Q 90.1 Pleadge Drive

Tomorrow, Thursday 4/14, I'll be on air during Tell Me More from 11 am-12 pm helping out with Q 90.1's spring plegde drive. Please consider calling in your pledge of support then. 1-877-472-7677.

Diary of When Being With Friends Feels Like Watching TV

At the Slash Pine Writers Fest, I got to hear Amber Nelson read some from her new Slash Pine chapbook, Diary of When Being With Friends Feels Like Watching TV, and could tell instantly that this was something I'd be interested in. The chapbook opens with an epigraph from Ammons's Garbage, and Ammons, who was so good at recording the daily, makes sense here. The poem reads like a diary (duh)--full of people, daily concerns, a life--and is concerned with isolation in the modern age and the things that one does to pass the time in attempt to not feel so lonely. It references tv stations, shows, and characters, and takes on the role of television in people's lives:

[...] Tonight I will watch tv with my friends.
We'll cheer on one or another tv personality as
they attempt to bend their bodies into art. We won't talk
about art or poems or our own, distinct lonelinesses.
All of us will feel closer to at least one tv personality
than we do to each other. Our wingspans not actual
but luminescent.

The poem mentions True Blood, R. Kelly, Tofutti Cuties, PBR, and a lot more detritus of contemporary American life--a life that is temporary and aware of its own fleeting existence: "The room / is temporary & I am temporary & we are made of switches." The language throughout is creative and descriptive, as someone "appliances," and the narrator "right justif[ies]" to her tiny window on an airplane. There is a sadness to this collection, but also humor, and most-importantly a self-awareness, one that is willing to acknowledge that growing an herb garden will not save the world. However, things don't have to exist on such extremes. We may not be able to save the world, but we just might be able to live in it for awhile. You can pick up a copy and check it out for yourself here. Plus, it is a really cool, well-designed object--it uses magnets!

The Bearinger Boys at Bonnaroo?

My friends in the Bearinger Boys, a Saginaw-based band, are in a contest right now for a chance to play at this year's Bonnaroo. They are currently in the top 40 and need to be in the top 8. If you have a moment, please consider voting for them here by downloading a song of theirs. Please note, it appears you need a facebook account to participate. Vote here.

New Book Review

While I was away at the Slash Pine Writers Fest at the University of Alabama, new reviews went up at NewPages, including my review of Matthew Salesses's Our Island of Epidemics. Check it out, plus all the other reviews from the April 1st update, here.