It rained today. Hard. The dogs hid underneath the bed. I laid on top of it wishing I was smaller.

We all are somewhat Michigander.

This is Lake Michigan. It's big. Usually loud. And occasionally full of seagulls.

This is Michigander. It's big. Usually loud. And occasionally full of seagulls.

It is with much pride and great thanks to Greying Ghost Press, that I announce the release of my first chapbook, Michigander. These look great. Really. I never, ever, could have imagined this poem looking this cool.

From GG: "Michigander is a treasure map buried in the backseat of a Lake Michigan Buick. Each line, each word sluices across the page a clue to the next. No trickery for gamesmanship. A phenomenal new voice from the throat of a straight-shooting riser. Quit hitting the snooze and wake up to this already."

From me: This poem is a pleading to Chicago. This poem is a wallowing in unemployment. But most of all this poem is a riverboy wondering where his banks have gone. I wrote this poem in the Fall of 2007 between filling out job applications, and after embarrassingly bad job interviews (actual question fielded from interviewer, "Do you even know what you're doing here?"). It's that kind of poem...

The book is dedicated to my wife, Anne, but here and now I'd like to thank Jon Barrett, for telling two (3?) years ago that this could be something and then for reminding me last fall that I'd once written something that could have been something. AND, thanks to Elizabeth Robinson for taking a peek at a re-worked version a few weeks later and rubbing her shammy cloth of genius across the smudges. And finally to Carl, who accepted the poem as a pamphlet and took it upon himself to see it as a chapbook. Thank you.

I'm gushing, I know. It's geeky, I know. But I don't have 5 books out. I have one. And you can buy it here.

I feel like the world is a new place since last we discussed it. Like I'm wearing new socks, or maybe it's just that my hair looks really good today. Have you thought of this? Tomorrow, when it rains, I will be comfortably inside. That is a promise I've made to myself before, I know, but if I can't mean it this time...

I'm reading online that my mini-chapbook, "Michigander," should be done soon. Like within a few days soon. This is exciting to a guy like me.

What are your feelings on cats and ascots?

Do you have Diet Mountain Dew in your fountain? I'm so there.

Tomorrow at 7 you should head to Prairie Lights and watch Amanda Nadelberg read. You just should.

I someday hope to x-ray my entire family. Do you suppose that possible?

My kitchen flooded last week and then some friends came over and then we grilled meat. I think that pretty much catches us up.

To Point your camera down and see the clouds!

Heading to Denver tomorrow morning. Hoping to get some quality time in with an old friend before the AWP madness sets in. We're going to eat food, drink drinks and watch baseball...just like old times.

Last week, during one of DB-Q's better non sequiturs, he said that AWP was "like Whitman's barbaric yawp, only, there is no why..."

Just below this post I've pre-posted my course description for next Fall. My favorite thing about it is that it says 'stuff' so many times you begin to wonder if 'stuff' is even a word. My second favorite thing about it is that the only sentence that doesn't seem a little off is, "This class will be real hard." My class will be hard...did you see the reading list?

I finished up 20+ Baus chaps today while watching the Cardinals play baseball. In short, the experience was quite fulfilling. If you'd like a Baus book in Denver, just ask Eric whereabouts I was the last place he saw me. I move pretty slow...who knows, I may just still be there. Also, on the chance that any of the 2 people who may read this have a table at the book fair and wouldn't mind a little pink and tan book cluttering up their space, I'd let you keep the money for 1 of every 2 sold...you know, for your trouble.

Has anyone else noticed that there is officially too much stuff to do at AWP? Seriously, there's like 3 off site reading every night...at the same time...all over the city. What's a young man to do?

Regardless, I'm not missing this one:
Possess Nothing: a small press event

Plus Gallery, 2501 Larimer Street (near the conference)

Saturday, April 10th, 7:00-10:00 p.m.

“Watch yourself unfold and close-out the AWP week with five presses that walk the path of dispossession. Fourteen readers; 100 minutes; singular enlightenment. Action Books, Apostrophe Books, Black Ocean, Slope Editions and Tarpaulin Sky Press present: Jessica Baran, Crystal Curry, Julie Doxsee, Sandy Florian, Lara Glenum, Johannes Goransson, Joe Hall, Lucy Ives, Paul Foster Johnson, Gordon Massman, Zachary Schomburg, Abraham Smith, Shelly Taylor, Amy Wright.”

Yeah.

Course Description Fall 2010

8C:001 Creative Writing Studio Workshop

Sec. 0014 W 12:30-2:20 221 NH

This course is about making stuff. It’s about making stuff from not-stuff. Really, it’s about the work we do to make our not-stuff, stuff. And this course is definitely about finding the best kind of not-stuff/stuff work for you (poetry stuff, fiction stuff, non-fiction stuff). We will read stuff, good stuff, and wonder aloud on how it gained its stuffiness. We will wonder how this stuff could have been other stuff. We will conjure up our own not-stuff and wonder aloud on its stuffiness potential. We will work on all this stuff. Making not-stuff into stuff is hard. Making not-stuff into good stuff is real hard. This class will be real hard. But, you will make good stuff.

Required texts (available at Prairie Lights Books):

Zachary Schomburg, Scary, No Scary, 978-0-9777709-9-1

Kate Greenstreet, The Last 4 Things, 978-1-934103-09-8

12 x 12: Conversations in 21st-Century Poetry and Poetics: 978-1587297915

Michael Chabon: Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son: 978-0061490194

Best American Non-Required Reading: 978-0547241609

James Tate: Dreams of a Robot Dancing Bee: 978-1933517353

I had to run down to Kalona today to buy my father-in-law a birthday present. While this was taking place, something else quite miraculous was taking place as well. Riverside, the official future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk. Space...

Taking these picture reminded me of other pictures I've been meaning to take. So I did. Plus I got an ice cream cone. I see that lady everyday on my bus. I real sorry for her. To think, living long enough until your home becomes the parking lot of a Heartland Inn...

I've been marathon reading lately. Ben Lerner's new book is A-mazing. Dorthea Lasky's new book was so great I couldn't keep myself from giving it away to a dear friend. I also finally finished "Killing Kanoko," which you almost need to read over the course of a few months, otherwise you become too adapted and the poems cease to have their [intended] effect. What else...Graham Foust: done. GC Waldrep: done. Allen Grossman: done. (I'm actually cleaning out my book bag right now) MacGregor Card and James Galvin: done. I think that's it...

Tonight, after some delay, is Brandi Homan's reading at the University of Northern Iowa. Baker hall, 8 o'clock...

Are you going to awp? are you one of the unfortunate masses without an Eric Baus chapbook. My name is BJ Love and I can put an end to such sorrow...find me!