07.30.2011
Thanks to the Lannan Foundation and the Marfa Book Company, I had the pleasure of talking poems and music with Tim Johnson on 93.5 Marfa Public Radio. You can find our conversation from June 3, 2011 here.
03.24.2011
I’m late to my own party on this one. This spring, I’m guest blogging for Ploughshares. There’ll be a new blog post up every Friday from January 21, 2011 to April 15, 2011. You can find the posts, past, present, and future here.
11.16.2010
categories: News, Work
tags: M.L. Liebler, Melba Boyd, poetry, poetry reading, Wayne State University
tags: M.L. Liebler, Melba Boyd, poetry, poetry reading, Wayne State University
The wonderful folks at Wayne State University just posted some videos of the reading and conversation I had with Melba Boyd and M.L. Liebler on November 9, 2010. It was great listening to the 2 of them drop science. I keep saying it, but I’ll say it again: I love Detroit.
Video Clip 1
Video Clip 2
07.22.2010
Big ups to Terrance Hayes for selecting “Eight-Eight Days in My Veins” for inclusion in Winter 2010 issue of Ploughshares. The poem is a tribute to the late jazz musician Esbjörn Svensson (1964-2008).
This is the track that inspired the poem, live from 2005:
07.19.2010
Thanks to Richard Newman for including my poem “Battle Royale” in Free Verse, a monthly poetry feature in the St. Louis Beacon. The poem originally appeared in the November/December 2008 issue of American Poetry Review. Check it out; it’s great to see poetry and progressive news doing work together.
In honor of Free Verse and the poem, here is an interview with novelist and essayist Katherine Dunn about boxing and Jack Johnson.
07.09.2010
Many thanks to Steve Schreiner, Kelli Allen, and the rest of the Natural Bridge team for accepting “Fisticuff Difficulty” and “Machine Containing Johnson’s Friends Wrecked for publication in their fine journal. I’m not sure when the issue is slated for publication, but I know it will be full of writers who work words hard, like a hustler works a mark.
Here’s the track “Ali” from The Complete Jack Johnson Sessions by East St. Louis’s own Miles Davis in honor of a couple more of these Jack Johnson poems finding their way out into the world.
06.26.2010
categories: News, Work
tags: Literary Journals, poetry, Textual collaboration, Tuesday; An Art Project
tags: Literary Journals, poetry, Textual collaboration, Tuesday; An Art Project
I just got my copy of Tuesday; An Art Project in the mail.
“Project” is apt because Tuesday is not built like a journal, though it has journal-like tendencies. It’s more of a collaboration between poets and textual architecture. Each poems comes on its own postcard-esque page and you can feel the tension between the text and the paper it is printed on.
The whole concept is a refreshing take on how poetry can interact with the rest of the world. It’s good to see.
06.20.2010
I just got word that two poems from the Jack Johnson manuscript, “Rememory” and “Fisticuffs,” will be forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review. Thanks to Allison Joseph and Jon Tribble for including the poems in such a wonderful journal.
In celebration, here is a clip of Johnson himself getting down. Seriously, keep watching until he uppercuts a cymbal crash (1:46):
06.01.2010
This was on the P&W website a minute ago, but I needed to post something to get this page up. You can read all 150 words about Super Ape here:
Listen to “Underground” here:
06.01.2010
Big thanks to Ron Mitchell and everyone at Southern Indiana Review for running some poems from my Jack Johnson manuscript. The new issue looks really sharp. Check it out here:
http://www.usi.edu/sir/current-issue.aspx
And to add to the party atmosphere, here’s a clip of Johnson’s fight with Stanley Ketchel described in the poem “A Struggle Between a Demon & a Gritty Little Dwarf”:
