This Is My Happening and It Freaks Me Out
Okay. After much hemming and hawing I’ve decided to go to AWP. Z-Man (love of my life) in his ascot from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls won’t be there, nor will Strawberry Alarm Clock be a featured presenter, but that’s okay.
For those of you NYC stragglers who aren’t going to AWP, there will be a special AWP East party at Polestar guest-hosted by the talented Mr. Riippi:
Sunday April 11th
4 PM
CakeShop
152 Ludlow Street
NYC
Readings by Joanna Fuhrman, Michael Leong, Laura Hinton, Adam Gallari and Joel Allegretti
After AWP, it’s off to California for me. Cali freaks–come say hi at these two events:
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
7-9 PM
The Bar
w/ Dava Krause
5851 West Sunset
LOS ANGELES
Saturday, April 17, 2010
6-9 PM
Elbo Room
w/ Dava Krause + D.W. Lichtenberg + Del Ray Cross
647 Valencia Street
SAN FRANCISCO
How to Start a Reading Series
My book launch party* is 4 pm this Sunday, February 7th at Polestar–a poetry series I curate at the lovely CakeShop. (Yeah, it’s a little weird that I’m reading at my own series. Whatev.)
In honor of Polestar (now in its 18th installment–rock!) I’ve put together a few tips for those of you looking to run a reading series of your own. Here we go.
1. Be sure to choose a venue with an ice machine that sounds like a DeWalt hammer drill. Ice machine should have no off-switch. For optimum effect, ice machine will go into high gear when your most prominent, and/or well-connected poet is reading.
2. Your venue should have a microphone that flickers on and off throughout the reading at random. For added flair, you may want to work with a microphone that gives out entirely.
2b. Never completely figure out the microphone or speaker system.
3. Give your reading series a name that could also connote a strip club.
4. When requesting a poet to give a reading, always copy and paste the email you sent to the prior poet verbatim. This way, you can address Henri Cole as “Dear Ms. Marvin” and Marie Howe as “Please forward to Arda Collins.”
4b. If you happen to address a certain beloved and lauded octogenarian poet by the wrong name in your query email, you’re encouraged to add: P.S. Would you consider blurbing my book?
4c. When you don’t hear back from the beloved and lauded octogenarian poet (we’ll call her The BLOP), ask the most hypersensitive poets in the community if she is still “with us.”
4d. Rest assured that you will soon see The BLOP’s newest collection at St. Marks Books. Consider Tupac Shakur and his many post-humous releases. Then consider that The BLOP is alive and well. She’s just avoiding you because she thinks you are lame.
5. Yes, absolutely include a bloody glove in your initial website design.
6. In preparing the poets’ bios, there’s no need to learn how to correctly pronounce Pleiades or “Nurkse.”
7. Make sure to host the hippest poets on July 4th weekend. This way, when no one shows up, you get to experience their judgemental silence in its pure, undiluted form.
8. Spend time making friends with your shame.
9. Come to terms with the fact that everyone dreads a poetry reading.
9b. Come to terms with the fact that you especially dread a poetry reading.
10. Keep the thing damn thing afloat anyway. After all, that hot dish from your MFA program shows up every time.
10b. If you are following instructions correctly, the dish should move to Berlin very soon.
* Again, can we call it a party if people have to buy their own drinks? Questionable.
"The whole book pumps, and I swear some of what’s coming in and out are flashes of light that you can read it by."
–Mark Bibbins
"…a book of poems that is at once apocalyptic, full of sorrow, and packed with images crystalline in their beauty and truth… This book is full of magic."
–Dorothea Lasky
"To read Meat Heart is to consume, perish, murder, glitter, and prophesize. To say that Broder is fearless is not saying enough."
–Natalie Lyalin
Buy from SPD
Personalized by me
Or Amazon
“This debut from Broder is as funny and hip as it is disturbing… a bright and unusual debut.”
–Publishers Weekly
"…obsessive, energetic and pop-culture-infused poetry…"
–Time Out New York
"Broder’s insight and honesty will make your brain light up and your hair stand on end.”
–The San Francisco Examiner
"Broder’s verse is acrobatic and whip-smart… its own creature."
–Bomb