Victoria Chang

I went to the Victoria Chang reading tonight but before I get to the details I have to mention that the Digital and Web Manager for the KC Public Library, Kate Barsotti, tracked me down to explain the RVP thing: how did she do that?

Back to the Victoria Chang reading: it was brilliant. She read from Circles, then read from her new collection, Salvinia Molesta, before returning to Circles. I love this approach to a reading; it's the way I envision a good concert. You want to hear some of the oldies (that is the songs you're familiar with) because you may not be familiar with the newer songs. I've been to a lot of readings where the poet just assumes you're familiar with their old work and doesn't even bother reading any older poems and just launches into newer poems that most of the audience is completely unfamiliar with; I like a little bit of both. In addition, she was very unpretentious, down to earth, and interacted with the audience quite a bit: superb etiquette (if that's the right word).

Victoria Chang's poetry is, in every sense of the word, beautiful. She is economical with language. She interacts with history with a fresh and unique voice. She engages universal issues with elegance and grace. Her poetry is truly lyrical. Please pick up her book.

*
On a non poetry note:

• We had pork roast last night and my youngest son, Brayden (2 1/2), thought the brown gravy was poop, which of course, my eldest son thought was hilarious. Megan later told Elijah that Brayden is developing a schema for understanding the world and now he knows that brown and runny isn't always poop. Now, he knows brown and runny might be gravy. Of course, Elijah questioned this reasoning by asking: "How does he know a brownie's not poop or meat loaf. They're brown and clumpy."
• I was embarrassed during the debate tonight. Governor Palin was very embarrassing. At one point, I went into my office to pay bills and shut the door so I couldn't hear her.
  
• I got registered in Jackson County (I was registered in Black Hawk County in IA) and I'm definitely voting Obama...just to clarify the previous bullet point.
• Did you hear about the earmarks connected to the Senate Bail Out Bill? Rum producers, auto racing, film and television production, and producers of wooden arrows?
  
• Damage from speeding ticket from about a month ago: $105.00
• Next readings: Hadara Bar Nadav at the Writer's Place next Friday and Charles Simic on Thursday October 23rd.

Promises

I promise I'll blog more. I promise. I didn't mention this earlier because I was too busy not blogging but Cave Wall picked up a couple of my poems a few weeks ago. Cave Wall is an awesome journal and Rhett Iseman Trull is probably the most professional editor I've encountered and is talented poet to boot. Check out Cave Wall when you get a chance...you won't regret it.

*
Victoria Change is reading at the gorgeous central library in downtown KC tomorrow night. I loved Circles. The KC Library's website is strange though; their website makes it sound as if you have to RSVP to attend the reading. But I think it's information mining; they just want to snag an e-mail, an address, and phone numbers so they can send me more junk mail.

*
By the way, I suck at promises. Now, I'm going to take the trash out; tomorrow is trash day in KC.

Consolation

I got a speeding ticket yesterday on the way to 810Zone in the Plaza. I guess the only consolation is that I was going to meet my brother to watch the Hawkeyes-Cyclones football game, and the Hawkeyes won.

Today I went to Broadway Cafe and Roastery to work on my poetry manuscript. Yes, an aspiring poet in a coffee shop is a cliche, as is an aspiring poet-blogger talking about a "poetry manuscript." It was, per usual, confusing. I sent the manuscript, in its first official incarnation (although, it had probably lived through at least a dozen different incarnations and/or drafts), to four contests in March. They were all rejected, which is expected and I am oddly not at all disappointed because a few days after sending out the batch for Round 1 I hated the structure, organization, etc. of the manuscript. I was comfortable with the majority of the poems; just not the structure. I am now revising it to resend out: Round 2!!! I expect this to be a very long bout.

By the way, if you like coffee and are ever in KC definitely go to Broadway. Also, if you're ever in SF definitely check out the Bluebottle Coffee Company; they are both exquisite roasteries.

Jesus' Spicy Side

I really pretty much suck at blogging but I'm going to keep trucking because it can be fun. That said, my son, Gavin, engaged Megan and I in a conversation about good and evil yesterday. He had questions and theories about the devil (i.e., Satan, the dark one, the fallen angel, etc., etc.). Then our oldest son, Elijah, chimed in and told us that the devil is Jesus' spicy side...of course jokingly. Whether his comment was theologically correct or not doesn't matter...it was brilliant and very creative. I'm sure there would be some fundamentalist evangelicals who would be aghast at his comment but Megan and I thought it was hilarious. Jesus' spicy side?!? Perhaps those of you who occasionally read this blog are thinking: spicy side??? Check Spicy Town out. Brilliant!!!

On other, semi-spicy news: I love Matthea Harvey's poetry. I'm finishing up both Sad Little Breathing Machine and Modern Life. Perhaps I'm jumping on the M. Harvey band wagon. I don't give a shit...it's fun and poetry needs to be fund and inventive and complicated and puzzling and simple and interesting and wild. I mean shit..."The Future of Terror" and "Terror of the Future" poems are brilliant. I'm also reading Leslie Adrienne Miller's The Resurrection Trade, which I like so far, and Tony Hoagland's What Narcissism Means to Me which, at least so far, is better than Donkey Gospel. Of course this is just my opinion and I'm neither admitting or denying that I'm a fan of Hoagland's work. I'm also reading We by Yevgeny Zamyatan. Quite a full plate...but to write well...one must read well. I think William Shatner once said that.

Tonight I'm watching WWE Smack Down with the boys. When they go to bed I'll be chilling and drinking some Breckenridge Brewery Autumn Ale: good stuff.

Mostly Downloads

*
Downloads today:

Charles Mingus, Charles Mingus
Charlie Rouse, Takin' Care of Business
Ornette Coleman, Tomorrow is the Question
Sonny Rollins, Tenor Madness (Remastered)
Sonny Rollins, Way Out West
Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus (Remastered)
Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk / Sonny Rollins (Remastered)
Thelonious Monk, 5 By Monk By 5

So far my favorite is by far Charlie Rouse but Charles Mingus is right there as well. He's a great tenor saxophonist. And yes, I was in a little bit of a jazz mood this afternoon after eating Pizza Hut with the family over at Brandon and Debbie's, and talking jazz with Brandon for a little bit.

*
The week in review: I was a featured reader at the Main Street Rage Poetry Showcase last Sunday which is held here, the boys had their first full week of school this week, Megan had her first full week of school as well, I had 4 more poems picked up by Epicenter on Friday, we ate at Oklahoma Joe's on Saturday which is one of the best BBQ spots in KC, and my parents stayed with us this weekend because my sister Cindy and her new baby Gabe were in town showing off.

*
What I've been reading this week:

Matthea Harvey, Sad Little Breathing Machine
Matthea Harvey, Modern Life
Leslie Adrienne Miller, The Resurrection Trade

*
Not exciting, but there you have it. Hopefully, I'll blog a little more often next week.

3 Nerds and a Calculator

*
Megan was listening to Pearl Jam's "Love, Reign O'er Me" or "Last Kiss" on the radio. She told me kids Eddie Vedder sounded like a goat and changed the radio station. I love Pearl Jam so her comment was blasphemous but I wasn't in the car. She turned it to a station playing Billy Idol's "White Wedding." My oldest son, Elijah, asked "What is this?" My wife joyously responded: "This is Billy Idol...he's awesome." There was silence; then Elijah added sardonically (and I'm sure he didn't know he was being sardonic) that he would rather listen to 3 nerds sing about calculators then listen to Billy Idol. Wow!!! What an amazing sense of humor!!! My middle son, Gavin, chuckled to himself and repeated "nerds...calculators" and continued chuckling to himself.

*
I'm reading at The Writer's Place tonight...hopefully all goes well. I'm reading some of my new poems, which are a little lighter, and of course some of my heavier "hyper realism" poems as BJ would put it. By the way BJ, if you read this post, I've thought about the question you asked me at AWP often and I believe the answer is absolutely...I would characterize some of my poetry as "hyper realism."

*
Since I haven't posted this week I need to mention that Megan and I celebrated our 11th Anniversary on Friday. We've known each other for 15 years. We went to Genghis Khan for dinner; if you're ever in Kansas City definitely check it out, especially if you're a vegetarian. Afterwards we went to Tropic Thunder at the Cinemark in the Plaza. I thought it was hilarious but also wholeheartedly agree with Megan when she said: "it was so wrong." But nonetheless, we both thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Robert Downey Jr. is very, very funny. Ben Stiller is Ben Stiller.

*
Now is the semi-narcissistic portion of this post. Toot, toot!!! That's me tooting my own horn. I had two poems accepted by Pennsylvania English on Thursday. This might be just what I needed to break out of my slump.

What a Weekend

I went to Iowa this weekend to visit my parents. We went to Taco John's: it was wonderful. We had Zeno's pizza. We watched the Olympics. But none of these were the highlight of my weekend. The highlight of my weekend came on Friday in the form of what I thought was a rejection letter. But I discovered it was more than a mere rejection letter. Although I may name the offender in a future post, I won't name the journal tonight.

The letter stated: "We're sorry but we do not accept poems generated by writer's submission services. We encourage you to purchase a copy of Journals Name to get a sense of the kind of work that interests us." The aforementioned statement was on the journal letterhead. I'm not sure if it was a standard form letter. At first, I wasn't sure what they were talking about. My thoughts were something like this: What the hell. What's a writer's submission service? Then it dawned on me that they were referring to those lame services that play on the hopes of aspiring writers by charging recurring fees to manage their submissions for them and I'm assuming the majority of said submissions are sent out blindly. Or at least this is my perception of writer's submission services as predatory organizations which may be wrong since I don't know much about them. I did a Google search using the key words Poetry Submission Service and there are quite a few services out there.

First of all, I have never used a submission service in my life. Secondly, I've read the journal in question and it has grown to be one of my favorite journals. It's newer, its run by a college with an MFA program which has multiple literary journals, the work is intelligent, edgy, fun, etc. I've read 4 of the 5 issues thus far and even re-read one of the issues. I've kept each issue I've purchased. This leads me to my third point, what was it about my submission that gave the editors the impression that I was using a submission service. I only have three thoughts:

1. The poems sucked and/or they (i.e., the poems) didn't suit the tastes of the editors, and subsequently, they thought to themselves, and perhaps joked back and forth with their colleagues over PBR and pretzels, "this fucking jerk has never read Journal Name...if he had he wouldn't have sent such shit." You know, I realize not every editor's going to like my poetry and a few editors might even think my poetry sucks ass. I also realize this is how it works. And I'm okay with that. But why send me a letter accusing me of using a submission service. Why not just send me a generic rejection slip.
2. Something in my cover letter gave the preliminary reader the impression that I didn't prepare the submission myself. Now, I have to admit that my cover letters can be a little bland: I work here, I'm married to so-and-so, I have three kids, I live in KC, my poetry has appeared in Names of 3-5 Journals, and recycle the damn poems if you think they suck. I don't always mention the stellar poems I read in the journals latest issue, and in this case, I didn't name the poems I appreciated but I had in fact read 4 of the 5 issues of the journal. But again, why send me a letter accusing me of using a submission service when you have absolutely no evidence to support such a claim. Just send me a generic rejection slip. I could use it as a book mark when I read your next issue.
3. They made a mistake: they grabbed the "We don't read poems from writer's submission services" pile instead of the "your poems weren't right for us" pile. It's an easy mistake to make.
   

Now, perhaps there's something I'm missing but these three reasons seem like the most logical reasons.

So, now to a more important aspect of this wonderful event, which by the way has really got my panties in a bunch, the reality is that I prepare all of my submissions. I painstakingly fill envelope after envelope. I keep a database so that every submission is thoroughly tracked so that I make inquiries at the proper times, give journals plenty of response time given that it's a known fact that most journals (not all) are behind in their production schedule by at least 3-12 months, withdraw any poems that are accepted which I have submitted out simultaneously (to journals that accept simultaneous submissions), etc. I even have a huge database of journals with their guidelines, addresses, submission preferences (mail or electronic), sample copy costs, subscription costs, poetry editor names. I also update this database on a regular basis.

I want to be clear about this though; I am not upset about being rejected. Getting rejected is par for the course. I have submitted 836 groups out. I have had 80 journals publish 95 of my poems. That's an acceptance rate of 9.569377%. That means I get rejected 90.4% of the time. I guess you could say I'm better at loosing than winning; better at getting rejected than accepted...but who isn't...it's just part of the process.

What angers me the most is that a journal that I really respect would presume that I use a submission service...that is, if it wasn't a harmless mistake. Not only this but I'm familiar with and respect the work of 2 out of the 4 poetry editors: I've read their books and/or chapbooks. Anybody who knows me, knows that I read and write tirelessly and I work hard at researching and reading almost every journal I submit to (which I will add to in a few days when I provide a synopsis of my read journal to non read journal ratios).

I will perhaps, per Megan's suggestion, write a letter and/or e-mail to Name of Journal in an attempt to clear up things.

This is all I can say right now. And I'm trying to NOT mention the name of the journal.