Buggin' you - where buggin' is lovin'

I've been having crazy poetry fun the last few days. First there was the road trip to NYC on Thursday to see all of the Wave Books authors (with books published this spring) give a reading at the New School. Lori, managing editor, and I drove down, and I drove my car in NEW YORK CITY! I did ok, except one crazy lane change after a toll bridge which I couldn't make in time, so we added an hour to our road trip home. Oh well. Other than that I drove ok! We had to take a car because of all the books needing to be in a trunk, to be sold at the reading. Joshua Beckman, Anthony McCann, and Noelle Kocot read, and they were all great, especially Noelle's relentless yet amazing Poem for the End of Time. In less than 24 hours in the city we crammed in eating yummy noodles by Union Square, a stop at The Strand Bookstore, setting up the table of books for the reading and selling a tonne of books, yummy dinner and drinks out on the town at Cafe Loup then the Cedar Tavern, crashing for the night on an aero bed in a poet's kitchen, a stroll in Brooklyn including stops at an Italian bakery and "The Pork Shop", and a yummy french toast breakfast at the Union Smith Cafe in Brooklyn. Whew! After my second trip to NYC, I now "get it" -- that is why everyone in Massachusetts in the poetry program seems to gush enthusiasm about New York.

And then, last night I participated in "A Little Madness in the Spring," a marathon reading of all 1789 poems written by Emily Dickinson, at the Emily Dickinson museum in Amherst, MA. It started at 9 a.m. and lasted 19 hours. I came in to help with the crucial last leg, showing up at 1:30 a.m. to read 70 plus poems in classic me style to perk up the bleary eyed folk who were sticking with it until the end (many had been there since 9 a.m.!). Several of my UMASS MFA buddies were there too. After I read, the group of about 10 of us finished up until 4 a.m. rotating who read her poems, and occasionally getting up to read in different rooms of the old Dickinson homestead. Reading her work in the bedroom in which she wrote the poems was especially cool.

Here's a lovely samurai in Brooklyn. More photos at flickr!