I am no good at promoting things

I have a reading tonight with Dustin Brookshire and Jenny Sadre-Orafai that Laura Carter's hosting at E2 Coffee House in East Atlanta. So, if you're in Atlanta, come out to E 2 at 7:30.

More in advance: Monday November 16th solar anus has a huge reading, with David Lehman and Josh Russell at Kavarna in Decatur. We get started at 7 PM.

More more in advance: The last solar anus reading of 2009 starts at 7 PM at the Beep Beep Gallery in Midtown Atlanta on Friday, November 20th. The reading will feature Kate Greenstreet, Brigitte Byrd, and Scott Wilkerson.

Up now

on Deckfight, Josh has posted some of the five best things I had read during a week in October. They're not all actual things I read, but whatever. Now the leaves in Georgia are just a cunthair past their prime, and things are really beautiful outside. It makes jogging fun. I have long since finished The Singing Knives, which is fucking awesome. If Frank Stanford hadn't killed himself, lord. Am likely going to move through book by book so will go on to Ladies from Hell next if I can borrow Tom Lux's copy, cause the only copy for sale costs $750.

Also, Caleb at Outsider Writers Collective posted a review of Prose, where he says that "It’s a mistake to search for linear anchors in the text, as the setting and even the characters are fluid. There is a sense of story that meshes with the reader rather than dictates to him."

Again, these really smart reviews make me feel good. Thanks, Caleb, and thanks again, Josh.

A while ago I started re-writing this book of lined poems and I read some of it out loud to fellow writers last night. Felt really good, felt good to hear it outside of my head. It's really fucked up shit, I think. I'm re-writing a bunch of different poems into a single long poem. Here's a snippet

and if you’ll believe this
Jamie your gums have bled upon my saxophone
when we make it to my place we’ll breathe
like landing on a virgin shore where the natives
call me the lover of lasagna which is constructed
like an aquarium with clean tourists
who would change your name to Nanook
and pile you like driftwood
the fog wraps me in its serape as prisoners’ wives
as luscious shoes mud-splashed poly pants
but my thumb now my thumb is made
of vine and blackberry needles
and my quiver’s full of this finger
know that the Truth shall set me through your cigarette
rolling down the empty boulevards of my fair
church the winds charged full of snakes
I can’t rescue anyone you are fucked

Kerfuffle

Josh over at Deckfight wrote a generous, lovely review of Prose. I love what he says about the bear: "the narrator is that BEAR, stumbling around trying to navigate an unfamiliar world." He also mentions that he wishes the book were a little longer, and I admit, I struggled with that myself. I had to cut what I felt wasn't the best of all the material that originally made up that book. That said, I feel like if I didn't get bored I could go on writing in a mode similar to that for the rest of my life. Thanks so much, Josh, for such a smart review!

John Dermot Woods also started a conversation over at Big Other. John and others have been saying really wonderful things about the book--both about the text and Christy Call's wonderful art that makes the book a beautiful thing all by itself. Thanks so much, everyone.

I just returned from jogging at Piedmont Park. There's something in the wind today I think. People weirding out all over. A gaggle of kindergartners--like 7,000 of them, or something--was walking along the track I run, which forced me onto the grass and all the kids were looking at me like that giant guy's gonna have a heart attack! which is probably what I do look like when I'm jogging. Meantime, the woman (teacher, I suppose?) who was guiding them, even if she was a good fifteen feet behind the last of them, was huffing to keep up and hollering loud as she could something that sounded like "Get him inside of here! Get him me inside!" I think it was English.

Then a woman and her pit bull came close to me and I don't like pit bulls and I thought about kicking this one in the snout but the woman smiled and threw the dog's shit in a trash can and I rubbed my eye with my left hand, the one that's wearing my wedding ring.

SOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUS

SOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUSOLARANUS

This Saturday, November 7th. At 7 PM @ BEEP BEEP in Atlanta.

JOHN DERMOT WOODS, author of The Complete Collection of People, PLaces and Things

LAURA CARTER, author of At the Pulse

SABRINA ORAH MARK, author of Tsim Tsum

&

SANDRA SIMONDS, author of Warsaw Bikini

A huge reading. With huge readers. They're not overweight at all. But they are.

Fuck Tattoos

I am sitting in a BBQ place in Atlanta and I am reading Daniel Bailey's The Drunk Sonnets, which looks like this
and two bastools away from me this hipster asshole with tight jeans and the classic, like, I-could-possibly-be-an-extra-in-an-Indiana-Jones-movie shirt is consulting with a tweaker about getting his cool new tattoo done and the tweaker tattoo artist guy won't shut the fuck up about everything from Humphrey Bogart being the epitome of the noir writer (????) to area, circumference, and space (because, even generally speaking, these are ALL different things) when it comes to "people really wanting to see" your stupid fucking tattoo. I'm just saying, tattoos are fucking stupid.

Bailey's got some gems in this fine little book. i say little because physically that's what it is, but I am scared of what Daniel Bailey writes because he's good at it, like this:

THE AIRPORT IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
THE GROCERY STORE IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
PETSMART IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
THE THAI PLACE IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST

MY OWN BED IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
INSIDE MY CAR IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
ALL THESE STREETS, THIS CITY, THIS STATE
THIS COUNTRY IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST

IN FRONT OF THIS TV IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
IN THIS BODY IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST
IN THIS AIR IS A TERRIBLE PLACE TO EXIST

I'M THINKING ABOUT EVOLUTION AND THE WAY WE CHANGE
AND HOW LONG IT WILL BE BEFORE I HAVE A TAIL AGAIN
AND I CAN STUFF IT BETWEEN MY LEGS

It is a BIG BIG BOOK. You should buy and read it.

The tweaker guy and the hipster guy just left and before he left the tweaker tattoo artist said (and I'm not joking, it really happened exactly like this), "I have this theory about people, and about the way that they look at you." and then he just walked out the door. I think the hipster guy didn't quite know what the fuck to do with himself, but I'll bet you if and when I see him next he'll have some really fucking cool tattoo of something like the ohm symbol on his goddamn forearm.

Quilting

It has come to my attention that my book is dangerous.

Although I cannot give any specific details, the Federal Government has determined that my book is a "potentially dangerous package."

No bullshit, this seriously happened.

Other than that pleasant tidbit of info, Sarah and I just returned form Mexico, where our friends got married. We were in Izamal, Yucatan, which was an awesome little Mayan town more than 2,300 years old. I wish that we could've been there for more than a weekend. Mexicans really know how to celebrate Dia de Los Muertos, and there was a magical quality about this place.

The book's up on Amazon, and it would be great if some folks posted some honest customer reviews. Seriously, no bullshit, write how you really feel about it, if you've read it.

Order David Peak's Museum of Fucked. This book's crazy fucked, go figure. Truly is surprising, grossly beautiful. I, along with Molly Guadry, Shane Jones, Ken Baumann, Blake Butler, JA Tyler, and Matt Bell, all had good things to say about it. It's sure to be a great book from Ben Spivey's new press.

Thank You

To everyone, so so much, for preordering my book. It was really something. I was gone for the &now conference in Buffalo, and I didn't really check email while I was there. So I was surprised when I got home and saw so many people had come through to buy this thing. All that, and no little amount of thanks to everyone who preordered from the Orange Alert Press website, as well. I'm going to leave this button up here by the book's cover for a little while, so if others come through here and order, I'll send the book with the chapbook still--same price.

I actually really hate that part of the writing deal: pimpin yourself. I used to sell suits for the Men's Wearhouse, and I hated that job, too. Corporate offices there said salespeople had to have a certain percentage of over-$500 sales. We also had to have a percentage of "multiple shoulder garment" sales, which means you had to sell more than one suit or one sport coat to single customers. This = high-pressure sales. If you've ever gone to the Men's Wearhouse, you know what I'm talking about. When I was working there I started feeling like a scumbag. Towards the end, they made us go to a weeklong training seminar in Santa Cruz, which is near my hometown. I had my buddy Randy pick me up when the bus dropped us off there. I stayed with my friends and family for that week (getting paid) and Randy dropped me off again when the bus was to drive us back to Reno. I figured I'd screw them back for them screwing their customers. A week later I quit.

I had a great time at the &now conference. Really, I needed a couple-days' break from teaching. I cancelled classes. I'm realizing that when I go to conferences I'm really there to see other writers who are friends, and to talk with them about what we do, and to drink beer. I also like to look at and buy books at the book fairs and enjoy a reading or two. But I can't overdo readings, and I'm pretty much done on panels. With panels, I think I realized that after going to AWP for the third time. Anyway, it was good to see some friends, and have some drunk lady at a bar give me some of her weed, which was funny.

All that, and I reading tonight. So if you're in the Columbus, Georgia area, come out to Columbus State University, to the Sarah D. Spencer Event Hall at 7 PM for a reading and craft talk. I'm going to talk about writing sentences, and research in writing, and I'll read from the book. I might read some new stuff too. I don't know yet.