National Poetry Month at Delta College

In celebration of National Poetry Month, Delta's Visiting Writers series will be hosting the following presentation this year:

4/1: Slam Poetry, Introduction and Presentation

4/8: Featured poets Larry Levy & Skip Renker

4/15:  Featured poets JodiAnn Stevenson & Jeff Vande Zande

4/22:  Earth Day Open Mic (in collaboration with the Earth Day Committee)

4/29:  Featured poets Chey Davis & Gina Myers

All events are free and in addition to free poetry, there will also be free pizza.  A colleague, Denise Hill, (and the journal editor at NewPages.com) says she has yet to hear of students turning down free poetry.

All events take place from 12:00 - 1:00 in N-08, off the commons on Delta's main campus.

H_NGM_N

I am the new Reviews Editor at H_NGM_N, starting with issue #9.  As someone who occasionally misses review deadlines for other publications, I now get to see the other end of things.  But seriously, I am very excited to be a part of the H_NGM_N crew, and I am happy that Nate thought of me for this position.  H_NGM_N is one of my favorite online poetry journals, and I look forward to seeing its return with issue eight (coming soon), and then getting involved with issue nine in the fall.

I'm reading twice this week

This week I will be reading poetry at two different events. First up is the First Thursday Bay City Art Walk. As part of the four year anniversary celebration, a number of the galleries will have poets reading. I'll be at the Golden Gallery on Third Street in downtown Bay City. The monthly art walk takes place from 5 to 8 pm.

Then on Friday I will be reading with Storm Ainsely and Adrienne Lewis at the Magic Bean in Saginaw. As part of the First Friday event, there will also be new art work by Kevin Kucken and Amanda French and music by Traeder and Paradox Theory.

Shamadere Gallery in Review Magazine

The new issue of Review is out today and in it you can find an article I wrote on Bay City's Shamadere Gallery.  The Review website has yet to be updated, but if you are in the tri-cities you can pick a free copy up at a number of locations.

Saginaw in the NY Times

Last week I heard on the radio plans for Saginaw's Habitat for Humanity to deconstruct homes in Saginaw instead of building them.  (Last summer they focused on renovating older homes instead of building new ones.) Today the NY Times ran a story on this complete with a photo slideshow.  Back in October, I had done some urban spelunking into abandoned properties and took a series of photos too, but the set is currently unavailable since I let my flickr pro account lapse.  (Once I have extra cash, I'll set this up again and link here.)  Anyhow, at that time I had heard there are almost 3,000 abandoned and empty homes in Saginaw.  The NY Times article is reporting over 800, though their source is most likely more reliable than mine.  Maybe.  

But what was most  shocking for me to see was the population of Saginaw listed at 56,000, a size more than half of what it once was.  The dwindling population of Saginaw has always been difficult for me to deal with.  Throughout my life people ask how big the city is, and I think I began by saying there were about 80,000 people here, and it just kept going down from there.  In the comments stream of a Saginaw News article not too long ago, I remember reading people saying that they wouldn't be surprised if the next census has the population dropping below 50,000.  

One of the major issues connected to the decrease in population is the public school system, and much like Detroit, our answer has been to close schools.  We have three schools that will be closing their doors for good at the end of this school year.  Vice ran a photo series on abandoned Detroit school buildings that are still full of books, supplies, and computers.  You can see the series here.  It makes me wonder what will happen to the supplies in the schools Saginaw is closing (and they schools they have closed over recent years).  But more than that, it makes me wonder what will happen to the students. 

(I keep most of my Saginaw-related stuff over on my Saginaw Blog, but I have been thinking more and more about ditching this blog for that one, so there may be some cross-posts in the meantime.)

Review of Claire Becker's Untoward

Xantippe, a wonderful journal edited by Kristen Hanlon, has moved online.  In the newly re-vamped journal there is a review of Claire Becker's Lame House chapbook Untoward.  Unfortunately Untoward has sold out, but hopefully will be made available again one day (depending on my time and ambition and living situation in the coming months).  Check the review out here and be sure to check out all the other reviews too!

Post-Cleveland

I returned from Cleveland last night, enriched, newly inked, well-fed, and excited about the work to be done.  I did not, however, return well-rested.  

I arrived Tuesday afternoon and stopped into 252 Tattoo in Columbia Station where my friend Josh/OB works.  We go way back to the Old Town days, (think pit versus lot, for those in on the know), and I had not seen him in probably eight years.  We got caught up while I got a new tattoo, and we made tentative plans to get my older pieces by him (my first four tattoos) touched up/fixed at a later date.

After that I met up with Tom Orange who was my wonderful host.  We headed into Cleveland for Taco Tuesday and two dollar bottled Mexican beer, and from there we went to the Language Foundry where I met a lot of wonderful people over my two days there: Joseph Makkos, Jose, Tim, Susan, Carmen, Rob from Saginaw, Jay, and many others.  Hanging out at the Foundry was all about conversation, music, poetry, book-making, and soup-making.  I didn't get out of there until after 2am either night, and since I have been waking up at 5am lately, that made for a couple of very late nights for me!

On Wednesday, the Frank's Bruised Mandarin tour came and read at the Foundry.  There is still one date left in the tour--I believe they will be in Pittsburgh tomorrow.  If you're in Pittsburgh, find out what's going on and check it out.  It was a wonderful reading celebrating three new books, CAConrad's The Book of Frank, Magdelena Zurawski's The Bruise, and Aaron Kunin's The Mandarin, hence the tour name.  There was also a visual/noise performance piece by J.S. Makkos.  It was a really wonderful reading and I am looking forward to reading The Book of Frank and The Bruise (I already read and enjoyed The Mandarin).  Magdelena's and Aaron's books are books of fiction by poets, and if you enjoy sentences as much as I do, I think you will find them both delightful.  The Book of Frank has been long in the making, and you may have previously seen some of the poems around, perhaps in the chapbook from ypolita which I previously wrote about here. CAConrad read from a number of projects, including poems from his forthcoming book Advanced Elvis Course which will be published by Soft Skull later this year.

It was nice hanging out talking to everyone pre- and post-reading.  In addition to all the folks mentioned previously, Michael Dumanis and Kazim Ali were also there.  

Other Cleveland spots I hit up: the famous Westside Market for breakfast and produce and Visible Voice Books, a nice indie bookshop in the Tremont neighborhood where I picked up a d.a. levy chapbook, suburban monastery death poem, and the Ted Berrigan Annotated Checklist from Granary.  

I really enjoyed Cleveland and look forward to returning in May (most likely).  Thanks to Tom and everyone at the Foundry for being most wonderful hosts and friends.  

My Friends are Awesome

Joe Massey's first full-length collection of poetry, Areas of Fog, is now available from Shearsman Books.  You can order it just about everywhere, but I recommend getting it through SPD.

Also, Ami Plasse of Ami Underground was interviewed by Urban Sketchers.  Check it out here.

Where is my mind?

My life feels somewhat normal, but not really.  I am almost there.  I received a message this weekend that said, "Your blog is in shambles.  I have no idea what's going on in your life."

Life has been a lot of work lately, and also some travel (Chicago, Florida, Cleveland) that has interfered with work and writing and all that.  I still imagine that day in the near-future where I have more free time and I use that time to catch up on all I need to catch up on.  As Barbara Ehrenreich says, Those who are busy will never be successful.  It looks like I will never be successful.

The Vagina Monologues and V-Week activities at Delta College are proving to be surprisingly controversial.  It really baffles me.  Protestors?  I mean, who protests ending violence against women?  Anyhow, there are two performances of the play tomorrow at 11am and 7pm.

My recent review of Sandra Simonds's Warsaw Bikini is up in the March issue of BookSlut.  You can read it here.

I spent a good part of class this morning discussing Sam Pink's poem "I Am Going to Jump Kick Your Face and Then Kiss It" from the current issue of Coconut.  I think I have an interesting set of response papers waiting for me.

On May 20th, I will be homeless unless I find somewhere to live before then.  There are a couple of complications (like which state do I look in?) that are holding me back from looking for anything now, though it is a little early anyhow.  Realistically, regardless of where I am living in September, I need to be in the Tri-Cities through August to teach my summer classes.

I've now had to return my new bathing suit top twice: the first time they sent the wrong size, the second time it was the wrong pattern.

Random realization:  I have not been to a doctor since 2006.  The last time I saw an optometrist was 2003.  I am pretty sure I need glasses.