start your holiday shopping early

and avoid the crunch..

Friday and Saturday, I will be updating the shop with tons of new lovely things, including new paperweights, letter openers, vintage wallpaper journals, notecard designs, flasks, cigarette cases, dictionary pendants and typewriter key rings..stay tuned..

release reading this Saturday at Quimby's

7pm.
Quimbys Bookstore
1854 W North Avenue


Kristy Bowen's poems are sexy and smart. The poems in in the bird museum fool around with dictionaries, notebooks, concordances, and the ways that bodies get lost and found in real and imaginary places. There are dance halls and graveyards here, footnotes and invocations. One poem asserts, " I suggest everything is a metaphor for sex. Even the bird." These poems let us know pleasure and danger are often in close proximity. These poems are inhabited by girls and women who move through the world with a sense of urgency, and Bowen invites us to join them. Or rather, she INSISTS we do. This book is delicious.

--Susan Denning


Kristy Bowen’s sparkling and spellbinding poems are full of the things of households and Victorian interiors: corsets, envelopes, books, hooks, and spoons. Bowen’s vigilant attention to the danger and fragility of these environments is manifest in her description of the beings (women, girls, and birds) who inhabit or are bought into these spaces. These are the muses of Bowen’s museum (“a seat or shrine of the muses”). Like a careful curator, Bowen gathers and assembles stories, scenes, and objects related to her subjects. The result is a densely packed cabinet of gothic wonders and haunting relics. Reading these poems makes one keenly aware of the inticacies, intimacies, and inconsistencies staged in the theaters of domestic spaces.

--Michelle Detorie


I was apprenticed to the frenzied atmosphere, the verandas that open into dark wind. Kristy Bowen is apprenticed to the “frenzied atmosphere” and in it she finds the crucial minutiae, in it she finds skirts of night and a woman’s heart as a wind-up bird. Bowen’s poetry is where we go to read that heart—as old- time paper valentine and as fist of flesh: valved and valued, the bric a brac and phobias it contains in each of its Cornellian chambers and the placards labeling each exhibit are letters written with the bones of birds. So it is, so it was that Here, we came for the ghost of the word/ inside the other word: and here, in The Bird Museum we are haunted by all that is visual as it is visceral and Bowen, playful, brilliant, curator, reminds us that this place is a synaesthete’s playground--where the eye partakes in the delicious but no less-so than the ear, for here: If you listen, you can hear the holes in the alphabet, sounds lit by the lamps of our bones. Like birds we might even rise, our lamp-lit bones: luminous and (as Bowen does here so often,) fly in a perfect line.

--Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis

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art (or something like it)

These were some collages that just came down from an exhibit in the library. Since they tend to look to me whenever they have some blank wall space to fill, I also have some pages from a zine project I'm working on involving children's books and electrical tape in the new show...(one of those, wouldn't it be funny if I...? projects)..I will show you those soon, but for now, I give you these..

tis the season, part deux

Right before I went to bed last night I realized that my slight sore throat of the past day or so was going to turn into a nasty little cold.. I had to be at work early to boot, which made it extra unbearable. I should know better than to go two weaks straight with no days off to rest but November is always super crazy, and December does not look much better. I was going to head over to the studio tonight to work on my new notecard designs, but I'm feeling sluggish and will probably just go home. I do, however, have the entire glorious week of Thanksgiving off, for which there will be be the usual excesses, I'm sure, in food, family, alcohol, and shopping. I just need to get through the reading at Quimby's on Saturday and I'll be home free...

tis the season (apparently)

I have finally started seeing holiday displays in the Michigan Avenue windows and the big Salvation Army tree in front of the Hancock building has been up for days. I am in love with Starbucks' Hazlenut Hot chocolate and twinkle lights, and have finally posted the holiday ornaments in the shop after much trial and error. The sequin balls are courtesy of my mother, who has much more patience than I, but I love the little birds, which are one of my favorite decorations.

a history of lolcats

studio shots

Yesterday, I was finally able to get enough sunlight in the morning to actually get photos taken of the holiday ornaments, as well as tame the pre-craft show craziness in the studio, so since I had the camera with, decided to take a few photos of the place in it's nice orderly state (and not how it looks usually with shipping boxes and paper cuttings everywhere...) I'd still like to maybe get a couch for along the remaining empty wall for more seating when we have events (and my own napping when working late), but it's much fuller now than it was last November when we moved in the Fine Arts.





see more pics here...

november 22nd @ Quimby's

will be the official release reading for in the bird museum. Come on out and get a copy in person. I will even sign it for you..probably whether you want me to or not... Save money on shipping! Plus, I promise there will be porn...okay not in the book (well, not much) but in the bookstore...

7pm.
Quimbys Bookstore
1854 W North Avenue

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in the bird museum
by Kristy Bowen
Dusie Press, 2008
$15.00
ISBN: 9780615256863

available here


Kristy Bowen's poems are sexy and smart. The poems in in the bird museum fool around with dictionaries, notebooks, concordances, and the ways that bodies get lost and found in real and imaginary places. There are dance halls and graveyards here, footnotes and invocations. One poem asserts, " I suggest everything is a metaphor for sex. Even the bird." These poems let us know pleasure and danger are often in close proximity. These poems are inhabited by girls and women who move through the world with a sense of urgency, and Bowen invites us to join them. Or rather, she INSISTS we do. This book is delicious.

--Susan Denning


Kristy Bowen’s sparkling and spellbinding poems are full of the things of households and Victorian interiors: corsets, envelopes, books, hooks, and spoons. Bowen’s vigilant attention to the danger and fragility of these environments is manifest in her description of the beings (women, girls, and birds) who inhabit or are bought into these spaces. These are the muses of Bowen’s museum (“a seat or shrine of the muses”). Like a careful curator, Bowen gathers and assembles stories, scenes, and objects related to her subjects. The result is a densely packed cabinet of gothic wonders and haunting relics. Reading these poems makes one keenly aware of the inticacies, intimacies, and inconsistencies staged in the theaters of domestic spaces.

--Michelle Detorie


I was apprenticed to the frenzied atmosphere, the verandas that open into dark wind. Kristy Bowen is apprenticed to the “frenzied atmosphere” and in it she finds the crucial minutiae, in it she finds skirts of night and a woman’s heart as a wind-up bird. Bowen’s poetry is where we go to read that heart—as old- time paper valentine and as fist of flesh: valved and valued, the bric a brac and phobias it contains in each of its Cornellian chambers and the placards labeling each exhibit are letters written with the bones of birds. So it is, so it was that Here, we came for the ghost of the word/ inside the other word: and here, in The Bird Museum we are haunted by all that is visual as it is visceral and Bowen, playful, brilliant, curator, reminds us that this place is a synaesthete’s playground--where the eye partakes in the delicious but no less-so than the ear, for here: If you listen, you can hear the holes in the alphabet, sounds lit by the lamps of our bones. Like birds we might even rise, our lamp-lit bones: luminous and (as Bowen does here so often,) fly in a perfect line.

--Ariana-Sophia Kartsonis

---

not quite a weekend

Yesterday at The Empty Bottle was so-so in terms of sales (I blame the economy), but it was followed by an excellent dinner at Leonas with our proceeds, so we broke even at least..I sold a bunch of cheapie typewriter key rings though, a newish thing I haven't tried on etsy yet.. Plus I arrived home to a couple of online sales while I was gone, so all is good. I went to bed early and slept late before coming in to work today and plan a quick housecleaning when I get home, some dinner, and then some poetry work. Then, of course, it's up early tomorrow and down to the studio and I start all over again, a very long week since I'm working on Saturday as well. Tuesday, I do get a brief reprieve and an evening off from the library anyway, since the dgp show will be on the road to Flourish Bakery with the awesome Cecilia Pinto, as well as me reading some other pieces from billet-doux from non-local contributors..(details here..)

Otherwise on tap this week: finishing up one chap, its cover design, and layout finalization on two others. I have still yet to be able to photograph the Christmas ornaments due to a profound lack of sunlight the last week, plus I'm still working on the little wallpaper notebooks and the gift sets.

But it was a good week in the ever ongoing romantic drama arena ..no idea if the weather will hold, but I'm enjoying it while I can...

saturday

Indeed it is the time for Handmade Chicago to go back to The Empty Bottle...we will be there with all sorts of books and paper goodness.


***

I am still, however running around like mad most days and things probably won't let up until around Christmas. We are still a bit behind on chaps, so look for a massive slew of titles soon playing catchup. I am also almost done with the second round of dgp submission cuts. If I still have your manuscript, and haven't sent a rejection, you are still in the running I am hoping to have all decisions made and confirmed by the end of next week. I was hoping to do it all in October, but it gets a bit tougher every year to decide.




In other news, a big box of bird museums arrived yesterday, and after I unpacked them, I just sat and drooled over them for awhile. I was paging through it thinking about the poems inside. I think perhaps even more than girl show, which was my actual thesis, this book is actually more in line with the developemental path my poetry took while I was in the MFA program (probably because I was in there FOREVER (4 years part-time) and girl show was actually mostly written in 2006 almost at the end of it all.. There's sort of a line where the poems that wound up in the fever almanac ended (late 2004, about a year in) and the beginnings of what would become this book as my writing style started to shift. And of course, certain sections of it were actually projects for classes, the errata poems, and archer avenue. Much of the other stuff (especially the stuff from feign) was written in 2005, when I got to work with Stephanie Strickland, probably the faculty member (sadly only visiting) who had the best concrete suggestions for improvements I encountered. Some of the later pieces were initially parts of girl show and another manuscript that just seemed to fit better in this one. And then of course there are the andromeda poems, which spanned all four years. The entire book is sort of a collection of what I was doing all those years back in grad school, which is sort of cool snapshot of my own history and obsessions.

next tuesday

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Tuesday Funk at the Flourish Bakery, Nov. 11 at 7pm

Please join us for the next installment of Tuesday Funk on Tuesday, November 11th at reading at the Flourish Bakery in Edgewater. Tuesday Funk is a monthly reading that combines poetry, essays and fiction with an emphasis on new work and works in progress. It's free and open to the public. Some of the poets we've hosted are: Kristy Bowen, Jett McAllister, Carl Marcum, Roy Guzman, and Adam Jameson.

This month we're having a special love themed edition of Tuesday Funk. Dancing Girl Press founder Kristy Bowen commissioned fifteen poets to imagine the love letter and sold them boxed together under the title billet-doux The result was something breathtaking, beautiful and full of surprises. Now Kristy and some of those same writers come to Tuesday Funk to share these letters in front of our microphones. Lisbeth Levine, co-author of the The Wedding Book: The Big Book for Your Big Day will share her thoughts on the phenomenon of the contemporary American Wedding. And poet and essayiest Roberta Wilson reflects on the nature of love itself.

Flourish Bakery
1138 West Bryn Mawr
November 11th, 7pm.

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new and pretty things

sweet little deer necklace, $13.



bird ephemera letter opener, $14.



poesy ring, $8

insert temendous sigh of relief

I am feeling all warm and fuzzily American tonight...

new from dancing girl press

lit
danielle vogel
dancing girl press, 2008

get it here

from god's mouth to our ears

This blog just keep getting better and better. Since the other day she has managed to take on Sarah Palin, pro-choicers, etsy admin, "evilution," and yes, even Halloween.

This comment from "god" below the evolution entry had me in hysterics though..

I did make some stupid people (mostly for my own entertainment), but not that many.