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