Three Things #13: Book Launches
Hello, it’s time once again for you to wonder why this email wasn’t filtered immediately into your spam folder. Well, I don’t mean to point fingers here, but you subscribed to my newsletter and then repeatedly failed to unsubscribe.
This is going to be short, so let’s get right to it.
First!
I was one of three readers last week at NAWP’s first event of 2025. They recorded it, and if they ever post the video, you should be able to find it here.
Second!
My in-person book launch will be held at Next Chapter Booksellers in St Paul.
Stop by at 6pm on February 25th!
I will read extended selections from Vessels, speak about the process that led to the book’s composition, and maybe even set out some writing prompts for the audience to attempt if they so choose.
Local poet Claire Wahmanholm will host, interrogating me mercilessly during cross-examination. (“Did you order the Code Red?” “You’re damn right I did!”)
“Hmm, Claire Wahmanholm...” you might be murmuring to yourself, “now, why does that name sound familiar?”
Well, my lovelies, it’s probably because while you cradled your copy of Vessels in your hands, you saw her name on the back cover, where she said this:
In Vessels, Robert van Vliet works as a medium, reminding us that foundational texts — in this case the I Ching, Thoreau’s writings, and the Nag Hammadi library — can constitute us as much as the news cycle. Here, past fortitude and present urgency scrape against each other like tectonic plates. In the tradition of such wisdom literature, van Vliet’s poems are koan-like, gnomic, paradoxical, shot through with uncertainty and stitched together with guesswork. But they are also unmistakably tangible: van Vliet shuffles the natural world and fans its elements before us like tarot cards — “a flat cloud stained like a bloody liver”; “a nest of hair above the dry lake”; “thunder swim[ming] over the mountains.” The subject matter of Vessels is nothing less than the act of poetic creation. Van Vliet invites us to consider how and why we make poetry, and how we might use it to survive these times.
Third!
But wait, what if you don’t live in the Twin Cities? Not to worry! In addition to the in-person event, I will also be holding an online book launch, sponsored by Unsolicited Press.
Like the pirate radio stations of yore, I will be taking over Unsolicited’s Youtube channel on Saturday, February 15th at 2pm CDT. (I chose that time so anyone in Europe can tune in after dinner, and anyone in Hawaii or Aotearoa/NZ can watch during breakfast.)
We will stream live here. No roadtrip or airfare necessary!
And I will be joined by a very special host, someone who has spent over thirty years studying me in captivity, reading and critiquing my work in every stage of composition (and at times committing the grave tactical error of laughing at some of my jokes, which is a very bad idea since it only encourages me).
Yes, that’s right: my wife, Ana Morel, will serve as MC and host.
In Summary!
- Online Book Launch: Saturday, February 15th at 2pm CDT, on Youtube
- In-person Book Launch: Tuesday, February 25th at 6pm CDT at Next Chapter Booksellers