Edric Mesmer flies under the radar online (by choice, I think) and is omnipresent in Buffalo as a poet, curator, archivist, and kind human. I was flush w/happyness to be part of his chapette series–the Buffalo Ochre Papers. I’d stuck around long enough to be a Buffalo poet. Just in time to leave. Edric brought Moldy Donuts to my going away reading. And that’s part of what the Ochre Papers are–an occasional publication, marking poetry in its place and time. So you got to be somewhere Edric will be and Edric shows up all over the place in Buffalo. Edric, lots of love.
It was a bittersweet night. Allison Cardon and Adam Wilkins gave blisteringly good readings, ethically and poetically alive. Many ppl I respect and lv in the room. And folks doing work I wanted to be able to stick around and watch grow and pitch in when I can. I’d started considering what a local poetics could be, one that took into account the messy intersections of and contradictions in friendships, social presence, and attempts to intervene in and reimagine civic life (insert essay on the landscape of Buffalo i.e. visions of social and economic justice v the authoritarian, racist, river eating vision of Buffalo’s republican oligarchy and neoliberal dem allies). Some of those poems made it into Moldy. Now I’ve moved. Tongo Eisen-Martin’s speaker says, in brackets, “[a stack of money starts talking from four cities away].” Well, a stack of money started talking from eight counties away after the faucet shut off from the university. We’re in Ithaca now. I’ve got a lot of moldy donuts and mixed feelings about being on the move again. Hit me up. What’s going on w/you?
