This Week at No Tell

Ron Klassnik peels one with his fat clumsy fingers and sucks out the blood this week at No Tell Motel.

Last Day

Tomorrow is the last day No Tell Motel will be accepting submissions for a while (probably until late spring).

I'll note that we're pretty backlogged, but working our fastest to respond. Unfortunately some responses are taking longer than our stated 8 week response time (by several weeks). While it's true I spent the entire weekend photocopying various asses when I could have instead read your submission, consider what a better frame of mind I'll be in when I do get around to considering your poems.

All work and no ass photocopying makes Reb a very fussy editor.

Last year I made resolutions to focus/work harder and take better care of my health. I failed a bit on the health part, but did work really hard all year long. A lot of work done, books published, magazine edited, poems written, readings read, promoting, blah blah blah - despite some challenging obstacles. I'm plenty proud of what I accomplished and in the end, now that it's over, I'm glad it played out how it did, but guess what?

All that working sucked. Made me ragged, nutty, a touch humorless. I ain't resolving to working hard in 2008. Nope. I'm resolving to goof off, fuck around, enjoy myself.

I'm going to start my resolution by photocopying my ass. Of course due to size constraints, I'm gonna have to do it in sections. Talk to you bitches later, this is gonna take a while.

A day after Rebeccamas and my holiday booty consists of a giant tree, a massive handbag and an insane stack of books -- which is great because my ass looks pretty small in comparison.

Also, I turned 35 yesterday (which is why it's Rebeccamas). A few who gave birthday wishes made it a point to tell me I still look young, which is very sweet and the thing one does when a friend reaches such milestones. But I should point out that I'm fine being a little older. I have no nostalgia for my 20's, do not fear my 40's and am quite OK to assume a few wrinkles and gray hair. I am not a model or an actor, my livelihood does not depend on my looking forever 25. I don't want to be friends with Britney, Paris and Lindsay -- I want to mother them. I want to buy them cotton underwear that cover their cheeks, not slide between.

One of my older (ha) gentleman friends suggested that soon I'll be wearing mini-skirts showing the world I still got it. With this ass? I don't think so. Trust me, I don't need to let it all hang out to remind you what I got in this trunk.

My middle-aged meltdowns will take a quite different direction. Stay tuned.

This Week at No Tell

Michael Schiavo shakes the breakdown, then remembers her glory this week at No Tell Motel.

Holiday Caption Fun

Reb's Mid-Life Crisis

Christmas Tree Ate My Baby

I Like 'Em Big

Finally a Tree That Doesn't Make My Ass Look Huge

She made it!

Next to the 46" TV

Tree skirt!

Tender Vittles Assists

At least the wreath is small

Conversation from this afternoon

"From the stand to the ceiling you have 8 1/2 feet to work with."

(Goes outside with tape measurer and returns.)

"You got a 9 1/2 foot tree, dear."

Me: "And don't forget the angel!"

It was his first kill, we made him drink the sap

This is the tree I wanted, but Chris was all it won't fit in our house and I was like but I want that one! and then Rebeccamas was pretty much ruined


So we cut down this one:








Look what we killed


and stuffed


and tied to the roof of our car


And that's what Rebeccamas means to me

Rebeccamas

has begun. Stay Tuned (it's a fatty!).

Grubby Hand Update

Hannah Weiner's Open House (Kenning Editions)

Herself Defined: H.D. and Her World by Barbara Guest (Schaffner Press)

like wind loves a window by Andrea Baker (Slope Editions)

Derivative of the Moving Image by Jennifer Bartlett (University of New Mexico Press)

For Girls (& Others) by Shanna Compton (Bloof Books)

[one love affair] by Jenny Boully (Tarpaulin Sky Press)

Bliss to Fill by Prageeta Sharma ('A 'A Arts)

Necessary Stranger by Graham Foust (Flood Editions)

The Beginning of Beauty: Part 1: hottest new ringtones, mnichol6 by Mel Nichols (Edge Books)

Deed by Rod Smith (Iowa)

domestic transmission: poems for the next generation of housewives by Dr. Madelyn Hatter (MetroMania Press)

Folly by Nada Gordon (Roof)

Birds and Fancies by Elizabeth Treadwell (Shearsman Books)

Fragment of the Head of a Queen by Cate Marvin (Sarabande)

I'm The Man Who Loves You by Amyy King (BlazeVOX)
The Bird Hoverer by Aaron Belz (BlazeVOX)

The Collected Poems of Tennessee Williams edited by David Roessel and Nicholas Moschovakis (New Directions)

BabyLove by Christen Clifford (New School Chapbook Series)

Reptile House by Lisa Jarnot (BookThug)

From the Beginning by Alice Notley (The Owl Press)

Best New Poets 2007 Edited by Natasha Trethewey (Samovar Press)

All Poets Welseome: The LowerEast Side Poetry Scene in the 1960s by Daniel Kane (California)

MiPOesias December 2007
Eleven Eleven Volume IV 2007
32Poems Volume 5, No 2

Ok, I think I'm done traveling for the next thousand years or so.

Somehow during the flight home Gideon's diaper came off and got wrapped around his ankle. I have no idea how this happened. When we walked off the plane he was holding his crotch and I was like dude, stop it, you're totally embarrassing me!, and he was all mwhaa ha ha, check this out -- so I took him to the bathroom thinking it was just a full diaper that was a little droopy -- thank goodness I did cause that could have been a real disaster.

Now I have a few days to get ready for Rebeccamas. I've done a little shopping -- that's it. Haven't even got a chance to get a wreath. Haven't forced Gideon to stand in a twelve hour Santa line (yet).

There are lots of Google perks -- including a free Christmas tree for all the VA employees -- and that's not even from the company, it's a perk from somebody who wants to get in good with Google. So Friday night we're going to a Christmas tree farm to chop one down! We've never done that before. I have visions of Chevy Chase movies.

I acquired a number of new books over the past month or so -- I'll list them here tomorrow.

I think I'm done lugging heavy suitcases full of books for the next thousand years or so too. I going camando to AWP. Book camando, that is.

This Week at No Tell

Catherine Esposito Prescott buzzes a languorous buzz this week at No Tell Motel.

We went to a nearby mall to get the two ragamuffins haircuts and do a little Christmas shopping -- and who do we run into at the salon? A woman we met in the waiting room of the Emergency Medical Care office on Tuesday. Small world.

Gideon's much better, but he's still sick and the majority of the week was spent taking care of him, staying indoors. I planned to meet a number of folks while I here, but aside from talking to Hugh's publishing class and dropping off books at Pegasus (and meeting Clay), I haven't done anything else. Bummer, but we'll likely be out here again in the not too distant future.

Now back to the No Tell submission box. Trying not to freak out over the daunting number of poems I still have to read and consider.

Gideon at Pegasus Downtown in Berkeley

And the latest, greatest No Tell Books titles are there now too.

p.s. Gideon's latest acquisition:

Your Ten Favorite Words is now available for purchase on Amazon for those of you who prefer buying from there.

If you're interested in better supporting independent presses, the best option to do that is to buy directly from the printer.

Of course, I'm grateful for the sale, however you buy the book.

Better Days Are Here to Stay

Loving CA, wish you were here! xoxo Gideon

yesterday at the doctor's, he wouldn't stop crying so we made him wear his this ugly paper dress

he's much happier today
and wearing pants

The Boston readings were good. Dire was intimate and warm, So and So funky and social.

Artist Nik Gulacsik created some really nice broadsides for the reading. I mean Christmas gift nice (wink wink nudge nudge).

Two Reviews

of Laurel Snyder's The Myth of the Simple Machines:

Sally Franson at The L Magazine:

The beauty of a simple machine is its ability to accomplish something extraordinary simply: a pen, say, some paper, and the capacity to leap headfirst into the realm of the imagination. Laurel Snyder’s verse is a simple machine in itself, and this collection finds the author combining playful syntax, simple, direct language and a few ethereal prose poems to create a sum that is as profound as its component poems.

Nate Slawson at Luna:

The Myth of the Simple Machines is from that wonderful world where poetry intersects with storytelling. And as Laurel Snyder shows, it’s a world of endless possibility, myth, truth, and reward.

Never Talk Woof

Collin Kelley interviews Shafer Hall on Leisure Talk Radio.

The first full day in CA was spent in an urgent care medical facility -- turns out Gideon's cold wasn't just a cold, but an ear infection. He's doing better with medicine and painting instead of screaming now. Anyhow, not much "catching up" done today. Maybe later tonight if he can sleep.

In CA. Exhausted and Gideon has a terrible cold he caught in Boston. I'll be using this week to catch up on the hundreds of e-mails in my inbox, No Tell submissions and galleys - if you're waiting to hear from me, it might be a little while. Snots take priority.

No reading scheduled for out here, but that's OK. I'm worn out from reading at the moment. On Weds I'll be speaking to a publishing class at California College of the Arts -- and that's the only "appearance" I'll be making.

This Week at No Tell

Ivy Kleinbart is always on the verge of recognition this week at No Tell Motel.

I just got back from Boston a couple hours ago and I'm leaving for CA tomorrow morning, so I'll blog in detail about the this weekend later. Below are some pics from the So and So Reading. Chris used the camera flash this time.

Friday in Boston

Chris didn't use the camera flash during the Dire reading, so all the pics look like this.



Earlier we took Gideon to a craft fair at a local elementary school.



Then a coffee shop (picture taken seconds before he spilled his entire cup of milk all over the table).



In Boston one more night -- come hear me read with Andrea Baker and Jennifer Bartlett at So and So Saturday evening.

Two Readings in Boston This Weekend

DECEMBER 7, 2007 - Dire Literary Series - Cambridge, MA
Readers: Reading for Further Fenway Fiction, Rachel Louise Snyder, Reb Livingston

DECEMBER 8, 2007 - The So and So Series - Boston, MA
Readers: Andrea Baker, Jennifer Bartlett, and Reb Livingston

Jill Alexander Essbaum No Tell Books Release Party - December 1 - Reston, VA

(with rambling Reb intro)

Hugh Behm-Steinberg No Tell Books Release Party - December 1 - Reston, VA

(with rambling Reb intro)

Laurel Snyder Reading at No Tell Release Party - Dec 1 - Reston

(rambling Reb intro censored for the children)

Laurel Snyder Adjusts My Dress

and then the video camera battery dies before my reading.

Two No Tell Book Reviews

In the new issue of Open Letters Jeffrey Eaton reviews Shafer Hall's Never Cry Woof:

If Hall likes to elevate the ordinary, in other poems he does the opposite, presenting a deadpan acceptance of the totally weird. In these poems he is quietly introspective, but the calm of his introspection is almost entirely overshadowed by the details of the offbeat and rough world he depicts. In “Brooklyn Aubade” we are gently reminded that at breakfast “egg creams and jellybeans are sustenance too.” His treatment of the typically sad cliché of the couple heard arguing through thin apartment walls is not just easygoing acceptance, but absolute ownership – it is an unassumingly natural feature of his world.

and PF Potvin's The Attention Lesson:

Potvin’s poems are generally written in whole sentences. He does not often rely on traditional poetic techniques, rather he employs two seemingly homebrewed techniques (apologies to James Joyce) for manipulating his tempo. The first is to conjoin two words, such as “elephantmasked,” “shookstill,” and “downswooping,” and the second is to eliminate the second word in a word pair when the omitted word is obvious. Supplying the missing words in brackets you get “sneak [attack],” “merrygo [round]” and “pave[ment]”. The conjunction of words serves to quicken the pace of reading while the omission of words creates a mental stumble that retards it. Both moves come across as playful and off hand, which is refreshing given the weightiness of his political and character-building content.

I'm back home for a couple days until I head up to Boston for two readings on Friday and Saturday.

Pictures and videos posted below and new ones will be appearing here the rest of the week.

Bedside Guide Release Party at KGB

Jill & Reb


Laura Cronk


Hugh Behm-Steinberg


Ana Bozicevic-Bowling


Bruce Covey


Jill Alexander Essbaum


Kate Greenstreet


Robyn Art & Tatiana


David Lehman


Reb Livingston


Justin Mark


Gina Myers


Jill and Mary Behm-Steinberg


Reb, Bruce, Jill


Money Shot


Carly Sachs


Evie Shockley


Alex Smith


Nicole Steinberg


Meghan Punschke & Bruce