Some great books arrived lately written by friends. Areas of Fog, by Joseph Massey, and Futuring, by Mike Sikkema. They are lovely so far, and I recommend staring at them a lot. Areas of Fog is about twice as long but Futuring is wider.

Happy Birthday Lily Brown! History of Poetry

For Lily's 28th birthday, I unveil to the public, "The History of Poetry." Return in 2010 for Section One. That's all we have, so we should probably write some more.

THE HISTORY OF POETRY

Preamble

I need to tell you things. I wish I could sleep. I have a blank wall in my room.
This is the history of all poetry—it begins with one blank wall and continues.
Until three walls are blank. Until there is a bank of walls.
And the walls are the minds blank, filled up, in banks.
On display sort of but only as excerpts of the walls, a light fixture
from the John Donne room, Wallace Stevens window, George Herbert dustpan.

Audio of me reading is up at New Lakes Audio (from Catherine Meng's house in Berkeley, March 2008, Rob Schlegel and Brandon Shimoda recording).

I had some trouble getting it to load on a Mac (could be the horsehair in our walls), but it works on the state's trusty HP.

A bit about those poems:
"Your Face": a re-imagining of events in and outside of Lyon dormitory (they always said it was designed by people who built prisons), Pomona College, 1999.

"Examination of Physical Space in the Notebook" takes place on Haddon Road, Oakland, 2007 and thinks back to Bolivia, sloths, 2001, and "the past."

"The Face Transplant" takes place alone (afraid of dogs, whistling to ward off mountain lions) and with Lily Brown on the ridge trail in the Redwood Preserve in the Oakland Hills, October 2006, after I had started my very real job.

My chapbook Untoward, released in December 2007, was reviewed by Cristin Bishara at Xantippe . Xantippe is now an electronic outpost and mostly does reviews. I may have another chapbook coming out soon...

the sun is shining straight onto my eyes to burn up my corneas

I am going to have some Spanish translations of poems by Graham Foust along with the originals from As in Every Deafness in the upcoming issue of Mandorla . If you click there now, you will not see anything that confirms what I say. Mandorla has been around since 1991!

Go to Oakland

Don't miss this reading for all your sickness or mine.

Studio One March 6

Joe Massey
Jared Stanley
Donna de la Perriere
video from Tommy Busch

365 45th St.
in a big new or redone building in Oakland
Friday
7:30 PM

This is your chance to catch Joe Massey reading outside of Arcata, to catch Jared Stanley reading outside of Merced. So much poetry in various yards in California to catch.

Futuring

I am behind. But I'm expurgating the past and so excited to tell you about Mike Sikkema's full-length book Futuring just out from BlazeVOX. Mike, I miss you and your poems, and I fear the future, and it's raining, and I love Celia from a cell phone camera of the past. Read Mike's book. You can totally look inside it on Amazon, but that's not enough.