Coming Out Party, July 18

My next gig is a fundraiser for the United 4 Safety Task Force, an organization that works to address the lack of services for victims of violence in the GLBT community. The "Coming Out Party" is Saturday, July 18, from 8 to 11 p.m. on the roof of the Oakland Park building, 563 Memorial Drive. The roof area has dramatic views of historic Oakland Cemetery and downtown Atlanta. I'll be reading with Lakara Foster and Yolo Akili, and there will be music from DJ Lily. Admission is $20 and includes wine and refreshments. RSVP to united4safety@gmail.com.

In search of book reviews

I just read -- and completely agreed with -- Victoria Chang's latest blog post about the state of literary reviews moving out of the hands of bastions like the New York Times and online in a more grassroots effort. Victoria's blog post is in response to a post by Jacob Silverman on the Virginia Quarterly Review blog that bemoans Salon.com's decision to review MTV reality star Lauren Conrad's novel, L.A. Candy. Why was this worthless book reviewed, he wants to know, and do all books even deserve reviews? Aside from the touch of imperiousness, my question is why did he waste a blog post basically giving Conrad's novel even more press (complete with dust jacket image). Maybe they were looking for a few more page views at VQR?

Vanilla Heart is an indie publisher, so they don't have the budget to send out dozens and dozens of review copies of Conquering Venus. That means I'll be sending some out myself. Here's my offer: I'm looking for five blogging friends (or new bloggers I've yet to meet) to review my novel when it's published in August. I'll send you an autographed copy free of charge. Who's in?

Conquering Venus, Swing Out Sister & Whatever Works

I am anxiously awaiting the final galley of Conquering Venus from Vanilla Heart. This galley will be a last minute check for formatting, making sure the errors from the last galley were properly corrected and that acknowledgement pages are in order. I have been slowly working on building Conquering Venus its own blog, and it will now debut Aug. 1. There will be exclusive photos, poems, content and more on this blog.

While waiting for the final galley, I spent more than 12 hours (8 of those in a marathon on Friday) working on the sequel to Venus. This was a combination of rewrites and new scenes. I'm pretty damn happy with it. On Saturday night, I was positively giddy. I always listen to music when I'm writing, and the soundtrack for the weekend came courtesy of Swing Out Sister. They are as vital now as they were more than 20 years ago, with their new album, Beautiful Mess, one of the best jazz/pop albums I've heard in ages. Swing Out Sister inspired the title of my first poetry collection, Better To Travel, and here they are again giving me joy and inspiration, especially with the song/video posted above, "Waiting Game," from 1989's Kaleidoscope World. The lively melody -- and gorgeous shots of Paris -- belie the lyrics, which are quite melancholy. Thanks to Corinne and Andy, if you happen to read this.

On the Fourth of July, I went to dinner and a movie with Cleo Creech to see the new Woody Allen movie, Whatever Works. I didn't have high hopes. His last two -- Cassandra's Dream and Vicky Cristina Barcelona -- didn't rank very high on my Woody-meter, but I'm a glutton for cinematic punishment. I am delighted to report that Whatever Works totally worked for me! Larry David was, naturally, channeling Woody, but the star of this movie is Patricia Clarkson. As a Bible-thumping, Mississippi-born socialite, she storms into the picture about halfway, and owns the rest of the movie. Her transformation to a wanton bohemian is hilarious. Kudos also goes to Ed Begley Jr. -- yeah, Ed Begely! -- as Clarkson's estranged husband, who takes his roughly 20 minutes on screen and mines comedy gold. After trotting off to London and Spain, Woody is back in his beloved Manhattan -- the stylized, mannered Manhattan that only exists in Allen's films. Allen has been making variations on the same plot (older, cremudgeon falls for beautiful, young woman and comedy/tragedy ensues) for 30-plus years, and while Whatever Works is far from his best work, it's a comforting throwback.

Read This: The Brother Swimming Beneath Me by Brent Goodman

Brent Goodman's debut collection, The Brother Swimming Beneath Me ($14, Black Lawrence Press), is surely going to be in my top three of 2009. Reading poems from this collection over the last couple of years in various magazines, journals and at his blog, did not prepare me for the power of the book as a whole. This collection has a nearly perfect narrative arc. Every poem falls into place, ebbs and flows seamlessly to the next and from section to section as Goodman elegantly, tenderly and heartbreakingly details his older brother's death from cancer.

I had planned to read The Brother Swimming Beneath Me in one sitting, but after the devastating second section, I had to stop and compose myself. The stand out poem in this collection is the long centerpiece, "Maier," his brother Mark's Hebrew name. The printed poem is seven pages long, the stanzas alternately cascading down the pages in short bursts of words or in tight prose. "Maier" -- or any of the poems -- could have easily moved into mawkish, self-indulgent handwringing, but that never happens. The poems are lyrical and beautiful even in the face of a death.

As the narrative builds toward Mark's passing, we see glimpses of Goodman's religious upbringing, his coming out of the closet to his conservative father (How dramatic my coming out, tears blurring my eyes. Father puts his fork down. My mother feigns surprise.), and his own near death at age four from blood poisoning, a precursor to Mark's demise (This was my small death, one which would eventually swallow him entirely.)

In the poem "Evaporation," Goodman recounts how his brother might have been stricken with cancer, admitting that this explanation has become a "religion," but not gospel (Grief begins with how, not why). Mark has dropped out of high school and is working in a pressure gauge factory, when he accidentally ingests freon. He came home ghost-faced, went to bed. Dreamt he swallowed sky until his blood turned to wind.

The third section of the collection is a series of short, experimental prose poems, which are in stark contrast to the poems that came before. Mark disappears from the narrative, yet he always seems to be fluttering around the edges: an errant birthday balloon bobbing against a ceiling, a missing pet, spaceships and seagulls silently hovering. And then, in "[behind]", a memory of shooting squirrels and spying on a girl swimming brings Mark's memory back in one deft line: Behind my brother I turn to shadow.

Debut collections this good are few and far between. The Brother Swimming Beneath Me is an unforgettable, cathartic read.

Another Prayer

Dear religion, there is no afterlife.

I hope you don't mind me saying this.

When you say heaven on earth

I think: the dead read minds.

When you think dust to dust

I say: this body is a riverbed.

Will the congregation please

recite what this wall of stained glass

is trying to tell you? Dear Buddha,

I've been knocking from the inside.

Heaven is not an ecosystem.

When I dream my brother visits me

it is my brother looking at his reflection

through my eyes, my sleeping tongue.

When we die we turn inside out and call

this turning a tunnel made of light.

Weekend Music: Crazy in Love - Antony & The Johnsons

Paul Lisicky posted this on his blog the other day and I've listened to it a dozen times. Yes, this is Beyonce's "Crazy in Love." You'll never think of it the same way after hearing this orchestral version, which turns the bouncy song into a haunting dirge.

To be in England, in the summertime, close to the edge...

Thanks to everyone who voted for me in Southern Voice's "Best of Gay Atlanta." The results will be announced on July 16. I was in friendly competition with fine poets -- Theresa Davis and Yolo Akili -- and was happy for the nomination. I need all the publicity help I can get with Conquering Venus just around the corner. 

In other poetry news, Karen Head is blogging from Oxford, England this summer, where she's teaching at Worcester College. Check out blog, Poetic Acts in a Digital World. Karen is also part of the Fourth Plinth project, meaning she'll be standing on the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square for an hour July 31 reading poetry and tweeting about it. Her new collection, Sassing, is out, too, so pick up a copy. You'll be glad you did.

Also Oxford-related, Karen is using the David Lynch/Twin Peaks-inspired chapbook A Slice of Cherry Pie (which features my poem "Sometimes Her Arms Bend Back") as part of her curriculum at Worcester. The Private Press editor Ivy Alvarez will be traveling from Wales to talk about the Lynch project (a new chapbook featuring poems inspired by Blue Velvet is coming soon). Hey, if I can't be in England, at least one of my poems is being read there.

What are you doing for 4th of July, fellow bloggers? I'm spending mine writing. Reviews of Brent Goodman's excellent collection, The Brother Swimming Beneath Me, and The Seventh Seal from Criterion coming soon.

 

Weekend Update

I was a bit disappointed in the turnout for Saturday's Stonewall Reading at the downtown branch of the Atlanta Library. Even some of the performers didn't bother to show up. Bad form. Still, it was great to hear some of my favorite poets read, including Jessica Hand, Robin Kemp and Megan Volpert, who debuted a piece of her new "Andy Warhol project." It was 96 degrees on Saturday with the heat index at 100, so maybe that kept a few folks indoors.

Yesterday, I got my shit together and submitted poems (yes, I'm still a poet despite all this fiction blather) to two literary magazines. I've got work coming out in another lit mag later this year, the introduction to an anthology in the UK and, fingers crossed, a couple of poems in another anthology coming in 2010.

I think I mentioned on the blog before that work on the sequel to Conquering Venus has been at a standstill. On Saturday, another piece of the plot fell into place that had been eluding me for months. I have a beginning and end, it's just finding the connective tissue between the two that has been difficult. Conquering Venus takes place in 1995, the sequel two years later, beginning the day that Princess Diana dies in Paris. I'm 99.9 percent sure the third book in the trilogy will take place in 2005 -- a full 10 years after the events of Conquering Venus. I digress. You all still need to read the first book before you hear about the other two. I have a four-day weekend coming up, and I plan to use most of that to work on the sequel.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford was probably dancing through the halls of the govenor's mansion belting the Evita soundtrack all weekend, since the untimely deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson knocked him almost completely out of the news cycle. The cartoon above sumes it up. Thanks to Joe.My.God. -- my favorite LGBT blog -- for the image.