crucial update of tactics

UHH it's too hot in our apartment to sit with the computer on my lap. But I vaguely tolerate the sweat-drippings to tell you this: IF you didn't already know, At-Large's MIXTAPE: A-SIDES is live and filled to the hat-top with goodies (not unlike a cornucopia). Also you might want to know that this issue is our first one with music, so pump up the jamz. You can even get real interactive and listen to the tunes WHILE reading the poems. I know, I know what you're thinking -- "how did you get so awesome?" Well, to answer that question you may look to the four winds.

Also, if I weren't doing rehearsal for our piece Friday, tomorrow I would so go to Page Meets Stage at the Bowery. It's Taylor Mali and Galway Kinnell, which is Effing Fly. But you. You should go. And then you should also attend our performance on Friday night at Grace Exhibition Space in Bushwick (840 BROADWAY, 2ND FLOOR - BROOKLYN, NY 11206). It's an evening of performance art based around some kind of utopian bartering method. It'll be from 6 to midnight, which sounds like a long time until you realize that a.) you don't have to stay the whole time, and b.) you probably spent six hours today blogging or looking at websites about cats or writing 2008: The Musical.

poetry and performance

35 cheers to a stellar poetry festival this weekend (and to beautiful weather, which has intensified the weird presence of freckles on my face). It was a weekend of poetry! I went to see the Multifarious Array reading series (feat. Farrah Field) on Friday. Saturday rolled around, and although I was going to try to make the flarf reading out in Queens (Gary Sullivan, Sharon Mesmer, and Nava Gordon), I haphazardly boarded a train to Bronxville instead. The man next to me on the train asked me if my iPod was one of those "things", then looked quizzical. We ended up having a discussion about new media and the way it limits conversations between people. (It did not limit conversations between us.)

So on Saturday I made it in time for the stellar lineup of Dorianne Laux, Joseph Millar, Mark Doty, and CK Williams. Then I boarded a clown car full of poets, ate an entire bag of very cheesy chips, and crashed in Harlem for the night due to its proximity. Sunday was even hotter and more gorgeous than Saturday, and although Tricia brought a wiffle ball and bat, we just mostly lounged-around-on-blankets. There was a panel about poetry in the community, featuring the Dickman brothers, Dorianne, and Joseph and moderated by the sultry Traci Brimhall. Then, oh my god promptly at 330, we got Jorie Graham who gave a half-hour long (but fucking stellar) speech on climate change before she even read anything from her new book, Sea Change. Brooklyn's unofficial poet laureate D. Nurkse rounded out the lineup with poems, translations, and one beautiful recital of Lorca.

I just have so much respect for the graceful way that my peers put this festival together. It just seemed spot-on and effortless. I was on the committee last year, and it was so hectic; this year, I just got to enjoy it and bask in the glow of poetry (and the actual glow of sunshine - what a perfect weekend). I'm pleased, and encounter this new week with optimism and fervor.

Finally, an announcement since this is coming up - we will be doing another iteration of Autumn's IN SITU performance piece on May 1st at the AUNTS Market. This time we perform minus Rebecca Mindel and plus Autumn herself. If you are interested, and have never been to an AUNTS event, please come -- it's an amazing collection of short work by local performance artists and dancers, and there's a barter-system market and a by-donation bar. And of course as always I will greet you with my best unconventional compliments! There might or might not be suckers involved, as a way to draw you in, also. Who knows how these things work? Not me. I cannot predict the future.

gardengrown

Since my camera's cables and charger are in Florida, this blog's becoming a pastiche of "found images" (crap I print-screen off the internet and find on my computer). I can't take a picture of the outside, so I'll let you imagine with this Weather.com approximation -- look how beautiful Brooklyn is today! I considered making it out to SLC for poetry festival goodness, but think I will end up just going tomorrow. It will still be awesome; it will still be beautiful.

I don't know what this picture means, and I'm not sure when I made it or why, but I think "bananaglasses.jpg" is appropriate for the weather. Nevermind the oddly glistening starscape in the background -- or the matte sky. You can imagine for yourself that perhaps it's just a quirky dropcloth or some kind of velveteen curtain obscuring the scenery. Or maybe it's significant of my lentil sprouts, which look not unlike that.

This guy has made some awesome books, and he is distributing several copies for free in hopes that you will become addicted (you would be well off requesting one). There's a pop-up page in the dead center, and it's filled with writing and drawing faithfully repreduced in the four colors we know today. I know you don't believe in miracle cures, reader, but I got my copy on 4/24/2009, and it has already cured me of several ailments.

That's it. I'm going outside.

"Tardy Earth Day Post"

...Or, "Everyday is Earth Day, Duhskis Fools, So There ain't Anything Remarkable in a Post like this from a Hippie Like Me."

1. My lentils in the kitchen have officially sprouted! Apparently, the nutritional value of legumes goes through the roof when they're sprouted, and I'm excited for a delicious stir fry or salad soon. It only took a day and a half. I got the instructions from this blog, which seems to be a beautiful though now-defunct foodie journal with a strong focus on Indian fare.

2. Ladies (and anyone else interested in menstrual sustainability and politics), I have written an article called "The Green Guide to the Red Tide," which is published over at Sadie this month. The title is pretty self-explanatory. I hope you enjoy. (This issue has a lot of enjoyables, like an incredibly detailed and thorough bit on sex toys. The magazine is aimed at teenage girls, but the people who work on it are talented writers and the articles are informative no matter who you are.)

3. This isn't THAT earthy, but I'm going to hear Farrah Field read tomorrow evening at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn (Lorimer L). She wrote one of my favorite recent books, Rising. Come if you want! Come as you are.

Szporluk, Festival, and very little else

Prize season makes it necessary to cite Merwin's poetry Pulitzer. But I also want to say Larissa Szporluk, who I probably have to say is one of my favorite currently writing poets, received a Guggenheim. Of course it doesn't matter what I think, but still something happens when writers I admire (people who are fearless and colorful in their work, whatever that means to them) receive a big honor. It makes me want to smile at the rotten world outside. Here's a couple line from the poem "Memory Palace" by Szporluk (from Perihelion, where you can read this and several more):

A cloud takes a lifetime
to smother the sun. It's finally
a crime, but it's also a glory,
the lining sizzling gold,
the afternoon's image
occulted. Truth is I don't
have an art [...]

There is a rapidity to her images that gives the reader a series of jolts, maybe two, three times a poem -- the kind that a poet can spend an entire poem working towards. By no means do I believe in shock value, the gross confessional. But I do believe in a well-crafted juxtaposition of images (or other elements) that allows the confessional to almost glide by until it's shocked back into focus with something far subtler and better-written. There is something dreamy about her work that does just that.

Also on a poetry note: this coming weekend is the Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival, the largest free poetry venture in the Northeast; you should go here to check out the stellar lineup which includes Jorie Graham, who will be reading on Sunday.

good normal

Froward Friday morning. I remember when I learned the word "froward;" it was in eleventh grade, when we were doing the Taming of the Shrew on sloppy webcam video for an English project. Pretty fly. Anyway, here's another link to a web mag encouraging submissions: Emprise Review. I got this from Nicolle Elizabeth, who recently read at the B'Wick Series and whose work is stunningly, emphatically quirky, humor-filled, and modern. It was so fun to hear her read the other day. This is labeled as "fiction" from Elimae, but I think it could be argued as poetry too.

Yesterday I made Karelian pastries again. I cooked alone in my kitchen, blasting a series of records (my player allows you to stack them, then drops them one by one, allowing you to listen effectively to a series of A- or B-sides). On the roster were the Doors, the Gore Gore Girls, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Pet Shop Boys. I rolled out three dozen Karelians and baked them to perfection all to these dulcet tones. Maybe with all this fuel I will find the energy to write poetry and poetry-related posts this weekend.

tubin' tuesdays

Check out this project from some cool cats (incl. past At-Large contributor Rickey Laurentiis): why are we not in paradise?* There is currently no work up but the site layout is nice and snappy and I expect good things for their May launch date. The submission prompt is this: "We seek work that is viral, dynamic and that challenges in new and interesting ways our question why are we not in paradise?" and I imagine you can interpret this as you will. The magazine is cross-genre.

Fuck. I went to bed writing a poem in my head, and have now completely forgotten it (except for the crudest bones). It had something to do with animals. Probably it was doomy in some kind of way. I hate when this happens. I'll probably try to recreate it but will probably maximally fail like always. Harumph. Happy Tuesday, y'all.


*fixed the link. Sorry for posting just underlined words earlier!

post about important things

My poems are up on La Fovea today. This is the coolest website ever and I'm super pleased to be a small part of it. And they emailed me on my birthday! What a random and funny coincidence.

Also, this weekend marks Bushwick Reading Series' fifth (!) reading! It'll be a multimedia affair, with work by Chloe Bass, Nicolle Elizabeth, Paul Tunis, and Jordan Scott. I hope that I will see you delinquents on Saturday at 3PM in the library.

the freshest

I was pretty awfully sick for a few days there. Today I am starting to feel normal, so back to writing. I didn't do the first ~3 days of the Poetry Writing Month any justice because of that, but I am now rehearsing with impunity in several Word documents and will hopefully keep going 'til the end. I'm not going to be sharing on this blog unless I come up with something stellar, but if you want to see what I've been up to, feel free to e-mail me (niina dot pollari at gmail) and I'll send you an appropriate representation.

Tytti sent me this link today -- Armi & Danny's video for "I Want to Love You Tender." It's been voted worst video ever by a whole bunch of people, and I want to say that it's worth it for the choreographical ... "touches." Defend my countrymen I must: the video's lack of skill I will blame on two things. 1. 1980!, and 2. Finland itself produces some kind of anti-dance gene. If you ever see me dance (and you probably will, because despite my cluelessness I very much like to), you will know that the second is true -- it is a kind of raptoresque swaying, complete with windmill hands, disturbing faces, and random, spastic kicks outward and to the sides. Under no circumstances should you come close. You might lose a limb. Anyway, enjoy the video.