01.02.2011
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Peninsulas Now + The Infinite Library


Derrick M/Peninsula’s Now are putting out a series of handmade books. Here’s the thing: they’re not for sale. Instead, all copies include instructions to read, fill out the library card, and then pass them along. I love this idea–reading a book with with the shadow of previous readers at yr side, how each book becomes a communal artifact.

DM was kind enough to put out a series a short poems by Cheryl and I (above)–“The Esme Poems.” We tried to follow the ephemeral spirit of the press and write quickly. Can’t wait to see the finished product and pass some copies on to you. Wait, do you want one?

Thanks to DM and the people who put it together. They’re open for submissions (see also hilarious alternative spelling of Cheryl’s name!).

30.01.2011
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Gloriously Myopic Guide to AWP 2011

Get ‘local’ ‘flavor.’ This list is divided into readings I will be at and readings I very sincerely wish I could be at.  A number of these involve presses based in and around DC.

MY YEAR OF OVER-COMMITMENT INCLUDES

Wed – Local Plus

Location: GRAND CENTRAL 2447 18th St., NW Washington DC 20009
Cost: FREE!
Description: Big Lucks, Folio, Gigantic Sequins, and Phoebe, present an evening of poetry and fiction with the goal of representing and building connections between local and regional literary communities! Come join us at Grand Central (located just .7 miles from the conference) as we feature recent contributors from each journal in a celebration of established and emerging publications.

Thursday – A Pair of Teeth

If I could knock you unconscious put a bag over your head and deliver you to an undisclosed location this would be the location.  Articles Press, Springgun, and Flying Guillotine and a couple of bands are going to scramble your brains. Articles let me have a hand in recruiting readers and as a result A. Minetta Gould and Donald Dunbar are both reading. Along with–holy shit–other people I know, J. Michael Martinez and Derrick Mund. By some insane confluence of events, I know just about everyone here. It can’t not be a good time.

A Pair of Teeth / Aperitif – Articles Press, SpringGun & Flying Guillotine: Readings + Afterparty
Location: IOTA Club & Cafe – 2832 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA, 22201
Cost: Donations
Website: http://awpoffsite.blogspot.com/
Description: Articles Press, SpringGun, and Flying Guillotine host a reading and party at the venerated music venue, IOTA Club & Cafe (1 &1/2 blocks from the Clarendon Metro (Orange Line)). Poetry readings by Joe Hall, J. MIchael Martinez, A Minetta Gould, Donald Dunbar, Matthew Sadler, Derrick Mund, and a fiction reading by Sarah E. Harris. The evening’s readings will be capped off by musical performances by DC bands Greenland and Laughing Man.

Friday – Happy Hour & Table X Party


 

 

 

 

4 PM – 6 PM Happy Hour w/1913, Letter Machine, & Octopus

Location: Comet Ping Pong – 5037 Connecticut Avenue Northwest

Table X Party 7 PM – 10 PM

Location: Hillyer Art Space – 9 Hilyer Ct. NW

Featuring Readers from Ugly Duckling Presse, Barrelhouse, Futurepoem & Greying Ghost, SUPERMACHINE, Sidebrow, Jaded Ibis Press, Poor Claudia, Les Figues Press
Small Fires Press, Lunar Chandelier, Counterpath Press, Projective Industries & DoubleCross Press.

Saturday – Possess Nothing

If you remember Possess Nothing from last year you know that this one will be sweaty good.

6:30-9:30 @ The Wonderland

Action Books / Apostrophe Books / Black Ocean / Slope Editions / Tarpaulin Sky Press

:: present ::

POSSESS NOTHING

Jessica Baran, Julie Doxsee, Lara Glenum, Johannes Göransson, Matt Hart, Matthew Henriksen, Lucy Ives, Paul Foster Johnson, Joyelle McSweeney, Peter Richards, Brandon Shimoda, Abraham Smith and Daniel Tiffany.

When the reading stops at 9:30, the dance party begins.

PARALLEL READINGS

Wed – Sakura Review / Mock Turtle

Another ‘local’ event. Really wish I could go to this one and support my friends at and from UMD. & Asylum is a great bar.

Sakura Review and Mock Turtle Present…
Location: Asylum Bar & Lounge, 2471 18th St NW, Washington, DC 20009
Cost: Free
Website: http://www.asylumdc.com/
Description: Sakura Review and UMD, College Park’s Mock Turtle Reading Series will host a reading to celebrate the talent in UMD’s MFA program and to launch Sakura’s 2nd issue. The UMD readers are as follows: (Fiction) Tom Earles, Alison Hennessee, and Jenna Nissan; (Poetry) Kim Calder, Jen Dempsey, and Cherie Walsh. Sakura Review readers/contributors are as follows: (Fiction) William Torgerson; (Poetry) Melanie Henderson and Eleanor Paynter

Thursday – Ahsahta Press & Friends Reading / The reading I feel most awful for missing as Big Bear is a great venue and DBQ, COA, ST et al are beautiful people. Given the venue and distance from the conference this has the makings for the most intimate, quality reading during the conference–one that isn’t a crowded cluster fuck, one where you’ll comfortably listen to the readers and talk to them in a non yelling over everything voice. Ah hell.

Location: Big Bear Café, 1700 1st St. NW
Cost: free
Website: http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu
Description: Join us for readings from Ahsahta Press authors and a few of our friends from Bateau Press and elsewhere. Readers are Carrie Adams, Dan Beachy-Quick, Susan Briante, Julie Carr, Ryan Flaherty, Paul Hoover, Kirsten Kaschock, Farid Matuk, James Meetze, Rusty Morrison, Allen Peterson, Brian Teare, Susan Tichy, and Jessica Young.

See also J. Michael Martinez’ monster itinerary.

Coming up post AWP: some notes on Scorch Atlas, Craig Santos Perez’ de-colonial epic in progress, and  long overdue notes on J. Michael’s Heredities.


24.01.2011
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1st Appearance of the Container Store at Barzakh

What is “The Container Store”?

It is a work by Chad Hardy and Joe Hall whose purpose is to change the face of the planet in a totalitarian fashion. That’s what it is.

Barzakh published some excerpts from our draft.

What is Barzakh?

Barzakh is a biannual multi-genre journal with an internationalist stance. Emerging out of the English department at the University at Albany, SUNY, our focus is on innovative poetics, in keeping with a tradition of forward-looking department-based journals that spans from Don Byrd’s co-editorship of Jed Rasula’s Wch Way in the 1970s to The Little Magazine in the 1990s (our first issue features an interview with Rasula, and issues of both journals will be made available in our archive). We envisage the archive as a way to bring together our various departmental projects and initiatives, past and present, and to connect them to analogous or anomalous ventures elsewhere in the rhizomatic spirit of crossings that is Barzakh. Ours is not an “ism” but as an “isthmus” (see below) that links disparate articulations (between tongues, between histories) in the interplay of text, sound, and image.

We probably have to fool with formatting more.