image via Mary Corse.

Deactivated my Facebook for a bit (forever?).

Also, rekindling my love of Raymond Carver, bumped into this poem like an old friend:

Romanticism

The nights are very unclear here.
But if the moon is full, we know it.
We feel one thing one minute,
something else the next.

What else is (my) life, if not this?

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

via Poetry Foundation

I’m late posting this news here but after 10 years I’ve decided to put my series Poets off Poetry/Song of the Week on an indefinite hiatus.  I wrote something to try to commemorate the moment. You can read it here. 10 years is a long time to do something and toward the end of 2017 the series felt closer and closer to it’s natural end. I am of course sad about this but also feel super proud and grateful to the hundreds of contributors. It’s something to be happy about having done all these years! I’ve diligently kept a Spotify playlist for all the Song of the Weeks, which you can listen to here.  It’s truly been my pleasure to curate this series.

Also, another year, another AWP. Or this year, Whale Prom. Whale Prom is a free off-site book fair that actually isn’t really associated with the conference at all. I will be helping to staff the Bloof Books table and am looking forward to seeing some familiar faces. Also, AWP is in Tampa this year and I am so excited for the warm weather.

Well, here we are, another year. They do seem to feel less eventful as they accumulate, don’t they? Or maybe they are eventful except they stop really feeling that way? Or maybe it’s just me?

I forgot to tell you about some poems that got published in December. The Elephants, a new-ish press and journal, published a short sequence called 9-5. You can read it here. I’m really happy these poems found a home where they did.

Some exciting new too: Dancing Girl Press accepted my chapbook Depression Parts. The chapbook should be out in the fall of 2018.

Otherwise, I have some manuscripts and some poems out for consideration. Maybe 2018 will bring with it bountiful returns. Or not. Who knows.

Even though I feel a bit in the winter doldrums, I should remember that there are things to be grateful for in 2018. I got a new job at The New School in May that has really changed a lot of things for me. Even though I’ve been in the new job for nine months I still feel as grateful as I did on day one. I think I am still emerging from a six year long fugue state.  Even though I knew how dark things were I don’t think I really understood just how dark until I started to wake up from it.

Plus I just got a last minute class at New Jersey City University for the spring. I taught there for the first time in the fall and it is just the sort of situation I have been hoping for. I am teaching a creative writing class and the school is about a 15 minute drive from my house. It’s really wonderful and definitely helps to combat the administrative day job.

Also, I will be reading some new poems in the Red Room at KGB on Friday, February 23 if you are so inclined.  Facebook invite here.

If you want poems before then you can always go to Amy Lawless’ and Anglea Veronica Wong’s joint book party at HOWL Happening in the East Village on January 21.  Facebook invite here.

Otherwise, 2018, here we go.

via The Awl.

Sort of last minute to be posting here but I am reading tomorrow night for The New School After Hours, with fellow MFA alums and current MFA-ers. The reading is at KGB, all the way upstairs in the Red Room. The reading starts at 7pm.  Find more details here.

Also, since I’ve last posted, two new issues of Boog City were published.  This issue has interviews I conducted with Third Man Books, Trembling Pillow Press, and White Pine Press.  The most recent issue is a Portland, Ore themed issue with my interview with Poor Claudia and a short feature on Octopus Books.

A lot of other stuff has happened in the last few months, which I guess is why I haven’t written. Life changes for many people in my life. New jobs, new homes, new babies. Life moving on.

Speaking of moving on, this happened:

You can get yourself a copy of Ryan’s new record here.

A new issue of Boog City is up with my interview with Argos Books.  You can read it here. Argos Books is also the featured press for the d.a. levy lives portion of the Welcome to Boog City Poetry Festival this weekend.

The full line up for the festival this weekend can be found here.

I had a pretty good time at AWP, was definitely in need of a break from my routine.Even though it is cheesy to admit, it is inspiring spend the weekend among writers and hear new people read.

The real challenge now is to hang on to that motivation.

Next week is AWP, and even though it is in D.C. this year (aka the belly of the beast), I am still excited to go spend the weekend with poets.

I am reading on Thursday night at the D.C. Arts Center for Bloof Books.  Facebook invite here.

In other news, Stacey Tran’s chapbook Fake Haiku is hot off the presses, literally. Me and the rest of the letterpress team have been working on this chapbook since September.  We are so happy it’s done! Many thanks to Wendy’s Subway for providing the space and resources, to Emily Toder for teaching us how to use a letter press, and of course to Stacey for sending us her writing and trusting us with her work!

In #resistance news, I’ve been making phone calls today and leaving voicemails with scripts provided by 5calls.org. I also came across this free fax service faxZero from a friend on Facebook. You can send up to five free faxes (via email!) a day to folks in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Write whatever you want in the text box, but “No to DeVos” seems to be trending.

In solidarity.

Soundtrack for our presidential transition. Fuck yea.