CATCHING UP...WITH THANK YOU'S

It gets more and more difficult to catch up after trips away from home. So many things pile up. But one should never be too busy to say Thank you -- and I do thank poet & reading curator Scott Glassman for having invited me to Philadelphia to read with a dream reading companion, Ron Silliman. And lovely to meet various Philadelphia poets, CA Conrad, Frank Sherlock, Kate Delaney and others.

And what a lovely time spent with Ron -- he really is a Gentleman, very warm. I think it important to note that given how our blog personas get ... too much, at times. This is the second time I've seen/heard Ron read and, as with the first, it was a dynamic presentation. Dynamic to befit poems that are Oral, Aural & Not Just On, But Leaping From, The Page.

Unfortunately, I didn't do my dirty joke presenations with this reading, but Tom Beckett did indeed send a good one (if he gives me permission, I'd love to post it). Speaking of Tom, there's only a few more days to take advantage of his book's SPECIAL PRE-RELEASE OFFER (don't worry, if it's postmarked in September, that qualifies even if I get your order in October). And here's a reason to order Tom's Book -- I returned hom to discover it is currently one of SPD's Recommended Titles, to wit:

SPD RECOMMENDS: NEW TITLES for Sept 4–Sept 19, 2006
ORDERS: 1-800-869-7553
ORDERS@SPDBOOKS.ORG
FAX: 1-510-524-0852
WWW.SPDBOOKS.ORG

UNPROTECTED TEXTS: SELECTED POEMS (1978-2006)
by Beckett, Tom
$19.95 / Paper / pp.180
Meritage Press, 2006
ISBN: 9780970917959

Poetry. Well known for editing The Difficulties (1980-1990), a now legendary critical journal, Tom Beckett releases UNPROTECTED TEXTS, his first and much anticipated full-length book. Here, zombies and Wittgenstein bracket a series of autonomous zones populated by the Book, Harry Partch, 100 Questions, shadows, holograms, the Subject, the author himself, and numerous pronouns. These UNPROTECTED TEXTS flood the tones of speech wrenched from the bent notes of a life lived looking for a connection to "the conversation" which takes place amongst musics of meaning. Sex and text are synonymous here: "Is this speech balloon a rubber?" Ron Silliman says, "For three decades now, Tom Beckett has been writing the most hard-headed, clear-eyed, unsentimental poetry in America. He has the rigor of a master & the mind of a first-rate detective." Sheila Murphy adds, "That this book is overdue, results in a level of concentration that intensifies the experience of reading."
http://www.spdbooks.org/details.asp?bookid=9780970917959

*****

Last but not least, returned home to my first acceptance of an excerpt from my in-progress novel-in-verse, specifically, novel-in-hay(na)ku verse. It's gratifying, as I've failed too many thousands worth of pages, to date, at attempting a novel. But it does seem increasingly synchronistic that my first success (I feel good about this particular effort), would be a novel-in-verse. Thank You, Universe.