Better Late Than Never: On Delta Mouth

Okay, I'm a bad member of the local writers' scene-- I went to the Delta Mouth Festival last weekend and never even wrote a jot about it. It was simply an amazing time, never been dazzled by such a concentrated amount of excellent poetry performed right in front of my face. Dedicating my entire weekend to drowning in words (mixed with a healthy amount of liquors, of course) was definitely the right choice here. Quickest of all possible rundowns:

Thursday night at Baton Rouge Gallery:

Readers included Lonely Christopher and Christian Bök. Wasn't entirely clear on how Lonely Christopher's name was functioning--is Lonely an indispensable adjective? His first name? Is that the name is parents gave him? (Still somewhat puzzled, never heard anyone refer to him as "Lonely" the whole night or anything but I think that might in fact be his name at this point. I would definitely have that be the case if I were him, anyway.) Anyway, irrelevant. He read from his book The Mechanics of Homosexual Intercourse and had amazing fashion sense. 


Christian Bök read us some stuff from his (twelve year) work in progress, the Xenotext Experiment. He's encoded (translated) a very particular poem into a DNA sequence he's implanting in an extremophile bacterium that's so patently unkillable it could legitimately outlive the human race by a few billion years. No big deal. And also? The bacterium writes a "poem" (series of protiens that can be translated) in response to his poem. Well, it doesn't actually, yet. When he implanted the sequence into the bacterium's genome (this is very different from how I write poetry, by the way), it seemed pretty cool with it, but never went and produced the poetic protein in response. So, in his words, instead of producing the first microbial poet, he went and produced the "first microbial critic." Ha. Anyway, mind-blowing stuff. (UPDATE: Here's an interview on HTMLGiant with him.)


Also, the finger sandwiches provided were unspeakably amazing.

Friday:

Some sort of exclusive poetic luncheon for my Capstone class with Christian Bök and Douglas Kearney at the Faculty Club. Good conversation (and also tasty salad, always a plus. Arugula for the win, apparently); wish I would have made more of an effort to talk to Douglas Kearney, but I am generally averse to leaving my place for another table when there is my food in front of me. Ah well, still got my books signed. Also, learned that Canadians (and specifically Canadian writers, ala Christian Bök) actually do identify as a different group of people than Americans (and American writers). Who woulda thunk it?

Then later at the Black Box (what a strange space)! Kate Durbin, Lily Hoang, and Douglas Kearney! This was an incredible night of reading, possibly my favorite on sheer virtue of performance. Kate Durbin used audience participation (including bending of gender roles, exciting) to read from her work, an intense transcription of the life-denying reality TV show The Hills. Kate Durbin is an interesting character, and more than a little intimidating to me. Excellent outfits every time I've seen her, though (also in Chicago, there was a giant floor-length fur coat involved), and my friends are huge fangirls. 
Lily Hoang read an interesting fiction piece with a cringey ending. Don't know much about her, but good words.
Douglas Kearney stole the night though--seriously, I was nearly physically knocked out of my seat by his performance. Crazy energy and charisma, and a spot-on (and dark!) sense of humor that made dealing with the serious kinds of issues he talks about (specifically, race) simultaneously more and less comfortable. Mind-blowing performances, though. If anyone ever gives you the choice between a poem about blackface and a poem about 'no homo', pick both.
Afterwards: go out the Spanish Moon. Drink. Have more weird conversation with Christian Bök. Drink. Follow poets to Radiobar, but do not talk to them again, only watch them from across the porch area. Drink. Drink.

Saturday:

Skipped the St. Patty's Day parade, because 16 hours straight of drinking is a little much. Finally got up just in time to get ready to go the the final night of readings at Red Star. Drink. Saw Jennifer Tamayo and Chris Shipman read, always a great pleasure, along with Lilian Yvonne-Bertram again, yay! Such good words. Also, Paul Killebrew, of whom I had never heard but whose stuff I really quite enjoyed. Yay surprise good words! Stalked the poets post-reading again, this time to Hounddogs. There was a bedazzled bullhorn employed at some length. Drink. Drink again.

Sunday:

Ok, Delta Mouth had already finished by Sunday, but I did go to brunch with friends at the Chimes and then have an amazingly lazy Sunday involving Deep Blue Sea, cheap champagne, some new-fangled edition of the game LIFE apparently for post-modern children, (then leftover brunch) and The Last Unicorn, which is a truly amazing movie. A decidedly unpoetic day, but much needed.

All in all, an [enter some kind of positive superfluous adjective here, I've used to many in this post already] weekend. Somewhat like gorging on a nonstop buffet of decadent desserts all weekend, except the desserts are made of words and their filling is long nights of liquor. There have been worse weekends, by far.

When in the Windy City... Part II, or, How I Yearn to Be a City Girl

Well, this has been somewhat delayed (surprise). I am long since back in the BR, but immediately following my return I was knocked to the bowels of Hell and back by midterm week. Serves me right for having so much damn fun, I guess. None of my classes even actually have midterm exams, so not exactly sure what happened there. After (barely) surviving that, I had an excellent weekend of decompression, free from troublesome "thinking" and as a result am again trying to stay on my feet during another hectic (but infinitely more manageable) week. So close to that big tasseled finish line that I can almost taste the ink on my diploma.

The Bean! So shiny!

In any case, here are some more reasons I love Chicago, even aside from the word-tastic bonanza that was AWP. Though I had nothing against the city before visiting, the thought of moving there had never even skittered across my mind. Now not only has it crossed my mind, it has stopped to pointedly lounge there. Chicago is now officially An Option. Why?

First: TRAINS. And buses, but mostly trains.
Let me get this straight: I hate driving. Yes, the autonomous convenience is nice. The act itself is unobjectionable to me, if tedious. But then there's parking. And ill-timed lights. And roadwork. And thousands of other people with questionable cognitive function, each operating a couple tins of high-speed metal mere feet from yours. And all of the other peeves that while I'm driving make my sanity die a thousand tiny deaths. But above and beyond all that, there is the personal hell of relying on my navigational skills to find the best (or any) route from point A to point B. I've lived in this city my whole life and I'm still perpetually one wrong turn away from a "WHERE AM I" panic attack. Been to a place half a dozen times? Nope, I will still need detailed directions, preferably with a map and homing beacon. I really can't emphasize enough how comically unavoidable it is for me to get utterly lost.
But: Chicago. New city, big city. And I have to get from home base to downtown and back, and all the jukejoints and eateries in between (more on those in a sec) all by myself and without the smarmy but indispensable guidance of a smart phone (luckily, my radiant hostess was always but a frantic text away). And   I did it. Nigh flawlessly, at that. Why? Because of the boundless marvel that is the Chicago Transit Authority and their blessed rainbow of trains. Trains that run every few minutes, that pick you up and drop you off at whichever of the well-marked fixed stops on that line is most convenient to you. Probably it is within spitting distance of wherever you need to be. Even if you need to walk a few blocks, it's not a problem, because Chicago is laid out on a grid, like any decent city should be. Despite Chicagoians disconcerting insistence on navigating by cardinal directions (again, turns out this works on a grid), I always managed to get where I needed to be, without even a tiny nervous breakdown. It was like a switch flipped in my head--all of a sudden figuring out where things were made sense. I could locate and correctly utilize the major streets in my home-base neighborhood, Logan Square, not to mention the whole damn Blue Line, in less than a day. It was nothing short of a miracle. When I realized this, I nearly wept with joy. Trains, man.

[If I had one, I would insert a picture here of me hugging a train]

Instead, some "art" at the Logan Street station. Our neighborhood had no shortage of mustaches.

Also: tasty, tasty things. Everywhere. 

I was constantly sampling the eatums and drinkums around Chicago, and never once was I disappointed by a recommendation or an outing (well, excluding that taco place, but I wasn't even supposed to be there and even that wasn't atrocious). Not only was I not disappointed, I devoured with gusto and crumb-spewing exclamations of glee most everything within reach (other tables' food was off-limits, but there were some close calls). And all this considering most of what I ordered was well out of my gustatory comfort, normally a cause of great hesitation. It must be said: Absolutely no regrets.

Sample dishes: -pizza with tomato, mozzarella, fresh basil & balsamic reduction--I had been craving this since Italy and had no idea until that moment (from The Boiler Room); 

-gouda, walnut, & apple omelet, and a beermosa! (from The Handlebar);

-ridiculously delicious vegan Italian meatball sub (from Native Foods) 

-late-night chicken hoagie (from Marble, the nicest "dive" bar I've ever been to);

-black pepper, fig, and vanilla latte--sounds weird, but stupid tasty (from Cafe Mustache)

Those are just some highlights. And that's not even counting all of the enticing beers and fabulously decadent cocktails I demolished around town.

And last but never least: excellent friend in an excellent neighborhood.

I had the extreme good fortune to have my dear friend Amanda Sager put me up at her place for the weekend and take the best care of my little Southern belle self. Like I said, I was enamored with the city (I've always maintained that I'm secretly a Yankee), but I could never have done it without her unceasing generosity. And I was lucky enough to live out of her charming apartment in a neighborhood I immediately adored. 

Representative street, taken as a "shortcut" through Logan Square

A train station on the corner and another close by, great bars, coffee and eats everywhere, and lots of good people. I couldn't ask for too much more. Sure, I'd have to buy some wool socks and an extra set of thermals or three, but even as I stepped into Baton Rouge (75 and sunny on the first week of March), I already missed the bluster and fun of Chicago. Will definitely be back.

When in the Windy City... Part I

Ok, so: I am in Chicago!

Just got through my second day of my first (only?) AWP conference, and the third day of my first real visit to my first real US city. And it's a Yankee city at that. I find myself very conscious of my unceasing repetition of "y'all". In any case, having a fantastic time. This semester, as I've mentioned to many a friend and acquaintance, my mission statement seems to be: "act like a 'writer' (actual writing optional)". This weekend is the epitome of that. It has been ALL WORDS, ALL THE TIME. Never before have I made my way through a crowded location and realized that the average topic of discussion is something like the pros and cons of hendecasyllabic meter. It is fantastic and somehow unnerving. Also, I have never seen so many people looking so ostentatiously like "writers" gathered in the same place (yes, this includes me). Also somewhat unnerving.

[Don't actually have a legit picture of this so just insert a generic mental image of the writerly type here]

Thursday, I went to a couple of panels on translating poetry--one more general, one specifically focusing on capturing music in poetry (Ilya Kaminsky was a panelist in the latter, and he was stupendous). Then went to a reading for my friends at smoking glue gun (they just released their super volume 2, check that stuff out!) and OH NO Books. Good times, great poetry, even was on the winning side of a game of pool, which is kind of a big deal for me. After some general car confusion--I would never, ever drive in this city--we made it to another reading at some goth bar. There were some unclear parameters to this one involving scheduling and intimate readings in the bathroom; I never really figured it out, but it was a fun time anyway, with some great names/people/poets there.

Jennifer Tamayo and Lara Glenum

[Add about another hundred or so super blurry pictures of poets and you have the general idea of my camera roll for the night.]

Spent most of my time at the bookfair today--acres and acres of every single press and literary journal that could squeeze a toe in the door. This is where I discovered the most important part of AWP:

SWAG.

So. Much. Stuff. About 75%+ of the stuff pictured above (100% of the non-book stuff) was FREE. People give away their literary journals so you will read their words! How amazing!  Also all the bookmarks, magnets, pins, matchbooks, and a flashdrive. This is not even including all the candy and other consumables they spread out on the tables to lure you over. My favorite: a shot of Jameson from Whiskey Island (yes, that deserves a plug). Also collected a stack probably several inches high of submissions and contest guidelines for various journals, so that's incredibly useful. I fibbed to  lot of the table attendants and told them I did poetry with some dabbling in creative nonfiction, and found out that everybody wants to beef up their creative nonfiction submissions. Also there were/are several upon several panels at the conference on the topic. So that seems like the place to be, I guess. I should look into that. 

PS: Holy Homer! New Orleans is getting a Poetry Brothel! Score!

Well, the rearrival of my gracious hostess is imminent, so I will make this a multi-parter. Too much fun!