Open Letter to Bill Knott
"Cover 6--03/15/11," media unknown, Bill Knott
Dear Bill Knott,
I love the free PDF books of your poetry. I have greedily downloaded them, even though I also have copies of your more traditionally published books. I’m writing to let you know that it would be really easy to make these already free books available for wider free dissemination on ebook readers including the Kindle, Nook, and SonyReader. Although there are sophisticated softwares that would make possible extravagant multi-platform releases, the easiest thing to do would be to make the poems available as .txt files in addition to the PDF’s you already share so freely. I ask because I would like to carry your poems with me everywhere I go. Probably I am not the only person who has this desire, but probably other people are too intimidated to ask, for fear that the request will be met with an entertainingly self-deprecating response on your blog. So I also ask on behalf of the others.
Your small but rabid readership awaits your next gesture of charity. Also, if you choose to make these files available, I will link them prominently here on HTMLGiant, and you will have an instant readership of 100-1000 new readers (estimated), many of whom will be encountering your poetry for the first time. Happily, would be my guess. Also, given the reprobate nature of our readership, many of those readers would likely send copies of the poems to friends without sending you a cent. I would imagine that this imposition of piracy and victimhood might also appeal to you. If you chose to receive it as a gift, I would request a reciprocal gift of more visual art, some of which I would promise to display prominently on the site in celebration of your work and in lament of your frequent dismissal of it, which may be sincere, but which is anyway wrongheaded, since you are one of the most important poets of my reading life.
Sincerely,
Kyle Minor
Reader
Toledo, Ohio
Jeanne Leiby, 1964-2011
Very sad news today: Jeanne Leiby, editor of The Southern Review, died in a car accident in Iberville Parish, Louisiana. The preliminary news report comes from Avoyelles Today. A tribute from Alex V. Cook, a writer and friend, appears at his blog.
During Leiby’s short tenure at The Southern Review, she distinguished herself for the care and kindness she offered writers. Her short piece “Why I Call,” was her most public statement on the matter.
Condolences and best wishes in this difficult time go to the Leiby family and to Jeanne’s colleagues at The Southern Review and Louisiana State University.
14 mixed feelings on disliking cops
14. Got nervous reading out loud tonight. I know my voice trembled. I became aware of said fact, this trembling voice, and…and, and you know the cycle. Fuck. I felt low. I speak out loud FOR A LIVING. This happens about thrice a year. Any tips?
That painting will be sold for $25 million plus. Did you look at it or the “Christie’s employee” first? Just wondering. Just the posing of the “Christie’s employee” in this way to present the grotesque twisting of the self portrait should open some questions about art. Suddenly I sound like Jimmy Chen, but with much less eloquence.
14. The thing I see now is the poem written by two. Braided Creek is a book of poetry written by two. It is damn good:
Each time I go outside the worldis different. This has happenedall my life.*The sparrow is not busy,but hungry.
14. If the frame story narrator has no significant heart connection to the big story, the head-meat being told, remove the frame. My opinion. I am talking technique now. The frame should be very, very necessary.
Occasionally Wikipedia and HTMLGiant Seem Interchangeable: Exhibit C: Recurring Themes in John Irving Novels
(source: Wikipedia)
Snail Time: The Dreams of Dion McGregor
OK, so my buddy Jim turned me on to these (occasionally foul-mouthed) recordings of Dion McGregor. A while back McGregor wrote some songs, but was far better, it turns out, at talking in his sleep.
Thank god someone recorded him. I can’t stop listening to the things.
From the liner notes of McGregor’s first collected slumber recordings, “The Dream World of Dion McGregor”, which Ink Mathmatics wrote up a bit ago:
At a moment like this I wish that I were a writer so that I could properly explain what you will hear when you play the record inside this cover. Perhaps it would also help if I were a psychiatrist, a psychoanalyst, a clinical psychologist, a hypnotherapist, etc…etc… But since I am none of the above, i think it best that I simply report to you what I know about this record as the result of my work in connection with it.
About March of 1963 my wife, Nancy, came rushing into my office to tell me that she had just heard some tape recordings of a man by the name of Dion McGregor, who has a habit of “talking in his sleep”. Naturally I said, “go away wife, I’ve word to do.” She didn’t go away so I had to listen to her tell me all about McGregor’s “sleep talking habits…he tells crazy stories that are funny, terrify, serious and pathetic”, she said, “and he does this 3 and 4 times a week”. When she told me that Mike Barr, McGregor’s roommate, got up every morning (at 7:00) to turn on the tape recorder I was really upset, as obviously McGregor’s “talking habits” played havoc with Barr’s health. Then, to top it all, when she told me the “dreams” were coherent, naturally I had to agree to listen for myself. I listened and couldn’t believe my ears, and 150 tapes later I was still amazed. I found the subject matter fascinating, exciting, and with a touch of genius.
You can hear a bunch more on Grooveshark, too. Suggestions: “The Wagon”, “Snail Time”, “All Over Evelyn”.
Enjoy.
Roxane Gay—
Writer Greg Mortenson has found himself in a bit of trouble as reports emerge that there are inaccuracies (lies) in his memoir Three Cups of Tea. 60 Minutes did a feature on the controversy last night. The author has responded. I’ve not read the book. Once again, this opens an interesting conversation about how much the truth matters where memoir is concerned.
29
Easter is Nigh
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiazgGFoGJU
Klaus Kinski
Nov. 20th, 1971 in Berlin, Germany
“Jesus Christus Erlöser ” (Jesus Christ Savior)
Total duration of the video: 1h23mn54s
poem before you might go out dancing tonight
From the new issue of The Broken Plate. A poem by Ryan Ridge.
Acceptance
Dear Ryan,
We enjoyed reading your poems. They were fun, but unfortunately they didn’t work for us, so we’ll have to pass. However, we would like to have you over for dinner next Tuesday at 6 pm.
Sincerely,
Mom & Dad
Things I Have Wanted to Post About
Sometimes I have too many things I want to post about and not enough time and then I spend more time thinking about all the posts I’m not writing so in order to focus on a few upcoming posts, I need to clear my mental decks of these tidbits I do not have the time to turn into longer posts.
According to The New York TImes, literary magazines are thriving. I wonder if that’s true. I don’t disagree but I would love for us to have a broader conversation about this topic. The magazines noted in the article are all Bay Area (SF) magazines with significant readerships that are fairly well-established, although The Rumpus and Canteen can certainly be considered newcomers that are thriving. What does it mean for a magazine to “thrive”–financially and editorially? Do other editors feel their magazines are thriving? Publishing is supposedly not thriving (though I disagree). What can book publishers and magazine publishers learn from one another about thriving?
A friend sent me this great link to a Lifehacker article about why it is futile to compare ourselves to others. At The Rumpus, Sugar offers some really timely and pointed advice about begrudging the success of other writers through peer jealousy. These things are connected and also remind me of several conversations I’ve seen around the “blogosphere” in recent months about writing, success, feeling the pressure of social networking as a writer, and how we measure ourselves against other writers and so on.