Burns Night

If you're in Sacramento or threabouts, please join us for our second annual Burns Night at the bookstore. Bring your own poems to read thematic (very loosely) to the evening, of course. Special Poems-For-All chaplettes will be dispensed.

The Anatole Lubovich Memorial

Samosas | Bhopla | PFAs to London

The 4 to 6 shift most days at the bookstore is where many folks know where to find me. Today, a pleasant visit from poet/publisher Rhony Bhopla, leaving tommorrow for England and here to pick up a few PFAs to scatter around London. And she came with the best kind of gift -- Samosas! Piping hot, filling the room with a most remarkable fragrance that lingered still, even as I closed shop. Wonderful.

And for London: PFA chaplettes from local poets Arthur Butler and Noel Peattie (who passed last year.) Also d.a. Levy's bourgeosie chant with all its fuck fuck fuck yous. (Hope that doesn't cause any problems as you make your way through Heathrow, Rhony.)

Five Years

March 2006 marks the fifth anniversary of the Poems-For-All Series. I'm trying to find space to put on display examples of every booklet in the series-to-date, a number somewhere close to 600 by the time March rolls around. It will be in Sacramento, CA. And I'd like to have the exhibit run for at least two weeks. We have our best man on the job of securing our preferred venue. (Wink, wink J. Greenberg.)

Crimson reply

Surround yourselves with erudite friends. Good advice to all, especially the current President (whose present friends and advisors have let him down on that account.)

I received this reply to my recent note about red ink aversion (asking why? why? why?) from a good friend to the series, an erudite poet & writer, and a fellow founding member of the clandestine Rumplestiltskin Anti-Society:

... in some parts of Asia the names of THE DEAD are written in red ink.

Poetry | News | Weakly | 12/7

The Rattlesnake Reading featuring Bill Gainer is not tonight (12/7) as erroneously reported by us and the News & Review but next week, Wednesday (12/14) // Though a poetry reading on the anniversary date of Pearl Harbor isn't such a bad idea. // A.D. Winans reports the appearance of white smoke from the chimney of the poetic powers that be in San Francisco indicating the selection of The City's new poet laureate. A wise choice: Jack Hirschman. // A date has been secured for a memorial for Anatole Lubovich who passed away last month after complications during heart surgery. Sunday, January 8th at 2pm at HQ: Headquarters for the Arts (25th & R, Sacramento.) // Now available at The Book Collector (TBC, 1008 24th St., Sacramento CA 95816) are two outstanding chapbooks published by Robbie Grossklaus reprinting poems by d.a. Levy (in conjunction with the recent celebration of his birthday on Nov. 30). miniConcrete ($1) features a small serving of Levy's interesting concrete poems; a taller chap ($2) features two poems Suburban Monestery Death Poem and songs for dead children in one elegant volume. These are two beautiful, well made books and, as a true tribute to the small press endeavors of Levy, are very affordable (unlike many recently offered Levy chaps.) For those outside the Sacto area, send a buck to cover shipping. // Recent departures: Arthur Winfield Knight and Kit Knight, editors of the Beat Journal Unspeakable Visions of the Individual have moved from the Sacramento area to Yerington, NV. Local poets, including Ann Menebroker, Bill Gainer, Robert Roden and Joan Kruger joined the Knights for a Last Supper farewell potluck at TBC (11/20). // Kudos to poet frank andrick who hosts the POMO Literati, a two hour radio program on KUSF in San Francisco which recently featured (11/13) an interview with and poetry reading LIVE LIVE LIVE with poet / musician / Blake-fan patti smith. frank plans to produce copies of the show for distribution. // There will be no Poems-For-All Second Saturday reading at TBC this month. Look for a full schedule of readings in 2006, including a Burns Night Tribute to the Scottish Bard, Robert Burns (01/25) // FIN

Aversion : Red

I like to offer a red pen when I'm asking a poet / writer to sign their book-- curious for a reaction. Sometimes, there's none. Other times, resistance. Even refusal. Is it the violation of tradition? An aversion, perhaps, to the ink preference of editors and teachers -- bold red slashes, dots, circles, x-outs -- when making corrections to manuscripts or schoolwork. Maybe rejection slips are inked in red? It's not Kryptonite, red ink. No one, yet, has recoiled or fled from the offered red pen. But I can see it in the eyes. That something isn't right. I smile, a black pen or blue ready in the pocket if they just can't do it.