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Orhan Pamuk has made a whole museum in Istanbul to accompany his latest novel, The Museum of Innocence. Coupons for entry can be found in the book. Pretty cool slide show of exhibits (and article) from NYT Magazine.

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Adam Robison & Other Poems

Adam Robinson’s debut tome of poems, Adam Robison and Other Poems, is not only my favorite title of the year, but is also a book I have been waiting to hold in my hands with great anticipation for quite some time, as a friend, yes, but more so in language glee. Adam can truly speak it in a way I have never heard anyone else speak. This is going to be one to drink milk in bed with, I assure you. Or beer, if you do that sort of thing.

AdamVectorportrait2

The above photo is not the actual cover, which I assure you will be a thing to hornily behold.

You can preorder the book here from Narrow House.

You can read a poem from the book that I published at Lamination Colony, I’m going to have SEX with these people.

And as a final bonus teaser, here’s Adam reading a poem that may or may not be in the book, but that at least could hold its own head to head against a plant and my fist, unblinking:

Author Spotlight / 30 Comments
November 1st, 2009 / 3:43 pm

Fourteen Hills, WTF?

fourteenhills

Fourteen Hills, I respect you, you had a cool anthology, and I’ve sent you stuff before because I like you (and will probably send you stuff again), but couldn’t you have just pretended this particular 775-day form rejection ‘got lost in the mail’? I mean, I understand shit sometimes falls behind the mini-fridge, but two years? Good grief – next time, just take the SASE and use it for yourself. Nobody will ever know.

What’s great about this is I can’t tell who has the better sense of humor: the author who reported this rejection on Duotrope or whoever on your staff decided to write this bit of copy: ‘Fourteen Hills is a testimony to the fact that independent, innovative and experimental literature is alive and thriving.’

Mean / 25 Comments
November 1st, 2009 / 2:14 pm

A Seth Abramson Sighting—-

blogging again, woo-hoo!!!

blogging again, woo-hoo!!!

Seth’s blogging again (The Suburan Ecstasies). And this time he’s butting heads with Mr. and Mrs. Lehman…..

That was the last contact of any kind I had with Mr. Lehman or his wife–the last time I spent more than a moment thinking of either him or her. When I wrote my methodology article for the Poets & Writers MFA rankings in 2009, I didn’t (needless to say) mention either of the Lehmans, or single out his employer, as the MFA rankings have absolutely nothing to do with the Lehmans generally or with Mr. Lehman’s employer specifically. So when Mrs. Lehman (Ms. Harwood) decided to pick a fight with me over the rankings I was (though perhaps I should not have been) more than a little surprised–as her blog, the official blog for the Best American Poetry series, normally has absolutely nothing to do with MFA programs, so there was no obvious reason for her to pen a screed about either the rankings or about me

To see it all go here.

I’m just glad to see Seth back in his real blogging shoes. I mean this man was meant to blog. So, love him or hate him, just enjoy. Just stand in the Seth-showers and enjoy !!!

Author Spotlight / 217 Comments
November 1st, 2009 / 12:06 pm
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Keith Montesano is featured over at Anti-

Comments Off on Keith Montesano
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Click thru to the Bookslut blog to read Jessa’s full post.

Even now when The Death of Culture is discussed, the definition of “culture” has to be watched. Only certain types of books and publications are counted as “reading,” according to those studies on the downfall of reading. Not that there isn’t a real issue going on — I am quite aware that everyone is in survival mode. Bookslut is kept going now on a month to month basis due to advertising issues and the like. For the first time in my life I have had to think thoughts about the “weakness of the dollar.” But the reason I have a hard time with these conversations about the decline of the review, and the death of authority, is because so many of the contemporary authors I love are often the ones being kept out of the conversation. They’re rarely, if ever, reviewed in the New York Times, they don’t get splashy features written about them and their night out with their friends. It’s hard for me to get worked up about the decline of reviews when I didn’t care much for them to begin with.

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“‘Kill your speed’ should be more noticeable than ‘Slow down.'”

“”There has been much speculation about whether people can process emotional information unconsciously, for example pictures, faces and words. We have shown that people can perceive the emotional value of subliminal messages and have demonstrated conclusively that people are much more attuned to negative words,” study leader Professor Nilli Lavie said in a Wellcome Trust news release.”

Random / 4 Comments
October 31st, 2009 / 6:19 pm

Shocked with these lamentable sounds, and dreading he knew not what, he advanced hastily,–but what a sight for a father’s eyes!–he beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, an hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being, and shaded with a proportionable quantity of black feathers.

– from The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

Have a good Halloween.

Excerpts / Comments Off on
October 31st, 2009 / 6:14 pm
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Today I believe Bernhard. Who do you believe

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Zuid Afrika – “I’ll fuck the pair of you” (Catullus)

the flag

the flag

One of the many things that drives me crazy (and it’s a wonder I’m not completely insane) is when people confuse me for my poetry. Thursday night I read in Houston. It was great. Dark bar. Lots of people. Rain outside. Organizers and audience warm and friendly. Except one person was too friendly. A fellow South African expat who thought that since we’d shared some common experience (so long ago) that we were now naturally and immediately blood brothers. (I also get this sort of thing for being Jewish). And he kept talking in Afrikaans which was cute at first.

“Your poetry made my balls tingle,” he told me, drunk, insistent, strange. But at least in English now. He just wouldn’t go away. Spoke about his mentor/teacher who’d just renounced everything and gone off to Tibet for a year. He’d be following soon. Not soon enough, I thought to myself. How about right now? And then things became more uncomfortable.

“But i didn’t like it when you made yourself a woman. That surprised me. That puzzled me.” And he looked so disappointed. And had also the look of a dangerous and unpredictable drunk who might at any moment start beating me up or even kill me. (I’m not a small person but it was nice at this point to have at my side the tall and solid figure of Gene Morgan).

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Author News & Behind the Scenes / 22 Comments
October 31st, 2009 / 11:56 am