White Wolf Party Tour

My new book Wolf and Pilot will be physical soon! To celebrate with my publisher Four Way Books I'm headed out west with Jared White and Dan Magers. Jared is celebrating his forthcoming chapbook This Is What It Is Like To Be Loved By Me, out by Bloof Books, and Dan is celebrating the release of his book Partyknife, out by Birds, LLC. Come to a reading! Come buy a book! You can read a review here.

There will be more readings hereafter and I promise to keep you posted. I will read until the baby is born and then I will read some more!

Sept 30--in Boise, Idaho with Jared White, Dan Magers, Farrah Field, and Kyle Crawford

http://ghostsandprojectors.wordpress.com/ 

7pm, at The Crux, 1022 W Main Street, Boise. 

October 2--Portland, Oregon with Farrah Field, Jared White, and Dan Magers with musical guest import/import

http://ifnotforkidnappoetry.blogspot.com/

7:30 PM, Recess Gallery 1127 SE 10th Avenue Portland, OR 97214 (207-409-6763)

October 5--Oakland, California with Dan Magers, Farrah Field, and Jared White

at Studio 1 Art Center

http://studioonereadingseries.blogspot.com/

Oct 6--San Francisco radio appearance with Jared White, Farrah Field, and Dan Magers

Poet as Radio

airs Saturday from 9-10

http://poetasradio.blogspot.com/

Oct 8--poetry talk and tea with students at Cal Arts Los Angeles, CA

4 pm

Oct 9--Los Angeles, CA reading with Michelle Detorie, Jared White and Dan Magers

The Pop-Hop bookstore

5002 York Boulevard, Los Angeles, in Highland Park

7 pm

Oct 10—the book tour ends in NY with this great reading

@ 6:30 pm in New York, NY.

Celebrating New Work from 2012 CLMP Face Out Grantees

Cynthia Cruz,  

Farrah Field (Four Way Books)

Dan Machlin reading for Frances Richard (Futurepoem Books)

Dan Magers (Birds, LLC)

Kristin Prevallet (Belladonna Books)

NYU Main Bookstore, 726 Broadway

Farrah’s dad will be there!!

Dumplings and Trumpets: Dan Magers

Last night I dreamt about a poem called "Indie Message Board" by Dan Magers. Dan Magers isn't like any poet you know. His aesthetic is young--in the sense that he knows more about the real world than the real world--and simultaneously aged--everything one needs to know about changes so awfully fast. His range of existential hopelessness and sexual promiscuousness/artful deviance conjoins pop culture and hipsterdom in a space of poetry that reassures you that you no longer have to feel guilty about all those weird Youtube videos you watched, that guy's dick you saw hanging out of his dress, or when you touched that sleeping girl's arm in the New Museum. Poetry as Antonioni (the old man said that). Poetry Foucault. Poetry as a long party. Poetry as Ecstasy, post-Ecstasy, with a hint of Denis Johnson.

"Indie Message Board" begins with a post by Pwn_X. Pwnage is a gamer sort of term indicating ownership. (I'm not sure if I pronounced it correctly). (Also, I accidentally said "Message Boards" instead of "Board"). Listen to the poem here:

There's a thread in this poem about being witty, being fast. Who can imitate the hero while "syphildick" is still funny, before it's tragic. Who can turn the next phrase. Then we all have to face our fear. What if all of this is empty: "women were handing him things," the posters ready to be taken down and claimed, and summoning energy. Yet emptiness doesn't grow to The Nothing size: "it should be fine," "the eager month," and "barrenness that announces itself, but isn't there." It's too plentiful to be barren. Dan Magers is reading this Sat., June 6th, right here in Brooklyn and I'm really sad that I can't go.   

Possible Concept Outfits Include But Are Not Limited To:

• unicorn t-shirt is all that matters
• hipster librarian
• tuxedo
• hipster mom with apron
• craft junkie with stamped, embroidered shoes
• floating ankle skater shorts
• exposed lace somewhere
• hammer pants
• perfectly ripped near all pockets and just above the knee
• dead swan dress
• something zebra striped
• two french braids and a red dress
• cowboy boots plus anything, nothing

The Kool-Aid Kids Really Kick It

I’m really impressed by the youngins these days. ’80-86 were good years to have babies. The youngins have prevailed against the evil leaders that the youngins had no part electing. The youngins have read and reviewed more books than anyone ever will. The youngins lap laps. Were their parents playing The Smiths while they were asleep in their cribs? Were these kids raised on organic produce only? Are their parents skaters? The mind wonders.

The youngins are artful. They can accomplish what you can, but they will do it faster and sexier. My old man’s sister, born in ’81, is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. Claire Donato (’86) just released an incredible chapbook from Cannibal Books and she’s still in poetry school! Every poem that Julia Cohen ('81) writes is brilliant. She has published something like five to one hundred chapbooks, four of which came out before she finished poetry school and she has a book on the way. The poet Paige Taggart (’80) writes poems and also makes beautiful jewelry. Dan Magers (’80) let me read his mind-blowing epic sestina that follows the Snyder legacy on As the World Turns.  How do they do this? How did they come by their wisdom?

Two youngins’ voices of this bright, savvy, hip but not hipster generation: Laura Marling and Johnny Flynn. Laura Marling is actually younger than the youngins, weighing in at nineteen years, but I will patiently wait for the day when she can come play music in Brooklyn. My old man and I heard her interviewed on NPR when she was less than nineteen. Johnny Flynn is located on my ipod between Johhny Cash and Joni Mitchell, so you know I’ll be writing more about him. I’m rather disgruntled that neither singer will be playing while I’m in London next week (because they are both playing tomorrow), so I guess I’ll have to continue listening to Johnny Flynn while I’m at the gym. Yes, I listen to British folk music while I’m at the gym.