Overstimulated

oh shit, you guys, this is the fucking place to be. i swear, this is supposed to be just a slight report on the small press distribution reading last saturday, but the more i think about it, the more excited and stoked i am about the fact that i'm here, now. scott reading was great, and sandra lim was there. his 'dear jack' letters are really good. quite different from his work when we were in school, i think. also stephanie young, who i've been mentioning in phone conversations with all of you, is positively blowing my mind right now. for ex:

sea recedes to museumry

she has some affinities with tina celona. lots of first person hurts tranlated, and many mentions of shoe buying and sephora.

but there are just so many good writers around right now. so many series, weirdos and chances.

for example, a series called new yipes

it all sounds like hagiography, but this is the most heterodox, living feeling i've ever had about poetry. circa now circa now! you know, in iowa, there's so much anxiety about the future of poetry, of jockeying, one feels cloistered. i think of jim macpherson's concern for american culture and his 'monastic option' (ie, people working individually, like the irish monks, in order to preserve the best of the culture. i think it was easy to feel like that in iowa.) here, on the other hand, things feel much more open, public and positively not university-based. this is probably my favorite part. the institutions, such as they are, are pretty decentered.

anyway, all of it will be too social for me at some point but right now, i'm really encouraged by how many people are around, of all ages. come visit.

j