Drove to Athens...

Last night I drove my pregnant self to Athens, to see/hear Sabrina Mark and Tim Early (NOT Tim Early)though Tim did demonstrate a "touch of class".


The reading was GREAT! Very interesting mix, the two of them. Sabrina read from her new ms, much of which can be found (and enjoyed) on her blog. Tim was fucking riot, in that way that riots can be heartbreaking. Sabrina reads like a Cornell Box, Tim like a fantasy comic book bred with Kafka, or something. First impressions... I'll need to re-think, re-visit. When I can buy the book.


Which is actually the point of this post. I found myself, last night, looking at the books for sale and wanting to scream. We are SO BROKE. So I haven't bought ANYONE'S book recently. But I have promised myself that when I get this check (that is coming in the mail next month) I will hit Powell's and Amazon for all the books I've been meaning to buy.


So please, if you recently put out a book and I didn't buy it, and you know I didn't buy it, please don't take it personally. I'm just waiting until I can.


And speaking of broke and pregnant (which is me) I'd also like to say that between Danielle, Lara, and Kirsten , Athens is full of smart hot poet-moms. Many were in attendance last night, and I was overboard with the fun of it, wishing I could live in a place where such mothers were, where diapers and dactyls found there way, over wine, into conversations about all else.

Have you met my parents???

There they are, in the middle, getting married...


According to popular myth, my dad vowed to love my mom "when he could" and tolerate her when he couldn't. According to another myth, my grandpa (there on the left in the graph paper pants) tried to hit him and had to be held back, in his chair.


It's funny because it's true. Because my dad was right, that's what marriage is... though most people don't say it aloud.

Not much to report...

I'm a big fat pregnant woman, working furiously toward a deadline, and then to another deadline. I'm editing these essays, waking in the night thinking about these essays.


But I wanted to say hello.

Tired...

But pleased...

CLMP south(east)...

So nice to be conference-ing... A small crowd of folks, but nice, community-building. Most of the presses and mags here are from this region, and it's fun to be meeting people, getting to know my "neighbors".


Especially nice to see Joyelle and Johannes, who've just launched a new press and dropped 3 hot little books into our laps!!! (They've also just kicked off a first book contest, so send em your work!!!)


And for those of you in the Nashville area, there's a lovely fellow here, Blas Falconer, who's currently starting up a press at Austin Peay State University, in Clarksville. You should drop him a line!


One thing-- it's a little humbling, to meet all the people I tried to contact when I moved to Atlanta-- the folks from 5 Points, Terminus, Chattahootchee Review, etc. In each case, I made an attempt to get involved when I moved to town, and in each case, nobody responded to my emails. Yesterday, chatting with Travis, from Terminus, I said something about this, and he said, "Oh, we get so much spam, so now most of the unknown emails get filtered.)


And I thought, "I am a bitch to have assumed people were unfriendly/ disinterested. I need to get over myself."


But then I amde a resolution, to respond to every cold email I ever get. Ever. Especially when the person sending the email sounds lonely...


In other news, this has me thinking about AWP, about entering the fray, booking a table for Killing the Buddha for the first time. Thinking of "taking it to the next level" after 5 years. Anyone want to share a table?


In still other news, Half/Life will be, in one short week, out of my hands. Ack!

Where is fall???

It is almost October, and the mornings are not chilly. The afternoons reach into the upper eighties, and the nights are still warm enough for air conditioning (if you are 7 months pregnant, anyway). I'm hungry for fall.


I want to go pick apples, and bake my grandmother's apple cake for Rosh Hashanah. I want to cook soup, curl up with a book and tea at night, instead of making runs for ice cream. I realize that these are small complaints, but there they are.


Where is my fall?


In other news, CLMP this weekend, and I'm interviewing Richard Peabody for Miporadio... if I can figure out how to work my recorder.


In still other news, Half/Life is beginning to feel like a book, and I am thinking about little else. It will be nice to hand it off and write a poem.


Happy fall, everyone! Send me a red leaf, or a yellow!

Who needs...

Who wants a roomie for AWP? I'm a lot of fun.


I'm afraid I need a girl-roomie tho, if I haven't met you in person... I AM, after all, a married woman...

Paul reveals...

Paul Guest reveals that he will be reading at the Meacham Writers' Conference, and as a result, this picture appears in my life. That's me, much younger than I am now, walking at UTC with Mark Jarman and Tomaz Salamun.


Isn't it funny how seeing a picture of yourself young can make you all nostalgic?


Oh, to be stupid again, in that particular way... Oh, to cut my hair short. Oh, to stay up late at night drinking coffee and talking about ideas...


THAT GIRL was reading Foucault. THAT GIRL didn't eat meat. THAT GIRL went cliff-jumping in the summer. THAT GIRL rode on motorcycles, behind boys who were up to no good. THAT GIRL is still inside me somewhere.


I'd like to go up for the conference, the short hour-and-a-half drive... if only for the day and night on Friday... But my doctors have expressly forbidden me leaving town so close to the arrival of the little critter. But what about it? Just for a day? Chattanooga is, after all, just beyond the borders of the "metro Atlanta area."


Oh, what would THAT GIRL do???

Raise the roof...

For anthology editors...


I take back all the mean things I've ever said. This is very HARD work, very much a complicated puzzle, with so many variables and so many levels...


Trying to make a group of individual "things" into one BIG "thing" that preserves the voice and integrity of each particular, while building a WHOLE. Trying to push authors to be GOOD without taking from them the flaws and instincts that make them unique people/distinct voices...


Trying to shape a book without creating propaganda...


It really is a big puzzle. The addition of one essay changes the way the light falls on each pre-existing essay. Add one-- and two come out. Take one out-- and another must follow. Even distribution of humor/ intelligence/sadness... and only then I begin to count words, adjust for introduction, etc...


So much I never imagined...

Shows what I know...

One thing about living in Atlanta is that the radio is special, different, extry-CRUNK... due to the local presence of such luminaries as Ludacris, Lil John, the East Side Boyz, The Yin Yang Twins, Ciarra, etc. etc. etc.


When we moved here I didn't know this. I took it for granted that all the songs on my radio station were national hits, like everywhere else. But then I was talking the other day to my friend Susan, who lives in New York.


I said "Man I hate the stupid Gucci Man song, So Icy..."


"Who's Gucci Man?" asked Susan, who generally knows way more about hip/hop, rap, dance music, and r&b, than country-listening Laurel...


And so it was that I learned that you, who do not reside in the ATL, might not know about Gucci man... or Young Jeezy... or a host of others...


So when I heard, a few days ago, a song on the radio... a song so silly, so dumb, so small-time sounding I couldn't believe it, I could only assume that the "hit" was an Atlanta special... not ready for prime time. I called Susan to see if she'd heard it yet... "Who writes this shit?" I asked her voice-mail...


"My hump. My hump. My hump my hump. My lovely lady lumps...." Surely this was the work of a local producer in a basement studio somewhere outside Buckhead.


Um.


Nope.


Turns out I'm an idiot. The Black Eyed Peas????


My husband says, "Well, they've sold out to such a degree it wouldn't be surprising if they were just like... 'Atlanta basement-sounding crap is selling like hotcakes! Let's make a record like that!!!'"


Maybe. But that doesn't change anything. It's icky, that song. Catchy, but ICKY.

When I say...

"Man Eating Bugs"


What do you see?

Our favorite poems...

Whimsy Speaks wants to see our favorite poems... our favorites of the ones that WE'VE written. No time for false humility... it's a fair question. If you've written hundreds of poems and you don't like any of them, you're in the wrong business.


This is my favorite, might always be my favorite. It's an old poem, first printed in Post Road. I like it for the line "Sheep in sheeps clothing." And for the ending. I like endings...


Happily Ever After


The wolf bears down
on the girl, thin in the corner.
His teeth are as sharp
as the shoulder blades beneath them.
Everyone’s hungry.


The wolf heaves and moans,
his ribs shift beneath his pelt.
He gnashes and drools,
chews through his words,
“Just where I want you.”


She’s small, a house
of straw, of twigs, of air.
She’s a sheep in sheep’s clothing.
She whispers sadly,
“Just where I want you.”


It’s always the girl, really.
In every doorway, behind each tree.
She’s paddling down-river on a raft,
licking the batter from the spoon,
pumping your gas, “Thank you ma’am.”


She’s every wolf,
every rib, every snarl,
no matter how she tells her story.
The curtains blow strangely.
The window’s open wide,


but that doesn’t mean
she went through it.
The wolf’s full, the room’s empty,
But where’s our clever girl?
She’s there, behind the door.

Who did it???

Who was it??? Who bought me a subscription to Inside TV Magazine?


May BLESSINGS and CURSES be heaped upon you, whoever you are!


I LOVE IT, and I HATE myself for my dirty little love...

Black beans...

There is a moment, when you are cooking a pot of black beans... and the beans suddenly change, become all velvety. Not individual rough beans anymore, but a sort of velvet bean-stew.


What is that called?

One moves to Atlanta...

One moves to Atlanta for many reasons... for money, a big backyard, a job, family, the weather... one does not move to Atlanta for the "poetry scene".


And I've spent (perhaps too) much time whining about this on my blog, about how hard a time I've had finding writers and community in Atlanta, building a lit-world here.


The readings in town are redundant for the most part, at Emory, GSU, and Poetry@Tech, offering the same readers over and over. They like older white men who've been in Ploughshares a lot, or people who at least SOUND like older white men who've been in Ploughshares. Often, the people organizing the event are also readers (handy).


They like people who've been (at least) nominated for a MAJOR prize. They like poets who make an audience "sigh" and think of trees, rivers, and childhood, and (I imagine) they like poets whose names are familiar to major donors.


Now, I've worked in non-profit development enough to understand how this happens, but it's BORING! And POETRY is NOT a fundraising tool! Poetry is a moving/changing/breathing art.


So I've been disappointed, to say the least, that a city of 5 million, with several major universities, offers so little. But last night I attended the launch for a new literary magazine, VERB. An audioquarterly, a CD that arrives on your doorstep with poetry and fiction seeping through the jewelcase.


I am impressed with VERB (though I hope future issues will resist the Atlanta/old white guy/ clubby/ nothing new has happened for decades model) and with the creater of VERB, Daren Wang. I am also impressed with the bash they threw last night around the corner from me... with readings, good music, great food, local wines, and BEST OF ALL, a crowd of hundreds!


I actually had that experience I've been wanting so badly, of running into people I know, talking about books, discussing ideas for new projects.


So I want to say a big THANK YOU to Daren, and to VERB. I want to tell them that there ARE writers in this town, serious writers publishing serious work, who DON'T like to sigh and think of rivers all the time. Thanks also to the other folks who made last night so much fun. You guys are doing good work in a tough town, and if you ever need a hand...


Between Daren and Bruce Covey, the Duck and Herring Co. and regular trips to Athens, the upcoming CLMP conference... and Shanna's October tour... Atlanta is looking up!!!

Law student likes poems-- details at 11!!!

Over at my friend Maria's page there is a "review" of the Schneiderman/Mark reading in Iowa City (at Prairie Lights of course)...


Maria is a law student, a new Iowa Citian, and one of those rare creatures who does not produce poetry, but loves it...


I post this here to remind us all that there ARE those people in the world, who attend readings, buy books, and think about words... who are also our "audience". There may not be many of them, and I know that few are as smart as Ms. Maria... but they exist.


Hurrah for Jason and Sabrina for entertaining! Hurrah for Maria for giving up an evening for poetry! Hurrah for words!!!

Do you really care???

I'm surprised by the BIG reaction so many are having to the "booby" cover of FENCE magazine.


I think it's hot.


I think it was interesting for a minute.


I think it doesn't really matter, if the work is good.


Isn't that what our grandmas taught us? That it's what's on the INSIDE that counts?


If I write fun/smart poems, but dress like a porn star, does that bother you? More than the idea that the world is full of porn-star-dressing girls who DON'T write poems?


And what if people are actually drawn to buy it because it's sexy? Would that be bad? If it means they end up reading? I personally think FENCE should take 1000 copies and randomly place them around the country, on benches and in subways... because if I were on a train, with nothing to read, and I looked down and saw that, I'd open that puppy up!!!


Wouldn't you?

Ooooh, Kitty!!!

Wriggled out of the bag...


It's seems I have a chapbook coming out, that Daphne and Jim are ready for the world!!!


Many thanks to the Burnside Review, and to Daphne and Jim...

No, really!!!

With everyone having babies lately, I fear you'll all think I'm not really pregnant... that I just want to be "in da club."


But look! Here I am, in an author photo that didn't make the cut... Now do you believe me?


Courtesy (of course) of the remarkable Miss Sonya Naumann, photog extraordinaire...

Call for Subs...

No, this is not YET ANOTHER Laurel Snyder project... but it's a great project, and if you fit the bill, you should get in touch!



CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
ABORTION ANTHOLOGY


Are you a woman who has had an abortion? You are not alone and your story is important! We are editing a book about abortion and we want to hear your story.


BEYOND CHOICE: VOICES OF REAL WOMEN is not a political treatise and we do not have an agenda. We simply want the voices of real women who have had abortions to be heard. Beyond Choice will be published by a major U.S. publisher and will focus on the experience of abortion: what leads women to consider abortion, what it's like to have one, and how it factors into real, lived lives.


We are women united by only one act: we had an abortion.


Beyond Choice will include voices of women who vote republican and democrat, women who are young and old, rich and poor, women who are married and single, gay and straight, women who are religious and secular, and women who condemn and are not ashamed of their experiences.


You do not have to be a gifted writer to share your story. Send a 2-15 page essay told in your own words, along with your name or a fake name (if you'd prefer to remain anonymous) and an e-mail address to abortionanthology@hotmail.com by November 30, 2005. Everyone who submits an essay will be considered for inclusion in this important book.

Believe it or not....

My mom's 5th grade gym teacher is dead.


How does one even find out one's 5th grade gym teacher has died?


Well... one can find out easily... if one's gym teacher was BOB DENVER.


No kidding. My mom, who grew up in Newport Beach, played volleyball with Gilligan, to her dismay.


According to family myth, Coach Denver just didn't show up for work one day, and after a few minutes... Sister Tootie Aloyisius (not her real name) appeared in the classroom and announced... "Coach Denver won't be teaching here at Corpus Christie anymore... he's been discovered!"


Goodbye Bob. We hardly knew ye.

Podcasting poetry...

My poem, "Nellie in the dark" is audible over at MIPORADIO!


Subscribe, or just click and listen! HERE!


And over at Nextbook this week, Bhukarian Jewish music from Queens...


Listen up everyone. Literature has gotten LOUD!

Labor Day...

Is actually pretty interesting. It dates back to 1882, and we can thank NY for the idea...


"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day...is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."


How do we spend it? I don't really know, not having grown up in a family that bothered to do so... Today, I worked on a story and cleaned out the laundry room. Labor. Seemed appropriate. And I know a lot of folks grill out, and stores hold sales... which means it's a lot like Mem'l Day and the 4th of July.


But what else? Does anyone out there celebrate it for real?

Down in the Flood...

My old friend Philipp Meyer (and when I say old I mean elementary school), who is an amazing writer as well as an amazing EMT, drove from his first week of classes in Austin, into the heart of the hurricane to help.


PLEASE read his story over HERE and make a donation to one of our suggested charities.


Or anywhere else you can think of!!!

Transgendered Orthodox Jews...

It's really interesting, to think that there's a way in which tran-Jews offer a solution to the halachic dilemna gay frumsters face...



Razi tells of one Orthodox Jew who identified as bisexual but vowed he’d “take a gun to the head” before sleeping with a man. Someone brought up the issue of transmen, and the man became excited, because that would be perfect. “Because to me he’d be a man, but to G-d he’d still be a woman, so it would be allowed!” the man said.


Read the entire story over HERE! Tikkun rocks my little world.

Fantasy Challenge!!!

(The actual post is HERE.


In any case, you should enter, as this is both a way to get yourself writing AND a way to help the hurricane victims. Didi is a mensch! Give it a shot!!!)


Pick a person you've fantasized about being with. Write a poem (any style or length) about spending an evening with that person. The poem can be chaste. It can be weird. It can be raunchy. It can be downright lacivious.


First place poet will have fifty dollars donated to the Red Cross in his/her name by Didi and second place will also have fifty dollars donated by Pris.


If three of you would like to chip in twenty-five dollars each for up to three honorable mentions, add your name in the comments section below.


Put FANTASY CHALLENGE in the header of your post. Deadline September 15.

And speaking of AWP...

If anyone is offering a panel on any of the following subjects, I'd just love to help out!!!


1. Poetry relating to Bruce Springsteen, dogs, musical comedy, rusty trucks, country songs, or poetry using google as a tool.


2. Blogs, duh. Online communities.


3. The writing life in places other than NY. Like, writing alone.


4. How to use the non-profit structures.


5. Writing across genres, either in an arty way or in a corporate way. Like, what happens when poets want to get paid.


6. It's ok NOT to have a book yet.


7. Surviving Iowa.


8. Editing anthologies.


9. Religion/ God/ Faith.


10. Writers who waitress.


11. Publishing for an audience literary AND non-literary.


12.. I think that's it, but if there's anything else you think I might know something about? Backchannel me! I should probably add it to my CV.

Here comes the cat...

She's been in the bag for a week now, but I'm letting her out.


So, I came to NY for meetings at Nextbook, where I met the wonderful staff, got to hear about all manner of amazing upcoming stories and projects, and did some recording for a new podcast...


But I also had a publicity meeting for Half/Life while here...


And then, too, I recorded my first commentary for ALL THINGS CONSIDERED!!! Pretty fun, huh? I felt so cool, sitting in the booth at the NY Bureau, with that big NPR sign behind me and my reflection in the engineers booth, headphones on, mic at the ready. I thought about all the folks who might've sat in that chair, poured a glass of water from that yellow pitcher, and it was exciting. So exciting.


Sometimes I just feel so dang lucky, or blessed, or whatever... I feel like I'm on the most glittery fun path in the world. Other days, the dogs throws up on the bedroom floor and we can't afford to turn on the AC, and I just feel huge and lazy...


But not this week, this week I have the funnest funnest funnest life in the whole universe!


And I got to stay with Susan, who is the best friend ever, and Dad drove in from PA to have dinner last night. I'm sorry to say I didn't get to do any blogger-hanging... but this was a busy trip!!!


In other news... there are cats still in the bag, but don't worry, I'm giving them air, feeding them. They just aren't ready for the big-bad-world. They're tentative cats...