Philadelphia Inquirer // New Collected Poems by George Oppen

My review ran in today's Philly Inquirer.I'm guessing it's the first review of George Oppen to cite Ol' Dirty Bastard.  The book comes with a CD of Oppen reading his own work. 

And the recordings of Oppen reading his own poems are exhilarating. You'll want to follow along in the book. His voice sounds like a combination of Woody Allen and James Mason, and he swings a little bit, placing the accents and stresses in places we never expect. I'd recommend loading this CD into your iPod - somewhere between Ol' Dirty Bastard and Otis Redding - and allowing Oppen to shuffle in the background the next time you're hosting a dinner party or planning a socialist uprising.

Tayari Jones has chosen me as one of her "Amazing Eight"

I'm extremely honored & flattered & humbled to be included among the "Amazing Eight," part of a series about debut books that Tayari Jones is doing on her blog. That's just so cool.

In addition to being incredibly good-looking, what do these eight writers have in common? Well, for one thing, they are all members of this blog community. But the real thing, the news, the thing that calls for champagne is that all of them are publishing their first books! (You may notice that one of the Amazing Eight is pictured twice. That's because Dwayne Betts is publishing TWO first books this year, with his bad self.)

Over the next few weeks, each of these amazing first-timers will be featured on the blog. I'll post a little about their books and they will each share something about writing and the writing life.

Ninth Letter // Podcast of "The Snotgreen Sea"

It turns out that Jodee Stanley and my pals over at Ninth Letter have made a podcast of an essay I published there. "The Snotgreen Sea" is about St. Patrick's Day in Chicago. You can hear it here.