Organizing your writing life

SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES + SUBVERSIVE INFLUENCES: Tomorrow (July 22) is the big GLBTQ reading as part of the "Out at the Library" exhibition at the Atlanta Fulton Public LIbrary. It's going to be a massive poetry reading - running from 2 to 6 p.m. - and featuring some of the best poets in town. The library is located just off Peachtree Street in downtown at One Margaret Mitchell Square. The event is free, so no excuses!

Franklin Abbott will host and there are 17 poets/musicians slated to perform (including me). Some of the other great poets reading include Cleo Creech, Dustin Brookshire, Andy Ditzler, Stacie Bochma, Melinda Kingsley, Stanley Fong, Ben Culmyer, Dr. Madelyn Hatter, Malika, Berl Boykin, Theresa Davis, Melanie Hammet, Robin Kemp, Brad Fairchild, Larry Corse and Angela Motter. There's more information about the event at the Atlanta Rainbow Muse site, www.atlantarainbowmuse.com.

Tomorow night at 7 Stages Theatre in Little Five Points there will be a Slam Birthday Party, to mark 20 years of the artform. It will also be a fundraiser for Word Diversity Collective's Art Amok Slam Team, which is headed to the national slam in Austin next month. The event begins at 8 p.m. with an open mic (limited slots available) and a featured performance by the great Theresa Davis. Karaoke Poetry will follow with poets reading the works of others. Admission is only $5. There will also be food and libations. Come on out and support the team.

On a quick political note, the situation between Israel and Lebanon has turned me back into a CNN junkie. They are doing good reporting from over there. However, Dubya and Co. need to get their hands out of their pockets and tell Israel to back off for a moment. They are killing innocent civilians trying to flush out Hezbollah and making it impossible for those innocents to flee because they are bombing roads and the airport. I agree that Hezbollah has to go, but Israel continues to ramp up and appears to be preparing for a full-scale ground war. I still firmly believe that the taking of two soldiers by Hezbollah did not require the massive bombardment of Lebanon. Diplomacy has totally disappeared. The US is complicit because we refuse to have any talks with governments considered part of the "axis of evil"...which appears to grow larger by the day if you listen to Dubya. Don't even get me started on him using his veto on the stem cell bill. Pandering to the Christian right whack jobs ain't gonna help you one bit, asshole. You have officially shot your wad. When senior members of your own party and Nancy Reagan are even in favor of stem cell research, it just proves how completely out of touch Dubya is with this country.