A Western Michigan University graduate student has been awarded the 2009 Orphic Prize for Poetry, through a poetry contest held by Dream Horse Press.
Gary McDowell, a Kalamazoo resident, is receiving a $1,000 cash prize for his success—as well as the publication of his first full-length poetry collection, American Amen, which the independent publishing company will release late this year.
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The above is an excerpt from an article written by Johnathan Kleyer for the Kalamazoo Shopper. I'm very grateful to have been interviewd by Mr. Kleyer and to have been featured in this week's edition of the paper. Thanks, Johnathan!
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I'm very happy to have found this journal: Ekphrasis: A Poetry Journal. It's right up my alley. I'm excited to order a copy and possibly submit some work.
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I've been thinking about whom I'll ask to blurb American Amen. I have my top two, but numbers three (and four, if I ask that many) I'm still unsure about. But I have time. The book's not even in the proofing stage yet...once it is, then I'll be able to send the PDF to my potential blurbers. I must say, asking to receive blurbs is a bit intimidating, but also very exciting!
How has this process been for you? Exciting? Terrifying? And how did you pick who you'd ask? Former teachers? Pipe-dream favorite poets? I'm very curious to hear any and all stories relating to blurb(ers)(ing), especially your initial thoughts upon reading what your blurbers wrote about your work! How amazing that must be?!
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If you haven't been over to Cooper Dillon's website lately, go check it out. A lot of info over there now. They are really kicking ass. So proud of them!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
How to praise praise
I found, while Googleing during my short lunch break today, a very interesting (and timely, for me anyway) article on Slate by Ron Rosenbaum re: blurbing:
I believe I've discovered a previously unrecognized genre of contemporary writing that deserves commendation for its distinctiveness and frequent excellence. It's practiced mainly by contemporary poets, but it's not poetry. In fact—at least for me—it's much better than most contemporary poetry, in the sense that it's much more readable, much better crafted, and often beautifully compressed in a dazzling haikulike way.
It's something that gives people like me who don't find themselves drawn to much contemporary poetry a sense of the verbal facility of contemporary poets—and contemporary poetry critics—when they're writing prose about contemporary poetry.
Though I'm still a bit away from having proofs to correct and send to potential blurbers, I couldn't help but be interested in this little article. A lot of my friends who are themselves incredible poets and dedicated contemporary poetry readers say that they don't buy books based on a blurb, but I'll confess to having bought many books of poetry by poets I had no previous knowledge of based on a blurb by a poet I trust, know, or am familiar with. Who knows. An interesting topic nonetheless, I suppose.
I believe I've discovered a previously unrecognized genre of contemporary writing that deserves commendation for its distinctiveness and frequent excellence. It's practiced mainly by contemporary poets, but it's not poetry. In fact—at least for me—it's much better than most contemporary poetry, in the sense that it's much more readable, much better crafted, and often beautifully compressed in a dazzling haikulike way.
It's something that gives people like me who don't find themselves drawn to much contemporary poetry a sense of the verbal facility of contemporary poets—and contemporary poetry critics—when they're writing prose about contemporary poetry.
Though I'm still a bit away from having proofs to correct and send to potential blurbers, I couldn't help but be interested in this little article. A lot of my friends who are themselves incredible poets and dedicated contemporary poetry readers say that they don't buy books based on a blurb, but I'll confess to having bought many books of poetry by poets I had no previous knowledge of based on a blurb by a poet I trust, know, or am familiar with. Who knows. An interesting topic nonetheless, I suppose.
Cacciatore
So I'd hoped to make a delicious dinner for my valentine yesterday, but instead she was craving a good burger, so we did take-out, which means that tonight I get to cook dinner. I'm going to make this Chicken Cacciatore recipe. I hope it's as good as it sounds.
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Very sad to hear of the passing of Lucille Clifton. I've read only, I must admit, her anthologized work, but I will be visiting the rest of her poems soon.
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Today I'm prepping to teach Alison Stine's Ohio Violence to my advanced poetry writing students tomorrow. I'm psyched to teach this book. I've championed it since it came out, and I hope to continue to do so. I highly recommend it. Go read it!
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I'm also trying to finish a sequence of poems I've been working on since summer.... It's only four poems long, but each poem is 2-3 pages of long-lined craziness, so it's been a lot of writing. I'm excited to see them side by side by side by side.
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I don't think I've shared this with you: Ancora Imparo. It's a great new e-journal run by my favorite person/poet Amy Newman.
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I'm excited to announce that I'll be reading on April 8, 2010 at 7:00pm in Denver, CO (during the AWP Conference) as part of the BLOOF BOOKS/COOPER DILLON/NOEMI PRESS party. Check it out and come by to say hello and see some great poets!
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Very sad to hear of the passing of Lucille Clifton. I've read only, I must admit, her anthologized work, but I will be visiting the rest of her poems soon.
~
Today I'm prepping to teach Alison Stine's Ohio Violence to my advanced poetry writing students tomorrow. I'm psyched to teach this book. I've championed it since it came out, and I hope to continue to do so. I highly recommend it. Go read it!
~
I'm also trying to finish a sequence of poems I've been working on since summer.... It's only four poems long, but each poem is 2-3 pages of long-lined craziness, so it's been a lot of writing. I'm excited to see them side by side by side by side.
~
I don't think I've shared this with you: Ancora Imparo. It's a great new e-journal run by my favorite person/poet Amy Newman.
~
I'm excited to announce that I'll be reading on April 8, 2010 at 7:00pm in Denver, CO (during the AWP Conference) as part of the BLOOF BOOKS/COOPER DILLON/NOEMI PRESS party. Check it out and come by to say hello and see some great poets!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
TRMPFGTPP: CPIDAP
It's kinda small (I'll get a bigger version from the publisher ASAP), but this is the cover of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose Metal Press, 2010) which I co-edited with F. Daniel Rzicznek. The book'll be out in time for AWP in Denver, April 7-10, 2010. Pick up your copy there (or order online...I'll provide a link when the time comes), and stop by Rose Metal's table at the bookfair to meet the publishers and editors...and maybe even the contributors!
the third book woes?
My good friend (and excellent, exciting, enticing poet) Keith Montesano (whose beautiful first collection, Ghost Lights is forthcoming later this year from Dream Horse Press...yeah, buddy, we're press-mates!) and I were chatting on the phone one night earlier this week when the conversation turned to the writing of new material once a manuscript has either a) found a home or b) been completed and put in the mail to find a home. The conversation centered less around publication--this point I'm not really concerned about publishing a manuscript since I don't even have one to send around and won't for a long while--and more around how and when to start a new project, a new manuscript, a new thing.
Because it's the only way I know how to talk about this topic, I'd like to look at it from my point-of-view...I'd love to be able to speak about folks with numerous books or at least a couple books, but since I'm not privy to the inner-workings of those poets' mindframes and creative impulses (though some interviews on the topic might be interesting...hmmm, that might fit into the scope of an anthology idea I've had for a little while now), all I've got is my own thoughts.
When I reworked, reordered, and rewrote parts of American Amen last fall, I knew that the manuscript was done, and that I wouldn't touch it again until it found a home...if it found a home. There was nothing I could do to it without deconstructing it, making it into something different. Basically, if I tweaked it too much, it'd turn into a different book, it'd no longer be American Amen. The poems I was writing this fall (and continue to write this winter) and even some that I wrote last spring and summer simply didn't fit tonally, contextually, metaphorically, or any other discernible way with the poems of American Amen. I was writing a second manuscript, though I didn't necessarily know it. I was aware that I was writing new poems that pushed beyond the concerns of A.A. both thematically and tonally, but I hadn't yet ruled out that the poems might fit in A.A. until this fall when I read through the book and couldn't find any holes fillable with the new poems. Did that mean the manuscript was done? Did it mean the manuscript was faulty because I couldn't replace the 2 or 3 poems I felt might be weakest? Were those poems really weak or were they just different than the stuff I was immediately concerned with and writing at the time? Or was I just being too overly concerned about the minutiae of the manuscript?
Well, it turns out that by the time I had finalized the first manuscript (which with first books, in my experience anyway, usually consists of weeding out all the poems written during the first 10+ years of writing poetry that fit together in some way or another and then organizing them organically as possible...in essence, the first book is sometimes a "greatest hits" collection of the poet's apprenticeship), I was already 30+ pages into a new project, a new manuscript concerned with different themes, different ideas, different voices.
The process of moving from the first book to the second book had happened organically because as I was finalizing the manuscript that would come to be American Amen, I was continuing to write poems just to write poems. The formation of the second manuscript happened by process of elimination as much as anything else: the new poems that didn't fit with A.A. went into a folder labeled "Other Poems" and over the months started to ruminate, copulate, congregate together into something new.
Because the poems that made up A.A. were written over a long period of time, I had accumulated enough poems outside the scope of that manuscript to have some ideas regarding a second manuscript, which now is becoming something quite solid. I know its ideas, its themes, its voice, its recurring images, etc, and I am now writing toward those concerns whereas with A.A. I was just writing poems for the first few years of its construction, not thinking about a manuscript, not thinking about anything other than the individual poem.
With the second book, I have a very clear structure, a very clear book-length idea of what I'm doing. So, like I said just earlier, I am writing toward something, am writing only poems that feed into that manuscript. It's not that I'm blocking out other poems that might not fit with the second manuscript, because I'm not, but because I'm focused, because I have so little time to write new poems, and because I know what I'm trying to do with the poems I'm writing, I'm not filling another "Other Poems" folder. In fact, that folder is completely empty right now, and that's what brings me to my question, my concern, my point (and damn did it take me a long fucking time to get here):
Has anyone else gone through this experience? An experience where the first book gathers over time and then the second book sort of accumulates over time, sort of comes off the back-ended, cut, different-voiced poems written during the last months of putting together the first book? My main worry (though I must admit I'm not actually worrying about it...yet) is that I'll keep writing the poems for manuscript #2, finish it down the road, and then be left with no "Other Poems" folder, no new project already in the works, no idea what the fuck to do next? How does the third book come about? How does one move on?
And again, I don't care about the publication of the second book or anything (though of course I will be sending it out when it's done); and maybe once I do send it out I'll automatically be thrown into a new subject matter, a new voice, a new project, but since I won't be sending the book out until I know it's done (like I did with American Amen this fall...I sent the damn thing out, in one form or another, for a long time before it was probably ready), I won't have the luxury of having a pile of poems to play with. Or maybe I will?
Okay, that's enough ruminating. This is WAY too long. Probably alienating you all right now! Thanks for indulging me!
Because it's the only way I know how to talk about this topic, I'd like to look at it from my point-of-view...I'd love to be able to speak about folks with numerous books or at least a couple books, but since I'm not privy to the inner-workings of those poets' mindframes and creative impulses (though some interviews on the topic might be interesting...hmmm, that might fit into the scope of an anthology idea I've had for a little while now), all I've got is my own thoughts.
When I reworked, reordered, and rewrote parts of American Amen last fall, I knew that the manuscript was done, and that I wouldn't touch it again until it found a home...if it found a home. There was nothing I could do to it without deconstructing it, making it into something different. Basically, if I tweaked it too much, it'd turn into a different book, it'd no longer be American Amen. The poems I was writing this fall (and continue to write this winter) and even some that I wrote last spring and summer simply didn't fit tonally, contextually, metaphorically, or any other discernible way with the poems of American Amen. I was writing a second manuscript, though I didn't necessarily know it. I was aware that I was writing new poems that pushed beyond the concerns of A.A. both thematically and tonally, but I hadn't yet ruled out that the poems might fit in A.A. until this fall when I read through the book and couldn't find any holes fillable with the new poems. Did that mean the manuscript was done? Did it mean the manuscript was faulty because I couldn't replace the 2 or 3 poems I felt might be weakest? Were those poems really weak or were they just different than the stuff I was immediately concerned with and writing at the time? Or was I just being too overly concerned about the minutiae of the manuscript?
Well, it turns out that by the time I had finalized the first manuscript (which with first books, in my experience anyway, usually consists of weeding out all the poems written during the first 10+ years of writing poetry that fit together in some way or another and then organizing them organically as possible...in essence, the first book is sometimes a "greatest hits" collection of the poet's apprenticeship), I was already 30+ pages into a new project, a new manuscript concerned with different themes, different ideas, different voices.
The process of moving from the first book to the second book had happened organically because as I was finalizing the manuscript that would come to be American Amen, I was continuing to write poems just to write poems. The formation of the second manuscript happened by process of elimination as much as anything else: the new poems that didn't fit with A.A. went into a folder labeled "Other Poems" and over the months started to ruminate, copulate, congregate together into something new.
Because the poems that made up A.A. were written over a long period of time, I had accumulated enough poems outside the scope of that manuscript to have some ideas regarding a second manuscript, which now is becoming something quite solid. I know its ideas, its themes, its voice, its recurring images, etc, and I am now writing toward those concerns whereas with A.A. I was just writing poems for the first few years of its construction, not thinking about a manuscript, not thinking about anything other than the individual poem.
With the second book, I have a very clear structure, a very clear book-length idea of what I'm doing. So, like I said just earlier, I am writing toward something, am writing only poems that feed into that manuscript. It's not that I'm blocking out other poems that might not fit with the second manuscript, because I'm not, but because I'm focused, because I have so little time to write new poems, and because I know what I'm trying to do with the poems I'm writing, I'm not filling another "Other Poems" folder. In fact, that folder is completely empty right now, and that's what brings me to my question, my concern, my point (and damn did it take me a long fucking time to get here):
Has anyone else gone through this experience? An experience where the first book gathers over time and then the second book sort of accumulates over time, sort of comes off the back-ended, cut, different-voiced poems written during the last months of putting together the first book? My main worry (though I must admit I'm not actually worrying about it...yet) is that I'll keep writing the poems for manuscript #2, finish it down the road, and then be left with no "Other Poems" folder, no new project already in the works, no idea what the fuck to do next? How does the third book come about? How does one move on?
And again, I don't care about the publication of the second book or anything (though of course I will be sending it out when it's done); and maybe once I do send it out I'll automatically be thrown into a new subject matter, a new voice, a new project, but since I won't be sending the book out until I know it's done (like I did with American Amen this fall...I sent the damn thing out, in one form or another, for a long time before it was probably ready), I won't have the luxury of having a pile of poems to play with. Or maybe I will?
Okay, that's enough ruminating. This is WAY too long. Probably alienating you all right now! Thanks for indulging me!
She was attacked by an owl?!
I'm happy to have restarted things here at The Tongue is an Eye, and if you're stopping by to read, drop me a comment! It doesn't have to be anything significant or even pertinent, but I'd just love to know there's some of you out there stopping by now and again. And thanks for your time!
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This is terribly sad: A Harvard-trained biology professor is facing murder charges in the shooting deaths of three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, police said early Saturday.
Sincerest thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the victims. Who knows why the professor acted as she did, but I hope that the university is able to counsel the other faculty members and students so tragically affected by this awful situation.
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A beautiful and stunningly sincere essay by Jennifer K. Sweeney has been posted over at Poetry International's blog:
The barred owls nested in tree holes lined with feathers or grass along the path I followed each evening to eat dinner, my head spinning the day’s new fragments around, slowly reawakening my senses in the cold snap of air. It was such a night when I was struck upside the head and brought down to the forest floor. Disoriented and dazed, I assumed fallen branch only to look up from my knees and see a female barred owl flying off, her three-and-a-half-foot wingspan sweeping slowly and silently through the alders. I found out later that barred owls have fenestrated wings which make no sound, and I can attest that this is so.
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I've never read Barbara Guest (aside from a few poems here and there), but thanks to Brian Teare's gorgeous write-up of her Collected Poems in a recent issue of Boston Review, I'm ready to dive right in!
Without The Collected Poems, we could not have known for sure that the tremendous change animating her work emerged amid bedrock constancy. All along, her poems have been most faithful to the moment mimetic and linear logics give way to association; her poems have courted the moment when writing through process gains true access to imagination.
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More later.
~
This is terribly sad: A Harvard-trained biology professor is facing murder charges in the shooting deaths of three faculty members at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, police said early Saturday.
Sincerest thoughts and prayers go out to the families and friends of the victims. Who knows why the professor acted as she did, but I hope that the university is able to counsel the other faculty members and students so tragically affected by this awful situation.
~
A beautiful and stunningly sincere essay by Jennifer K. Sweeney has been posted over at Poetry International's blog:
The barred owls nested in tree holes lined with feathers or grass along the path I followed each evening to eat dinner, my head spinning the day’s new fragments around, slowly reawakening my senses in the cold snap of air. It was such a night when I was struck upside the head and brought down to the forest floor. Disoriented and dazed, I assumed fallen branch only to look up from my knees and see a female barred owl flying off, her three-and-a-half-foot wingspan sweeping slowly and silently through the alders. I found out later that barred owls have fenestrated wings which make no sound, and I can attest that this is so.
~
I've never read Barbara Guest (aside from a few poems here and there), but thanks to Brian Teare's gorgeous write-up of her Collected Poems in a recent issue of Boston Review, I'm ready to dive right in!
Without The Collected Poems, we could not have known for sure that the tremendous change animating her work emerged amid bedrock constancy. All along, her poems have been most faithful to the moment mimetic and linear logics give way to association; her poems have courted the moment when writing through process gains true access to imagination.
~
More later.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Levis
My friend and great poet Alexander Long just sent me a message to check out his new essay on Larry Levis over at The Offending Adam, a new online journal.
Check out an excerpt:
"I have this black-and-white photograph of Larry Levis. It’s nothing special; it’s not mine. It’s on the dust jacket of his last—posthumous—book, Elegy. But there is something authentic to it, something lacking occasion, extravagance, pose, artifice…. He’s wearing a dark blazer, and a light striped oxford shirt. He’s sitting, I think. There’s a certain pensiveness to the way his shoulders slump, the way his whole person seems to lean or bend with interest in—or is it fatigue with?—whatever he’s thinking, whatever’s being said to him or by him at that moment. Interest or fatigue? I can’t tell. Either way, there’s a melancholic current running through his meditative, mediating gaze."
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In other news, there's an offsite (of AWP) reading on Thursday, April 8th, in Denver. I may or may not be on the ticket. Still working out details.
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Got a few books yesterday:
Mathias Svalina's Destruction Myth
Jehanne Dubrow's From the Fever-World
Michael Meyerhofer's Blue Collar Eulogies
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Workshop tonight. On the ticket: Linda Gregg's Too Bright to See and poems from classmates.
Check out an excerpt:
"I have this black-and-white photograph of Larry Levis. It’s nothing special; it’s not mine. It’s on the dust jacket of his last—posthumous—book, Elegy. But there is something authentic to it, something lacking occasion, extravagance, pose, artifice…. He’s wearing a dark blazer, and a light striped oxford shirt. He’s sitting, I think. There’s a certain pensiveness to the way his shoulders slump, the way his whole person seems to lean or bend with interest in—or is it fatigue with?—whatever he’s thinking, whatever’s being said to him or by him at that moment. Interest or fatigue? I can’t tell. Either way, there’s a melancholic current running through his meditative, mediating gaze."
~
In other news, there's an offsite (of AWP) reading on Thursday, April 8th, in Denver. I may or may not be on the ticket. Still working out details.
~
Got a few books yesterday:
Mathias Svalina's Destruction Myth
Jehanne Dubrow's From the Fever-World
Michael Meyerhofer's Blue Collar Eulogies
~
Workshop tonight. On the ticket: Linda Gregg's Too Bright to See and poems from classmates.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Cover designs, et al
I'm in my office on campus, my dog's in my lap (M and A are having a playdate at our apartment this morning, and the dog's just too much of a pain to handle with all those people, so she's with me this morning), I'm annotating student poems and writing about Linda Gregg and reading a bit of Deborah Bogen's new book, Let Me Open You a Swan, from Elixir Press, but I can't stop thinking about cover design, cover art, etc. Perhaps it's because I find Bogen's cover to be particularly beautiful--I like the way the text and art combine to create the book's look.
The cover matters. To me, anyway. It's not that I won't/haven't read/read a book with a lame cover design, because I have and I will continue to do so, but there's something about holding an entire piece of art in your hands that rings true to me. If the poems inside strike me and move me, then it matters little what the book looks like, but I'm certainly more likely to display the book in my home, or leave it on my desk for long periods of time, or tell someone about the book for another reason than that the poems are wonderful IF the book's design is catchy.
For example, F. Daniel Rzicznek, my good friend and co-editor, is a fantastic poet, and I recommend his work to people all the time, but his second book, Divination Machine, from Parlor Press not only makes a great read, it also possesses some of my favorite cover design elements. Such as,
1) It makes sense. The cover addresses artistically, visually, some of the ideas/themes/images presented in the poems. Duh!? But so often that isn't the case. Of course, in the instance of a collection that's exactly that, a collection of random poems, the "sensical" cover design/art might not be as easy to produce. Still, most books have a set of common images or common themes or obsessions that could lend themselves to some sort of design concept, no?
2) It's bright, and it's not too busy. Nothing worse than a dark cover (at least when there's no contrasting brightness to make it "pop," to use a term I've heard thrown around in design circles...though clearly I have no authority here, haha)...well, except a cover that's too busy, too bright. Divination Machine's cover is bright, poignant, and succinct, and it's never busy.
3) You can look at it a few times, get it, and move on to the poems. Sometimes a cover can be so overwhelmingly shocking (take the cover of Ted Genoways's Anna, Washing. Holy beautiful photo!) that it's hard for me to tear away from it long enough to enjoy the poems. Thank goodness I did in the instance of Genoways book, because that's a fantastic book, in my opinion, but I could easily have disliked that book a great deal and still kept it on my shelf due to its pure visual aesthetic beauty.
I'm sure there are more reasons to like/dislike cover design/art. It basically comes down, for me anyway, to whether or not the art and design make sense, whether or not the cover bursts with energy without detracting from its real purpose (to sheath the poems), and whether or not the cover can peacefully co-exist with the poems.
At any rate, I was such a huge fan of the cover of Divination Machine that I asked Dan if he'd put me in touch with his designer, Frank Cucciarre, the graphic mastermind behind titles from Cleveland State University Poetry Center and owner of Blink Concept & Design, Inc. So I wrote Frank an email, and he's agreed to design and produce the cover for American Amen. Bear, over at Dream Horse Press, was kind enough to extend me the opportunity to seek outside design for the cover, and I couldn't be happier with the situation. I mean, DHP makes some beautiful books, so it wasn't like I had to go outside, but I'm very grateful for the opportunity to work with Frank.
So just last week I sent Frank a synopsis of the book, of its themes, ideas, recurring images, obsessions, etc, and also an explanation of the title, and 10-12 pages of poems from the book so that he can start his sketches, etc. I look forward to this partnership, and I can't wait to see how it all turns out.
On another note, I am excited to be starting a new blog, just for American Amen. I've secured the space and will get it prepped, but I won't open it until much closer to release time...sometime in the fall, perhaps. I thought about getting a website, paying for hosting, etc, but at this point, I'm not quite ready. Maybe in the fall, I will. With the anthology, the book, the chapbook, the job search, finishing my degree...it might be a good idea. I'll ask around, see what's up, anyway.
Okay, back to grading.
The cover matters. To me, anyway. It's not that I won't/haven't read/read a book with a lame cover design, because I have and I will continue to do so, but there's something about holding an entire piece of art in your hands that rings true to me. If the poems inside strike me and move me, then it matters little what the book looks like, but I'm certainly more likely to display the book in my home, or leave it on my desk for long periods of time, or tell someone about the book for another reason than that the poems are wonderful IF the book's design is catchy.
For example, F. Daniel Rzicznek, my good friend and co-editor, is a fantastic poet, and I recommend his work to people all the time, but his second book, Divination Machine, from Parlor Press not only makes a great read, it also possesses some of my favorite cover design elements. Such as,
1) It makes sense. The cover addresses artistically, visually, some of the ideas/themes/images presented in the poems. Duh!? But so often that isn't the case. Of course, in the instance of a collection that's exactly that, a collection of random poems, the "sensical" cover design/art might not be as easy to produce. Still, most books have a set of common images or common themes or obsessions that could lend themselves to some sort of design concept, no?
2) It's bright, and it's not too busy. Nothing worse than a dark cover (at least when there's no contrasting brightness to make it "pop," to use a term I've heard thrown around in design circles...though clearly I have no authority here, haha)...well, except a cover that's too busy, too bright. Divination Machine's cover is bright, poignant, and succinct, and it's never busy.
3) You can look at it a few times, get it, and move on to the poems. Sometimes a cover can be so overwhelmingly shocking (take the cover of Ted Genoways's Anna, Washing. Holy beautiful photo!) that it's hard for me to tear away from it long enough to enjoy the poems. Thank goodness I did in the instance of Genoways book, because that's a fantastic book, in my opinion, but I could easily have disliked that book a great deal and still kept it on my shelf due to its pure visual aesthetic beauty.
I'm sure there are more reasons to like/dislike cover design/art. It basically comes down, for me anyway, to whether or not the art and design make sense, whether or not the cover bursts with energy without detracting from its real purpose (to sheath the poems), and whether or not the cover can peacefully co-exist with the poems.
At any rate, I was such a huge fan of the cover of Divination Machine that I asked Dan if he'd put me in touch with his designer, Frank Cucciarre, the graphic mastermind behind titles from Cleveland State University Poetry Center and owner of Blink Concept & Design, Inc. So I wrote Frank an email, and he's agreed to design and produce the cover for American Amen. Bear, over at Dream Horse Press, was kind enough to extend me the opportunity to seek outside design for the cover, and I couldn't be happier with the situation. I mean, DHP makes some beautiful books, so it wasn't like I had to go outside, but I'm very grateful for the opportunity to work with Frank.
So just last week I sent Frank a synopsis of the book, of its themes, ideas, recurring images, obsessions, etc, and also an explanation of the title, and 10-12 pages of poems from the book so that he can start his sketches, etc. I look forward to this partnership, and I can't wait to see how it all turns out.
On another note, I am excited to be starting a new blog, just for American Amen. I've secured the space and will get it prepped, but I won't open it until much closer to release time...sometime in the fall, perhaps. I thought about getting a website, paying for hosting, etc, but at this point, I'm not quite ready. Maybe in the fall, I will. With the anthology, the book, the chapbook, the job search, finishing my degree...it might be a good idea. I'll ask around, see what's up, anyway.
Okay, back to grading.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Some bits and others
You can hear an interview with yours truly here, on WMUK, Western Michigan University's NPR station. I had a blast talking with Lorraine about American Amen, poetry in general, her perceptions of poetry, my obsessions, etc. She was the most gracious of hosts, and her condensing of our 30-minute talk into the tidy 3-minute spot above is quite wonderful. I really enjoyed the experience, and look forward to other such opportunities should they ever arise again.
Jonathan Kleyer, a wonderful, smart, and passionate reporter for The Kalamazoo Shopper, a local, county rag, is writing a piece on American Amen's recent success. When the write-up becomes available, I'll post some snippets here. Again, I am most gracious for his time and attention. Really it's the English Department here that helped me out the most. They sent a press-release out to the PR Department here at WMU, and that's how the radio station and The Kalamazoo Shopper found me. A sweet gesture on their part, surely. I'm grateful to them.
I've really been loving this long poem by Oliver de la Paz. I can't wait to get my hands on his new collection from Akron UP. Just read some of his newer poems in recent issues of The Southern Review (there's also a killer essay by Alex Lemon in that issue) and Sou'wester, too. Great stuff all around. Oliver is quickly becoming one of my favorite contemporary poets. And when I met him, however briefly, at AWP in Chicago last year, he was a super swell guy, too. I love when that happens. I'm hoping I'll get to say to him again in Denver this year, congratulate him on the new book, get his Hancock, etc.
Since I'm talking journals, I'll mention that I've got poems forthcoming, both from American Amen and from "the new thing," in The Laurel Review, H_NGM_N, Quarterly West, Indiana Review, Reed, Lumina, Parthenon West Review, Gargoyle, Cider Press Reivew, and maybe a couple others I'm blanking on.... Hmmmm? I had a decent little run in the late summer and early fall. Nothing lately on the journal front, but I don't care. Just happy to be writing a bit here and there, studying for comps, being with my family, and teaching. In more domestic news, we desperately need to get out of our current apartment (the dog hears too many noises through our thin walls and her barking wakes Auden from naps, or prevents him from taking them at all, and M is doing her best to deal with it, but it's just NOT working...it's just too damn stressful for everyone, I think). Just not sure how to deal with the moving right now. Too many things going on, not enough time, money, etc. But we'll see how things progress. Who knows. I keep telling M: find us a place, take care of details, and I'll lug the damn boxes. But damn, I HATE moving, ya know? Anything for my family's piece of mind though. God knows I've proven that over the years. ;) And so has M, for sure...more than me, actually.
Really been enjoying the latest issue of Patty Paine's diode. Consistently one of the best journals, print or web, out there. Lovely, lovely. Since I'm apparently focusing on journals a lot in this lil posting, please go check out my friend and mentor, Amy Newman's, new online journal, Ancora Imparo. It's flipping gorgeous, and it'll continue to be gorgeous. Happy reading...on all fronts!
Oh and before I go, Auden's getting so big. He's a miracle everyday. I just love spending time with him and Mandy. We're a fun little family, I think. We're trying at least. Things aren't perfect, but we get along day to day and have a good time being with each other. [See recent pic of Auden above!]
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