Chad Reynolds has a great new poem at Thieves Jargon. Its part of his "auto-collaboration" series, some of which will appear in the first SIR!
I still think he's making fun of me.


The second release from The Greying Ghost Press has been unveiled as a chapbook by poet Chris Rizzo. Pretty great looking, eh? Eat a sample poem here

Over at the Pshares blog this article by Keith Gessen, an editor of N+1 and author of All The Sad Young Literary Men, talks about the balance writing and supporting oneself financially. It is an article that seems true enough, and I love articles like this on the subject, but it did little to fill in what gaps I may have on this subject.

Of the article, Simeon Berry says this -

"Having another non-writing career requires a sort of continuous hallucination in oneself as a writer."

I like to think about Wallace Stevens at his insurance company, writing poems on his way to work, which is what he did. I like to think about the jobs that writers held that don't include the act of writing itself. A friend of mine told me about Paul Auster's memoir, Hand to Mouth chronicling all the shit he did before becoming a published writer. I've read two Paul Auster books, liked his concepts, but was abysmally disappointed by his execution.

The other night I hosted an author called Nam. He wrote a book of stories that are good as far a I can tell, but thats beside the point. In a quasi-autobiographical story he wrote, there is a part where he mentions his father named him after his love of his country, Vietnam. That made me think - is there a girl out there, maybe in Kansas or Michigan, named America, or even United States? Maybe just States for short.

I will name my daughter States. Her middle name? Rights.

I recent weeks I have seen -

- I'm Not There (nope)
- Indiana Jones and Crystal Skull (so bad, so sad)
- The Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 (fantastic!)

I need to watch better movies.