Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Flying to the UK tonight to launch my new Carcanet book of poems. Bittersweet feeling, actually. 12 years ago, when I was deciding between moving to the UK or the US, I plumped for the latter because it was terra incognito to me. It felt right to start a new life in a country completely new to me. The US has since given me so much. The encouragement and opportunity to come out as a gay man. Superb poetry teachers and exemplars. Friends and lovers. New York City. But the US has not embraced my poetry. I'm grateful to Roxanne Hoffman for publishing my first chapbook and to various fine independent journals for publishing my poems. My work had not, however, found favor with any of the big poetry journals and publishers. After years of contest submissions and payments, I decided to self-publish my books and found a great deal of satisfaction in the process and result. I'm ever so pleased, and surprised, when individuals tell me how much they like my work. Still, the niggling feel...

Roxanne Hoffman of Poets Wear Prada Press took a chance on me and published my very first book Payday Loans . I'm happy to learn from her this morning that the book has sold the most number of copies in the month of January on Amazon.

It was a very successful outing for Singapore Poetry at the Rainbow Book Fair yesterday. Sold lots of books and talked to lots of interesting people who stopped by the table. Michael Broder, representing A Midsummer's Night Press, was at the next table. Roxanne Hoffman and her Poets Wear Prada Press was just behind me. Paul Rozario, who was kind enough to help man the table for part of the day, discovered a talent for selling books by chatting people up! We gave out the bookmarks promoting the Singapore Literature Festival in New York in October. I enjoyed reading at the Poetry Salon organized by Nathaniel Siegel. Alex Goh and Christine Chia came for the reading; Sarah Sarai and Charlie Bondhus stayed after theirs. Bryan Borland and Matthew Hittinger came by the table. The only regret was that I was so busy that I could not find the time to look around the fair and say hello to friends. Singapore Poetry with Costa Rican hat (photo by Alex Goh) Reading at the poetry salon...

After a long night of rain, Sunday turned out to be gorgeous. Again, I shared a table with RH of Poets Wear Prada Press. I decided to sell CW's and JI's Math Paper Press books, as well as my own. GH helped me design a sign, Singapore Poetry, which I taped to the top of the stand, and in front of the table. Singapore Poetry was certainly a draw. People who have lived in Singapore, have visited Singapore, or have a cousin who have been to Singapore came over to talk. Singaporeans came bounding to the table, surprised and pleased to find Singapore Poetry at the Brooklyn Book Festival. A nunber of Asians checked out the books too. And a Brooklyn bookseller who really liked the design of the Math Paper Press books. I sold three times the number of books sold last year. It was a good idea to sell the books at a generously discounted price. Many other tables were doing so as well, including the university press at the next table. People liked a special offer. Having collected...

I met Iris Berman at Cornelia Street Cafe, at a Pink Pony reading, some six, seven years ago. She read a poem from her flower series, I seem to remember. She dressed like one of those British women you see in BBC films, a floral dress cinched with a ribbon around the waist. Did she once wear a straw hat? She died of cancer some months ago, round about the same time as Brant Lyon, another regular of the Pink Pony. According to Roxanne Hoffman, Iris and Brant hated each other and did not speak to one another though they lived in the same block. Iris's collages are part of the group show now on at the Active Space. Curated by Daria Kostina and Irina Danilova, Brural: Peripheral Vision brings together works by non-mainstream artists from Brooklyn and the Ural region of Russia. I did not know that Iris was an artist as well as a poet. It was a deep pleasure last night to see her collages. They revealed a feel for shape, color and texture, and a way with words, for many of the col...

Received my copies of The Pillow Book from Kenny Leck last week. The chapbook, fifteenth in the Babette's Feast series published by Math Paper Press, looks lovely with its cream-colored paper and clean design. I like the stack of syrup-covered pancakes on the cover very much. The illustration is done by Anna Sai. The image refers to one particular section of the book where a very nice man made pancakes for me after we spent a night together. Food, sex, New York City and other delights are very much the subjects of the book. I hope the writing retains the delicacy of Sei Shōnagon but also joins with it a kind of voraciousness. That one can have both a big appetite and a fine palate. The book is available from Books Actually bookstore in Singapore. Unfortunately it is not available on-line. I will be selling copies at the Brooklyn Book Festival tomorrow. Find the book at Table 100, Poets Wear Prada.

Boog City Newspaper, edited by David A. Kirschenbaum, hosted Poets Wear Prada at ACA Galleries in Chelsea tonight. I read with Austin Alexis, Joel Allegretti, Richard Marx Weinraub, Dorinda Wegener, Karen Neuberg, Maria Lisella and Carol Wiezerbicki. It was lovely chatting with Cindy Hochman for a bit, and to learn of her proofreading work. A reunion of sorts took place with Dorothy Friedman August, whom I met at Kate and Ron's writing circle some years ago. Her work struck me then as imaginative and idiosyncratic. Neither Cindy nor Dorothy was there to read, but were there to support their friends. Call our meetings serendipitous.

Roxanne was kind enough to invite me to share the table with her press, Poets Wear Prada. Somewhat to my surprise, I managed to sell seven books. 1. A woman quite soon after the start of the festival at 10 AM bought a copy of Seven Studies for her son, an English teacher who loves poetry. 2. Not too long after, another woman dipped into both of my books and bought Equal to the Earth on my recommendation that she get to know my work from the beginning. This sale is especially meaningful to me, for she liked enough what she read to pay for the risk of reading more of a stranger's work. 3. I sold another copy of Equal to a high-school junior who wants to write, and who loves T.S. Eliot, Allen Ginsberg and Cavafy. 4. A woman was thrilled to find Frida Kahlo and Egon Schiele in Seven Studies and bought a copy. 5. A colleague from school bought a copy of Equal . 6. An older gentleman liked what he read of Bob Hart's Lightly in the Good of Day , and bought a copy. 7....

I'm reading this afternoon at the Bowery Poetry Club for the 15th Annual Alternative New Year's Day Spoken Word/Performance Extravaganza, called EX TENEBRIS RISING. Alternative to what, I hear you ask. No one has told me, but my guess is alternative to the new year's reading at St. Mark's Poetry Project. Both Bowery and St. Mark's are great New York institutions, if the former has a reputation for grungier experimentation. I have read in both places, St. Mark's more recently, and I am looking forward to reading on the huge stage at the Bowery again. Given three minutes, like all readers, I will probably read three sonnets from Payday Loans , to see if I could sell a few more copies of the book. The last days of 2008 were spent proofreading the galley for my new book, Equal to the Earth (Poets Wear Prada Press, March 2009). Roxanne, my publisher, has been marvelously patient as we went back and forth via emails over the smallest detail. That collaboration would ...