Organizing your writing life

READINGS & WRITING: I'll be doing an evening of poetry with Rupert Fike on Saturday, Sept. 23, at Composition Gallery -- where we did the fab Bloomsday event. Poets & Writers, Inc. is sponsoring this reading, which makes it extra special. If you're in Atlanta and haven't dropped by Composition Gallery in Candler Park, do yourself a favor. It's a wonderful little space curated by Ron Hughes. Visit www.compositiongallery.com to see what's on show now.

I sorta hosted Java Monkey last night. Kodac arrived back from the National Poetry Slam and took over about half an hour in, which was fine with me. We had a massive crowd there last night -- which Kodac said has been the norm most of the summer -- and over 30 people signed up on the open mic list. Megan Sexton featured and I discovered she's a big Kate Bush fan, so we had plenty to talk about besides the usual po'biz.

Cleo Creech talked about the Outside the Green Zone chapbook, which is getting a lot of interest. He's already planning a second printing, and there's definitely going to be a UK edition published soon. He's had requests for copies from the UN (that's United Nations, folks) and...wait for it...the Pet Shop Boys! They dedicated their latest album Fundamental to the memories of the teenage boys who were publicly hung in Iraq last year. If you haven't ordered a copy of this book, I highly recommend you do so immediately. This book is not just a collection of poetry, but a call to action. Cleo has a reference section in the back of the chapbook for contacting your congressman, giving support to the GLBTQ Iraqi community in exile and even a sample letter to Condi Rice. Visit his blog at www.cccreech.blogspot.com to order. That's Cleo with chapbook in hand reading last night at Java Monkey in the photo above.

Poetry at Portfolio Center resumes on Friday, Sept. 1, at 7:30 p.m. and will feature poets from Outside the Green Zone. Come out and show your support to these poets, but to the venue as well. We have some exciting features coming up for 2006/07.

After a brief drought, I started working on new poetry this weekend. I've had a number of requests for submissions lately, so my well is just about dry. I'm going to do a workshop next month and hope to have a few rough drafts to bring along and whip them into shape.