I just read over on Joshua Marie Wilkinson's blog that he has a few new books out.

This one here looks really good.

Actually, they all look really good. I've been looking forward to reading the 12x12 book for some time, and the other chap looks really pretty.

That said, I'd swing by the Further Adventures site and pick one of these up. After all, this is the only book that comes with the awesomeness of Lucas Pingel, and all you have to do to get that awesomeness is pick up the book in a different way...easy, right?

As a side note, I've been really humbled over the last few days by everyone's congratulations to me.

Thanks...

Just a quick note to tell you that if you haven't read or aren't currently reading James Tate's "Memoir of the Hawk," than you're dumb.

Dummy.

I'm kidding, but you should read this book. I haven't read enough of Tate to say that this is the definitive collection in his body of work, but just reading this book you get the sense that he was firing on all cylinders here. No poem seems, well, almost no poem, is easily overlooked...feels like something you've seen before. By this time Tate's shtick is well known: the crafting of odd or alternate universes out of everyday phrases and places. However, I do think of this book as being the essential example of that ideal.

Anyway, I gotta go to work.

I'm going to start with this:

Two days ago I released upon the world Joshua Marie Wilkinson's and Lucas Pingel's newest chapbooks bound together in a single volume. Buy it here: clicking this will take you directly to the raddest shit on the planet.

Poets are poor. Poets need money. This is how we make it...

I was reading the Black Ocean blog today and am enthralled by Chris Tonelli's idea of a bizzaro AWP that is made of entirely of "off-site" events. Personally, of the three AWP's that I've been to, I've never seen a panel that I was really interested in, and the ones I usually go to (just so I can feel I've gotten my money's worth) have almost all been really bad. This last year I was a big fan of the No Thousands reading and the year before the Steal This Reading rejuvinated my interest, not only in poetry, but in the community that comes with it.

Anyway, I'm saying it here now, I am in. Tonelli, you have my interest and with that comes my enthusiasm...watch out.

In other news, yesterday I got a phone call from James Galvin welcoming me into the Writer's Workshop at Iowa. Today, I got an automatically generated, electronically signed rejection letter from Minnesota. The upside to that is the decision has already been made. Sorry Luke... I'm still waiting on UMass Amherst and Brown, but in all honesty, I'm probably going to Iowa. Not only would I need to get accepted into those programs, but they would need to come with pretty sweet packages to get me out there.

One thing I've realized over the last 36 hours...saying Iowa Writers Workshop in casual conversation is really hard. Go on, try it.

Some apologies you just have to make. Like this:

I'm sorry but there is a book that you must buy. The more books you buy, the more money Further Adventures has. The more money Further Adventures has, the nicer the books become.

It's a capitalist based system, folks...

Wilkinson/Pingel Pingel/Wilkinson

Things, and how they come together...1

This is pretty much the most perfect thing I'll see today.

It might have made me cry. That, or my eyes were just real dry.

And my tears overcompensated.

I don't know.

sick dogs suk

• My dog was sick this week. Real sick. $500.00 at the vet sick.
• I didn' t then, nor do I have now, that $500.00.
• Thus, this entire weekend will be spent at home.
• Thus, this entire weekend will be spent making books.
• Thus, by Monday I will have books for you to buy.
• My dog won't buy books and even if she did I'd tell her, "You have a large vet bill, you shouldn't be spending any money on books. Bad dog! No, no books!"
• Be on the lookout for a couple of large FA announcements coming in the next few days...LARGE.
• My dog being sick led to a weird coincidence: See that Stanford quote up there? Yeah, weird.
• My nephew draws funny pictures, this is one:

Tonight...

...I paint Indians. I also read, or re-read, rather, Eric Baus' Tuned Droves. Why? Because I'm curious as to the structure of the book. The first section, per my first reading, functions in one of three ways: either its like the slo-mo demo of a game you're just learning, or it's like the first 10 min. of a Lord of the Rings movie where you're allowed to become acclimated to the major plot points, or its the first moments with a friend you haven't seen in a few years. In other words, that section reads a little easy, a little open, and at times, even a little awkward...like trying to find your way back in, you know? Most likely I'm projecting a few different personal relationships into this particular reading whether it be my relationship with Baus, with his work, or with The Lord of the Rings, but any which way, this is one of the best poetic overtures I've ever read, especially considering how perfectly it sets up the rest of the text.

More later. Both on the Indian front and on the Baus front...

This is Jack Kennedy. Rather, a rendering of Jack Kennedy. I found this in Dubuque last week. The owner's of the bar that I found it in, found it under their walls when they were stripping the plaster off the brick. Some guy who fancied himself painter 40 years ago, couldn't pay his tab with cash, so paid it with paint (a quick aside, I'm always willing to pay bar tabs with poems). Now, this portrait of JFK sits in this bar surrounded by tin and neon beer signs. I can't tell you the name of the bar as I forgot. I also can't tell you exactly where it's at as I was never sure where I was, but I did want to share this with you to help us celebrate President's Day and to give you hope in case you have an outstanding bar tab and no actual income.

I would be remiss to not mention that I had a great time at AWP this year. I may have picked all the wrong sessions to sit in on, and could only afford to buy one book (Eric Baus' "Tuned Droves"), but it was good to see friends and peers and remember why I want to be a writer and publisher of poems. Lots of people hate AWP, and though I do think it's rather pretentious, as my old friends become more and more spread out across the nation, it's nice to have a reason to get everyone in the same place...especially when it's my living room.

Thanks FK for all the wonderful stuff, including the Rope-a-dope broadside, and for bringing your awesome girlfriend.

Thanks JB for all the beer and food and beer and cab rides and beer.

Thanks EB for the hug and encouragement and signing my book.

Thanks MD for sitting up with me until 4:30 in the morning just to shoot the breeze.

And thanks to my surprisingly understanding wife who did not freak out once as I irresponsibly gallivanted around the city.

DFK arrived late this evening (that's him there, he's a whisker baby who enjoys dressing in fuzzy costumes). He drove from Alabama. Where did you drive from? I bet it wasn't Alabama. From what I understand Alabama is wicked far from here. Point is, an old and dear friend is currently curling up on an air mattress in my living room. Amongst other things, that makes me happy. One of the other things is that he brought me Cuban baseball shirt...which I think is illegal? Anyway, my friend, DFK, is the sole proprietor of Small Fires Press and he is here to sell you books. I've seen them, and brother, they are sweet!
He's got this one that's a box of recipe cards and you can arrange and rearrange them however you want AND it's cowritten by one of my future authors Joshua Ware.

Speaking of MY stuff, I've had a small hiccup and don't think I'll have any books ready to go for AWP...I had to walk in the rain today and everything got wet. Now, I'll do a lot of things, but I won't sell you wet, wrinkled books...I just won't. So, I'm hoping to salvage a few of the pages and if you see me, tell me you'd like one and I'll make sure it finds its way into your soft, poet hands...

Tomorrow, I'm going to the Ahsahta + TYPO reading at the Empty Bottle from 6-9, you should too!


I don't know about flames and stained glass, but I do know about poetry and this will be a keeper.

With a bullet

That was my parking space...

This is my work space...

In other news, my good friend Dan Perry has come up with some wicked images for the next FA chappy...wicked. I'm in the midst of printing; covers done, everything else not. I probably won't have too many to go around during AWP, but hopefully enough for all who want one... That's the nice thing about living here during AWP, everything I need will be right here with me. Tomorrow I hope to stamp this on roughly 30 covers, "Cold Faction," "Joshua Marie Wilkinson," "All Types of Breath Included," "Lucas Pingel."

Speaking of AWP, I hope to see you around: at the bookfair, at the panels, or at a reading or two. If you can't find me, just follow the sound of babbling praise and an inability to come up with something more creative to say than, "I really love your work, no really, I love it..." Most likely that will lead you directly to me.

I Dubuqued all over myself

A little bit of me and a little bit of FA on UTNE.com

I've always liked Bruce Springsteen, but until yesterday's halftime show, I'd never loved him.

That's all changed...it's forever Boss-time in my heart from here on out.

Yesterday, I dumped a whole 32 oz. soda on my floor and my dog hid under the bed. 32 oz. beverages are scary. I would have hid under the bed too, but I can't afford to throw away my rug, and I was hungry.

Is there any fatal disease that has a symptom akin to always smelling onion...it's everywhere, the onion, I mean. Though, I guess the disease could be everywhere too. Is there a disease that smells like onion?

AWP is in about a week, like 10 days, I guess. I'm working hard to share some really awesome poetry with you. This past week proofs were handed off to the authors and creative was done on the cover. It's getting close. I hope you're excited. My dog is not...she's still hiding under the bed, reliving the shock of fallen soda.

I have fears that my dog is my best friend. She just gets me, you know?

from jubilat 15, my new favorite poet via my new favorite poems

Collier Nogues

Long Weekend II

Windmills in West Texas twice, once going (the headstone not in place

yet, still a plastic marker), once coming back. In every house

she'd lived, she'd hung crystals in the kitchen window. We took

yours down. The first irises opened just hours later, in the dark

of the side yard.

When the news about your mother came

I thought I wouldn't know what to tell you about grieving,

though when I lie flat on a wood floor I remember how I did it.

My cotton blanket looks like your cotton blanket except yours is electric.

Chicken-Sitting

We didn't even hear the dogs: everything is a big deal to chickens.

The desire to bind

the other to oneself, the urge to abandon the other in the thin trees of the park

and drive alone, safely, to a sunny spot in the grass of one's own yard.

I like your problems. I like that you wear pink.

Little chinese fans of clouds, and then vertebrae.

I liked being up at that hour but I didn't like why.

I used to consider myself "hip." Then I moved to Chicago. Chicago is full of "hip" people. They call themselves "hipsters." I no longer believe myself to be "hip." If "hip" was lawndarts I would be inside the circle but way off the bullseye...there could be many reasons for this but I blame the "economic crisis."

It is in this spirit that I tell you that:

• my favorite record right now is "Only by the Night," by Kings of Leon. I've been a fan of KOL since their first EP, and like many I was a little weary of their decision to focus on pop melodies, but the track, "I want you" may be the best record I've heard since Bon Savants' "Between the moon and the ocean," which is my favorite song...ever.
  
• I got a new pair of blue Adidas for Christmas. I love them, so I've decided the only way to not ruin them is to never wear them, at least not until Spring.
  
• In the meantime, all I wear are giant snowboots with velcro straps that were on sale, but also much too large.
  
• I'm just now getting into "Freaks and Geeks."
• I'm ready to admit that corduroys are my favorite type of slack and blazer, but not my favorite type of suit...
• My wife's birthday is this weekend and I've purchased her 3 extraordinarily lame and cheap gifts that I fear she'll hate.
• I think that Jason Segal (of How I Met Your Mother and Freaks and Geeks) and I could be best friends...and I don't care who knows it.
• I only mentioned that because people who I mention in my blog have a knack for finding themselves in it...which is why you should totally email me, Jason. Seriously...we could have the best time together!

I'm currently reading a shit-ton of James Tate, Peter Gizzi, CD Wright, Forrest Gander and Cole Swensen, mostly to fuel my dreams of studying under them someday, but more because I'm lame and really haven't read them much before, though I have seen all them read, which I count for something, but you may not...

I make kick ass guacamole, Jason. I'd love to share a bowl with you...call me.

Octopus 11

...is out and features 3, yes 3, further adventures poets:

Brooklyn Copeland

Eric Baus

Joshua Marie Wilkinson

This is good company and I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am to be entrusted with their work...as awesome as it is.

I am putting the finishing touches on book 2 (Wilkinson/Lucas Pingel) and it should go to print sometime next week with the hopes of having it all together by the time the big AWP show rolls into town.

Wicked...

I've decided that that is my new thing, "wicked." I like it and it seems just obnoxious enough to be totally something I'd do.

You've got to sand the moon flat before you paint over it.

I live in an old apartment building in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. When my building retires and stops being a building it will be the moon. If you follow science at all, that makes me one of two things, a Proto-Moon Man, or a Meso-Moon Man. And these are pictures of my primordial moon room. Don't you wish could grow geography too? Don't you wish your retirement plans included "become the moon?" Don't you wish that you were a building capable of frightening its inhabitants by pushing your newly formed geography through your own many layers of paint?

I don't think I want to be frightening, but if I did, this would be how I'd do it...

My dog is very inspirational. Yesterday I gave her a bath. Then I took a bath. I hadn't, up to then, taken a bath in almost 10 years. My wife takes baths all the time. She reads in there. My dog can't read, but I'll swear to you that when she barks, it sounds like she's just saying, "bark." I've started saying "bark" now too, but only when I talk to my dog. I think it would be weird to say "bark" to a person. They might think you're angry with them, which would rarely be the case because I don't talk (at all) to people I'm angry with.

My dog also inspired me to tell you that I will have JMW and LBP's FA book done by AWP.

Oops, I mean...Bark.