I’ve been researching rents, neighborhood crime statistics, and pet policies. Not for fun. You guessed it, we are moving – again. The nice people who own our condo actually want to live it in now, so we have to skedaddle and find a new place to rent. In Seattle I never hope to own unless I win the lottery or the MacAurthur or something (practically the same odds, I bet.) It’s overwhelmingly expensive. We have moved about six times in seven years, which can be a little wearing. Although, we have gotten to visit some cool neighborhoods – Bainbridge Island, where I commuted to work by ferry, and Sammamish Plateau, when it still was overrun by quail and deer instead of condos and strip malls, which gets about five times the snow as other neighborhoods. I hope to find another neighborhood for a more extended visit. Please God, at least two years this time? I hate boxing and sorting and packing and all the discombobulation that goes with moving so often. Although it forces you to break ties with your stuff – a healthy exercise.

If you or some poet you like lives in Bellingham, be sure to sign up for Martha Silano and my workshop at Village Books on Tuesday February 8th. (I know, $20 a pop for a workshop is steep – but it’s two poets for the price of one! And I have a handout with real poems in it!) After the workshop we’ll be hanging out and getting drinks and enjoying the town.

My aunt is in a coma but breathing on her own. She’s two years older than my Dad. Thanks for those of you who’ve sent good wishes. Things like this are so unnerving. I don’t like losing people.

A few mini-reviews of chapbooks I’ve been sent or acquired:

Alan King, Transfer. This small self-published chapbook from a 25-year-old slam poet in Maryland defies expectation – the poems don’t let the reader off easy, they shine lights on issues of race and class and gender, and there’s a great moment when men in a barbershop consider 9/11 with the right balance of unease and grace. The juxtaposition of casual overheard language and song lyrics and the prickly insights of the internal life of the speaker make for interesting reading. When talking about violence between men and women in a poem called “perceptions,” the speaker imagines himself “protecting her/ from anglers she will mistakenly see/ as angels” Other poets make appearances in this chapbook (AI, Maya Angelou) as do nightclub scenes, Al Green, and, oddly, Steve Irwin. Entertaining and slightly caustic, I look forward to more of King’s work.

Kristy Bowen, The Archaeologist’s Daughter, Moon Journal Press. I was a huge fan of another of Bowen’s chapbooks, Errata, and so was happily anticipating this work. This collection, published two years before Errata, is more narrative and less experimental than Errata, without the feel of collage in that chapbook, but it brings up many of the same themes. Bowen conjures up the life of a young woman (perhaps the speaker’s grandmother) at the turn of the last century, examines archetypes of women transforming (Mermaids, Daphne) and women who bring destruction (Witches, Guinevere, Helen of Troy.) The same sense of a femininity singed with rage and oppressive shadows sang through this collection. I can’t wait to get ahold of Feign. Kristy Bowen is the next big thing. Trust me.

Wanton Textiles by Reb Livingston and Ravi Shankar, No Tell Books. This collaboration between two poets has the immediacy of reading someone else’s heated e-mail exchanges, but with a heightened imagination and lyricism you would generally not expect in an e-mail. The two poets playfully employ sensual imagery and undercut this with unexpected comedy. Some of the entries read like travelogue, others like lovers’ confessions filled with flip innuendo; for instance, “My Wilted Turtledove, my mate in linguistic perpetuity, you are the impetus for lace and dictionaries, you are divide and tangled…Hope you have shoe soles thin enough for this./ Love, Reb” and the next page’s response: “The whole shoal charges changed. Halleluiah! I’ll ogle you from the next drifting feather./ Yours, Prometheus in Drag” A fun collection!