Candy

Because life IS crazy! And because I LOVE Iggy, in every incarnation. Also, this is totally part of the soundtrack for Slope Move. All that separation anxiety! Even the video is all separate spheres-esque.

I sort of imagine that when Kate Pierson joins in, even though she's singing the same chorus, she's actually kinda eye-rolly about all of Iggy's shirtless wallowing. Eff off guy, you blew it.

The News in Neon

**My first book of poems, Slope Move, is forthcoming from Coconut Books in 2012!**

It's a book-length poem about, well, leaving.

More specifically, it's about the act of separation: from an "other", from the self, & from linearity (i.e. the splits that occur within narratives--through shifts in time, perspective, & memory.)

Also poems about bird-hating, co-dependency, Liz Phair songs, & Chicago.

[Red Missed Aches] by Jennifer Tamayo, now available for pre-order!

Jennifer Tamayo's Red Missed Aches Read Missed Aches Red Mistakes Read Mistakes is now available for preorder on the Switchback website and on Amazon!

[Red Missed Aches] is a perfect-bound 8.5" x 8.5" book of text and images, winner of the Switchback Books 2010 Gatewood Prize, selected by Cathy Park Hong.

From Cathy Park Hong's introduction:

Jennifer Tamayo's writing is cacophonous, rude, and stripped. She uses equal measures of English, Spanish, and Spanglish; she landmines her poetry with malapropisms so the music is startling and pleasingly discordant.

[Red Missed Aches] feels defiantly unfinished, adhering to a DIY feminist punk aesthetic so that it is more rough assemblage than bound book, a palimpsest that provocatively revises female sexuality and citizenship. Tamayo's debut collection is a daring and astonishing work that refuses borders.

Switchback Books
May 15, 2011
ISBN-10: 0978617266
ISBN-13: 978-0978617264
$18.00


Visit the Switchback site to purchase the book via Paypal!!


(And while you're at it, be sure to enter the 2011 Gatewood contest, open for submissions right now!)

Wednesday, April 20, 7pm: Donnelly, Nezhukumatathil, Waldman & American Poet issue 40!

I'm excited to announce that American Poet issue 40 is hot off the press!

Come celebrate with me and hear readings by the fabulous Timothy Donnelly, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, & Anne Waldman at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, Wednesday, April 20, at 7pm. Grab a free copy of American Poet and be sure to buy a coffee or a beer from the cafe (and perhaps a used book from the shelves!) All Housing Works proceeds go towards the fight against AIDS and homelessness.

This issue of American Poet, the journal of the Academy of American Poets, features essays by Sharon Dolin, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, & Marilyn Hacker among others, and includes poems by Galway Kinnell, Khaled Mattawa, Mark Doty, Jean Valentine, Yusef Komunyakaa, Laura Mullen, Juan Felipe Herrera, Rosmarie Waldrop, Timothy Donnelly, Anne Waldman, Adrienne Rich, Evie Shockley and many others.

All are welcome! See you there!

Switchback Books is now open to submissions for the 2011 Gatewood Prize!

The Gatewood Prize is Switchback Books' annual competition for a first or second full-length (48-80 pp.) collection of poems by a woman writing in the English language. It is named after Emma Gatewood, the first woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail.

2011 JUDGE: Harryette Mullen

READING PERIOD: April 1-June 1, 2011

HARRYETTE MULLEN's most recent books are Recyclopedia (Graywolf Press, 2006) and Sleeping with the Dictionary (University of California Press, 2002), a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Mullen was the 2009 recipient of the Academy of American Poets' Fellowship Award. She teaches African American literature and creative writing in the English Department at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Please visit our website for more information and guidelines.

Please re-post and spread the word! Thank you!

Hanna Andrews & Becca Klaver, Editors

Whitney Holmes, Managing Editor

Dolly Lemke, Assistant Editor

Brandi Homan, Board President

I Am a Natural Wonder

My manic little poem is up today at Lily Ladewig & Anne Cecilia Holmes' I Am a Natural Wonder poem project! Big thanks!

You can also read their collaborative chapbook by the same title, published by Blue Hour Press, available as an e-chap on the blog.

i know, i know

I haven't really been blogging for the past couple of months, as editing projects have taken over my life. This is great, make no mistake, but I sure do miss that whole writing thing.

Plus, I can't figure out how to avoid getting the spam comments. Anyone know?

I spend most of my work day and evenings reading poetry or prose about poetry, so I've been reading a ton of comics/graphic serials this summer on the subway commutes.

So far, I've been through:

Whiteout (whole series) Book 1 way better than Book 2.

Supermarket (whole series) Eh.

DEMO (whole series) Quirky, singular. Some issues better than others. Love the Brian Wood/Becky Cloonan combo. I also love their notes at the end of each issue, complete with tracklists of music that inspired writing/drawing each story.

DMZ (I think the whole series? I can't tell if it's over?) Super heavy. New York as war zone.

Some dark stuff there. I also just started reading a new series called Scarlet. 2 issues in, it's pretty intriguing--female protagonist, left for dead in shady police bust (and boyfriend killed in same) she's recovered and now out to right the wrongs of the world, by force if necessary. (So far, necessary.) The art is great in this one, too.

Here's a little video that seems just right for tonight. Although may further encourage the Japanese spam...

The Bird & The Bee - Love Letter To Japan
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.