Where I will be two weeks from now..

...in my hotel room in Chicago anticipating the first full glorious day of AWP.

Daniil Kharms translator interview

Shortly before my shift ended tonight I finished "Today I Wrote Nothing" by Daniil Kharms, translated by Matvei Yankelevich (one of the founders of Ugly Duckling). I first encountered, or rather was floored by, Kharms work three years ago. At the time there were only a few translated volumes, all out of print. The recent translations and publications of the Oberiu group stand as one of the most exciting and important events in poetry of the past few years.

A site I check almost daily for new poetry audio is http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onword/ Tomorrow night Yankelevich will be interviewed on Shaindel Beers program "Translated By". This isn't the first time that the same day I finished a book I noticed that the author was scheduled for an interview. Most recently this happened right after I finished Will Alexander's "Sunrise in Armageddon."

Eugene Ostashevsky discusses the Oberiu in show #151 here: http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/XCP.html

and here is a link to twenty-four pieces by Kharms:

http://www.sevaj.dk/kharms/kharmseng.htm

Yang Lian

"...Inside and Outside of China, Inside and Outside of one's own languages---the real journey toward the open-ended question of Poetry-----POETRY IS"

C.P. Cavafy

As Long as You Can

And even if you cannot make your life what you want,
for as long as you can, at least
try to do this: do not trivialize it
in all the busy contacts of the world,
in all the swarm and gossip.

Do not trivialize it, hauling it,
roaming with it, always exposing it
to the pairings and relations
of everyday stupidity,
until it ends up irritating, stubborn as a beggar.

Inger Christensen poem on a building

Link to a larger version:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-7aaWDpeQwNlPx7Fombkz17Wo4LJv_QAIOyQUm3kpR1cFcVKW5H-MTj0R41CPkmq7yoTochkojXf4zwPXojv6KOiW6jZV131y8lBjKFkQTRUm-WShdZyE5GZsZjYmaq8uBrHZWoFXYbmG/s1600-h/inger.jpg

AWP decisions

I am buying my plane tickets for AWP this week and when I just looked at the site I noticed that the off-site schedule has changed (it'd be worth the trip just for the off-site readings alone) Rabbit Light has been moved from Saturday to Friday. While this will let me go to the Best of Fence reading (K. Silem Mohammad and Peter Gizzi are the two readers at that event I am most excited about seeing) I am now faced with several difficult decisions to make Friday night. The main reason I want to go to the Rabbit Light is for Noah Eli Gordon and especially Abraham Smith's reading. Yet at the same time Dean Young & Eric Baus will be at a different venue (I have been reading a lot of Young's work lately. Friday I read "Skid" and the following day I reread "Embryoyo") and at another venue is a reading for Mandorla magazine with Kent Johnson as one of the listed readers! This isn't the first difficult decision I have had to made regarding this trip. In fact over the weekend I carefully wrote out a schedule so that I could better coordinate off-site events with the regular program.

I also noticed on the Art Institute's site that an Edvard Munch exhibit opens on Valentine's Day. Luckily I have not yet purchased my plane tickets so I am planning on returning later on the fifteenth so I can go see the exhibit. Once I return home there will be no shortage of readings for awhile. Four days after I return there is going to be a David Kirby reading, nearly two weeks later Aaron Kunin and Maggie Zurwaski, the following week C.D. Wright and a couple of weeks after that Aimee Nezhukumatathil.

AWP by plane, train or automobile

I will most likely NOT go to Berkeley in February to see Salamun, instead I have my eye on AWP Chicago. Not only will I still be able to see Salamun, but I will even be able to see two readings by him as opposed to one in Berkeley. Not to mention the scores of other writers that will be present I would LOVE to see. Plus it will actually be more affordable considering how much closer Chicago is to where I live.