Sturgeon's Law

"In my personal time I enjoy showing my Giant Schnauzers."

Labels: not poetry, resumes

For any who wondered, no one was hurt in the crash I mentioned yesterday, and in fact my brother was the only driver involved. It could have been much worse.

I officially gave notice today that I'm moving out of my apartment at the end of July. Now things seem to be coming up pretty quickly.

We're going to be up in the mountains from Friday to Sunday for our dad's birthday, but I'll try to put up at least one actual poetry-related post before then.

Labels: not poetry

My brother wrecked our mom's car while driving drunk. I assume he'll lose his license now. We'll see if he uses it as a spur to make any life changes.

Labels: family, not poetry

1. Bob Hicok doesn't submit to literary journals. Literary journals submit to Bob Hicok.
2. Bob Hicok is a robot who can transform into a giant mechanical pencil full of poetry.
3. Bob Hicok heard that you should write what you know, so he wrote everything.
4. After a Bob Hicok reading, all the audience members are pregnant, including the men.
5. Bob Hicok rhymes with orange. And orange likes it.
6. Bob Hicok publishes children's novels under his pen name, J. K. Rowling.
7. You may have noticed Bob Hicok's poems turning up in the same journals where you publish. That's because Bob Hicok is stalking you.
8. Bob Hicok has earned the little-known but lucrative Wile E. Coyote Super Genius grant.
9. Bob Hicok isn't an unacknowledged legislator of the world because everyone realizes he's in charge.
10. When Bob Hicok flies into town for a reading, he actually flies himself.
11. Bob Hicok doesn't refer to himself in the third person. He refers to himself in the infinitieth person.
12. Bob Hicok travelled back in time and shot Wild Bill Hickok for spelling his last name differently.
13. Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of Bob Hicok.

Please share your fun Bob Hicok facts in the comments or your blog!

Labels: humor, poetry

Just back from Dave Mason's reading in the Thursday series at Poor Richard's. He read from Ludlow, which I recommend highly if you're in the mood for some verse narrative. Had a nice time and a couple beers afterward too. Real post tomorrow or so, even though no one reads on Friday and Saturday.

Labels: poetry, readings

The power was out here for two hours or more today (I left before it came back on, so I don't know exactly how much), which made it pretty difficult to get work done. Fortunately, I was way ahead. Ugh.

Anyway, Jeff tagged me with this TV list. Basically it's TV shows I like or don't like. I'm only going to list things that are still appearing, so no "old Simpsons reruns" on the list of things I like.

TV shows I like:
1. House: an utterly preposterous show plotwise that's carried by a dynamite lead performance from Hugh Laurie and likeable performances from basically everyone else in the cast.
2. Futurama: the new movies or whatever they are will apparently be out at the beginning of next year. Woohoo!
3. High Stakes Poker: almost all the players are the best in the world, and the interplay between them is even more diverting than the actual cards.
4. The Daily Show: still really good, and I think I like their new generation of correspondents (especially John Hodgman, Aasif Mandvi, and John Oliver) more than some other people I've read.
5. The Shield: there's no way they're going to untangle the current season in just two episodes.

The shows I don't like part is kind of difficult, because there are lots of shows I don't like but simply ignore, so I have no real strong feelings toward. I tend to manage this even with shows I would utterly hate if I watched them. But here are a few:
1. Anything on ESPN: this network has taken the all-flash-no-substance approach of MTV, added in a good helping of journalism compromised by investments in the things it's reporting on, topped it all off with some really annoying personalities, and applied the whole mess to something I give a shit about. Special mention for Around the Horn, one of the most godawful pieces of garbage on the air. Four ugly newspapermen shouting stupid things at each other about sports, and keeping "score." Wow, great.
2. Gray's Anatomy: I watched an episode of this with Shawn and Shanna. Otherwise, it would just be on my ignore list. All I'm going to say is that the name "McDreamy" sets my teeth on edge and makes me want to punch Patrick Dempsey's smarmy face.
3. Neil Cavuto's show on Fox News. I single this one out because it's always on when I'm at the gym, and it combines Fox's hilarious leading question headlines ("Would Hillary Clinton support sacrificing babies to Satan?") with some of the most amazingly trivial entertainment/lifestyle stories around.
4. Mind of Mencia. Another show I see because it's often on right before the one I actually want to watch, in this case The Daily Show.
5. The Sopranos. Okay, I just did that to see if you're paying attention. I like the Sopranos just fine--I do get annoyed by treatises on the cultural significance of the Sopranos, microanalyses of when the show started going downhill, and lengthy discussions of the possible subtexts of this one time Paulie Walnuts said "Fuck him, T!" This is part of my uneasiness over almost any enthusiastic subculture. It's nothing to be alarmed about.

Hmm, there are probably a few others I like or dislike a little, but that'll do for now. How about you? Answer in comments, or feel free to be tagged and write a post.

Labels: not poetry, television

Won't you go and sign up for the Publication Database? It's up to 107 entries now. If you e-mail and let me know you signed up, I'll upgrade your account so you can add journals.

Labels: poetry, publication

If you're in the market for a wireless keyboard/mouse combo, let me recommend against Best Buy's house brand, Dynex. I got a Dynex package that costs $49.99 if you can't take advantage of the employee discount, about $22 if you can (yes, Best Buy gouges you on peripherals). My computer stopped recognizing the mouse. So I exchanged it. Mouse #2 just out-and-out died. So I've exchanged it again but am not going to use it for anything but emergency laptop use. I do highly recommend the Logitech wireless mouse I have, though.

Labels: not poetry, shopping

It's been awhile since I did one of these, and I'm definitely feeling lazy today, so here we go with the bullet points.

• I realized I made reference to a big change a while back and then left you hanging, so here's that news: despite the fact that I didn't get into the grad schools there, I'm moving to St. Louis at the end of July. I'm not sure how long I'll be there or if I'll end up going to grad school there or elsewhere, but it just felt like time for me to shake things up. I'm looking forward to learning about the St. Louis poetry community and community in general.
  
• I got my (for now) final tattoo yesterday. I needed the symmetry of having one on each shoulder. I'll post a picture once it gets through the red-and-raw and crusty-and-itchy stages.
• I was asked yesterday to be part of what seems like an exciting new poetry venture. In addition to my own poetry plans, this should help keep me busy for a while. More information on this as it becomes appropriate. Right now the information isn't even mine to release.
• I really ought to embark on a big apartment cleaning project today. "Ought to" is the operative phrase there.
  

Labels: not poetry, poetry

I'm working on a poem whose jumping-off point came from a speculative fiction story I wrote shortly after I graduated college. As writing on the poem proceeded, I went back to the (definitely unpublished) story to see if I could pull any other ideas from it. Usually when I read old writing of mine, I cringe, but I was shocked to find that the writing in this story, which is now at least six years old (and I probably started it even earlier than that) is quite competent. The logical contortions the plot goes through to deal with its holes are ridiculous, but the writing itself is fundamentally readable and even sharp sometimes. The story itself isn't salvageable as such, but it's nice to know that I was already getting somewhere years ago, especially now that I feel like I may be trying some more prose of some sort (maybe flash fiction, maybe humor, I dunno) soon.

Labels: not poetry, poetry

Have you editors out there ever been looking at a journal and seen a poem you were really close to taking for your own journal, and you're glad it found a good home, and maybe you feel a little regretful that you didn't publish it?

Here's one. Here's another (the third one). And this.

Labels: poetry, publication

Based very loosely on an old poem. Shawn can probably guess the event that precipitated it. Also, 7 words that Word spellcheck refused to accept.

Labels: drafts, poetry

Damn, I've had such a hectic day (still ongoingly so) that I almost forgot to say congratulations to Larissa Szporluk, whose poem from The Eleventh Muse is up today at Verse Daily.

Labels: poetry, The Eleventh Muse

My brother's band has something of a website now. And they're playing a lot more shows, which is good.

Labels: family, music, not poetry

My friend Jenn has some poems up on the front page of Fickle Muses this week.

Jenn was back in town for Mother's Day last weekend, and at one point we went to an Asian grocery. Jenn bought good and sensible things because they don't have an Asian grocery in Laramie. I bought a package of a dozen imitation Moon Pies from China for $1.99.

Labels: friends, poetry

Dave Mason gave me some good advice when I asked him about how to kickstart my poetry writing: review, review, review. I filed it away, but as soon as I started actually doing it, I realized how right he was. That's one of my big suggestions for young/moderate beginner poets: pick up books of contemporary poetry, especially ones you like, and write about a thousand words on what they're doing and how they're doing it. It's amazing how much doing so will help you learn about poetry in general, how it will augment your own writing strategies (even if you don't necessarily use the techniques you write about in a review), and how much literary journals will love you if you write articulate, insightful reviews they can publish. I've found it's often difficult as an editor to get reviews from people--it really shouldn't be.

Labels: poetry, reviews

So my grandmother apparently has some old school papers and things of mine, and she managed to get this published in the newsletter at her retirement community (last year in November, though this is the first I've seen of it). I want to use the last part of her statement as a blurb on my first book, should I ever have one.

Labels: family, poetry

Just back from a reading by Kate Northrop and Jane Hilberry at Poor Richard's bookshop, which was a lovely time (with a fun afterward, as you may be able to tell from the timestamp on this post).

Anyway, I have a question: where does the convention come from for a writer to cross out their name on the title page when they sign a book for you? I've seen tons of writers do it, and I have no idea what it means. If I ever publish a book, I'll want to know why I should or shouldn't do that.

Labels: poetry, readings

As I may have mentioned previously, I keep a notebook on the nightstand in case I think of something while I'm nearly asleep so I can remember it without having to wake myself up too much. A few nights ago I was drifting off when I thought of very minor edits I wanted to make to two of my existing poems. I knew that all I had to do was write down the word I wanted to change/add to each, and I'd remember what it meant in the morning. I wrote them down without even turning the lamp on and went to sleep. I did remember what they meant in the morning, but because of the way I wrote just one word for each, I now had a page of my notebook that looked like this:
-


lemurs
growl


-
That is all.

Labels: poetry

Sara tagged me to do this. It's only supposed to be 5 songs, but to hell with that. I like lists of 13, and I'd run out of room way too fast with only 5 songs.

1. "Forty Six & 2" by Tool
2. "American Jesus" by Bad Religion
3. "Rising Sun Blues" by Doc Watson
4. "Wish" by Nine Inch Nails
5. "Me and Mia" by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
6. "Never Talking to You Again" by Husker Du
7. "A.D.D." by System of a Down
8. "I Don't Believe You" by The Magnetic Fields
9. "Johnny Feelgood" by Liz Phair
10. "John Walker's Blues" by Steve Earle
11. "Feel Good Inc." by Gorillaz
12. "Waiting Room" by Fugazi (thanks, Mary!)
13. "Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check" by Busta Rhymes

As always, if you want to play, consider yourself tagged. Lord am I having proofreading problems today...

Labels: music, not poetry

I just found out that a review I wrote of Susan Tichy's new book Bone Pagoda will be appearing in an upcoming issue of Pleiades. Woohoo! The book is well worth reading, and I'm glad a journal I enjoy so much was interested in my take on it.

Labels: journals, poetry

So I watched Children of Men this weekend, and in addition to being a good all-around movie (though so dark that it'd be hard to watch it again), it has a great sequence near the end where Clive Owen has to get into a building during a full-scale battle (with tanks and rocket launchers in addition to automatic weapons) between government and rebel forces, neither of which would mind him being dead. The whole thing is very well executed, simultaneously chaotic and coherent, exciting and excruciating, and it got me thinking about my favorite movie action sequences. Here are 13 of them, with no real attempt to rank them.

1. The gun battle after the bank robbery in Heat. Great sound and cinematography, real squad-level tactics, and an amazing kinetic feel.
2. The bus/train wreck in The Fugitive. Harrison Ford's last movie before he entered the Mr. Frownyface Grump portion of his career, in which I don't think he's made a single good movie. Ford leaping out of a crashed bus and fleeing a derailing train while wearing shackles is a great set piece.
3. The Wesley/Inigo duel in The Princess Bride. Clever, funny, and thrilling all at once, plus compulsively quotable. "I am not lefthanded either!"
4. The chase at the end of The Road Warrior. About 20 minutes of a massive car/truck/motorcycle/helicopter chase.
5. The final gunfight in The Wild Bunch. Four outlaws commandeer a machine gun (plus some grenades) and take on an entire Mexican army to get revenge for a dead friend, killing dozens before they're overwhelmed. I think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would have ended the same way if Sam Peckinpah had directed it.
6. The Liam Neeson/Tim Roth swordfight in Rob Roy. It's rare for the villain to come off as well in the climactic fight as Roth does here, and Neeson's final dispatching of him is really brutal.
7. The Battle of Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Almost entirely CGI, so it may seem a little cheap to have it here, but it was well executed. The Battle of Pellenor Fields in The Return of the King was also very nicely done.
8. The saloon shootout in Unforgiven. The movie does an amazing job of constraining the violence and building the foreboding right up until the end, when it all finally breaks out all at once with Clint Eastwood killing at least a half dozen men in the space of about fifteen seconds.
9. The D-Day landing in Saving Private Ryan. Another long, grueling, successfully rendered battle. I found the rest of the movie to be something of a letdown after it.
10. The swordfight with the black knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Okay, it's not really a great action scene, but it's hilarious in its deliberate low-budget grossness, and of course the quotability is off the charts. "All right, we'll call it a draw."
11. The three-way duel (thruel?) in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. This movie took flak for being incoherent and loud and overlong from people who claimed they liked the first one, conveniently ignoring that the first one was exactly the same way. This scene is totally over-choreographed, but it's still tons of good fun.
12. The lightsaber fight in The Empire Strikes Back. The two-on-one fight in The Phantom Menace was better staged as a pure action scene, but damned if I'm going to pick the scene from the vastly inferior movie.
13. The tennis racket/ski pole fight at the beginning of Roxanne. Remember when Steve Martin was funny? And appeared in decent movies?

I've already thought of honorable mentions too: the train-station shootout in The Untouchables and the wrong-way tunnel car chase in Ronin. Anyone else?

Labels: movies, not poetry

That Aaron Anstett is a busy guy:

MAY 5, 2007, 10:00 a.m. to noon
"Throwing Your Voice: Writing as an Other": Poetry West workshop given by Aaron Anstett. People should bring writing materials and a sense of adventure. Location: Worner Center room 213 of Colorado College.

Aaron Anstett's collections are Sustenance, No Accident (2006 Nebraska Book Award and the Balcones Poetry Prize), and the recently published Each Place the Body's. In addition to appearing widely in journals, his poems has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer's Almanac. He lives with his children in Colorado Springs, where he runs a chapbook contest, organizes readings, and bides his time.

---

Please attend a book launch party for Aaron Anstett's Each Place the Body's, newly and beautifully published by Ghost Road Press, Saturday, May 12, 2-4 p.m., Smokebrush Foundation, 218 W. Colorado Avenue (under the bridge in the Depot Arts District). A map. There will be snacks and (regrettably non-alcoholic as an alcohol license is pricey) beverages. Also, as Aaron's will be in tow, kids are welcome.

Labels: poetry, Poetry West

Here's a picture of me from the party at Shawn's in St. Louis a couple weeks ago. I like how the picture makes it look like I have very long arms and a vestigial side-hand that's holding a bottle of Budweiser.

Labels: not poetry, pictures

Jeff tagged me with this question (which is a good thing since I didn't have anything particular in mind to write about today):

Say someone asked me, "I kind of like poetry, but I don't know anything about contemporary poetry. Who should I read?"

Well, I'll try to give them a pretty good cross-section of poets I think are good right now. And it's restricted to American poetry because any attempt on my part to recommend writers in other languages (or even for the most part in other countries) would be laughable. And no personal friends, mentors, or blogroll buddies are eligible, sorry.

Off the top (more or less) of my head:
1. B. H. Fairchild
2. Bob Hicok
3. David Wojahn
4. Larissa Szporluk
5. Gabriel Gudding
6. Martha Collins
7. Major Jackson
8. Jeffrey McDaniel
9. Yusef Komunyakaa
10. Katie Degentesh
11. A. E. Stallings
12. Zachary Schomburg
13. Sherman Alexie

Wow, that list is damned inadequate in a lot of ways. Anyway, if you read this and want to do your own list, consider yourself tagged.

Labels: poetry, top 13

Note: this post is not intended in any way to bash Amy King, who is a good writer and editor.

That whole "Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere" farce really sort of confirms all the negative conceptions people have about poetry bloggers/blogs, doesn't it? (I'd usually call them misconceptions, but there they are in something that actually happened.) Trivial, navel-gazing, self important, badly run, and prone to pissfights. Some strong poets and online friends of mine got nominated, but that doesn't redeem the overall lousiness, sorry.

Labels: blogs, poetry