Ignition Sequence
Dear ones,
You can pre-order The Elegy Beta right now‼️
I can’t tell you how strange it feels to say that. This thing that has been puzzled over and prayed, batted around and fretted through for the most part, the best part, of a decade, shuttled over the ocean to Rome and back, ferried over the Puget Sound among the islands, and then sent winging to publishers in Virginia and NYC is now going to come walking onto the fields of praise as real as any other ordinary thing, shaking the sleep from its eyes. I just. It’s amazing. What a gift to get to do this work.
Come catch the first faltering steps and our book launch party. For details, see Appearances below or the Facebook event page.
I’m also excited because in a few moments, I’m going to head across campus to hear Mitchell S. Jackson read from his memoir Survival Math which I have assigned to my SPU students and which I have delighted in, nearly every page. Not only does he talk about his life between Portland and Seattle (we’re near neighbors, like, blocks away) driving around in a Datsun 210 (our car too) during the same years as I was growing up there, but he does so with this delicious Shakespearean/hip-hop inflected language that raises a smile over and over. The verbs this man conjures! the juxtapositions he pulls off! I can’t wait to hear him.
Appearances
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Ordo Conference is next weekend. If you want to hear my new poems, or songs from Liz Vice, or a chapter from Peter Moe‘s whale book, AND if you furthermore don’t want to pay the $65-$95 for the privilege, hit reply and I’ll send you a code to register for free. They told me I could give it out to friends, so that’s you guys, right?
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The Elegy Beta Launch Party
Queen Anne Book Company is hosting the official launch party on March 10th! Book signings! Door prizes! ⏰ 7pm
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New York Reading I’ll have to tell you more about this in a future mailing, because there is much to say, but east coast and/or traveling types can mark your calendars now. I’m reading poems with Brad Davis and D.S. Martin on Friday, April 24th in Manhattan.
Oddments
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The artist whose work graces the cover of The Elegy Beta has a gallery show in Los Angeles at the Leica Gallery. Scenesters, take note.
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AWP is coming up! Lots of my friends will be there (but not me, alas). If you’re going, be sure to stop by the Image booth and the Colorado Review booth, where my MFA colleague Brandon Krieg will by reading from his new book, Magnifier.
- 10 Things you Should Know About Anglicanism came across my feed from Crossway Books. Whatever you think of the content, just look at that design! The font, the spacing, the colors: someone over there (I assume the same people who designed the new ESV app) is doing fantastic work.
That’s it for now. See you all out there.