Some Poems, Some Musics

Kristin Naca's book is out! Check out her fancy Harper Collins website.

It rules! I'm so happy this book is out, it was a humbling & inspiring experience to be a part of Naca's writing world for some of these poems & was delighted to get to publish the anchor series for the book in Octo here.

Bird Eating Bird is totally brilliant--funny, wise, deep & challenging, all that good stuff--& it's also a unique mix of English & Spanish poetry from an American-born author. I'm glad it's not only out but that it won such a prestigious contest.



I'm also really excited about Beth Bachmann's book Temper, which is recently out from Univ of Pittsburgh.

I first read this manuscript when I was reading slush for a book prize. I got excited about it because it was a book working in traditional modes of Romantic observation & personal revelation, but it made me think more & more excitingly than many of the self-consciously experimental & intellectualized books I'd been reading. It reminded me, thematically & ideologically, of Mark Jarman's take on faith & it's failures & pleasures. But without the Jarman neo-formalism hackles. I copied a poem from it & had it hanging over my desk for years & then a year or so later saw that poem appear in some journal. Needless to say, it didn't win the prize then, a far inferior book did. But Bachmann has been one of the poets whose work I always turn to first in journals & I'm glad to have her book in my hands.


I get the oddest songs stuck in my head when I'm biking. Every time it rains, & this is not so odd, I get that Shudder to Think song that starts off "The rain feels good / it knocks on wood." But I guess I randomly get rhythmic songs that are deep in my consciousness stuck in my head & then they sometimes morph into other similar songs. One recurring song is "Hurts so Good" which then morphs into "Everybody's Working for the Weekend."

Ever since going to a house show at this hippie house last week, I've had Incredible String Band stuck in my head while biking. Their masterpiece record, Hangman's Beautiful Daughter, has been one of my favorites since I first heard it during college. It's cheesy, in that definitionally hippy-dippy way, but it's also endlessly entrancing to me. There is something pure & autumnal in it to me. You can download it here, though this is not my link.

I've been enjoying this tape of Temples, who apparently is a Denverite. It's drone & there's really not much to say about drone music one likes except it's real good. It's real good. And while we're at the myspaces, check out Marc Berger's new band Oh You Devil.

That new Reigning Sound record seems like something I would hate: garage rock a la The Animals or rougher VU. But I kind of love it. The new Ghostface sounds pretty amazing after one listen. The latest Lil Boosie is prety great in a synth-heavy melodramatically gangsta way. Also he has a record called Lil Boosiana, which rules. I wish the new Califone would come out, I want to get it on vinyl. They are somehow a band that makes more sense on vinyl to me. I'm just sort of trailing off here.