small press book fair
Enjoyed:
Ellis Avery reading from In Pieces (Impassio Press) and The Teahouse Fire, Riverhead Books
Interview with the delightful Michael Cunningham
Intrigued by:
Peter Plate, auto-didact, squatter, user of big words, champion of the repressed and the self-published, wearer of sunglasses indoors
Booklyn style
Bored by:
Acknowledgment that women’s panel is designated as women’s panel, while men’s panel is never designated as men’s panel
Acknowledgment that, yes, everything is political (how many times do we have to say this and what ever-lovin’ difference does it make?)
Nevertheless idolizing:
Anne Waldman
Eileen Myles
Bought:
Carmen Dog, Carol Emshwiller, Small Beer Press
Not Me, Eileen Myles
Wish I’d bought:
Vow to Poetry, Anne Waldman, Coffee House Press
Stroke by Stroke, Henri Michaux, Archipelago Books
Kalpa Imperial, Angélica Gorodischer, trans. Ursula K. LeGuin, Small Beer Press
Spotted:
Karen Finley talking to Anne Waldman, felt like utter cabalistic cauldron stirring beginning of new universal making was happening
Slightly depressed by:
Jen Benka and Matthea Harvey reading their statements from the page like risk-averse beginners
Call by woman of color for women’s panel to be inclusive of women of color and poor women next year
Inspired by:
Myles’s manic discussion of context for poetry, technology, and the post-literary
Waldman’s mention of “upaya” (skillful means) as masculine, and “prajñĔ as feminine energy, because I have special connection to these terms as mechanisms
And a link:
The Unknown Guest by Maurice Maeterlinck