Alexis Orgera—
“The hallucinatory twilights, the nightmarish birds, the exquisite putrefactions of the mangrove swamps seemed the cherished memories of a past he had not lived.” –Márquez, Of Love and Other Demons.
Write the cherished memories of a past you have not lived in 13 words or less.
5
Rule of Threes in which the author falls asleep standing up after 17 hours of poetry
Archibald's Bar-B-Q
1. And so we mark the success of Slash Pine Poetry Festival No. 2: The Year of the Laundromats. Lots of poems about laundry and laundromats.
I don’t really know how many hours it was. 40 readers at 10 minutes per over the course of the weekend. Then there were the overages (you can’t keep all 40 poets in line, can you?), the undergrad reading, the dinners and bars and making new friends, etc. etc.
Joseph P. Wood puts together a real shindig. There were art galleries, blues singers, bars, bands, poets of all shapes and sizes—and even some fictioners and essayists, though I think they crashed the party. Seats were packed for every venue despite the tornado warnings and thunder so loud I thought I could hear it inside my head.
On a maybe more important note, Joseph took Myron Michael and I to Archibald’s Bar-B-Q (see above) in Tuscaloosa, and I ate a plate of the tastiest ribs I have ever had. The sauce on these things was magical.
2. New issue of Sixth Finch: