I’m returning from my summer hiatus with very exciting news: SpringGun Press is publishing my first full-length collection of poems, The Silhouettes, in early 2012! I’m looking forward to working with editors Mark Rockswold and Erin Costello in making the Word doc I’ve been revising for three years into something real that you can hold in your hands. Also, I can’t wait to read their other forthcoming titles, The Container Store by Joe Hall & Chad Hardy and The Flasher by Adam Peterson. These books will be available for purchase at AWP Chicago in March and through the SpringGun website. More info on readings to come!

And the fun doesn’t stop. There are a slew of readings happening this weekend:

Tonight! Friday, September 30 @ 7pm *** Stain of Poetry:  Adam Fell, Amy Lawless, Matt L. Rohrer, Mike Soto, & Eric Weinstein *** Goodbye Blue Monday, 1087 Broadway, Brooklyn

Saturday, October 1 @ 8pm *** SUPERMACHINE: Dan Boehl, Lisa Ciccarello, Julia Cohen, & Dan Hoy  *** Outpost, 1014 Fulton Street, Brooklyn

Sunday, October 2 @ 5pm *** Polestar Poetry Series: Siamese Dream: Poems Inspired by the Smashing Pumpkins *** Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow Street, NYC

Sunday, October 2 @ 5:30pm *** Zinc Bar Reading Series: John Coletti, Arlo Quint, & Paige Taggart  *** Zinc Bar, 82 West 3rd Street, NYC

Finally, beloved Pioneer Valley book store Flying Object is having an Occupy Wall Street Book Sale. 50% of the proceeds will go towards buying pizza for the protesters, including the poets who will be occupying Wall Street and giving a big reading tonight. I just bought David Berman’s Actual Air, Matthew Rohrer’s Destroyer And Preserver, Anna Swir’s Talking to My Body, and Dara Wier’s Reverse Rapture for only $5 each!

Also, because I’m a total dork, I listened to this song on repeat during my visit:

Saltgrass Issue #6: Cynthia Arrieu-King, Anselm Berrigan, Justin Carrol, Tina Brown Celona, J’Lyn Chapman, Cathy Linh Che, Sandra Doller, Brian Foley, John Gallaher, Anne Cecelia Holmes & me, Heather Monley, and G.C. Waldrep.  All this poetry for only $5!

Salt Hill Issue #27: Poetry by Arlene Ang, Simeon Berry, Sean Bishop, Victoria Chang, Conchitina Cruz, Anna Deeny, Elisa Gabbert, Miriam Bird Greenberg, Carrie Hohmann, Amy King, me, Erika Meitner, Sarah Messer Carl Phillips, Kathleen Rooney, Christopher Salerno, Michael Shea, Eric Weinstein, Raúl Zurita; Fiction by Ryan Cannon, Patrick Dacey, Brian Evenson, Sharon White, Angela Woodward; Interview of Sam Lipsyte by Anthony Antoniadis, Dawn Raffel, Ryan Ridge; and art by Kim Asendorf. Buy it online now!

Also, I’m bummed that I’m missing the SUPERMACHINE BBQ at Flying Object this Sunday, May 29. If you’re in Western Mass this weekend it promises to be a Bud-Lite-with-Lime-drenched good time.

Issue 22 of Conduit just arrived in the mail. I have a poem in it! Along with work by Mary Jo Bang, Joe Bonomo, Charlie Clark, Robin Clarke, Chelsea Dappen, Scott Dolan, Joanne Dominque Dwyer, George Eklund, James Haug, Laird Hunt, Peter Hyland, Jesus E. Jambira, Noelle Kocot, Henji Koentjoro, Brad Liening, Ada Limón, Gina Litherland, Matt Longabcco, Jack Martin, Hoa Nguyen, Anne Ray, Ana Ristović, Michael Robins, Mary Ruefle, Manjari Sharma, Brandon Shimoda, Jason deCaires Taylor, Maja Teref, Steven Teref, Cody Todd, Scott Vincent, G.C. Waldrep, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, and Dean Young. The theme of the issue is “Deep Water: You, Me, and the Sea” and there’s also an interview with Philippe Cousteau Jr.

Issue 18 of Word For/Word went live last week. There are visual poems by Amy Kohut, John M. Bennett, Andrew Topel, Paul Siegell, Karl Kempton, Elizabeth Terrazas, bruno neiva, Michael Brandonisio, Rebecca Eddy, and Sean Burn; poem poems by Mónica Gomery, Stephen Ratcliffe, Anhvu Buchanan, Gracie Leavitt, Ian Seed, Jim Berger, Kara Imre, Sara Michas-Martin, Serena M. Tome, Karen Lepri, Kate Dougherty, Elizabeth Sanger, and Laura Kochman; and six “Shadow Boxes” by yours truly. The poems are partly inspired by Joseph Cornell’s boxes but I was also reading a lot of Moby Dick and Garance Doré’s fashion blog at the time.

I also have five new hat poems up on Delirious Hem as part of Seam Ripper: Women on Textual and Sartorial Style. Other contributors include Marisa Crawford, Khadijah Queen, Jackie Wang, Danielle Pafunda, Dolly Lemke, Yvette Thomas, Amy Boutell, Anna Lena Phillips, Nicole Steinberg, Jessica Bozek, Jennifer Tamayo, Danielle Roderick, jojo Lazar, Susan Yount, and Angela Veronica Wong, among many others. Did you know that wearing a wig with a giant ship on top was refered to as à la belle poule?

Finally, if you’re free on Sunday afternoon, you should stop by Cake Shop for Polestar Reading Series’ tribute to the Pixies’ Doolittle, hosted by the lovely Melissa Broder. I’m going to be reading with all these other fine folk:

When I was a senior, my best friend Megan sent me a mixtape with vital high school music, such as “Summer Babe” by Pavement, “Naomi” by Neutral Milk Hotel, and “Hey” by the Pixies. To this day it might be the best mix anyone has ever made for me and “Hey” is still one of my all-time favorite songs.

Here’s one of my favorite poems by Jeannie, from her sold-out chapbook The Age of Ferociousness (Agnes Fox Press, 2010). I think I’ve heard her read it two or three times and I’ll never get sick of it.

Natalie Portman Is Smarter Than I

She has a mole on her left cheek
I have a mole on my left cheek
They are called beauty marks
and we both have them
She is in movies. I saw
Mel Gibson getting into a car
across from the Post Office
She doesn’t love my cat
the way I love my cat and
she doesn’t know my middle name
I don’t know hers but I could easily find it
Natalie Portman speaks five languages
That’s not me
I don’t know how she feels about Starbucks
but when I’m out of town
sometimes I patronize Starbucks.

Tomorrow night (Saturday) I will be reading at Yardmeter Edition 18 with Molly Dorozenski, Ian Dreiblatt, Corinne Fitzpatrick, Deborah Poe, Christie Ann Reynolds, Anelise Chen, Cate Peebles, Nada Gordon, Shangxing Wang, Margaret Monaghan, and Macgregor Card. We’re all reading Wizard of Oz-themed poems in front of a projection of the movie. It will be kind of like a midnight matinee of the Rocky Horror Picture Show only with less fishnets. The reading starts at 7pm sharp at 267 Douglass Street in Brooklyn.

Following the reading I’m going to catch a cab to the Music Hall of Williamsburg to see Sharon Van Etten! Her new album, Epic, has been my soundtrack all crappy-winter-long. I hope she plays this song:

On Saturday night this is happening at Flying Object in Hadley, MA:

On Sunday I’ll be mixing up some bloody marys and will hopefully learn how to play Mahjong. Later that afternoon other good friends are reading poems at Eastworks in Easthampton, MA, at 5pm.

Get ready.

If you are a human being with a wicked sense of humor and you like beauty, you need to buy Sorry It’s So Small from Factory Hollow Press now.

In other Faster Times news, Anna Wiener wrote a great write-up of the SUPERMACHINE Issue 3 launch. It’s true, there were a lot of intimidatingly attractive people there.

Last week five of my hat poems were featured on No Tell Motel: “The History Of The Hat, Part 1″, “Wedding Hats, Part 1″, “Tudor-Style”, “Prince Albert’s Top Hat”, & “Wedding Hats, Part 2″. Then the lovely Paige Taggart found this amazing photo:

It feels kind of cosmic because not only is it a portrait of a mime (I think) wearing an incredible hat, but somebody named A. Ladewig signed the photo. Or the photo is of someone named A. Ladewig. Regardless, I have goosebumps.

Finally, all of this talk of fashion is getting me excited about Delirious Hem‘s upcoming feature Seam Ripper: Women on Textual & Sartorial Style. Consider submitting! Here are some recent photos from The Sartorialist to inspire you (click to enlarge):

Today feels like summer. This song sounds like summer.