New Lune on Friday

Thank you NaPoWriMo for helping me finish the last poems in my book. Now begins the summer of editing and rewrites. NaPoRevSum, or some crack like that.

The poems will stay up on this blog until midnight.

Then I will make a blog-related announcement.

Here's your hint:

THUNK

Ryan Manning interviews me at THUNK.

I think.

This Week at No Tell

Lea Graham wakes greening this week at No Tell Motel.

Just received my contributor copy of From the Fishouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great edited by Camille T. Dungy, Matt O'Donnell, & Jeffrey Thomson.

If you're a teacher, there's an index in the back that attributes at least three "poetic strategies" to each poem. My poem's strategies are address; question/statement; repetition.

Which are also the strategies of my life.

NaPoWriMo Participants

I updated this list and removed folks who haven't been posting poems. This list is for folks who are posting their NaPoWriMos. If you're doing NaPoWriMo, but not sharing your poems, that's cool, but that's not the point of these links.

Maureen Thorson
Jennifer Bartlett
Robin Reagler
Anne Boyer
Rusty Barnes
Lesley Jenike
Sophia Kartsonis
Vicky Harris
Noah Falck
K. Lorraine Graham
Becca Klaver
Carmen Giménez Smith
Catherine Daly
Kirsten Kaschock
Michelle Detorie
Simeon Berry
Rik Roots
Serena M. Agusto-Cox
Linda - Nickers and Ink
Chad Parenteau
Oliver de la Paz
Louise Mathias
Nicole Steinberg
Justin Evans
T.A. Noonan
John Sullivan
Glenn Ingersoll
Amy King
Kelli Russell Agodon
Shann Palmer
Susana Gardner
Matthew Thorburn
Nathan Logan
Dan Vera & Michael Gushue
Stephanie King
JillyPoet
Peg Duthie
Paula Mendoza-Hanna
Steph Rogers
'Zann

Bloof Poets and Bloof Podcast
PPFA Forum
Writer's Digest Poetic Asides


Leave a note in the comment field or shoot me an e-mail with your name and link if you'd like to be added to this list.

This Week at No Tell

Laine Ballard lets it run through, be used and depleted this week at No Tell Motel.

I'm behind on NaPoWriMo, I've had a headache since yesterday after I got home from the bookfair and haven't been able to write. I'm no Brent Goodman. Speaking of whom, I'm glad to hear is back home and recovering.

Another NaPoWriMo Podcast

Listen to me kill some poem characters here.

Small Press Fair @ Bethesda Literary Festival Tomorrow

Hey, No Tell Books (i.e. ME) will be at the Small Press Fair at the Bethesda Literary Festival. Noon to 5 p.m.

Come by and say hello.

And BUY some books!

Meet editors and publishers of literary journals and small presses at the Small Press Fair. Participants include The National Endowment for the Arts, Abbey, Barrelhouse, Cherokee Books, The Delmarva Review, Gargoyle/Paycock Press, GirlChild Press, Gival Press. Kings Estate Press, Little Patuxent Review, little press books, No Tell Motel, Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Pretend Genius, Settlement House, Toad Hall Press, The Santa Fe Writers Project, Washington Writers’ Publishing House, and Wineberry Press. FREE event.

I almost divorced Chris today.

It's a good thing we don't live in a country where saying it three times makes it true.

He showed up to Gideon's parent/teacher conference wearing Teva sandals with thick wool socks.

I'm still not sure I won't divorce him for that.

I mean, he went to work like that too.

Who lives? Who dies? God Damsel is practically a slasher flick. Serious body count.

Print Isn't Dead After All

My sappy "I want to help" side just signed me up for 3 year subscriptions to both Yoga Journal and Body and Soul magazines.

I need to stop answering my doorbell.

Amazonfail & The Cost of Freedom

This is more important than that, and now is the perfect time to think about whether you want to trust one company to dominate the book market, or any market, for that matter. The benefit of having a rich, diverse ecosystem of vendors and suppliers has never been more obvious: many sources of information equals choice, and choice equals freedom. It’s actually your freedom that’s at stake here, and putting things back the way they were, fixing the notorious “glitch,” won’t change that. Because your freedom was at stake long before this recent de-listing experiment. Anytime you limit yourself to fewer suppliers, especially of something as vital as information (and if you purchase a Kindle, you’re effectively doing just that, limiting yourself to a single information provider), you’re putting yourself at the mercy of that provider.

Again, a long history of abusing its power and position.

This Week at No Tell

Brian Foley freckles on the lampshade this week at No Tell Motel.

Boycott, Smoycott

Just buy your books, DVDs, electronics, etc. elsewhere.

While you still have that option.

Amazon has a long history of abusing it's position and influence.

They've been screwing over small and POD publishers for a long time.

Not only does Amazon not contribute anything to your community (works hard to shirk local sales taxes), it doesn't contribute to Seattle where it's headquartered.

Do we really want a company with that track record to be our retail overlord?

Keep buying from them and you'll always be buying from them.

Finally, a Safe Online Book Retailer

There's about a trillion reasons not to shop at Amazon, I mentioned a few here before (you can search on "amazon" on this blog, if you're unaware). But if you need another reason, here's yet another and an open letter in response.

* * * Here's an article by the LA Times

Out of curiosity, I searched on the names of some gay poets to see if their books still had sales rankings. One search what stood out was my search on C. Dale Young's name. His porny books no longer have sales rankings. I feel very protected now. One of his covers depicts a dude's nipple and when that book arrived at my house I had no idea how to explain it to Gideon.

Anyhow, in that same search if you scroll down a few titles, someone with the name of Dale C. Phillips, author of Young People Fucking (HOTTTT, I know), has a sales ranking (#920,974 at this time). Well, that's probably straight YA fiction and perfectly OK. I ordered a copy to read to Gideon. We're taking part in some program at his preschool that if we read for a certain amount of time each week, he gets a coupon for a free Pizza Hut personal pizza. As a parent, I appreciate how much easier Amazon has made my life.

Oh and if you're a pretty lady hugging a giant penis, your Amazon sales ranking still exists.

At least until somebody pokes out an eye.

It's Another No Tell TattoosDay

Rebecca Loudon's Bee Tattoo

Can you name these "indie lit giants"? Hah hah.

I didn't do yesterday's NaPoWriMo cause I was too exhausted after the Conversations and Connections conference. Amy Hempel, the keynote, was a total no show, so they tacked on an hour to the speed dating which pretty much did me in.

Today I'm exhausted from Easter morning festivities, so tonight I'll write two exhausted poems. That's OK, I'm almost finished writing God Damsel, so now it's just a matter of killing off all the characters. That shouldn't take that much energy, should it?

Ocho 23

Online publication - More Mipoesias

Guest edited by Grace Cavalieri

Featuring: Anne Caston, E. Ethelbert Miller, Sarah Maclay, Ed Zahniser, Judith Harris, A.B. Spellman, Cathy Eisenhower, Kenneth Carroll, Karren LaLonde Alenier, Ethan Fischer, Patricia Gray, Brian Gilmore, James. H. Beall, Laura Orem, Sonja James, Merrill Leffler, Reb Livingston, Kim Roberts, Hope Maxwell-Snyder, Regie Cabico, and Rose Solari.

This Little Monster: Recommended Novellas

Recommendations by Leni Zumas, John Dermot Woods, Kevin Wilson, William Walsh, Justin Taylor’s, Joe Stracci, Matthew Simmons, David Shields’s, Peter Selgin, Christine Schutt, Bradley Sands, Tim Russell, Adam Robinson, Cooper Renner, Kathryn Regina, Ben Pester, Kimberly King Parsons, Ben Myers, Clayton Moore, Carole Maso, Michael Martone, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, John Madera, Josh Maday, Lorette C. Luzajic, Gary Lutz, Sean Lovelace, Reb Livingston, Catherine Lacey, Lee Klein, Paul Kincaid, Michael Kimball, Sean Kilpatrick, Michael Joyce, Shane Jones, Jac Jemc, Jamie Iredell, Lily Hoang, Christopher Higgs, John Haskell, Jim Hanas, Amelia Gray, Brandon Scott Gorrell, Renee Gladman, Molly Gaudry, Timothy Gager, Brian Evenson, Scott Esposito, Nicolle Elizabeth, Jackie Corley, Jimmy Chen, Tobias Carroll, Blake Butler, K. Kvashay-Boyle, Daniel Borzutzky, Crispin Best, Matt Bell, Ken Baumann,Nick Antosca, J.R. Angelella and Steve Almond

Speaking on relevancy, there are things one deems relevant and then there's everything else that one doesn't recognize as relevant.

Anyone who believes to know the full picture is deluded.

I sometimes have dreams where the man I'm with (either Chris or one of my many dream-boyfriends, I have a very busy unconscious dance card) tries to give me a key. In every one of these dreams I scoff and say I don't need that silly key. I can climb out the tiny bathroom window instead.

NaBikeBuildMo

Last night Chris finished building his new bike.

During the warmer months I'm what they call a bicycle widow.

Living POET LARGE

Dan Brady's interview with me is up at Barrelhouse.

In all its filthy glory.

No Soap for this Mouth

I just responded to a Barrelhouse interview regarding the future of poetry publishing with the phrases "cup of pee," "bukkakke the copyright violator" and "I don't give two shits."

What did you do this evening?

Next order of business: NaPoWriMo.

If I have any creative energy left this evening.

It's exhausting having such vile opinions.

Gideon's NaPoWriMo

Daddy's Poem


Here to here

All the way home

A little here

A little here

Back to the lake

Boat to lake

Boat to lake

Luck to here, all the way home

Look to here, I'll be right home

Thirteen Ways of Looking at Bling Teeth

My first NaPoWriMo podcast is now up at Bloof

Remember those deadly shears that pierced the palm of my hand back in February? Well, I was snipping some rose stems and pinched a finger. It's not a big deal, but damn, those are some dangerous scissors. I don't know what my dad was thinking giving them to me.

I dreamed of those scissors back in March. My (dream, not real) uncle came over to kill my father's side of the family because we excelled too much and things needed to be evened out. There were guns and I was worried. I hid Gideon under my bed. I told him to stay there, but he didn't. Then my (dream) uncle came to fight me. He came at me with a knife. With my scissors I was able to block and eventually pull the knife out of his hands. This impressed my uncle in a kind of "Obi Wan has taught you well" kind of way.

I like this dream because scissors are kind of a feminine tool and I was able to properly wield it.

Of course if the fight scene happened in real life I likely would have amputated my nose or something.

I know, what you're really wondering: why was I cutting rose stems? Because today is Chris' and my 13th wedding anniversary! I got him the roses because Gideon loves selecting flowers. The 13th wedding anniversary is supposed to be lace and textiles, but I wasn't able to find anything lacy in his size.

I also got him The Manual of Detection because he's the world's worst spy -- and because I was on a roundtable last week with the author, Jedediah Berry. I didn't know Jedediah was a fancy detective novel author until after the panel when Mike Young took me to a bookstore and showed me his book. Mike showed me lots of books. We'd pick up books, tell each other funny stories about the authors and snort.

That is my favorite thing to do at bookstores.

This Week at No Tell

Shane McCrae drives through sudden and the mountains are not mountains this week at No Tell Motel.

We're in Amherst. Gideon is asleep and enjoying (another) fever. Third one in three weeks. His preschool is a god damn germ factory.

I'm not sure if tomorrow's event is open to the public or just U of Mass students, so I won't post the particulars here, but I'll be doing a roundtable discussion about independent publishing with Jedediah Berry (Small Beer Press) and Chris Janke (Slope Editions).

Saturday night I'm taking advantage of a free room (on a Saturday!) and $100 in free slot play at the Borgata. See, this recession isn't all bad. I'm gonna get back what those bastards took from me last year at TB's bachelorette party.

Gideon and Chris will take advantage of the fancy swimming pool. Er, if Gideon is feeling better.

Thirty minutes until the doors open for NaPoWriMo #3. Will I be able to write a poem in this strange hotel room?

Stay tuned.

I'm driving to Amherst tomorrow to participate on a publishing panel at the University of Massachusetts on Friday. I'll be away all weekend, but hope not to fall behind in NaPoWriMo. But if I do, be assured, I will catch up.

Dead Mule School of Southern Literature

I have four poems in the new issue of Dead Mule along with Marjory Wentworth, David Need, Harry Calhoun, Lisa Allender, Rosanne Osborne, Susan Washinsky, Melanie Faith, Shelby Stephenson, Tim Tomlinson, Joseph Trombatore, Jessie Carty, Norman Cooper, Corey Mesler, S. Scott Whitaker, Brenda Kay Ledford and H. Dale Duke.

Tattoosday Celebrates NaPoMo

Jill Alexander Essbaum's Poetic Feet