Desert City Reading Series

Ken Rumble rocks. He's really working it here in NC. What an amazing reading last night. All three poets distinct in delivery.



Mark Wallace was very generous, warm, gorgeous in his reading. from "Reasons to Write":



"If I / keep writing poetry, it's only because, in a world of reasons, poetry has long / since stopped being possible. If I keep writing poetry, it's only because I can't / be writing poetry at all."



He ran out of Haze so I purchased his reading copy.



Lorraine Graham's "Some Epistles" begins with:



"Your head is a balloon / decapitation does not begin / in thought-the feature of / radiant anger is that / it cannot fill up this balloon."



Rod Smith's bite took my head off. Well-delivered with unsettling humor.



Drinks and talk of Bernstein and why people attack him as a person more than his theories/practice.



Rod Smith talked a lot about his excitement with the work of K. Silem Mohammad. A great surprise coming in June to Carrboro. Rod said his delivery is supposed to be amazing. I am gearing up.



Talked about the roundtable discussion at Boston Comment. Rod Smith read about toads and frogs. I am still unsure whether I am a toad or a frog. "Ted's Head" hurt me good.



It was great to speak with Joe Donahue. Talked a little about the term Avant Garde.



Not sure. Innovative, experimental, avant garde. The idea of avant garde as not a good term because it always requires an enemy. But isn't there always an enemy.



The other day someone said,

The "avant garde" cannot exist without "mainstream," but the "mainstream" can exist without "avant garde."



So avant garde is more dependent on "mainstream" than "Mainstream" on "avant garde."



But within "mainstream" and "avant garde" are many many streams.



So let's talk oceans or perhaps planets.



Tony Tost and Leigh. What a great pair.



I don't want to grade comp papers today. I want to immerse myself in Rod Smith, Lorraine Graham, and Mark Wallace.



Maybe that's my motivation to grade good but fast. Yes fast. Got to stop feeling guilty for doing poetry while on the "job."



Right now, I am dancing on the ceiling.



Only managed to click a few shots due to severe case of awe.



Here's a couple of pics of the readers and Joe Donahue. I will get more, much more, pics at the Patrick Heron poetry conference in June.



check out the pics dated April 25th:



desert city reading series