Sunday, May 29, 2011

Memorial Marvels

Had a great weekend camping the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River. Hot dogs were impaled on pocketknife-whittled sticks. The dog splashed through eddies. Timed group-photographs were taken. What a place, this is. I'm thankful, all over again, to live in the Northwest.

I brought with me my contributor's copy of the latest issue of New England Review and am floored to be in such excellent company. Check out Traci Brimhall's "Somniloquy" from the new issue. Huge thanks to C. Dale Young for including some of my poems, and to the whole NER staff for putting together such a wonderful magazine. Go get you some.

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-Steve Almond, over at The Rumpus

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-via NYT

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Just started Bloom's latest and have been enjoying it. I'm not sure there's a more cogent or eloquent writer when it comes to discussing the ways in which poems move and how the reader must move with them.

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-Letter from Tom Lutz, Chair of Creative Writing at UCR, on the impending dilemmas of the Academy...

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via NPR

The images of the tornadoes in the midwest are devastating. Joplin is my grandmother's birthplace, was my great-grandparents' home.


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Killer first line of the moment:

"O Tommy Hearns, o blood come down."

from "Prayer in the Name of Saint Thomas Hearns" by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
(Apocalyptic Swing, Persea Books, 2009)


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Aloe Blacc - Loving You Is Killing Me from Stones Throw on Vimeo.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Mondays for Beauty

More music, more sunlight--the city is ravenous for Summer. Bring on the mountain ranges, the barefoot runs, the afternoons at Gasworks, the hot dogs with cream cheese.


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Killer first line of the moment:

"We didn't come Mondays for beauty,"

from "Open Mic" by Kurt S. Olsson
(What Kills What Kills Us, Silverfish Review Press, 2007)

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-Noam Chomsky responds to the death of Osama bin Laden, over at Guernica


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Hippy jam-fest dance yawp.


Sunday, May 1, 2011

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner!


So, thanks to this random number generator, we have winners! I decided to give away 3 copies of my book, After the Ark, instead of 1, because you can never have too much poetry, and I hate seeing them sit on the bookshelf. I'm also giving away a copy of Seamus Heaney's superb collection District and Circle. So, without further pomp and circumstance...

1
33
12
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Michelle Penaloza wins a copy of District and Circle by Seamus Heaney!
Tess Duncan, Mary Virginia, and Valerie win copies of After the Ark.

I'll be emailing y'all to get your addresses. Thanks to everyone for entering, and to Kelli Russell Agodon for setting this whole excellent celebration up. Poetry, what.