Reading on the 26th

Maggie Clemons at the Back of the Yards branch of the Chicago Public Library was kind enough to invite me to participate in a poetry reading.

There are poems in The War is Language, 2000 Deciduous Trees, and maybe one or two in Love & Darts. I forget. I'll have to look.

I did a little open mic event at Transistor a month or so ago, part of their new Echo series. But. Seriously. It's really not my thing to get up and have a bunch of people staring at me, even if it's a fairly informal situation.

So readings are pretty last-frontier though they're a well-proven way to introduce readers to the work.

I don't know. My friend David was all, "Get a bunch of people to go~! Get the word out!!" But I was like, "No." He said, "Why?" I thought it was obvious. "I don't want a bunch of people I know to be there." Which is probably something I need to overcome.

Anyway. The point is, I'm going to do it.

I passed the info along to a friend from Northwestern, Virginia Smith Rice. So. She'll be there too. She is going to read from her new collection When I Wake It Will Be Forever.

Should be fun. If you guys are in the area, come on out and join us.

The facility really is beautiful. This particular branchof the CPL is in a high school. It really offers kids in the neighborhood a safe space.

I don't think the building was built in direct response to that movie about the high schools--what was that? You know, the charter school thing, Waiting for Superman? The Back of the Yards school was planned well before that film came out but the space reminds me of that concept that a good school can bring a neighborhood up.