Weave Magazine

Garon Scott Reviews Heidy Steidylmayer's Fowling Piece

noreply@blogger.com (Thom - Weave Reviews Editor) — Thu, 24 May 2012 18:28:00 +0000

In Fowling Piece, Heidy Steidlmayer’s first collection of poems, the poet registers the spiritual aches that feed desire, and often finds their reflections in nature, driving the poems forward with end and cross rhyme, stringing them together by a more traditional (though carefully imperfect) meter. In “Couples,” for example, she too looks to nature and romance’s emptiness:

ask me if my emptiness equals all
your clothes, if the light shows
through your thinnest shirt
to hurt, or if the wind blows
your darks from the line by design

Through poems on protozoa, saints, and hospitals, her idiom is unflaggingly buoyant. A patched-over, palsied eye reveals “the mind in its weedy prominence.” A Chinese mantid wilts “deep in his ester of acetic acid.” The book’s final poem, “Charybdis,” opens “I am the crepe de chine of Paris green, rauwolfia, and atropine.”

The book’s first third is its most pliant. Evidenced by titles like “Heartbreak,” “Couples,” “Taxonomy of Grief,” and “Agonal,” the dominant mood is, well, heartbreak, grief, and agony, especially that of couples. There are, however, portents of matters to come—two poems that struggle with institutional religion, a poem about an orrery (“Sad amplitudes of clocky junk/crank moons and tiny globes of granite”) and an interest in prophecy and the supernatural throughout.

In the book’s second section, Steidlymayer’s voice is less urgent as she considers three routes to the unknown: Christianity, Greek mythology, and science. Her technical play and diction is less surprising here; her themes either buried or too dominant. The Christian poems are split between dissent against religion’s ritualistic, human-controlled side, and impersonal poems of Biblical stories, miracles, and the cults than surround them, like Naple’s thrice-yearly sensation, the liquefying blood of Saint Januarius. Science, it seems, in all its strangeness, catalyzes the poet’s language-impulse in exciting ways. She is determined to present this world in its own argot—Lepidoptera, not butterflies, entomology, not insects, elytra, animalcules, ootheca, cirri. Sometimes, the technical language works, but the twitch of misunderstanding and the impulse to run to a dictionary often deflate the experience of the poems.

Paradoxically, it is with a more distant subject that the poet finds her most personal, moving voice. Her poems of Greek mythology—as she inhabits the voice of Charon and Callisto, Scylla and Charybdis—are so effective because the act of speaking feels imperative. These are voices of impulse, irresistible, vital. Speaking of Zeus, Callisto asks,

Cynosure of all
eyes, did he
rise in a hood of bees

and throw off

his otherness?

The imperative to speak, and the unornamented weight it produces, carries from Steidlmayer’s Greek poems to the book’s final section, in which we discover the reason, or perhaps the culmination, of her restless spiritual searching—a brain tumor. Like another book recently reviewed by Weave—Christian Wiman’s Every Riven Thing—Fowling Piece confronts the surreal world of the hospital—the ubiquitous white, the masked faces, the screaming stranger in the next bed over—while attempting to make sense of death and self. Here, Steidlmayer is at her most brilliant. Her images are exact and necessary, no longer simply enjoyable flights of language, but the inescapable products of her topics. Where Wiman progresses from horror to spiritual serenity, Steidlmayer, as though under an analgesic haze, registers dreamlike visions in floating, punctuation-free lines:
the anesthesiologist, her faded countenance
as far away as a giant

my husband beside the bed, his face
as if I had just fallen from one of his branches

In a poetic world that, for better or worse, values idea over execution, Fowling Piece is a remarkable testament to the potential of technique, and is all the more so for being a first book. Steidlmayer uses—and is not used by—devices such as meter and rhyme, and though very few poems in the book could be called formal, the influence of formality is felt throughout. She handles line breaks masterfully because she lacks allegiance to form, and yet her most memorable lines are often weighted by their metric regularity. Moreover, the book’s passion for the unknown, for our pains to know and make claim on meaning, is admirably broad and honest, and its resolution—with poems of motherhood, creation, nature, and myth—is one of not certainty but hope. Her imperative in “Poverty,” one of the book’s earlier poems, may as well be to herself:

let the sun beat
down its fat old heart
bring another day to its knees

there is nothing left
to carry but your voice.

Reviewed by Garon Scott

Fowling Piece by Heidy Steidylmayer
TriQuarterly, 2012

Gents Who Read Ladies: D. Gilson's Tribute to Adrienne Rich

noreply@blogger.com (Thom - Weave Reviews Editor) — Fri, 11 May 2012 17:21:00 +0000

WEAVE MAGAZINE is committed to celebrating a diversity of voices, including those speaking to, through, or about sex, sexuality, and gender. We also recognize that due praise far too often falls along the separating lines of gender. Thus, we are introducing Gents Who Read Ladies, an occasional series written by one of our male reviewers, offering due praise to one of our favorite women writers. The series begins with D. Gilson’s tribute to Adrienne Rich, a powerful force in both poetry and politics, whose work continues to inspires us both as individuals and as a community. --Weave Reviews Editor, Thom Dawkins
--

freedom is daily, prose-bound, routine
remembering. Putting together, inch by inch
the starry worlds. From all the lost collections.
—Adrienne Rich, from “For Memory”

The week before I defended my MFA thesis, Adrienne Rich died. The poetry world—and especially the world of poetry-that-can-do-something—lost its matriarch, the woman who, since the early ‘50s, didn’t ride the waves, but made them.

I don’t write these platitudes to make her death about me, or even about our community; but in this time of transition, as I leave the comforts of a graduate program in creative writing to hit the streets, I’m thinking about Rich, and how none of this could be possible without her.

During an undergraduate literary theory course, we were assigned Rich’s essay, “When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision.” I was beginning to take baby steps out of the closet, manifested by drunken nights at Martha’s Vineyard, the local gay bar, and by a hush-hush tryst with a married professor. And certainly by my reading tastes. What was I reading that semester? I know there was lots of O’Hara and Doty and Virginia Woolf. I was in British Lit, so surely some Wilde. In a theater class, we read The Normal Heart. My poems from this time—atrocious things! but necessary—are filled with men thinly veiled behind gender-neutral pronouns. Looking back a decade later, it was Rich’s “When We Dead Awaken” that was most formative.

“It’s exhilarating,” she writes, “to be alive in a time of awakening consciousness; it can also be confusing, disorienting, and painful.” It seemed Rich had written it just for me! Which is ludicrous, of course, but as a 19-year-old budding homo taking critical theory and women’s studies and poetry workshops, finally, I thought, someone gets it.

Oy vey!

But that part—that someone getting it—is absolutely true. For a generation of others, of women and racial minorities and queers, Rich had opened the door to a valuable new hybridity: that between creative writing and academic discourse. There was so much power there, and Rich was collecting all of us together, making us a part of the conversation, that essential conversation of art and politics and living. “The sleepwalkers are coming awake,” she continued, “and for the first time this awakening has a collective reality; it is no longer such a lonely thing to open one’s eyes.”

It seems dramatic that I would think this, but opening my spiral notebook from that literary theory class, looking at the pages of notes taken while we discussed Rich’s essay, I had written some marginalia in a curlicue, all-caps script: NOBODY CAN FUCK WITH ME NOW. Overstatement, yes. But also some deep truth here. Through conversations with colleagues and presentations at a myriad of academic conferences, I see the thumbprints of Rich everywhere. And thankfully, not only in those other-ed populations, but also in the work of straight white men. They, too, must be a part of the change Rich spent her whole life trying to affect.

Her trying wasn’t in vain, either. We have a lot of work yet to do, but it is work built on the foundation of Adrienne Rich. It seems fitting I would write my first contribution to Weave’s “Gents Who Read Ladies” series with a bit about her. I wouldn’t be a poet or an academic or an agent for change without the words she breathed into the world, a challenge—“Old words: trust fidelity / Nothing new yet to take their place.”

Written by D. Gilson

D. Gilson Reviews Useless Landscape, or a Guide for Boys by D.A. Powell

noreply@blogger.com (Thom - Weave Reviews Editor) — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:04:00 +0000

It’s 2012 and we’ve come to trust a voice like D.A. Powell’s. Rightfully so—Powell’s style is one grounded not only in the culturally essential, the nitty gritty of our every city and backwater county highway, but also in his mastery of language, the forging, and we must call it forging, of high art. Consider these lines—an ars poetica?—from “Goodbye, My Fancy”

All the boys of recent memory
have been like this: accomplice,
adjutant, aide-de-camp.
I should just toss you my thesaurus.
There are words for the kind
of love we have,
though none of them quite suffice.

What can this be called if not superlatively versed wisdom? And his most recent collection, aptly titled Useless Landscape, Or A Guide For Boys and available from Graywolf Press, provides such astute, beautiful perception from beginning to end. What makes these poems so brilliant? In short, I’d argue, their reliance on every imaginable artifice, which is also to say: their over-reliance on nothing. Often, the poems function in a blatant, humored camp:

The first knot doesn’t count.
You’re bound to fuck it up.
The rabbit comes out of the hole;
he starts to circle the tree. Halfway home,
he finds another bunny. So they tangle.

These poems reference nursery rhyme and Valley of the Dolls, the Oscars and a porn fluffer, but they are surely as comfortable gliding through classical and Biblical mythology, or through natural history, such as here, in “Transit of Mercury”—

I’ve got a heat-seeking missile for heartbreak.
& so do you. If there’s another side
of the sun, then you must hide there
in less than your underclothes,
emitting every molecule of thermal funk.

Powell’s fifth collection brings us poems comfortable in their own skins, shinning in their brilliant containers and begging to be read aloud once, then again, then again. In “Pupil,” however, Powell appears to confess: “I have never written a true poem, it seems.” Mr. Powell, it is not true. I can only imagine that in the coming eons, when we’ve all turned to the other side, wherever it may be, there will be people (are we still calling them people in these future times?) studying, nay, engulfing your poems, learning of the “intimacy that flourished here, an outlaw, / just as the outlaws themselves had flourished / in the slapstick goldrush days” of our own age.

Rest assured, Weave readers, I endorse Useless Landscape, Or A Guide for Boys, wholeheartedly, and look forward to its nominations for major awards this coming year, which the collection so rightfully deserves.

Reviewed by D. Gilson

Useless Landscapes, or a Guide for Boys by D.A. Powell
Graywolf Press, 2012

Chapbook Roundup: Wendel, Mennies, Wiseman, Scarff

noreply@blogger.com (Thom - Weave Reviews Editor) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 20:59:00 +0000

Every so often, the Weave Reviews staff will highlight several chapbooks that have caught our collective eye. We believe that some of the best and most interesting poetry is being published by independent presses in non-traditional formats, and while the chapbook is hardly non-traditional, it can also be passed over in favor of the flashier full-length collections.

In our first Chapbook Roundup, Janet Edwards reviews Monica Wendel's Call It a Window, Laura E. Davis reviews Rachel Mennies' No Silence in the Fields, Mindy Kronenberg reviews Laura Madeline Wiseman's Branding Girls, and Thom Dawkins reviews Kelly Scarff's I Fall in Love with Strangers.

Enjoy!

The Human Condition in Miniature: Monica Wendel’s Call It a Window

Imagine looking through a series of windows, or even looking through the same window, multiple times a day, over the course of a few days or weeks or even years. Imagine how much you would see and learn in your time as voyeur; and how, with each new piece of information, you might change your mind about the people and things at which you’ve been looking—and even change your mind about yourself. Monica Wendel’s chapbook, Call It a Window, embodies this experience, as it inhabits and examines the generally conflicted state of humanity in thoughtfully wrought poems.

Wendel accomplishes this examination without sticking to necessarily “poetic” material, which gives the poems a relatable verisimilitude. She writes beautifully, but she isn’t afraid to get down in the grime of the day-to-day, because isn’t that where we are all, anyway? Wendel knows society’s faults (“Sexual Assault Awareness Week,” a found poem from jezebel.com, is a whip-smart, fantastic piece) as well as her speaker’s, and she calls attention to them. Among so many other things, readers encounter what it means to want to make a difference but be unable to help (“I wanted to be a pioneer woman – scrappy, strong, petite, with a poultice or herb to put on your hand. But I had nothing”); to find a place to call home but sacrifice parts of yourself to exist within it (“Sometimes it’s like/I come from a foreign country/where the only person who speaks the language is myself); to have principles but stray from them (“A question of what we own/and what we are willing to sell”); to develop a sense of self and then realize it might have compromised you somehow (“My problem is that I used to fuck/ like I was in love when I really wasn’t, and now I don’t know how/to fuck at all anymore”); and to be unsure of which version of yourself makes you happiest or most whole, if that’s ever the case at all (“I wish I could be the same in all of these places,/a singular self propelled forward – but I am like a river/that forks around land, becomes smaller or larger or more salty,/and then reunites, on the other side, with itself”).

With these various and illuminating views, the poems echo the title of the collection. One by one, the tiny windows of these poems become mirrors into which readers do not merely look, but become a part. The reader joins with the speaker and her subject matter, as they experience their own juxtaposing ideals and identities from Wendel’s perspective. In the collection’s last poem, “Summer,” for example, Wendel calls herself out explicitly: (“I want you to look at me. I’m a vegan/who sneaks banana bread without asking the ingredients/and who doesn’t stop the waiter who adds baba ghanoush to my falafel./I want to say I’ve already done my part, but that’s never true…Now I’ve sobered up./Now I’m waiting for a phone call from someone who I hurt”). In doing so, Wendel’s readers may feel their own shortcomings and pretenses wash over them, but at least they’ll have the poet’s company.

Reviewed by Janet Edwards

Call It a Window by Monica Wendel
Midwest Writing Center Press, 2012

The Messy Business of Bodies: Rachel Mennies' No Silence in the Fields

Rachel Mennies’ debut e-chapbook collection No Silence in the Fields (Blue Hour Press, 2012) is a heartbreaking narrative of a couple’s love that breaks beneath the cold realities of winter. The scene is set in the first poem, “The Barn,” which wonders, “Whose red shoebox, whose poisoned apple.” This list-poem first catalogues meaningless objects as if anthropologists were excavating them years later. It then turns from the tangible to recall events and emotions contained within the walls of the barn, asking “Whose constant uphill, whose flame from the stove, / whose lost child, whose tired body?”

Bodies are a central topic of No Silence; the fragility and rawness of people and animals: a cluster of cancerous cells, the delicate rib of a dead cat, a calf freezing to death. Loss surrounds the ill-fated story of the books main characters, M and V, a couple who sets up house in the aforementioned barn for the winter. Their story is told in multiple voices that alternate between M, V, and an omniscient speaker. Why they have come to the barn for winter is never addressed directly, but a simple guess is that they have no other place. The details leading up to their circumstances are less important than where they find themselves, however, as Mennies’ vivid images and lyricism weave a desperate tone through each poem, keeping the action in the present.

What we do know is that work is scarce for M, a salt-of-the-earth, hardworking man: “I slough the dusty skin / of horses; I listen to the hearts of dogs.” V is depicted by M in the same poem, “M Introduces Himself,” as, “the woman I love” who “makes coffee from water / and grounds. In the earth, the sleeping perennials / are hers.” An old-fashioned, gendered division of labor exists between them; these partners operate separately, each in their own domain, tending to their own needs. It is soon revealed that V is expecting a child, but she is also sick. The first time V speaks, she says, “Hello, lump—size of a million / curious atoms, soft against my hand,” as she finds a tumor in her upper thigh. Later, the inevitable miscarriage is personified in the haunting title, “Miscarriage is Like a Large, Hungry Gull.” Throughout the narrative, V and M are reminded again and again of their own mortality and the realities of being a human animal.

Mennies fearlessly tackles the messy business of bodies, both living and decaying. When the vitality of spring and summer arrive, they offer only bitter pain for V as she faces her own barrenness. On a trip to the farmer’s market, she is fenced by an “avalanche of blueberries” and other ripened fruits: “Around me, everything reproduces recklessly” and she is left feeling “light / as a bag in the wind, alone.” While this image may seem overwrought, by now Mennies has earned it. The final poem comes full circle, again depicting the things that witnessed V and M’s familiar story of fading love. These objects are heavier now, weighed by the meaning we have now seen hidden inside. Mennies’ beautiful, solemn first collection of carefully crafted poems is filled with the bittersweet evidence of what’s abandoned after love is gone.

Reviewed by Laura E. Davis

No Silence in the Fields by Rachel Mennies
Blue Hour Press, 2012

The Doll-Like Beauty of the Brand: Laura Madeline Wiseman's Branding Girls

How apt that in the early part of an election year where women are being branded (and pushed to brand each other) to further polarize their population and serve political agenda, Branding Girls has landed on our cultural radar. For those of us Boomers who were drawn to the feminist sensibilities of Germaine Greer and Simone de Beauvoir (yet succumbed to the 1960s Carnaby Street aesthetic of Twiggy and Go-Go boots), Laura Madeline Wiseman’s chapbook reminds us of the continual conflict and exploitation girls and women face in an aggressively consumer-driven society.

Using photographic essays by women photographers that capture the disturbing elements of “girl culture” for inspiration, Wiseman presents the reader with a series of evocative and sardonic female images—the “Elevator Girls” of Japan, whose doll-like beauty defies true identity:

Not geisha. Not madams.
Not hotel operators. Not
Mannequins. Not call girls
Or masseuses. Not school girls
In pleated skirts. Not angels
Or gods. Not accomplished
Grandmothers. Not stepford wives.

With their tailored and accessorized dress, they are posed and demurely poised, ready to “open doors to paradise, stories, worlds, dreams...”

In these fifteen poems we are introduced a variety of female “brands,” presented in language that is brutally beautiful, indignant and witty. There is the “Las Vegas Brand,” the show girl who adorns a stage or bomber planes, with “bottle blond locks” whose face is “a ruby ember at a cruising altitude/ of 35,000 feet…” The “Bridal Hand Brand,” where a severed appendage is both crime scene evidence and ceremonial artifact, and whose fingernails are “varnished red as tongues.” The “Good Wife Brand” echoes the discomfort of Sylvia Plath and Ann Sexton (who has her own homage in this collection, “Dead Poet Brand”), lamenting the absorption of the self that women experience under the brand of marriage:

I introduce myself as Ms., but most hear Mrs.
The Wife sits matronly on my chest,

a large shelf of expired ointments,
skin pasty, veined, and sore.

It’s not that I’m not happy with Wife
as I once was with Date, Lover, Girl,

with arrows of silk stockings to late nights,
of sex in theaters, stairwells, interstate rest stops.

Branding Girls amuses, alarms, and ultimately affirms in its eloquent confrontation of female stereotypes.

Reviewed by Mindy Kronenberg

Branding Girls by Laura Madeline Wiseman
Finishing Line Press, 2011

Strange Empathies: Kelly Scarff’s I Fall in Love with Strangers

Kelly Scarff’s debut collection, I Fall in Love with Strangers, is pierced by loss: former partners and present loves are kept at a distance, family gatherings are vaguely remembered by those left behind, and characters appear only as shadows of who they wish to be.

To say that these poems are pierced by loss, though, is also to say they are built with a different material entirely – an earnest, admiring love for the Strangers, whether they began strange or became that way.

I Fall in Love with Strangers is clear, declarative, and anecdotal. While each of the poems seem to be in the stark, honest voice of the poet herself, each story still seems to be spoken with the haunting, haunted breath of their subjects. One of the speaker’s neighbors wants to visit Christ in Medjugorje, for example, though he has seemingly killed his family in a drunken car crash, and Medjugorje is known for the appearances of the Virgin Mary, not Christ.

Despite the simplicity and earnestness of this collection and its characters, or perhaps because of it, these poems still have the ability to surprise: a gunshot victim finds love at H&R Block, a pomegranate becomes “prolific” at mothering, a game of Yahtzee with a father accomplishes more than Dylan Thomas’s desperate pleading could ever do.

Scarff’s litany of strangers never grows tiresome. In fact, readers may find themselves harboring some small seed of desire for the characters, perhaps that is the single greatest accomplishment of this collection - Even as we know that a lover or a loved one will be lost, we stick around to see how they will be loved and remembered.

Reviewed by Thom Dawkins

I Fall in Love with Strangers by Kelly Scarff
Liquid Paper Press, 2012

Weave's Growth Spurt

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:16:00 +0000

Open Letter to Weave Readers, Subscribers & Contributors,

Weave has been growing steadily since we began four years ago this month. What started as a two-person project has flourished into a team of more than a dozen, publishing hundreds of writers and artists. Yet, with a team consisting entirely of volunteers who all have jobs (including myself), it has become difficult to find the time to make any changes that will encourage further progress.

In order to keep up with this growth, we have decided to move the publication of issue 08 to winter, most likely early 2013. Therefore no issue will be released in June this year. We will, of course, fulfill any current or future subscriptions affected by this change; those that are owed issue 08 will receive it in early 2013. As a thank you gift, all subscribes to issue's 07 & 08 by June 31st will receive a back issue of Weave for free! So SUBSCRIBE today!

Some of the upcoming changes include bringing on new staff, experimenting with the design of our print issues, and developing more online content. Weave's online book reviews are already expanding under the leadership of our new Reviews Editor, Thom Dawkins.

Additionally, we are announcing a new reading period. As of today Weave is open to submissions September 1st through May 31st. We will remain open year-round for current subscribers.

We appreciate your patience during our growth spurt over the next six months. We're excited about these changes and hope you are too.

Warmly,

Laura E. Davis
Founding Editor
Weave Magazine

Fragmented Elegy: Rebecca Lindenberg’s Love, an Index

noreply@blogger.com (Thom - Weave Reviews Editor) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 00:55:00 +0000

In 2009, the poet Craig Arnold disappeared on Kuchino-erabu, a remote Japanese island, while climbing a volcano for research on his next book. Arnold had published two books of poems: Made Flesh (2008) and Shells (1999), which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize. The poet was a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, had been a Fulbright Scholar at Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, and his poems were included in Best American Poetry. Though a search party found his footsteps ascending the volcano, his body was never recovered and Craig Arnold was presumed dead.

Rebecca Lindenberg, Arnold’s longtime partner, published her first collection of poetry earlier this month. It is also the first book in McSweeney’s emerging poetry series. At its crux, Love, an Index is an echo. It is a continued conversation between the speaker and the subject, whose voice has been cut out. Lindenberg’s poetry is composed in quiet moments of remembrance and grief. It is not, thank goodness, a tour de force. It is too human for that. Rather, the speaker lingers on images of the body – a breath on the ear, a poppy colored birthmark under the eye – as well as meals shared, and trips taken. It is an attempt to reconstruct or offer documentation of a man who ceased to be. It provides evidence of Arnold in “fragments,” which the titular poem defines as “Parts suggesting the whole/they long to be gathered into.” Arnold is the book, and the book is a body sewn together from memories.

Love, an Index, is divided into three segments, with the first section detailing the evidence of love. “Catalogue of Ephemera” provides a list of all the gifts Lindenberg’s lover gave her, and can be interpreted as an exercise in putting memories into order. One recalls Joan Didion combing over closets full of her deceased husband’s clothes in The Year of Magical Thinking. After is the fall. The second section, and the spinal cord of the collection, is the alphabetical directory for which the book is named. In the third and final section, Lindenberg’s broken animal emerges, a haunted search without recovery, for her lover’s body and her peace. Her “Obsessional” is written in a villanelle, itself a compulsive poetic form. The central repetition evolves into a cyclical point of madness: “What makes a man impossible to find/on such a chip of land it’s hardly there?” But by the book’s end, there is grace: as a scrap of paper on its descent, the poet is saved on an updraft. The lingering image in the final poem, “Marblehead,” is the image of green, of all good, of all newness, an abstract concept anchored in the minutiae that compose the book’s pulse. “But now lobster steam billows/up the window, you gulp/purple wine, your pinky sticking out,/and the round olives are the green/all green things aspire to be.”

At times, the speaker seems to struggle with her multi-faceted relationship with the man who was both her lover and fellow poet. In "Love, N¹," a long poem composed of footnotes and references to love poems by Sappho, Plato, Frank O’Hara, and other major names, she includes quotes from Arnold, gleaned from conversation and his poems. The effect is twofold: she writes about her love in the context of a vast poetic dialogue, while also including Arnold as a source to be considered among the classics. The writer appears divided on this, his greater fame, and her success in light of his disappearance. In “The Girl with the Ink-Stained Teeth,” she writes she “knows she’s famous/ in a tiny, tragic way and condemns the man who disappeared, leaving her nothing/not even/her name.” That Rebecca Lindenberg will forever be seen in the context of her partner is unlikely. Love, an Index works through an issue, an obsession, but in it, Lindenberg executes her grief in measured, clean lines that speak of more to come. Turn by turn, her grief breaks down language into utterances. It comes to the point where a single word reaches out and takes the reader by the heart. Through her grieving she becomes an empowered voice. Her sorrow becomes a measureless depth.

While Lindenberg asks for empathy, she never wants pity. One would never read this book and feel an urge to apologize. It is notable that words such as pity, sorrow, and tragedy are words she left out of her central "Index." There is anger, and ache, and harbinger. There is divorce. Each dark image becomes coupled with elements of light, or physical matter to ground them in: interstate, lemon, and lyric. Mimosa. Like Anne Carson in Nox, Lindenberg is concerned with the echoes her lover left behind. Unlike Carson, who attempts to discover her estranged and deceased brother through lingering scraps of evidence, Lindenberg uses the echoes to explore the spaces in which the dead continue to exist.

And so, her collection is worth reading for the same reason that all good literature is worth reading: it preserves a man’s soul, long after his death. Or, in this very special case, the book preserves two souls, in the physical and emotional spaces they occupied together. This is a love story, for all affairs that have begun and ended, on various scales of magnitude. This is a mausoleum for an end that left no body behind.

Caitlyn Christensen

Congrat's to Contributor Anthony Varallo, Micro Award Finalist

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 15:23:00 +0000

Congratulations to Weave Magazine's issue 07 contributor Anthony Varallo, whose story "All Very Surprising" has been chosen as a finalist for the 2012 Micro Awards.

Founded in 2008, the Micro Award honors "outstanding flash fiction from both print and electronic media." This is Mr. Varallo's second straight year as a Micro Award finalist, placing him in a small group of writers to be recognized multiple times.

Don't have a copy of issue seven yet? Order yours online today. If you're attending AWP, stop by our table to pick up a copy in person.

Weave reviews Christian Wiman, Every Riven Thing

noreply@blogger.com (Thom - Weave Reviews Editor) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 15:02:00 +0000

Poetry arises out of absence, a deep internal sense of wrongness, out of a mind that feels itself to be in some way cracked. An original poem is a descent into and expression of this insufficiency… You spend years sealing up the gaps in your uncertainty, shoring fragments of fact and reason against your ruins, all the while praying that in rare moments some ghost of that good unknowingness – call it spirit, call it the unconscious, call it God – will slip back in to save you from your best efforts.
–Christian Wiman, “A Piece of Prose”

Christian Wiman is hardly the type of as-yet-unlauded, needs-to-be-heard poet I would normally review for Weave, and having already mentioned him in a previous post, I feel a little ashamed to be covering a book that has already gotten its share of attention. And yet, there are times when a book feels so massively important, so necessary in terms of both poetic weight and cultural commentary, that it would be equally irresponsible to let the opportunity pass.

Previous reviews of Wiman’s Every Riven Thing seem to have been written with the large strokes of a fat-bristled brush. They make much of the poet’s job as Poetry Magazine editor, the diagnosis of his rare and dangerous cancer, and of his (early distance from, then later returning to) Christian identifications. All of this is a large part of the work, granted, but I have always been more interested in the craft of the work, not its origins.

The first thing I noticed about this book is how wide-reaching the subjects can be: Salvation and moral purpose play against American identity and the dangers of nationalism; disease and health are here too, but so are a searching for masculine identities and the long look back at a troubled family history. Almost unnervingly, Wiman keeps the collection from seeming too schizophrenic by giving each poem its due attention and its own identity. Eschewing a “style,” Wiman instead seems to be taking his direction from the gospel of paying close attention.

A poem like “The Mole,” for example, refuses to speak its subject, but rather reveals it almost unconsciously – the short lines and terse images, though bring forth the affect and the limited senses feared by the hospital-bound. The poem moves from the discovery of disease to the “diviners, machines / reading his billion / cells” to the nostalgia for “mountain / aster and ice / wine, Michigan / football, Canes / Venatici and / the Four North / Fracture Zone,” and so on, combining and coalescing images large as constellations and simple as pedestrian memories. In the poem, too, Wiman describes a machine of “glass and chrome / so infinites- / imally facet- / ed it seems / he lives inside / a diamond,” several lines that not only point to the poet’s ability to see the fine details of the sublime but also to his willingness to probe a terror to find them. Of course, there is also the intended effect of having the signified meaning literally broken away from its signifier, while at the same time, the breaking itself becomes its own sort of sign. Better said, these poems not only speak to brokenness, they demonstrate and display it.

It would not be unfair to say that each of Wiman’s poems represents a struggle at the interstices of darkness and light, and I do not think it is inaccurate to say that he does so with varying degrees of success. Regardless, the overall effect is masterful, and the technique, even when it feels familiar, is always thoughtfully enacted. This is true in two poems that could very well have come from Bishop’s Geography III – in “Five Houses Down,” the poet finds identity and masculinity in an older man’s scrap heap, while “Sitting Down to Breakfast” is a tender portrait of an old aunt who stands as a symbol for everything that is disappeared or disappearing from both life and memory. Both of these poems are working hard to mean something, but, like Bishop, we never seem to mind when they end up doing just that.

In a recent piece in Poetry’s 100 year anniversary, the poet V. Penelope Pelizzon muses whether she, or any poet writing today, will become the rubble of our era. We do have to wonder which of our poets will be disregarded in favor of the Few Big Names, and of course I want to say that a few of us will escape. I also want to say that Christian Wiman’s Every Riven Thing is a book that could define our age. It certainly has a voice and a presence that feels like it speaks for all human time. And yet, the honest answer is that even the greatest poems will not save us, even the greatest poems cannot define us. Then again, the poems in this collection still recognize that limitation, and yet they still seek some divinity or salvation.

Every Riven Thing may just be the book that represents this era’s cautious optimism. In Wiman’s words, “To believe is to believe you have been torn / from the abyss, yet stand unwaveringly on its rim.”

Thom Dawkins
Weave Reviews Editor

Issue Seven Arrives

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:42:00 +0000

Weave is proud to announce the release of our seventh issue this December. With each issue, I am still giddy when Weave arrives from the printer on my doorstep. This new object I can hold, that I can place in someone else's hands. Before printing, the stories and poems and art were tangible through the vivid imagery of their creators, but now these pieces are a collective "thing" that marks another successful collaboration between editors, writers, and now finally, readers.

Issue 07 features incredible stories, including those selected for our first flash fiction contest, winner Kelly Baron's "White Bread" and honorable mention Andra Hibbert's "Blighted." You'll also find poems from our first poetry contest; winner Caleb Curtiss' "Dream" and honorable mentions from Noel Sloboda, Jada Ach, and Meg Cowan.

2011 is the first year Weave nominated poems and prose for the Pushcart Prize and issue seven includes three nominees: Lawrence Wray's poem "Alicante," and in nonfiction, Orman Day's "A Whimsical Current" and Eric Tran's "Lipstick Jungle."

Saturday, January 28th Weave celebrated the release of issue 07, along with issue 06, with a reading at Remedy in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania. The event included readings from contributors along with musical performances. Enjoy the photos of the event below.

This issue is also our largest ever, packed with poems from Carol Berg, Nicelle Davis, Noelle Kocot, and Nicholas YB Wong, fiction from Ellen McGrath Smith, Brooks Rexroat, and Anthony Varallo, nonfiction from Hannah Karena Jones and Julie Marie Wade, and art by Shoshana Kertesz, Jeannie Lynn Paske, Lindsey Peck Scherloum, among others.

Still haven't gotten your copy of Weave issue 07? Subscribe.

Announcing the Weave Magazine Winter Reading

noreply@blogger.com (Harrison) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:19:00 +0000

Come out from the cold to join fellow writers, readers, and musicians in celebration of Weave Magazine, featuring contributors from issue six and our brand-new issue seven! The event will take place on Saturday, January 28th, at Remedy Restaurant and Lounge in Lawrenceville. $5 gets you in to the funkiest literary party in town, as well as a copy of issue seven. Performances include readings from Sarah Leavens, Lindsey Peck Scherloum, Lawrence Wray, Alicia Salvadeo, Rose Huber, and Sarah Machinak, with music from Erika June Christiana Lang on the singing saw and the one-man band Marlin and the Snails. Come early to grab a drink and a bite to eat before the readings start at 7, and stick around so you can shake your fanny to Remedy’s DJ. RSVP on Facebook!

Weave's 2011 Micro Award Nomination

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 22:08:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce our 2011 nominee for the Micro Award, Jane McCafferty, for her fantastic story, "Stars in the Water." This annual award is presented for flash fiction of 1000 words or less. Many congratulations to Jane and we hope you'll read her story, along with the many other wonderful pieces that appear in Issue 06 of Weave.

2011 Pushcart Prize Nominations

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Weave has published beautiful poetry, prose, drama and visual art for over three years now. While we are still a young journal, we feel we have reached a threshold that many indie publications struggle to meet. Though we didn't arrive here without some struggle, Weave is here to stay. We will continue to publish and promote the beautiful work of our contributors and share it with our readers and subscribers.

In celebration of Weave's stability and growth, we are thrilled to announce our nominations for the 2011 Pushcart Prize. This this our first year selecting nominees and the process was difficult, but we believe we chose pieces that represent Weave's diversity of voice and standard of beauty.

Congratulations to all of our 2011 nominees!

"Rainer" by Z.Z. Boone
"A Whimsical Current" by Orman Day

"Song for an Ocular Migraine" by Sally Rosen Kindred

"Lifting Skin" by Mary O'Donnell

"Lipstick Jungle" by Eric Tran

"Alicante" by Lawrence Wray

A Note to Weave's Issue 07 Submitters

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:10:00 +0000

Dearest Issue 07 Submitters,

We're sorry we haven't been in touch sooner. The Weave staff has been busily reading submissions in our free time in preparation for our next issue. Between April and July 2011 we received more than twice the number of submissions than the previous reading period. If you still have an outstanding submission with Weave from our previous reading period, we offer our most sincere apologies. Most of our staff are writers too, so we understand what it's like to wait to hear back about a submission you sent in June. You can guarantee that many of us stare longingly at our inboxes mere moments after we hit the send button. Simply put, we empathize.

That said, we also have high standards as editors. We want to give every story or poem the thoughtful consideration it deserves. Many of you have already queried, and you still can by emailing us for a more personal update on the status of your submission. It is most likely, though, that your submission is still under consideration.

You may have also noticed that we posted the contributor list for issue 07. Where does that leave the outstanding submissions from the issue 07 reading period, you might ask? Excellent question! After careful thought, I decided it was best to consider the remaining submissions for our next issue. Our seventh issue is the biggest yet (around 120 pages!) and in order to finish the lengthy process of layout, final edits, and printing on time, I decided close the pages of lucky number seven.

We understand that this was not part of the original deal you made with Weave when you trusted us with your work. If you feel you need to withdraw your piece from consideration, we understand. But if you are open to being considered for issue eight, well, hang in there! Take a deep breath, turn off your computer, and spend some quality time with friends and family. In the mean time, we sincerely appreciate your continued patience and we'll do our best to get back to you as soon as possible!

Gratefully Yours,

Laura & the Weave Gang

Weave Magazine Issue 07 Contributor List

noreply@blogger.com (Weave Magazine) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 21:31:00 +0000

*POETRY*

Jada Ach

Carol Berg

Remica L. Bingham-Risher

Tanya Collings

Megan Cowen

Caleb Curtiss

Nicelle Davis

Mary Stone Dockery

Iris Jamahl Dunkle

Jessica Fenlon

Ruth Foley

Ivy Grimes

Robert Guard

Lauren Hilger

Krystal Howard

Keely Hyslop

Rich Ives

R. Mayer Jenkins

Dana Killmeyer

Alyse Knorr

Noelle Kocot

Diane Lockward

Nancy Long

Y. Madrone

Julie Platt

William Reichard

Noel Sloboda

Scott H. Stoller

Mitch Storar

Cynthia Veach

Benjamin Walker
Shangrila Willy
Nicholas YB Wong

Lawrence Wray

Sandra Yannone

Tracy Youngblom

Monika Zobel

*FICTION*

Kelly Brice Baron

Brandi Christian-Judkins

Amanda Jo Diana

Caitlin Laura Galway

Andra Hibbert

Kathleen Brewin Lewis

Ellen McGrath Smith

Dorene O’Brien

Brooks Rexroat

Anthony Varallo

*NONFICTION*
Orman Day

Hannah Karena Jones

Michael Shou-Yung Shum

Eric Tran

Julie Marie Wade

*REVIEW*

Thom Dawkins

*ART*
Vittorio F. Cavalli

Kathleen Gunton

Shoshana Kertesz

Jeannie Lynn Paske

Lindsey Peck Scherloum

Sandra Gail Teichmann-Hillesheim

Weave Magazine's 2011 Flash Fiction Contest Results!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 22:26:00 +0000

Thank you to all of the writers who entered Weave Magazine's 2011 Flash Fiction Contest and special thanks to our judge, Bridgette Shade, and to Weave's editorial team.

WINNER
"White Bread" by Kelly Baron. Bridgette Shade says, "Told from the point of view of a child, the images described in this short piece are fresh and original. Through a pot of macaroni and more importantly, a loaf of Wonder Bread, we get a taste of this uniquely dysfunctional family's life - particularly the life of Mary, a girl 'with hair like blackbirds' whose childhood toys have been replaced with aprons and impossibly grown-up standards. Whose innocence we mourn long after we've stopped reading."

Honorable Mention: "Blighted" by Andra Hibbert "is full of rich imagery and language..." -Bridgette Shade

Congrats to our winner, Kelly Baron, and runner-up Andra Hibbert. Read both flash fiction stories in the seventh issue of Weave this December!

Weave Magazine's 2011 Poetry Contest Results!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 03:29:00 +0000

Thank you to all of the poets who entered Weave Magazine's 2011 Poetry Contest and special thanks to our judge, Lisa Marie Basile and to our wonderful editorial team.

WINNER:

"Dream" by Caleb Curtiss. Lisa Marie Basile states, "The voice is authentic and the narrative is haunted. It builds the image and intensity. The architecture of the poem is precise and lovely. The language is clear, yet ripe with odd images that make sense no matter how strange. The poem balances a realistic, conversational register with a poetic, surreal register in a clean and sincere way. It was a pleasure to read. I also think this poem specifically works well for Weave. It is honest, creative, vivid and presents a strong relationship between two humans who have a strong woven connection."

Honorable Mentions:

"Peach Pull" by Jada Ach "is enriched with a lot of imagery, especially the juxtaposition between the natural world and gory, bloody thought." -Lisa Marie Basile

"Fig Eaters" by Megan Cowen "is a concisely gorgeous poem. The images in this piece catch me and make me want to write: 'waking, ready as the stone wall / onto which you spit the stars.' Wow! " -Lisa Marie Basile

"Caroline Fox Considers Jeremy Bentham's Proposal (1805)" by Noel Sloboda "provides a sense of real and internal momentum." -Lisa Marie Basile

Congratulations to Caleb Curtiss and to all of the Honorable Mentions! Look for all of these poems in Weave Magazine issue 07 this December.

Weave Goes Bicoastal Celebration Sale

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 01:10:00 +0000

Weave's sixth issue marked a new era for this literary community. In addition to trying something new with our print design, Weave's Founding Editor and lifelong Pittsburgher, Laura E. Davis (that's me!), moved across the country to San Francisco at the end of June. While we have always published writers and artists from all over the country, Weave has been a lasting literary presence in Pittsburgh. I struggled with what moving Weave to California might mean for the community we built back home.

But changes occur and we adapt. A few months ago, we stopped announcing weekly literary events on our blog. The primary reason behind this change was when another great organization began providing the same information in a more collaborative fashion. While Weave will always be Pittsburgh born and bred, we are now a bicoastal journal. In fact, thanks to the great folks at Submishmash, who make online submission management so simple, Weave has staff members across the country. While the bulk of our staff remains in Pittsburgh, we also have folks in New York City, Philadelphia and Southern California. Our customer base is growing too. Weave can always be purchased online, but we are also carried in a number of bookstores. In Pittsburgh, you can find us at Awesome Books; in San Francisco, look for Weave at Books & Bookshelves. Expect to see Weave on the shelf at many other independent booksellers in the near future.

Some things won't change. We will still participate in events like the Ligonier Valley Writers Conference and Pittsburgh's Small Press Festival. We hope to get involved with events like Litquake. We will be at AWP in Chicago again. I plan to host readings with former and current Weave contributors in the Bay Area, while continuing to hold readings for each issue in Pittsburgh. We hope to hold more community writing workshops across the county.

To celebrate this growth and expansion, we are going to have a SALE on ALL ISSUES of Weave, including our latest issue, which features work from writers such as Nin Andrews, J.P. Dancing Bear, Jane McCafferty and Truth Thomas, among others. Just use the code "BICOASTAL" at checkout and you'll get 50% OFF any purchase! (And domestic shipping on all orders is only $2.) This offer is good for at least one week, maybe longer, so after you buy your copies be sure to go tell your friends about Weave's big sale. We hope you'll join our celebration by supporting independent publishing with your purchase today!

Thom Dawkins reviews Three Recent Collections from Alice James Books

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Mulvania) — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 03:10:00 +0000

Between the Scylla and Charybdis of Contemporary Poetry:

Three Recent Collections from Alice James Books

lie down too by Lesle Lewis
This Strange Land by Shara McCallum
Heart First into the Forest by Stacy Gnall

A recent Poetry Foundation podcast aired segments of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, with Christian Wiman, Poetry Magazine’s editor, praising this year’s recipient, David Ferry. Wiman, to my surprise, was uncharacteristically assertive in his declaration, saying, “We live in a time of obvious, even aggressive assertions of style and singularity. Among younger generations, the eccentric is prized, even the grotesque. I like, very much, some of the poetry that comes out of this impulse, though the sheer deluge of willed eccentricity can be a bit exhausting.” I was shocked at this bit of public division between the generations , not because I was offended, but because I found myself agreeing for once with the figures of the status quo.

I think I can state without much controversy that there is nothing truly avant-garde or even interesting about the Inaccessible or the Hard to Understand, even as a certain “willed eccentricity” has become de rigueur for contemporary poetry. Equally true, there has never been much to praise in the Immediately Accessible. As poets on the Odyssey of the modern market, it still matters where we chart our course, but the best poetry seems to find its most brilliant passage between the Scylla of the grotesquely eccentric and the Charybdis of the flatly familiar.

The publishers of Alice James Books (AJB). like many smaller presses, seem to know where they stand in the poetry market. Unlike many presses, however, AJB seems to understand that good poetry isn’t anymore about “willed eccentricity” than it is about maintaining a stodgy party line. Good poetry always comes from an understanding of the establishment that forges ahead into the excitingly unfamiliar. Three recent collections from AJB exhibit their commitment to publishing what’s good instead of what’s immediately popular, and while each is stellar in its own way, it is also clear that not every book is for every reader.

In lie down too, the second Lesle Lewis collection to be published by AJB, every page is a list of (what seem to be) unrelated declarations. Yet, for all the bravado that normally accompanies the declarative sentence, the reader is left with hardly more than a stupefied silence. One poem, “The Plastic Baby,” begins with said plaything taking movies of itself on a moving walkway, (the last concrete image we will be given in the poem), then asks some basic questions about life and suffering, then ends several detached lines later with the statement, “To stay with the accessible would be ridiculous.” Some readers might be left wondering, “Is it so ridiculous?”

It would be easy to either praise or deride Lesle Lewis for the use of detached phrasing in these poems, but the real task is to determine where there is anything worth fighting to understand here in the first place. The answer is that there is something in the book as a whole, but you can’t eat an obscure piece of fish without swallowing some delicate bones.

The other answer is that there is a lot of wisdom in this book, and it comes at you in waves. I mean this almost literally: As if standing on the border of land and water, at the border of sense and chaos, the spare images of this book roll toward you at a rate that is both overwhelming and measured. Before one line has finished affecting you, the next line obliterates the preceding context and forces the mind to draw the circle of understanding ever wider.

My evaluative abstractions may be confusing, but they should be, as it’s the only way I can describe the cumulative effect of reading lines like those in “Red Bank:”

I wanted a horse.

I jumped from a plane.

I was not comfortable with your illness.

I was a detective at the wedding…

While quoting any of the lines out of context may be unfair, I will skip ahead to the ending:

I was like the goose bathing in parking lot puddles.

Definitely, I am on a train.

If these lines have anything in common, it’s that they belie the ending, and everything about the speaker and her situation is indefinite, and thus not placed assuredly on the train: The horse is unpossessed; the speaker is mid-fall; there is mild discomfort instead of joy or sadness; the speaker is the estranged guest; the bird is out of habitat. When the “Definitely” of the final line appears, we know that nothing is definite. If we assume the speaker is definitely on the train, then her perception of her surroundings is unstable and perhaps apocryphal. If she is not on the train, then we are similarly caught up in her lost-ness.

The value of lie down too will be found by the reader who enjoys dwelling in “uncertainties…without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” If you are not that reader, Alice James might still have some business in you, especially with Shara McCallum’s This Strange Land, a more grounded collection that seems interested in bringing the reader into the poet’s own community and family history.

The poems in This Strange Land are often based on McCallum’s childhood emigration to America from Jamaica, a country she left on the day of Bob Marley’s funeral, leaving her parents behind to mourn the international icon without her. The details of that departure (as well as her father’s death), are revealed subtly throughout the book, as if the poet is discovering her own familial history alongside the reader. The result is not so much the self-reflexive disturbance found in Lewis’s poems as a shared attempt between McCallum and her audience to redress a past estrangement in the life of the poet.

This Strange Land poignantly and appropriately begins with “Psalm for Kingston,” a poem that calls out to a violent city and its resilient inhabitants. The voices of Kingston, (its market and its music in particular), are brought up and left to fade into the fabric of the verse, just as the half-heard shouts of a busy city are overcome by further noise but never disappear. It is a fitting way to introduce a book that is in search of what feels almost lost and yet ever-present. The poem, like some psalms, relies on a refrain; each stanza begins by evoking the city itself:

City of school children in uniforms playing dandy shandy
and brown girl in the ring—tra-la-la-la-la—
eating bun and cheese and bulla and mangoes,
juice sticky and running down their chins, bodies arced
in laughter, mouths agape, head thrown back.

The bittersweet beauty of this poem reminds us of all the poet has lost, even as the sheer overstimulation of detail brings us into her culture and her memories. We hear the music of the marketplace, taste the food, and feel the anguish that hides under each overwhelming peal of laughter.

There is much in McCallum’s book that can’t be covered in a short review. The haunting dialect poems of “Miss Sally” in particular deserve a review of their own, as does the disjointed yet thorough “From the Book of Mothers.” (I would also have loved to cover the audio cd that accompanies the book, but like the Luddite poet I am, I somehow managed to cover the disc with glue taking it out of the package.)

Where Lesle Lewis might be too obscure for some readers, and where Shara McCallum may be too transparently tangible for others, there is a third book out from Alice James that falls somewhere in-between. Stacy Gnall has just published her debut collection, Heart First into the Forest, and it may just be that rare find in contemporary poetry: an utterly original work that manages to eschew weirdness to find real wisdom.

Like many poets before, Gnall guides these poems through the re-telling and the elaboration of myth. Unlike many poets, Gnall finds a truly human note in these stories with a visceral, whimsical approach to the language without losing any of its seriousness. One poem begins with an epigraph alluding to the murder of a girl found with taffeta stuffed in her mouth. Rather than being gruesome, the poem takes a more attentive approach to the story:

First, she gold rush of hair
as she collapse, light
avalanche from the hands
that ferried her there.
She slung on his arm
and set—an epaulet.

Most of the lines in this poem come without a verb, and if one appears, the lack of a complete thought implies something both liminal and yet absolutely real. We sense the lack of agency in a girl completely helpless against her murderer, but everything beautiful and sublime about her still insists upon rising to the surface. The same could be said of Gnall’s poems: She knows enough to not force her meaning upon the reader, leaving just enough tension and mystery to justify close consideration.

The best poems in Heart First into the Forest are often more personal, but they are by no means confessional or nostalgic. Instead, a backward glance at childhood reveals something even more peculiar, even more strange, even more ripe for terror and transcendence. Consider the beginning of “The Insecticide in Him,” which starts simply enough:

Leaning against the stubborn shed, my brother looks right
and sinister with his shirt untucked.
He is a hopscotch-skip away,
speculating what a second tongue tastes like, the contents
of a schoolgirl’s skirt, about babies: how one plus one makes three.

While there are no crimes or tragedy in the poem, it does not suffer for being less sinister. In fact, the building drama of adolescence becomes a fearful, insidious thing in Gnall’s capable hands. the first two lines move from what could easily be a photograph of a brother looking very much in his element (“my brother looks right”) toward the first signs of something frightening (“sinister with his shirt untucked”).

Ultimately, good poetry can be as tangible or as obscure as we wish it to be, but it should never feel over-done. With all three of these collections, Alice James Books finds the fine line between the eccentric and the familiar. In all three poets, I am thrilled to find contemporary voices that refuse to be predictable.

________

Thom Dawkins is a poet, educator, and critic whose most recent publishing credits include Mayday, Caliban Online, Pleiades, New Orleans Review, DMQ Review, Weave Magazine, and Puerto del Sol. He earned his MFA at Chatham University and studied theology at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Thom lives in Columbia, Missouri, where he teaches poetry and composition.

Submission Deadline: July 31st!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 16:09:00 +0000

You have four days left to submit your poetry, fiction, flash, nonfiction, reviews, drama, and artwork to Weave! This includes our poetry and flash fiction contests (check out the contest guidelines first). So send us your best by July 31st. We look forward to reading your work.

Weave Issue 06 was featured on the NewPages blog, showcasing our sewn insert, The Clothesline.

"It is sewn onto the inside front cover, the line of the stitch follows the clothesline on the cover art. The insert features the works of Andrew Knock, Rebecca Dunham, Sarah Machinak, Jane McCafferty, and Mary O'Donnell, and is, in its own way, a celebration and appreciation of the in-your-hand print publication."

We have received a lot of positive feedback on this issue and are so happy for our contributors. If you don't have a copy, get one. Then tell us what you think on Twitter so we can share it with our followers. Happy reading!

INTERVIEW with WEAVE Nonfiction Editor Peter Kusnic

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 18:56:00 +0000

We sat down with Peter Kusnic, Weave’s Creative Nonfiction Editor, to talk about the limitations and rewards of creative nonfiction, as well as his own writing process. Peter has a B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied fiction, creative nonfiction, and African American history. In 2009 and 2010 he earned national recognition as a semifinalist in the Normal Mailer Creative Nonfiction competition, for essays about memory and childhood, and the women’s history of racism in Selma, Alabama. His fiction has been featured in the Three Rivers Review, New Fraktur Literary Arts Journal, and The Original Thought. In addition to Weave, he is also a freelance magazine and news writer, and a waiter at Pamela’s Diner in Oakland. On days off he can be found in a coffee shop somewhere, at work on his first novel. He plans to enroll in an MFA program next year.

WEAVE: Why did you start writing?

Peter Kusnic: I’ve been writing since I was young—probably since I was six. I’ve always been obsessed with horror movies, Stephen King, Dean Koontz. I have a folder of my first short stories. All of which you could classify as “horror”—high body count, shallow depth, generally exploitative. Sometimes I go back and look at it and cringe. But I’m often surprised by how much detail I find in those stories; an interesting description or turn of phrase that reminds me why I turned to writing in the first place: I love language—reinventing it—creating unique metaphors, full characters, tangible settings. It wasn’t until college that I got serious about writing. Going in, I thought I was a writer. Coming out, I knew I was one. Studying both fiction and creative nonfiction at Pitt, I had wonderful mentors who helped me see the fallacy of objectivity in Nonfiction and the rewards of truth in Fiction. I found that, beyond content, there wasn’t much of a distinction between the two.

W: That actually leads into the next question: How do the genres compare, and where is the common ground?

PK: The essence of story is the same. Speaking from my personal approach: I find that both of the genres are about actively working to figure something out. In nonfiction, I start writing and it flows linearly. I have to pare the story down.

In fiction—I think Flaubert said this, but I’m not sure—the writing process is more horizontal. You begin with a skeleton and build outwards.

The limitations are different. In nonfiction, it’s a limitation of choice—what you choose to write about, what details/research/ideas you choose to illustrate the subject—and you’re also limited by the truth. And by truth I mean honesty. Is the narrator being honest with him or herself in relation to the subject? Does the narrator sound credible, trustworthy?

W: Can you say more about fiction’s limitations?

PK: In fiction, the limitations are nonexistent; anything can happen; but once you begin writing, you begin to see what the story is really about, and then you must impose limitations on the story that will enhance the story you see emerging. No matter what genre, we’re limited in what we can do with a given piece, whatever its length. But it’s up to the writer to decide what those limitations are. Writing exercises can be helpful to figure that out. “Now Write!” is a good exercise book. They can give you more perspective, can help shape an idea you’ve been toiling with. You can choose where to add emphasis. For example, building with setting—dedicating pages to the creation of a living, breathing space for your characters to occupy. You may scrap all of it, or decide to keep a sentence, a paragraph, an idea. The act of writing gets you closer to understanding your story. It may seem fruitless, all those wasted pages. But it's important to get all the muck out before you can start making sense of it.

W: How can creative nonfiction and poetry/fiction work together? In Weave for instance, the poetry and fiction have magical qualities. Along those lines, how can nonfiction incorporate the fantastical and/or the magical, and still be informed by truth?

PK: The creative nonfiction we’re generally looking at [for Weave] is memoir and personal essay. I think there are so many ways to tell a story in any genre, but the best ones reveal some kind of truth. In nonfiction, memory is truth; it’s what conjures the subject, defines a space for that subject to live, and invents the story. Memory is a very magical thing, ethereal and fleeting and always subject to change. It’s subjective, full of emotion, and hidden from everybody else. And it becomes history when we try to capture it in a medium—like writing. Truth is plastic and conveyable through infinite means. It’s up to the writer to determine what those means should look like on the page. There’s a lot of freedom in writing creative nonfiction. The writing has to be honest—if it’s forced, it will seem forced, and a reader won’t take your narrator seriously.

W: How does a nonfiction writer toe the line between honesty and creativity? Is it possible to be both creative and honest? As any story incorporates both poetry and prose, embellishments in the name of creativity, and the bias of perspective, can it ever be completely “true”?

PK: Every story can be “true”. How do you write about how it feels to experience death? It’s different for everyone depending on how you exist. You have to show how you feel or think. When writing about personal experiences, the “I” has to be there, a persona. Vivian Gornick talks about persona in her book on creative nonfiction, “The Situation and the Story.” The persona is sort of like a reader’s conceptual identity of the narrator, which in creative nonfiction, is inextricably linked to the author. As the reader reads, he or she gets an idea of this person telling the story, their values and beliefs. Reading established authors in any genre you can often find a fundamental topic uniting all their work. Sometimes characters and settings recur, or ideas from works long ago return in a different form, hopefully with greater lucidity. I like to think writers write because they have to. To be a writer is to be in a constant process of figuring out. It’s a dedicated practice, discovering your niche, your topic, your persona. A lot of writing, journaling, navel gazing. But ultimately it comes down to your emotional reality—that’s as true as anything else in this world.

W: Advice for emerging nonfiction writers?

PK: Trust that it’s what you want to do, because it means lots of work, grief, hours. You have to find the emotional energy to make your piece feel alive, to resonate with you, the writer. You have to be dedicated to learning the technical tricks of the trade, because even a good, evocative story can go awry without this foundation. There should be research, and outside contexts that serve as the narrator’s tools in figuring out the experience. I think research is the most undervalued component of nonfiction, because it shapes how the narrator’s reality fits into the broader landscape of the world. Without external voices holding it up, the essay can come off as being too self indulgent for a reader to find meaningful.

For me, the hardest part is knowing when done is "done." There's always something missing, something that isn't working as well as it should, a scene that can be filled out or pared down. It can be totally overwhelming. The sense that it's not good enough, it's not ready, unfinished. Those anxieties come with the territory of writing. They can be overwhelming, paralyzing. But it's important to plow through them and get the work as done.

W: What’s on your personal summer reading list?

PK: I just finished Factotum by Charles Bukowski. Raunchy, dirty, misogynistic—but the scenes were visceral, well paced. I also read The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, which revealed some really compelling evidence about how the Internet affects us culturally and psychologically. I have plans to get back into Madame Bovary, and I’m currently reading Breath, Eyes, Memory, a novel by Edwidge Danticat. And Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, which is a memoir about gardening.

W: Critic Chris Anderson said that nonfiction, as a genre, can be split into two categories—the personal essay and the journalistic essay. Can you speak to this?

PK: It’s an oversimplification. When I write personal essay or memoir, I do a lot of research, read lots of theory, lots of poetry. I read a lot of Freud and Blake while writing a memoir about memory repression and my childhood. For an essay on the Civil Rights Movement, I interviewed participants in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and others, enigmatic people who pioneered profound changes in American society. I transcribed 16 hours of video, took a sex and racism class, another class on racial gabs in public schools, researched the history of lynching, repression. I mean, I did so much work on those essays, and it paid off. The journalistic flourishes—the epigraphs, the allusions, the integration of facts into narrative—turned the muck of my personal feelings and memories into a concrete narrative with resonance.

With magazine or news writing, the approach is a little different. I get an assignment, a deadline. The story is given to me in abstract and it’s my job to fill in the details through interviews and research. The content must always be factually accurate while being at the same time streamlined and compelling. I have to make decisions and tailor the story to both the readership and my editors. Details I might find interesting may not be right for the publication, and so I have to turn my filter on. That’s a reality nonfiction writers who want to work for newspapers or magazines should understand. The piece is yours, but it’s shaped by many forces. That I think is the biggest distinction between the personal and journalistic essays. But in the end it’s all just narrative.

W: Lots of young writers I interact with express concern that writing a memoir is just “navel gazing,” or that they don’t have interesting stories. What do you have to say about that?

PK: Memoir is the most intimate form of nonfiction. What’s incredible about a good one is that you are transported into a very private and intimate world that is at once totally personal and universal. The memoirist writes with great courage, and we have to respect that. Everybody has a story to tell. I don’t care if you’ve spent the last six months with the indigenous peoples of Bolivia, or in jail, or changing diapers. What matters is how you tell the story. As writers, we aim to capture both the zeitgeist and the fundamental human experience behind the story, and, if we’re ambitious, we want it to flow like a dream and make a reader stop and think in a way he or she never has before. There are all kinds of ways of doing that, but the first step is recognizing that you do have a story to tell.

____

interview by Caitlyn Christensen

Issue Six Has Arrived!

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 01:19:00 +0000

Weave Magazine's sixth issue has finally arrived! The issue is packed with poems, stories, and art that we know you'll love. This issue travels pathways between pleasure and pain, joy and sadness, beauty and ugliness. You'll find magic realism, realistic fiction, and fairy tales retold. Weave 06 is very socially current with pieces that speak to racism, sexism, war, and the price of fame.

This issue also includes a special featured section entitled "The Clothesline" which was hand sewn into the front cover by a special team of Weavers! You simply must hold this issue in your hands. Check out poetry by Nin Andrews, J.P. Dancing Bear, Rebecca Dunham, and Sally Rosen Kindred; fiction by Lauren Becker, Z.Z. Boone, Jane McCafferty and Mary O’Donnell; nonfiction by Timothy L. Marsh; and artwork by deona fish, Andrew Knock and Sarah Leavens.

BUY WEAVE ISSUE SIX!

If you preordered your copy or are a subscriber, expect to get your copy early next week.

Whitman with a boombox: A Review of John Murillo’s Up Jump The Boogie

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Tue, 31 May 2011 12:44:00 +0000

“That there is a kind of joy in the begging // Itself, that all songs are love songs. Blues, / Especially. Praise the knowledge. Praise.” These lines from “Song,” the final poem of John Murillo’s debut collection Up Jump The Boogie (Cypher Books, 2010), illustrate the core themes of the collection. With the title of Up Jump The Boogie it would be right to assume that Murillo sets out to celebrate the energy of hip-hop and the neighborhoods that helped channel this energy into the world. Up Jump The Boogie can be categorized as a neighborhood love song; however, the book is more than that. The collection is not only concerned with the positive energy of Murillo’s world, the energy that empowers the title character of “Santayana, The Muralist” as he “Aerosols Aztlan across barrio brick for all the poor / To see: Aztec warriors, Mexican washwomen, dios del sol.” This is a creative energy, but the same energy responsible for creating the murals is capable of creating the scenes seen in another poem, the sestina “The Corner” (forms like sestinas and ghazals are prevalent in Up Jump the Boogie, but it is easy to miss Murillo’s formalism because of how naturally one poem flows into the next). Here, we see characters like Jojo and the dark places the same energy can lead:

Take this young boy, Jojo. Fresh out the joint, before he’d head
Anywhere near his mama’s house, he’d run straight here. Across
The street from the carryout and check cashing spot, he’ll peddle
His rocks to anybody who pushes past. Even little Ebony. Hear
She was almost prom queen, drove the young boys crazy back
In the days before Jojo got at hold of her. How the weight

Melts from face and neck. How skin cankers, and blood and sweat
Crust corners of lips licked only in wet dreams. How she gives head
Now by the dumpster behind the church, fucks, how fast five bucks
Find their way back to Jojo’s hands. And Jesus, on a stone cross,
Watches it all from on high. How it begins, ends, and begins again here,
On the corner. Tonight, rain clouds bruise the sky. Jojo sells.

In the universe Murillo creates, for every Santayana, there is an Ebony. Every scene of creation and hope is counterbalanced by a story of destruction and loss. No corner of his world is sacred because all corners of his world are sacred, and Murillo invites his readers to watch these sacred acts from his shoulders.

While the power of the collection does not wane, there are moments of levity as well. In poems like “Enter the Dragon,” readers get to see the narrator and his father celebrating martial artist and actor Jim as they trade “Salt & butter / High-fives” and “jab and clutch.” This moment of happiness ends when the two are pulled over by police officers. However, with poems like this and “Monster Boy,” where a young narrator and his friends wish for things like “a dick as long as a turkey leg” and “Psycho Michael Lopez out of the way” and these wishes find a way to become true, readers get a chance to see the normalness that can occur amongst the broken lives Murillo describes. In any world, children will still dream; boys will still pretend to know kung-fu after watching a Bruce Lee movie. On the surface, these moments could seem like filler or a tonal shift for the sake of a tonal shift. But on these moments of levity help to show how the human spirit and peek out from any situation and shine.

There are many clumsy and political arguments made about hip-hop being the spiritual successor of classical poetry or slave hymnals. Some of these arguments hope to diminish the culture at hand. Other arguments hope to chain the culture to a false tradition. Thankfully, Murillo manages to avoid those tropes while still echoing the original purpose of both the MC/DJ and the poet in society: to proclaim truths about their societies for all the world to hear and recognize.

_____

Review by Jason McCall whose debut collection, Silver, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag. He is from the great state of Alabama, where he currently teaches English and Literature at the University of Alabama. He holds an MFA from the University of Miami, and his poetry has been or will be featured in Diverse Voices Quarterly, The Los Angeles Review, Cimarron Review, New Letters, Mythic Delirium, Fickle Muses, and other journals.

Pittsburgh Lit Events: May 23 - 29

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Monday, May 23:
Reading: Literazzi Invades Fleeting PagesLiterazzi, a performance troupe that supports literacy in Pittsburgh, will host a night of readings by Kristin Ross, Ashly Nagrant, A.E. Loveridge, Jenn D., and Jocelyn Hillen reading excerpts from T.S. Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets.'
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
7:00pm - free

Tuesday, May 24:

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series
The back room of Hemingway's Cafe fills up with featured readers and an open mic in this 30+ year running poetry series, hosted by Jimmy Cvetic. This week the series features Lisa Alexander, Cara Armstrong, Darla Himeles, and Lori Wilson.
Hemingway’s Cafe
3911 Forbes Ave Pittsburgh, PA (Oakland)
8:00pm – free – (412)621-4100

Thursday, May 26:

Planes, Trains, & Automobiles: Three Hometown Writers on the RoadThree Pittsburgh writers — one former truck driver, one former flight attendant, and one former cross-country motorcycle wanderer — will read their poems and stories about leaving and coming home. Featuring Dave Newman, author of Please Don't Shoot Anyone Tonight (World Parade Books) and more; Bob Pajich, author of Everyone Exquisite (Liquid Paper Press) and more; and Lori Jakiela, author of Miss New York Has Everything (Hatchette), Red Eye (Pudding House) and more. Live road-mix-worthy music to follow the readings. All proceeds go to Fleeting Pages. Music to follow the readings: Emily Rogers & Eric Cirelli-Reading (Green Lantern Press)
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
8:00pm - $2

Friday, May 27:

Blanket and Shake: Women Poetry Round Robin ReadingFour local writers will dazzle you with a round robin, work trading, no-holds-barred evening of live poetry. Featuring Carolyne Whelan, Beth Fleeson, Elizabeth Ashe, and Courtney Lora Lang. Brief open mic to follow.
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
7:00pm - $4

Saturday, May 28:

Pomegranate Poetry WorkshopArtist, filmmaker, photographer, and poet Edward Murray leads a prompt-based workshop exploring the ways poetry is found all around our everyday experiences.
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
1:00pm - free

Do you have a literary event you want to see listed on our calendar?
E-mail details to: joel.weavezine @ gmail.com

Pittsburgh Lit Events: May 16 - 22

noreply@blogger.com (Laura E. Davis) — Mon, 16 May 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Monday, May 16:

"Bad Writing" Film Screening
Join Creative Nonfiction for a screening of "Bad Writing." The feature-length documentary by Vernon Lott includes interviews with leading figures in the literary world including David Sedaris, Margaret Atwood, Steve Almond, CNF's very own Lee Gutkind, and many more. A brief and lively discussion of writing--bad, good and in-between--will follow the film.
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)
5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
7:00pm - free

Tuesday, May 17:

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series
The back room of Hemingway's Cafe fills up with featured readers and an open mic in this 30+ year running poetry series, hosted by Jimmy Cvetic. This week the series features Jan Beatty & Madwomen in the Attic: Molly Bain, Tess Barry, Gayle Reed Carroll, Dorina Pena, Susan Shaw Sailer & Bernadette Ulsamer.
Hemingway’s Cafe
3911 Forbes Ave Pittsburgh, PA (Oakland)
8:00pm – free – (412)621-4100

Wednesday, May 18:

WEAVE FEATURED EVENT!
Weave Magazine Workshop @ Fleeting Pages
Join Weave's Editor, Laura E. Davis, for the second in our series of workshops at Fleeting Pages. Bring a "famous" poem or short prose piece to serve as inspiration in this fun-filled workshop. Suggested donation includes a copy of Weave!
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)
5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
7:00pm - $5 (suggested donation)

Thursday, May 19:

The New Yinzer Presents
Join The New Yinzer for another installment of TNYPresents. Featured writers include Steve Himmer, Traci O'Connor, Noah Gershman, and Derek Pollard.
ModernFormations
4919 Penn Ave Pittsburgh, PA (Lawrenceville)
8:00pm - $5 (free w/ pot luck contribution) - (412) 362-0274

Friday, May 20:

The New Yinzer Presents: Special Edition
Join The New Yinzer for a special installment of TNYPresents at Fleeting Pages. Featured writers include Kris Collins, Scott Silsbe, Celine Roberts, Nicole Leckenby, Holly Coleman, Mark Mangini, Taylor Grieshober, and Adam Matcho.
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)
5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
7:00pm - free

Saturday, May 21:

WEAVE FEATURED EVENT!
Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics - Pittsburgh Reading
Join Editors and Contributors of Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics for a celebration of issue #8, a reading from same, and an open mic (1 prose poem per reader, no more than 2 pages). Featured readers include Deb Bogen, Claire Barbetti, Sten Carlson, Robin Clarke, Sharon Fagan McDermott, and Ellen McGrath Smith.
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)
5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
8:00pm - free

Speaking of... Reading Series
Enjoy a night of words featuring Joseph Young (fiction), Jim Coppoc (Poetry), and Stacy Waite (Spoken Word).
Amani International Coffee house & Cafe
507 Forland St Pittsburgh, PA (North side)
8:00pm - $5.00 - (412) 477-3235

Do you have a literary event you want to see listed on our calendar?
E-mail details to: joel.weavezine @ gmail.com

Pittsburgh Lit Events: May 9 - 15

noreply@blogger.com (joel.weavezine) — Mon, 09 May 2011 16:00:00 +0000

Monday, May 9:

"Lines braided from their voices": A poetic journey with Kelli Stevens Kane & Angele Ellis
Join literary and performance poet Kelli Stevens Kane and Angele Ellis--whose work has appeared on a theater marquee--for an evening of work that combines earth and spirit, movement and music.
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)
5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
7:00pm - $5 (children under 12 free)

Tuesday, May 10:

Writers LIVE @ CLP - Nathaniel Philbrick
Pittsburgh Lectures welcomes Nathaniel Philbrick, reading from The Last Stand, his take on the mythic story of the American West.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (Main Branch)
4400 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA (Oakland)
6:00pm - free (call in advance to register) – (412) 622-8866

WEAVE FEATURED EVENT!
Gary Shteyngart Reading

Author Gary Shteyngart reads from Super Sad True Love Story (Random House, 2010) under the City of Asylum tent. Moderated by Eric Shiner, acting director of the Andy Warhol Museum.

City of Asylum Pittsburgh

330 Sampsonia Way Pittsburgh, PA (North side)

7:00pm - free - (412) 321-2190

Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series
The back room of Hemingway's Cafe fills up with featured readers and an open mic in this 30+ year running poetry series, hosted by Jimmy Cvetic. This week the series features the Squirrel Hill Poetry Workshop: Anthony Ciotoli, Pam O'Brien, Shirley Stevens, Randy Minnich, Marc Jampole, Ann Curran, and Nancy Esther James.
Hemingway’s Cafe
3911 Forbes Ave Pittsburgh, PA (Oakland)
8:00pm – free – (412)621-4100

Representations of the Working-Class: Workshop
What does ‘working-class’ mean? Does it refer to the author or the art? This workshop will examine various examples of "working-class" representation and conduct a short free write session in response. Please bring your own or other writing, art, and ideas to share.
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)
5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
7:00pm - free

Wednesday, May 11:

WEAVE FEATURED EVENT!
Weave Magazine Workshop @ Fleeting Pages
Join Weave's Editor, Laura E. Davis, for the first in a series of workshops at Fleeting Pages. Bring your favorite famous poem to serve as inspiration in this fun-filled workshop. Suggested donation includes a copy of Weave issue 3 or 4!
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)
5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
7:00pm - $5 (suggested donation)

Jean Kwok Reading

Author Jean Kwok reads from Girl in Translation (Riverhead, 2010) under the City of Asylum tent. Moderated by Bill O'Driscoll of Pittsburgh City Paper.

City of Asylum Pittsburgh

330 Sampsonia Way Pittsburgh, PA (North side)

7:00pm - free

Thursday, May 12:

WEAVE FEATURED EVENT!
"Bookstore Clerks Who Write About It" Reading
Bookstore clerks, bookstore owners, and former bookstore workers read from their own writings on the bookstore biz, as well as the writings of others. Readers will include: Kris Collins (Caliban Books), Nancy Krygowski (formerly, Maelstrom Books), Karen Lillis (formerly, St Mark's Bookshop), Tommy Mac (formerly, Powell's Books, Chicago), and Bob Ziller (Awesome Books) reading their own work as well as writings from Ron Kolm (Posman Books), Corey Mesler (Burke's Book Store), and Kevin Sampsell (Powell's Books, Portland).
Fleeting Pages (former Borders Eastside)
5986 Penn Circle South, Pittsburgh, PA (East Liberty)
7:00pm - free

Saturday, May 14:

Cyberpunk Apocalypse Coo-Off
Monthly writing and art presentation, open to all, awarding a homemade trophy and half the door money to the "coolest" project, as selected by all in attendance.
Cyberpunk Apocalypse
5431 Carnegie St Pittsburgh, PA (Lawrenceville)
7:00pm - $2-4 donation - (412) 513-8285

Sunday, May 15:

Carnegie Library Sunday Reading Series
The Carnegie Library’s Sunday Poetry Reading Series hosts a reading with Lisa Alexander and Victoria Dym.
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh (Main Branch)
Quiet Reading Room, Main Floor
4400 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh, PA (Oakland)
2:00pm - free – (412)622-3151

Do you have a literary event you want to see listed on our calendar?
E-mail details to: joel.weavezine @ gmail.com