in the library with the wrench

Everything is moving

2011-07-15T18:48:00.002-04:00

over to heatherchristle.tumblr.com.

People do that every now and then and now I am doing it.

See you in the new place?

hello yes hello

2011-07-06T11:40:00.003-04:00

So my phone line has been very busy these last couple of days. It's been wonderful, strange, exciting, everything. If you want to call and hear a poem from the new book, go to thetreesthetrees.tumblr.com for the whole scoop.

Mazes

2011-06-28T11:07:00.002-04:00

I had not made this connection before, but it is true. The poems look like mazes. This makes me bounce a little.

Looking for a New England

2011-06-14T09:19:00.002-04:00

I'm heading to New England tomorrow and here's why:

Juniper Institute! I'll be teaching a craft session on trust, reading, writing, distance, and the technological space of the page for the adults, a craft session on similes for the young writers, moderating a Q&A session with Mark Doty, meeting with people for manuscript consultations, plus going to all these evening readings. The readings are open to the public, by the way, if you are in the area.
Book release! I won't be reading at the Institute this year, but I will be reading the night before, Saturday, June 18, at Flying Object, to celebrate the impending release of The Trees The Trees. Copies of the book will be there, along with wine and Ali Osborn's drawings and prints. More details are here.
Swimming! Where there is water I will be in it.

What else? A poem of mine makes it into John Gallaher's generational gathering of music and poetry that "raises the question" of sincerity. Someone in the comments says my poem "still gives me the feeling of an HTML Giant club. I don't get the feeling they'll return your calls." Ring ring, I am calling.

Speaking of calling, beginning on July 1, if you dial (413) 570-3077, I'll read you a poem (live!) from The Trees The Trees. More info is here.

soon

2011-05-25T21:37:00.002-04:00

What Is Amazing & other books

2011-05-24T12:05:00.004-04:00

Happy news! My third book of poems, What Is Amazing, is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press.

The Trees The Trees is very nearly out itself! So many things! It has a very good cover!

Soon I will tell you a phone number you can call when TTTT is out if you would like me to read you a poem from the book. There will be no other talking I think.

In NYC this weekend I saw Cave of Forgotten Dreams and now my head is full of horses. Herzog hypothesizes at one point that the animals drawn with extra legs are meant to seem to be in motion. My friend and I were trying to imagine other reasons for the extra legs, like perhaps the artists were very hungry and dreaming of more limbs to gnaw.

3D movies make me feel hungover. U2?

Something new

2011-05-08T12:52:00.003-04:00

Last summer I wrote some poems made out of words I heard on the radio, writing words in the order I heard them, though not writing every word I heard. Perhaps they are aural erasures? Untrustworthy transcripts?

I'm starting again, and sharing the results this time around. If you want to read them, they're at radiopoems.wordpress.com.

So far I've done "A-1-R The Ask 1 Radio Network: Vikki Ford Show," "A1A - The Ask 1 Archive Channel: Creation Lightship," and "A1PN - All One Psychic Network: Date Nite with Your Soul."

Three down, three hundred to go.

My next book

2011-04-24T16:39:00.003-04:00

will be out July 1 (from Octopus)
is called The Trees The Trees
would not mind if you reviewed it
has an epigraph from Aleksander Ristovic: "I don't care / about the flowers, which I merely invented / to give myself another reason to address you."
looks like this as a word cloud:
```
        
```

What else can I tell you.

new at jubilat

2011-04-23T08:18:00.002-04:00

Have been working for a long time now with the good people at the Fund for the City of New York to revamp the jubilat website. And now we are finished! This means that when you go to jubilat.org, now you will find not only poems from each of our print issues, but also recordings of contributors reading their work, and an index so you can find all of our poems dealing with beards and/or beardlessness. (There are quite a few.)

I hope you will enjoy it!

jubilat 19 will be out in May, so there will be even more to read and watch soon.

Tomorrow night in Madison

2011-04-14T12:16:00.001-04:00

Dreams that are by me

2011-04-11T08:23:00.003-04:00

I know that usually I type up dreams that are not by me, but here is one of my own. Last night I dreamt that The New Yorker had published a poem of mine, but had filled it with all kinds of crazy symbols and triangles like a witch house band.

It turns out that the former has now happened, while the latter (as far as I can tell from the website) has not.

If you get a print copy and you see crazy symbols and triangles, please let me know.

Exile

2011-04-09T10:07:00.004-04:00

I have just remembered that in elementary school when a child misbehaved significantly, she would be made to go stand in the hall.

I think the imaginary space I am in when I am writing a poem is in that hall.

Anyone who walks by is interesting. What is he doing not in a room?

Extremely shiny floors. The nearby smell of the gym.

Coming up in Atlanta + spelling

2011-03-31T10:54:00.002-04:00

Three readings you might want to know about:

Friday, April 1 (tomorrow) at 1 PM
Arda Collins
Agnes Scott College
Details here

Thursday, April 7 at 8 PM
Anthony McCann, Kim Gek Lin Short & Heidi Lyn Staples
Emory University Bookstore

Tuesday, April 12 at 8 PM
Alice Notley
Jones Room, 3rd floor of Woodruff Library
Emory University

I've had "Every Day Is Like Sunday" in my head since Saturday. I suppose it is the weather? I suppose it must end soon?

In a couple of weeks, at the Sarah Lawrence Poetry Festival, I'm going to be on a panel on "Our Poetic Moment." What is your poetic moment like? Does this sound vaguely like a commercial for yogurt? Do you love it when O'Hara spells it "yoghurt"?

I'd like more verve in the spelling of things. Lewis Freedman, won't you show us how it's done?

books I am ruining, books I am reading

2011-03-03T09:45:00.005-05:00

Over at We Who Are About to Die, Matt L. Rohrer's been asking "writers to reflect on an individual copy of a book that is very important to them." Dorothea Lasky wrote about The To Sound, by Eric Baus. I wrote about a Spanish language textbook I've been cutting up.

Reading these days:
Inferno, Eileen Myles
The Bigger World, Noelle Kocot
Destroyer & Preserver, Matthew Rohrer
I Heart Your Fate, Anthony McCann
Pinnochio's Gnosis, Peter Gizzi

Next month I'm reading in Madison, WI and at Sarah Lawrence. Do you live near either place? Come say hello.

Eileen Myles & Megan Volpert read tonight

2011-02-23T08:51:00.003-05:00

Says the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival website:

AQLF will hold a special fundraiser featuring Eileen Myles with Megan Volpert at Charis Books (1189 Euclid Ave. in Little Five Points) on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 7:30pm A $5 to $10 donation is suggested.

The Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, now in its 5th year, provides a long weekend full of readings, workshops, panels and other literary events that focus on celebrating and connecting the LGBTQ community's literary achievements and aspirations. This year the festival is moving from October to Stonewall Weekend in late June, and as always, it is free and open to all.

Eileen Myles' Inferno (a poet's novel), out now from OR books, chronicles the adventures of a female writer in hell very much like Eileen Myles. Inferno is actually a kunstlerroman. Myles first became known to many people for her openly female write-in campaign for President of the United States in 1991-92. A widely published and anthologized writer, her books include The Importance of Being Iceland/travel essays in art (2009) for which she received a Warhol/Creative Capital art writing grant, Sorry, Tree (poetry) 2007, Tow w/ artist Larry C. Collins (2005), Skies (2001), on my way (2001), Cool for You (novel, 2000), School of Fish (1997), Maxfield Parrish (1995), Not Me (1991), and Chelsea Girls (stories, 1994). She is currently Fannie Hurst Professor at Washington University in St. Louis. She contributes to a wide number of publications including Art Forum, Parkett, The Believer, Vice, Cabinet, The Nation, TimeOut, Book Forum and AnOther Magazine. The Poetry Society of American awarded her the Shelley Prize in 2010. Find out more at www.eileenmyles.com.

Megan Volpert's fourth book is Sonics in Warholia (Slack Buddha Press, 2011). She is Co-Director of the Atlanta Queer Literary Festival, and a high school English teacher with an MFA from Louisiana State University. Predictably, www.meganvolpert.com is her website.

I will be there with all my bells on.

Bill Cassidy

2011-02-07T09:24:00.004-05:00

My friend Bill Cassidy died last Monday. Here are some of his poems.

Here is something he wrote to me once:

when i was a kid i thought watermelons were fish. i also said i wanted to be a turtle when i grew up. i want to start over. so i can be turtle again. i have to remember to eat. i have to invent a boxy looking thing that will let me hover in clouds and spit on the things i forgot to spit on.

One night on Graham Avenue the Polish men at the OTB tried to show Bill and I how to fill out the slips, but we could not get the hang of it.

Here is a poem he loved, Frank O'Hara's "Steps."

How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime
and St. Bridget's steeple leaning a little to the left

here I have just jumped out of a bed full of V-days
(I got tired of D-days) and blue you there still
accepts me foolish and free
all I want is a room up there
and you in it
and even the traffic halt so thick is a way
for people to rub up against each other
and when their surgical appliances lock
they stay together
for the rest of the day (what a day)
I go by to check a slide and I say
that painting's not so blue

where's Lana Turner
she's out eating
and Garbo's backstage at the Met
everyone's taking their coat off
so they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchers
and the park's full of dancers with their tights and shoes
in little bags
who are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Y
why not
the Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they won
and in a sense we're all winning
we're alive

the apartment was vacated by a gay couple
who moved to the country for fun
they moved a day too soon
even the stabbings are helping the population explosion
though in the wrong country
and all those liars have left the UN
the Seagram Building's no longer rivaled in interest
not that we need liquor (we just like it)

and the little box is out on the sidewalk
next to the delicatessen
so the old man can sit on it and drink beer
and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day
while the sun is still shining

oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much

Mon Oeufre

2011-01-29T09:29:00.004-05:00

New review of The Difficult Farm up at the Sink Review. Thank you, Angela Veronica Wong.

Made a quiche for the first time last night, or as I have decided to call it, "egg pie."

And by "it" I mean "last night."

Ciao!

Notes on my head

2011-01-21T19:02:00.003-05:00

If you want to know where my head has been the answer is near the ground, working. On things. Much ado I do.

Lifting my head momentarily to tell you there's a new podcast up at the Poetry Foundation, wherein Matthew Rohrer introduces and reads two poems and I chat about them.

To tell you I will be at AWP, reading for SUPERMACHINE of Table X Gables one evening, and otherwise wandering, occasionally taking root at the jubilat/Juniper table. If you come say hello I will say hello too.

I would like to tell you about the genius of Philip Guston, but that will have to happen later.

Now I am putting my head back down.

Cave Canem

2011-01-01T15:25:00.000-05:00

I know that sometimes it seems like everyone and their pet dog has a Kickstarter campaign going. I know people get tired of requests for support.

But Cave Canem is kind of a special case, no?

Officially, Cave Canem can be described like this:

"Founded in 1996 by poets Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady to remedy the under-representation and isolation of African American poets in MFA programs and writing workshops, Cave Canem is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets."

Unofficially, Thomas Sayers Ellis writes: "By supporting Cave Canem, you are supporting the future and possibility of Black Poetry."

So if you are able, perhaps you might start off this new year by supporting that future?

I hope it is a wonderful year. How much that we don't know will happen!

The Indie Lit Roadshow...

2010-12-09T11:05:00.002-05:00

begins tomorrow, with events all over the life-sized map of the United States we inhabit:

AUSTIN
BROOKLYN
BATON ROUGE
HADLEY
PORTLAND
BALTIMORE
CHICAGO
LAWRENCE
SEATTLE

If you live in the Western Massachusetts part of the map, on Saturday, December 11, follow your roads to Flying Object at 6 PM and you will find there THE CHRISTLE EXPERIENCE:

Michele Christle
Heather Christle
Chris DeWeese
Chris Ward
+special guests

I am imagining this as a variation on Antiques Roadshow. I am going to try really hard to not seem visibly disappointed when I find out the auction value of my poetry.

Review

2010-11-30T09:44:00.004-05:00

Aaron Belz wrote a review/recommendation of The Seaside!, and you can read it here, along with 18 other poets recommending 18 other books.

Bits and pieces

2010-11-24T09:57:00.003-05:00

They thought the future would look like this:
But actually it looks like this.
In the future I have two readings. One is with Christopher DeWeese, at Gainesville State College, on Thursday, December 2. Details are here. The other is on Saturday, December 11, at Flying Object, in Hadley, Massachusetts. Michele Christle will be reading in person and I will be beamed in through the internet. Details are here.
All semester my poetry class has been making a list of "What a Poem Can Do." It is getting really long and amazing.
Everywhere I go people are talking about conceptual metaphor.
John Gallaher's got some ideas on ye olde New Sincerity. I like to think more about post-irony, I think. I like to think post-irony is sometimes achieved by saying overly sincere things at frightening volumes. I like to think then we don't know what to think.
Soon, soon, we will have our new jubilat website, and it will be so full of treats for you. In the meantime, don't you think you should pick up the new issue?
Here is Bertrand Russell on his new student, Ludwig Wittgenstein:

19 October: My German friend threatens to be an affliction.
25 October: My German, who seems to be rather good, was very argumentative.
1 November: My German was very argumentative and tiresome. He wouldn't admit that it was certain that there was not a rhinoceros in the room.
2 November: My German engineer, I think, is a fool. He thinks nothing empirical is knowable--I asked him to admit that there was not a rhinoceros in the room, but he wouldn't.

In Three Parts

2010-11-12T11:47:00.004-05:00

One

There are four poems from The Trees The Trees up at The Awl, in Mark Bibbins' "Poetry Section."

I keep wanting to call it a poetry corner.

I do love a corner.

The Trees The Trees will be out this summer.

From the good people at Octopus Books.

I feel like I need to be really nice to The Difficult Farm right now, so it won't resent the company.

I have maybe spoiled The Difficult Farm a little bit.

It was attachment authoring.

Two

Downstairs is where all the noise comes from.

The volume of conversation is not in proportion to its urgency.

They also make the noise of recording music.

I need to figure out a louder way of making poetry.

Three

Sometimes when I am in an area full of people everyone becomes an animal.

A human animal barely distinguishable from its neighbor.

It gives me the oceanic feeling.

In the ocean there are also waves of love.

Google shopping has keywords for THE DIFFICULT FARM

2010-11-10T18:54:00.001-05:00

ROUGH SCIENCE
Can-can
King Lear
quark
Zanzibar
Hanover
starfish
BARNSTORMER
Druids
thrush
asphalt
hamster
pelican
daffodils
concerning my mother
OCTOPUS BOOKS
FLEDGLING CROCUS
VESPERS
geese
CROUP

catch up

2010-11-08T10:28:00.004-05:00

Two teeth that used to be in my head are not in my head any more. I don't know where they are now!
Some ideas that used to be in my head are not in my head any more. They are at Burnaway.
I watched this movie on Saturday.
Look at all this amazement that's going to happen at Juniper this summer.
I've been reading about feelings and Spinoza.
Some new poems are recently in print, at Black Warrior Review, New Orleans Review (36.1, which isn't up yet on the site) & Harpur Palate.