tonight!

The Gather Round Children Variety Show
(hosted by Gabe Durham)

A Lively Evening of Music and Lit For Kids 18 and Up

Saturday, November 7 – 8:00 pm

MEF Community Room – 60 Masonic St, Northampton, MA – Same building as the Woodstar Cafe

Featuring:

Hot oboe: Anne C. Holmes

Hot fiction: Adam Cogbill

Hot guitar n singin: Sarah Malone and Jono Tosch

Hot threats: Mike Young

Hot poems: Boomer Pinches and Lesley Yalen

Behind-the-scenes making it happen: Elizabeth Durham and Ben Kopel

what's new

What's exciting: The new issue of Front Porch is out! I have poems in it, along with some other juicy folks.

eats

It's getting cold, and this is the precise time of year when my sentimental Midwestern brain kicks into Casserole Mode. I recently e-mailed my mom for a few recipes, to which she replied, "I'm a little embarrassed about these recipes now because I realize how much prepackaged food they contain. It's amazing how well you all turned out." I wouldn't have had it any other way, Mom.

Here is what I want to eat for the next five months:


Broccoli, Rice & Cheese Casserole


Chicken & Rice Casserole


Tuna Noodle Casserole


Green Bean Casserole

Also, I discovered this cookbook during my casserole image searches. I won't buy it, but come on:

buckle up, we're wayward bound

I am excited about these things:

1. My new house & lovely housemates (front & back porches! back yard! climbing tree! natural light! etc.!)

2. Riding my bike to school (and other places when my legs are ready)

3. Fall weather, especially the parts concerning maple trees & getting to wear tights again

4. Teaching with a new strategy: relaxation, relaxation, not boring my students or myself (this is key)

5. Writing writing writing

6. Learning how to make food for myself other than turkey sandwiches

7. Another one of my poems, "Olympiad," is up at Juked.

8. I am seeing a film tomorrow that will make my heart go all aflutter, and yours too, because we're all going to see it together. It is the world premiere of WHEN YOU THINK OF IT, a film by online poetry journal notnostrums. The film features "renowned and emerging poets reading new work in a wide range of unexpected places" and "re-imagines the ways poetry reaches us and presents a dazzling array of contemporary poetry." We will watch it together at 7 PM at Amherst Cinema.

If You Think Of It (Trailer) from notnostrums on Vimeo.

check it

Good things around and a-comin'. I just had pudding for dessert. I have the next 1.5 days off. Camp is over this weekend. Summer weather has finally settled in. And right now, I have a poem up at Juked.

things in space, etc.

I think at least 10 campers are working on sci-fi/fantasy novels during the summer here, and many of them ask for feedback from me. After a lot of time spent reading about intergalactic colonial wars, sexual abuse between orcs and fairies, and bumbling-yet-valuable sages who dress in silver lycra, it's fun to look at my notepad to see comments like "Clarify what Crystalline Wormhole Engines do" and "Is Terrentiarius a planetary god or just a spaceship commander?" and "It's unclear why the goblins were banished to live in Amsterdam" and "Explain more about how the activated galactic plasma gel converts manure into carbon."

things you should probably know about

The new jubilat.

The new notnostrums.

The new Octopus.

My gleaming childhood.

collaboration with camper

Massachusetts wants Anne to stop moving from scenes in slow motion.

Why can’t people be mature when they run into walls?

Love makes couples tiny.

Funny that lions never yell.

Funnier that hands always try to break other hands.

Liars can’t get answers from the honest places that sting.

love ate the red wheelbarrow

Greetings from summer camp, where the most popular writing workshops are Poetry and Create-Your-Own Serial Killer.

fishes & campfires

The inaugural issue of Jellyfish Magazine is up and running! I've got two poems in there, along with these fine, sturdy friends and animals: Zach Savich, Ari Feld, Caroline Cabrera, Lily Ladewig, Mike Young, Philip Muller, Adam Cogbill, Kimberly Abruzzo, David Bartone, Shannon Luders-Manuel, Christopher Cheney, Stokely Klasovsky, Miranda Dennis, Jeff Downey, and Jared Sinclair.

Thanks to Gale Thompson, the love of my life, for putting this fresh creation together.

In other news, I'm on vacation #3 of this summer vacation: the Michigan one. All vacation parts have thus far been pretty sweet. For now, I leave you with this: