Friends:

I am giving my first poetry reading in a few months Wednesday night at 7:30 pm for Ink.ed MFA, a new literary series bringing together NYC-area MFA students and recent alumni (I am also poetry editor for Ink.ed). Hope you can make it!

New poem “Rare Soul” was launched today in Spry Literary Journal. Enjoy!

My latest ‘found pantoum’ is up today at Booth. Enjoy “Pantoum by Thelonious Monk”.

If you’re curious, the source text is set notes given by Thelonious Monk, as transcribed by Steve Lacy.

Friends: I’m back in New York, and giving a poetry reading on Sunday evening with some other lovely folks. Hope to see you there. (Unfortunately, I disabused myself of a rather epic ‘stache before realizing this would be a ‘Movember’ reading).

Sunday 6pm

Two Moon Cafe

315 4th Ave

Brooklyn

https://www.facebook.com/events/534920316591849/

Yesterday 2 new poems of mine appeared online, “Pantoum Found in Howl” in Thrush Poetry Journal, and “Memento Mori” in Strange Horizons.

In other news, I recorded a verse on a new Swahili hip-hop track “Umbeya” by MadBrain, an old-school Swahili hip-hop artist here in Dar es Salaam. It’s pretty hot. Hope to share it with the world soon.

One of my found pantoums, “Pantoum by Bob Kaufman” is up today on B O D Y. Although Kaufman has been my favorite poet (and his face tattooed on my back) for several years, he always said he wanted to die completely anonymously, which must make me a real prick for constantly reminding everybody of his existence.

In other news, I’m off to Dar es Salaam tomorrow to participate in the second annual Swahili Hip-Hop Exhibition. If anyone happens to find themselves in the area, don’t miss it!

Swahili Hip-Hop Exhibition 2013

I answered a few questions for Redivider’s Contributor Spotlight (temporary link). My poem “Pantoum by Leonard Cohen” was included in their most recent issue.

It’s only in the past couple years that I became aware of “speculative” as a literary category, and only in the last year or so that it occurred to me some of my poems might fit the description.

Yesterday and the day before, two of my poems appeared online in “speculative poetry” issues.

First, “The God Zoo”, which originally appeared in Rattle’s Winter 2012 issue.

Second, “Kinnings”, in Jersey Devil Press, for their innaugural poetry issue.

However, the best sample of speculative writing to appear on the internet in the last twenty-four hours was not written by me, but rather by an anonymous Craiglist user, “Missed Connection – m4w”.

Enjoy.

Saturday night, June 15, 6:30 pm: I am hosting a reading Saturday at Fort Hamilton Gallery, the pop-up art exhibition in my building.

Join us at Fort Hamilton Gallery during the closing weekend of “Silhouettes”, a pop-up art exhibition featuring alumni of the Skowhegan residency for visual artists.

The evening will feature art, wine, and readings from the following writers from (or otherwise connected to) the Windsor Terrace neighborhood:

Adrienne Brock’s work has appeared in the journals Oats and The Offbeat. She is an interviews and fiction editor for Epiphany. Adrienne holds an MA in British literature from Fordham University and has curated the university’s graduate fiction reading at the KGB Bar since 2011. She’s in love with one of the other readers, but she’ll leave it up to you to guess who it is.

Amanda Calderon’s poems have been published on the internet and then taken down. She is also an MFA candidate at NYU, where she once held several titles that no longer apply to her because the school year has ended. She lives in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn where she is “working on her thesis.”

David McLoghlin is a poet from Ireland, who lives in Windsor Terrace at 18th Street and 8th Avenue. His first collection, Waiting for Saint Brendan and Other Poems, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2012. His work has appeared widely in Irish journals, and is published or forthcoming in the US in The Hopkins Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Éire-Ireland, Prick of the Spindle and transportal.org. He is a recent graduate of NYU’s MFA Program, and has received prizes and grants for his work in Ireland, and a scholarship from the 2011 Sewanee Writers’ Conference. This is the first of many tag team readings with his lucha libre partner, and fiancée, Adrienne Brock.

Richard Prins is a lifelong New Yorker who lives right behind Fort Hamilton Gallery. He also sometimes lives in Dar es Salaam. Last year he received his MFA in poetry from New York University, and now he avoids situations where he might might be asked “what do you do?” and have to answer “I’m a poet” without sounding too wacky or precious. His work appears in Los Angeles Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Rattle, Redivider and Transition Magazine.

Melissa Swantkowski writes fiction. She is the Prose Editor for Bodega Magazine, a contributor to the inconsistently updated weblog The Murky Fringe, and co-hosts a bi-monthly reading series called The Disagreement. Her work has been featured by Liars League NYC and has appeared in The Mississippi Review, American Short Fiction, Monkeybicycle and elsewhere.

DIRECTIONS: F/G train to Fort Hamilton Parkway

So consider this my ring tone.