Mary Biddinger's Blog, page 17

Next week!

Free sky.

Up there above the hills and the smokestacks and chimneys and rooftops, maybe that's where the poems are roiling without us.

I am beginning to feel as if June is getting away from me. Perhaps it is.

So glad to have time to get things done, but so much to get done.

Contemplating an attempt to "block off some time."

Not sure that's an option for me.

Derailed, back on track.

On the cusp of finishing what was the most difficult teaching experience of my life (in terms of compressed workload and exhaustion held over from the previous semester).

Graded the last set of papers today (exams tomorrow) and suddenly lines for poems flooded back into my head as if they'd almost been there all along.

I have much to catch up on, including a new collection of poems that needs to be spread all over the upstairs landing where we put our manuscripts when we're sequencing them.

Dogs and cats find this very confusing.

There's so much I need to do, but not quite yet.

Hello, May

May rolls in with a bit of hope and a sense of relief on the horizon. I just finished final edits on A Sunny Place with Adequate Water. I made it through another semester (well, almost there, at least). I can finally leave my pansies outside overnight (fingers crossed).

A library reading tomorrow afternoon.

Come hang out.

Tonight (4/17/13) I'm doing a live National Poetry Month hangout for Google+ with Jeannine Hall Gailey, Aaron Belz, and Nate Pritts. Details are here. We'll be reading poems and talking shop.

Please join us if you can! If you can't, it'll be on YouTube afterwards.

Next week, on the road again

Boston and a Case of the Great Expectations

Boston was here, and we were there, and now we're back. This year's AWP began on an impossibly high note with the Barn Owl Review + Thrush Poetry Journal Birds of a Feather Reading. There were over 100 poetry enthusiasts in attendance, and we had comfortable chairs for every one of them, as well as elbow room, a private bar/tender, food, cheer, and a tidy and spacious loo. 
Huge thanks to Helen Vitoria of Thrush and all the readers and listeners. We will be having Birds of a Feather II as a Wednesday night AWP offsite in Seattle next year, so mark your dance card now.

Aside from Wednesday night's awesomeness, this AWP was not among my favorites. It's going to be pretty damn hard for any AWP to live up to AWP Denver. This year, for some reason I just wasn't feeling it.

There was also a huge snowstorm that made us live like mall dwellers and run through glass tunnels that contained all the makings of migraine headaches.


On a happier note, it was awesome reading for Steel Toe Books, iO/Interrupture/Jellyfish, and The Country Dog Review. I signed copies of OHI at the Black Lawrence Press table and sold out (of copies). Thank you to everyone who asked me to sign a book! It was also a delight hanging out with the Akron Series in Poetry & Poetics authors and selling their books like hotcakes.


By the last day I was a very tired girl. It's emotionally exhausting seeing so many cool and dear people for way too little time. I was a little blue. I wish AWP let you rent parlours where you could relax with your friends in oversized and intimidating chairs with drinks service and plenty of space to catch up. Maybe we can find a forest parlour in Seattle.


Farewell, AWP 2013. I never liked the number 2013 anyway. Hoping to restore my high hopes for 2014. Who knows what color 2014's Barn Owl Review (issue 7!!!) will be. 

Verse Daily & Book Signing at the BLP Table

Not only is today Friday, but I have a poem from O Holy Insurgency up at Verse Daily today. How am I supposed to concentrate on work now?

In additional AWP news, I am signing books at the Black Lawrence Press table, Q7, next Friday at 4:00. Please come say hello!

AWP 2013 Dance Card

Dear Friends,

I have just returned from the supremely awesome Prairie Gate Literary Festival in Minnesota, and it's already time to begin planning for AWP Boston next week. I'll be doing three offsite readings, and spending every morning at work in the bookfair. Please stop by and say hello! 

Exhibit Hall Escapades
I'll be selling copies of Barn Owl Review issue 6 (and handing out contributor copies), and peddling the many fine titles of the Akron Series in Poetry/Poetics (including the newest by Seth Abramson, Thievery, and The Poet Resigns: Poetry in a Difficult World by Robert Archambeau) every day from 8:30-1:30 at table H1. Please note that our assignment basically makes us TABLE HI. So come say hi. We will be giving away the snazzy postcard booklets pictured above for Poem in your Pocket day, on behalf of the University of Akron Press. Oh, and we will have some attractive bundle discounts for poetry and poetics books. 

The Traveling Insurgency

I am going to load my suitcase (and Eric's) with copies of O Holy Insurgency, my brand new poetry collection. I will also have change, if you'd like to get a copy of the book at table HI (see above), at any of the events listed below, in the elevator, in the hotel bar, the bookfair restroom, on the street, etc. In honor of my shite mathematical/change making skills, and the general spirit of AWP joy, I'll be selling OHI for the reduced price of $10.
Readings Galore!

Many, many thanks to the journals/publishers below for inviting me to read during this AWP. I'll be reading poems from OHI, as well as new work, including a Risk Management Memo or two (or five).

Thursday, March 7, 2013
Happy Hour Reading for Steel Toe Books
2-4 pm
Dillon's, Boston 

Thursday, March 7, 2013
iO: A Journal of New American Poetry, Interrupture, and Jellyfish
AWP Poetry Reading
6:30 pm
Sweetwater Tavern, Boston 

Saturday, March 9, 2013
Country Dog Poets: A Reading
5-7 pm
Dillon's, Boston 

Thanks so much to the folks who have already purchased a signed copy of OHI through Paypal (link here). All proceeds from my Paypal sales go to supporting the artists of Etsy (i.e. this is the one time I don't turn royalties into groceries).

If you have made it this far in said lengthy tome, thank you. Rumor has it I'll be on Verse Daily this week. Yay!

Warmest wishes,

Mary Bee