The best thing I've written lately I didn

Saltgrass 4

The new issue of Saltgrass is HERE. Saltgrass is a sleeping giant amongst literary magazines. It has a low-key, thoughtful production value (about 5.5" by 8.5", perfect bound, about 60 pages in length). It always contains work that feels contemporary and vital. I feel proud to be in this issue along with:

Laura Solomon, G.C. Waldrep, Cecily Iddings, Anne Boyer, Ish Klein, Claire Hero, Hugh Merwin, Jason Bredle, Karla Kelsey, Lisa Ciccarello, Danielle Pafunda, Brett Price, Genya Turovskaya, Maureen Thorson, Ron Rash

Thanks, Julia Cohen and Abigail Holstein

FOU

I have a poem in the new issue of FOU, which looks rad and is full of people whose poems I love to read.


Thanks Cate Peebles, David Sewell and Brad Soucy

I Have a Reading

I have a reading. I am excited to read with my friends, Sam Starkweather and Paige Taggart. Sam and Paige have poems published in tons of places. You can read some poems by Sam, HERE. And you can read some poems by Paige, HERE.

Also, we are reading at the Sycamore a classy bar with a flower shop out front and a nice intimate reading room downstairs. It will be great.

Thanks Jessica Dessner for having me at your reading series.

ok,
Ben

I'm stoked / FUUUUUUCCCKKKKK

I just got this email from Octopus Books, one of my favorite poetry presses. I'm blogging about it because I hope maybe it will make me feel less like I was one number away from winning the lottery:

From: Octopus Books (octopusmagazine@gmail.com)
You may not know this sender.Mark as safe|Mark as junk
Sent: Fri 9/11/09 3:58 PM
To:
TWO announcements from Octopus Books:

ANNOUNCEMENT #1: April Open Reading Period Results

After spending quality time with 350 manuscripts, we have chosen to
publish the following two titles in the fall of 2010:

Where We Think it Should Go by Claire Becker
People are Tiny in Paintings of China by Cynthia Arrieu-King

Finalists:

Post-Moxie by Julia Story (forthcoming from Sarabande Books)
Jerusalem by Susan Briante
Flag by Noah Eli Gordon (now titled Zeros to the Left forthcoming from
Quale Press)
Ghost Machine by Ben Mirov
If Nothing Else by Barbara Maloutas
Kings of the Fucking Sea by Dan Boehl
Our Little Oxygen Concert by Patrick Culliton
The Cold War by Kathleen Ossip
The Next Monsters by Julie Doxsee
Goat in the Snow by Emily Pettit
Everything Here is Ok by Sasha Fletcher
Fastopia! by Alex Phillips
Almost Dorothy by Neil de la Flor (forthcoming from Marsh Hawk Press)

Thank you, Zachary Schomburg and Mathias Svalina. I will probably still send you my manuscript for the next ten years until you decide to publish it.

ok,
Ben

I Make Lists of Things I Like So I Can Share Them With You

Moonmilk by Ryan McGinley (reblogged from Ken Baumann's Twitter feed).








Phil'z Coffee in San Francisco is made by wizards. I am not fucking around. Wizards.

CUE journal has gone from being a classy print journal to a classy online journal. I like these poems by Sarah Manguso and this prose poem thing by Dorthea Lasky.

THIS is an essay written by an amazing poet that I love about an amazing poet that I love.

Then there is this.

I can't get over Hernan Bas (First seen by me in this photo of Mark Bibbins and Richard Howard reading at the Brooklyn Museum).






Carl Sagan's Cosmos is rad.

I also like hyperlinks.

The last issue of Puppy Flowers contains a piece called Island Time by Simon Evans and a wonderful poem by Matthew Zapruder called Eyes Wide Shut.

Leave me comments about anything. I like those too.

Yers,
Ben

NEW LIT

L I T got a makeover. Come visit our new digs HERE. You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook. I don't wanna say too much, but our next issue is gonna be dooooope. Check out the lineup from our last issue and send yer poems (or your prose) to one of the classiest journals in existence.

Thank You for Your Time,
Ben