American Poet

"Get Inner, Get You":  Norma Cole writes about my work in American Poet Magazine's Emerging Poet Series, Fall 2010, Volume 39.   It's made out of paper.  Really cool.  Issue also includes Cornelius Eady on Camille Rankine and Campbell McGrath on Jason Myers.  Plus other great people on other great stuff. 

Live Blogging from Off the Shelf Books

Merced, California! iPad country, America!

Thanks Nick and Lorin! This bookstore just opened and it's lovely especially the floor and books and ipads and snacks.

Here we are in Off the Shelf Books in Merced, Ca; this is an excellent space full of a skull and many new yorker magazines... Jared stanley is an amazing audience member and host! (-LB)

Thanks Lily & Cindy & students who got extra credit. :))))))::::::;(

Now to look for meteors and banned drinks.

Love,
Claire

my book is here on the internet

My book is now available for looking at on the SPD website.  Not sure when it will be there physically.  But take a look.
There are going to be TWO colors! The one pictured and the secret other one.
Also check out the Readings sidebar!  Some great readings coming up in California in November.

love,
Claire

a poem from kansas

Flint sparkling on its hill
low clearance
wind currents
around the curve,
fort, Big Red One.

For You & You

For You


Move the old
to always
like a beard

see this chin
to see again.
You wait

while I
eat my
breakfast and coffee.

In one hundred days
morning
I could ignore you.

A poem would come
it would
be here again

like white hairs
falling to
white emptiness.



For You & You


I became self-sufficient,
no you or you
scaring me

just the waking
up, stirring
in the bed,

waking my dog up
to see the deer.
Then you

were okay with me,
okay.
I hadn’t

upset
one I loved
like a tiger-striped dog.

Because I couldn’t
know, didn’t
know, did know.

I miss you,
call you in the car.
I don’t know the advice.

Some excellent poems at whisky is for friends, a few for me.

An Evening of Poems and Poetry and Fictions (lies) in Lincoln, Nebraska

This is happening soon! And here's my low-tech way of telling you about it:

sp ce (14th and O--above Ali Baba's)
July 31 · 7:00pm - 11:00pm

sp ce presents another evening of poems with Claire Becker and Alisa Heinzman. Carlin Mackie will be reading some of his fictions as well!

This event will likely evolve itself as a going away gathering for me (Kyle J Karate), as I will be moving to Boise, Idaho the next day. Even if you hate poems (or Carlin), at least come say goodbye to one of your top 15 favorite Kyles.

-Claire Becker!

Claire Becker is the author of Where We Think It Should Go, forthcoming from Octopus Books, and the chapbooks Untoward (Lame House Press), Get You (Duration Press), Young Adult (Boxwood Editions), We Know in 2010, We Survive (Mondo Bummer), and The Werld (forthcoming, Horse Less Press). Her poems have been published in Tarpaulin Sky, The Cultural Society, Typo, The Poetry Project, Cannibal, and elsewhere. With Lily Brown, she edits RealPoetik. She lives in Oakland and teaches high school at the California School for the Blind.

-Alisa Heinzman!

Alisa Heinzman recently graduated from the MFA Program in poetry at Saint Mary's College of California. Alisa edits the journal, MARY, and has published poems all over the universe. Alisa is currently a big shot researcher at the University of Nebraska and is planning on heading East in the near future, with her sexy husband. She wears glasses and smokes cigarettes.

-Carlin Mackie

Carlin Mackie will be attending the University of Massachusetts in Amherst to pursue an MFA in fiction writing. Carlin has been known around town for some time, and this will be a going away reading of sorts for him. He will be reading some lies and some truths.

I got an email today. It says I am a member of the AARP.

"You are receiving this message because you are a current member of AARP."

Finally!

SUMMER TIME!

I'm finally finished teaching for the year. Now I can respond to some emails, scrub that floor, get my hair cut, get away to parts in between. See you on the road and the phone.

Goodbye toilet with view of the ocean. Hello old room. Hello memories.

Mabel

and the old light
our sun's sending
to some souls

Mabel said that. She can see.

FREE BASIC ADULT HAIRCUT with the purchase of an X-Large Pizza at regular price.

Live in other times.

I do.

Hello hello hello! There's so much grass growing in my backyard. It's May in California, anywhere. The dirt path and tons of tall grass all around it. And the magnolia tree shading it all most of the day. The mourning dove sitting on her trembling babies. The screen door squeaking at its hinge.

Young Adult

My chapbook Young Adult is now available for purchase from Boxwood Editions for $8.00, which includes the cost of shipping. Written in 2009 in San Francisco, Young Adult is 20 pages, pamphlet-stitched, and hand-sewn with vellum cover, in an edition of 100. You can order the chapbook and pay using PayPal. Chapbooks will also be available at AWP at the Letter Machine/Counterpath Table.

Below, upcoming AWP offsite readings in which I am very honored to be participating:

DoubleCross Press, Lame House Press,and Slash Pine Press Poetry Marathon
Wednesday, April 7, 4:00-8:30 PM
Rackhouse Pub
208 S. Kalamath St., Denver, CO
http://www.slashpinepress.com/awp/

Readers include Abraham Smith, Kate Greenstreet, Malachai Black, John Dermot Woods, Anne Shaw, Jen Tynes, Farrah Field, Gina Myers/Nate Pritts, Matt Hart, Claire Becker, Matt Rasmussen, Brian Oliu, MC Hyland, Nathan Hauke, Dolly Lemke, francine j. harris, among others. 8 minute drive or 20 minutes by light rail + walking.

Dewclaw Off-Site Reading + Issue 2 Release
Thursday, April 8, 2:00-4:00 PM
Stella's Coffeehaus
1476 S. Pearl St., Denver, CO
http://www.lispservice.com/blog/?p=1067

Readers include Claire Becker, Dorothea Lasky, Blake Butler, Dylan Nice, Amina Cain, Matt Salesses, Claire Donato, Matthew Simmons, Jac Jemc, Jen Tynes, and Mike Young.

I had a typo. Sorry if I offended you.

The Tasted Button

Red gash on your neck. Start over.
Red shoes against the rubbish bin you
flower out of, your roots are
ancient flowers, stems were grasses, seersucker patches

close where the garage door was hanging from a blind cave
and bats were as bat-shaped buttons, black
and white. Forgoing the inventory

thief of omission sunlight cold sheets and
the horse on your shirt, pink.
What force was working on that button?

It's March!

I might have told some people there was no rain in the forecast for 10 days. Now, two days later, it's raining. Sorry. When I grow up, I'm going to plant jasmine. I'm going to make the walkway up to my house into a keyhole surrounded by vines. I'm going to stand back and look at it from the street and then forget it's there. I'll be smelling jasmine, trying not to be stabbed by enormous cacti and succulents.

Hi Friends!

I interview Lily Brown on the Studio One Reading Series Blog about poetry and old times. She reads Friday, March 5th at 7:30 PM with Joshua Marie Wilkinson.

(Pictured: using photo booth back in the naughts)

Point Omega

Why I like scrunchies.

I went to Panama and found these deer.

Need to talk resolutions. I don't know that I've made any yet. Last year, on New Year's Eve, we set up a typewriter at my house for guests to write their resolutions down. I didn't know most of the people there, and what they wrote was pretty amazing/chaotic. I've been meaning to take a look and post some of them, so look for that soon.