Instead of posting here and doing other things I’d also like to be doing (like writing, or playing fetch with the dog) I’ve been doing three things: working (we’re down a staffer at work so I’m putting in a lot of overtime to make up for it), playing Words With Friends (if you’d like to challenge me, my name is the oh-so-original joannemerriam), and reading submissions for, and administering, Seven by Twenty. I finally decided to close submissions for a few months yesterday so I can get some of my own stuff done. I’ve got pieces slated through mid-May, so it won’t interrupt the posting schedule, and I’m now using HootSuite to preschedule the tweets, so hopefully it’ll run on rails and I can spend some time working on the vampire novel I had the great idea for over Christmas, and which I haven’t written even one word of yet.
Anyway, since I last updated I did get to do one really cool writing-related thing, which was to see Jericho Brown (warning: autoplays music) read from Please (Amazon, Powell’s, SPD) at Vanderbilt. I’ve been trying to go to as many of their poetry readings as I can manage — so far, Molly Peacock and Kate Daniels.
The poetry was amazing, and Brown’s reading brought it to life. He reads slowly, with lots of pauses (I was surprised to open his book and find all those long lines), which helped me really absorb what he was saying. Several of the poems, like “Prayer of the Backhanded,” brought me close to tears, but some were very funny, too, and even the tragic poems were shot through with arch commentary. I was very taken with it, and have been dipping into the book ever since with great pleasure.
He’s reading Saturday, February 5th at the Passaic Community College in Paterson, New Jersey, and Tuesday, March 1st at Roosevelt University’s Gage Gallery Reading Series in Chicago, IL, so if you live in either city, check him out.
The title of this post comes from “The Lonely End of the Rink,” which I’ve been listening to a lot lately, along with my new love Said the Whale and my friend Simon’s excellent band Anchor Thieves.
