I guess it's really happening ...

since my publisher has my book on the front page of their website.

Re-reading the novel as I go through the galleys is fun. It's strange, I can remember exactly where I was physically and emotionally as I wrote certain passages. I'm so curious what it'll be like for people who know nothing about the book to read it ... an experience I'll never have.

I'm also doing a lot of things to try to get the word out, including a lot of internet time. Damn you, Collin Kelley, for getting me started on Facebook. I'm already having the DTs when I'm away from it for more than an hour.

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I just discovered I was quoted on mirabile dictu: feminism, poetry, images politics--a very cool blog.

When you're quoted, does that mean you're now part of the canon or something?

But where's the bong?

My rockin' publisher, VHP, has not only created a cover for my novel but a bunch of fun stuff that has the cover on it that can be ordered here.Given that the novel's characters do a lot of drinking, a beer stein is appropriate.
Dogs love to be dressed in For the May Queen shirts.
Underwear with the novel's logo is quite appropriate, too, since there's a lot of sex in the book.

The only apropos item missing is a For the May Queen bong.

Oh, and the novel can be purchased as well in the near future. I'll let you know as soon as I find out when pre-orders are happening.

Here's what the illustrious Collin Kelley says about the novel:

"The 80s were all about drugs, alcohol and casual sex, and Kate Evans deftly conveys the uncertainty of the era as her feisty Norma Rogers leaves a sheltered home life and dives headfirst into a series of hedonistic adventures at college, including falling in love with Chuck, who just doesn't seem to be that in to her. The clever dialogue, unexpected twists and a meticulous sense of time and place evoke the immediacy of memoir. Funny, poignant and ultimately a testament to lasting friendship, For The May Queen is a trip back to the not-so-distant-past without the hangover."

Collin Kelley, author of Slow To Burn and After the Poison

Literary news

Never say die. The talented iconoclast Montgomery Maxton and I have something in common. Both of us had books that were accepted by small publishers that folded. And then both books were given new life as both of us had the manuscripts recently accepted by different small publishers. For Montgomery his poetry collection This Beautiful Bizarre will be coming out late next year (more on this soon!). For me, my novel For the May Queen, has been taken by a small press and is forthcoming in October of this year (more on this soon, too!).

Surprise! Verse Daily posts a new poem each day, but they don't inform the poets in advance. So you might wake up one morning, like John Evans did today, to discover your poem and bio there. You can read John's amazing poem here. (Verse Daily posted one of my poems earlier this year here.) John is an insanely terrific poet--and he's received a major kudos in the form of a Stegner Fellowship beginning this fall. Previous Stegner Fellows I've had the honor ot meet include ZZ Packer, California poet laureate Al Young , James Houston and Tobias Wolff, all of whom have also taught in the program and all of whom (excelpt Wolff) have taught at my university as a Lurie Professor. Watch this blog; I'll be announcing our new Lurie Professor later this week. She's a well-known poet.

Callin' on Collin. Collin Kelley has written about a slew of online literary magazines that have recently been updated. Collin's edgy, surprising chapbook After the Poison is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press, which is currently accepting advance orders. About the book, Jim Elledge says, "this slim collection is a must-read. In fact, I dare you to read it. I double dare you."

Queer Collection: Poetry & Prose 2008 is now accepting advance orders. Last year's inaugural anthology was terrific. I'm sure this year's will be too--and I'm honored that my story "Leaving the Baby" will appear in it.

Limp Wrist

The new online poetry and art mag, Limp Wrist, is up and running. It features poetry Denise Duhamel, Cecilia Woloch, Collin Kelley, Dustin Brookshire, and many more.

Check it out!

Political poison

Some think political poetry is anathema to the poem.

Some think political poetry is an ethical necessity.

Still others say all human activity is political because all writing takes place in an historical, social milieu--therefore there's no such thing as an unpolitical poem.

Wherever you stand, Collin Kelley's After the Poison is damn good poetry.
Advanced sales for Collin's collection have just begun at Finishing Line Press.

I wrote a blurb for After the Poison--so did Jim Elledge and Jackie Sheeler. Here's the low-down:

In After the Poison, Collin Kelley faces war, genocide, rape, human trafficking, terrorism—every imaginable form of human-caused and human-condoned tragedy that plagues our planet—with an unflinching gaze and asks us to do the same. In today’s political climate, where monsters in the White House and out on the campaign trail run rabid, abandoning compassion and understanding for self-righteousness and blind hatred, this slim collection is a must-read. In fact, I dare you to read it. I double dare you.
—Jim Elledge, A History of My Tattoo

After the Poison is CNN on truth serum. Collin Kelley writes the brutal truth, harnessing poetry to reveal us to ourselves. –Kate Evans, author of Like All We Love and Negotiating the Self

Collin Kelley skewers the contemporary political landscape with unbearably precise and elegant language. Edgy, immediate, and brilliant…this is the kind of poetry that makes you want to run into the streets with a machine gun.–Jackie Sheeler, The Memory Factory and Off the Cuffs

Things That Keep Me From Writing

* paper-grading
* lesson planning
* CLA minutae
* reading
* day-dreaming
* paying bills online
* shopping and cooking and vacuuming and cleaning out the cat box and other things I must attend to for daily living
* email, email, email
* aqua sky after weeks of clouds
* dogs under my feet, begging for a walk
* research for my historical novel (very easy to get lost in)
* insecurity about what I'm writing
* blogging (oh, I guess that means I should stop the list here)...


What keeps you from writing?
Collin tagged me to pick up the work of fiction closest to where I'm sitting right now that has 123 pages or more, turn to page 123, find the fifth sentence, then post it and the next three sentences.

Book: Norton Anthology of Short Fiction (1738 bible-thin pages)
Page 123: "Silver Water" by Amy Bloom
Three sentences:

"Nicely put," my mother said.
"Indeed," my father said.
"Fuckin' A," Rose said.

I tag anyone who will have fun with this.

Has anyone seen Freeheld: The Laurel Hester Story? I haven't, but apparently it chronicles the fight of a terminally ill New Jersey woman to leave her pension benefits to her lesbian partner. It won the Oscar for Best Short Documentary last night (thanks Joe My God). Netflix doesn't carry it, so I just emailed them a request.

Why are people blowing a gasket over the release of this photo? It's a sad, sad day when trying on the traditional garb of a country doesn't point to your compassion, empathy and cultural expertise but instead at best is mocked as "silly" and at worst is said to imply you might be siding with "the terrorists."

Give me a break. It's an outrage when Muslims are lumped together as terrorists. And it makes me crazy that only a self-proclaimed old-style Christian could have a chance at winning the election. We'll have a woman President and Presidents of many colors (and maybe even a gay President)before we have a President who is Buddhist, Sikh, Pagan, Atheist, Rastafarian, or Agnostic. What's up with the Christian fetish? Why not more open minds, religiously speaking, in this democratic country of ours?

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At last: there's some solid national coverage (thanks Collin) of the horrible, homophobic murder of Lawrence King.

Poetry Monday: Collin Kelley

Yes, that's Collin Kelley--today's featured poet--with Pam Grier. Collin is one of those people who constantly surprises you. For instance: he knows Pam Grier?! He's the kind of guy you talk to who seems unassuming but then surprises constantly pop up--about people he's met, awards he has won, adventures he's had, and insights he offers about everything from the poetry of Anne Sexton (his poetry goddess) to American Idol (he predicted this year's winner months before it was obvious).

He's a talented, award-winning writer of poetry. And he's also a novelist, playwright and journalist.

His day job is writing for Altlanta Intown newspaper. Outside of that, he is a tireless ambassador for poetry. He participates in and spearheads a wide variety of public poetry events, and he hosts an Internet radio show, The Business of Words, on Leisure Talk Radio.

Collin says he writes "because I don't know how to do anything else, and I've really never wanted to do anything else. I started reading full novels at an early age and I knew then that writing would be my life's work. I flirted momentarily with being a helicopter pilot. There probably would have been more money in it."

His poetic influences include Sexton, Sharon Olds, Stan Rice, Margaret Atwood and Alice Walker. He considers his work in the realm of confessional poetry, as evidenced by the title of his blog: "Modern Confessional."

Today are featured two of his poems: "What Remains" and "The Virgin Mary Appears In A Highway Underpass."

About "What Remains," which appears in his lovely chapbook Slow to Burn (MetroMania Press), Collin says:

This poem began in a workshop and I recall the workshop leader and another poet getting into an argument – which I wasn’t involved in – about the last line of this poem. The workshop leader wanted me to cut it , the other poet said the last line was vital. I kept it…mainly because I like the word ephemeral, although many people don’t know what it means.

About "The Virgin Mary Appears In A Highway Underpass" (which originally was published in Poetz), Collin says:

This has become one of my most requested poems when I give readings. Some find it sacrilegious, others find it humorous, but I always love the silence that descends after the last three lines sink in. This poem was written in 2005 and inspired by a real event in Chicago. We haven’t had a Mary sighting lately, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next one.

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What Remains

We arrived in Paris on a rainy Sunday,
I remember this now,
as I lift the veil you shrouded me in,
made me complicit in your indecision.

While the others walked under umbrellas,
we lay on opposite beds in the Marais,
our hands reaching across the chasm,
my fingertips tracing your open palm,
every line a dead-end.

We made love through a litany
of favorite things: films as foreplay,
music for kisses, books our orgasm,
a rush of words safe between hard covers.
We should have been covered in sweat,
sticky with the unspoken,
a tangle of limbs and lips.
We are those people in an alternate world,
where hallway voices hold no sway.

I remember this now, your eyes
before the door opened, broke the spell.
Your hand moving away, all the lines
suddenly on fire, a map gone to cinder.
This ephemeral day, even the afterglow.

* * *

The Virgin Mary Appears In A Highway Underpass

Mary pops up in the strangest places,
usually as a window stain or sandwich,
but yesterday she dripped down a wall
on a Chicago underpass, brought the faithful
running with candles and offerings, blocked traffic.
I saw the pictures, couldn't see her face,
saw a giant gaping vagina instead, just failed
my Rorschach Test, going to hell for sure.

If this is Mary, she sure gets around,
recasting herself as a Holly Golightly,
popping up where you least expect her,
causing trouble for the locals.
But why would she choose to appear
in condensation, burnt toast or ditch water runoff?
Some will say it’s proof that she still dwells here,
runs like an undercurrent, manifests in the mundane.

I say, cut the parlor tricks, Mary.
If you want a little respect, come flaming
out of the sky on a thunder cloud,
ride it like a magic carpet over middle America,
speak in a voice like Diana Rigg or Emma Thompson,
command attention, instead of this sleight of hand,
a stain to be cleaned with soap and water,
so easily erased.

* * *

More About Collin: Collin Kelley is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet from Atlanta, Georgia. He is the author of Slow To Burn (2006, Metro Mania Press) and Better To Travel (2003), which was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and Georgia Author of the Year Award. Kelley’s poetry has appeared in In Posse Review, Blue Fifth Review, Terminus, New Delta Review, Chiron Review, poeticdiversity, The Pedestal, Lily, Welter, SubtleTea and many others. He is co-editor of the award-winning Java Monkey Speaks Anthology series (Poetry Atlanta Press) and hosts the Internet radio show The Business of Words at Leisure Talk Radio Network. For more information, visit his website by clicking here.

Poets and Rushdie

See: Five Poets You Should Be Reading . . . I'm honored to be on this list!

(Another poet you should be reading: the guy who wrote the list, Collin Kelley.)

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Last night at Bookshop Santa Cruz I saw Ellen Bass and Phyllis Koestenbaum read. As you know from a previous post, I'm a big fan of Ellen's, and last night she did not disappoint. Her new book is brilliant, funny, and deeply moving. And her delivery makes the poems pop in the air.

I'd never before heard Phyllis. She's fascinating. It seems like she's relentless in pushing herself to try new things. She read some fragments and some very long poems.

* * *

I'm reading The Satanic Verses. So far? Pretty damn funny, a romp. I keep thinking, someone wanted to kill him for this? Generally, I'm not big on satire (since I like my literature a bit more character-driven and sincere), but I am carried away by the sheer exuberance of Rushdie's writing.

Besides, Rushdie is visiting our campus in the fall, so I figured I better catch up . . . this novel has been gathering dust in my "published in 1988" pile.

Bird of Another Heaven

Here's the verdict: I sacrificed American Idol and went to Santa Cruz to see Jim Houston read from his new novel, Bird of Another Heaven. And I'm sure glad I did. The excerpts he read were compelling and beautifully written. The novel is an historical one that imagines the life of the last King of Hawaii and his love, Nani; it's told through the eyes of a present-day Bay Area radio talk show host as he discovers his familial connections to Nani.

I can't wait to sink into the novel, which I plan to do soon since the semester is winding down, and my stacks of papers to grade are dwindling.

After reading Collin's blog about tonight's Idol, sounds like I didn't miss much. I may even forego watching the tape my brother-in-law kindly taped for me.

Speaking of other people's blogs, Montgomery Maxton is no longer afraid of words and is therefore blowing people's minds. It's true. Check him out.

Low and High Culture (la de dah)

Looks Like Richard Gere's In Trouble ... for THIS.

Not sure why I care. Was just browsing the New York Times and found it interesting that someone could be arrested for a kiss. Major cultural disconnection of some sort, apparently.

When Collin Kelley was visiting, we went to Recycle Books, a wonderfully stinky place crammed with books, cats, and stained carpet. He pulled Tory Dent's HIV, Mon Amour off the shelf and said, "You must read this." I'd always been meaning to read it, ever since I heard a piece on NPR the day she died, so I bought it. I started it last night, and it's incredible. I love her long Whitmanesque lines, and the way she juxtaposes intellectual, almost disciplinarily specialized diction ("artificial extension of the body now commenced, / the transplantation of anatomized topography upon its badly damaged origin") with the perfect pop cultural image ("Loyal visitors arrived at odd hours like Pa gone to town in The Little House on the Prairie, shaking off snow on their coats). So far the book feels chillingly cold and in love with life--a stunning combination.

I'm glad I was able to return to the favor to Collin by introducing him to Marilyn Hacker's Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons, which he read in its entirety in about 24 hours at our house. It's that kind of book. You can't put it down. It's a sonnet cycle about a relationship, an obsession, and it reads like a juicy, moving novel.