Me Too

Something is in the air.

Monday was the first time I've been pulled over since my "I'm pregnant and late for Dan Nester's reading" ticket of 2005. And guess what, I was late for the Burlesque reading and had Betsy Wheeler in the car -- but I wasn't speeding (this time). See, I was so wrapped up in our conversation, I missed my exit and accidently got onto 66. Within seconds there was a cop with sirens. I thought he was just trying to get around me, but no he was pulling me over -- and he scared the shit out of both of us, I thought for sure he was going to pump us both full of lead and kept my hands on the top of the steering wheel so he'd have no just cause. He slinked up behind the car, with one hand on his fun stick and the other tapping my car and I can't even accurately describe how he was behaving other than he thought we just robbed a bank. Either this officier just got out of the academy a few hours before or we matched a description.

My tags were expired, but were paid, just lost (Last year Chris said he'd put them on my car, never did and then they vanished). And of course my most recent registration in the car was from 2003. I'm sure Tender Buttons is mentally preparing her legal chiding as she reads this. Look little sis, as long as it's legal for poets to drive these things will continue.

Long story short, the cop didn't shoot us, I didn't get a ticket and he lightened up after he realized we weren't crimminals.

And I didn't even have to pull out my "I'm late for a poetry reading" excuse.

Next time.

Jeannine Hall Gailey Writes About Wanton Textiles

"This collaboration between two poets has the immediacy of reading someone else's heated e-mail exchanges, but with a heightened imagination and lyricism you would generally not expect in an e-mail. The two poets playfully employ sensual imagery and undercut this with unexpected comedy."

Kate Greenstreet Taunts Me With Her UGGs

If you missed last night's Burlesque, you're probably weeping right now. What a show!

Where I'll be Tonight

Hanging out with Betsy Wheeler, Kate Greenstreet and Anne Gorrick, of course!

It's the first Burlesque Poetry Hour of 2007.

This Week at No Tell

Sara Couden weeping against the hot red seed this week at No Tell Motel.

"I was humping a corduroy sofa!"

I think I'm looking forward to this book.

Back

Regular blogging will resume shortly.

But first, e-mail.

New Coconut!

Coconut Seven, just as flaky as ever, is now live on the web. Check out exciting new poems by Lisa Jarnot, Keith Waldrop, Brigitte Byrd, Natasha Trethewey, Christine Hume, Brian Henry, Cynthia Arrieu-King, Loretta Clodfelter, Jennifer L Knox, Marie Buck, Laurie Soslow, Eva Jane Peck, Will Gallien, Rodney Koeneke, Laine Cathryn, Jennifer Bartlett, Thomas Fink, Tao Lin, Shane Allison, Chad Sweeney, Del Ray Cross, Anne Gorrick, and Lauren Levin. www.coconutpoetry.org

MiPO Reading -- PF Potvin

MiPOesias @ Stain Bar
Friday, January 26, 2007
7 P.M.
Presents

~~~ DAN HOY ~~~ PF POTVIN ~~~ ERICA FABRI ~~~

¡¡Light Up the Single Digit Temps Tonight!!
______________

Dan Hoy lives in Brooklyn and is co-editor of SOFT TARGETS. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Absent, Cannibal, H_NGM_N, Effing, Dreams That Money Can Buy, and elsewhere. Videos and movie criticism are available on his website, www.sinlechuga.com.


PF POTVIN is the author of The Attention Lesson (No Tell Books). His work has appeared in MiPOesias, Sleepingfish, Boston Review, Black Warrior Review, Sentence, No Tell Motel, and elsewhere. He has taught at various language schools and colleges in the U.S. and Chile . He serves on the staff of Drunken Boat, runs ultramarathons, and currently resides in Miami , FL.


Erica Miriam Fabri is a poet and educator. She is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and received her MFA in poetry from the New School . She is the author of High Heel Magazine, winner of the 2006 Belle Letter Press chapbook contest. She has work published or forthcoming in Good Foot Magazine and Got Poetry? An Offline Anthology. She currently teaches creative writing at The School of Visual Arts, Baruch College and Lehman College . www.ericafabri.com

______________

Hoy – http://www.mipoesias.com/Poetry/hoy_dan.html

Potvin – http://www.mipoesias.com/2007/potvin_pf.htm

Fabri – http://www.mipoesias.com/Poetry/fabri_erica.html

_______________

STAIN BAR
766 Grand Street Brooklyn , NY 11211
(L train to Grand Street stop, walk one block west) -- 718/387-7840 -- daily 5 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

Things to Check Out

PF Potvin's interview at Every Other Day

and

Another interview with Bruce Covey.



(I have limited Internet access these next few days -- will be making few posts, and it'll take me a while to respond to e-mail)

News Flash: Poetry Blogs Are Written By Petty Little Bitches

Drunk Bunnies, The New Sincerity, Flarf: How Blogs are Transforming Poetry By Katy Henriksen

From this perspective, I'm the Yoko of the NS. I guess that's better than being the NS K-Fed.

First Burlesque of 2007!

Next week at Burlesque Poetry Hour:

Kate Greenstreet, Betsy Wheeler and Anne Gorrick

This Week at No Tell

Jim Goar waits as always awaits this week at No Tell Motel.

PF Potvin on MiPOradio. (audio takes awhile to load)

Aaron Belz is up there too.

poof

Some of my recent e-mail got deleted and is unrecoverable. If you're waiting on a response and haven't heard back, try sending it again. I'm working off swiss cheese mommy memory.

The Difficult Decisions of the Mommy Blogger

I've been debating whether or not to post this photograph for fear it may expose a dangerous part of my son's psyche to the entire world. Notice the Teletubbies up against the wall like they're on an episode of COPS? We don't allow Gideon to watch COPS. He used to throw his teletubbies in the laundry basket, but now we're finding them like this every morning -- always face against the wall. Somebody asked if maybe he was re-enacting a time-out. We haven't started time-outs yet, he's too young.

I know I need to have a conversation regarding this -- I just don't know exactly what the conversation needs to be.

Until very recently I was often the last minute prom date, the months before people would try to get who they really wanted and then a week before the big dance when their intendeds cancelled or told them no for the last time, they'd ask me. And of course I'd say yes because I really wanted to go, thrilled not spend another Saturday night with my parents at the Olive Garden.

But the new pimple cream must be working because I'm being offered opportunities to participate in AWP events over a month before the conference. I'll be part of a reading on Weds night with a to-die-for-line-up and today No Tell Books was invited to co-host a reading event with three other groovy presses on Saturday. I'll post the details when everything is ironed out.

And the best part is, I won't be spending hours in Costco debating cheese and wine selections -- these folks already did most of the planning. All I have to do is find the right shoes.

Or maybe just a vacation for MiPO

Sorry if I was a rumor-monger yesterday!

The Dirty Unseemly Work: Shit & Ass

This post isn't directed at any specific person or group. Not one sentence, not one word. If you recognize yourself, relax, I'm not calling you a hoity toity fuckhole. No, no, no -- I'm discussing hoity toity fuckhole behaviors/attitudes I've encountered/observed among a number of folks. Maybe this is a behavior/attitude you exhibit? I don't know, but don't worry I'm not calling you out to rumble-- unless you're Ken Rumble (hey, send an e-mail, big guy!). If you recognize someone else here, there's no need to run over and yell "she's saying mean things about you!" Instead try soaking your ass in a bucket of ice -- maybe the cold will shrink whatever is lodged deep in that angry abyss -- maybe it'll provide temporary relief. If you happen to have something painful lodged in your ass, don't take this as directed at you -- there's no way I'd know anything about the insides of your ass. I only have knowledge of the inner workings of a limited number of asses and those who fall into that category have been contacted and informed that this post is not referring to anything discovered during my time in their asses.

Jesus, this is like putting a warning label on a plastic bag.

I've mentioned that I consider the relationship between a press and a poet to be a lot like a marriage and you don't have to watch Dr. Phil to know both parties have to work at it. It's not 50/50, it's 100/100. One side can't do it all -- not on poetry wages. A lot of that work is what's considered drudgery -- hardly glamorous.

To continue the comparison to the domestic (something I find quite useful, important and in need of a bit more celebrating) -- anyone who decides to have children isn't motivated because she wants to clean diapers, vomit, lose sleep, spend money, have her home turned into a toy farm, or endure a bunch of nasty glares on an airplane because her kid is screaming. She's motivated for other reasons, but unless she's very wealthy or perhaps has a harem of husbands (lucky bitch!), a considerable amount of time is going to be spent dealing with shit. Actual, literal shit.

I don't know anyone who can participate successfully in parenting without dealing with shit.

If someone said she loved her baby's shit, I'd think she was nuts. I've had a friend say that to me and I believe she's nuts. (Mentioned friend is not a poet and does not read this blog and I'm quite sure you don't know her, so yes, here I'm doing what I said I wasn't by referring to someone specifically -- but everyone knows there's always an exception, here's mine.)

But on the flip side, if someone said she couldn't be bothered with her neglected child's fermenting diaper, that being a mother to her was about playtime, bedtime stories and giving long enjoyable lectures on moral fortitude and character ideals in literature -- well, you'd say "that's fucked up -- your baby NEEDS you."

Yes, your baby needs you -- and baby's daddy is at the store, or maybe he's a total prick and "went out for cigarettes" and yeah, you should hunt that fucker down and bring him back to Jesus, scrawl his name and cell on every bathroom stall, but ahem, about the baby . . .

You want people to know about your book? Want it to be reviewed? Want it in bookstores? Want people to buy it? Want people to read it?

Ok, well, time to wipe ass. If you're fortunate enough to have an involved, supportive baby daddy -- super, work together -- it'll be a lot easier. But you're still gonna catch a whiff, whew lots of wretched whiffs.

And yes, there are successful people with babies who don't touch shit. They're called millionaires and they *pay* people to do their publicity and handle adminstrative tasks. Do you take your car to Jiffy Lube expecting they'll change your oil free of charge, just because they're so much better at it than you and ew, you just had your manicure? And if you don't have the $40, do you not change the oil yourself and instead drive your car around until the engine corrodes?

Some people do.

~*~Womb Poetry Vol.1 : Hives & Covens~*~

dedicated in memory to kari edwards

* t h r u m *

: kari edwards : Eileen Tabios : Barbara Jane Reyes : Elizabeth Treadwell : Ann Bogle : : Alison Cimino :Susan B.A. Somers-Willett : Amy King : Kristy Bowen : Julie Choffel : : J.B. Rowell : Ebony Golden : Jenna Cardinale : Juliet Cook : Susan Morrison-Kilfoyle : : Holaday Mason : Toti O'Brien : Jessica Schneider : Karen McBurney : Sunnylyn Thibodeaux : : Sarah Mangold : Meagan Evans : Jennifer Bartlett : Marcia Arrieta : Michele Miller : : Priscilla Atkins : Anne Elezebeth Pluto : Marie Buck : Michalle Gould : Anne Heide : : Susan Meyers : Melissa Eleftherion : Susan Settlemyre Williams : J. Elizabeth Clark :

* s p a r k l e *

: Danielle Pafunda : Kathryn Miller : Julia Drescher : k. lorraine graham : Karen McBurney : : Michelle Caplan : Marcia Arrieta : Ashley Smith : Annette Sugden : Christine Bruness :

* c h i m e *

: a chapbook by Julia Drescher :

This Week at No Tell

Fritz Ward hasn't forgotten your mouth this week at No Tell Motel.

Say It Isn't So Didi!

Didn't want this from Didi to get lost in the comment field:


"I am looking for someone to edit a cuban-american issue of mipo in 2008 and I have not found anyone -- mind you that I am not necessarily looking for a cuban-american - I am just trying to find the best guest editor EVER...anyway what I am thinking is that once I find this person, and the issue is published, I am retiring MiPo. Yes you heard it here first."

----------

Of course, that would be the way to retire -- on top and with a bang -- or maybe that's the way to die . . .

Expectations/Grudges

I'm a poet too and send work to out to magazines on a regular basis. As I mentioned a few days ago, as an editor I try to avoid working with difficult/abusive poets. As a poet I try to avoid working with irresponsible/inconsiderate editors. I like courtesy all around.

When I send work I expect it to be read, considered and responded to in a timely fashion. Timely depends on the publication, of course, and I expect the publication to give a general idea how long I should expect. If a publication states a 6-24 month response time, I've been forewarned. If I have a problem with the magazine or editor, I don't submit there. If a publication is unable to keep up with submissions, I expect them to stop accepting them until they catch up. If my work isn't wanted, I expect to be informed. "No thank you" is brief and perhaps a little cold, but it's sufficient and meets my requirement. If my work is used, I expect to be notified beforehand and really appreciate a galley/proof. I've had work scheduled to appear in publications that didn't appear, typos in poems that weren't mine and published as "Rob Livingston." It's a bummer when that happens and when it does, I expect an "Oops, sorry about that" and if it's possible, corrected. When the work comes out I expect a copy or link/announcement so I know.

As an editor I've made all the above mistakes. In most cases, they were discovered during the galley process and easily fixed online. In one case, in the first Bedside Guide, I somehow managed to omit 2 poems despite a lot of proofing and care. There was great deal of effort to be perfect, but clearly it wasn't enough. In comparision, as disappointing it was to have a mistake made by someone else regarding my work, it didn't sting nearly as much as when it was my mistake on someone else's work. The two missing poems will appear in the next Bedside Guide and I've made adjustments to my organization process so hopefully it won't happen again.

I also expect my work to be published in a timely fashion. If an editor says June and it doens't come out until September, that's NOTHING. That's par for the poetry publishing course. I always expect a delay -- unless it's Didi of MiPO -- then I expect it to come out a week early cause Didi is uber-punctual like that.

Of course, if an editor holds my work for 18 months before I hear back and a year later when I inquire to when it'll see the light of day I'm informed it'll be at least an additional year, who knows maybe a lot longer. I'm pulling my work. No hard feelings, but that's not acceptable to me. Especially not for an online pub.

As an editor I don't expect (or want) a fruit basket or a love letter from anyone whose work I publish and as a poet I don't expect a statue built in honor of my poems. I expect the usual courtesy that most editors and poets I come into contact exhibit. Yes, that's right -- most poets and editors I deal with meet my expectations -- a few surpass them. It's not the honest mistakes or goofs that stand out, that I remember years later. I'm not grinding an ax for the guy who responded to an acceptance letter with "Oh no, that poem was accepted elsewhere two days ago and I was meaning to write you." My axe grinds for the guy who responded to a personalized rejection with "To be honest, I was sort of hoping for a rejection. With the exception of _____ and a couple of other poets, I don't much like the poems there. If direct and tight means superficial and poseurish, I guess I won't be writing anything like that."

This Year's Perty Cover

Designed by Sonya Naumann

Procrastination from Packing

inspires Shanna to write about Elapsing Speedway Organism.

Because I Can and You Don't Know

See now, I had no idea Lester kept a blog.

1. Initially had no intention of participating in this meme because I already answered similiar ones here, here and here, but after reading a number of blog posts expressing scorn for this meme, I'm quite pleased to be tagged. Nothing is more annoying than someone bitching on his blog about what someone else is doing on his blog. If you don't want to know what someone ate for breakfast, go peruse the latest issue of Very Intellectual Poetry Criticism until you absorb your daily brilliance requirement. And why does anyone feel the need to announce on his blog that he's not going to write about what he had for breakfast or how she won't be posting any kitty cat pictures? Why establish jackassery from the get-go? Nobody's gonna show up and be all Yo, where are the mother fucking omelet jpegs? You don't need a sign. Take it easy, relax. After one short week of posting well-thought and considered ideas, your serious poetry blogger credentials will be firmly established and not a soul will dare confuse you with the wretched mommy-blogger scourge. In 7 months you'll be eligible for the Serious Poetry Blogger Hall of Fame.

2. I am aware of the irony in stating on my blog that "nothing is more annoying than someone bitching on his blog about what someone else is doing his blog."

3. This blog will not discuss "reb bumps on the penis" or "red bumps on the penis" or any sort of "bumps on the penis." EVER.

4. This morning I ate my usual breakfast, a bowl of SmartStart with 2% milk.

5. For dinner this evening I ate a bean burrito with green chile. I am married to a man named Chris and he ordered the carne avodada. 23 months ago I gave birth to a son who we named Gideon. For dinner, Gideon refused his cheese quesadilla opting instead for a flour tortilla and single corn chip dipped in salsa.

p.s. Go tag yourself!

Thanks for Taking My Crap!

It's no secret that most poetry publications receive a shit ton of submissions. If you somehow didn't know this, please take my word. I get more submissions in a few weeks than I could use for an entire year. Yeah, some of the submissions range from terrible to pretty weak, but a lot range from pretty good to pretty darn good and a small percentage are downright awesome.

Sometimes when Molly and I turn down work we get a nasty response or find a blog post regarding our dip-shit assholey taste and how we wouldn't know a great poem if one squatted on our chubby gruesome faces.

Ok, fine. I don't like reading that stuff and when I come across it, I don't soon forget, but at least I understand the root of such comments. Rejections sting.

But what I don't understand is when I come across a response (often on somebody's blog, occasionally in the e-mail replying to an acceptance) where the poet exclaims she can't believe we took her crappy work or that we must be small potatoes if we picked those poems.

WTF? An editor never wants to read that. That's not being modest, that's being insulting to the editor and magazine. She just spent the day declining 20 pretty good to pretty darn good submissions, her wee little heart aching and then finds somebody who gets the rare chance (less than 5% of all submissions!) to appear in her magazine publicly scoffing it. Oy. OK, I'll chalk that up to inexperience, especially since this is a first time publication and there's the whole "youth" factor (I'm in my mid-30's and somebody's mother, I can say mother fucking kids these days!) -- but note, editors google their magazines -- think about what you're publicly posting. It will get back to them.

And that's far from the worst infraction -- the worst has to be a reviewer (professor one assumes has been around the block a few times) of a certain book who felt he had to be open about his work appearing in a certain magazine. Ok, fine, I'm all about transparency. But suggesting, no stating the possibility that the book's editor took his "crummy" work in order to garner a favorable review (that slam! she didn't get anyway) and how she put him in a quandry -- that wasn't cool. Especially considering he claimed to forget all about sending the magazine poems a mere four days before said editor followed the directions on review's website that explicitly said to e-mail him. Or how he specifically instructed the editor to send the review copy directly to him and not the general review address (giving the book a chance to be considered by the rest of the review staff) since he very much wanted to do it himself.

But hey, why stop at insulting her editorial taste for taking your work? Insinuate she's so sneaky and fake, she'll do ANYTHING for a good review. Even publish you!

Whew, that's been eating me for about ten months.

How about these brilliant suggestions:

1. Never send work you believe is "crummy"
2. If you do not follow suggestion #1, never tell the editor or publicly announce accepted work is "crummy"
3. Unless your whole point is some weird "Hah hah gotcha -- you'll publish any dreck" and in that case, don't bother sending intentionally crummy expose poems -- instead go fuck yourself.

The Asian-American Issue, Guest Edited by Nick Carbo

now up at MiPOesias.

To Whomever

got here by searching on "reb bumps on the penis" -- dude, stop spreading stories. It ain't true.

Article on PF Potvin and The Attention Lesson

can be read here.

Of course, it's a little misleading in a few ways. For starters, PF's book did indeed make the contest rounds, for years, like way too many poetry manuscripts.

Congratulations Bruce and Jen!

Bruce Covey's "Nay, Orpheus" and Jennifer L. Knox's "13 Stages of Grief" from No Tell Motel were chosen by Paul Guest to be included in the 2006 Best of the Net Anthology (Coming out January 15). They will be reprinted along with twenty other poems and showcased for the next year on the Best of the Net website.

Clearly Paul is brilliant and has great taste.

My "Practical" Reasons for Why No Tell Books Doesn't Run Books Contests

I'm not a fan of charging poets a fee to consider work for publication. But I'm not interested in attacking contests, people who runs them, enter them . . . some of my best friends run, enter, win contests. Years ago I entered over 50 and spent over $1000 on fees and probably hundreds on postage for a manuscript that never saw the light of day and I still think is pretty good although I haven't sent it out in years. Many of the poems were published in journals, reprinted in anthologies, including BAP. Some of the poems are included in Pterodactyls Soar Again. At this point I'm not interested in pursing publication for that manuscript. Most of the poems have homes, what's the point? I have a new manuscript called Your Ten Favorite Words that Coconut Books will publish this fall and I'm very happy about that.

Between the article in the lastest Poets & Writers and an unrelated discussion on a private mailing list, a few people have asked/challenged my position on book contests. If I want to make money, why shouldn't I run a contest? The market isn't selling poetry -- nobody wants to read poetry, let alone pay for it. No, the market is making money on those people who wish to be published, often those same people spend very little time reading contemporary poetry and little money purchasing it. They purchase publisher directories, how-to-get published guides and subscribe to magazines that offer articles and contest listings. I believe that's true to an extent. I receive far more submissions to No Tell Motel than I sell books. If I each submission equaled a book sale, I'd be rich, bitch.

Personally I'm not interested in making money off of the hopes of others. I'm choosing not to participate in that market. And I'm not Judith fucking Reagan. I'm not interested in publishing the next If This Didn't Suck, no matter how potentially profitable it might be. Part of that is my personal opinion of right and wrong, but another reason is purely for my own sake. I'd rather spend my time promoting work, keeping costs down and creating a viable way to break even. It's not such a outlandish goal with POD. It's still a lot of work and energy and yeah, if I accounted for the hours I put into it, at minimum wage -- I'd be in hole, big time.

But I already was spending a lot unpaid time on my own writing, No Tell Motel, raising my son, cleaning my house and numerous other priorities. Let's just say I'm used to it. I signed up for it. I'm OK with it if it's something I deem important, worth it. Controlling my time is high priority of mine. I value it above many things.

So putting aside the holier than thou publishing philosphy -- it would not be in the best interest of my press or my own personal interest to run a contest. This is specific to my (one woman) press and clearly wouldn't apply to all presses, especially university presses that have student readers or staffs do to the incredible amount of administrative work.

If No Tell Books ran a book contest, it would have to be on a budget. This would mean no paid-advertising (only announcements on mailing lists, blogs and print publications that posted such information for free). No money for a big name guest judge.

The highest I could charge per entry without raising hackles would be $20 and I'd have to offer at least $1000 and 20 author copies in addition to publication for the prize. It would also behoove the contest to send a copy of the winning book to every entrant (who includes a postage-paid envelop).

So a little known contest/press, with no recognizable judge and limited advertising offer publication and $1000 would probably garner a couple hundred entries.

$4000 -- big money for my press -- woo-hoo.

Hmm, ok, wait, no.

-$1000 for the cash prize

-$750 to create the book, short run for review copies, author copies, designer costs, postage, etc.

- $700 - $1000 for entrant complimentary copies

So that's somewhere between $1500 - $1250 -- that could pay for another full length book and chapbook. If I had any time to do 2 additional titles.

Probably not -- how much time would I have to spend on 200 entries?

Reading the manuscripts: Let's say half are obviously terrible, no way in hell I'd ever publish them. But these people paid and I have to give them some level of consideration. How much consideration is that? 5 minutes per manuscript? Ok, that's only a little over 8 hours -- just one torturous day at work.

But the other 100 manuscripts will have varying degrees of goodness and I'll have to read a significant portion if not the entire manuscript, at least once.

Then there will be 2 - 20 manuscripts that will be very good and I'll have to reread those a number of times. Last year it took me months to make a decision on just 2 or 3 manuscripts, by poets whose work I already had a significant level of familiarity.

That's months and months of my reading and consideration. A lot of time I'm not using on the books I already know I want to publish. I publish 52 poets a year at No Tell Motel -- if time/money/energy were no concept, I'd probably love to publish 1/2 to 2/3 of their manuscripts. I don't need to run a contest for my "talent search" -- No Tell Motel fills that requirement very well.

Working with poets for No Tell Motel is kind of like dating -- you get to know a little about somebody, gives you an idea if you want to work with them again. If somebody is difficult, it's only bad for a brief time and you can easily move on. But let me tell you, doing a book is like getting married. Two years minimum of regular contact and collaboration. A brilliant, talented asshole is still an asshole. There's no way of telling anything about what it would be like to work with someone from a contest.

And yeah, that's important to me.

There's also the arduous tasks of logging the manuscripts, responding the flurry of "did you make decision yet?" e-mails and letters, contacting everyone with the results and then of course having to deal with the fallout of an angry non-winner who goes around telling people it was all rigged, how his co-worker's mother told him how I bedded the winner's cousin at Yaddo years ago. Then I'll have to make a bunch of public announcements defending my decision, setting the record straight, how it was only a 2nd cousin and everybody knows 2nd cousins don't count.

That's a lot of aggravation and I could probably make more money using that time promoting the books.

At the very least I'd be saner.

Another priority of mine.

This Week at No Tell

Benjamin Miller pulls razor clams and wedding rings this week at No Tell Motel.

Lolita & Gilda

Pioneers of fun poetry readings

--or--

Out-of-control vixens destroying all that is poetry-reading-sacred

--or--

Poetry thugs?

You be the judge

Check Out the 2007 Burlesque Schedule

here.

I know I've been MIA on this blog, busy trying to wrap up a slew of never ending projects.

Haven't taken down my Rebeccamas tree yet either.

Collin Interviews Bruce

Check out Collin Kelley's interview with Bruce Covey on Leisure Talk Radio. (fixed link)

Bruce discusses and reads from his new book Elapsing Speedway Organism and chats about the No Tell Books Northeastern Tour and online poetry magazines.

You can listen to it on your computer or download it to your iPod.

Winter 2007 Issue of Beltway Poetry Quarterly

The new issue features: KYLE DARGAN, REB LIVINGSTON, HAYES DAVIS, REGIE CABICO, and BARBARA GOLDBERG.

KYLE G. DARGAN is the author of The Listening, teaches creative writing at American Univerrsity, and is Managing Editor of Callaloo.

REB LIVINGSTON is the author of Your Ten Favorite Words (forthcoming Coconut Books) and Wanton Textiles. She is editor and publisher of No Tell Motel and No Tell Books.

HAYES DAVIS teaches literature and creative writing at Georgetown Day School, and is a former Bread Loaf working scholar and a founding member of Cave Canem.

REGIE CABICO is Artistic Director of Sol & Soul, and co-editor of the anthology Poetry Nation. He has been a top winner in three National Poetry Slams and won the 1993 Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam.

BARBARA GOLDBERG is the author of six books of poetry, including, most recently, Marvelous Pursuits, and has translated numerous poets from Hebrew to English. She has been the recipient of two NEA Fellowships.

The Most Important and Relevant "Best Of 2006" Polls Ever

Vote Now.

This Week at No Tell

Betsy Wheeler has so much love for whomever this week at No Tell Motel.