Organizing your writing life

WEEKEND REPORT: The last four days have been busy, so let me begin by jumping all the way back to Thursday evening when I had the pleasure of having dinner with Ayodele Heath. Ayo is a slam champ, brilliant poet, about to finish his MFA and a McEver Visiting Chair in Writing at the Poetry at Tech program at Georgia Tech. We talked po-biz for awhile over fried green tomatoes, salmon croquettes and juicy burgers at Agnes & Muriel's, a great "new southern" place in Midtown. My fingers are crossed that Ayo can take that MFA and use it as the paper he needs to get a job teaching. He's been active in the community for many years and is a dynamic speaker, plus he actually cares about other poets. He'll be leading a workshop at Tech in early 2007. I'm thinking about taking it myself. Taking a workshop -- at any stage of your poetry career -- can always be a boost to your writing. If you want to see him sooner, Ayo will be featuring for me at Poetry at Portfolio Center on Friday, Oct. 6. Mark your calendars.

On Friday evening, I came home and listened my friend Travis Miller's Internet radio show, Silver Llama Train, on Live365. I met him via the Kate Bush Forum and he plays an eclectic set of music on Friday evenings from about 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. A typical playlist might include some Kate selections, ELO, Grace Jones, Laurie Anderson, Fleetwood Mac, Ren & Stimpy, Herb Alpert, Celine Dion, Led Zeppelin and Steely Dan. You never know what's coming on next, which makes it so much fun to listen to. I listened to just about the entire show, while working on two new poems (one of which I think is a keeper) and revising others. I also managed to read another 100 pages of On Beauty. It really is fantastic.

I also learned on Friday evening that the great cinematographer Sven Nykvisthad died at age 83 on Sept. 20. His name might not be familiar, but it was his camera direction that captured the luminous moments of Ingmar Bergman's Persona and Cries and Whispers, American films like Agnes of God and What's Eating Gilbert Grape not to mention Woody Allen's classics Crimes and Misdemeanors and Another Woman (that's Gena Rowlands pictured above from the latter film). I've always thought of filmmaking as a marriage between the director and cinematographer, both of them capturing shadows and light. Sven was indeed a genius. His mastery will be missed.

I slept in Saturday and finally got motivated to select poems for my reading that night with Rupert Fike at Composition Gallery. The reading was a big success. We had more than 40 people there, and it was one of the most receptive audiences I've read to in quite awhile. My dear friend Chris Snell surprised me and drove up from Fayetteville for the reading, and it was nice to see Kodac, Elaine, Cleo and other friends from the local scene in attendance. Rupert was in top form as always. The Continuum exhibition of photos by Bryan Meltz should not be missed. Many, many thanks to curator Ron Hughes for inviting us and Poets & Writers for providing us with some cash. A paying gig is always appreciated. After the reading, I dropped by 7 Stages Theatre for the Art Amok Slam, and got conscripted as the timekeeper. It's amazing that slam season is starting up again to start building teams for next summer's nationals. Time do fly.

Sunday was another lazy day, but I did manage to get some poems together to make two submissions -- one solicited, the other to The Southern Review's call for new southern writers to submit work for a special edition coming out next year. Fingers crossed for both. Then I decided to go to Java Monkey. I had heard from numerous folks that there was a little homophobia spouted from the stage last week when I wasn't there, with some guy called for "Straight Pride." Well, you know I had to dig up my nastiest gay fuck poem as a response. I even rewrote a couple of lines to make it sting a bit more. Of course, the guy didn't show up last night, but I read it anyway and it got lots of laughs and cheers and a few dirty looks from some of the guys who go into gay panic mode when they hear about anal sex. What was most interesting about the evening was the return of a fellow poet I had a fling with three years ago. Still cute, still flirty, still bi-sexual. I resisted his overtures, although I really, really didn't want to. Today I feel more virtuous, but I can't stop thinking about him nibbling on my neck. I await Montgomery Maxton's chastising.

Finally, I received my contributor's copy of A Slice of Cherry Pie over the weekend and have really been enjoying the poems by Jilly Dybka, Siobhan Logan, Jared Leising and all the others who got their Twin Peaks mojo working for this anthology. The copy I received is the UK version and it's a beautiful thing to behold. Can't wait to see the US version that Shanna Compton created. If you haven't ordered one, get on the stick.