NYC is POETRY

One full day of poetry. There was nowhere to get away from it. And why would anyone want to? Highlights included the book launch for Noulipian Analytics and the Hound's introduction to Les Figues Press out of Los Angeles. Way cool. Caught the tail end of Christian Bok's reading in the uber-slick Mercantile Library Center for Fiction. Can't wait to go play in that quadrant of the country. I picked up a copy of Dies: A Sentence, by Vanessa Place but really, I could have picked up the whole catalogue...

Finally got my hands on Dorothea Lasky's AWE from Wave Books (review to come), another press I could have packed a half dozen titles from. I've blogged about Joshua Beckman's Shake before, it's still a favorite.

Chax, belladonna, Four Way, Future Poem, Nightboat, Fence, Persea, Wesleyan, Pitt, all represented with great titles.

And Canadians in the house! Coach House, ECW and Brick Books all doing much good promotional footwork. Speaking of which: the Hound's long review of contemporary Canadian poetry is out in Gulf Coast Review, and Book Forum has a thorough review of the new bpnichol reader from Coach House. Rumour has it that the Lambda Book Report has a review of Canadian Rachel Zolf with a thorough description of the Lesbian Mafia descending from the north...that would include the Hound, barking, snapping, and tearing...

Now today is art.