I'm suffering acute pangs of deprivation because I can't buy Monica Youn's Ignatz yet. Cartoons are looming largely in the essays I'm working on right now, and I'm so curious to see what she's done with one of my favorite characters. I can't afford it at the moment because I just spent all my birthday money on Eula Biss, Sabrina Orah Mark, Tove Jansson, and Evan Lavender-Smith--note: if you write a commonplace book, I will just buy the guts out of it. I will buy it to death. Tuck that away in your mental files.
If you travel to otoliths and read a poem by Ana Božičević called "About Mayakovsky," you will encounter, for the first time, the phrase "weight-of-forest male lard." This is necessary, and you will not regret it. Also, it goes without saying that if you haven't read Stars of the Night Commute yet, you must tiptoe down to the shipyard and steal a copy directly from the boat. It is so, so good; it is truer than the woof of a watchdog.
That Gulf Coast interview that I mentioned a few weeks back is now online!
7 comments:
Congrats on the Zone 3 acceptance!
Lately, I've been talking to people about how much of a manuscript should be published before it becomes a book. What do you think? Do you go all out to tray and place every poem? Or do you stop sending out individual poems at a certain point? During my MFA days, we were simply told that the publication of individual poems would eventually help place the manuscript.
What do you think?
You know, I've never considered that question very deeply--I just assumed that placing as many poems as possible would help as opposed to hinder, which may not be the case. This raises the hilarious question: is it possible for a non-book-having poet to be "overexposed"? I do send out all the poems in this manuscript, and currently 25 of 32 are either published or forthcoming. And I'll probably keep sending out those seven because they're some of my favorites.
I think it may be different for second or third books, as opposed to first ones. Statistically speaking, it takes so long to get your first book published that first books are generally ultra-polished and ultra-published, while subsequent books may be less so. And I like that about second and third books, it often means that more playful, experimental stuff makes the cut because the poets don't take seven years to agonize over it.
In other words, good question!
Tricia, thanks! It's something I'll continue to ask people about. You're right, it's hilarious that I worry about "over-exposure"!
This poet has appeared in four journals in one month
She is approaching Kate Gosselin levels
Hah!
Her "Dancing with the Stars" appearance would have been a lot more interesting if you poets had been judges to comment on the festivities.
I would have had so much to say about her volta, so close to being visible in those short skirts!
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