30 MAR 07
A lot of angst about a big blurry black & white photo I was making you for your birthday. I liked it. Would you? What was good about it was the way it was so wrong, very gray and dull. It was a photo of a plant. Turned out then that it wasn't your birthday. (I asked your brother, whom I hadn't met before--he was out in the field moving tools around.) I decided not to send the gift. But were big blurry black & white photographs of plants a good direction for me? I wondered.

(If I were using the new Blogger software, I'd label this: influences, born tomorrow.)
28 MAR 07

14 sentences:
I heard a story yesterday. I missed the beginning. But I like passing through. Stopped at a rest stop, the sign said that ordinary watchfulness was all we'd probably need. I wonder if feeling confident doing what we're doing would signal the completion.
"I see cats, I talk to them in German; I see dogs, I talk to them in French." A bunch of black cows and one white cow. I didn't think of how they'd stand so near the house. Incident, happening, occurrence, juncture, possibility, fortuity, accident, chance. Mary suggests removing dates from my book--to have it be "a thought process--not a memoir." Simply put, her view: "It's too late."
I think of certain cars I drove near. The room coughs up grounds, fueled on wishful thinking. "Jesus Christ, I wish I was goin' with ya."
26 MAR 07
Greenstreet Destroys Audience Will To Live

(& I am, naturally, digging my newfound evil power.)
24 MAR 07
from Susan Tichy:
POETRY SCOTLAND is a two-week study tour, June 14-July 1, 2007, led by Susan Tichy, George Mason University.
Students will work with some of Scotland's leading poets on writing excursions and in small workshops and discussions. Our travels will take us to Edinburgh, Dumfries, and on walking/writing excursions on the Isle of Skye.
Along the way, we will visit the studio of land artist Andy Goldsworthy (known to many from the documentary Rivers and Tides), and Little Sparta, the garden of poet and conceptual artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. We will also meet some of Scotland's indefatigable small-press and artist's book publishers.
Faculty and guests include poets Tom Pow, Kathleen Jamie, Thomas A. Clark, Alec Finlay, Ken Cockburn, Myles Campbell, Meg Bateman, and historian Edward J. Cowan.
3 credits available in either literature or writing, graduate or
undergraduate. You need not enroll for credit to join the
trip—it is open to all. Registration deadline is April 6.
For more information, go to the GMU Center for Global
Education’s website. Or directly to the syllabus and faculty bios at http://mason.gmu.edu/~stichy/PoetryScotland.html. Or contact Susan Tichy by email (stichy at gmu dot edu).
22 MAR 07
"So tell me, why have you been doing this?" he asked. It was after the reading at Open Books, our final reading. "Were you trying to get your name out there? Trying to sell books? Trying to make a connection with people?"
I said, "All those things. But mostly I'm trying to see if I can change into a different kind of person."

Thanks again for coming out--it was great to meet you, see you again, talk with you later in that incredibly loud bar, pizza place, taqueria. Or sorry we didn't get a chance to talk! Or too bad that your previous engagement, illness, unforseen calamity, sudden opportunity, newly arrived baby (congratulations!), etc. prevented you from making it (or, that one evening, sent me back to the hotel early). Next time, okay?
And thanks to our hosts--the teachers, series curators, bookstore owners--and to friends who put us up, bought us dinner or a glass before or after.

Home again.
Where the heck is Janet?
20 MAR 07

18 MAR 07

Tonight we're in Ashland, at SOU. Tomorrow night, Portland, reading for Spare Room. Tuesday the 20th is our last date, at Open Books in Seattle. Details under the calendar to the right. Please come! Janet Holmes is awesome. Seriously. She blows me away every night.
16 MAR 07

Between tonight (Friday) and next Tuesday night (20 March), if you're going to be near Berkeley or Santa Cruz, CA, Ashland or Portland, OR, or Seattle, WA, catch an evening of the f2f/cs West Coast Tour. Janet Holmes and I are offering explosive proof that our books, F2F and case sensitive are not merely "newish" but totally raw totally live coming at you the way you like it. Full schedule over at my site's readings page, and here's the scoop on the first dates:
Friday, 16 MAR 07 7:30 pm
Pegasus Books Downtown
2349 Shattuck Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94704
more info: Clay Banes
Saturday, 17 MAR 07 7:30 pm
A New Cadence Poetry Series
Louden Nelson Center
301 Center Street
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
We got warmed up yesterday with a very enjoyable visit to a class of Graham Foust's at Saint Mary's College. Interesting questions and good conversation, strands of which extended into a small party afterward under the stars. Coincidentally we were starting our adventure on Janet's birthday (she made a wish, blew out a candle). Seemed propitious.
. . .
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