surfacing

Once again emerging slowly from my post-holiday stupor, one in which I've done nothing much but eat leftover Christmas goodies and watch the second season of Lost on dvd. And napping of course. The holiday itself was busy--gathering after gathering in which there were an abundance of family, food, booze, and presents. I wound up with the aforementioned dvd's, a new fancy leather-bound journal, homestuffs like sheets, towells, and silverware. Today, the first venture out into daylight since Monday, to the craft store to pick up some collage papers I like to get everytime I'm in town. Soon New Years, 2007 already, and only the same resolutions--to be healthy (ie. no more raspberry sorbet for breakfast) to be fearless (ie. never avoid a situation because it scares me) and to be productive (ie. finish a couple of manuscript projects and keep wicked alice and dgp humming along..). I came to a realization not too long ago that no matter how incredibly fucked up personal things have been these last couple of months, things are remarkably good in my life even in spite of all that *knock on wood*. I have everything I need and could possibly want. Like cake, the rest is just frosting. Terribly addictive and seductive frosting. But I can take it or leave it.

Last night's reading was enormous fun--a small audience but a good one, and the folks at Mojoes Hothouse are seriously nice and I'd recommend them to anyone in Chicago looking to host readings. Plus they have a cool decor and a big red couch on the stage..I actually chose to read from down on the floor since the crowd was small, but I'm thinking of perhaps a wicked alice reading there at some point..and it would be a great space for that. Plus they have excellent mochas.

tonight

release reading/party for the fever almanac

Thursday
December 21st
6pm.
MoJoes Hothouse
2849 W Belmont Ave.

hah!

And you say poetry never makes any money:

Original Copy of Christmas Poem sells for $280K

making lists

my favorite Christmas songs:

"River" not really a Christmas song, but it references Christmas and I love Joni Mitchell.

"Please Come Home for Christmas": various versions of this, from everyone from the Eagles to Bon Jovi.

"All I Want for Christmas is You" Despite my dislike of Mariah Carey, this song makes me happy.

"Carol of the Bells" Haunting--could double as a horror movie soundtrack in some interpretations..

"Hard Candy Christmas" Dolly Parton and the other girls in the "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" --this one rips my heart out everytime..


Honorable Mention: "The Little Christmas tree" or I think that's what it's called. About a straggly little unwanted tree. This was on a Disney record I had a kid, and apparently I would make my mother play it over and over again while I stood crying in the living room...such a sucker for drama...

read

Check out Jamie Heimbuch's interview with me about wicked alice and dgp at the online Girlistic Magazine...

favorite things

Every year the tv viewing world is subjected to yet another Oprah’s Favorite Things episode in which the greedy audience scrambles for ugly $600 purses and $49 hot chocolate. Why do I find it hilarious that someone who is preaching to her audience about giving to charity from meager middle class salaries is buyng $400 dog sweaters. Anyway, I was feeling in a listy mood and have some nicer, more economical, favorites I’m lusting for at Christmas, or any other time of year.

1). Pens: Pilot g-2’s to be exact. 07’s. A finely engineered piece of machinery.

2) Paper goods: stationary, postcards, etc. I have far more than I will ever send out or write upon. I've recently died and gone to heaven here and here.

3)Tea: Twinings Earl Grey and Bigelow's Plantation Mint stock my cabinets and desk drawers repectively.

4)Jewelry: I have spent WAY too much cash here this month, but they're actually really affordable.

5)Notebooks: I'm typically a fan of your garden variety spiral bound sketchbooks, but I found these recently these that are multi-colored and pertier. I, of course, bought the green one.

6)Music:. Maybe it's all the heartache, but I find myself more in a folk-country-rockish state of mind lately and The Wreckers fit the bill perfectly.

7)chocolate: also good for heartache (and with the above tea). These are my absolute favorite, but Hershey's works too.

8)fine Jamaican Rum: if all else fails.

9)Discount Cashmere: I recently found a cashmere cardigan at WalMart online for $45...it hasn't yet fallen apart.

10)small poetry things: from Dusie's wee books, to Tinysides, to Foursquare, I love getting these in the mail.

now online

wicked alice
winter 2007 issue

featuring work by Jamie Kazay, Alex Stolis, Shisa Poet, Beth Kilbane, Alison Eastley, and Adrianne Marcus.

Now that I am out from under the grind of this last semester, I can start looking forward to the next...or not. I'm very excited about the ekphrastic poetry craft seminar I'm taking just for fun, especially as we'll be working on getting the Cornell project together round about then. I am not, however, as excited about my Chaucer lit class. It came down to that or the Objectivists and (covering my head to avoid the arrows of Charles Olson fans)I've just never gotten into them. Chaucer had the benefit of meeting during the day, so Chaucer it was . Really, I'd rather take something else than either. But that's my last requirement, so I'm stuck with it. I'll be doing my one on one thesis advising and then I'm outta here come May (well, metaphorically anyway..)

Taking something like the Chaucer feels weird when the bulk of my classes here have been rather new poetry-- radical poetics, hybrid forms, new media poetry, contemporary american, and just this semester, emerging american. It was a good way to round out a pretty traditional background from my MA, where my courses were devoted to Medieval romance, Milton, the Romantics, Victorian Novels, 19th Century American Lit, the Modernists, with electives in womens writing across various periods. Basically what I know about the Canturbury tales was gleaned from h.s senior year english class and a bad English Lit I survey as an undergrad. Neither of which I was paying all that much attention to.

I have determined I can actually make the Caribou coffee that we sell at the library coffee cart drinkable by the following recipe-1 part coffee, 1 part water, 1 part cream, and about four to five sugars. It’s not the greatest, but it’s better than it is full-on. I miss Rain Dog. I miss asiago and prosciutto croissants. Now they seemed to have opened a tango school in the space, which does nothing to temper my coffee needs. How dare?

End of the semester, and I’m tired of looking at/touching/moving around books. Did some shelving on the third floor to pick up the slack and realized all that kneeling and bending are not so fun when you’ve passed thirty (well maybe for SOME things, but certainly not shelving books). And of course, end of semester jackasses are rampant and coming out of the woodwork. Angry professors, stressed out students. And it all just keeps coming at you. Plus we’re seriously understaffed, since most of my co-workers have to use all their remaining vacation before January 1 or lose it, so we’re down to the barest bones. I sadly, used the last of my vacation days before Thanksgiving, so am stuck working through next Thursday. But after that, a whole blissful week off…

I have finally succeeded in wading through the dgp inbox and responding to almost all of the chaps. As I've said before, I hate rejecting chapbooks, which feel like a much more serious responsibility than just a few poems--obviously something the author spent a bunch of time on to create. I do it reluctantly, and wish I could publish all the ones that speak to me, but I can't. Such is the nature of the beast I imagine.

dgp january special

7 chapbooks for $25...
go here for details....

dgp news and other random stuff

The loveliness that is Donora Hillard's Parapherna is nearing publication. I'm still working out some lay-out stuff, but it should be hitting the site before Christmas. I was thinking of doing another DGP HOLIDAY SPECIAL this year, but we're cutting it too close with the last chap to possibly get them in your mailboxes early enough, so it's going to be..er..well...a JANUARY SPECIAL this year-- 7 chaps for $25. Which is certain value for all of our 2006 titles, including books by Rebecca Cook, Christine Hamm, Sarah Gardner, Robyn Art, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, Kristina Marie Darling, and Donorah Hillard. For those folks who are early birds and like to get a jump on NEXT years books--all 12+ of them (including books by Brandi Homan, Jen Tynes, Ann Cefola, Khadijah Queen, Erin Bertram, Simone Muench, Jesse Nissim, and others to be announced)--we'll also be setting up a subscription program of some sort, where we will automatically send you every chap we release, plus some other goodies like the print annual for like $45.

In other news, I can finally breathe freely after having tied up all loose school ends, and now get down to other, more enjoyable poetry things. Last night's last thesis seminar was a fun-time with presents and yummy food, and an end to a relatively pain-free semester (there was a little pain in Emerging Poetics with the papers and all). After horror stories of last years thesis process, I'm a bit glad I waited til this fall. It was a smaller group of people who seemed to be reasonably good readers of my work, helped quite a bit with organization issues, and it all seemed much less chaotic than I imagined it would be.

next week

release reading/party for the fever almanac

Thursday
December 21st
6pm.
MoJoes Hothouse
2849 W Belmont Ave.



********

Also, I'll be reading this Sunday night on Wordslingers, 88.7 fm WLUW at 8pm for those folks within listening distance. In a few weeks, it will also be archived here for your listening pleasure.

go here

amazing art

year end round-up

Amidst the end of semester chaos (my dining room is beginning to look like the library, books everywhere and no end in sight), I was thinking about about how, overall, it's been a pretty great year in terms of writing. I managed to finish the poems for a couple projects--archer avenue and girl show--and spiffied up my second manuscript and found a home for it at Dusie. And of course, the fever almanac's release, and my impending chap from NMP (and being a finalist there). Also poems in a couple of my most coveted publications--Melic Review and Caffeine Destiny (ones I'd been dying to get into from the beginning). And others delightfully in Milk, Agni, Rhino, DIAGRAM, alice blue, CPR, Pebble Lake Review, 42 opus, Foursquare, Backwards City, and others I'm probably forgetting right now. On a local scale, being featured in after hours, a whole passel of readings, and teaching the CPL web workshop. Publishing wise, four issues of wicked alice (well, soon to be four) and the print annual and seven chapbooks for dgp.

And next year? First task is rounding out the Cornell poems and working with Lauren on the final product. I'd like to start sending out girl show after the new year, or at least a version of it. After the whole Tupelo/Dorset fiasco, I'm not so keen on contests, though I could no doubt use the cash for the press once the student loan cushion dries up next summer. Over the summer, I plan to dig in seriously on the newest manuscript, dulcet, and see where it goes (I've messed around with it for a couple years now, but hadn't been able to find the right angle to approach until just recently.) And there all those dgp chaps, and some more visual projects I have my head wrapped around. New poems coming soon in Dusie, WOMB, The Tiny, DIAGRAM and Slipstream.

And of course, finishing the program, no small feat after four years of doing it half-ass (er...I mean part-time). Though no doubt it's done me good in term of opening up my writing, making me better, even with all the grumbling and whining over papers and the occasional vivisection (or evisceration). Also, the whole sort of feeling very much in the fish-bowl sometimes. Like I want to hide my work until it's done. After it's done, even. But this is to be expected I suppose in any workshop-driven program.

I am blissfully officially done with Christmas shopping, though I know having ordered everything online I probably wound up spending more than I intended at the outset. I mostly went with last year's gift formula--mostly books, yummy bath accoutrements and candles, and gourmet goodies, plus some etsy finds. No fuss, no muss. And no freaking out in stores. I still have to buy a cousin on my dad's side some booze for a name-draw gift, but that will wait til I'm back in Rockford.

And of course, I couldn't resist THIS for myself when I saw it..

lines that make me happy

"Dolls climb backwards out of my mouth."
--Lara Glenum, "A DIORAMA OF MY PUCELAGE"

Started reading The Hounds of No this morning, it having arrived in the mail last week. Very meaty and bodily poems, I'm loving it, though all that talk of egg sacks made me a little queasy before breakfast...