Tuesday, January 03, 2006

friday's readin'

okay, i was ill (101.9 degress of illness) and my wife was getting surgery the next day
but
the reading was good and fast
i really didn't think it was going to be fast
i liked speed
(i was a futurist last year)

aaron read first and i'm really getting comfortable with his autobiography. familiarity. a blurring of identity at this point. my mom spent a fortune on sousaphone lessons.
he also read a poem by eden which i'd love to get my hands on and really give it a go.

robin bronx popped in with two quickies, one about ice hockey (fastest game) one on thighs (premature ejaculation)

chris fritton was named the 'prop poet' but baker did not give him props. 'therefore?' tarwin kept repeating. oh, he didn't like it. chris is more a creative lecturer than a poet-eee-poet, and i'll give him a slot whenever.

tarwin banged out a few poems, i really like one, but i was sweating so i don't remember. he also said, to kick it off, 'i'm going to slow it down a notch' which was greeted with giggles, chuckles and--perhaps--a guffaw.

believe at this point (tho i may have switched chris and tarwin) a brake was taken.





luke daly read after halftime and it was his first reading (out loud) and you really wouldn't have noticed. he had a wonderful posture at one point, hand on his hip, like 'here, bitches, have some poems.'

i really don't focus on subject matter.

barrett read next, and he continues to be a crowd favorite (tho i think he stacked the deck with a few ringers) and read well, like larry king. and, while i don't think it is a goal, something about his reading(s) remind me of listening to pavement.

eric was forgotten when aaron stood up and said 'thanks for coming everybody' but that was quickly fixed when eric stood up and read. speaking of ringers, he set up a line with eden (buffalo first woman of letters) and all in all it was a good time. he read a poem that is an oldie, that i remember from living in buffalo, where eric's a mexican wrestler. hoo-ray ole.

maybe i missed somebody, but i hope not. and for you, jessica, as you mentioned it recently but in a different context, i think it is interesting that there are so many dudes in buffalo reading poems, when my experience in other cities is that it is much more equal.

20 Comments:

Blogger Jessica Smith said...

that's true.. it seems to be more even in DC, for example. i wonder what causes the disparity in buffalo? even w/in the poetics program (which actively attempts to recruit female students, or did b/f steve got there, and i don't imagine that he has any desire to dissuade younger women from entering his "program") it's pretty uneven. glad to know the reading went well. is luke daly cute? i heard he was. hope yr feeling better kevin--

10:55 AM  
Blogger Jessica Smith said...

i like the comment about barrett and pavement. i would've loved to have heard that. are there any recordings of this reading? don't we record everything by this point? i mean aren't we certain of our own importance enough to archive everything religiously? who's in charge of recording sound?

10:56 AM  
Blogger House Press said...

Yes, Luke Daly is very cute. I heart him.

MS

11:29 AM  
Blogger House Press said...

The recruitment of the poetics program is becoming an absolutely obsolete factor in the building of this community - they have been practically invisible - or at least continue to be an insular group unto themselves.

Thurston is the sweatiest, sickest, and lovliest cat of them all.

Tawrin recorded the reading.

Luke is smokin' hot.

-Aaron L (off to Euroland)

4:06 PM  
Blogger Jessica Smith said...

i'm starting a press. for books. can i name it rust belt books?

10:05 PM  
Blogger House Press said...

how bout house press 2

10:57 PM  
Blogger Jessica Smith said...

house press 2? come on. if i were going to name it house press i'd name it house press. and say it was the book-arm of the house press, you know, publishing octapus (of which drill is the zine-arm)

12:20 AM  
Blogger House Press said...

house press south

house press blonde

Rust Belt Books is already taken

10:07 AM  
Blogger Jessica Smith said...

rust belt books is a bookstore, though, not a press. house press is a press, but ya'll don't do Book-books, you do chapbooks and a zine. So there is room with both names, I think, for a book-press.

10:08 AM  
Blogger House Press said...

if you name it rust belt yer a reverse carpet-bagger stealing our wares during the reconstruction!

you best stay below that mason-dixon, red-head

10:40 AM  
Blogger Jessica Smith said...

to me that seems like a real good reason. damn yankees.

10:40 AM  
Blogger House Press said...

Reading "Reverse Carpet Bagger" makes me want to reopen the question of poetry and pornography.

AL

11:46 AM  
Blogger House Press said...

Now there's some subtext

Wait where'd it go

Oh, here it is

Subtext, pornography, and the poetry of Slosek

AL

11:47 AM  
Blogger House Press said...

Aaron, Haven't you left the country yet? You're giving me a bad name!

Jessica, just wondering who or what will be funding your press - as in, will it be like House Press has always done "books": if you want to do a book, go ahead and pay for it yourself. Or is it still too early for all that?

MS

12:58 PM  
Blogger Jessica Smith said...

yes, it will be self-funded until i get a better idea. i mean, i'm planning to fund my own book and release it this spring. and i expect linda can fund hers next fall. i'm keeping an eye out for funding but given that i can't even get a book published i seriously doubt anyone's going to give me money for a press. what's going on at the poetics program? they used to have all that money to give out.

i like the word carpet bagger.

1:25 PM  
Blogger House Press said...

yeah - funding is tricky. i've asked ND for money on serval occasions for Drill, just a few bucks or so to cover paper and staples and they've given me zip, not even enough for bus fare. that's why i was wondering if VA was giving you $ - I'm bitter, that's all

MS

4:16 PM  
Blogger Jessica Smith said...

UVA doesn't seem to give out money like it used to be given out at UB, and i think that even those days of generosity are over. In my last year there Steve said he wasn't "santa claus" when i asked him for money for software. With Charles and Bob it was like (and I think they unofficially said this straight-out once) every poetics student could have about $300/yr to do what they wanted, more if necessary. What I want to know is what, exactly, McCaffery's doing with his $30k/yr chair money. My first guess is that he's using it to buy books. (A completely legitimate, if selfish, use.) For at least that final year that I was around, it seemed like the Program was very impoverished compared to the Good Ol Days.

Matt Chambers needs a blog. So we can spy on what's going on within the walls of Clemens. And because he's an interesting fellow.

5:21 PM  
Blogger House Press said...

Maybe you could ask the house press endowment for some cash. I hear that they are raising 100k!

Sort of like the united way has that thermometer sign showing the progress, well it's like that. If I had all that money I wouldn't be writing poems. I'd be paying poets not to write. I'd say "don't write a poem, here's 100 bucks." Because there are too many damn poems and poets or people who claim to be poets. When really they're all a bunch of drunks!

6:48 PM  
Blogger John Sakkis said...

okay whatever...i may like to take a drink here and there but hey...am i less a poet?

New Presses

1. DEATH PRESS
2. COP-OUT PRESS
3. CHRIS FELVER PRESS
4. $1800 BUCKS PRESS
5. DIVORCE PRESS
—Michael Price/ Kevin Opstedal

...i like the redundancy of the 4th title...

8:47 PM  
Blogger Jessica Smith said...

ha. i'm taking the thermometer.

6:32 PM  

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