ARAOP Review

At Reading Local: Baltimore, Celeste Sollod has written a very nice and depthful review of Adam Robison and Other Poems. She focuses on several different poems in the book. Here's one thing she says:

Robinson’s rhythm and skill with language reflect wide-ranging sources. “Joe Louis” has the staccato rhythm of a boxing match. “The Skeptic” recalls the childhood jump rope rhyme “Rockin’ Robin” with “all the little birds/on Jaybird Street”, while “More” echoes James Joyce: “Swim I said yes she said I’d go swimming”.

Check it out! (The book is here.)

$3 Say, Poem -- now available $3 72pp $3 $3 $3

I just came out with my second book, SAY, POEM, published by my own Awesome Machine Press.

Imperfect, it is now available for $3 (shipping included). I'm reprinting to make it perfect, and then it will cost $10.

More info/Purchase here.

Feel free to share this in your Google Reader account.

What is the story behind Awesome Machine?
Well, this book, Say, Poem, is my MFA thesis project. I study at University of Baltimore, which has a cool focus on publishing. So for our theses, we not only have to complete a manuscript, but self-publish it, too. We are encouraged to come up with a press to make it "official." Many students already have their own publishing companies, myself included (mine is Publishing Genius).

I decided that it wouldn't be right to use Publishing Genius to self-publish this book because I won't treat this book the way I treat PG titles. Meaning, I'm only making a limited number of copies, I won't promote it as hard, and if someone submitted this book to PG, I don't know if I would have accepted it (not because I don't think it's good writing, but because it isn't quite the right book for PG at this time -- seriously).

At the same time that I was struggling with this decision, my band, Sweatpants, played a show and I thought I heard someone in the audience request "Awesome Machine" -- which isn't a song, and she had actually said something else. But it's a great name and, hearing it, my decision was made. I started the Awesome Machine imprint based entirely on mis-hearing a person in a crowded gay bar.

I want to make limited edition (which isn't to say "super high quality"--more like runs of 125) books with Awesome Machine because these books are wicked fun to make. It would be so simple. One of these days I'm going to do it.

Andy Devine Week (Roundup)

Michael Kimball, who wrote the afterword to WORDS, has been orchestrating Andy Devine Week. Thanks Michael! Here's what he wrapped up with:

There's an Andy Devine Sampler sprinkled around the internet machine. Besides pieces like Top Ten Implicit or Explicit Writing Tips and Plots, which have already been a part of Andy Devine Week, there is the chapbook As Day Same That the the Was Year at Chapbook Genius. There is also a short story called, "Away How She Then Went" and a small selection of Words That Should Not Be Used in Fiction at Unsaid 4, one of the single best issues of a literary magazine ever published. Plus, there is a lot more in the whole copies of WORDS at Publishing Genius. Plus, there is more from Andy Devine coming in New York Tyrant #8 and Unsaid #5. Thank you for reading this and being a part of Andy Devine Week.

Andy Devine Week (5)

Check out Andy Devine's story, As Day Same That the the Was Year, at Chapbook Genius. Stories so good live in WORDS, which PG just released on April 20.

PG Events This Weekend

Publishing Genius is spending April 23-24 at the 10th Annual Juniper Literary Festival in Amherst, MA. Stop by the table, hang out with Adam Robinson, Mike Young, Rachel B. Glaser. See panels and readings by Matthew Zapruder, Cathy Park Hong, Heather Christle, Dean Young, Dara Wier and more.

Meanwhile, Mairéad Byrne, whose book The Best of (What's Left of) Heaven is freshly home from the printer, is at the post_moot festival in Ohio.

On Saturday, April 24, Justin Sirois will read with Dorothea Lasky and CAConrad in Baltimore, at the IE Series.

If I've missed anything, use the comments!

Andy Devine Week (4)

There's 45 minutes left in Day 4 of the too-short Andy Devine Week.

Check out Andy Devine's life story, which Michael Kimball wrote on a postcard.

And the book that Andy Devine wrote is WORDS.

Mike Young on Life

". . . it is only through insistent and rigorous realization of the inherent strangeness in all the accommodation we call life--not just select and cute defamiliarization here and there--that life keeps rebecoming rich and sweet."

Books What I Got at AWP or Just After

Best bargain:

FC2's $5/ea

Most expensive:

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte (not pictured) (~$26.50) (worth it)

Best design overall:

Absence Where As by Nathalie (Nathanaël) Stephens (Nightboat)

Runners-up:

Flowers by Paul Killebrew (Canarium); Selenography by JM Wilkinson (Sidebrow)

Biggest "OMG-Where-Have-I-Been?" Press:

Canarium

Cleverest book cover, 4th best design:

Pathologies by William Walsh

Best use of a pop reference in design:

When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother by Melissa Broder (for the Some Girls nod)

Best designed journal that 9th Letter should learn from:

Annalemma

Best journal to touch:

Bateau

Most excited to read but probably won't:

La Medusa by Vanessa Place

Most awed by so far:

Black Life by Dorothea Lasky

Best bathtub read so far:

Poetry! Poetry! Poetry! by Peter Davis

Andy Devine Week (3)

Today for Andy Devine Week we're featuring two reviews.

J.A. Tyler at The Rumble calls the book "a kind of life-raft for the literary weary."

And Dylan Landis, at her blog, says "I am amazed to find myself joyful over the whole thing." And, "The book made me bizarrely happy."

Where can you get a copy? You can still get it at the PG site for $8, which is nuts. It's 107 pages long or something. I need to change that, and will, soon.

Andy Devine Week (2)

It's Day 2 of Andy Devine Week, which is just too short.

Today at JMWW, Andy exposes us to what inspired the book.

Enjoy it while it lasts. And why not head over to Goodreads and add it to your library?

At Goodreads, Gabriel Blackwell calls the book, "Just fucking incredible."

Thanks Gabriel!

Andy Devine Week (1)

Publishing Genius's newest book, WORDS, officially comes out tomorrow, which means right now it's Andy Devine Week.

Andy Devine Week doesn't happen often enough, and it's too short. (So if you want to post something about the mystery of Andy Devine, let me know and I will get you the kit.)

Today, enjoy Nik Perring's appreciation of the book.

And also enjoy this photo of me and Andy, taken after his reading at Baltimore's central library. This was my first opportunity to meet this author, and I found him to be a cantankerous egotist.

Faster Times interview

Michael Kimball, friend and author of Dear Everybody, interviewed me for The Faster Times. The interview is titled, "I Don't Actually Mention Michael Jackson," which is true; I don't. Check it out here.

Proofreading help

*UPDATE* Position has been filled. Thank you, everyone. *UPDATE*

I am looking for a volunteer -- someone who hasn't raised their hand lately -- to help me proofread my new book, "Say Poem."

It's a relatively short and easy book to proofread. Estimated work time for a person of extraordinary intelligence: 5-15 minutes. For everyone else: 1 hour.

Payment will be a copy of the finished book, a copy of my other book, and a couple other books.

Interested? PLEASE email me at adamrobinson -at- gmail dot com.

Stupid River Prize for Poetry

I am happy to announce that Adam Robison and Other Poems has won the Stupid River Prize for Poetry, second place, an award for first poetry books. The prize was awarded by Awesome Machine and did not include money, but did come with a handsome plaque:

So Awesome

Whoa, this is awesome.

The Show 'n Tell Show from The Show 'n Tell Show on Vimeo.

That's the intro for Zach Dodson and Michael Renaud's graphic design show. Sometimes I forget how awesome awesome can be.

Oops!

Here's another thing that I think has a high degree of holy macaroni, this video for David Robbins's "Ice Cream Social":

Everyday Genius, March (Laura Ellen Scott, editor)

Here is an excerpt list of the March 2010 posts.


March 1, Mon: Ravi Mangla
I sat next to Richard Yates on a plane to Los Angeles. He was knocking back glasses of bourbon. One, two, three, four … Nervous, I asked.

March 2, Tue: David Kaufmann
Attention now count the damns

Of remonstration the damn

Was cold was still damn

March 3, Wed: Kathryn Scanlan
She developed a dappled scarlet rash and used it as a passport. When at last it seemed as if no more good could come, she collapsed into a sweat and the doctor was called. He diagnosed an acute consumption of nerve.

March 4, Thur: Jimmy Chen
Which is how you ended up in the hospital, or, because we are in France right now, hôpital;

March 5, Fri: Barry Graham
The opossum in the far left lane, looking me in the eyes, just before I splattered his brains on the highway. My envy of his inability to fear death.

March 8, Mon: Ben White
And then I will quit. I will uninstall my copy, and I will walk away. For good this time. My computer will stick to running Microsoft Office, Firefox, iTunes, and the extensive collection of videos I have amassed in a hidden folder since the sixth grade.

March 9, Tue: Tara Laskowski
The ice screams as it folds over itself.

March 10, Wed: Gabriel Orgrease
And there was a cattail growing there in Brooklyn.

March 11, Thur: Danny Collier
The gods crown the woman. She gives speeches. The smiths forge iron. She wears the armor. She leads the troops. She crushes the enemy. She is victorious. She is betrayed. She falls. She is victorious despite this. Wounded, bleeding, she founds the Republic. She dies. She is victorious despite this.

March 12, Fri: Donna D. Vitucci
You cannot know her pain, and your imagining it is a slight form of honor, as well as choice betrayal.

March 15, Mon: Michelle Reale
She’d have cut a woman like that off at the knees before she had kids, but that seemed like such a long time ago and she knew that a leaking woman had no leverage.

March 16, Tue: Dawn Corrigan
Each of us wears a .45 and each of us is supposed to shoot the other if the other is behaving strangely. We sit still for a long time, until I feel itchy all over. Is my gun loaded? Suddenly I want to double check. Would he consider this strange, though?

March 17, Wed: Tamm Walters
The loose bachelor herd of wildebeests, having no territory to defend and therefore no stray estrous females to court, decided to make it a Blockbuster night.

March 18, Thur: Joseph Young
Facebook lived in midtown, for there the people and windows shone like water.

March 19, Fri: Kyle Hemmings
She woke up with lily pods in her eyes.

He rolled over with a strange hum . . .

March 22, Mon: Roxane Gay
They take pictures, then flip their cameras around and laugh and shout, “Dude!”

March 23, Tue: David Erlewine
When I wake up, he is upstairs, banging things around, yelling. A few minutes later, he unties me and leaves.

March 24, Wed: G. Walker
“So it’s true; they broke your arms and legs and put metal rods inside,” he said.

“It was an experiment,” she told him.

March 25, Thur: Jen Michalski
Keep moving, she would say. She would take his hand and pat it alive, stick it in her mouth, warm like that . . .

March 26, Fri: Erin Fitzgerald
There's a saying that all it takes to leave the adventuring life is one day in town. I just got tired.

March 29, Mon: Cami Park
There, there already, the wish, the air.

March 30, Tue: Robert Swartwood
You’re just eleven, she says. What do you know? She lets me drive back home.

March 31, Wed: Steve Himmer
And like that my days in the garden began to go by.