June 01, 2006

Garbanzo! II: the Awakening.

The second issue of Garbanzo! (a funny little journal) is live and kicking, featuring Beyoncé, God and/or cheese, Jim Welp's imaginary friends and more... go on, read it. And if you missed the first issue, you can atone before Sister Mary Shovelface comes at your knuckles with a ruler.

Posted by eek at 09:57 AM | Comments (0)

May 31, 2006

Not yr mama's launch party.

When I say "book party" you say "boring!"

Book party!

BORING!

You may have been to one before: the stilted conversation between vaguely literary types desperate to sound clever, wilted crudité, bad music, Nan Talese ... you might as well stay home and watch Charlie Rose in your underwear. The drinks would be better, at least.

Well, forget what you know of book parties. To celebrate the launch of The One-Hit Wonders, we're skipping the fishy wine and pocket cheese in favor of a glam rock-soundtracked throwdown at the new Third Street Dive in downtown Louisville (438 S. 3rd St.) at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 7.

I'll have copies of the book ($5/no holla) which I will lovingly sign for you, including a jaunty personalized message of my choice. I'll also have a limited number of commemorative t-shirts for sale, if you're expanding your summer wardrobe.

No pressure, but wouldn't it be fun to make a mix cd (or tape, if you roll analog) to trade? We'll set up a "take a mix, leave a mix" tray and send you home with your new summer soundtrack. Books, music, booze, dancing, casual wear ... what more could you possibly need on a Wednesday night?

Posted by eek at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2006

Tonight: special bonus reading!

Come catch a sneak peek at my new chapbook, The One-Hit Wonders. I'll be reading at the Rudyard Kipling in Louisville at 7:30 p.m.

Joining me will be Boston's own Jonathan Weinert and the foreperson of Michigan's Poetry Factory, Marci Rae Johnson. Read their bios on the InKY site, and come on out, man, it's free!

Posted by eek at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)

May 21, 2006

Everybody wants in on this topic.

Kathleen Rooney weighs in over at Contemporary Poetry Review on rock stars turned poets. I made some comments on a few of the mentioned works back in October of Aught Four, including Jeff Tweedy's absurd Adult Head, which Rooney lauds, kinda, as "artistically respectable," which is pretty much bed death for anything even remotely related to rock & roll. Rooney tags David Berman's Actual Air as "brilliant," which I think is going a bit far - it's a decent book, but only seems brilliant when compared to Billy Corgan's steaming pile of FSG-packaged crap. Thankfully, Rooney agrees that Corgan's book just plain sucks, so all is right with the world tonight.

Posted by eek at 11:28 PM | Comments (0)

May 20, 2006

Can't miss readings this week.

Check out Spalding University's Festival of Contemporary Writing, featuring the fantastic faculty of their MFA program ... it's free and open to the public! Unless noted, the readings take place in the Egan Leadership Center Lectorium at the corner of Breckinridge and Fourth Streets in Louisville.

I can't recommend just one night, but here are my can't miss readings: Greg Pape on Saturday; Crystal Wilkinson, Richard Goodman, Robin Lippincott and Molly Peacock on Monday afternoon; Debra Kang Dean on Monday night; Rane Arroyo, Charlie Schulman and Jeanie Thompson on Tuesday night; Neela Vaswani, Silas House and Kathleen Driskell on Thursday night; and the PGRA readings on Saturday afternoon.

Saturday, May 20, 7 p.m.

Sunday, May 21, 7:30 p.m. Celebration of Recently Published Books (Gallery, 16th floor, The Brown Hotel, 335 W. Broadway. Book signing and reception to follow. Books provided by Carmichael's Bookstore.)

Monday, May 22, 4 p.m.

Monday, May 22, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, May 23, 7 p.m.

Thursday, May 25, 7 p.m.

Saturday, May 28, 4:15 p.m. Post-Graduate Reading: Daniel DiStasio, Zola Noble, Maureen Mahoney Gillis, Troy Alvey, Lucrecia Guerrero, Pamela White, Paul Hiers, Myra Bellin, and Michele Ruby

Posted by eek at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)

May 12, 2006

God save Donald Duck, vaudeville and variety.

Listen up, kiddos ... InKY's bringing Dan "Not Desperate" Bernitt to the Rudyard Kipling for a sneak peek at his new solo show, Thanks for the Scabies, Jerkface!

update: Check out what the Courier-Journal has to say about us. Lotsa love to Jeffrey Lee Puckett for the coverage.

About Dan's show:

Meet Dan: He met his boyfriend at a reality TV show audition. His first roommate in college turns out to be homophobic. And the entire checkout aisle in Wal-Mart knows that he has scabies. After leaving his parents’ house, how will this gay college kid grow to find a home?

Don't even try to tell me you have somewhere better to be tonight. We start at 7 pm with a brief open stage hosted by the indomitable Beth Newberry, then turn it over to your favorite songwriter and mine, John Whitaker.

Rounding out our featured performers are Bloomington, Ind. poet Joseph Kerschbaum, reading from his new book, Dead Stars Have No Graves, and LEO and LouMag funnyman Jim Welp.

As always, we're free! and all we want is to please you, dear audience member. Do come out for the last InKY of the Spring season ... we'll be taking a June and July constitutional, so get your fix in now while the getting is good. Read all about it!

Posted by eek at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)

April 21, 2006

... and here's why it's relevant.

Harold Dieterle's eyebrows aside, I've figured out why I'm so drawn to Top Chef. I love a trashy tv program as much as the next kid, sure, but there's something about the competitors of this show that intrigues me, and it has everything to do with their approach to food.

Stephen's schtick is condescension and obliviousness, which makes for entertaining interpersonal skits, but what's really interesting about him is his philosophy of food. He's a supreme stylist, extremely invested in how the food looks on the plate and how many esoteric ingredients he can use in one dish. His aim is to educate his patrons and open their minds and palates. If they don't like the dish, it's simply because they don't understand where he's coming from ... if only he could take a few more minutes to explain where shiso comes from, they'll get it, right?

Stephen's plates always look beautiful. And his ingredients always sound intriguing, if not appetizing. Credit where credit's due. He thinks long and hard about these decisions and approaches them as an artist.

Harold's approach is a bit different. Every bit as skilled as Stephen (I believe a bit more, myself, by virture of experience), Harold not only wants to create dishes that are beautiful ("I make food look pretty") and successfully executed, he won me over when he made it clear that his food also needs to have heart. This is a man who wants to feed people, not create squiggles on a plate. And it shows in his work - though he can fancy up an ingredient list like any serious chef, his food has substance. It looks like it tastes delicious, and from the judge's comments, it does. He isn't interested in "educating" the people he cooks for - he wants to make them a meal they'll love. His art has soul, and I can really appreciate that.

Having established that I normally don't give a shiso about televised competitions, because I think they're mostly rigged and totally boring, I've been wondering why I care about who wins this show (is it clear that I'm pulling for Dieterle?). I think it's because Harold's approach to food is like my approach to writing. Yep, here's where the relevancy sneaks in.

I write poems, which is kind of a frivolous enterprise in the grand scheme of daily life. Just as we can survive on basic food and don't really need haute cuisine to lead satisfactory lives, we don't really need poems, not in the way we need instruction manuals and the newspaper. On the other hand, life would suck just a bit more if we didn't have people reaching beyond the obvious to create new dishes and flavor combinations, and if we didn't have a way to examine life on a less literal level than the daily news offers.

As a poet, I'm not so interested in making squiggles on a page and calling it the dish. I don't ever want to stand up at a reading and lecture the audience on the form I used to write the poem I'm about to read to them. I want my technique to always be in service to the story, to bringing language alive on the page for the reader, to eliciting spontaneous gasps and tingles in the feet. I want my work to have a heart and a soul, and human connection to be behind everything I write. I want my readers to have a real experience when they read my work, and I want them to be satisfied.

If a reader ever feels "gee, there's not much there there," that's a failure on my part. I am aware of and attentive to style and flash and innovation, but only in service to the poem, not the other way around.

And that's why watching reality tv is important, kids. Sometimes it helps you put your own work into perspective. Also, the biggest douchebags in the world go on those shows, and the schadenfreude feels so wrong, yet so, so right.

Posted by eek at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2006

Good news and bad news.

Bad news first, sort of: University of Louisville doesn't want me for the Axton Fellowship. C'est la vie. I am not terribly upset about it. It's a cushy gig, to be sure, two-year appointment with extremely minimal teaching responsiblities and a halfway decent salary, but it's hard to get too bent out of shape about a fellowship that I desired, mainly, because UofL is so close to my house. Proximity is a good thing, but who knows if it's enough? I'm not sure I would have been happy for two years there, so it's a good thing they found someone who will be. And hooray for another poet moving to Louisville! It's wonderful that this position can attract hardcore talent to our little city.

Good news: The proof of my chapbook (chapbook and other terms defined, cover art here) arrived in the mail today! I need to do some copyediting, especially around the forced-for-page-width line breaks, but it's stapled together and everything, a real honest-to-gawd prototype. I think I will tweak the cover art every-so-slightly to darken the lightest gray that I use, as it's barely showing up, but otherwise the little guy looks fantastic. I'm excited to have an actual piece to pimp around town and beyond that it's not even funny. Next step: the launch party for The One-Hit Wonders. Any ideas?

Posted by eek at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2006

Slacker no more.

I realized today that I am about three months away from my Nebraska residency, and then I have a month on the prairie to finish writing this book. So I pretty much have four months to get this all done. And I have not been faithful to my work.

Reader, I have dawdled.

But today turns a new leaf! I wrote two poems tonight, and my trip to Fronce yielded some primo thinkery, so now I know some crucial details about my characters, like their names, and I have a few other ideas percolating quite nicely, which feels a little like ice cream headache to be honest but in light of the alternative which is complete and total blockery, I have to say I'll take it.

Posted by eek at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)

March 03, 2006

I'd like to thank the Academy.

It's come to my attention that my poem "Orpheus Retires" has been nominated for a Rhysling Award, which celebrates the best in SciFi/Fantasy/Horror/Weirdness poetry.

This is all quite nice! I like being nominated for awards. I had to look up the Rhysling Awards, though, because I'm not really a scifi writer or anything so I know next to nothing about their biz. I am not sure what the winners get, exactly, except bragging rights at the next [insert esoteric pursuit] Convention. Whatever, it's an honor just to be nominated! I'd like to thank my stylist, and my mama, and the entire cast of Star Trek: the Next Generation* ..!

*not a joke: I have seen nearly every episode.

Posted by eek at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)

February 22, 2006

Plain old everyday clothes.

I've just finished designing the cover for my chapbook. It's a black & white cover, and having seen some of the covers from this press, I figured we'd have the best outcome with someting bold and graphicky. Click the thumbnail to see the whole cover, and let me know what you think, please. There's a line about busted mix tapes in one of the poems, so I thought it was a cool tie-in.

Even though it started as a joke, response has been oddly enthusiastic, so I think I will have some t-shirts made. I've modified the cover design somewhat, so clickity click this thumbnail to see the design for the front of the shirt. I might look into having Kopilot make them. Because I'm an ego-maniac, I'll need to have my name on the shirt somewhere, so I'm going to put a teeny snippet of one of the one-hit poems on the back of the shirt:

                                            The switch you flipped
flooded my head with the longest instrumental ever

recorded, all languorous jangle and blurry wail, until
it was all I could hear, it was all songs and all sounds.
—Erin Keane


Posted by eek at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)

February 17, 2006

Michigan is COLD ...

... but the Poetry Factory is pulling a double!

I lectured today on the virtues of pulling your head out of your own ass by writing persona poems. Now will go have beers with, as Marci's adorable five-year-old Lucy spat with just the proper amount of disdain, the poets.

As if we are a cricket infestation ... loud, gross, but not dangerous enough to warrant respect.

Posted by eek at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

February 15, 2006

Some terms defined.

OK, so I'm throwing around industry words like "chapbook" forgetting that my industry is small, obscure, and not very transparent to the casual observer. So, here are a few steps in the poetry biz as they corrolate to, say, the career steps of an obscure indie rock band.

Indie artists record some songs. Poets write some poems. How do they reach an audience?

A literary journal will publish 1-5 of my poems: this is like getting a radio station to play your single.

Every new journal is like a new radio market. Though the band will have many stations playing the same song, poets give first publication rights to one journal. But they have more poems at a given time than a band has singles, because our product is cheaper to produce - a laser printer and a piece of paper's all you need.

I'm reading a short set before a big featured poet: this is like opening for a better-known touring band.

I'm a featured reader: you have your own show (or are one of three main acts in a bigger show), and maybe some local schmuck is opening for you.

A poem of mine will be included in an anthology: this is like getting your single on a compilation album.

Anthologies are great, like compilations, because more casual readers will buy a cool themed anthology to scope out lots of different poets perhaps before they might buy an individual collection. Same with those themey compilation cds. Obviously, the prestige involved is directly related to who's producing the anthology and how cool/respected your fellow included artists are.

My chapbook will be published: this is like a small indie label agreeing to release your EP.

Shorter than a full-length poetry collection, a chapbook is an inexpensive, portable promise of good things to come. Or you can use it to showcase a series of related poems that don't quite fit into a full-length manuscript. Like an EP, it's a nice little low-risk showcase of your work that you can circulate to try to attract the attention of a press.

Like EPs, you can release your own chapbook. They're inexpensive to produce and if you have design skills and the equipment you can knock a few out in a long weekend. But when a press agrees to publish your chapbook, you have that added stamp of approval that says "I'm peer reviewed and you're not!" You get an ISBN number, which allows bookstores to sell your chapbook if you can convince them to. You can get reviews in magazines, which will raise your profile. Etc.

My full-length collection will be published: congratulations, your debut album is being released on a minor indie label!

You still have to tour the hell out of yourself, promote yourself endlessly, and claw and scrape for every bit of publicity and acknowledgement you can find. But at least your mom can take it to work and be proud of you, and your high school gym teacher can suck it.

If you're talented and extremely lucky, not to mention business-savvy and willing to kiss ass/make connections, you might get picked up for a big publishing house / major label multi-album deal. Don't hold your breath, though ... you're emo-pasty enough as it is.

Now get in the van!

Posted by eek at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2006

In which EEK emerges victorious.

One of the worst parts of being congratulated after a reading is having to confess that I have nothing to sell the fan. No book. No chapbook, even. Not even a broadside, let alone a special pull-out centerfold issue of Bop! complete with my dream date stats and advice for the lovelorn preteen. Sometimes I'm tempted to offer a page of poem in exchange for a dollar, just so I'll have something to autograph.

Oh, but reader? No longer.

A lovely little boutique chapbook press in Illinois, the delightfully-named Snark, has offered to publish my little collection of rock & roll poems. Look for The One Hit Wonders to debut sometime later this year, I guess, or something, who knows what the timeline is on this sort of thing, I just got the paperwork. But you know Beth and I are already planning the launch party.

I must practice my pithy autograph sign-offs!

Posted by eek at 03:23 PM | Comments (0)

February 10, 2006

Happy birthday to InKY!

We're celebrating the InKY Reading Series second birthday tonight at the Rudyard Kipling! Starring everyone's favorite ingenue, Terri Whitehouse; femme fatale Pamela Steele; our hero Frank X Walker; and featuring music by siren Brigid Kaelin.

When we started InKY two years ago, I don't think we really knew how long we'd be able to keep it going - with zero money for starters, and being limited by the size of our town (we don't have access to as many local writers as, say, NYC reading events). But I've been delighted to find out that excellent authors have been willing to travel in from as far away as ... well, Oregon, in Pam's case! not to mention Missouri, Indiana, Tennessee, and all over Kentucky to join us here in Louisville - authors and musicians who donate their valuable time to help us keep quality literature and music free to the Louisville community. I'm so grateful to you all.

It hasn't always been easy, but I've had a lot of fun with InKY over the past two years. We're entering a new phase this year - filing for federal tax-exempt status so we can start fundraising, launching a literary journal, and some more surprises we'll unveil as they develop.

Why do we do this? For the audience. I love that Louisville is a community that supports the arts, even those of us who don't even register a blip on the Fund for the Arts radar. The people believe in the arts and crave quality programming, and we're happy to provide. So thank you, all of you audience members who come to the Rudyard Kipling to be a part of our show. We couldn't do it without you.

So what are you waiting for? InKY's throwing a party! Tonight, Friday the 10th, at the Rudyard Kipling in Old Louisville. Open mic starts at 7 pm, Brigid plays from 7:30-8, and our three featured readers go on until 9 pm. You're out the door in time to walk the dog, relieve the babysitter, or hit your next event for the evening.

As always, you can read all about it on our website.

Posted by eek at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)

January 13, 2006

InKY's third season starts tonight.

InKY's kicking off its third season (!) tonight with readings by food writer and novelist Mary Welp, poet David Cazden, and short fiction writer Brian Weinberg. Good bluegrass on tap thanks to Mike Schroeder of Hog Operation, open mic hosted by the lovely and talented Terri Whitehouse, and all the good food and booze you can stand.

The back room of the Rud, where we usually have our show, is now smoke-free! So if you've been holding out because of the Rud's notoriously smoky atmosphere, know that the cloud has cleared, at least back in our room.

If you haven't been to InKY in a while, isn't it time you made us part of your new year's resolutions?

Read what I've said before about Mary Welp's witty and heartfelt novel, The Triangle Pose, and gosh, people, come on out tonight! You won't be disappointed.

As always, there's no cover charge, and we begin at 7 pm with open mic, music at 7:30, and featured readers at 8.

Here's the scoop.

And I hear there's a Dallas Alice show at 10 pm at Air Devils Inn, if you want to keep the party going.

Posted by eek at 10:51 AM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2005

InKY announcement.

Due to my absence next summer, Anne Marie and I decided to make an executive decision this weekend and take an InKY summer break. She can't be here for the summer shows, and I'm travelling much of June and all of July. With just little ol' me left here in Louisville to run the monthly show, I have to either take a break or put my own career on hold for InKY, which, love it as I might, I'm not willing to do.

No show for June or July, but we're back in August for the rest of the year.

The '06 season's filling up and we have several leads out there waiting to be scheduled. Good stuff ahead!

Posted by eek at 01:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 13, 2005

Absurdity.

My nightmare didn't totally come true.

We had a nice crowd at InKY on Friday ... about 35 people all in all, which is respectable, though not a home run. After last month's 60+ crowd, November was bound to take a slight dip.

But open mic was, in fact, absurd. From the haiku blues saw and off-key harmonica to the Crow Jr. and his gothtastic luv odes to a guy who pulled off a non-defamatory Ron Whitehead impersonation (I believe he meant it to be flattering), all the nutters came out, as I always both hope and fear, for open mic.

Next month: Joey Goebel, Lauren Titus, Aimee Zaring, and My Friend Heidi. Yep.

Posted by eek at 07:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 10, 2005

I dreamed I hosted a reading in my Maidenform bra.

Last night, I had a frighteningly vivid dream in which everything that could possibly go wrong with InKY did.

The featured performers didn't show, or were late, I forgot who was hosting open mic and started to do it myself and upset the host (in the dream it was Stacia), only weirdos showed up for open mic, and worst of all, NO AUDIENCE.

Rarely do I have such memorable and terrifying dreams.

If you're one of my featured performers, please show up.

I will remember that Anne Marie is hosting open mic and not jump the stage.

Open mic, we always take our chances on.

And if you're thinking that maybe you might not have anything going on from 7-9 pm Friday night, why not stop by the Rudyard Kipling in Louisville? It's free! And as always, we have a great show lined up for you.

Please, don't make my nightmare a reality tomorrow night.

Posted by eek at 03:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 08, 2005

Holiday in Michigan.

February's a lot like life: nasty, brutal and short. But it doesn't have to be!

Well, February doesn't have to be. I can't speak for your life.

Though it is possible, just maybe, that February 2006 might grant you at least a few moments of transcendence ... or is that merely the slight flush of your second glass of wine?

How..? you ask..? can you attain this heightened state of being...? The Poetry Factory in St. Joseph, Michigan, directed by the severely talented Marci Rae Johnson, offers its first poetry workshop weekend: February 17-18, 2006.

No, not sweatshop! This is a humane poetry factory, staffed by poets with benefits, complete with mandatory caesuras between shifting tenses.

So says the site: Immerse yourself in poetry. Hone your writing skills. Make new friends. Join us at the Poetry Factory for a weekend of poetry lectures, workshops and readings with workshop leaders Greg Pape, Richard Newman, and Erin Keane. (hey! that's me!)

Your weekend will begin on Friday, February 17 with registration starting at noon, followed by lectures, readings from our workshop leaders, and a late night open mic. On Saturday you’ll attend more lectures as well as two workshop sessions, with the weekend finishing up around 4:30 p.m.

We welcome all levels of experience: beginner, intermediate and advanced. So whether you’re just starting out, or have had years of experience, there’s a place for you at the Poetry Factory Workshop Weekend.

Read more and register at the Poetry Factory ... now!

Posted by eek at 09:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 06, 2005

VICTORY IS MINE.

Just got home from a delicious evening at the Brown Hotel and Freddie's on Broadway (a study in bar dichotomy if you've ever seen one) and a FAT ENVELOPE awaited me!

I've been awarded a residency fellowship for the KHN Center for the Arts for next summer to work on my in-progress novel in verse.

GO YOU PELICANS!

Posted by eek at 03:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 03, 2005

Oh, but.

Come to my reading on Saturday afternoon!

It's part of the Spalding Festival of Contemporary Writing at Spalding University's Egan Leadership Center on the corner of 4th & Breckinridge Streets in Louisville.

There are 7 of us reading from 2:45-3:45. See you there?

Posted by eek at 04:31 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 30, 2005

Spooooky.

Here's a holiday poem I wrote last year when I had the idea to write a series of urban legend poems. I only wrote two ("The Sewer Alligator" was the other) before I lost steam. Sometimes I start things I don't finish.

The Halloween Sadists

Plastic bolts spiritgummed
to his neck, a shrimpy Frankenstein
shifts his weight, grows stiff
with waiting in a line of ghouls
and mothers, clutched pillowcases,
anxious pumpkin buckets
dangling. Radiology departments
are often subterranean, always
internal, fluorescent, humming.
Discarded candy apples
sticky the trash, tainted
with poisoned possibility,
tumbled with malignant
popcorn balls. Little beggars
shushed by gruesome
warnings: razor blades, needles.
Mouse turds in the oatmeal
raisin cookies, arsenic injected
into wrapped Snickers bars—
neighbors handing you death
with a smile. How could X-rays
tell powdered bleach from sugar?
The technicians know,
and they also know a man
who swears his brother’s
best friend’s former roommate
lived on the block where that guy
laced treats with cyanide, or
was it crushed glass, or
thumbtacks? You can never
be too careful, they murmur,
dangerous glints in their eyes.
One carries a sack to the machine,
sneaks a glance over her shoulder,
relishing the scene. A shudder,
a thrill. The defeated masked army
stares back, their squirms her delight.

Posted by eek at 09:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 17, 2005

Niiice.

Nothing like a well-positioned pull quote and several wacky head shots in a row to make us all look like total freaks.

From the New Albany Tribune on Saturday (also note that Christopher and Mark are mixed up in the captions).

Posted by eek at 01:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 13, 2005

Interview with a Newman.

Heather Shaw interviews Richard Newman for The New Southerner. Good stuff!

Richard will show you just how many things taste like chicken.

Posted by eek at 11:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 12, 2005

Two events.

Planning your weekend? Consider having a drink and a smile with us at InKY - as always, the second Friday of the month at the Rudyard Kipling in Louisville, Kentucky.

Our lineup this Friday is stellar — the incomparable Richard Newman, everyone's favorite UofL alum Gaylord Brewer, and my delightful Monday night coffee companion Zach Bramel. Though I trust you are already swooning, reader, I think I should mention that the lovely and amazing John Whitaker will be our musical guest, and sweetheart of the rodeo Bethmerica will host our open mic half-hour.

Reader, this show will blow you away. We start at 7 pm and go for about 2 hours. Open mic from 7-7:30, music from 7:30-8, and featured readers take the last hour.

THEN, as if that's not enough, reader, I KNOW! I (yes, EEK!) will be reading at Destinations Booksellers with fabulous fabulists Gwenda Bond, Christopher Rowe, and Mark Rudolph the next evening. Saturday, October 15 at 6 pm in New Albany, Indiana.

See what I do for you? I plan a weekend full of events designed to get you into some naughty librarian's pants.

You can thank me later, reader.

Posted by eek at 09:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

All Request Wednesday.

My spaz of a spouse requested this poem. Apparently it's kind of an earworm.

Louisvillians will recognize the record store named in this poem. Alas, the Bardstown Road Better Days store has closed, so now it's an elegy, though it wasn't when I wrote it. The clerk at Better Days is based on a hundred people I have known and will never know. No record store clerks were harmed in the writing of this poem.

This poem originally appeared in the Spring 2005 issue of Open 24 Hours, an invitational journal published by Brescia College.

The Secondhand Record Store Clerk

The clerk at Better Days knows
the location of each twice-loved album,
he can lay hands on Dark Side of the Moon
or Beggar’s Banquet by closing his eyes
and trailing his fingertips along the cardboard edges
of the covers until his heart murmurs
and his hand knows this is the one.

The clerk at Better Days keeps time
by his piercings, knows that the first
eyebrow was for Julia when she left him,
the bar through his tongue to remind him
of the summer he said too much, each hole
in each earlobe growing larger to match
the years he’s spent standing in the same spot.

The clerk at Better Days understands
your hunger for ten years ago, or twenty,
and knows that your high school reunion
is sneaking up and you need a copy
of Bleach, Reckoning, or Let It Be to feel
like a whole single person capable of dancing just
as badly as you did at the Prom in rented shoes.

The clerk at Better Days can’t name
the trees in Cherokee Park, doesn’t know
the difference between a birch and an elm,
can’t tell one nervous brown bird
from another, even when they nest in the eaves
above his window, and their babies grow
more hungry and bold by the day.

The clerk at Better Days runs fingers
through his hair, back to front, and sighs
with the weight of a complete discography, leans
elbows to countertop, silently counting
the tanks of gas it would take his ancient
Volvo to make it from this corner to
Miami, or New York, or San Francisco.

The clerk at Better Days ran out of breath
when he crossed the Mississippi and the land opened
like a book; driving I-70 west, he topped out
his lungs to a digital soundtrack, then whispered
into canyons and let his voice bounce
off mountains that stretched skyward
in surrender, blood slowed to a trickle in his veins.

The clerk at Better Days lies down
during his lunch on the warm concrete and attempts
to hover using only the powers of his mind, tries
to harness this energy of the universe that he’s heard
so much about, but grows sleepy and placid
as pedestrians step over him, the sun speckling
his lean torso between drifting clouds.

The clerk at Better Days climbs
onto his roof each night after the store closes
to count the flickers of the neon signs glowing
over Bardstown Road, and ticks his coming shifts off
in rhythm with the disposable lighter chorus
clicking near the pursed lips prowling the sidewalk below,
his own ashes tumbling into an empty soda can.

Posted by eek at 08:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 09, 2005

decomP: in which EEK! and Bill Smith have poems.

My poem "Prayer for the Block" is featured in the October issue of decomP, a nifty little online journal edited by Mike Smith. I'm honored to be featured alongside W. Loran Smith's hilarious and touching "The Neoclassicist Writes His Best Poem." Don't forget to check out Jason Jordan's review of Hairstyles of the Damned, my recent favorite book cover.

I just read with Mike and Jason at a disinterested coffeehouse in Shelbyville, Kentucky, where we disturbed the Über-Mommy Koffee Klatch in more ways than one. Check out their tour journal for upcoming dates and dish on past events.

Posted by eek at 08:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 07, 2005

Put your hand inside the puppet head.

Tonight, I'll be volunteering at Sarabande's book launch carnival for Catherine Wing's new collection, Enter Invisible, at Paul Paletti Gallery (713 E. Market Street in Louisville).

From Sarabande:

There will be wine, food, and performances by local artists including The Belgian Waffles, the Squallis Puppeteers, and Le Petomane Theatre Ensemble. And if that doesn't make you feel festive, there's always the Grotesque Burlesque to warm things up---not only will they will be dancing, they'll be dancing with with fire!

The party runs from 6-9 pm, and coincides with the First Friday Gallery Hop, so grab a trolley and pop in.

From 7-8 pm, I shall wear a puppet.

Posted by eek at 04:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 02, 2005

NaNoWriMo.

No, I'm not doing it, either. Just when I thought nothing else could make me feel like I'm not paying enough attention to my own writing (what with the teaching and the working full time and the life and all), here comes fucking National Write-a-Shitty-Novel-in-a-Month Month with all the gung-ho folks writing the entire novels in 31 days and whatnot. Jesus! If all these people can write a whole novel in a month, what the fuck is wrong with me? Right? RIGHT?!?!?

Currently, I'm about two-thirds of a way through a novel-in-verse, or a concept album rendered in poems, or whatever, I don't fucking know anymore. All I know is it's not gonna be done by the end of this month, so, like, lay off, internet. I'm not a NaNoWriMo and more than likely I never will be.

Posted by eek at 12:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 01, 2005

Giant Squid photographed, alas.

And so it begins.

A team of scientists photographed the first live giant squid ever. In honor of this intrusive moment, here's a very timely poem of mine that I wrote a few years ago. It appears in the current issue of Full-Unit Hookup, which you should promptly order.

The Giant Squid Mourns the Loss of His Privacy

Once, I roamed the deepest parts of the ocean
trolling weird neighborhoods with glowing bottomfeeders
and sunken Armada warships. Encounters with humans
were fleeting, rare—I was a legend and I liked it. Mount
my carcass in the Smithsonian? Right. Leave that vanity
to the whales, or those manic dolphins. I moved
through the darkness with only the eels, surfacing
to snap the odd ship at whim. No scientists
ambushing me during dinner, measuring
the circumference of my horrible beaked jaw. I know
what they want: breed me in captivity, a zoo pet,
a fool. Electrodes, exposés, glossies, paparazzi
will sell shots of my parasites, everyone will know
I’m not so tough. Well, know this—you’ll never catch me
in Sea World, playing in a pool like a trophy
wife, performing with retarded sea lions. You can poach me
for the world’s largest seafood buffet first, chop
my rings and tentacle bits. Calimari me while
you can, baby. Dip me in red sauce. Enjoy your piece.

Posted by eek at 01:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 29, 2005

Reading tonight cancelled.

No Bean Street Reading tonight, event cancelled. Sorry!

Posted by eek at 11:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 26, 2005

Sunnyside up.

EDITED TO ADD: READING CANCELLED - SORRY FOR THE LAST MINUTE NOTICE

Looking for something to do on a Thursday night? Dying to explore the "Sunny Side of Louisville," as they say? Why not wander over to the (warning: site has very brief - and funny, if you're a nerd like me - audio clip upon launch) Bean Street Reading Series? They promise, among other things, "non-boring poets," and I'm flattered to say that I'll be one of those non-boring poets reading at the Bean Street Café in New Albany, Indiana at 7 pm on Thursday, September 29.

I'll be reading with Mick Kennedy, a fabulous guy and an especially non-boring poet to boot.

Here are directions, if you're not familiar with the area.

Posted by eek at 11:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 21, 2005

Sharon Olds declines the invitation.

From The Nation:

For reasons spelled out below, the poet Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington, which, coincidentally or not, takes place September 24, the day of an antiwar mobilization in the capital. Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works.

Read her letter to Laura.

Posted by eek at 11:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 14, 2005

Garbanzo!

Garbanzo! a funny little journalHuzzah! Garbanzo! has launched. Read the current issue (with poems by Richard Cecil and more) and all about Garbanzo! and the very serious people behind the journal.

It's such a nice break to work on something that makes me laugh (even if Newman and I are the only ones) ... helps me worry less about my more serious projects. I highly recommend creating a frivolous publication just because you can. It's amazing how much fun you can have when you're not worried about impressing anyone. Serious journals are for suckas!

EDITED TO ADD: Drop a comment and let me know what you think. Like it? Hate it? Indifferent?

Posted by eek at 11:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 11, 2005

Nonevent.

What happens if you hold a reading and nobody comes?

Tonight, I wandered across the bridge to read at Destinations Booksellers, thanks to Conical Hats publisher Mark Rudolph. Gwenda and Christopher were detained with a family emergency in a county far far away, but Mark and I went, ready to represent.

And yet.

I've read to some small audiences, but when it's only the two readers, the proprieters, and one Jason, you know it's time to reschedule.

I did pick up some new books - Destinations is a fantastic little independent bookshop, and I love buying from noncorporate booksellers.

I think we'll reschedule for October, and maybe some folks will come out. Who knows? Live performance always runs the risk of going unnoticed. But I'm grateful for the chance to reschedule, and any regular reader of this blog should know - for the next reading, we're taking New Albany ... and you're coming with us.

Posted by eek at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 08, 2005

Out on the streets with you, you fucking patchoulis!

In Kirby Gann's second novel, Our Napoleon in Rags, main character Haycraft Keebler praises his fellow Montreux Old Town resident Mather's paintings for their vitality and energy:

Because you can see nothing contrived in them, he said. Nothing fabricated. They feel urgent and necessary, and what better definition of art can you devise on your own?

Like Mather (who bears a striking resemblance to Louisville artist Mark Anthony Mulligan), Gann paints a vibrating cityscape - a sort of shadow Louisville - in Montreux, his fictional city on the Ohio River. His principal setting is Old Town, the heart of Montreux, and specifically a bar called the Don Quixote ("that sumptious dive") - the heart within the heart.

Louisville residents will recognize the parallel universe as peopled with parallel characters: Beau and Glenda Stiles, proprieters of the Don Q, sound an awful lot like Ken and Sheila Pyle, the owners of the Rudyard Kipling here in Old Louisville. Other striking similarities abound, but Gann's novel is no mere roman a clef. The regulars of the Don Q are original characters in their own right, and Gann tells their story - of ambition, entropy, passion, and the frail threads that hold a community together - with precision and grace. Like Mather's paintings, the story is both urgent and necessary. Throughout the book, our hero Haycraft tilts at windmills with quixotic fervor, both leading and being led astray, and Montreux is celebrated and revealed in "messages from the collective, communal spirit of place."

Want to hear more? Pick up a copy at your nearest bookstore, and if you're in Louisville tomorrow night, stop by the InKY Reading Series to hear Kirby read in the bar that so closely resembles the Don Q.

Friday, September 9
at the Rudyard Kipling
422 W. Oak St.
Louisville, KY
7-9 pm
Absolutely free!

Kirby will be joined by Michael Jackman, Scott Ritcher, and Bryan Hurst.

Maybe Kirby will read from one of my favorite passages: Romeo Diaz exclaiming, after interrupting a clueless poetry reading:

Ha! I tell them, out on the streets with you, you fucking patchoulis!

If you have a hot English major to impress all weekend long, think about stopping by Destinations Booksellers in New Albany, IN on Saturday night (Sept. 10 - 6 pm) to see me read some poems. I'll be joined by Gwenda Bond, Christopher Rowe, and Mark Rudolph.

And if you don't have a hot English major waiting to be impressed, well, maybe I can scare one up for you.

Posted by eek at 03:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 30, 2005

Pam Steele!

Has a great poem in Strange Horizons.

Posted by eek at 10:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 11, 2005

Kentucky Dream Time.

One thing that I struggle with in my poems is line breaks, that is, I feel like I must break the line and enjamb, no matter what. So when I come across poems that work with the long (some might say Whitmanic) line, even going as far as to dabble in prose poem land, I find myself intrigued and more than a little envious.

Cecilia Woloch's latest book Late (BOA 2004) opens with a prose poem titled "Aubade." Even though it's a prose poem (ostensibly lacking line breaks), her lines still offer startling and beautiful enjambments:

Now the trees stand outside of desire, stricken with silver, stripped leafless,
alarmed. Still they long to be seen, throw themselves skyward with open
arms ...

(Trust me, it looks like a block of prose in her book.)

I learned something at a writer's retreat this summer, that prose poems (I had not previously been entirely convinced they were real ... they were like the Yeti of poems for me) had to be as discerning with the line break as a "normal" poem. I had thought that was the one luxury one took with prose poems, not having to worry about the line break. Now I think they are even tougher to write than shorter-lined poems, needing to appear effortless and seamless with the long, prose-y line, yet conveying as much with the enjambment as any other. Woloch handles this paradox as well as she handles traditional forms like the villainelle and her powerful free verse poems. These opening lines from "All Hallow's Eve" stick with me:

How far apart are we then?
The bell struck says Father—two syllables
hang in the air, then the ghost
of the echo: he's dead.

... as much as W. Loran (Bill to his friends) Smith's poems about fathers and sons in his new collection Walking Upright (Arable Press 2005). Bill's signature style is muscular and graceful. He's a panther of a poet, stepping nimbly through such topics as addiction and aging, family and forgiveness. His long lines complement his reading style (powerful as only a former Slam champion can be) but his poems are definitely written for the page as well as the stage, like in this excerpt from "A Swirl of Smoke Rising from My Ranch House":

My artist friend, high as the suburban twilight permits,
says he would be so sure of a Heavenly Father's grace,
that if our children perished with blood spotted lungs,
he'd know for sure that angels would blow their airy souls
across the sky to tumble into God's huge lap.

How can you say no to that? If any of this sounds interesting and you're in Louisville on Friday night, come check out Cecilia and Bill (along with Mick Kennedy and Rebecca Howell) at the InKY Reading Series. It's free, man!

Posted by eek at 11:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 09, 2005

Cry for me, Argentina.

Once again, my manuscript is rejected. This one with a record two-week turnaround. Forgive me if I indulge in a moment of "my book will never be published" misery.

Yes, yes, I know that:

1. a year and a half is not long in the average lifespan of an unpublished manuscript.
2. some people labor for years (years!) before they are published so who am I to whine.
3. my self-worth is not tied up in my book status.

But rejection still stings. If I can't get a call-back, at least let me have a moment to sulk.

Posted by eek at 05:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Shout out.

Pete Lit reviews a backlog of literary journals, including an issue of Oyez Review featuring yours truly. He reprints my poem "Science Fiction" so I don't have to.

EEK trivia: the poems in that issue are the first to be published by someone I didn't already know.

Posted by eek at 10:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 03, 2005

Amuse-bouche.

To whet your appetite for my reading tonight at the Jazz Factory (Market St. in Louisville, 7:30 pm), here's a poem that originally ran in the #11 issue of Poems & Plays (2004), a wonderful journal edited by Gaylord Brewer down in Tennessee.

The Jumbotron Nightmare

Soon, after we have everything,
the electronic billboards will turn
on us. Last year’s It Girl won’t
wiggle her denim ass. Bud Lite Beer
will not sponsor your outdoor
sporting event wedding proposal. Instead,

this will flash—pixels of you,
in ninth grade, telling that guy, his name
burned from your mental rolodex:
          you’re a fucking loser.
Cut to his face. Part of you, maybe
just your pinky toe, will die
right there on the sidewalk. Then

the rapid eye movement scrapbook
of your little life so far: scorning, conning,
flinching, lying, immolating insects
with sunlight and a lens. Looped
on eternal playback, all PR stripped

for the city to see you—a peeled tangerine,
and you haven’t moved since it started,
your eyes swirling like a hypnotized
cartoon, caught between Orwell
and Warhol: fingered and famous.

Posted by eek at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 17, 2005

Poetry Daily.

It was a good weekend over at Poetry Daily. Saturday's featured poem was "Grampa's Liquor Bottles" by Richard Newman, and Sunday's feature is Greg Pape's "Image on a Sandstone Disc."

Right on!

Posted by eek at 05:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 14, 2005

Shameless self-promotion.

I'm probably the last poet in the lower 48 to not have my own poems on my blog. Mostly I've avoided posting my own work because the poems I like are being sent out for publication, and journals like first crack at a poem. But I forgot that since copyright reverts back to me after publication, I can always post poems that have already been printed.

So in honor of the upcoming Wonka movie opening, here's one poem from the Never-Ending Stories series I created (each poem deals with a classic work of children's literature). It ran first in Floating Holiday #3 (2004), a rad little magazine out on the Left Coast (Oaktown 3-5-7!).

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

What they didn't tell us, after we unwrapped
the lucky bar, was our place in the plot: stupid,

fat, competitive, spoiled—at a madman's whim.
We were to make the blond kid look good

by comparison—he only had to top our
dubious virtue. Shooting fish in a stockpot!

There's a special place in Hell reserved for
people who tempt small children with rivers

of chocolate and drown them while they drink.
Olympic cruelty—I am waiting for the irony

to stop: let us, the greedy brats, gather our spoils
to our chests. Let there be no correction tonight.

Let the good kid kneel beside his crippled elders
and massage their gouty legs, forgetting to remind

us all of his sacrifice. Let him bless their bunions.
The lazy, the conniving, the slow—we've gathered

outside the factory gates. The sweet-tart rejects
have come home, Wonka. We would like our reward.

Look for more poems sporadically, as I feel like it. And go see the movie, Depp looks hella creepy as the outdated slang says.

Posted by eek at 11:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wide open mic.

InKY is mentioned in this week's Velocity cover story. It's mostly a story about Expressions of You coffeehouse and their long-standing open mic and the Art Sanctuary, this new gig, neither of which I've been to because honestly our open mic takes all the strangers-with-poems patience I can muster for the month (not to mention I get a little fidgety when I'm accidentally present for someone's healing moment).

People of the internet, if you ever go to an open mic, please assume that 5 minutes is actually being counted in Earth minutes - that's 300 Earth seconds, so make each one count. Please don't make the host want to unleash the dogs on you, or send the Showtime at the Apollo executioner to clown you off stage. 5 minutes.

Also, if you get there late and there are no spots left, seriously, don't go screeching to whichever of my featured readers (never again!) you came with that "she won't let me reeeeeaaad," only to perform a poem about your cat when I reluctantly allow you on our stage.

If you think you're cool enough to say your piece from memory, chances are you're not. Bring the paper with you, Saul Williams. Russell Simmons is not kicking back a Blue Moon in my audience, just dying to put your ass on HBO.

That said, I'm exploring some options for the future of InKY, now that I'm hosting most of our shows solo. I have started to wonder what will happen to the evening if I get a flat tire or have a family emergency or get falling-down drunk before the show and can't be at the venue in time to get things going? My background in theatre taught me that the show must go on, so to that end I'm going to start asking for volunteer open mic wranglers.

If you're local and would like to volunteer to host an open mic (just once, I'm not trying to rope anyone into a lengthy commitment), gimme a yell. On a normal night, it would involve being at the Rud around 6:30 for sign-up, starting the session at 7 and ending it at 7:30. Basically, you just wield a clipboard like a weapon and call people up to the stage in their signed-up order, with the caveat that if something does go wrong, you could be on deck to get the rest of the program rolling in case I'm halfway to Tijuana I mean sick at home with a rollicking stomach virus. Let me know.

Posted by eek at 03:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 11, 2005

Here, "soon" means "never."

I'm picking up a few items at Powell's, and I came across this new release, Gay Haiku. I know this will offend Steve's American Haiku Sensibilities (rightfully so!), but who can resist such kicky gems as:

You are judgmental
Witholding and cold. Jesus—
I'm dating my mom.

Keep this little tome in mind for all your summer hostess gift needs. If you want to cheap out, send a Haiku e-card (you stingy bitch).

Posted by eek at 01:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 08, 2005

On handling the truth.

Take a break from the Land of Make Believe tonight. InKY presents Stranger than Fiction, a night celebrating the fourth genre (creative nonfiction) as well as true stories in poems and music.

Our featured performers are the wonderful and talented Dianne Aprile, Leslie Townsend, Beth Newberry, Steve Caratzas, and Sean Hopkins of Dallas Alice.

Beth has timed her reading down to the second, which will come in handy as we release the dogs at exactly 1 second past 10 minutes.

I hear rumblings of high-quality open mic offerings as well ... so come early to sign up if you want a spot. Open mic runs from 7-7:30, so the fashionably late are gonna miss out.

Posted by eek at 10:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 29, 2005

Panel!

Check out the panel discussion of reading series directors I participated in over at the Emerging Writers Network. It's funny to see other directors using language like "happy hour" and "equal opportunity" to describe their programming. Yay for InKY publicity! Thanks to Gwenda for the hookup.

Posted by eek at 11:32 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 20, 2005

Buy the book.

Richard Newman's first full-length collection, Borrowed Towns, is out and available for purchase. You really must buy this book. You'll not be disappointed.

Read some excerpts and some brief words of praise.

Posted by eek at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 14, 2005

Heloise I'm not...

... but here's a handy tip:

If you're sending a book around on the crooked contest circuit, you're familiar with all the crap that goes into one envelope: entry fee check (gah), manuscript, two cover sheets, SASE for blow-off results, and SAS-postcard for acknowledgement of receipt. It's tedious to assemble these little packets and depressing to think about another $20 down the drain while some overworked intern barely skims your manuscript. So here's a way to make the whole process slightly more cheerful: use fun postcards. Right now I'm going through a set of Catalog Man cards, technicolor hunks from the '70s sporting ascots and the tightest chinos this side of Chino. When I find one of those babies with a rubber RECEIVED stamp on the back in my mailbox, not only do I know some overworked intern has logged my manuscript and cashed the check, I get a little grin from the men. Shouldn't we make this sucky process as fun as we can without pissing off some already-testy editor? I think I'll make fun postcard sets a standard MFA graduation gift from now on. Practical and tasty!

Posted by eek at 10:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 13, 2005

Moonmaster stickers and instructional videos.

I just finished my first book review for publication, and since I promised months ago that I'd talk about the difference between writing poems and writing prose, here I am.

Well, the most striking difference is also the most mundane: word count. The longest poem I've written recently was 335 words (hey word count tool!). The essay on the scary black-crowned night herons and my recent book review both weighed in at around twice that. I found it took a lot of concentration to use more words rather than fewer. Not that I ran on at the mouth, but I definitely don't practice the same economy of language with prose as I do with poetry.

It's not that I didn't write plenty of essays in school, but it's been a while since I wrote a good personal essay, and my wheels were definitely rusty. My first draft left a lot unsaid, and thankfully I had a good editor who encouraged me to say more, despite my protests that I just couldn't without being redundant. I think it takes practice to use a paragraph to say what you might use one word or line to say in a poem. You have to give yourself permission be expansive.

And writing a book review isn't terribly different from the craft essays I wrote in grad school, but after taking a year off, I found myself again at a loss to explain just why I liked the book I read, and how the writer accomplished what she did. What made this book stand apart from dozens sorta like it? Because I am not Dale Peck, I have no desire to write hatchet jobs for fun and profit. I'm sure at some point I'll be asked to review a book I don't like, but because I'm at a happy point in my reading life where I'd be awfully resentful of having to read a crappy book, I'm grateful that this first assignment was so rewarding. But how to point out deficiencies with authority? That's going to be difficult, and I suppose confidence will only come with practice.

This brings me to my dormant short story project. Back in the winter, I started my first short story since high school, and though I already love my characters and I have some idea of plot, I'm not at all dying to jump back into it. Maybe it's because even when I'm writing prose, I write like a poet: word by word. This makes fiction writing excruciating. How do the novelistas set goals like "1500 words a day?" I once spent an hour on one sentence. A really short one, too: "Tucked into the right-hand wall, a closet breathed, ajar." Looking at it now, how could it have taken that much work? I don't even think it's grammatically sound.

So here's a challenge - whatever your skill is, take one step to the side. Try something that's close, but just different enough to stretch your muscles a little. It'll hurt at first, sure, but once you warm up, it'll work.

Posted by eek at 11:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Ladies Love Cool Scott.

we heart scott ritcherFound this graffitti inside the ladies' room at the Mag Bar on Friday night. Mag Bar ladies, if you love Scott Ritcher so much, why don't you MARRY him? Or, how about the next best thing? Come see him read from Letters to Saint Clinton at InKY on September 9, with Kirby Gann and Mary Welp. Speaking of InKY, Strange Fiction Night went over like a triple Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, and you can see new photos here, here, and a really creepy one here. Don't miss our next theme night, Stranger Than Fiction on July 8, where we ditch the fantasy and go straight for the truth.

Posted by eek at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 09, 2005

Yes it is 1959.

You are Frank O'HaraYou are Frank O'Hara. You are a genius, but your life just keeps getting in the way. Even eating lunch gets in the way. You are totally obsessed by bridges and water.

Which Famous Modern American Poet Are You?

I do love a good pointless quiz!

Posted by eek at 11:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Staff pick!

Looks like tomorrow night's InKY, "Strange Fiction Night," is a LEO staff pick this week. Right on!

Just a note for anyone planning on coming: Dennis and Meredith will play from 7:30-8, not at the end.

What else are you doing tomorrow night? It's free. GOSH.

Update: We're also a Courier-Journal "One Great Date" special mention. THANKS, JASON!

Posted by eek at 11:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 04, 2005

Heart attack & rhyme.

Small press is beautiful! From BükAmerica to UglyTown, all your L.A. small press needs can be met with this list. There's more to this town than Red Hen Press.

Posted by eek at 01:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 01, 2005

Punch the clock.

The Poetry Factory: swing shift opinions for working poets, hosted by the lovely and amazing Marci Johnson. Check it out, suggest some topics.

Posted by eek at 05:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 23, 2005

Borrowed Towns.

Check out the spiffy cover art for Richard Newman's book of poems, Borrowed Towns (Word Press, forthcoming summer 2005).

When you can see the cover, the book becomes real.

Have I mentioned how proud I am of Richard? He's the first of my classmates to come in with no book and graduate with one. And it's a good one, too. Schedule your pre-orders today.

Posted by eek at 12:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 19, 2005

Free readings!

Some of my favorite people/authors are reading in Louisville this week as part of the Spalding University MFA in Writing residency, and the following readings are free and open to the public. Come on out.

Unless noted, the readings are at Spalding University, in the Egan Leadership Center Lectorium at the corner of Breckinridge and Fourth Streets. Plenty of free parking is nearby.

Saturday, May 21, 7 p.m.
Crystal Wilkinson (fiction), author of Water Street
Richard Goodman (nonfiction), author of French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France
Louella Bryant (writing for children), author of Two Tracks in the Snow
Brad Watson (fiction), author of The Heaven of Mercury
Molly Peacock (poetry, nonfiction), author of Cornucopia and Paradise, Piece by Piece

Sunday, May 22, 3:45 p.m.
Mary Clyde (fiction), author of Survival Rates
Jeanie Thompson (poetry), author of White for Harvest: New and Selected Poems
Silas House (fiction), author of The Coal Tattoo
Dianne Aprile (nonfiction), author of Making a Heart for God: A Week Inside a Catholic Monastery
Kathleen Driskell (poetry), author of Laughing Sickness

Sunday, May 22, 7 p.m.
Robin Lippincott (fiction), author of Our Arcadia
Debra Kang Dean (poetry), author of Precipitates
Robert Finch (nonfiction), author of Death of a Hornet
Julie Brickman (f