Victor D. Infante's Blog, page 164

Interlude: Juggling Two Writing Lives

Last Friday, talking to singer-songwriter Keri Anderson at the bar upstairs at Ralph’s Chadwick Square Diner before her two sets that night for the Dirty Gerund Poetry Series, it struck me clearly how I live in two worlds sometimes. On the one hand, I’m The Guy Who Writes For The Paper. On the other, I’m someone who writes, publishes and performs poetry and fiction.

The worlds have collided before, of course. In fact, they‘ve done so fairly regularly for nearly 20 years of doing this. But every now and again, it all becomes very evident, especially when I’m talking to a musician who knows me from one context, such as the paper, and encounters me wearing my “working artist” hat.

It’s not that I find it awkward — I’ve never made a secret of the dichotomy — it’s just … well, it’s always a little weird. It’s like a literary multiple personality disorder. For brief moments, when my brain is running the subroutines of both roles, I don’t entirely know who I am. Thankfully, Anderson is a much better conversationalist than I am, and a heck of a musician — both her sets were fantastic that night, as was the poetry set from Pitt Poetry Press author Jeffrey McDaniel, who made it only a little late after encountering car troubles on the way up from New York.

Talking to Anderson, I found myself musing that I hadn’t made it out to many music shows lately. Sometimes, the role of “working writer” wins, meaning I need to spend all my free evenings either writing or — more the case these days — out performing and hawking either my (alas) soon to be out-of-print book, City of Insomnia , or the Best Indie Lit New England , of which I was an editor.

The latter had me down in Providence Thursday, at AS220, reading from the book alongside some of the book’s other editors, Providence writer Astrid Drew and my wife, Lea. It also had me hosting a reading at Nick’s Bar and Restaurant here in Worcester the week before, featuring several of the anthology’s contributors. My own work took me to Portland, Maine, Sunday to read at a show Dobrá Tea, along with poetry by Lea and music by Worcester’s own Shane Hall. New England is a small town, sometimes. I find I run into poets and musicians all over the place.

The point is, sometimes, when that side of my life is being hectic, I find I can’t make it out to music very often. Which is a shame, because I love music and love writing about music more than I love writing about anything.

Or maybe that’s not the point at all. Maybe the point is that art, such as music and poetry, is not compartmentalized from other things I do. Or really, that anybody does. It seeps into your life at the cracks, after all — a song seeping into your skin at a moment of heartbreak, a poem recalled on the dawn of a romance, a painting you saw in a museum once that haunts you sometimes, for no reason at all.

I’m not entirely sure there’s a conclusion to be had here, really, except that maybe it’s a mistake to try too hard to divorce my dual roles from one another. It’s not like different hats make someone a different person, after all. It’s just that sometimes I can’t help but think that, when the two roles collide, I feel like a magician whose best tricks have been revealed.

Which is a relatively useless feeling. Really, it would be much more productive to make more time for music, or poetry events I'm not participating in. When a musician such as talented as Anderson or Hall is on the stage in front of me, or a poet as talented as McDaniel, I’m not fretting about anything at all.

Ch-ch-ch-changes: On falling out of print, and other things which are much more fun

It's been a rough week on any number of fronts, but probably the biggest blow was the news that my book on Write Bloody Publishing, City of Insomnia, is going out of print, as is Lea's The Constant Velocity of Trains and a number of other WB books.

There's no bad guy in this, excepting maybe Amazon, whose impositions on distributors are making it difficult for small presses to hold on to older or lower-selling titles longer. Still, the book had a good five-year run. Maybe it's the antidepressant I'm on, but I've become sort of philosophical about the whole thing. While the path I've been on has been a good ride, it's becoming increasingly clear that it's no longer the place I'm supposed to be. I'm not entirely sure what that means, yet. Maybe I need to focus more on writing than getting out and reading. Or change the focus of my writing. Or maybe I go back to school. I don't know, but it feels like it's time to change. Actually, it's felt like that for a while now, but I've been too walled in to do anything about it. We'll see how it goes.

And ironically, in the midst of all this, Write Bloody announced its new upcoming books, including a new one from Megan Falley (whom we're visiting with tomorrow, actually) and Providence slammer Franny Choi. Both are absolutely fantastic younger poets, and wonderful people to boot. (I'm afraid I don't know the other winners. But I'm sure they're lovely.) And y'know, it seems kind of right to clear the stage a bit for the newer voices. There are plenty of other stages out there, after all.

Time to be someone new.

***

In other news, I thought my non-campaign to be the next American Idol judge was completely dead, but evidently there's still some life in it. Or at least, that's what it seems from this video of Bill MacMillan at the Worcester Poets' Asylum:



Will there be other endorsements from poets and musicians? I've started collecting them here.

***

I also wanted to draw some attention to the Telegram Studios video out today, of Rich "The Amazing Dick" Leufstedt interviewing himself. Hilarity ensues!



I also review Leufstedt's 2012 CD, "4 Strings of Fury," over in my What You're Listening To column. If you're not familiar with Leufstedt, it's a good day to familiarize yourself with one of the Worcester music scenes coolest, most unique voices.

Of Poetry, Silliness and Hectic Schedules ...

I suppose I should start with my supreme disappointment that I will not be an American Idol judge next season, despite my half-assed best efforts. Alas, I know they've pretty much settled on Jennifer Hudson, and are looking at other Idol alum, but I think Courtney Love and I would really round out that panel.

Still, I'll always have this lovely endorsement from Little War Twins' Gaetana Brown:



Sigh. Am I abandoning hope too soon?

***

This is turning out to be an incredibly hectic week.

Tonight, Lea will be among the readers for Best Indie Lit New England, at the Providence Poetry Slam, at 8 p.m. at AS 220, 115 Empire Street, Providence, RI.

Tomorrow, Jeff McDaniel will be in town to feature for the Dirty Gerund's First Friday upstairs shindig! Music provided by Keri Anderson! That'll be happening at 9 p.m. at Ralph's Rock Diner, 148 Grove St., Worcester, MA.

Sunday, Lea and I, along with musician Shane Hall, will be featuring for Rhythmic Cypher at 7 p.m. at Dobrá Tea, 151 Middle Street, Portland, ME. I believe there's a 6 p.m. workshop, too.

But first, I have to get to work, and put out a section while losing a few hours to computer training. W00t?

Happy Birthday, Lea

In 1996, I met a beautiful woman in Portland, Oregon, and followed her home. OK, it was more complicated than that, and her home was in Worcester, Mass., and my home was in Dana Point, Calif., and the process of following took several months, and ... anyway, you get the picture.

Point is: I've been blessed these past 17-odd years to be in a relationship with the smartest, coolest, most incredible woman I've ever known. And honestly, everything before meeting her is a little bit blurry. (This may have more to do about the amount I used to drink in the early '90s.)

So happy birthday, Lea. Thank you for being the best partner-in-crime in the whole wide world. I love you an entire sky.

More Yammering about Poetry

Many months ago, Lea and I were interviewed by a WPI student about our work, slam and Worcester poetry. We sort of forgot about it, actually, but evidently, the video's been online for a little while.



It's a strange little video, at times a little uncomfortable -- particularly the little desks we were sitting at. How do college students get anything done in those things!?!? -- but also surprisingly candid. To tell the truth, I don't think I knew I was in the interview at first ... I think for someone reason I thought the guy was going to interview us separately. No matter ... I think it ends up pretty revelatory, warts and all. I definitely think we get more comfortable as it goes on, and that the interview gets more substantive toward the end. In any case, there it is.

A lot of my friends know that, on occasion, I get a little ticked off with some of our peers for being unwilling to talk seriously about poetry in public, but I think it's terribly important to drop the "cool" facades (Note: I do not actually have a cool facade) from time to time and talk about the craft and history of this work we do. It's vital to help others make sense of why we approach poetry the way we do, and the cultural and literary forces that shaped us. It helps create that framework that keeps our work -- all of our work -- from being a bright flicker in the darkness of the moment. And it's especially important to have these conversations with students. Getting them pumped up and inspired is awesome, but giving them the tools to go deeper into the art form is also vital.

***

In other news, my poem "Drunk-Dialing the Paris Review" will appear in the "comedy" issue of "Barrelhouse," meaning there is officially at least one literary journal which shares my strange sense of humor. That's actually kind of a relief ...

Coming Saturday: "Best Indie Lit New England Worcester Release Party!!!!

The celebrations for the release of the "Best Indie Lit New England" anthology continue in Worcester, Mass. -- home of "Radius," "Ballard Street" and some of New England's longest-running and most exciting poetry readings. Worcester's a town, as local poet Alex Charalambides once quipped, that has more poetry readings than it does Starbucks, so how could we NOT have a party here?

And to make it even better, the reading will be at the beautiful Nick's Bar and Restaurant, 124 Millbury Street, Worcester, with its classic cabaret feel.

Contributors slated to read include:

Tony Brown
Lea Deschenes
Lori Desrosiers
Joe Fusco Jr.
Tom Moore
Laura Rodley
Jade Sylvan

Need more info? Read the review in "The Boston Book Blog"!

Poetry and Other Odds and Ends

Still in the process of recovering. Being gone so long, followed by a fairly intense work week, has done a real number on me. I've been fairly useless this weekend, so far. Still, I do feel like I've been getting back to normal. Which is nice.

Over in Pop Culture Notebook, I started catching up on things that happened while I was gone here, watched the videos from the Wormtown 35th anniversary concert here and took a hard look at the nature of fame with "Give the people what they want?: Soundgarden, 'Idol' and Huey Lewis."

I think I mentioned before I have a look back at Orange County poet Lee Mallory's career over in OC Weekly, with "One Last Mallory Alert!: The 'Love Poet' retires, and OC will never be the same." Also, now that I'm back, Radius has come off hiatus with three absolutely savage poems by the fierce and brilliant Iranian-Australian poet Noushin Arefadib. Noushin is a warrior, and someone to pay close attention to, and I couldn't be more pleased to have Radius share her work with our largely American audience.

While I was gone, my poem "Daniel Shays Discusses Subprime Lending" appeared in the online journal Poetica, alongside work by Timothy Gager, Marie Lecrivain and others. (My poem is near the bottom of the section.)

Yesterday, I got word that my poem "Six Portraits in Disintegration" will appear in "The Incredible Sestinas Anthology," edited by Daniel Nester, alongside work by John Ashbery, Patricia Smith, Anne Waldman, Sherman Alexie and others. Yowza! I'm particularly happy because both "Daniel Shays" and "Disintegration" were poems that had hard roads of it, that didn't find homes right away, even though I was always fond of them. (I have poems I'm not fond of, but they never see the light of day, at least until either they're rewritten or I change my mind.) Sometimes, you just have to persevere with a poem or story, and trust that it'll end up where it's meant to end up. Even if that process takes a few years.

Lastly, we ran into "Mighty" Mike McGee and Dave Perez outside the New Shit Show in San Francisco, and Mike cornered us for one of his "A Few Minutes With" videos:



Okey-doke. That's enough woolgathering. Time to get some work done ...

Out in California

They say you can't go home again, and that's probably true. Even if I moved back to California -- and trust me, there were parts of this trip that made that an appetizing idea -- it wouldn't be the same place I left (any of the various times I've left it.) A lot of my California is gone --- favorite restaurants closed, friends moved away -- and what's remained has changed over the years. Often in good ways, but changed nonetheless. And so have I. It's always folly to think people or places remain ensconced in amber when you're away. Their lives are as much in motion as yours.

Still, California is home, and always will be. More than any of the places we lived before my mom and I settled there when I was young, and in many ways more than New England. (Although sleeping in my own bed last night was marvelous.)

A lot of this trip was about reconnecting with my mom and old friends, and that was wonderful, if all a bit too personal for the blog. But it's the nature of our lives right now that it's difficult for us to travel without there being some poetry-related dimension to the trip, and this one was no exception.

The reading at the Ugly Mug, in Orange, was truly a homecoming. Hosts Steve Ramirez and Ben Trigg really have become the heart & soul of Orange County poetry, and for that, I couldn't be happier. A full house with a packed open reading (including stellar work by Jeanine Hayward, Elmo Martin, G. Murray Thomas, Eric Morago  and Jaimes Palacio, among others, and a surprise appearance by Lee Mallory) and a deeply attentive crowd during our feature. (Alas, my notes got mussed up over the course of the trip, so I don't have an exact account of what I read where.)

If the Ugly Mug was a homecoming, than the Radius showcase was a love letter to SoCal poetry. It was hard to go wrong with that lineup -- Lea and I featuring after readings by Carlye Archibeque, Deborah Edler Brown, Brendan Constantine, Daniel McGinn, Jaimes Palacio, Steve Ramirez, Sam Rees and Pam Ward -- but damn. Everything on that stage was amazing, and everything made me work harder to have to close that show. In a lot of ways, this was a "gun-to-the-head"  performance. I gave myself way too much to live up to with that bill, and I think the mere fact that I survived it was a n accomplishment. Following some of your favorite writers is never easy, but the energy in that place was electrifying. (Reese was the discover for me, as I'd never met him before, and he was excellent. Also, Lea and Pam had never met before, and I think they really needed to know each other. Because mutual awesomeness.)

We did a small salon reading at the home of Jeanine and her husband, Scott, and that was a lot of fun, allowing me to try out some of the larger stuff I've been working on in a more informal atmosphere. It's hard to do excerpts from Why We Should Suffer For This at conventional features, as it eats up time, so this was nice. Also, before we left SoCal, we popped in to the last night of Jaimes' Penguins Hooked on Macaronics series, featuring Lee Mallory's "retirement" feature. I had just written about Mallory for OC Weekly, and knew it was going to be a little piece of history. Glad I did. As much as Lee drives me crazy sometimes, it's hard no to know him as long as I have and not see the decent guy hiding underneath the schtick, so I was glad a large crowd turned out for him. (Even if the staff at Gypsy Den was terribly, terribly rude.) Also, it was nice to see folks like Hakim and Jana McCarthy, whom I'd not seen in nearly 20 years ... back when I was just starting out as a teenager. Man, that was a long time ago. There are a lot of poems between there and here.

We finished our official tour with the New Shit Show in San Francisco, and really, hosted by Sam Sax and Cam Awkward-Rich, and really, that was one of the best shows I've had in a long time. The youth and energy in that room is fantastic, and it all comes with a big heart and an immense amount of talent. Plus, surprise appearances by a lot of of poets I didn't expect, including Mike McGee, Dave Perez, Marc Kokinos, Eric Darby and Sonya Renee, as well as non-poet friends Deb and Sunil, and a spectacular workshop and spotlight feature by Chicago poet Kevin Coval, whose work I've long admired from afar, made for a deeply enjoyable evening. For me, though, it was all a bit draining, as I dedicated my set to my late friend Steve, who died not long ago in that very city. It was a cathartic performance, but it took a lot out of me. Think it went over well, though, so that's all good. Sometimes you just have to bleed out loud.

We finished up the "official" part of the trip by working with kids (ages 10-14) in a drum & fife group, at the behest of my college friends Jason & Hetal. Oh, my heart. Such bright kids, so goofy and perceptive. Definitely a sweet capstone to a wild couple weeks and a wonderful, productive trip.

All right, now. Enough woolgathering. Back to work!

Short story out in Union Station Magazine!

Just a quick note to let you know that my short story, "Putting the Paper to Bed," is online the new issue of "Union Station Magazine."

The new issue also features great work from Scott Beal, Danez Smith-Smith, Stephen Dobyns, Jason Carney and others. Check it out!

Victor & Lea's Shows, plus the Worcester Best Indie Lit New England Release!

Two Idiots Peddling Poetry
Victor and Lea feature
The Ugly Mug
261 N. Glassell Ave.
Orange, CA,  92866
8 p.m. Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Radius Showcase
Victor and Lea feature, with guest appearances by Radius contributors Carlye Archibeque, Deborah Edler Brown, Brendan Constantine, Daniel McGinn, Jaimes Palacio, Steve Ramirez, Sam Rees and Pam Ward.
Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
681 Venice Blvd.
Venice, CA, 90291
7:30 p.m. Sunday, May 5, 2013

The New Shit Show
Victor and Lea feature
Viracocha
998 Valencia St.
San Francisco, CA, 94110
8 p.m. Thursday, May 9, 2013
Workshop at 7 p.m.

Best Indie Lit New England Worcester Release Party
Featuring BILINE contributors Tony Brown, Lea Deschenes, Lori Desrosiers, Joe Fusco Jr., Tom Moore, Sean Patrick Mulroy and Emily O’Neill
Nick's Bar and Restaurant
124 Millbury St.
Worcester, MA, 01610
Free, anthology will be available for $15
Hosted by Victor

Rhythmic Cypher
Victor and Lea feature, music by Shane Hall!
Dobrá Tea
151 Middle St.
Portland, Maine, 04101
7 p.m. Sunday, June 9, 2013
Workshop at 6 p.m.

Slam Free or Die
Victor features
Milly's Tavern
500 Commercial St.
Manchester, N.H., 03103
7 p.m. Thursday, Sept., 2013