"Dinner at Henri" hits the airwaves in McFadden podcast

My old friend Nate McFadden recorded the poem, “Dinner at Henri's”, from News from the Front (my latest chapbook, published by the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, here) for his podcast. He performs a smashing reading, nailing the tone. The poem, inspired by the French Resistance, and a life long love of radio, is one of my personal favs; it reads well with audiences, more than others. It's nice to hear someone besides me read it, like most of you I do not like the way I sound to others.

Actively, I try to squeeze some kind of poem, or poetic work out every day. It keeps me sane, healthy, and engaged with language. During the busy school year I can least give myself a twenty minute period of time when I can be in my own voice, so to speak, and work my talent. I'm documenting the quotidian over at Figment and Wattpad, two social media sites that deal with writing. Granted, most of the work on the site is written solely so the author can post a cool, hip cover, but both sites are packed full of creative types that wish to share, create, & craft the written word (think deviant art for writers—Figment geared towards YA lit, Wattpad towards an older crowd).

One of the biggest reasons I have chosen these mediums is so that I can see patterns, cycles, or themes emerge in a public space. I am very fond of the revision process and find the writing process interesting. I am not sure if I can offer anything new by making the process visible, but who knows. Furthermore I can help anyone who wants it along the way (like FB or Twitter, you can follow writers and share comments or critiques) and give back what I learned over the years.

W/r/t fiction: new draft in the works of Castaways, and look for a short story collection ( I hope ) via e-book this fall.

Happy trails.

Henri.mp3 Listen on Posterous

Summer Poetry Reading in Rehoboth

If anyone's interested in a mid-summer run to Rehoboth's outlet malls, consider Tuesday, July 27th, and stop by the Rehoboth Beach Librar y for the summer poetry series. Besides moi, Denise Clemmons, poet and food critic for the Cape Gazette, and Sherry Chapplle, poet and professor. Excellent company. Books will be for sale afterwards. It's a quality series, and full of surprises. Garry Hanna has done a bang-up job organizing the summer series. Bring a few quarters to ward off the meter maid. Reading starts at 7:00 PM.

Out this week: Thirty Days: Best of the 30/30 Project. Featuring my poem "Love in Reverse"

Marie Gauthier of Tupelo Press selected one of my poems, "Love in Reverse" for Thirty Days : The best of the 30/30 Project Year One. It's one of a few anthologies to feature my work (cue haughty accent, spotlight, espresso, and French cigarettes). Hopefully you'll be hearing more from me over the next few months as projects near completion. Thanks for the support.

Vittorio Carli's work is punk rock #poetry

A Passion for Apathy: The Collected and Rejected Poems of Vittorio Carl i, a small press gem of punk rock poetry, carries poetic traditions in its teeth. Punk rock because of the in-your-face-anti-establishment irony and earnestness in Carli's presentation of his verse, traditional in the homage and muse tradition of poetry. He writes to and for those and that which enlarges his voice. Carli's work reads like a cross between cultural commentary/homage to persons as varied as Lawrence Welk to Woody Allen, to snapshots of socio-political unrest, which are flags of protest. My favorite is the “The Trouble with Librarians (for Andrea)” where Librarians are cast as the progenitors of closed information; they are “all closed books/with a couple of pages missing.” He's a poet, and I imagine him in some stacked room typing madly, or in transit, to and fro Chicago, scribbling on the back of brown paper bags. He works it. He's out there living poetry. Proof. My copy of t...

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