Simpleawesome

If I wrote songs they would sound like this. And if I could make a video, this woman would be in it.

Mailing List

I'm compiling a mailing list to keep people informed on my doings, publications, shows ect...

I added it to the right side of the website.

It is also here:

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New Poem Published

The new issue of the White Whale Review hit the internet yesterday. I have a poem appearing in it. Click on the the whale to read "Last Stand." You might be in it, fictionalized or course, thinly vieled at least, or not. There are some other very talented writers published with me in the new issue, give it a read through, it's certainly worth your time.

I Can't Talk Right

That's right, I can't talk right. Also, can't eat comfortably since I have a large gash on the left side of my tongue. Last night as I was looking in the mirror, assessing the damage, I realized the wound looks almost like a fish gill.

But tongues heal fast and I got plans to make. I'm working on a synopsis for my grant application and am stuck on the third paragraph and writing 1,500 words on the subject seems excessive. I nicked the writer resume format from Simone and the writing sample is assembled. I'm going to send it this weekend and force myself to work under a deadline. Otherwise I tend to not get anything done.

Occupied [second draft]

A couple people asked me about this on Wednesday. Comments and suggestions welcome.[edit] Thanks for the feedback everyone. I'm removing the bulk of the poem and am almost finished editing it. I plan on sending it out soon. 

Occupied

There is an unflagging logic
to bathroom graffiti.

Like a game of scrabble
it is edited,
a scramble of organic
grandiose notes grow
on grout and tile.

...

I've been sick the last week or so and have been completely neglecting an update to this site. I went to the doctor today was told I'll live, so here's an update. The second draft of my manuscript is off being read. Jade gave the first draft a read through and I made some significant changes. It's currently weighing in at about 55 pages and could shrink further [or grow by a page of two if I finish this new peice I'm working on about bathroom graffiti]. 

I added a function to stream my album in its entirety here on the website. I should have some news about shows for 2010 soon. And I think that's all for now, more soon, sooner, soonest yet.

Plans

Development of a new plan, possibly involving an MFA, is underway. All current MFA students, as well as graduates, talk to me about your education, experiences, where you went, are going, ect...I'd love to hear from you. I think I'm going to try BU, maybe a couple schools in NYC. I don't want to limit my options, but I really don't see myself moving out of the Northeast.

Last night Jade did an awesome feature at the Lizard Lounge. The Pats v. Colts game really bit into the size of the crowd, but everyone who was there dug it.

I'm almost done editing my poetry manuscript. I'm kicking around titles, but none of them are any good. This is especially frustrating since I'm usually great with titles. I plan on giving it to some people to read, then another round of editing, and then, finally, out into the hands of some publishers.

Performing Tomorrow @ The Bowery Poetry Club

Tuesday night after the Urbana Slam in NYC I'll be featuring with The November 3rd Club authors at the Bowery Poetry Club to celebrate the publication of their most recent issue. Editors Victor D. Infante and Tara Betts co-host host a night of poetry and politics featuring Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz, Corrina Bain, Tony Brown, Jane Cassady, Lea Deschenes, Amy Holman, Emily Kagan Trenchard, Geoff Kagan Trenchard, Erika Lutzner, Jon Sands, Jade Sylvan, Edwin Wilson Rivera, Darren Taffinder, and myself.  writers at the. Come early, show starts at 6:30pm with a WORD SHOP, featuring Victor and Lea.

Manuscript & Old Poem

I'm currently working on a full length books of poems, editing about 75 pages down to 60. During the process of going through my old work, I came across the poem I've included below. I actually still like this poem. I think it does some really interesting things, but it has no place in a book comprised of mostly things I've written in the past 2-3 years, so I'm including it here. Comments are welcome.

                    Exigencies

  1.

To sway within the cool steady creak of movement,

The road stretches infinitely under this spell:

Swelling through cities and pastures,

Thematic and ordinary;

Tapping our fingers hollowly against the vinyl,

Rocking with distance, asleep in its arms.

Changing in the good china for a room in some town,

A place to gather strength for a night or two

And imagine life in some midwestern town or haven:

Taking a local wife, a bar:

Our surname arching over the doorframe,

Neighbors regaling us with the story of their meeting,

The same sleep of the journey overtaking us in the interim.

  2.

The corpse buried beneath the bathtub,

Strung with a wreath of acorns

And planted in accord with the local traditions;

Our intentions sleep there, lost amongst

All that ceremony, decisions put to procrastination:

Strange bedfellows, a diadem affixed to their stilted brow.

  3.

Birds swarm over the delta, the arch of their wings

Ensigned toward all they have moved beyond,

And yes, I think there should be cicadas:

Omens appropriately veiled,

Can you see what I have learned?

Poems need omens, and cicadas.

The word wrung bare over a clothesline,

Smelling of wind, even a bit

Of the farm up the hill:

The rain is drying in the afternoon sun,

I listen to it: there is no sound,

In these hills on the darkest nights,

We still sense the quivering

And flickering of the flame, ever restless.

  4.

Portend me some participles if but for this instance,

They told me there are two stories

I can tell you, they begin as such:

“A stranger comes to town,” or “a journey begins,”

I am thinking of a third, but do not know how or where to begin.

  5.

All summer we took tennis court oaths,

Bending the geometry of each electric yellow ball

Around white lines reticent with judgment,

And later lineament for aching wrists and shoulders

Unused to such calculated swings:

What can be gleaned from within that axis:

Another pauper living alone on grapes and olives

Strewn by the racquet scythe.

Each day a black cat

Crosses our path, its tail arched up

Issued into a question, it is but one shape of luck,

Our very own foxhole

From which we issue our report.

   6.

Listen to silverware clatter in the drawer,

The sound of it clean and crisp

In the dark, silent house,

Understanding the sound, but not

How to listen and explain

What one knows to others,

Bringing us into this present phase

Of some intimate stranger’s words

Calling out for negotiation.

  7.

Where branches once grew large

Are knobby lumps of sinew:

There are several along

The trunks of trees that line the lot,

All but healed over by the quick of thin bark,

Unburdened by memory or wanderlust,

They are maps to a steadfast and spiraling center:

We could cut them open

To find the answers, but prefer the mystery therein.

We took a left when we should have

Gone right and found the road led nowhere,

Its yellow lines disappearing into darkness,

Pavement gradually giving away

To the black beginnings of night

That even our fog lights could not penetrate:

The empty treeless field, barren of moonlight,

Colonial settlers would not have dared

Travel through such emptiness

On a night so dark.

  8.

We walk tentatively forward, our feet

Crunching down onto ice that has formed

Around the severed stalks of some old crop,

They protrude intermittently, thin and reeded,

And break when we try to touch them, are also frozen;

Some future plan must exist for this place,

Some ad hoc amusement to rattle the wind

And undo all this mystery,

Its permanence always a question.

Videorama

Videos up. Check'em out:
  
Encore - Cantab open mic on 9/9

Various - Stone Soup Feature on 6/1