New Work & Book Announcement

The Fall 2009 issue of Fourth Genre is out, and it includes an excerpt from my new book, not merely because of the unknown that was stalking towards them.

Another excerpt was printed in the Summer 2009 issue of Puerto del Sol.

I'm very happy to announce that Tarpaulin Sky Press, which published [one love affair]*, will be putting out not merely because of the unknown that was stalking towards them in Spring 2011.

This is just someone's list

This is just someone's list. I'm happy to be on this list. In no way does this list-writer say that this is meant to be a definitive or representative list; the list-writer makes it clear that this is merely his list. I think it's really cool, and I'm happy to be on his list. This is Christopher Higgs' list of "15 Significant Contemporary Women Writers" on HTMLGIANT. I realize that this is old news, that the list was published about two months ago, but I only came across it last night.

The Lost Origins of the Essay

If you're in the Chicago area on Thursday, October 22, please consider coming to a reading I'm doing with John D'Agata and David Lazar as part of Creative Nonfiction Week at Columbia College Chicago. We will be reading selections from D'Agata's newly released anthology, The Lost Origins of the Essay. The reading will take place at 3:30 at the college's Film Row Cinema at 1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor.

Later, at 6:30, John D'Agata will be reading from his forthcoming book About a Mountain, at the college's Ferguson Auditorium, 600 S. Michigan Ave, 1st Floor.

Both events are free and open to the public.

Columbia College Chicago Faculty Reading

Dear readers, if you're in Chicago tomorrow night, I hope you'll consider joining me and other poetry faculty members at Columbia College Chicago for a reading.

Here are the details:

Columbia College Chicago
in conjunction with
Elbowing Off the Stage

a Poetry Reading featuring Columbia College Chicago Poetry Faculty:
Jenny Boully, Sandra Lim, James Shea, Tony Trigilio, and David Trinidad.

Monday, October 12 at 7:00 p.m.
Three Peas Art Lounge
75 E. 16th St.

Chicago Poetry

Welcome to Chicago Poetry!

I think I might rename my blog Chicago Poetry because I live in Chicago and I have written poetry. Or, maybe I'll rename my blog Treehouse Shareholders or Mayonnaise Memories or any combination of words. My point is that no one owns Chicago as a word and no one owns poetry as a word.

All of this is just my introduction to a piece of writing that surfaced recently:

Here is the text, in case the blog owner decides that yeah he's out of line and realizes what he's done:

[As the situation has since been resolved, I have decided to delete the text.]

If this guy is the voice and representative of the Chicago poetry world, then I don't want to be a part of it.

Not only are his comments mean, but they are also illogical, nonsensical, unintelligent, and leave him seeming paranoid and mentally disturbed. I'm wondering just why this person feels so threatened by Kristy Bowen. Is it because she's (gasp!) actually a poet with published books?

Some logical observations:

1.) If everyone does indeed know that there is a supposed "real" Chicago poetry calendar, then why is this person so worried that readers might be directed to the wrong site?

2.) How does Bowen's choice of domain name make her press look bad? How is giving us an alternative a reflection on her press?

3.) How does Bowen's high school experiences of either being picked on or not have anything to do with this? I would think that even if she was picked on in high school she would have more intelligent and meaningful ways to deal with it. Ditto with the paranoid "maybe someone told her I was a bully" statement. I think these statements show more about how this guy thinks than anything, and this thinking is quite frankly a bit disturbing.

4.) Who are the poets that Bowen "shoved" out of the small press event? How was this accomplished? And again, what does this really have to do with anything? If Bowen had a place at the small press event, I'm sure it was earned. I mean, she is editor of a press that is small, right?

5.) This guy also says that people "feel sorry" for people with a "weight problem." Huh? I have never felt sorry for anyone based on their weight. I have always treated everyone as a human being based on their being a human being. It's too bad that this guy doesn't.

6.) There is always a "Kristy Bowen" person ruining the "harmony"? Again, who are these people? What harmony was there and how would getting rid of a person produce harmony? Isn't what this person is doing and saying about Bowen producing a bit of a discord?

7.) "Everyone knows that CJ Laity runs the Chicago Poetry Calendar...." huh? I didn't know that, and I'm sure you didn't know that or the person sitting next to you.

8.) Copycat site? I'm sorry, but I don't think Bowen would want to copy this guy.

9.) Finally, this guy doesn't allow readers to post comments to his rant. I think that's a sign that he knows he's wrong and mean-spirited and nonsensical.

I, however, will allow you to leave comments here.

Disclaimer:
I don't know this guy. I will say that I have met Bowen and maybe exchanged five sentences with her. I decided to write about this because I recognize meanness when I see it, and I felt strongly that I should speak up. I thought that I should be quiet--that I am, after all, a writer living in Chicago and subject to its social forces and that perhaps by speaking out I might be blacklisted from literary events in Chicago. Then, I realized that it is precisely this kind of fear that silences us.

New work in Gulf Coast

Hey you all. I have new work in the current issue of Gulf Coast (Fall/Summer 2009). It's not available on-line, but there's lots of great writing in here--totally worth the cost of buying a print issue. The very beginning to my new manuscript not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them is included.

New work in Requited

Another excerpt from my new book-length piece not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them is now out in Requited. Requited is a new on-line literary journal with a really impressive first issue. I hope you'll stop by and check them out.

Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

while I completely agree with Daniel Goleman's and Gregory Norris's assertion in their op-ed piece "How Green Is My Bottle?" (April 19) that in these ecologically-minded times we should beware of those capitalizing on our concerns, I wanted to point out some blind spots that I perceive in the opinion piece.

For one, everyone I know who carries reusable water bottles use bottles, such as those made by SIGG and other companies, which are manufactured out of aluminum, not stainless steel. I'm not sure how much that changes the environmental impact of reusable water bottles, but I think it's important to point it out.

Additionally, while I do refill my bottle with water from water fountains, I also like to bring my bottle to places that aren't near water fountains so that I don't have to buy bottled water. I will also use my aluminum water bottle when I'm on professional panels, rather than use the bottled water they set out for readers and panelists.

I also feel that the article placed unnecessary concern on the build-up of bacteria in reusable bottles. I wash everything I drink or eat out of, and I've never gotten sick from my forks or plates or glasses. My reusable water bottle is also cleaned the same way I clean my dishes. I'm not afraid of bacteria; what I am afraid of, however, are toxins in certain types of plastics.

I prefer to use my aluminum bottle rather than use a reusable plastic bottle because of a phenomenon called leeching, which the editorial also doesn't disclose. Many plastic bottles leech toxins from the plastic into the water. One of the biggest toxins in plastic bottles is bisphenol A (BPA). If a consumer is considering buying a reusable water bottle, they should be certain that the bottle doesn't leech BPA or other toxins.

The piece also fails to disclose the impact of pumping water that bottled water corporations have on communities all over the world. Pumping water to fill millions of water bottles dries out rivers and streams, leading to ecological devastation and supply shortages for the residents and wildlife that depend on these streams. Bottled water companies are essentially profiting from something that should be free.

There are other hidden costs of plastic bottles: the raw plastic materials used in plastic production ends up being dumped in water supplies and in turn is digested by many species, including organisms that filter water, such as mollusks, which die from ingesting these small pieces of plastic, confusing them for sand.

Clean water is a right that all humans should have, of course, and those who cannot afford clean water should not be deprived of it. I realize that my aluminum water bottle isn't just a convenience, it's a political statement, one that I'm proud to make wherever I go and wherever bottled water is sold.

Oh, and how could Goleman and Norris miss one of the biggest impacts of plastic water bottles? The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is where plastic ends up, and it's the size of Texas. I grew up in Texas, so I can personally tell you that Texas is a big-assed state.

Thank you for your attention.

New work in Shampoo

An excerpt from my new manuscript "not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them" has been posted in Shampoo, issue 35. The section of the journal where my work appears was guest edited by Ronald Palmer. I'm happy to be in the company of many friends.

The piece really relies on the printed page to work just right; so as you're reading, try to imagine page breaks where the text seems to abruptly break.

I read some of Christian Peet's poetry

Christian Peet has a book out called Big American Trip. Christian Peet is the beloved editor of Tarpaulin Sky Press, publisher of my [one love affair]*. His book's blog page, Big American Blog, features clips of poets reading "postcards" form his book.

Mine went up today. Enjoy!

Review of [one love affair]*

A new review, written by Craig Santos Perez, of [one love affair]* was recently posted on Rattle. [one love affair]* is my dearest book, and it's also my overlooked book. It's the book that sometimes doesn't exist. Thank you, Craig, for making it exist.

Where you can find me at AWP

Last year, I was in NYC when AWP hit, and this year, I just happen to be in Chicago, where AWP is heading. I don't think I have any plans to move to Colorado.

I'll be on the following panels at AWP:

(More events can be found in the AWP's schedule of events.)

Thursday, February 12, noon
Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East and Asia.
(Nathalie Handal, Jill Bialosky, Kimiko Hahn, Ravi Shankar, Srikanth Reddy, Tina Chang)
**I will be filling in for one of the participants who was not able to make it to the conference.**
Language for a New Century brings the voices of some of the most exciting writers of our time. This unique and much anticipated collection by W.W. Norton is a landmark anthology, providing the most ambitious, far-reaching collection of contemporary Asian and Middle Eastern poetry available. This exciting panel features Norton editor, Jill Bialosky, poets and editors of the anthology, Nathalie Handal, Tina Chang, and Ravi Shankar, as well as contributors Kimiko Hahn and Srikanth Reddy for a reading and discussion on this book, which includes 400 unique voices from fifty-five countries writing in forty different languages, broadening our notion of contemporary literature.

Thursday, February 12, 4:30
The Notre Dame Review's 15th Anniversary Reading.
(Valerie Sayers, William O'Rourke, Jaimy Gordon, Jenny Boully, Kevin Ducey, Ed Falco)
The Notre Dame Review, a journal of prose, poetry, and art, celebrates its 15th anniversary with a reading. Four writers who have appeared in the Review's pages and who demonstrate its formal range will read poetry and prose. Founding editor Valerie Sayers and current co-editor William O'Rourke will introduce the readers.

Saturday, February 14, 9:00 a.m.
Bending Genre.
(Margot Singer, Jenny Boully, Michael Martone, Nicole Walker, Lawrence Sutin)
Nonfiction capitalizes on the formal structures of poetry and fiction, drawing energy from hybridity. How do the genres inform and influence each other? What does it mean to write against—both in opposition to and in dialogue with—the expectations of genre, the conventions of form? This panel investigates the ways in which genre informs genre, how the lines between genres are at once thickly drawn and blurred.

Saturday, February 14, noon-1:00 p.m.
Sarabande Books signing at the Sarabande books table in the Book Fair. Please come by and say hi.

Saturday, February 14, 8:00 p.m.
Coconut/MILK off-site reading at Myopic books
AWP Reading, co-sponsored by Coconut Poetry and Milk Magazine. Including Denise Duhamel, Jenny Boully, Susan Wheeler, Daniel Nester, Prageeta Sharma, Gene Tanta, Jen Tynes, Lea Graham, Reb Livingston, Mirela Ramona Ciupag, Gina Myers, Natalie Lyalin, Larry Sawyer, Bruce Covey, Lea Graham, others.

New review: the Book of Beginnings and Endings

A new review of The Book of Beginnings and Endings was just posted on Public Republic. I found the review by Roger Conner, Jr. to be generous and astute. The review can be found here.

and radish seeds

I want to thank everyone who made my stay in Los Angeles such a wonderful one. You know, I never wanted to go to LA. I never had an inkling. Never wanted to even think about going. Now I know why LA is a place to go. I loved it there--really, truly, truly loved it.

Thanks go to Otis College, Peter Gadol, Paul Vangelisti, Jacqueline Young, and the very smart audience and students who attended my reading.

Also, I got to see Mason (thank you for the beach and the veggies), Julie (thank you for lunch and tea and all things cute and Japanese), Andy (I hope you liked the Andy footnotes), and Jennifer (thank you for having dinner with me, and I wish, as always, that we had more time).

Strangest of things, I was sitting next to Saul Williams on my plane out to LAX, and he was nice enough to come to my reading. Thanks, Saul. I'll be sure to see you when you read at Columbia College Chicago next month.

I do love a hotel with sheep in the lobby.

Reading at Otis College

When I woke up this morning, it was -17 degrees outside. I guess I get to escape a bit of this when I go to Los Angeles next week. I'll be giving a reading at Otis College on Wednesday, January 21 at 7:30. Details can be found here.

I'll also be on two panels at this year's AWP and reading at one off-site event. Details to follow.