Mary Biddinger's Blog, page 11

Remembering poet John Wylam

I go to church, but I also go to this church, which is the woods.

I’ve been remembering my friend John Wylam, who passed away recently.

I met John in late August of 1996 when we were both students in the MFA program at Bowling Green State University. At first we seemed to be unlikely friends, but he was a true kindred spirit, a gentle soul who knew so much about poetry and struggle and the Rust Belt. I’m glad that our friendship lasted beyond our years at BGSU.

When I read John’s thoughts on poetry, music, motor sports, politics, and life in general, it brings his voice back. Maybe you’d like to listen, too?

Pre-Order Small Enterprise through Black Lawrence Press

Special pre-order price when ordering directly through BLP.

ADVANCE PRAISE:

“Swift heels in oily puddles. A toaster wrapped in a bundle of t-shirts. A toddler clutched to the chest. So much stale beer, so much burnt coffee. Biddinger serves you a slice of pie and a double. Tells Tom Waits to eat his heart out. Gives Johnny Rotten the finger. Poems that salvage a grandmother’s ring, bleed standing up, nurse, and run. Remember pinhole lakeside constellations, what it felt like to travel by train in a buttoned coat. To be a girl, then woman, weary scavenger, city mouse, wanton, the record of your petty crimes, the small business that keeps the clockwork sky in place.”  –Danielle Pafunda

Mary Biddinger at NEA Writers’ Corner

The 2015 National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellow profiles are now available. Much gratitude to the NEA for its invaluable support of writers and artists.

I realize that receiving an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship is not going to have the same kind of momentous impact on the morale and local economy of my Rust Belt town, but nonetheless I feel that it is a victory for all of us here in Northeast Ohio. I write poems about ordinary folks in the Midwest, using everyday artifacts from their lives, and this award demonstrates that someone is listening. –Mary Biddinger 

Coming soon: Small Enterprise

Mary Biddinger’s fourth full-length collection of poems, Small Enterprise, is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in late August 2015, and now available for pre-ordering.

Small Enterprise at Black Lawrence Press.

Small Enterprise at SPD.

Title poem from the collection, at Gulf Coast. 

PRAISE FOR SMALL ENTERPRISE

“In Mary Biddinger’s Small Enterprise we find a brilliant wackiness that slips into surreality that slips into memory that slips into dream—and then back again. We find a pile of memos from the most interesting Risk Management department on earth. And we find a bewilderingly smart narrator who looks at the world like this: “When I met the machine that eventually/would replace me, all I thought was/ how it filled the room with sun pools/and erroneous static.” Biddinger’s enterprise, in all its departments and gears and springs, is indeed small—it shrinks until it implodes, comes out the other side as the absolute-vast: ‘One team lost its ball, played soccer with a globe.'” —Sarah Vap

“These poems, the best I’ve seen yet in a career that already outshines most living poets (and plenty of dead ones), offer still more evidence that Mary Biddinger is one of the best, most entertaining poets out there. But these aren’t just exercises in clever line breaks and punchy imagery. With her trademark blend of wit, surprise, and poignancy, Biddinger scrutinizes the many spheres of human existence, further pushing the stylistic envelope whilst maintaining her fidelity to art that matters, to language that roundhouses the psyche into something dizzyingly close to enlightenment.” —Michael Meyerhofer

Summer Postcard

AWP 2015 Dance Card

AWP 2015 is this week!

Please stop by the University of Akron Press & Barn Owl Review table to check out BOR #8 and our many fine poetry titles. We are at TABLE 933.

Here's the rest of my dance card.

THURSDAY, 4/9:
12:30-1:30 Hanging out at The Account (table 1331) and signing books.
2:00-3:00 Book signing at the Black Lawrence Press table (2030).

7:30 Reading poems at the AWP Offsite Reading with Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and Laurel Review  
Republic - Calhoun Square
3001 Hennepin Ave Suite 2200, Minneapolis

FRIDAY, 4/10
3:00-4:00 Chillin' at the South Dakota Review booth (736) and signing books.

Safe travels to all the folks heading to Minneapolis.

March and the Madnesses.

This is my ready for Spring Break face. Hello from Akron, OH. I am crawling toward Spring Break. I desperately need Spring Break. Vowing to write, revise, and submit poems. Also, to read a book. I always read a book over break. Last year I did pretty much nothing but read The Goldfinch. Haven't decided on this year's Spring Break book yet.

In other news...

Green Mountains Review is featuring my poem "I Was on the Line" online.

New Pages reviewed A Sunny Place with Adequate Water.

I'm reading in Minneapolis for the AWP Offsite Reading with Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, and The Laurel Review. Here's the scoop. 

Spring almost arrives in Akron, OH.

Hit the road, February.

This month has been pretty ridiculous. Snow! Record low temps! Kids out of school for four days straight. Deadlines swooping by like crows. I'm hoping that March brings some stability with it. I now appreciate being able to go to work much more than I ever did before. 
In other news, there's a new review of A Sunny Place with Adequate Water at The California Journal of Women Writers. Yeah! Many thanks to Stacey Balkun and TCJWW.
We've been working on BOR issue 8. It's going to be gorgeous. Stop by the table at AWP and say hello. 
I am making arrangements for my poetry break this summer. Not a break from poetry, but a break for poetry. I've never really had one before, and I want to do it right. 

Winterlude.

After living in the Midwest for 35+ years, I have no excuse for being surprised by wicked winter weather. And yet, every time it knocks me a little off balance, especially when I lose a Monday.

In much warmer news, many, many thanks to Danielle Susi and The Rumpus for this review of A Sunny Place with Adequate Water. Here's a tidbit:
A Sunny Place with Adequate Water , Mary Biddinger’s new collection from Black Lawrence Press, is an idyllic scene…post-apocalypse. It is where beauty becomes darker. Where the light of an electric rail line illuminates an abandoned parking lot and where bombs are filled with thread.
Lately I've been making an effort to revise some new poems and then send them out for consideration. I am proud of myself for following through. Look for new poems in Trigger, The Laurel Review (prose poem issue!), Gargoyle, and jubilat.
Have you seen the sexy new cover of BOR 8?
Here's a little Akron snow. 

The New

Here's what 2015 looks like so far in Akron, OH. There's no filter on that photo, either. I'm thankful for different types of light, and the time to notice them.