Memoirous

All This Thinking: The Correspondence of Bernadette Mayer and Clark Coolidge Edited by Stephanie Anderson and Kristen Tapson University of New Mexico Press, 2022 I’m loosely connected to the Network for New York School Studies. I was part of a panel discussion last April where my focus was the intersection of flash in several New York School Poet’s work. I would have loved for the panel to have had more interaction—it was Zoom and we basically delivered remarks—but was happy for the chance to sit and hear others talk about a subject I love delving into: the New York School poetry scene. Recently, through an email update, I learned about All This Thinking: The Correspondence of Bernadette Mayer and Clark Coolidge , edited by Stephanie Anderson and Kristen Tapson. At the Network’s YouTube channel I listened in on a conversation between the two editors led by Rona Cran and Yasmine Shamma. Reading books of letters or published journals/diaries can be an incredible revelation into someone...

Also a Poet Ada Calhoun Grove Press, 2022 I’d recently been doing internet research into a quote I love: I’m out on a limb, and it is the arm of God. Frank O’Hara. This quote perfectly expresses how I feel when I begin a bike tour. It’s crazy to think frumpy me on my little bike crossing the country will actually make it. Soooo many things can end such a trip, like getting struck and killed by a car—or killed period by psychopaths, alligators, bears—you see where this road leads, down a hole of NO. It’s why most people don’t go or seek adventure; there are too many things to be afraid of. Out on a limb—check. The hand of God—yes. We are putting ourselves into the hands of destiny, seeing where it leads. Into the hands of a God who loves, who cares, where even I matter. It is an attitude of vulnerability, but also openness. Which describes Frank O’Hara and his attitude toward life. Thus, in my research of the quote, I discovered an article by Ada Calhoun (https://www.nytimes...

The latter part of September (the days and months blurred together before finally moving!) I participated in an online panel titled: What We Talk About When We Talk About the New York School: Online Symposium (September 2022): For pandemic-related and other reasons, lots of our members were unable to travel to Paris for our spring symposium. We held an online symposium in late September, in order to hear from some of the poets and scholars in question. The symposium featured poetry readings from Greg Masters and Matt Proctor, and talks from Wojciech Drag, Jane Hertenstein, Susannah Hollister and Emily Setina, Marcella Durand, and Molly Murray, as well as some free-flowing discussion and questions at the end. The programme of talks and readings is attached, and you can watch the event on our website or our Youtube channel. Though I’m proud of my contribution, I feel as though I could look a less washed out. I did try—I wore make up—I thought about lighting and previewed myself on-ca...