Franz Wright and Daniel Ahearn (Ill Lit) and Michael Rozon (Brazzaville, Melvins) on the CD "Readings from Wheeling Motel"

"Readings From Wheeling Motel" is an album that consists of Franz Wright reading his poems coupled with music by Daniel Ahearn and Michael Rozon. I'm embedding one of the releases, "Night Flight Turbulence" in a YouTube video below.

As you'll see, the poem is pretty hard-hitting, but Wright's work melds well with the music and the video in the clip (neither of which are overdone). The bulk of the emphasis still remains on Wright's words, which makes sense, as they can more than carry their own weight.

The album reminds me a lot of "Die on Me," an album of beat poet Gregory Corso that was recorded about a week before his death from cancer. Like Wright's album, it was stark and resonant, but its music was stilted and at times, even a tad embarrassing, sometimes taking away from Corso's (usually fine) work. Wright's album doesn't seem to have that problem at all, so it is strong throughout.

A brief tangent: As far as the Wright clip goes, I was particularly taken by the combination of video and Wright reading in the YouTube clip, as that's still fairly new territory, and one that's being explored all over the web, including on YouTube and in Todd Boss's Motion Poems series. [Here's a Billy Collins poem on YouTube. Here's to hoping Mr. Wright joins Boss's Motionpoem Series.

Tangent over. Back to the album:

In short, if you have a writer on your list, or a spoken word fan, this is an album for them. Get it here: http://www.amazon.com/Readings-From-Wheeling-Motel/dp/B002N8WB2C

Or, you can check out Knopf's page: http://knopf.knopfdoubleday.com/2009/10/22/readings-from-wheeling-motel/

Minnesota Book Awards Nominee Readings, A Funny Blog, Old English Words, and Sad News About Bill Holm

OK, this is going to have to be a quick entry:

First thing, the Minnesota Book Awards folks just announced their finalists for poetry, and a pair of them are regular Knockout contributors: Todd Boss and Tim Nolan. In addition, two other fine MN writers, Heid Erdrich and Margaret Hasse, were nominated as well. All four are pretty fantastic (mr. bombastic), if you know what I'm saying.

Well, they're giving a reading. Here's the info:

Event: Reading by Minnesota Book Awards Poetry Finalists
"Come out and hear Todd Boss, Heid Erdrich, Margaret Hasse, and Tim Nolan"
What: Listening Party
Host: Barnes & Noble
Start Time: Thursday, April 2 at 7:00pm
End Time: Thursday, April 2 at 8:30pm
Where: Barnes & Noble--Har Mar Mall (Roseville, MN)

Next, I'm a bit of an incessant news reader. I stumbled across this article about the Oldest English Words. Now I'm not vouching for its accuracy, but it does seem strange that we might share a few words out of our vocab with our ancestors from a bazillion years ago. In retrospect, it does make sense--if it ain't broke...

If you've never heard about Stuff White People Like, then you're missing out. A tongue-in-cheek analysis of white culture and specifically, of twenty-somethings (like me) in the creative class, it's pretty spot on. In the interest, of full disclosure, I'm guilty of liking the following:

#109 The Onion
#112 Hummus
#99 Grammar
#11 Asian Girls
#81 Graduate School
#46 The Sunday New York Times
#44 Public Radio
#20 Being an expert on YOUR culture
#106 Facebook

Anyway, check it out, the website (and writing) is smart and funny, even though the humor comes at your own expense. Here's a link to the main page: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

Finally, sad news about a Minnesota standard. Bill Holm, best known as a poet and an essayist, died yesterday. He was 65. Read the Star Tribune article here. And if you haven't read it, check out his book The Music of Failure. The title essay's wonderful. Here's a link to Amazon.

---Brett

Quick reading list

Brett's currently reading:

Jon Krakauer, Under the Banner of Heaven
Barry Lopez, Crossing Open Ground
Ernest Shackleton, South
The Iliad, Fitzgerald Translation
George Orwell: Narrative Essays
George Orwell: Critical Essays

Got a bunch of other books kicking around too.

I just got these books for my b-day, hooray: The Thought Box

Just finished:

Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
Carl Sagan, The Varieties of Scientific Experience
Todd Boss, Yellowrocket
Barry Lopez, The Rediscovery of North America
Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Journals

It's alive!

OK folks, so check it out: First things first, we're brand new at this, so this blog should be changing quite a bit in the next few days. A few bits of tantalizing KO news:

(1) Todd Boss's first book, Yellowrocket, was just released by W.W. Norton. You can get the book here: http://www.amazon.com/Yellowrocket-Poems-Todd-Boss/dp/0393067688

Todd's also doing a pair of readings in the Bay Area next week. You can catch him here:

MONDAY 02-23-09 at 6:30 P.M.
AT BOOK PASSAGE, 1 FERRY BUILDING (NEIGHBORHOOD EMBARCADERO),
SAN FRANCISCO: http://www.bookpassage.com/

and here:

AT BLACK OAK BOOKS: TUESDAY 02-24-09 at 7:00 P.M. 1491 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley. http://www.blackoakbooks.com/

TODD BOSS: http://www.toddbosspoet.com/

(2) Tim Nolan's new book, The Sound Of It, was just released from the fine folks New Rivers Press. (Incidentially, Brett used to work there as an undergrad). You can pick the book up here: http://www.amazon.com/Sound-Many-Voices-Project/dp/0898232414

Also check out: http://www.newriverspress.com/

(3) If that weren't enough, these two fine fellas were just nominated for a Minnesota Book Award in Poetry along with Heid Erdrich and KO-friend Margaret Hasse. Check out more about that here: http://www.thefriends.org/news.htm#21stfinalists

(4) This list isn't definitive by any means. I'll be updating this list as soon as I can.

(5) In case you didn't know, we're giving 5% of our proceeds from our second issue (which was just released) to charity. We're donating to The Trevor Project (the Trevor Project), an organization that seeks to prevent suicide in the GLBTQ population. Check 'em out: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/.

(6) To that end (and just for the fun of it) we designed a few Knockout T-shirts, magnets, buttons, and so on. Again, proceeds from these products will go to KO and to our associated causes. So pick one up. A few of the designs are just silly. For these, you may blame Brett. (Yes, he likes dinosaurs. Especially this one: http://www.cafepress.com/knockoutpoetry.358218131.)

Check them all out: www.cafepress.com/knockoutpoetry

--OK, that's it for now. And spread the word about KO. We're doing our best to do good.

--Brett