OVER THE TOUR RECAP DUDE

So, so, so I went on that rad three-stop tour with bookmates Christopher Newgent and Brian Oliu, along with the incredible (read: HOW DID WE GET HIM TO COME WITH US) Matt Bell. A bunch of people and entities and webfaces have posted stuff about this wacky trip, so I'm gonna pull together a bunch of that goodness and add some yapping of my own. Okay, cool:

Our days went like (Wednesday big drive to Tuscaloosa and reading), (Thursday day off in Tuscaloosa; Peter Markus/Jenny Boully reading; DJ Oliu dance party!), (Friday drive to Atlanta; incredible Vouched ATL reading with Amy McDaniel, J Bradley, and Melysa Martinez), (Saturday drive to Nashville; chill coffee shop reading), and (Sunday 16 hours on the road; drop Bell off in Ann Arbor, back to Indy/Elwood). I ended up being in a car for like 2000 miles in five days. IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.



Christopher Newgent continues to lift up my literary coolness, steady my shaky idiothead, and be a better friend than most I've ever had. He continues to write super affecting sad stories and short snappy poems. He continues to yell out windows with me and throw his hands in the air with me. He began disc golf with me. He continues to drive me cool places. He is a solid fucking writer, more importantly, dude.


Matt Bell is one of the reasons I do this silly writing thing. He was the first "small press" writer I ever read/knew/met. He gave me my first chance to help with a press/magazine, with The Collagist. Because of geography/busyness, this is the first time we've got to hang out for an extended period of time. He's is one of the most thoughtful men I know, and by far, one of my favorite readers. Cataclysm Baby is bound to be a classic on my fiction shelf (and should be on yours too!). What an honor to get to pal around with him for five days.



Brian Oliu is a legit human being, that versatile creature. He holds it down as a DJ, writes some moving lyric essays, can yap-yap (good yapping) on and on about video games, sports, music, books, etc. etc. etc., and as Matt Bell said, "I still don't know what the Crimson Tide mascot looks like, but it should look like Brian Oliu, because he Roll Tides harder than anyone." This is the second time Oliu has hosted me as a reader and as a friend in Tuscaloosa and absolutely those are some of my favorite readings/nights in recent memories. KEEPS IT REAL is what I'm saying.

All three readings were spectacular in their own way. Tuscaloosa being overwhelming with that amazing MFA program's people coming out and talking and buying books and being nice. Atlanta being incredible, seeing the amazing Laura Straub of Vouched Books ATL do here thing, meeting some rad people (Michael Straub! Melysa Martinez! Amy McDaniel! Jamie Iredell! Kory Calico! ETC!), falling in love with that scene/city. Nashville chilling us out before our big Sunday drive, getting to poemyell in a coffee shop, eating the most expensive personal pan pizza of my life.

Basically what I'm saying is, I'm rejuvenated. Basically what I'm saying is, I'm going to keep doing this. Basically what I'm saying is, my brain and body are still mush from all the fun and words and booze. Basically what I'm saying is, HOW LUCKY I AM TO GET TO DRIVE AROUND AND READ WITH THESE THREE AMAZING GUYS. Basically what I'm saying is, I needed this and it happened. Basically what I'm saying, every person who came to a reading is amazing. Basically what I'm saying is, thank you so much for helping put me back together.

Here's a bunch of stuff from around the web and such that I liked a lot and wanna archive here and maybe you will like it too:

Laura Straub's recap of the Atlanta Reading

Jesse Bradley's recordings of each reader at the Atlanta Reading

Here is my video from that reading


Patrick Trotti did a nice little recap on the Tiny Hardcore blog

My Favorite Pictures from the Over The Top Tour Twitter






My Favorite posts from the Over The Top Tour Twitter

• Matt spends as much time on the phone w/ his wife as his loving Facebook posts would suggest.
• "It's just my spirit animal: enormously cocked dragons."- Matt
• "Let's go to a strip club tonight! We'll put the loose back in Tuscaloosa!"- Me
• Rest area? No thanks! We don't rest; we ROLL TIDE.
• "15yr old girls love sleeping."- Brian
• I WAMT SNUGGLES - Christopher
• Sex Tips By Strunk & White: if you double space after the period during cyber sex, it makes you look old.- Matt

Christopher Newgent's FB recap

1874.3 miles, and I don't have enough space to say all I could possibly say about last week's Over the Top Tour, but a quick spattering of highlights are that Matt Bell gets Seth Rogan voice after a few bourbons, Brian Oliu can keep a dance floor going for hours without the party dropping, playing disc golf in tank tops with Tyler Gobble could easily be a new favorite hobby, Laura Straub is as fantastic a reading series host as you might expect and will climb fences she's too scared to climb if you tell her to imagine a zombie situation, her husband Michael still has one of the best laughs ever, Amy McDaniel is the consummate party host, Michael Martone's to-read shelf has to be full to collapsing and I'm so happy to have my book on that shelf, it's always great to carve out time to laugh with Blake Butler and Jamie Iredell, and the Nashville crew of Todd Dills, John Minichillo, and Chet Weise is ultimately forgiving of 4 dudes crashing into their town and slobbering tired in their coffeeshops, still willing to support our books, to buy us wine and keep a tired conversation moving. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the 3 dudes who made the trip with me, and the hundreds of people who made it what it was. I could never tag you all here.

Brian Oliu FB Post

Happy Easter from a Nashville Airport Hotel! We are singing "Hungry Eyes". 5:30am flight back to Alabama. Gonna miss these dudes. Such a great few days & some really awesome readings.

Matt Bell's FB recap

A short selection of the things I learned this past week: That being a vegetarian in the south is about three times the commitment it is in the north. That the people of Tuscaloosa are great hosts and perhaps better dancers. That Laura Straub is among the best reading series hosts I've seen. That Tyler Gobble is the best part of a tank top. That Christopher Newgent is the only person I have never seen lose at arm wrestling (three bout minimum). That I still don't know what the Crimson Tide mascot looks like, but it should look like Brian Oliu, because he Roll Tides harder than anyone. That when Amy McDaniel invites you into her home she makes a mean vegetarian chili and a meaner chocolate chip cookie. That Jesse Bradley will kindly record your reading and have it posted to the internet before you can finish breakfast the next day. That fewer people will come to a reading in Nashville, but that all of them will come drinking afterward, winning their city some kind of percentage-based prize. That being on a Greyhound and then a car and then a car and then a car and then a car is well worth it, if its with these people, or brings you to them and many more. I'm very glad to be home and awaiting Jessica's return from her own travels, but also very grateful to everyone who made this past week so much fun.

Three Shaky Recordings of Me Reading Poems While I'm Driving

America, The Goodness

On Sex

April 27, 2011

"You can see everything from where you are standing"-- Some thoughts on Brian Oliu

This is what Oliu and I do: we hold up the ends of people groups! We so strong!

Terrific is one of those words that gets shoved into the pockets with the pennies because it is like great and awesome, with their exact meanings all wuzz? and relative, but I’m here to say no no no bozo this word terrific can be used for real. For me, terrific, like stoked or bummer, has specific criteria you wouldn’t wanna mess with, man. It’s a feeling. It takes a big booyeah. Here are three things: stoked-worthy, attentive, and unignorable. Brian Oliu’s lyric essays in Come See For Yourself are terrific, absolutely terrific. Lyric essays, and Oliu if you don’t know is an the funnest instruction manual, combine the personality of connectable CNF, the lyric love of poetry, and the descriptive elements of fiction. This is where stoked comes in for me, that uncontrollable joy, feeling of wanting to talk and talk with, about, to, inside of, beside of, never instead of. Attentiveness, awareness, a lens that matters is becoming more and more vital to me, and Oliu in every piece of his that I’ve ever read is a worthy lens as he moves around the state that these places matter. The memories, the planks of a bridge, they well up. And like his other writing (The UA Rec Center one from So You Know It’s Me comes to mind), the essays I’ve read from Level End, I can’t shake these, person reading this. I return to them for that feeling of knowing someone else has it, someone else gets as caught up in moments, memories, people, places, as much as I do. How I can’t pass Cody’s old house in Muncie (those nights a year ago, sitting on his porch, drinking forties, surviving the months after Sara left) or that one swing in my hometown (where Zach slammed me down to impress a girl, leaving me in the mulch, the girl I’d later kiss after my high school girlfriend broke up with me, the kiss that Zach would bring up as he dumped our friendship, the same swing I’d see two girls kiss for the first time, and I thought Eh.). As I now bounce around between towns and beds and couches, this collection reminds me why we have places, communities, locations at all. Invisible lines on the ground where shit happens. Little boxes in the brain to store all this goodness.

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My favorite pieces from Oliu's collection:

Burlington Country, New Jersey: oh how lovely how it expands out, the body of this story growing larger, stronger, more and more into this struggle. And those sentences, they stretch and unfold, remarkable.

Somerset County, New Jersey: "There's the woman who tried to cut her wrists into ribbons with the fragments of a soul disc, and so now there's no songs except the ones we try to sing to make the days go faster"; this essay one beauty hunk of a sentence brings beauty out of the sad, out of the unfortunate. I'm mesmerized by how it twinkles in the strangest places.

Warren County, New Jersey: I keep looking at this one, less than a page, the last one of the collection, and re-reading, perplexed at its weight, how far it travels on that tiny hardcore page. It goes from opening "According to this logic, everywhere we are is a gap in the water..." to ending "I should have never tried to put you behind me, and yet I have--the errors of my youth are here and you carry them graciously, hopefully, while I spin wheels in the mud hoping that the mystery never finds me." This is what Oliu does better than most people writing today: he both thinks and feels on the page at such a remarkably high level, a trait that is both inspiring and touching.

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It’s an honor to have my poems housed next to Oliu’s essays. He’s an absolute champion of the genre, the small press scene, and a lovable dude as well. I met him last winter when he visited Ball State with some Alabama students, and saw him again when I visited Bama with some of the Ball State crew. Whether in person or online, he is a stellar supporter and true-to-self human. I’m so stoked to see him again, to read with him, to see him DJ in Tuscaloosa.

Photos That Mean Something To This Whole Chapbook Thing or Maybe Not

Our book likes to learn!

Our book googles "peanut butter!"
Our book is an ace!
Our book hangs out with goats!
Here are some amazing drawings about the inspiration behind my poems!

Bunch Of Pals Asking Me Questions: Part 2

Who is your favorite NBA player of all time (and you can't say Michael Jordan)? - Ryan Rader

Scottie Pippen, hands down. As a kid, I was amazed by how well he played the sidekick role, how he did lots of things soooo well, yet never was THE GUY (okay, the MJ baseball years, he tried, man, he tried). I've always been impressed with hoopsters who can guard nearly every position, can seem comfortable in whatever position they need to be in, can fill up a stat sheet. And yes, I now realize probably he was a little jealous or something, but he got his rings and his Olympic stuff and his Hall of Fame spot. And most of the time, he was the second best player on the floor, and that is perfectly cool.

Just for kicks, My All-Time Team Made Up Of Players I've Actually Watched Play: PG- Steve Nash, SG- Brandon Roy, SF- Scottie Pippen, PF- Lamar Odom , C- Shaq

What is the pull/draw of elliptical poetry, which is your mode? What does it risk that other modes don't? - Todd McKinney

I’m in Layne’s living room and there it is an elliptical machine, a basic model, no fancy buttons or beeps, but the churn churn legs, and you’re absolutely right. This “elliptical” type deal is what I do. It’s how I live. It’s how I think. So, it is how I write.

First, my mom owned it. Then, I got married and she gave it to my wife. Then, I got divorced. My ex-wife didn’t want it, so I gave it to my best friend. Each person using it differently (my mom like a coatrack, Layne like a soapbox car going uphill). And me in my pjs staring at it each day, each place, each person in some far off place.

As far as the risks, I think it risks becoming too esoteric, too much of a self-centered process, too much of a stupid running circle that people don’t give a shit, don’t find relevance, don’t want anything from it. I think the reward for this risk though, hopefully, can be the personality shining through, the poet’s thinking being so wild and wacky and going-going that otherwise distant thoughts and perceptions get written in nice letters. It risks its audience so that maybe the speaker/writer and the audience can find something together!

Did I not answer the draw part? The draw is that it might be the only way I can write and feel like I’m being true to the T-Gob. It is what falls out of this dummy head of mine.

What are three things that help you write things you like? - Layne Ransom

1. See the writing process answer
2. READING IS CRUCIAL TO WRITING DUH. As I’ve become more into small press literature and working with Vouched Books, I read a lot of new books, as well as the new-to-me stuff that classes/friends presented. However, it is really important to me to return to those books that have seriously shaped my writing, or caused me to want to write in the first place, or remind me why I continue to write: Dean Young, Frank O’Hara, The Drunk Sonnets,
3. Doing shit. I had a coworker today say, You do a lot. Without hobbies, without wandering, without friend time, what the hell would I write about? What the hell would I live for?

Who is your favorite bartender of all time (and you can't say Michael Jordan)? - Ryan Rader

The Nicks. Nick (?) at Savage’s. Nick Teaford at Be Here Now.

What would be the critical analysis of your poems with dance? More specifically, what kind of dance are your poems? Basically, will you dance with me? - Mike Krutel

Maybe, maybe hopefully, it is as weird of a dance as that.

Or maybe my poems dance a little awkwardly, but that's just because it's a slow hump, and that gets the point across I guess.

Or maybe my poems dance like that dreadlocked guy I used to see at Fairfield Church hardcore shows, floor punching and spin kicking.

Probably they're a little too flustered to dance, but if they get up the courage, they'll surely dance with you!

Who in the indie lit community do you look up to most? - Laura Straub

Christopher Newgent - VOUCHED BOOKS IS THE COOLEST
Matt Bell - the commitment and work ethic yet still a real good human being
Ashley Farmer - She's the nicest person I've met in this scene and that counts for a lot in my book, people! Not to mention a freaking rad writer, that ability to be poetic and tell a cool story.
Mike Young - absolute for real wild mind
Roxane Gay - editor of one of my favorite journals and presses; serious blogger across the topics
J.A. Tyler - He is real! And he is relentless!
Heather Christle - The closest thing I've ever seen to lit magic.
Ryan Ridge - His ability to write across genres and to be funny or serious or neither or something wild.
Brian Oliu - Made me rethink "the essay;" is a constant online presence and still gets good writing to come out of his head; able to write "series" so well and that is something I am interested in doing.

Viscosity questions - Lauren Lowe

1. Thick or thin salsa? THICK
2. Thick or thin BBQ sauce? THICK

3. Chunky or creamy peanut butter? Creamy…and gotta be natural.

4. Maple syrup or honey? No contest: honey. Smash up a banana, drop a couple globs of creamy natural PB and a handful a raisins on top and soak in honey. BOOYEAH BREAKFAST.

5. Body wash or bar of soap? I still haven’t figured out how to use a bar of soap effectively.
6. Do you always squeeze your toothpaste from the bottom of the tube? I’m a mid-tube kinda dude.

7. Milkshake or sundae? Milkshake for its go-ability!
8. Bile, phlegm, urine, or blood? Ha. For what? Are we still talking about eating? My own or others? BLOOOOOD

9. Thick as thieves?

Film

Thick as Thieves (1998 film), a film directed by Scott Sanders

Thick as Thieves (2009 film), a film directed by Mimi Leder starring Morgan Freeman

Thick as Thieves (1991 film), a Canadian film featuring Tony Munch

Thick as Thieves, a 1999 pornographic film starring Buddy Jones

Literature

Thick as Thieves, a Hardy Boys Casefiles novel

Thick as Thieves, a novel by Marie Ferrarella

Thick as Thieves, a novel by Pat Quinn; basis for the 1998 film

Music

Thick as Thieves (album), an album by Trooper

Thick as Thieves, an album by Kicked in the Head

"Thick As Thieves" (Cavo song), a song by Cavo

"Thick as Thieves", a song by Dashboard Confessional from The Shade of Poison Trees

"Thick as Thieves", a song by The Jam from Setting Sons

"Thick as Thieves", a song by Kasabian from West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum

"Thick as Thieves", a song by Natalie Merchant from Ophelia

"Thick as Thieves", a song by The Others from Inward Parts

"Thick as Thieves", a song by Peter Wolf from Come as You Are

"Thick as Thieves", a song by Roxx Gang from The Voodoo You Love

"Thick as Thieves", a song by Short Stack from Shimmy a Go Go

"Thick as Thieves", a song by The Summer Set

"(You & Me) As Thick as Thieves", a song by Bang Bang Eche

Television

"Thick as Thieves" (Benson), an episode of Benson

"Thick as Thieves" (Cold Case), an episode of Cold Case

"Thick as Thieves" (Highlander: The Raven), an episode of Highlander: The Raven

"Thick as Thieves", an episode of All About Me

"Thick as Thieves", an episode of Born and Bred

Thick as Thieves (TV series), a 1974 British sitcom starring Bob Hoskins

10. Thick or thin skin? Who me? Depends on the day, the time of day, who I’m with, if I’ve had any food within the previous two hours, if I’ve been drinking, if I like you, if I like myself, if “I’m Bad” by LL Cool J is playing, the weather, the size of my to-read stack, how the heat changes the pigment of your cheeks.

11. Jello shots? No thanks.

12. What do you want to be poured on and is someone going to get impatient waiting for you to come out of the bottle? GROSS

14. Alan Thicke or Robin Thicke? Francis Thicke

15. Someone who lays it on too thick (writer, famous person, someone you know?) Doink The Clown

16. Someone who doesn't lay it on thick enough (writer, famous person, someone you know?)

I googled "Doesn't lay it on thick enough" and this picture was hit #1

17. Favorite pop culture interpretation or representation of slime?

We meet in an open field. U hand me the bk & something else. What is it & why we out here, anyway? - Layne Ransom

It’s a future copy of yr book and we read poems back and forth to each other until we fall down from joy.

Bunch Of Pals Asking Me Questions: Part 1

1. Have you always been stoked? What was the first thing you were stoked about? - Mark Neely

I’ve always felt this often-overwhelming appreciation/joy/rattling about the art and people and moments that “touch” me. Like weirdo life does, it has evolved. As a kid, I didn’t really know how to deal with it or what it meant, so I yapped and yapped about everything, sports and girls and trapper keeps and hair gel, but mostly about myself. As a teenager, I started listening to/hanging out with this local band, Away With Vega, and their lead singer, Zack Melton, who was about four years older than me, through girl troubles and school distractions and etcetera, would unleash at shows, dance around, flap his arms, boogie in the parking lot to Hall and Oates. And that was when I started letting my stoked-ness out, when I realized that was cool and okay and fun. When I like (here meaning really like it, feel it in the gut, can’t shake it) something, I holler. When I like something, I get on the interwebs and tell someone. When I like something, I throw dollars at it. Because a lot of my life is fogged by depression, shaded by social anxiety, lost in my own selfishness, being stoked is my defense mechanism, my way of being a normal loving human being.

The first thing I remember being stoked about was when I found an Ultimate Warrior action figure. I don’t remember my age. I was in elementary school, I think. It was at the Indy Toys R Us. I was shaking it above my head and going WOOT WOOT and my mom was like I’M NOT WAITING ON YOU ANYMORE and gave me twenty bux and waited in the car.

2. What is your writing process? - Jim Chambers

It is something like this:

- I’m not good at going from blank page to full draft. I start with a cluster of words. Example include: I’ll do an erasure of a blog post that I really liked, I’ll take some phrases from my phone that I’ve typed in an ongoing Note of possible lines, I’ll do a sestina, etc. A lot of this starting material eventually gets edited out or changed, but it gives me a place to start. Most of the clustering is done on my phone or on paper. About half of my drafting is done on paper. The other half is done on the computer.

- Most of my poems, especially in this book, have been through 6-10 drafts, the earlier ones being major revisions and changes, the later ones being tightening of language, word choice, that type of stuff. I typically edit on the computer, though I used to be that dude with a stack of printed poems, scribbling edits on the bus.

- A big part of my process is exchanging with trusted friends and writers. These include (and are not limited to) Layne Ransom, Laura Straub, Diana Salier, Christopher Newgent, Mike Krutel, and Todd McKinney. I never send first or second, usually not even third drafts, to these people. This is like the step right before I’m thinking of sending the poems to a journal, unless a special case arises. This is vital for me.

- Revising never really stops for me. I still edit poems from my first chapbooks.

3. You leave your book in three places. What are those places and who do you hope finds them?- Layne Ransom

1. In a random mailbox; the owner of that mailbox.

2. In a disc golf basket; some rad golfer who just hit his/her first ace.

3. My urn; some nice person who is interested in how my ashes are doing.

4. Was there a defining moment in your life when you knew you had to write or have you always been a writer? - Laura Straub

AND

I find origin stories fascinating. Growing up in small town Indiana, how did you come to writing poetry? - Christopher Newgent

I didn’t read a book, like engage with a book, care about a book, until I was 16. It was The Great Gatsby. (And though I love the book still, I have no clue how that was the book!) From there, I read more classics, then read some contemporary stuff that intrigued me in my late teen years like Eggers and Klosterman (Also, this journal-type book by the sports talker Mike Greenberg called Why My Wife Thinks I'm An Idiot had a strange effect on me. I remember that was the first moment I cared about other people expressing themselves.), then I found the BSU Writers Community my freshman year of college and it has been all rolling up and down a stupid hill since then. Defining moment: I’d say when Todd McKinney read a Dean Young poem at Writers Community. It was the magical experience of community and energy and discovery. Writing made sense as a contemporary living thing after that moment.

5. Where do babies come from? - Ryan Rader

Go ask your mother.

6. If your book were a song what would it sound like? Who would play it? - Layne Ransom

I’ve actually been thinking lately, after hearing Matt Hart’s band Travel’s new album (which comes with his new book) (which puts a bunch of his poems to songs), that I’d love to try this with some of my poems.

Problem is: I don’t know how to make music.

Solution: I have some talented music friends.

Dream friend backing band: Ryan Rader, bass; Cody Davis, drums; Christopher Newgent, guitar; Frank Schweikhardt, guitar; Layne Ransom, keys; Nick Teaford, anything he wants as long as he’s a part of it.

Sound: My goal would probably be like part State Champion (the start/stop pulse), part Cap’n Jazz (the wackiness), and part In The Face of War (the spirit, man, the energy).

Even talking in this Word Doc about this makes me overwhelmed with anxiety and regret. The biggest regret of my teenage years is not learning an instrument. The people I listed above are such for real artists, in my mind. I don’t know if I could handle it.

7. If you were a cocktail, what would you be? - Laura Straub

8. Do you ever think about names for your hypothetical children? And what are they? - Ryan Rader

You know, the whole 2ish years I was married, I never really thought about or wanted kids. We did have names picked out (girl: Kaylee Sue—combo of our middle names + both of our moms’ middle names) (boy: Zachary Evan—my best friend’s name + a name we both thought was neat). Now, I think about kids constantly, probably because I’m around them all day, probably because I wanna go back back back. Names now: (girl: Maggie Sue) (boy: Abraham Evan). Those first names are built for camping and riding bicycles and being read poems and living in a cabin. We should all be so lucky.

10. When will there be daily meetings about you? - Ashley Farmer

That is a freaking question! It should be soon, as much as I’ve been hollering, as much of a mess as I’ve been making. On a hospital bed with my arm inches out of socket, I thought the next day they’d start. The last time I told a human I loved them, but not myself, I thought it’d start. The last time I flew a kite with 27 first graders and I was the one who refused to go inside, I thought it’d start. But that’s all a bunch of boo-ha-ha anyways. Imagine the cost of such operations, tremendous!

11. What is Your Favorite Painting Tonight? - Ashley Farmer

Most previous nights, I'd say Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist) by Pollock, that wild emotional mess. I stood in front of that thing with my ex-wife, then girlfriend, and we both said WOW. That was a good word then.

Now, though, Tonight, as you say, I'd say, every 8.5x11 white construction paper sheet doused and dripped and rubbed with water color pictures of flowers that my kids made today, hanging from yarn and paper clips around the classroom. Some are blue tulips smiled on by the sun. Some are hunks. Some have hatchets centimeters from the stem. Some have red Xs where the artist wanted to quit but I wouldn't let them, wouldn't give them a new sheet. They are the most beautiful things I've ever seen created.

12. What do you think of these rising gas prices? - Laura Straub

It suxxxxxxxxxxxxx. I haven’t owned a vehicle for four and a half years. A month ago, I bought an S10 pickup. That first time I filled up, fifty bux, that sucked. Then, I remembered how much I spend per gallon of booze and I thought SHUT UP YOU IDIOT.

THE FULLNESS OF EVERYTHING THAT IS GONNA HAPPEN WHEN WE GO OVER THE TOP

My chapbook, Goodness is a Fine Thing to Chase, is in an anthology of sorts called The Fullness of Everything, accompanied by a rad short story chapbook by Christopher Newgent and an awesome collection of lyric essays by Brian Oliu. It is out now(ish) from Tiny Hardcore Press.

To celebrate, we are heading out together on a mini-tour next week, along with Matt Bell, whose newest book, Cataclysm Baby, is out now(ish) from MudLuscious Press. We will be hitting Tuscaloosa, Atlanta, and Nashville. GUESS WHAT IM STOKED.

Christopher and I will also be lugging the Vouched Books table along with us, equaling more books which equals more fun, duh!

Also, we want to arm wrestle. I'll also regular wrestle or maybe even fight you if that is what you want. I'm a people pleaser.



Here is more info on each of those dates:

April 4th - Tuscaloosa, AL
Green Bar, 2209 4th Street
w/ Marsha McSpadden & Ashley McWaters
7pm

April 6th - Atlanta, GA
Goat Farm, 1200 Foster Street
w/ J. Bradley & Melysa Martinez
8pm

April 7th - Nashville, TN
Portland Brew East, 1921 Eastland Avenue
w/ Todd Dills
6pm

If you're in the area for any of these readings, I really hope you can make it out. We can laugh and talk about words and probably be pals (at least for a night! Maybe longer!). We will have copies of our book for sale.

If you can't make it to a reading and would like to help out, buy a book, share the Facebook events/flyer, or just say what's up on the web. WE ARE REALLY APPRECIATIVE PEOPLE SO THANX.

In the next week, I'll be blogging here about the two other chapbooks in the collection, my own contribution, and Matt Bell's writing, as well as a mass interview where I've been letting anyone who wants to ask me a question on FB/Twitter do just that and I'll answer them (Also, leave a question in the comments, if you want; it can be about the book, my writing, my life, nothing at all!). Other possible posts include videos of me reading poems from the book in awkward places, picture updates, and other weirdo proof of living.

I LIKE YOU A LOT.

The Fullness of Everything

So stoked that my chapbook, Goodness is a Fine Thing to Chase, is being released by Tiny Hardcore Press in an anthology featuring a chap of rad stories by Christopher Newgent and a chap of awesome lyric essays by Brian Oliu. The book drops in April but you can preorder it now. Looking at that page over and over throughout today has me still shockedhonoredsmileecstatic. Big woots to those two dudes for letting my words hang beside theirs. Big thanks to Roxane Gay for believing in us.

MORE INFO HERE