literary mama

Vicki pointed out that a new review of Saint Nobody, by Ginny Kaczmarek, is now up on Literary Mama, one of the coolest webzines around. I'm thrilled to have my book mentioned there!

abba: the debut

Denise read at the New School on Tuesday--and she generously invited me to read one of our ABBA poems with her. We also had chapbooks on hand for the first time ever! Liz Howort wrote this post about the reading on The Best American Poetry Blog. Woo hoo!

my little rockstars

Dancing Queen Stella ready to get her royal 'do on....and Bobby the blues boy (he got the harmonica as a prize in music class).

abba: the poems

It's here! A chapbook of poems that I wrote collaboratively with my dear friend (and personal heroine), Denise Duhamel. Our publisher, Bruce Covey of Coconut Books, is selling away at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Denver this week.

All 21 poems were written with the same constraints: 1) each poem must be eight quatrains in ABBA rhyme scheme; and 2) there must be a reference in each poem to Europop superstars ABBA, or their music.

We had a blast writing these and hope our readers have as much fun as we did!

renewal

Blossoms on W. 12th Street, Manhattan.

I'm praying today for personal renewal to match the renewal of life in nature.

maundy maundy

Tonight I'm delighted to be participating in the annual Maundy Thursday reading of Dante's Inferno at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Last year I was a last-minute replacement for one of the scheduled readers; this year I was invited to be part of the regular program under the auspices of poet in residence Marilyn Nelson.

It was particularly cool for me last year because I had just joined an Episcopal church and was soon to be confirmed--so in addition to the wonderful literary history of this institution, it was also "my" cathedral!

The three-hour reading starts at 9pm and covers fifteen out of the thirty-four cantos. I've been assigned the second half of Canto XXI, which will occur sometime between 10 and 11 pm. If you're inclined to stop by, know that you're not required to stay for the whole three hours....judging by my observations from last year, attendees sneak in and out as the spirit moves them.

Today is also, of course, April Fool's, and I've had a fun gmail exchange just now with my friend Greg who works for The Company Currently Known as Topeka. He said in their Chelsea offices they had fake "surveillance cameras" in the restrooms and (uncracked and thus inedible) coconuts in the cafeteria's fruit baskets. What a bunch of kooks!

It's also the birthday of my wonderful father. Happy Birthday, Daddy!