Blue Monks Marry Pastor's Wives for Mill Ponds

Somehow it's August and Saturday.

People of Portland, OR. I will be reading this Tuesday night at the Smalldoggies reading series. Thank you Smalldoggies. There will be music and other readers, including Robert Duncan Gray and Elizabeth J. Colen (who will not be there in body). Along with music via Drew Grow and the Pastors Wives. The reading is at The Blue Monk. Doors open at 8pm.

Books I read recently and enjoyed:

Normally Special, by xTx:  I read this book all in one afternoon. The story I enjoyed the most was THE MILL POND. On really great sentence is: "I feel like a stripe. I am a stripe." Which is technically two sentences. All of the stories are depressing. I walked coma-like room to room after reading Normally Special. I banged my head against the refrigerator.

Ghost Machine, by Ben Mirov:  I read Ghost Machine aloud to my partner over the course of three nights. I think it's only possible to read poetry aloud. Reading silently's the death of poetry. I especially liked the section titled: GHOST DRAFTS. It begins: 'The next phase of my life begins. I can't plan / too far in the future. A kid named R takes / me on the tour. I hear screaming during the interview." Many of the lines throughout recur from earlier parts in the book in a pleasurable way. The blurbs on the back refer a great deal to 'ghosts', 'zombies', and other horror-movie themes, but I didn't get that at all. These poems feel like a kind of biography. Feels novel-ish, plot-arc-y, sad.

I'm now reading The Mezzanine, by Nicholson Baker. It provides a calming level of detail.

Thank you,