Sturgeon's Law

The reading went very well on Tuesday. Writing has also been productive, and here's a draft. Apparently I'm in some sort of rhyming phase, because this one came together when I was messing aimlessly with the form and realized I had rhymed the first four lines much as they are now. The title I stole from "Binge and Purge" by Clutch.

Tuesday, June 30th at 6 PM, Poor Richard's Bookstore, 320 North Tejon Street in Colorado Springs. Come see me read from Torched Verse Ends and new poems!

We're in Colorado now. More later.

Aaron wanted me to know Colin Frazer of the CC press designed the logo at the top of the poetry poster I posted yesterday, and the rest of it was adopted from Sonya Unrein's design. They should get the credit they're due.

Also, Jane Hilberry's Body Painting apparently won the Colorado Book Award the year Aaron's No Accident was eligible, so I guess I didn't remember the year right. Jane should get the credit she's due too, as my careless initial comment comes across as incredibly dickish. I didn't mean to insult her book, just say Aaron's was great. Sorry, Jane. Mea maxima culpa. Now I'm going to shut up before I make an ass of myself again.

First of all, congratulations to Jake Adam York on his win of the Colorado Book Award award for A Murmuration of Starlings, which is just fantastic.

Speaking of Colorado: in preparation for my trip out and my reading, here's a lovely poster that Aaron Anstett put together during National Poetry Month as part of his Pikes Peak Poet Laureate Poetry While You Wait project. The poem originally appeared in Natural Bridge.

We're leaving St. Louis on Friday afternoon to drive back to Colorado. If you're in Colorado, come see me read Tuesday, June 30th at 6 PM, Poor Richard's Bookstore, 320 North Tejon Street in Colorado Springs.

There's an interview of me up at Deborah's blog right now, along with interviews of Jeannine, Alexandra Teague, and Harvey Hix. You should definitely go read them!

Interesting recaps of the Vargas silliness here and here. Thanks to Barbara Jane Reyes and Craig Santos Perez for raising substantive criticisms of the review. At this point, unless someone who's read Vargas' poems wants to engage the review, I plan on not talking about it anymore. "I haven't read him, but..." doesn't strike me as a viable starting point for a conversation, or as bringing much to the table at all.

Oh, and I really, really don't appreciate someone searching out my home address online so they can send me hate mail.

I remember Elisa posting on the pshares blog about "moves" in poetry--those recognizable devices we see other poets pulling out repeatedly or that we use often in our own poetry--and now she's mentioned them again on her blog. In the interest of self-examination, here are some moves I notice myself using in my own poetry:

• Portmanteau neologisms. I sprinkle these in a lot of my poems. Stipend + stupendous = "stipendous"; slur + certainly = "slurtainly"; disheveled + chivalry = "dishevelry."
  
• The 180-degree syntax turnaround. You've probably seen a lot of poets make the sharp turn in syntax, often over a linebreak. I like to do that, but often that's not enough of a surprise for me, so before that second direction has a chance to get on its feet, I make another sharp turn. It's the poetic version of throwing off a tail. Example: "you’d rather do / the laundry, your taxes, a polka, time..." This one actually starts with "do" and then makes three (by my count) turns (laundry/taxes aren't enough different thematically for me to call a turn between them). It's a multi-zeugma.
  
• Disguised end-rhyme. I've been playing with breaking stanzas up in a different pattern than the rhyme scheme when I use end-rhyme, as well as keeping the rhyme slant. I think I do this because I'm often pleased when I read a submission and it takes me partway through before I realize I'm reading a repeating form the author has done so skillfully that I didn't realize it was such.
• The massive pileup of modifiers. There's a canard in poetry that you should avoid modifiers, so once in a while I like to dump several on a single word, like "pirate rebel rockstar fucking cool" or "plastic scholastic system adventure theme parks." All the better if you have to untangle the words a little and they have great sonics.
• The illogical logical progression. Something that seems to be a logical or causal construct but is nothing of the sort. See here.
• The misstated aphorism/quotation/joke/slogan/figure of speech. More of these than I can shake a steak at. "Cite your sources the Chicago way"; "Bo knows artificial hip"; etc.
  

What moves do you like, either in your own work or in other poets?

I'm not big on receiving birthday gifts--I think there's not much need for it once you hit 21. However, I did get several nice things last Friday:

• A Kindle--so far I've learned the basics, bought one book, and transferred a couple documents to it (before I learned that you get charged for e-mailing them instead of using the USB cable)
• A Wii controller and Lego Star Wars Complete, which is a silly fun game Shawn and I played for several hours on Sunday.
• A new pair of classic-style Converse sneakers

Also, I ate caramel birthday brownies.