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I Just Spent a Bazillion $ on Books

Let’s recap.

Greying Ghost Press : Bye Land by Tony Mancus

Wave Books (Warehouse Sale) : Rise Up by Matthew Rohrer, The To Sound by Eric Baus, The Most of It by Mary Ruefle, Shake by Joshua Beckman, Poemland by Chelsey Minnis

Immaculate Disciples Press : Route by Julia Cohen and Mathias Svalina (the crazy-good duo that brought Sugar Means Yes into the world)

I am telling you all of this because spending money mostly feels like shit. But this feels great. The world has been filled with promise—my apartment will be filled with books. I don’t know what gives normal people this feeling (the return of Community? American Idol?) but this does it for me, for writers (right? c’mon guys, you read, right?). I’m really excited about these books because I have a really, really, (really, really) really strong gut feeling that I am going to holy-shit-love these books. All of them.

Do you own these books? Do you know these poets? Rise Up will be my FOURTH Rohrer book (hint hint, he’s good). Julia Cohen and Mathias Svalina’s Sugar Means Yes is maybe my favorite chapbook ever and it’s beautiful like everything Greying Ghost does.

This is probably a really weird blog post but I feel so excited about these books. You should buy some dirt cheap incredible books from Wave Books. You should buy chapbooks because they are beautiful and Greying Ghost is the best place to go. I don’t know a thing about Immaculate Disciples but if they’re publishing Cohen and Svalina they sound like good, trustworthy people to me.

Phew. Just had to get that off my chest. Now I wanna go read a book.

Poem in Your Pocket

It’s April 26 and you know what that means (maybe). It’s the national Poem in Your Pocket Day! The idea is that you carry a poem in your pocket all day and spontaneous poem-ize people you love, people you don’t love, strangers, and even your boss!

If you’re shy said poem, why not use today’s poem featured in Ghost Ocean’s 30/30 issue for National Poetry Month? You can go here to read the poem, print it out, and carry it in your pocket! It’s nearly 11AM so use your printer at work and save your money for books full of poems. Or beer, because you hate your job!

MPR: Leaving the Atocha Station

Over at Minnesota Public Radio, poet Ben Lerner is interviewed about his debut novel, Leaving the Atocha Station, among other writerly things.

Here’s a brief highlight from the interview, part of Lerner’s response to why people hate and/or attack poetry and—more specifically, here—why people have a more tumultuous or love-hate relationship with poetry than other genres of creative writing:

That tension of celebration and disavowal is as old as poetry itself. I think part of it has to do with the fact that poetry is in some sense impossible. Poetry is a word we use to denote the perfect linguistic object. That’s the poem. It’s supposed to be better than prose, it’s supposed to be deeper and more precise and more beautiful.

And of course, you never get the perfect poem. There’s no such thing. So there’s this structure of frustration built into poetry.

At HTMLGIANT, Ben Mirov says listening to the interview is similar to obtaining an MFA in poetry. I’m not sure if Mirov is being snarky about the MFA or incredibly generous to Ben Lerner—maybe he’s doing both—but I certainly think there’s plenty to gain here for a poet any writer in or out of the MFA.

It’s a 30+ minute interview, so it’ll take a small chunk out of your busy day, but it’s good ‘til the last drop (where Ben actually reads from the novel!). Hit play and do the dishes or clean the house or re-alphabetize your bookshelf—whatever you decide to do, if you must mutli-task, please take time to listen to this insightful interview, fellow writer. Lerner has so many interesting ideas about art, poetry, impossibilities in writing, and our daily relationship with art—you will not regret it.