Sturgeon's Law

Last Post with Blogger

2010-04-29T16:09:00.001-05:00

Hi Everyone! This will likely be my last post to the blog using the lousy Blogger software, as I'm in the process of switching it over to the Word Press software I already have installed and running the site proper. Thanks for nothing, Blogger!

Also, thanks for a lot more than nothing to Pleiades, where I've just had a poem accepted. Woohoo!

New poems up online

2010-04-27T15:20:00.002-05:00

You can now read five of my poems in the new issue of Front Porch. Also, you can find out more about my traumatic relationship with an actual front porch. Enjoy!

Current obsessions

2010-04-25T21:43:00.002-05:00

Blowing shit up in Borderlands.
The near-tornado/completely blinding downpour that occurred here yesterday. Also, wondering about the health of the submission I put in the post office outdoor mailbox about half an hour before said downpour.
Finishing double-digit rough drafts for the month of April (only need one more).
A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry, in which will be a poem of mine among some great company. Thanks, Oliver and Stacey!

National Poetry Poem

2010-04-22T09:26:00.001-05:00

My poem "Guaranteed to Work Throughout Its Useful Life" is up today at The Rumpus as part of their National Poetry Month poem-a-day to-do. You should go read it. It would make little ol' me happy on this here work day.

New Car

2010-04-20T17:37:00.002-05:00

I bought my last car, a 2001 Saturn L-300, from my stepmom in 2003. It ran very well for seven years, no doubt helped by the fact that I don't have to drive to and from work every day. However, it was definitely showing its age, and the electrical system started to get a little wonky, and I knew it was time. I researched cars extensively, test drove the one I was most interested in, enjoyed said drive, saw the price had been reduced between when I started looking at the car and when I drove it, and traded in my Saturn. As I drove the Saturn to the dealership for the final time, the odometer hit 72,000 miles.

The new car?

A 2008 Dodge Avenger. It's making me happy already.

Anti- Featured Poet #42

2010-04-18T00:12:00.003-05:00

Happy ongoing National Poetry Month and post-AWP hangover! Anti-'s newest featured poet is Clayton Michaels. Go now!

Acceptance

2010-04-14T18:05:00.000-05:00

Should also have mentioned that I came home to an acceptance of four poems by Sawbuck. Thanks for the good news!

AWPooped

2010-04-12T21:39:00.004-05:00

Jesus, I'm tired. I was incredibly tired by the time I came in my door at about 8 PM last night. I transferred everything I needed for work from my laptop to my desktop, took care of some issues that had arisen there over the weekend, and then basically stared at the screen for an hour, asleep in my seat. Then I had to wake up early to go get my car, find out there's a new (not so pressing) problem with it, and decide it's time to buy a new-to-me car.

Looking at my past post-AWP posts, the first was namedropping of friends, and the second one was blind items, so this time I'm going to try to take things chronologically.

I flew in on Thursday morning (probably should have tried for Wednesday evening, but there you have it--maybe next year). Our flight looped around a little and came in from the south, so I looked out the window and saw Pikes Peak. I teared up a little. I miss seeing my family more than once or twice a year. I miss the mountains.
Rode into town on the Super Shuttle, in which were also two people who had a loud conversation that quickly revealed they were also AWPers. Then another lady who got off the van at a different hotel was carrying a 2008 or 2009 AWP tote.
I stayed in the Crowne Plaza, a good choice just a block south of the Convention Center. I also managed to go the entire weekend without setting foot in the conference Hyatt, of which I am strangely proud.
Once I got into my room and took care of Thursday morning's resume work (thank you Crowne Plaza for free wireless), I headed down to the conference. Upon the elevator doors opening, I saw the first poet-friend of the weekend, Erin Keane. We chatted on the way over to the Convention Center, got our name badges, and then went our separate ways into the book fair. I had not taken more than 20 steps through one row of booths when I heard my name and saw the second poet-friend of the weekend, Dora Malech. I chatted with her for a little, then as I started to leave the Waywiser table, I ran into poet-friend #3 of the weekend, Carrie Jerrell, whose first book is, like Dora's, on Waywiser. At this point I will stop telling you every single poet-friend I ran into, because it happened with ridiculous regularity throughout.
My first panel was the Craig Arnold tribute, curated by the insanely industrious Jake Adam York, and featuring many of Craig's friends and loved ones, including my wonderful pal Jenn Koiter. It was a heavy way to start the conference, but I thought it was very well put together. Several of the events Jenn references in her essay selections were things I was present for when they occurred, so there was a little extra twinge in it.
After sundry book fair and work stuff, I went to dinner with Brent Goodman, who I had heard from the diode folks was looking for me. When I met Brent, he introduced me to Steve Fellner. I think each Steve learned the other is not his blog persona. Awwww, real life lessons!
I walked to the Cooper Dillon/Bloof/Noemi reading, which was nearly a mile and a half, but I needed the exercise, even with an existing blister on my foot. Halfway up Broadway, I walked through a huge group of homeless men, because it was dinnertime at the shelter.
The reading itself was fantastic, with free beer (thank you, Adam Deutsch) and good readers, including Ada Limon, Nate Pritts, Danielle Pafunda, Shanna Compton, Jill Alexander Essbaum, and Gary McDowell. Peter Davis and Jennifer L. Knox both killed.
On the way home from the reading, I didn't want to walk Broadway at night, so I ended up in the car for the already semi-infamous Car Crash Super Shuttle Sideswipe of AWP 2010. As Reb noted, no one was hurt and the damage was minor.
At some point in the book fair on Friday, I ran into Jericho Brown and apologized for missing his reading (the Copper Nickel Eight Debut Poets) the previous evening. Jericho Brown is very, very disappointed I missed the reading, and I now owe Jericho Brown a favor. He's going to think about it and let me know what the favor is--I'm apprehensive!
On Friday afternoon, I went to my second and final panel, the Fishouse Poets anthology reading with Major Jackson, Erika Meitner, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Oliver de la Paz, and my basketball buddy Adrian Matejka. It was a great reading, as should be expected of an anthology dedicated to the aural aspect of poetry.
The Fishouse people had scheduled a happy hour after the reading, so I tried to go to that and hang out. Whoever chose the location did a remarkably poor job, because they chose The Tilted Kilt, which is a chain that's essentially a Scottish-themed Hooters. In addition, this particular Tilted Kilt was the location of a post-Rockies-game live broadcast by KOA radio, so it was incredibly loud and packed with drunken baseball fans. By the time I arrived, all the poets I knew had bailed, and I stayed approximately two minutes.
I walked to the offsite event I was reading in, the Meadowlark Poetry Marathon. I was worried it too would be full of drunken Rockies fans, but the bar is apparently enough of a hole in the wall and/or just far enough from Coors Field that there weren't many. I was worried about the bar atmosphere, but even the people who were just there to drink were incredibly good about quieting down during the reading portions. Overall, the reading was fabulous: everyone made the most of their 2-3 minutes. Some of the highlight readers off the top of my head were Katie Degentesh, Shanna Compton, Sandra & Ben Doller, Chad Parmenter, Tony Trigilio, Kasey Mohammad, and the raspy-voiced Reb. Jennifer L. Knox and Peter Davis killed. Janet Holmes, after she was introduced as having the best hair at the reading, said (and I'm paraphrasing a bit) that she was competing with me for best hair. I read three poems I hadn't read previously, and was happy with how they read and how the crowd received them. Absolutely excellent evening. Big thanks to Aaron Belz and everyone else.
When I got back to my room, it was still quite early, and I remembered that Jason Koo and Nicky Beer were having a joint book release party in Nicky's and Brian Barker's hotel suite, so I headed over there. Along with the poets of the hour, I also ran into Jake again, looking about as exhausted as I've seen anyone ever, plus a small host of other friends and people I knew from online.
Saturday morning and afternoon I primarily devoted to running around the book fair re-finding people I had already seen so I could take pictures with them, which I should have done the first time. My apologies if I saw you on Thursday or Friday and then didn't catch up with you again. There were a hell of a lot of you.
On Saturday evening I bailed on two different readings (Sorry, Jake! Sorry, Jessica and Jill!) because I heard from friends I had barely seen. I ended up spending much of the evening hanging out with former St. Louis basketball buddy Michael Nye, now managing editor of The Missouri Review.
Late on Saturday evening, John Gallaher (thanks for being my roomie, roomie!), one of his former students, and myself saw Kevin Prufer in the hotel bar. We were going over to say hi, but as we got within about six feet we realized he was in really deep conversation with the guys he was sitting with, so we agreed it wouldn't be good to interrupt. We took another table very close by. About an hour later, as they left the bar, Kevin said (again paraphrasing) "Oh my goodness! It's John Gallaher!" as he noticed us for the first time. Clearly it had been a very intense discussion indeed. He was sweetly apologetic for something he had no need to be apologetic for.
On Sunday morning, I had lunch with my dad and stepmom (yay for being in Colorado!). They also helped out my cheap, money-hemorrhaging self by driving me to the airport afterward.
Going through airport security, the petty martinet TSA guy decided to confiscate my 3.5-ounce bottle of face moisturizer that's been carried on many other times. Thanks, asshole, you just made America safer.
Since I don't want to end on a down note, I had a milkshake on the drive home from the airport. Then I entered my latest month-without-dessert period. I need it.

Other tidbits:

I could pack in an entire long paragraph worth of extra names of people I saw and met without getting to everyone, so my apologies to anyone I've left out. I can't forgo mentioning Anti- assistant editor Suzanne Frischkorn, though. Also, since I point this out once per year and it gets more true every year, Sandra Beasley is well on her way to taking over the poetry world. Argh, and I had lunch with Brandi Homan in there too.
Biggest bummer-I-didn't-get-to-see-more-often: Mary Biddinger!
I now officially know too many people at AWP. I truly sympathize with the writers who are actually sociable and get around, because there's just no way you can do anything then.
Everyone slams the AWP-crowd-scan conversational style, but I think it's just a fact of life there. Then again, I'm just looking for people I like and haven't seen in a year, not powerful people who can help my career. So don't take it personally that I did it when we were talking, please.
I was asked for work more times this weekend than in my entire life prior to it. Three!
Also three: number of times people mentioned that Anti- had rejected their submissions. Two of them were doing it jokingly, not 100% sure about the other. Overall I was very pleased by how many people knew Anti- or knew me because of Anti-. Anti- Anti- Anti-.
At least two people mistook me for someone else. Also, Jill Essbaum said I kind of look like her ex-husband.
I bought very few books since I had to carry them on, but I did get my contributor copies of The Laurel Review. You should go buy the new issue, it rocks (of course).
I drank quite a lot but wasn't even remotely hung over any morning, so yay for that!
I sent more text messages this weekend than the entire past year. Also, I confess I just went back and looked at them to figure out some of the chronology.
Holy shit, I've taken too long on this post.

AWP

2010-04-06T12:10:00.002-05:00

This may well be my last post before I leave for AWP early Thursday morning. Come see me at the Meadowlark Poetry Marathon on Friday at 7 PM, or stop me as I wander around the book fair.

Anti- Featured Poet #41

2010-04-04T10:18:00.002-05:00

Happy Easter and National Poetry Month, if you celebrate those kinds of things. Anti-'s latest Featured Poet is Martha Silano. See some of you at AWP!

Poetry Giveaway

2010-04-01T21:05:00.003-05:00

Okay, I'll join in this National Poetry Month giveaway thing. God knows I have enough of my own books and enough other people's books to give away. So whoever wins this contest will get a copy of my book, Torched Verse Ends, and can pick one book from the following list, all of which I recommend:

Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars by Jim Daniels
case sensitive by Kate Greenstreet
Fall Sanctuary by Jeff Hardin
The Mending Worm by Joan Houlihan
M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A by A. Van Jordan
invisible sister by Jeffrey Ethan Lee
Strange Valentine by A. Loudermilk
Realm 64 by Kristi Maxwell
The Optimist by Joshua Mehigan
Winter Morning with Crow by Clare Rossini
invisible bride by Tony Tost

However, there's a slight twist. I don't like doing random drawings, so in order to win, you need to answer the following question: If you were creating a world, what would you create first? All you have to do to enter is answer on the blog or on Facebook, where the blog reposts automatically. Come May 1, I'll select the answer I like best and mail two books off to the winner. Let's get those entries going!

Oh Yeah

2010-03-31T14:35:00.002-05:00

If you're in St. Louis, you should come out to the Schlafly Tap Room on Friday for this reading, featuring myself as well as the readers below. It should be a fun time:

Friday, April 2, 2010, 6:30 PM. Pop Culture Association “No Particular Place to Go” Reading. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust Street – St. Louis, Missouri. With Richard Newman, Adrian Matejka, and others.

Taking Care of Business

2010-03-30T18:43:00.003-05:00

You should read The Rumpus in general, but particularly in April, when they will be doing the National Poetry Month thang of featuring a poem a day, including one of mine.
I'm figuring out my AWP schedule, which is even more packed than usual because the Colorado locale will let me see some family and old friends. If you're going to be in Denver, let me know, and let's meet up.
I'm 99% finished on my taxes! Yay! That new first-time homebuyer credit looks mighty nice...
Have you been watching Justified on FX? Maybe you should start.

Someone Else's Poem

2010-03-28T12:17:00.001-05:00

In a Country

My love and I are inventing a country, which we
can already see taking shape, as if wheels were
passing through yellow mud. But there is a prob-
lem: if we put a river in the country, it will thaw
and begin flooding. If we put the river on the bor-
der, there will be trouble. If we forget about the
river, there will be no way out. There is already a
sky over that country, waiting for clouds or smoke.
Birds have flown into it, too. Each evening more
trees fill with their eyes, and what they see we can
never erase.

One day it was snowing heavily, and again we were
lying in bed, watching our country: we could
make out the wide river for the first time, blue and
moving. We seemed to be getting closer; we saw
our wheel tracks leading into it and curving out
of sight behind us. It looked like the land we had
left, some smoke in the distance, but I wasn't sure.
There were birds calling. The creaking of our
wheels. And as we entered that country, it felt as if
someone was touching our bare shoulders, lightly,
for the last time.


--Larry Levis

The Usual Route

2010-03-25T16:12:00.005-05:00

I started thinking about this because of Tricia's post wherein she pondered a suggestion that she mention of her lack of formal education in her cover letters. (As a practical matter, by the way, it's a bad idea.) Anyway, one of the things the post goes back to is the expectation that a poet will have an MFA. Don't worry, this post isn't really about that per se.

I'm interested in the much more thorough notion that the "usual" way of being a poet in our contemporary world is to get a Bachelor-level degree wherever, then immediately go on to get an MFA, then become a teacher. I think this idea simultaneously exists as a straw man and an assumption from two different perspectives, if that's possible. In any case, it makes me think of how a majority of poets don't fit that paradigm one way or another.

Many poets go on to other areas of academia or graduate-studies first. G. C. Waldrep had a PhD in history before he got an MFA, for example. Seth Abramson had a law degree and was a practicing attorney prior to going back for his MFA.

Many, many poets, especially with the advent of the low-res MFA program, are going back to school later as nontraditional students, whether established as writers or not. A. Van Jordan and Victoria Chang are just two low-res MFA examples I found with a quick search (and I believe Jordan had an MA degree in communications already prior to that as well). My basketball buddy and River Styx editor Richard Newman was well established as both writer and editor before he went back to a low-res program.

Full-time parenthood is another break in the "typical" pattern for a huge number of poets. Reb Livingston, for example, isn't teaching but is definitely parenting and writing and editing. Reb also spent time in the corporate world.

Many poets don't have that level of formal degree at all. However, I doubt many people would claim that it's hurting, say, Cornelius Eady's writing ability. Tricia is clearly doing pretty well for herself too, and I can't complain that much about my lack of MFA.

And many, many, many poets don't end up working as teachers (or at least not making full-time money as professors and supplementing it). This includes poets who end up going into teaching, like Bob Hicok from his auto manufacturing industry work, and those who continue in the non-teaching vein, like C. Dale or Peter Pereira or the many other doctor-poets. Many more work in writing in some other capacity, from me with resumes to my buddy Aaron Anstett, who works as a tech writer, or Brent Goodman working with advertising copy.

Even given the MFA/professor cycle, there is no usual way to being a poet, except the writing part, which fortunately still enters the equation for everyone to some extent.

Call for Submissions

2010-03-23T15:13:00.002-05:00

I'm proud to have played a major role in naming The Shit Creek Review, and now I'm passing along this call for submissions, the theme of their 12th issue: "A Fetish for Good Poetry"

Think about sending something, won't you?

Anti- Featured Poet #40

2010-03-21T13:37:00.002-05:00

Anti-'s latest featured poet is Marcus Wicker. One of the poems includes the best poetic use of "motherfucking" I've seen in some time.

The cover photo this time around is by Justin Evans.

Also, congratulations to our assistant editor Brent Goodman, whose book The Brother Swimming Beneath Me is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and for the Thom Gunn Award from Publishers Triangle.

Best New Blog

2010-03-19T16:02:00.003-05:00

That there is rapidly becoming one of my favorite po-blogs. That post about poetry readings was on fucking point. Also, Karyna McGlynn does rock.

Index

2010-03-17T21:30:00.001-05:00

As with my last book, I'm messing around with an index for this manuscript. The concept is a little different this time, though. Here's where it stands right now (it will definitely expand).

Transgressions

debt 4, 5, 20, 23, 37, 43
doublespeak 3, 5, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 21, 23, 34, 35, 37, 38, 44, 46, 52
drinking and drug abuse 3, 6, 10, 13, 17, 20, 21, 24, 33, 35, 38, 40, 41, 47, 49, 51
exploitation 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 18, 23, 24, 28, 41, 42, 46, 49
gambling 4, 13, 23, 31, 40, 49
insults 8, 21, 22, 25, 28, 29, 38, 39, 48, 50
lies 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 14, 16, 20, 23, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 36, 37, 39, 40, 44, 45, 47
paranoia 11, 14, 15, 19, 21, 22, 26, 32, 38, 42, 43
profanity 3, 8, 15, 16, 25, 26, 35, 36, 38, 40, 48
theft 3, 4, 5, 7, 12, 13, 14, 20, 22, 24, 28, 29, 33, 37, 43, 49, 51
violence 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 25, 28, 29, 31, 36, 51, 52

Clearly needs more gambling and unpaid debt. Exploitation is a bit of a catch-all I may need to fix. Soon to be added, I think: cheating, threats, and possibly consumer fraud.

Topo Draft

2010-03-15T22:49:00.002-05:00

The title of this one is stolen from "Hold On" by Tom Waits. Nice to have a draft come rushing out for once, and this feels closer to ready than the last one.

NCAA Tournament Pool

2010-03-14T17:37:00.002-05:00

That's right, it's time for another Sturgeon's Law tradition, the NCAA Tournament Pool. Just follow the instructions below!

--

Steve would like you to join their group in Yahoo! Sports Tournament Pick'em!

To accept the invitation, just follow this link. For reference, here's the group information.

Group ID#: 68223

-- Tournament Pick'em Commissioner
http://tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1

Fresh Draft

2010-03-12T18:44:00.000-06:00

God, only one more poem to go. I stole the title of this one from Tecumseh. The "Buy two ... holy alveoli" sequence is still making me smile, so I'll take that as a good sign.

Progress

2010-03-10T22:59:00.001-06:00

I'm working on a new poem draft that I hope will be done within the next couple of days. That poem will represent #48 in manuscript #2, meaning it meets the minimum length requirement for most full-length poetry book submissions. The manuscript won't be done by any means, and I won't send it out at least until fall, but this will be an important preliminary step. It's also the next-to-last poem I want to finish before my major spring submission, which I should have done before AWP. After that, I think I am going to need a break from poetry for at least a full month.

Anti- Feature #39

2010-03-07T00:11:00.004-06:00

Anti-'s Feature #39 is a collaborative effort from John Cotter and Shafer Hall. This is the first collaborative feature we've had (though we've published collaboratives in our issues), so we're glad to break that barrier. We hope the next feature milestone will be translations. In the meantime, definitely read this!

Word Clouds

2010-03-03T14:31:00.001-06:00

I did a couple word clouds of where my manuscript stands right now. Quite a diverse bunch of oddness, so that suits me. Most of the commonly repeated words (thirteen and something, for example), are based almost entirely on repetition in a single poem.

created at TagCrowd.com