Song of a Reformed Headhunter

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.

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...

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.

Poets Wear Prada Press is printing my chapbook Payday Loans through Amazon's CreateSpace, a print-on-demand publishing service. So I can now be found on Amazon, and you can buy my book here . My copy, which arrived this afternoon, looks very good. It is perfect-bound, not saddle-stitched as before, and the glossy cover is sturdier. And the sequence of 30 sonnets, organized by the month of April, still costs the same: US$10.

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 ...