Category Archives: Travel

Erode (v): to gnaw away

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As I’ve mentioned (indirectly) my latest project has to do with erosion and erasure as a process of language erosion. Recently some friends and I went camping at Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland (the skinny northern part). The landforms we were bouldering to and around, Wolf Rock and Chimney Rock,  were ultimately the result of erosion. The mountains themselves used to be much much higher, but have cascaded around themselves over time, with massive beautiful white stacks of rock (quartzite) remaining while softer materials have eroded away. The resulting rock structures are stunning stacks, deep crevices, and massive boulders.

Here are a few shots from the trip:

Association (n): A body of persons who have combined to execute a common purpose or advance a common cause

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This year’s AWP in Denver was productive and fun and sleepless and mile high. Highlights include: Ahsahta Press reading off-site at the Magnolia ballroom–especially Ben Doller (new faculty at Mason, we’re excited to have him), Dan Beachy-Quick (always), and Rusty Morrison; Ahsahta reading on-site with Susan Tichy, Sandra Doller, Julie Car, Kate Greenstreet and Rachel Loden; some panels about the MFA and academia that made me feel simultaneously excited to shoot for a PhD and incredibly frightened; Etruscan Press Reading–esp Jennifer Atkinson and Bruce Bond; Orbiting Salt reading with Ryan Call (miss his face) and Blake Butler; off-site randomness with the Typewriter Girls (not that they were good, but the randomness and the company and the escape with too many people in the back-seat of a cab was fun); Joe Hall signing my copy of Pigafetta is My Wife in silver sharpie; hang time with Mason alums and making new friends; talking to authors and editors I like; off-site Denver Quarterly reading with Dan Beachy-Quick, Brian Teare, Cole Swensen and others; HTML Giant festivities (despite the long and blister-inducing walk… I’m dumb); meeting Phoebe contributors; spending too much money on beautiful books (though some I received in trade for Phoebe or was gifted).

Here’s the literary lot:

* Pigafetta is My Wife – Joe Hall (Black Ocean)
* Oh – Cole Swensen (Apogee)
* Bluets – Maggie Nelson (Wave Books)
* Little White Shadow – Mary Ruefle (Wave Books)
* Stone Lyre – Nancy Naomi Carlson’s translations of Rene Char (Tupelo)
* Undersleep – Julie Doxsee (Black Ocean)
* Objects for a Fog Death – Julie Doxsee (Black Ocean)
* New Exercises – Franck Andre Jamme transl. by Charles Borkhuis (Wave Books)

Journals/anthologies:

* DIAGRAM’s 10th Anniversary deck of cards

* Ecopoetics no. 6/7

* NO Colony

* Bat City Review

* Salt Hill

* Fact-Simile

* Nano Fiction (x2)

* Bust Down the Door & Eat All the Chickens #9

* Ninth Letter

Beautiful chapbooks:

* Arbor – Melissa Ginsberg (New Michigan)
* Mistranslating Neruda – Matt Mason (New Michigan)
* Our Aperture – Ander Monson (New Michigan)
* mid winter – Matt Reeck (Fact-Simile)
* Point of Intersection – Joseph Cooper (Fact-Simile)

Also:
* A snazzy Smartish Pace duct tape wallet (gifted to me in trade for Phoebe, and I am so happy)

Oh dear lord there’s a lot to link in here and it’s 2:30am… I hope I actually get to do that. For now there’s always Google.