InDigest 1207 Photos - January 7th, 2009

Check out the photo album from the January InDigest 1207 reading with Ada Limon, Sam Osterhout, and Jess Grover.

InDigest 1207 Reading Series - January 7th, 2009

(Thanks to Taya Mueller and Ada Limon for the photos)

MN Year in Review at mnartists.org

The folks over at mnartists.org have collected quite a comprehensive list of artistic endeavors taken on and/or accomplished by artists, musicians, and writers from Minnesota in 2008. And they were nice enough to include a couple of my scribbles on the matter (including a shameless plug for InDigest). First is my review of my good friend Chris Koza's latest disc, which I was lucky enough to hear in its making in a small apartment in Brooklyn a couple of summers ago:

Chris Koza's Dark, Delirious Morning: This album holds some highlights in the impressive canon of Koza albums. "Straight to Video" shows a talented artist refusing to be boxed into what we might expect. This album makes me excited to see what Koza will do next, while leaving me something to work through while I'm waiting.

And then some great books by Dave Schwartz and Geoff Herbach...and a nice little magazine:

Dave Schwartz's Superpowers is an amazing novel by a local author in 2008 that is all the more so because, in less careful hands, the book could have been awful. His handling of the events of 9/11 is heartbreaking and understated and beautiful. Also released last year was Geoff Herbach's The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg (read a great review from Ashleigh Lambert at InDigest here), an unapologetically uplifting book and, as always with Herbach, hilarious. And, lastly, my shameless plug for InDigest Magazine. Although we technically launched in 2007, InDigest came into its own in 2008. From the beginning we've offered a unique home for Minnesota writers and artists to be showcased on a national and international stage, and in our anniversary issue we published many of our favorite Minnesota writers and artists again.

Check out all the lists here>>>

Lastly, if you are reading this today and you are in New York and you don't come to Chris Koza's show at Piano's tonight (see post below), then we are no longer friends.

Chris Koza Tonight!!

One of InDigest's founding editors, Chris Koza, is playing a show tonight in New York. So, all of our NYC friends should come out and have a drink with us. This will be the first time he is bringing his entire band out to New York. (He's played here many times, even lived here, but never with his full band, and it's going to be great.) He's playing in the Lower East Side at Piano's, and should be taking the stage around 8pm tonight. If you're looking for something to do early in the evening this is going to be the spot tonight.

If you haven't heard his newest disc The Dark Delirious Morning, you should go to his MySpace page and take a listen. And then you will want to come out, hear him, and have a drink with me and David. See you there.

Our Friends at Guernica Magazine Praised by Esquire

Guernica Magazine, where I am the Blog Editor, got a little praise from Esquire for our fiction section. The Fiction section editor, Meakin Armstrong, has been published twice in InDigest and will be reading at our second InDigest 1207 on Feb. 4, along with Guernica's Poetry Editor, Erica Wright, who we've also published a couple times in InDigest.

Well played, Meakin.

The Biggest Poetry Reading You've Ever Seen

She took a lot of shit for this from Rush Limbaugh and Jon Stewart. Elizabeth Alexander isn't exactly the most daring modern poet, but nonetheless she handled herself well. It's nice to continue to see poets getting a little more attention through mainstream outlets (like Lemon in Esquire), even if it is a poet that I wouldn't call a favorite. 

There is of course that nasty business of the hoards of people leaving doing her poem, and probably being turned off forever to poetry readings and stereotyping all poetry as being just like this (because this, no doubt, wasn't really surprising anyone). And that's all unfortunate, because who wants to have that feeling when you see poets getting attention. We should all be glad for her and the great opportunity to read a poem in front of a couple of million people. That probably won't happen again for a very long time, and Elizabeth Alexander did what she had to do, and did a pretty good job with it.

InDigest 1207 in February

The Daily Poem Factory-Machine

Has anyone else been keeping up with The Daily Poem Factory-Machine? If you haven't this is something you need to go check out. Brad Liening has a blog where he posts a brand new poem everyday. It's an interesting project, with some great poetry. That's all, just go read some poetry. If you randomly wound up here and you don't read a poetry just pretend like it's national poetry month and go do it.

InDigest 1207 in February

We haven't really posted anything official about the InDigest 1207 February reading, and that's too bad. You should know about that reading; it's going to be great. Here are the specifics:

02.04.09
InDigest 1207 Reading Series featuring
Meakin Armstrong
Erica Wright
6pm doors | 7pm reading
Free (as always)

InDigest 1207 takes place on the first Wednesday of every month at (Le) Poisson Rouge.
158 Bleecker St.
New York, NY

Come have a drink and enjoy some of our favorite writers with us.


(Thanks again to Peter Silberman from The Antlers for the poster. Again, if you haven't heard them yet go take a listen, they are great. They were also just named, by Earfarm, as one of the "Ten Brooklyn Bands You Need To Hear Right Now." And you do.)

InDigest 1207

The first installment of InDigest 1207 was a success on all fronts. A very special thanks to Ada Limon, Sam Osterhout, and Jess Grover for reading, and to all those who came out and hung out with us.


In InDigest 1207 we ask readers to, along with their own work, bring in some pieces by other writers who have influenced them and read those as well. There were some requests after the reading last night for us to post those read by Ada, Sam, and Jess. So, here you are:

Ada read "One Art" Elizabeth Bishop from her collection, Complete Poems 1927-1979 and "Faint Music" by Robert Hass from, Sun Under Wood.

Sam read from William Stafford's book Kansas Poems. Poems: "North of Liberal," "At Breaks Near the River," and "Key of C--An Interlude For Marvin."

Jess read "Centaur" by Srikanth Reddy from his book Facts for Visitors, "In the Clear Long After" by Olena Kalytiak Davis from her book Shattered Sonnets, Love Cards and Other Off and Back Handed Importunities, "Boot Theory" by Richard Siken from his book Crush and "Wind in a Box" by Terrance Hayes from his book Wind in a Box.

Thanks again everyone. Hope to see you all at the next 1207 on Wed. Feb. 4 when we will proudly be welcoming Meakin Armstrong and Erica Wright.

Lastly, a special thanks to LPR for offering a gorgeous space for this series...And amazing drink specials for all in attendance!

Watch for pictures from last night coming soon.