Old monk on drunk walk this garden olive way of moon path nude in blue light strain powder pouring bare feet stains red muscatel. On his rock sits Jesus eyes clear tell him of your life sans joy brave Brother Anhidonus oh fun monk too but without joy. Hung over herbs your Jesus praying not…
This bud was for you
Across the street from the Estate Sale, there’s talk if it’s a teardown, while a couple of bushtits build a hanging nest in a paperbark maple, coming and going through the perfect hole at the top of the sack woven with string, spider web, tiny twigs and grassy strands yarned around. “Go easy,” she yearned….
Notes AWP Close: The 8th Day
Wandering post AWP19 Portland town yesterday with entrepreneurial intrepid impresario Berfrois editor at large Russell Bennetts and his Midwestern sidekick Simon Calder, I had occasion to consider Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” in a contemporary context, where all the characters have cell phones, except one, who has lost theirs. But I can’t decide which Hemingway character…
Notes: The One They Call the Seventh Poet
They look like anyone, these poets and writers, intellectuals and artists, editors and publishers – filling and milling about the Oregon Convention Center for AWP19, sauntering though the book fair and scurrying off to panels and readings and private receptions. The fact of a book must say something about their ability to write, to argue…
Notes ‘If 6 Was 9’: The Psychogeography of the Book Fair
I arrived a bit early for my scheduled stint to help out at the Berfrois table at AWP19, so I wandered through a few aisles of tables set up for the book fair. At each table, a couple of usually amiable greeters happily and professionally described the occasion or purpose of their press or otherwise…
Notes Number 5: Smells Like Berfrois Spirit
Nevermind, I’m already 10 minutes late for my appointed volunteer shift at the Portland Convention Center to help out at AWP19. Turns out even 11:30 am too early for this old kid to gig. I hope my unexcused absence doesn’t reflect too poorly on my literary reputaughtshun. But I will use the time though, looking…
Fourth Notes: AWP19, Berfrois10
That title isn’t meant to sound like a sports score. The 19th annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs convention (AWP19) coincides with the 10th anniversary of the online site Berfrois, celebrated these last ten years for its “Literature, Ideas, and Tea.” Berfrois will be at the AWP convention with copies of its recently published…
Third Notes: berfrois in the Pacific Northwest
Writing grants access. To what? First, to one’s own thoughts, to one’s own experience. I wrote this; therefore, it happened to me, at least the writing of it did. So I have access to that, to the writing, another experience of the experience, another way to experience the experience. Are you experienced? Narrative becomes mirror,…
Second Notes on “Berfrois the Book,” “Queen Mob’s Teahouse: Teh Book,” and AWP19: Lonely, the Book
One day, almost ten years ago, down at the Bipartisan Café, in Montavilla, reading on my laptop, I was gobsmacked to find someone had published on their site a piece I’d recently written for my blog, The Coming of the Toads. At the time, I’d not yet heard of Berfrois or its editor Russell Bennetts….
First Notes on the publication of “Berfrois the Book” and “Queen Mob’s Teahouse: Teh Book”
The annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) convention is being held this coming week in my home town of Portland, Oregon. I’ll try to post daily through the week my local observations of the main event and its various outlier happenings. One of those happenings is the concurrent publication of “Befrois the Book”…
