Our Bookshelves Are Over-Flowing With Books
Like a good bookstore, our bookshelves are a curated collection of stories and ideas – some true, some imagined, some a questionable mix of both. Each one of those books say something about who we are, what we believe in, what we cherish.
Why Keep Blogging? and other SXSW Takeaways
The best blogs are driven by passion, not obligation, and that you can tell when someone is just feeding the machine to maintain their traffic, a la Seth Godin, for whom I often use the hashtag #bloggingtoohard.
Dialect of a Skirt by Erica Miriam Fabri
Erica is a great poet, one whose work I’ve had the pleasure of publishing in Spindle; she’s also a friend, so take my recommendation (and criticism) with a grain of salt. Generally speaking, I prefer my poetry a la carte or in thematic anthologies; I’m not a fan of individual collections of poetry unless a
Bury Me in the Leaning Rest (for Veteran’s Day)
Bury Me in the Leaning Rest C-130 rollin’ down the strip Airborne Daddy gonna take a little trip Mission Top Secret Destination Unknown He don’t know if he’s ever coming home… An old Army buddy emailed me out of the blue a while back. Found me on the Internet amongst too many “friends” I barely
Review: Crazy White Devil: Poems by Guy LeCharles Gonzalez
Review by: Lori Freshwater on Oct. 24, 2009 : (no rating) Guy LeCharles Gonzalez takes the gloves right off in this wonderful collection of poetry. We know immediately that this is going to be poetry that lives up to its promise, it is going to be poetry that speaks truth. We know that because the
Burning Down the House: True Story
Arguably my “biggest” publishing credit is co-authoring Burning Down the House: Selected Poems from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe’s National Poetry Slam Champions (Soft Skull Press, 2000), and while I am both proud of and eternally grateful for its publication, its existence has more to do with timing and opportunism than the quality of the work therein. Besides my own attempts at zines and chapbooks, it was my first real introduction to the world of publishing, and it left a permanent mark that partly explains my cynical passion and/or pragmatic idealism for the publishing industry.
Ignoring No
[This is a guest post by Tara Betts. Her info is at the end of the post.] come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed. — from Lucille Clifton’s Book of Light (Copper Canyon Press, 1993) I kept notebooks as a little girl, and I always knew I
Testing Smashwords with my Free eBook #wdc09
I had the pleasure of attending the first Writer’s Digest Conference last weekend and had a blast. Great presenters; great insights; a fun time at the least pretentious poetry slam I’ve ever been part of that didn’t involve teenagers. Work’s been crazy the past couple of weeks with some exciting transition happening, but I do intend to
Three Rules for the National Poetry Slam
Eleven years ago next month, in Austin, TX, I took one of the most life-changing thrill rides ever when I attended my first National Poetry Slam, as a member of the 1998 team representing the Nuyorican Poets Café that would go on to become their first (and still only) team to win the Championship. The
What New Media Can Learn From Slam Poetry
“I have just read the immortal poems of the ages and come away dull. I don’t know who’s at fault; maybe it’s the weather, but I sense a lot of pretense and poesy footwork: I am writing a poem, they seem to say, look at me! Poetry must be forgotten; we must get down to