BOOKSBOOKSBOOKSBOOKSBOOKSBOOKS
We are having an Open Studio! Lots of people were here yesterday, looking at books & paintings. Even printers stopped by — one from Baltimore, one from Boulder! Four framed broadsides are out on our main table, along with unframed broadsides, copies of fine press books, and copies of recent paperback books. Chax Press looks great yesterday & today! Joni Mitchell (SHINE) is on the stereo right now — did I mention that we finally set up the stereo yesterday, with the speakers about 10 feet high, music sailing through the room.
And the Tucson Festival of Books is going on at the University of Arizona campus. A huge huge festival, with thousands of people. In poetry, Jefferson Carter (Chax Press book: Sentimental Blue) read yesterday, and people flocked to his books. He was the headline for poetry, YES JEFFERSON CARTER! NOT Billy Collins or CK Williams or Jane Miller or anyone else. But it was all there. I DO wish the festival had a wider aesthetic view, I mean, not a single true descendant of the New American Poetry (black mountain, beats, NY school, objectivists, etc.) and not a single LANGUAGE poet, and not a SPOKEN WORD/SLAM poet, so a pretty significant ignorance of the "now" poetry outlook. But hey, though this is the first, it's set up to be an annual event, so let's hope next year for: Tracie Morris! Mei-mei Berssenbrugge! Lisa Jarnot! Laynie Browne! Charles Bernstein! Michael Cross! Tyrone Williams! Nathaniel Tarn! Leslie Scalapino! Ron Silliman! Rosmarie Waldrop! Bruce Andrews! Erica Hunt! Rodrigo Toscano! Tim Peterson! and how about, from across the Atlantic, David Miller! Ken Edwards! Caroline Bergvall! Carol Watts! Jeff Hilson! and a lot more of the poets we believe in. And yes, maybe I'll just have to try and get involved in order to make some of this happen.
Still, great to have a book festival in Tucson, and I did manage to get a book signed by Gail Carson Levine for one of my daughters.
One fine Tucson poet, Frank Parker, was spotted in the crowd, looking fine, taking it all in.
Labels: book, Chax, festival, Jefferson Carter, Open Studio, poetry, Tucson
posted by charles @ 11:55 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Barry Alpert pointed me to your blog, awhile ago. I just noticed that you're supposed to be reading up here tomorrow (Mama Javas?), so I will try to check it out.
I just loved all these poems. I wanted to invite you all to post your poems on our homepage at http://www.metrowny.com . Just look for the "Your Stories" section. We are inviting all WNY poets to post their work and get some exposure. We are in the process of turning our site into a tool for all WNY artists whether they be poets, musicians, photographers ect. This is not a spam message and we are not selling anything, we are just trying to help artists in the WNY area. Soon we will have a special section dedicated to WNY artists with their own profiles, sort of a directory of local artists. We are looking for partners in the academic sector to help writers and poets. Please visit the site. We have several musicians that have posted their Bio's and pictures but we have not had any poets post yet, and we would love to have some up there. If anybody has any questions or wants to help spread the word you can reach me at jpiracci@metrowny.com the site again is http://www.metrowny.com and just look for the "Your Stories" section. Thank you and have a great day.
-Joe Piracci
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