around selling everything from tamales to cotton candy to snack items laced with various illegal substances. And the assholes and the cops always seem to stay away, as if there were some magic circle of protection around the area. It's always just a nice vibe.

And I had a moment, when I was opening a second bottle of wine and looking out upon the sea of humanity sprawled across the park, and I was filled with a pure and simple little feeling of joy. I was just thinking, you know, here I am in San Francisco on a lovely day drinking wine with people I like, discussing the finer points of comic books, videogames, Dostoyevski and Werner Herzog, among other things. Who would have imagined life could be so good? It's important to understand these moments from time to time and appreciate them for what they are.

Because life will become shitty again before you know it. But the darkness doesn't cancel out the light. The beautiful moments are there, etched into the fabric of the universe, and the fuckers can't take them away from us. Ever.

That's all.

For Those Few Who May Be Interested

Some updates on where my work has recently appeared or will appear in the near future:

A poem (Adrift) has been posted on the latest update at Silenced Press.

A few recent pieces have been posted at Scot Young's excellent Rusty Truck Zine.

The (somewhat) legendary Lummox Press has been publishing their Little Red Book series for a decade now, and to commemorate this milestone they've released The Long Way Home: The Best of the Little Red Book Series 1998-2008.

In addition to some of my stuff, the handsome volume includes work by the likes of A.D. Winans, RD Armstrong, Alan Catlin, Lyn Lifshin, Glen Cooper, Todd Moore, Rob Plath, Bill Shields and plenty of other wonderful folk. I implore you to give it a look.

I'll be reading along with Harmon Leon, Kris Saknussem, Debbie Kirk, MK Chavez, Melissa Hansen and Paul Corman-Roberts at the Cherry Bleeds Literary Happy Hour on Friday, April 3rd at the Knockout Room here in San Francisco. Come on by. It will be fun, I promise. Poetry goes down much better with booze, I always find.

A few upcoming projects:

I'm working on an anthology with Lummox Press that will include work by myself as well as MK Chavez, Christopher Robin, Father Luke, Hosho McCreesh, Christopher Cunningham and Miles J. Bell. The volume is tentatively titled The Crooked Road (I think), and may be out sometime this summer.

The Hunger Season, a book of new poetry, is due out from sunnyoutside in the fall.

And lastly, my previous two books are still available for the buyin':

Words For Songs Never Written

So Much Is Burning

Thanks for reading and please forgive the self promotion. A lot of folk in the independent press put a lot of time, love and money into creating beautiful things (books, websites, etc.) that 99.9% of the population doesn't give a fuck about. I feel it my duty to do what I can to spread the word.

A good night to you.