Busboys and Poets Open Mic, 5th and K, Washington D.C., 11/12/2014

Last night I met Israfel Sivad of Ursprung Collective at Busboys and Poets on 5th and K, to talk about a new literary journal we're putting together called Dupont Review. Afterwards we decided to stay for the open mic. It was a very lively crowd, the room was packed and there were plenty of poets for the night.

I went on towards the end; our limit was two poems per poet, and I performed the following:

1. Untitled (from Rabbit Ears: Poems about Television, NYQ Books 2015)
2. Song for the Disowned (unpublished)

I was pleasantly surprised by the reactions I got from both poems. The crowd erupted in laughter at "Untitled" and seemed very touched by "Song for the Disowned".

At the end I traded a book for a CD by Christen B., the feature. Her voice being lovely as it is, I think I'd call that a profit. I think I may make this open mic part of my monthly schedule, along with SoHo and Guerrilla Poets!

Guerilla Poets' Insurgency Open Mic, 11/11/2014, Bossa, Washington D.C.

On last-minute notice, I provided some alternative entertainment as the Featured Poet here last night. Despite the fact that I (and the other poets) were competing with Bruce Springsteen and Metallica, we eventually drew an audience of two non-poets and five poets. 

I did two 10-minute sets, interspersed with a couple of mini-readings. I'll do my best to remember them: 

First Mini-Reading 
1. "Air" (from Ignore This Book: Songs of Discomfort) 
2. Goals (English only) 

First Ten-minute Set: 
1. Classified 1 (from Leaf Garden Issue 7) 
2. Classified 3 (from Classifieds) 
3. The Leopard Slug 
4. The Herd 
5. Addy 
6. Dream? (from The Round-up Writer's Zine Pride Edition) 
7. Seven Short Poems (from The Leopard Slug) 

Second Ten-Minute Set 
1. Unpublished translation
2. Reflection on Vincent Van Gogh's The Potato Eaters (from North Chicago Review Issue 1) 
3. Reflection on Salvador Dali's The Face of War (from Counterexample Poetics) 
4. Casual Friday (from Counterexample Poetics) 
5. Trivium #1 (from CP) 
6. Trivium #2 (from CP) 
7. Trivium #3 (from CP) 
8. Trivium #4 (from CP) 
9. nights 

Second Mini-Reading 
1. Classifieds (remix) 
2. Unpublished translation

 
(more pics coming) 

Final result: I sold three books, which was enough to cover my dinner and Coca-Cola. And people claim poetry isn't practical!

Bibliography

English

Published Works from 2014

1. "11 Promising Real Estate Markets" at Uut Poetry
2. "24 quirky cultural tidbits about Japan from this Westerner’s perspective" at Uut Poetry
3. "26 Unexpected Places to Find Satan" at Uut Poetry
4. "37 Things You Can't Say On Capitol Hill" at Uut Poetry
5. "Addy" at 1947 Journal
6. "April" at Red Booth Review
7. "behind circuit unattached" at Uut Poetry
8. "civic.casual.sugar" at Uut Poetry
9. "Classifieds (remix)" at (s)wordplay
10. "Cosmetinaut" at One Sentence Poems
11. "Dream?", "an r for he" and "HAIK, ooooh" in v.1-3.5 of The Round Up Writer's Zine
12. "Goals" at One Sentence Poems
13. "How to Paint a Fence" at (s)wordplay
14. "Just 2 weeks learning Esperanto can get you months ahead in your target language" at Uut Poetry
15. "Kicking", "Tomatoes" and "Atomic" in Oddball Magazine
16. "My Nightmare" in Issue 77 of Right Hand Pointing
17. "nights" at Uut Poetry
18. "rain (remix)" at Uut Poetry
19. "Scriptation 2" and "Scriptation 5" at Eunoia Review
20. "The Herd" and "Violation" at Scars Publications
21. "The Music Industry Is Literally Brainwashing You to Like Bad Pop Songs — Here’s How" at Uut Poetry
22. "The Season" at One Sentence Poems
23. "three uutku" at Uut Poetry
24. "Through Israel, Lost" at Uut Poetry
25. "Tomatoes," "Banana" and "Atomic" at Oddball Magazine
26. Untitled in Issue 27 of Three Line Poetry
27. Untitled in Issue 26 of Three Line Poetry

Published Works from 2012

1. "a new door opens" in Poetry Quarterly
2. "Behind the Glass" in The Enchanting Verses Literary Review
3. Four poems in Reckless Writing: The Modernization of Poetry by Emerging Writers of the 21st Century

Published Works from 2011

1. "A Sound Request" in Red Fez Issue 39
2. "Daedalus at Sicily" in Right Hand Pointing Issue 37: Ohio
3. "Jasper Owen Interview, 1957, Excerpt No. 6" in Gargoyle #57
4. "Portrait of the Artist as the Cause of Relationship Strife" in Short, Fast and Deadly
5. "Psychedelic Psalm 1" in The Right Eyed Deer
6. "The Quincouplet: A Matter of Words" in Galatea Resurrects
7. "Self Interview, Part 13" in 50-to-1
8. Seven poems in Pemmican
9. "The Biggest Mind" in The Stray Branch (possibly one or two other poems as well)
10. "Tuddle Park" in Boston Literary Magazine
11. Two poems in Fib Review #8
12. Two poems in The Medulla Review Volume 2, Issue #2
13. Two poems in WTF PWM Volume 3, Issue 1

Published Works from 2010

1. "All Indians Love Gandhi" in The Literary Bohemian
2. "Aphrodite Waltz" in Houston Literary Review
3. "Channeling Jackie McLean's Plight" in Every Day Poets
4. "Classified 17" in Grey Sparrow Journal
5. "Lace and Lust-Painted Lips" in Ophelia Street
6. "like film the night" in Nibble
7. "new york jewish brown" in Forge Issue 3.4
8. "Rain Clouds" in Foundling Review
9. "rain drips" in Fib Review 7
10. Several poems in Leaf Garden 7 and 9
11. "Snapshot of an All-Nighter" in Children, Churches & Daddies
12. "Spirits" in Muse Thing: The Caliope Nerve Weblog
13. Ten poems at Counterexample Poetics
14. "The Con Artist" in Wilderness House Literary Review
15. Two poems in Foliate Oak
16. "Winter" in A Handful of Stones

Published Works from 2009

1. "Classified 10" in Boston Literary Magazine
2. Four poems at Counterexample Poetics
3. Two poems at fourpaperletters

Forthcoming Works

1. Two poems in Eunoia Review
2. Untitled in Rabbit Ears: TV Poems

Books

1. Classifieds (erbacce-press 2010, self-republished 2014)
2. The Leopard Slug (self-published 2014)
3. Classifieds: Late Edition (2014 Kindle exclusive)
4. ignore this book: songs of discomfort (coming November 7, 2014)

Esperanto

Verkoj eldonitaj en 2014

1. Recenzo de "Ĉu mi malgrandas?" en Beletra Almanako #20
2. Poemo "Celo" en One Sentence Poems
3. Poemo "Kadavro" en Penseo 271
4. Traduko de Wallace Stevens' "Dektri manieroj rigardi merlon" en Penseo 270
5. Poemoj "Anoncoj" en Penseo 269
6. Letero al la redaktisto en Forumo 149

Verkoj eldonitaj en 2012

1. Traduko de "Nokto" de Howie Good en Penseo 252
2. "Kio estas gento?" en Penseo 251
3. Traduko de "Londono" de William Blake en Penseo 250
4. "Post la mondo" en Penseo 249
5. "Ju pli..." en Penseo 248
6. "Malhavo" en Penseo 247
7. Traduko de "Kio mi estas" de Mutiu Olawuyi (La Ĝanglopoeto) en Penseo 246
8. Traduko de "'kompreneble post dio usono" de E. E. Cummings en Vesperto 243

Libroj

1. Traduko de Amo en tempo de paranojo de Howie Good (2014)
2. Traduko de propra anglalingva libro Anoncetoj (2014)

Interlingua

Obras eldonite in 2014

1. "Nabucodonosor" in Panorama
2. "Mi caffe" in Panorama

Latin

Opera anni 2014

1. "Tres Haicua" in VATES

The Show Must Go On

Despite the recent delay in the Rabbit Ears anthology, there will still be a poetry reading at the Cornelia Street Cafe in New York City on October 17th. Only now I'm on the list to read, in the third slot out of twenty-five poets. The cover charge will be $8, which includes a house drink. The cafe serves non-alcoholic beverages.

Despite having plunged into my poetry recently, to the exclusion of everything else, I still have a day job, which I have resumed. Right now I am waiting for an email from the web host that I need in order to continue, so it seems like a good time to blog.

The show must go on. Rain or shine. Happy, depressed or manic. Young or pushing 30. Sane or insane. Delayed or not. Accepted or not accepted.

It's at this point I'm reminded that I wrote a poem called "Anchor" earlier in the year, and I can't remember how it goes. Luckily I posted it on my Tumblr for just such an occasion. I know that I always lose hard disks, or personal websites. Tumblr's not going anywhere.

Anchor

Every morning I wake up naked
looking like a shaven simian
and I put on my clothes
and hair and face
the world, trying to be
the best dressed-up version
of the monkey I was when I started.

It's a Tumblr-worthy poem, for sure, now that I look at it again.

Inside the Mind of a Fool

A couple years ago I let the domain name diamondpointpress.com lapse, and someone picked it up and tried to sell it back to me. This did not deter me in my already-existing plan to drop off the face of the planet.

As I started to slowly crawl back onto it, I noticed that whoever bought the domain had gotten sick of paying for a defunct press's domain, and it was now available. So I decided I would snatch it up.

But then the most horrible, tragic thing happened. Namecheap informed me that the domain diamondpoint.press was also available. And almost as bad, it was $60.

So I bought both. I, whose day job (which is not related to poetry or publishing) didn't have an office until Friday, spent $70 on two domain names. Why? Because if I didn't buy diamondpoint.press, the wrong person might own it and make me look bad. Vanity of vanities!

It is a pretty cool domain name, though.

Open mic at SoHo Teahouse and Coffeeshop 10/4/2014

Went to an open mic at the SoHo Teahouse and Coffeeshop right in my current neighborhood, DuPont Circle in Washington, DC. I went on third, after two very good musicians and before a slew of other very good musicians. I was the odd one out, again.

I had been given the suggestion, the last time I did an open mic, that it helps to tell jokes to keep everyone interested. So this time I sort of had a comedy routine to go with my poems and lead into/out of them, recounting my day. Cheesy as it sounds, it went over quite well. Afterward everyone told me I did great. I had never gotten so much praise for reading poetry at an open mic night. Usually it's like "Oh God, there's a poet."

The poems I read were:

1. "Narrative Poem"
2. "Addy"
3. "Untitled"
4. "Tuddle Park"

"Tuddle Park" is in the book The Leopard Slug and was first published by Boston Literary Magazine. "Addy" and "Untitled" are going to be in the book Ignore This Book: Songs of Discomfort. "Addy" was first published by 1947 Journal, whereas "Untitled" was originally accepted for the anthology Rabbit Ears (currently in limbo). "Narrative Poem" is likely to be in Ignore This Book, Too: Songs of Comfort which is planned for 2015.

Karma? Is that you?

Nora Nadjarian. Sonnet Mondal. Aju Mukhopadhyaye. Eckhardt Gerdes. Everyone who contributed to the quincouplet anthology. And me.

What do these people have in common? They all had work accepted by a press, who promised to publish it only to back out later or just disappear. However, except for myself, they all had it done by me.

On October 4, 2014, I found out that Rabbit Ears: Poems about Television had suddenly been dropped by publisher Poets Wear Prada, two weeks before its planned release. There will probably be a new publisher, but I still think there is some irony in the situation.

I suppose professionalism is one of those things I have had to learn about the hard way. I'm still young, and the cards have not always been in my favor, but mistakes are mistakes and wrong things are wrong. I'm committed to not doing those kinds of things anymore. Not because they happened to me, but because they were bad things to do.

Update: This situation might be more complex than I had thought.