PRESS EVENT: Poet Robert Mittenthal @ The Evergreen State College

It's been a shit storm of finishing the proofs of two large books, the new issue of Wheelhouse (along with some amazing new Wheelhouse chapbooks), and, of course, feeling poorly--and so blogging has been the first thing to go.  

I will, however, get around to writing about the AMAZING reading, set of workshops, and potluck that involved CA Conrad's visit to Olympia as part of our ongoing series, PRESS.  As Conrad's visit demands its own longer write-up, I'll get to that shortly.  For now:

As the final PRESS event (not to be confused with the PRESS 1 anthology below--two different ventures), writer and Evergreen student William Owen spearheaded the effort to bring one of Seattle's SubText heros and longtime poet, Robert Mittenthal, to The Evergreen State College.  This will coincide with the end of our semester here at the College.  We'll pick back up next semester with visits from Cara Benson, David Abel, and a bit farther down the road, Eleni Stecopolous and Rachel Zolf.  I've been a fan of Robert's work--critical, creative, the melding of poetry and poetics, as well as his curatorial efforts--for a long time now.  So, this should be great fun.  Info below.  Please come, and spread the word!

PRESS, Wheelhouse Magazine & Press, & Experiments in Text present a talk and reading by Robert Mittenthal.

Saturday, March 13th
The Evergreen State College, Sem 2 Building A1107
3PM, free & open to the public.

Robert Mittenthal is author of Value Unmapped (Nomados), Martyr Economy, Ready Terms (Tsunami Editions), and the forthcoming Wax World (Chax).  Irrational Dude, a chapbook of collaborative work with Nico Vassilakis, was recently published by tir aux pigeons (http://tir-aux-pigeons.blogspot.com/).  He lives in Seattle where he has been a curator of the Subtext Reading Series. A new blog is athttp://rmutts.blogspot.com

Get Yr Read On: Poetry at Pilot in March

Thanks to Pilot Books, and poet-curators such as Will Owen, Nico Vassilakis, and Robert Mittenthal--the latter who will be at Evergreen for a PRESS reading/discussion in March as well--I will be reading for the BIG PELT TALK Reading Series along with Reg Johanson at Pilot Book Store, March 21st.  Might not yet have Occultations back from the printers, but will have the other new book of poems/essay/whatnot, Prefab Eulogies, with me to peddle (book swap!).  Nico put his thinking cap on and sent along this list of readers for March at Pilot, and what a fantastic lineup.  If anywhere near Seattle, please join us -- not just myself and Reg Johanson on the 21st, but for as many of these dates as your recessionary schedule can fit in.  Thanks again, all, for setting this up.

 

POETRY in MARCH @ Pilot Bookstore
www.pilotbooksseattle.com

6:00pm - 6:15pm, longer where noted *

free
 
3/1 - Don Mee Choi

3/2 - Matthew Zapruder (7pm – CA Conrad) 
3/3 - Chelsea Martin
3/4 - Joshua Beckman
3/5 - Crystal Curry (7pm - Tom Hansen book release) 
3/6 - Nico Vassilakis
3/7 - Stacey Levine
3/8 - Matt Briggs
3/9 - Jeanne Heuving
3/10 - Meredith Clark*
3/11 - John Olson
3/12 - Ezra Mark
3/13 - Carol Guess 
3/14 - Linden Ontjes
3/15 - Sharon Alexander
3/16 - Judith Skillman
3/17 - Kristen Kosmas (an improvided staging of her playscript, Hello Failure) 
3/18 -  Matthew Simmons
3/19 - Tenney Nathanson*
3/20 - Kevin Sampsell
3/21 – BIG PELT III - Reg Johanson and David Wolach*
3/22 - Dan Peters (7pm Ish Klein, John Beer, Paul Killebrew (Canarium Books) 
3/23 - Joel Felix 
3/24 - Janee Baugher
3/25 - Yuko Enomoto  
3/26 - Jenifer Browne-Lawrence 
3/27 - Zachary Schomburg
3/28 - Doug Nufer
3/29 - Sarah Mangold 
3/30 - Kim-An Lieberman 
3/31 - Tao Lin* 

Books, Books, Books, ON

Just got the proof book of Prefab Eulogies from Geoffrey at BlazeVox. So, it should be out in the next couple weeks. He did a great job cleaning up my designs inside and outside the book, and leaving alone the images I wanted to look amateurish, as if goofed up by a corporation that sells poetry advice.  It's nice to hold a book in your hands after reading it over and over in pdf form, INDD, etc.  This is true for me regardless of whether it's by "me" or by the authors for whom I've done editorial work.  Each time I hold the book-object I do re-assess my notion that the book can be dispensed with a great deal of the time, that I don't mind the physical book becoming less of a commercially viable commodity and more of a niche market art object.  Yet I still dislike it when someone says: "there's just something about holding a book...." There is also nothing quite like the feel of making your own cheese.  One can go on like this, make a nostalgia list, and it really means very little outside the given fetish.  The difference is in who owns what: the book is part of a dying corporate empire, and so gaining control of its construction is a reclamation of one's work, hence one's work becomes one's passion, as in Geoffrey's case.  Holding a book has nothing to do with regaining control of a dying corporate empire.  Usually it's an act of complicity with keeping it on life support.  Not so in poetry almost always, of course, and so as per my sacrificial trees post, I do not feel anything but pleasure holding the thing and staving off macular degeneration.  

Speaking of editing.  I did some copy for an essay by Amy King awhile back, not knowing what King was going to do with this essay she read at the AMAZING Belladonna Conference on Feminism, Activism, & Poetry (thinking, that is, it was going to end up used for teaching purposes, etc, very mysterious to me at the time as I think I was very busy doing a lot of nothing).  And then, er, bam: it's published in Free Verse and everyone can read it.  Which I would suggest, as I think it's a clear, hopeful essay, or, perhaps more precisely, a poetics of King's What Else in a larger (more encompassing) Queer Poetics. 

Other books received, which I will get to asap, as I'm excited to dig in and dig out of:

--Robert Mittenthal & Nico Vassilakis, Irrational Dude (I read part of this as they were working on it and it was/is gorgeous) (Tir Aux Pigeons, 2009)

--Nico Vassilakis, Text Loses Time (ManyPenny Press, 2007)

The latter work by Nico (who came down with Robert to hear Chris Mann perform for our PRESS series) I'd wanted to pick up for awhile now, as there's been quite a lot of buzz about this big multi-genre book.

Also of note, next week ON: A journal of Contemporary Practice (ON2) will be officially launched at a release party Feb 10.  Please go if in the area.  From Michael Cross:

Dear Friends: Please join us this Wednesday, Feb. 10th for the release party for ON: Contemporary Practice 2 at Moe's Books. My co-editor, Kyle Schlesinger, will be in town to help introduce our stellar cast of guests (reading poetry and critical statements), including Brandon Brown, David Brazil, Dan-Thomas Glass, Alli Warren, Suzanne Stein, Laura Moriarty, Taylor Brady, Jocelyn Saidenberg, and Robin Tremblay-McGaw. Festivities begin at 7:30 pm, and we are sure to hit the bars for family time afterwards. Hope to see you there! Michael