Bloofy news galore

1. Sandra Simonds' Warsaw Bikini has been enthusiastically reviewed by Mark Wallace here (along with CAConrad's Deviant Propulsion and others) & Zach Barocas here. More reviews to come--we're still mailing out publicity copies, and the official publication date (for distribution outlets) is late January/early February. (But don't let that stop you! Get it now in our store.)

2. Danielle Pafunda's My Zorba was recognized as one of the Best Poetry Books of 2008 by the St. Louis Dispatch, along with books by Frank Bidart, Jack Spicer & others. Impressive company, no? (Naturally, we couldn't agree more.)

3. No Tell Books has been running an absorbing series of "best of" posts at their new blog and Bloof titles pop up a few times there as well: My Zorba makes Evie Shockley's list & Bruce Covey includes My Zorba and Warsaw Bikini in his. (Vielen Dank!)

4. Sprechst du Deutsch? Jennifer L. Knox is now available in a bilingual German/English edition called Wir fürchten uns, containing selections from both of Knox's Bloof books, published by Lux Books. Our German is a bit rusty, but we're pretty sure this review in Berlinliteraturkritik is a rave, too! (Babelfish translation here.) Danke schön!

5. Finally, don't miss Jennifer L. Knox this Sunday, December 21, in DC. She'll be reading with Reb Livingston & Casey Smith for the In Your Ear series. Details here & here.

New shipping rates!

So this morning we noted (happily) an order for 5 copies of Warsaw Bikini in our inbox. "Hooray!" we said.

But then we wondered, "Um, why do 5 books cost $102 when they are only $15 each?"

We took a closer look and realized our shipping calculations were not working well for orders of multiple books.

So we're in the process of fixing them (and we're sending that customer a refund for the excess, plus our apologies).

This error has not affected any other orders. It was only kicking in on multiple orders, not single copies, the preorder special, or any of our previous 2-for bundles. Whew!

So far Warsaw Bikini and Down Spooky have been fixed, and we're working on the others. Should be all set in the next couple of hours. UPDATE: All done!

While we're at it, we decided to restructure the shipping rates, which were previously based on our printer's rates. We use *much* less packaging than they do (and reuse/recycle whenever we can), so these new rates are significantly lower than before.

NEW SHIPPING RATES (11/21/2008)

1 book = $1.68 via First Class Mail (2-7 days)

2 books = $2.70 via First Class Mail (2-7 days)

3-5 books = $4.80 via Priority Mail (2-3 days)

6-25 books = $9.80 via Priority Mail (2-3 days)

26 or more books = $12.95 via Priority Mail (2-3 days)

...and since there are times when you just can't wait a week to get Bloofy, we've added a new option for Priority Shipping for small orders as well:

1-2 books via Priority Shipping = $4.80 (2-3 days)

Photos from the Southern Hospitality Tour...

...have been added to our Facebook Group here.

I don't think you have to be a member to see them. (But why aren't you? Hmm.)

Now available in the Bloof store: Down Spooky by Shanna Compton

We've been meaning to add this for a while, but have just gotten around to it.

The original publisher is now defunct, but Bloof has the last remaining new copies of Shanna's first book in stock, and is pleased to be able to offer them for the discount price of $10 (usually $14).

If/when this last box sells out, Bloof will be reprinting the book in a new edition with a new cover and several restored poems cut from the original printing. Fancy!

Get 'em here.

THIS WEEKEND: Bloof goes South!

Friday, November 14 @ 8:00 PM
Atlanta, GA

Sandra Simonds, Jennifer L. Knox & Shanna Compton
Hosted by Bruce Covey

Emory University
Schwartz Center Theater Lab
1700 N. Decatur Road

&

Saturday, November 15 @ 8:00 PM
Durham, NC

Patrick Herron, Jennifer L. Knox & Shanna Compton
Minor American Series
Hosted by Kathryn L. Pringle & Magdalena Zurawski

Ken Rumble's place
(email kathrynlpringle [at] gmail [dot] com) for info)


Sandra Simonds is the author of Warsaw Bikini(Bloof Books, 2008) and several chapbooks, as well as the founder of Wildlife, an experimental, handmade poetry magazine. She earned a BA in English and Psychology from UCLA and an MFA from the University of Montana. She is currently a PhD student in Creative Writing at Florida State University.

Patrick Herron is a poet, artist and information scientist living in Chapel Hill, NC, USA. His doll Lester is the author of the book Be Somebody (2008, Effing Press) while Patrick is the author of several books of poetry including The American Godwar Complex (2004, BlazeVox) as well as a recent book on text mining and scientific discovery (2008, Verlag Dr. Mueller). Patrick's web art has appeared in the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and his proximate.org is part of the permanent collection of the New Museum for Contemporary Art. You may find some of Patrick's poems and essays in journals such as The Exquisite Corpse, Jacket, Fulcrum, A Chide's Alphabet, and Talisman. He is the founder of the Carrboro International Poetry Festival, a member of the board of Carolina Wren Press, winner of the 2005 Triangle Arts Award from The Independent (Durham NC), and a former Carrboro NC Poet Laureate. Patrick teaches new media studies, develops serious games, and studies semiotic landscapes of innovation for the Jenkins Chair at Duke University. He is working on a new volume of poetry tentatively entited Embedded.

Jennifer L. Knox was born in Lancaster, California—where absolutely anything can be made into a bong. Her poems have appeared in the anthologies The Best American Poetry (1997, 2003 and 2006), Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to Present, Free Radicals: American Poets Before Their First Books, and The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present. She has taught poetry writing at New York University and Hunter College, and is available for children's parties, séances, and tradeshow booth demonstrations. She lives in Brooklyn. Her books A Gringo Like Me and Drunk by Noon are both available from Bloof Books.

Shanna Compton is the author of For Girls & Others (Bloof Books, 2008), Down Spooky (Winnow, 2005), and several chapbooks, as well as the editor of GAMERS (Soft Skull, 2004). Her poems and essays have appeared widely in magazines and anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2005, The Poet's Bookshelf 2, Exchange Values XV, and several others. She teaches at The New School and runs the DIY Poetry Publishing Cooperative. She lives in a valley near a river in New Jersey.

Preorder special on Warsaw Bikini!

Sandra Simonds' new book Warsaw Bikini has been finalized and is currently printing. We're pleased to offer a special preorder price of $12 with free shipping to celebrate its release.

Orders should begin shipping on or about November 16, at which time the special offer will expire. (Regular price $15 + shipping).

Get yours now.

UPDATE: This sale is now over. Thanks to everyone who ordered!

Snapshots

Posted a few pics from the September 20 reading at Unnameable Books featuring Danielle Pafunda, Nada Gordon, Sharon Mesmer & Laura Sims at our Facebook group here.

You don't have to be a Facebook user or a group member to peep 'em.

Got some more news coming soon...great reviews of Drunk by Noon & Jennifer L. Knox (including one auf Deutsch!), preorder info on Warsaw Bikini (so close!), details on our upcoming Georgia and North Carolina tour stops & a juicy 4-for-$40 Bloof Bundle sale to warm up your already frosty fall.

Stay tuned.

Southern mini tour in November

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14 @ 8:00 PM
Sandra Simonds, Jennifer L. Knox & Shanna Compton
Hosted by Bruce Covey
Emory University
Bldg/Room TBD
Decatur/Atlanta, GA


SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15 @ 7:00 PM
Patrick Herron, Jennifer L. Knox & Shanna Compton
Minor American Reading Series
Hosted by Kate Pringle & Maggie Zurawski
Location TBD
Durham, NC

The reading at Emory will be the first time Sandra Simonds' new book WARSAW BIKINI will be available. Come out and help us celebrate it!

We may also be adding a reading in VA or SC for Thursday, November 13, so stay tuned. (Or if you know a good spot, get in touch!)

LAST SUPPER 01
Originally uploaded by Fortress Keeper

Tonight @ KGB!

Monday, September 22 in Manhattan

Danielle Pafunda & Caroline Knox
Hosted by Laura Cronk & Michael Quattrone

KGB Bar
85 East 4th Street
7:00 PM

FREE

Subway: 6 to Astor Place or F/V to 2nd Ave

Reminder: This Saturday! & Monday!

Saturday, September 20 in Brooklyn

Nada Gordon ("flamboyantly brillant!")
Sharon Mesmer ("mesmerizingly genius!")
Danielle Pafunda ("V.C. Andrews-creepy!")
Laura Sims ("utterly astounding!")

Hosted by Shanna Compton ("winningly self-effacing!")

Unnameable Books ("easily the best bookstore ever!")
456 Bergen Street
Brooklyn, NY
3:30 PM

FREE, including refreshments. A party in the middle of the day...why not?

(Subway: Any train that goes to Atlantic Hub)

+++++

Also, don't miss...

Monday, September 22 in Manhattan

Danielle Pafunda & Caroline Knox
Hosted by Laura Cronk & Michael Quattrone

KGB Bar
85 East 4th Street
7:00 PM

FREE

Subway: 6 to Astor Place or F/V to 2nd Ave

Danielle's coming to town, so we're throwing a party!

Saturday, September 20 at 3:30 PM in Brooklyn

Nada Gordon ("flamboyantly brillant!")
Sharon Mesmer ("mesmerizingly genius!")
Danielle Pafunda ("V.C. Andrews-creepy!")
Laura Sims ("utterly astounding!")

Hosted by Shanna Compton ("winningly self-effacing!")

Unnameable Books ("easily the best bookstore ever!")
456 Bergen Street
Brooklyn, NY

FREE, including refreshments. A party in the middle of the day...why not?

(Subway: Any train that goes to Atlantic Hub)

+++++

Also, don't miss...

Monday, September 22 at 7:00 PM in Manhattan

Danielle Pafunda & Caroline Knox
Hosted by Laura Cronk & Michael Quattrone

KGB Bar
85 East 4th Street
FREE

Subway: 6 to Astor Place or F/V to 2nd Ave

It will look a little something like this

Today!

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7,
5 p.m.

Ada Limón, Jennifer L. Knox & Tom Haushalter
for POLESTAR
152 Ludlow
(btw Stanton & Rivington)

And check out Jen's new website here.

Advance praise for Warsaw Bikini by Sandra Simonds

"In Sandra Simonds's poetry, a terrific, nihillistic dislike of herself and others (her heroine "dires" men) vies with an extreme will to prevail in full color. The tension is sustained by an imagination of remarkable fertility and a rich and crowded verbal palette. Simonds writes to sting. She's like a Plath whose capacity for erotic altruism has thoroughly imploded, producing a crisis that only a brilliant talent could turn into a field of triumphantly exhibited power. Simonds has such a talent." --Cal Bedient

"For 100 years, maybe 3000, poetry has wanted to know what it is. Sandra Simonds shows it. Every outset projects a lack the sequence must undo, overturning postponement our wanting’s askance with preposterous now. Why these baubles on the brain? Food, fishes, Poland. I am small, she says, her happenstance clothing the essential. That wilderness holds together, discloses organum, who knew?" --R. M. Berry

"Sandra Simonds' poems are hyperactive conduits into the chaos of our lost-at-sea moment in time. She's in love with words and all the damage they can do. La belle dame sans papiers--she's witty, smart, a real troublemaker, playing the lyre of her twenty-first century blues." --Barbara Hamby

Kind words & future plans

Been kinda quiet around here. It's the midsummer lull, we guess. Yet suddenly this week, we have a spate of Bloof news.

A perceptive review of Danielle Pafunda's My Zorba by Caroline Depalma may be found in Coldfront:

Pafunda addresses you indirectly; she relies on shocked fragments, on jagged rhythms and imagery [...] on your ability to intuit a whole, not your ability to apportion its parts. There are times when you won’t know what the speaker is getting at just yet. Mirrors reflect the most insignificant details right beside the ostensibly significant. Does this require too much imagining on our part? Is it worth the leap? Lay your cash on the table beside her hairbrush and hatchet; this isn’t a disappointing gamble.

Another astute, yet different, take on My Zorba appears in Tarpaulin Sky by John Findura:

The book vacillates between the drawbridge and the gangplank, just as Zorba morphs between a “he” and a “she.” As each poem unfolds, there is a sign of welcome, but as quickly as it is noticed, next to it is the gangplank leading us off into the murky depths. It is an apt metaphor for reading this book as each turn of the page sucks us in deeper.

You can also catch Danielle right now at Delirious Hem continuing with her interview on the Gurlesque with Arielle Greenberg. (Eagerly awaited, Part 2 has just been posted.)

The new Rain Taxi features a lovely review of Shanna Compton's For Girls by Nate Pritts (which we quote in full since it is not available online):

Though Shanna Compton's second full-length book will probably get noticed first for its quasi-gender studies focus, the ironic tone and muscularly discursive lines of For Girls (& Others) mark it as first-rate poetry first, a lesson in articulating individual identity in a public sphere.
     Compton owns her project--a kind of contemporary primer for girls that, in revealing how far we've come, indicates we haven't strayed far enough from the ideas of the 19th-century handbook that serves as impetus for some of the poems. Luckily, we have Compton's voice to help guide us: "Might you unlearn / to resent the joy / the world takes in you, // learn to return its gaze." The ending of "Pride in Having Small Feet" sets up the interesting tension of employing the rhetorical style of these outdated manuals in the service of offering some real insight. Moments like these, handled with grace and forcefulness, define the book, and provide the truest sense of a purpose here.
     Lingustic virtuosity is a solid draw as well. Those who've read Compton's first collection, Down Spooky, already know her to be adept at torquing language in a way that reveals not simply multiple meanings, but multiple registers. "The Dome Is It" is a good illustration of Compton's ability to move into a realm where language becomes a reference to itself, where moods are the words used to describe them:

The opposite of no within
the curved, complete shape
of your dreamed conveyance.
Everything you've said lately
so similar to immediate
but not quite so.

Throughout, Compton uses syntax and lineation to provide some of the punch. In "Opening Address," she begins the book with a pronouncement about girls "upon whom the universe / bestows fullness / in all the right places." Both biblical sounding and funny, it's a good read on the tone used throughout the book. Simultaneously reverent and irreverent, For Girls (& Others) is a complex work on identity and the forces we all work against to assert it.

Pick up a copy or subscribe to Rain Taxi here.

And come the vivid days & voluptuous evenings of July...


Tuesday, July 8 at 6:30 PM
in New York, NY

Jennifer L. Knox, Dara Wier & James Tate
read for KGB Night in Bryant Park

Hosted by Laura Cronk & Michael Quattrone
Word for Word Series
Bryant Park
40th-42nd Streets between 5th & 6th Ave
behind the NYPL
FREE

&


Wednesday, July 30 at 7:00 PM
in New York, NY

Shanna Compton & TBD
Reading at Chrystie Street Series
Hosted by Steve Roberts

Home Sweet Home Bar
131 Chrystie Street
FREE

You might also spy Shanna in issue #2 of Tight & in the debut issue of Spooky Boyfriend, coming soon.

Before we bid you happy summering and let you get back to your iced tea and camping gear or whatever, we ask--if you're on Facebook and haven't yet, why not join our Friends of Bloof group?

News, reviews & woohoos

Let's hear it for May, which brings the (nearly) worldwide availability of My Zorba by Danielle Pafunda. Get it here, or here, or here, or here (erm, if you must), but by all means get it, ya hear?

So Verse Daily's timing couldn't be better. Nice!

Some of the people who attended Jennifer L. Knox's reading Monday night in Ashland, OR waited 2 years for the pleasure. (When we tried to visit in 2005 we were snowed out by a freak storm on Mt. Shasta). Was it worth the wait? Read a report here ("fucking hilarious...deliciously vulgar...tears of mirth") or listen in over here.

And Diagram agrees. Joanna Novak's written an awesome review of Drunk by Noon in the new issue. An excerpt:

"Knox challenges notions of who the speaker of a poem should be. Should this speaker say, for example, "eat the burrito / like you’re fucking it, Joel" (67)? Sure. The speaker slips into different affectations with ease. Sometimes rural, other times rhythmic, Knox sure-handedly sifts through colloquialisms and pop cultural reference points with such skill that I feel safe in saying that her speaker—while perhaps co-dependent, certainly racking up more rehab points than Robert Downey, Jr.—is a voice both savvy and saucy enough to defy gender and social standards all while maintaining eerily-precise diction."

Read the rest.

There's also an effusive review in the latest MiPoesias:

"Knox creates lines of poetry at staggering levels of quality, peppered into each poem, regardless of the implausible image she is trying to sell...Full of the garish colors of life that can suddenly litter a landscape, it tells of the awkward, insignificant, yet very real pieces of humanness, however beautiful or unbeautiful."

Read the rest.

Bill Knott proposes that Drunk by Noon might have been a better choice than Aram Saroyan's Complete Minimal Poems for the Poetry Society of America's recent William Carlos Williams Award, judged by Ron Silliman, and as much as we'd have loved that we're awfully happy for our friends at Ugly Duckling too.

Shanna Compton's flarf-festival poem "Boning John McCain," which originally appeared here during April, nearly shut down a LiveJournal poetry group. Best censoring we've ever received (& thankfully the controversy blew over). Nice reminder that context is important, eh? We're still not voting for him though. Video from the festival, perhaps, to come.

In news of the future, a review of For Girls (& Others) should be popping up in Rain Taxi soon, and we're expecting several for My Zorba too. For most of the summer, we'll be hard at work on Sandra Simonds' Warsaw Bikini as well. When/if we've got time to read submissions, we'll open the gates. (But please remember we're very very (very) small and will only be doing 2-3 books a year, with several candidates already on our desks.)

That's it for news & reviews...but we'll be in DC this Sunday and would love to see you if you're around:

Sunday, May 18 at 3:00 PM
in Washington, DC

Jennifer L. Knox, Shanna Compton & Wade Fletcher
read for the In Your Ear Series

Hosted by Maureen Thorson & Cathy Eisenhower
DC Arts Center
2438 18th Street NW
(Between Belmont & Columbia)
Washington, DC
Free for DCAC members or $3

Shanna's #20

Hiatus, or
run for it

but do it soon.

A trickle list.
A tenderness of intention.
A soft little way.

Jacked up
or not, the difference
inimitable & kinda sad.

A concrete something
like a lead pipe.
To contrast with another vision,
a treetop full of wind.

A day late and a dollar short, but I'm making it up on the ponies, says Danielle

On the Bearskin Rug in Front of the Fire I Construct the Following Tableau:

Trust moonflowers to stick it to you, the tiny dogs return. Their entrance, poof. They’re mouthing crowns, togas, they’re yipping Paris, you precious, Woody, you moron. Never in the splinter womb start a fire you can’t suck out. They suckle. Narrate: Colostrum from the goose, in which to cook the gander.

Jen's #30...2 days late

Gobi Told the Broccoli

move...I can't see

Hey, we've got another new poem...

Shanna's #20-30...

...will continue to appear hear as they are completed, just for thoroughness.

I've been sick all week, unable to muster the final sprint I needed, alas. But even 20 in 30 days ain't bad, considering all the travel and craziness of this particular April! Even if I won't keep most of them. (That's normal.)

Maureen asks fellow players what, if anything, you noticed about your writing during the experiment? (And her "leaves & feelings" poems were lovely, by the way!)

Jen's #29

[Vanishes...]

Jen's #28

[A poem were here...but I ated it]

Shanna's #19

[Expired.]

Shanna's #18

[Expired]

Jen's #27

[o you kid...]

Jen's #26

[Hay Pome Vuz Hear Hear!]

Shanna's #15-17

[Expired]

Jen's #25

[A Pome War Har]

Jen's #24

[A Poem was Here]

Jen's #23

[A Poem was Here]

Jen's #22

[A Poem was Here]

Jen's #21

[A Poem Was Here]

Jen's #20

[A Poem was Here]

2 Bloofy events this week!

Friday night, Danielle Pafunda comes to NYC to read at Earshot in Brooklyn. If you've never been to Earshot, it's a treat. Always a good crowd, always a great energy. Nicole rocks it. Mobile Libris will be on hand to sell the very first copies of My Zorba available in NYC.


Friday, April 25 at 8:00 PM
in Brooklyn, NY

Danielle Pafunda reads for the Earshot Series

Danielle Pafunda (My Zorba, Pretty Young Thing)
Michael Quattrone (Rhinoceroses)
Adina Schoem (Sarah Lawrence College)
Emily Wolahan (Columbia University)
Lisa A. Locascio (New York University)

Lucky Cat
245 Grand Street
(Between Driggs & Roebling)
Brooklyn, NY
$5 includes a drink

The following night, Shanna Compton makes outrageous noises in the Flarf Festival with the Drew Gardner Orchestra, featuring Katie Degentesh, Brandon Downing, Rob Fitterman, Benjamin Friedlander, Drew Gardner, Nada Gordon, Mitch Highfill, Rodney Koeneke, Michael Magee, Sharon Mesmer, K. Silem Mohammad, Mel Nichols, Eiríkur Örn Nor∂dahl, Kim Rosenfield, James Sherry, Rod Smith, Christina Strong, Gary Sullivan & the Saw Lady. (More festival info here.)

SATURDAY, APR 26, 6:00 P.M.
BOWERY POETRY CLUB
308 BOWERY
$8, a Segue reading to benefit Bowery Arts & Sciences

Shanna's #12

[Expired]

Jen's #19

[A Poem was Here]

Jen's #18

[A Poem was Here]

The Belmar: Binghamton, NY

87 cheers for the good people of Binghamton. They win Best Audience Award of the Bloof Hobby Loss Tour '08!

We had waaaaaaay too much fun. Luckily, we also had a designated driver. (Thanks, James!) I've lost exact count of the # of books sold on the book tour, but we broke the 100 mark last night. (Unreal! Thank you again & again!)

I may do a few retrospective report about some of the spots we didn't write up. But in general, they would all just say: thanks--that rocked. (There *are* poets and poetry-liking people out there who are kind, enthusiastic, warm, wonderful, and a little bit crazy in all the right ways, and danged if I don't feel sometimes like I know them all.)

I have a bunch of photos left to post too.

Now it's back to our regularly scheduled NaPoWriMo, which our dear pal Ada Limon talks up today on Harriet. I'll catch up by the end of the weekend or sprain something trying.

Santa in the off season

Jen's #17

[A Poem was Here]

Jen's #16

[A Poem was Here]

Jen's #15

[A Poem for Pop was Here]

Danielle's #something gone

Dear Neighbor, Hiss. Hiss hiss. Sincerely, Kitty.

Jen's #14

[A Poem was Here]

Jen's #13

[A poem was here]

Shanna's #11

[Expired]

Shanna's #10

[Expired]

Shanna's #9

[Expired]

Shanna's #8

[Expired]

Jen's #12

[A poem was here]

Shanna's #7

[Expired]

Jen's #11

[A poem was here]

Jen's #10

[A poem was here]

Couple more reports

Peter Davis in Muncie

Nate Logan in Fargo

Thanks, dudes. So glad we came to visit you!

Home = real coffee!

Some of us are back at work even.

Yesterday's weather conspired to keep me from reaching my own bed (ah) till nearly 2 AM. At some point I got on a wrong train. Then sat in an outdoor empty NJTransit station after midnight for a bit to correct my sleepy mistake. Too tired to be freaked out by it.

I, Shanna, will be catching up with my NaPoWriMo poems. I have only done 6 and those have been mostly shoddy. Lesson learned: I am not Kerouacian.

It may take me a few days, and I've got to get some interview questions done for the UWM editors first.

Of all my rooms, I've missed the kitchen the most.

The fine art of dangling

The view from our seats at the hotel airport bar, where our flight was first delayed, then almost missed. (Oops!)

Not that there was any sun just then

12 miles from airport we discover the sunroof.

Flight path

How was your drive?

Weirdly Wet

Everytime Jen drives it rains.

Fargo 2

Fargo 3

Fargo 1

Jen's #9

[A poem was here]

North Dakotan snow

Road Report via Cell

Last gig of Hobby Loss 08 tour in Fargo 2night. No hitches. Almost outta books. PS: It's Senior Wed @ Goodwill in St Cloud.

Shanna's for April 6

[Expired]

Road hair calls for just such a horse

In addition to fuel, things that are pumped at gas stations, part 2

In addition to fuel, things that are pumped at gas stations, part 1

...and neither can we.

Jen's #8

[A (Long) Poem (Containing the Phrase "Banana Bedwetters") Was Here]

Going halfsies

Where they keep David Letterman's balls

Jen's #7

[A Poem Was Here]

Funcie in Muncie & some reports

We're in Champaign--Illinois has been real good to us--three times now! Headed for Muncie in a bit, where we'll talk with Peter Davis's classes then read at the MT Cup tonight. One of our favorite spots from the 2005 tour, so we're excited.

Here are a few other reports:

Amy Guth on Chicago

Brandi Homan on Chicago

Anne Boyer on our impromptu house-reading-slumber-party in Lawrence (yes that was as fun as it sounds--check the Gabcast player for some recordings.)

Adam Deutsch on yesterday's reading here in Champaign

Every day I wake up and feel incredibly lucky to be in whatever state/city/hotel/house/highway/diner we are in, and that's such a good feeling. But we miss Danielle now!

Shanna's for April 5

[Expired]

Shanna's for April 4

[Expired]

jen's # Kansas

More Illinois

I will go on
tomorrow
for this is a
many parted but
ohso for real
IMPORTANT
and I really I
mean that no
shit poem: let's
take over the
midwest west
of Kansas witch
is still cheap e-
nough but even
better and create
an america.

April Something gone

betters. Bitters.

Multimedia message

Multimedia message

Jen's #5

[A (Dumb) Poem was Here]

Shanna's for April 3

[Expired]

Danielle's April 3 gone!

They shall make you suck it.

Jen's #4

[A Poem Was Here]

Multimedia message

Multimedia message

Danielle's is playing catchup...

...over at her blog, Iron Caisson.

For April 2

***

Stopped at Woodland Pattern yesterday morning to see Chuck & Carl and invited them to record some poems for the blog. The store is amazing--I saw many of YOUR BOOKS displayed beautifully in the front room, rifled through drawer after drawer of chapbooks and broadsides, browsed an ALPHABETIZED and MASSIVE chapbook rack in the back room, and walked up and down a WALL OF POETRY until I finally just became overwhelmed trying to process it all. We both came away with some new stuff, of course, which will hardly fit in our already bulging luggage.

We got into Chicago yesterday afternoon (after stopping for cheese & thrift shopping in Kenosha; I scored a Dr. Pepper tee shirt) and had a GREAT reading last night at the Fixx Series with Amy Guth. Brandi & Becca from Switchback Books, Daniel Borzutzky, some of Danielle's students from Columbia College, some lovely laughing (thank you!) ladies at the front table, and a gentleman who never looked up from his work but smiled and reacted nonetheless, along with many other good people, and Adam and Hazel of course. 19 books sold--woohoo!

Today we're off to Normal-Bloomington or Bloomington-Normal, however it goes. We'll meet Didi and Gabe for dinner, then maybe go to the slam. Our reading for the conference is tomorrow morning early. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to catch up with NaPoWriMo too. I don't know how Jen manages to write a poem in the chaos of suitcases and borrowed pillows, but I'm having trouble, especially since I've had little time to read or ruminate--which is perhaps to say, we've been having too much fun.

--Shanna

As seen at CVS Kenosha, WI

Wheredoya think alla cheese comes from then, yakno?

Cow plethora at the Mars Cheese Castle, Kenosha, WI.

Thar she blows!

Milwaukee Museum of Art by "some famous Italian architect."

Tonight in Chicago!

Jen's #3

[A Poem Was Here]

Shanna's for April 2

[Expired]

Milwaukee, here we come!

See you tonight.

And on the way to Danielle's tomorrow: the Mars Cheese Castle.

Jen's #2

[A Poem Once Was Here]

Jennifer's for April 1

[A Poem Once Was Here]

Shanna's for April 1

[Expired]

New reviews of Drunk by Noon & For Girls (& Others)

John Findura has written a terrific review of Drunk by Noon for Jacket:

Knox may have hit on a truth much deeper than she knew when she finished off the first poem in the book, ‘Yowl of the Obese Spaniel’, with the line ‘I’m never gonna have sex, I’d sure like to kill something.’ It just feels very American, as it goes through the brains of millions of teenagers all over the world. [...] These are not poems to be placed on a pedestal. They are to be read and, most importantly, enjoyed. Knox gets it.

Read the rest.

And...the other day we mentioned that Powell's is offering For Girls as a prize in their April poetry contest, but they've also added it to the Staff Recommendations with a blurb by Sheila A. of the Poetry Team:

"In For Girls (& Others), Shanna Compton commandeers the prim, repressed language of antique advice books for girls and deftly manipulates it into subversion. Compton shows that while the style of these books is outmoded, the constricting messages they espouse are still, unfortunately, very much the norm. This collection made me laugh; it made me angry; it made me not shave my legs today."

Audioblogging from the road

Having some trouble getting Gabcast to work as it's supposed to. Episodes won't publish directly to the blog from the phone.

With this manually added embedded player, new episodes will show up, but only after we go online, log in, and add titles or tags to them. (That defeats the whole idea of audioblogging. If we were going to have internet access, we'd just type the dang posts.)

So, we'll capture some audio posts and just add them to the player when/if we do get access along the way. Stay tuned.

[Moved the audio player to the sidebar and erased those tests posts.]

It's going to look something like this

1 rental car
2 planes
3 poets
10 cities
1742 miles of skyway
2700 miles of highway

We've all committed to the NaPoWriMo challenge, and will be posting our poems here during the tour, along with photos and reading reports, and hopefully some interviews with friends we meet along the way.

A new poem by Sandra Simonds

Win 26 free books from Powell's!

Powells.com celebrates National Poetry Month with an invitation to write a poem of your own. Before midnight on April 30, 2008, submit an original poem — under 20 lines and in some way about Portland, Oregon — to poetrycontest[at]powells[dot]com for a chance to win 26 books of poetry (from small press poets to contemporary prizewinners to classics) and a handy Powell's rucksack!

One of the prize books being offered is our very own For Girls (& Others).

Entrance info here.

Drunk by Noon on the Poetry Foundation blog today

Ada Limón describes the symptoms of Knox Fever:

"I have had the great pleasure of introducing Jennifer L. Knox in a few different writing courses. The first thing that happens is a dilation of pupils, as if an art history teacher suddenly flipped the next slide to reveal the students’ own family photographs."

Read the rest.

Thanks, Ada!

Now available in the Bloof store: My Zorba by Danielle Pafunda

Get it here.

Powell's, Amazon, and other retailers to follow in about a month.

Or, if you catch us on the booktour, we'll have early copies too.

Gearing up...

...to get on the road, assuming the Midwest doesn't completely wash away in all these floods!



Without the following folks, we'd be spending National Poetry Month at our day jobs, which would be way less fun:

Katie Steinbrecher & Furrow magazine in Milwaukee
Amy Guth in Chicago
Jessica Block & Ann M. Erickson of Tributaries, Didi Menendez & Gabriel Gudding in Normal/Bloomington
Anne Boyer & Robert L. Baumann in Lawrence
Adam Deutsch in Urbana/Champaign
Peter Davis in Muncie (Pete made the cool flyer above)
Nate Logan in Moorhead/Fargo

Here's a story on the Illinois Wesleyan University conference we'll be doing in Bloomington on April 5. The conference is free and open to all. You can register online and get a full list of the events here.

And yes, we are then getting in the car and driving to Lawrence, KS to do a reading for An Actual Kansas later that same day. Because that's how we roll. (Compared to the 2005 tour, this is cake.)

The (naughty) birds & the (bloofy) bees

Hello, friends of Bloof. Here are a few new newsy bits for you:

1) Jennifer L. Knox is guestblogging at the Best American Poetry blog this week. Her first post was on animal sex (note: not sex with animals, sex between animals). Her second is allllllll about Burt Reynolds. What will she say next? Only one way to find out. She didn't think she could blog, but heck, she seems like a natural!

2) Which reminds us to tell you that Jen's poem "Another Motive for Metaphor" appears in The Best American Erotic Poetry, edited by David Lehman. (Scribner, 2008). You can read all the poems that come (ahem) before and after it in its native habitat, A Gringo Like Me.That's sexy.

3) Along with 99 other poets, Jennifer L. Knox and Shanna Compton appear in Poet's Bookshelf II, edited by Peter Davis & Tom Koontz, which is also a new release. (Barnwood, 2008). Shanna includes Dr. Seuss in her top 10, no kidding. You can sample her essay and a few new poems in the new issue of the DMQ Review too.

A buncha Bloof news this week

1) Tonight at KGB Bar in NYC, Jennifer L. Knox and Shanna Compton will be kicking off the Monday Night Poetry Series, reading from their new books DRUNK BY NOON and FOR GIRLS (& OTHERS). It's free, and Mobile Libre will be there selling books.

KGB Bar
85 E. 4th Street
Between 2nd and 3rd Aves.
F to 2nd Ave or 6 to Astor Place

2) Publishers Weekly is running a review of DRUNK BY NOON this week too:

"This second book from Knox, a young New York poet, continues the playful romp through the warped Americana she began in her debut, A Gringo Like Me. Here, Knox gives voice to wayward teens, drug-addled sages and fat dogs fantasizing about killing babies—among other unsavory characters—through dramatic monologues and quick narrative sketches. ...[F]ascination with the down-and-out lurks behind Knox's layers of irony and comic distance. She's at her best and most entertaining in bursts of everyday surrealism—like the poem 'Pastoral with Internet Porn,' which bristles with energy and imagination."

3) DRUNK BY NOON is also ON FIRE at Amazon.com, thanks to you folks--showing up on the Poetry Bestseller list at #45 as of this morning! Also, Coldfront Magazine has awarded it "Best Second Book of 2007" props. Go Knox!

4) Finally, Bloof is tremendously excited to announce that we'll be publishing WARSAW BIKINI by Sandra Simonds in October, which along with Danielle Pafunda's MY ZORBA in April completes our 2008 catalog. You've probably seen Sandra's work in Action Yes!, Barrow Street, Cannibal, Coconut, Fence and dozens of other places, or maybe you're a fan of her chapbooks Tar Pit Diatoms, The Humble Travelogues of Mr. Ian Worthington, and Steam. WARSAW BIKINI is Sandra's first longer book and it blew us away--we can't wait to make it available for the wider audience Sandra's work deserves. For more information, stop by her blog.

February readings & a new Knox interview

These are on the (newly updated) events page as well, but...

Sunday, February 24th at 4:00 PM in Philadelphia
Shanna Compton, Teresa Leon & Elizabeth Scanlon
Hosted by CAConrad

Robin's Bookstore
108 S. 13th Street
FREE

Monday, February 25 at 7:00 PM in NYC

Bloof Books kicks off Spring's Monday Night Poetry Series at KGB
Shanna Compton & Jennifer L. Knox
Hosted by Laura Cronk & Michael Quattrone

KGB Bar
85 E. 4th Street
Between 2nd and 3rd Aves.
F to 2nd Ave or 6 to Astor Place
FREE

And hey...check out this new interview with Jennifer L. Knox in the Southeast Review.

More photos from the pageant

Via Jessica Smith's Flickr collection

Jennifer L. Knox is featured at Verse Daily today!

What a lovely surprise.

Permalink.

Results of the Micropress Poetry Pageant

Friday night's pageant was so much fun. Thanks to everybody who came out in that awful rain. What a crowd!

Extra special big thanks to Maureen Thorson & Jeff Eaton, who ran the book table, and our bartender Drew, without whom we'd not have been able to pull it off. (Sorry we emptied the beer cooler! Sort of!)

Reb Livingston's got some photos at her blog, which render mine mostly redundant:

The Talent Competition

The Snowsuit Competition

The Poetrywear Competition

The Judges

The winners

But here's a video of the finale:

Meet our lovely contestants LIVE!

MICROPRESS POETRY PAGEANT

FRIDAY FEB 1 @ 8PM
STAIN BAR
766 Grand Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(L TRAIN to Grand Street, 1 block West)

FREE! PUBLIC! PRIZES!
No AWP badge required!

BLOOF BOOKS
COCONUT BOOKS
NO TELL BOOKS

Hugh Behm-Steinberg
Jenna Cardinale*
Shanna Compton
Bruce Covey
Jill Alexander Essbaum
Shafer Hall
Jennifer L. Knox
Sueyeun Juliette Lee
Reb Livingston
Danielle Pafunda
PF Potvin
Ravi Shankar

(Sponsored by Lulu.com, the place for people to publish. Empowering
anyone to create, buy, sell and control their work with the click of a mouse.)

* Unfortunately cannot attend in person, yet will be attending in spirit, which is also good company.

Dear Tilly, Dear Hermes,*

Enclosed, please find Zorba's lamb shank. Please find a coveted booklet.
A prerequisite. In the future, when you shadow, please find a subtle
distinction between street and theater.

I craze the window in her butchered sedan. I leverage her documents,
spilling from the console. Figure these. Repeat.

From My Zorba by Danielle Pafunda (Bloof Books, April 2008)