Jazz Poetry

Every now and then I get really into poets.org. It largely focuses on more classical forms and authors, but also has a nice selection of some contemporary work.

Anyhow, they just featured Hayden Carruth in their recent newsletter and I thought I'd share how a person can get lost at poets.org for a couple of hours.

1. You begin by reading the bio of a poet (Hayden Carruth), and if you can avoid clicking all the links provided then you may proceed to step 2. Otherwise click through the links, get lost, then return for step 2.

2. Read some poetry by the author (Of Distress Being Humilated by the Classical Chinese Poets). You can often find recordings of the poets reading the poem embedded in the page for you to read along to. Nice.

3. Read another poem by your selected poet. (The Cows at Night)

4. Decide to look into the larger framework of their movement and read about the history of the movement they may have been a part of. Follow links or not as stated in step 1 (A Brief Guide to Jazz Poetry). Ultimately choose another poet whose work is listed in this section and begin again. (Jayne Cortez)

That's all there is to wasting time reading poetry at poets.org. I suppose you could do that anywhere. But that's what I was just doing. And it's not really a waste of time. So there.

UPDATED: I seem to have forgotten to mention that Hayden Carruth passed away this month. Read his Washington Post obituary.

InDigest Offices Temporarily Move to NYC

The InDigest office is temporarily located in New York for the week, as you may have read in the previous post (instead of being spread across the country like no office you've ever seen). This evening the whole office went out to the KGB Bar and saw two pretty great poets and the evening ended with David emerging a hero.

The reading consisted of both Rick Barot and CA Conrad reading some new poetry and I thought I'd provide some links here for you to go and check them out. I didn't get to see Mr. Barot read, but David promises that it was good, and I rather enjoy the poem that is located here. Mr. CA Conrad was also a very solid poet (and had a great delivery). His poems were funny in the way that you chuckle at a funny line, but can't full laugh because he then makes you grimace as you realize that, yes, life is both funny and very not funny. You can read his "Dear Mr. President There Was An Eggshell Under Your Desk Last Night in My Dream" here.

That's all for now.

I Could Use Your Lips on Me and a Little Bit of Dramamine

Holly Munoz, participant in Issue 7's Music section, invited me to ride on a bus with her and all the bands from Draw Fire Records on their trip out to New York for CMJ, where eight bands will play Friday night, before everyone piles back in the bio-diesel bus and drives another 20 hours back to the Twin Cities.

I am writing from Illinois about to cross over to Indiana. We have a long trip ahead still. It's not what you might expect from a bus full of bands. A lot of people (yours truly) are on their computers and, at least to my knowledge, there has been no drug use or drinking. And, if there has been, it certainly hasn't been in excess. Everyone panicked briefly before realizing that the bus was in fact equipped with wireless. We have updates heading into a number of places online: Twitter, How was the show, Facebook, etc.

The first few hours were kind of rough for me. When we stopped in Madison I picked up a little Dramamine and I seem to be doing better now.

I'll try to keep the updates coming. But it might be night time soon.

Our Friends at Whistling Shade Have a New Issue

Our friends over at the fine literary magazine called Whistling Shade have a new issue hitting coffee shops, book stores and the like across Minneapolis (and the world wide webs very soon). The intoduction to the release sounds familiar to us here in the InDigest offices, "I see that another issue of Whistling Shade is pulling into the station. This is a train that always makes its run - if not always quite on schedule!"*

Their new issue will contain poetry from Mary Kay Rummel, Gary Dop, Norita Dittberner-Jax, Thomas R. Smith and Bryan Thao Worra; new fiction from Eric Stener Carlson and Justin Teerlinck, and lots lots more. Check frequently to find out when the new issue is online...


*Look for issue 8 of InDigest to be out very very soon, and following on it's heels our One Year Anniversary Issue!

Some Good Stuff to Listen to From NPR

Poet Sharon Dolin talks about her new book Burn and Dodge. (there's a poem in it called "To The Family of the Man We Ate 130 Years Ago")

Neil Gaiman talks about his new book.

The Best Foreign Books You've Never Heard of.

Other Stuff to read:
Muumuu House is a new publishing house started by Tao Lin.

InDigest Columnist Jess Grover has new poems in the Fall '08 Forklift, OH. (the poems will be posted soon)

Ok, go read (and/or listen).

Travis Lindquist Gallery

New York artist Travis Lindquist, published in the Gallery of Issue 4, has an opening this weekend featuring many new pieces. The gallery, titled In The Darkest night, will take place at the McCaig Welles and Rosenthal Gallery in New York. The gallery opening will be held Friday night at the McCaig gallery from 7pm-10pm, and will be on display from October 10th - November 10th. The gallery is located in Brooklyn at: 129 Roebling Street, Suite B Brooklyn, NY 11211. We highly recommend you go and check out his work, Lindquist is a very engaging presence who's work is engaging, dark, fractured and incredibly beautiful.

The piece to the left is the gallery's title piece "Darkest Night".

Huffington Post

In case you haven't seen this yet, David has a great article up on the Huffington Post.

In case you haven't heard, I'm excited about the start of the hockey season. (I had to link to a page about the Wild, because I'm still in panic mode about not having found a bar in New York that will play all of the WIld games).

Are You Registered?

This here is a friendly reminder from your buds at InDigest: are you registered to vote?

If not you should go here to register. I know that this is an Obama endorsed site, but you can register here if you are voting for McCain, or writing in Ron Paul, if you want to vote for Bart Simpson, or vote Green or Libertarian. It doesn't really matter to us who you want to vote for (though InDigest is certainly endorsing Obama) it's just important that you get registered and that you vote.

It's a cliche, but I'm going to go there, it is important no matter who you vote for. This is said every election in an effort to galvanize American citizens into participating in the democratic process, but, no joke, this is one of the most important elections in decades. Obviously, it's been something of a historic race, and you should be a part of it. For the first time in decades there is no incumbent (or VP) running for president, the country is in a state of crisis, we're in the midst of a protracted war in two countries, our stock market and economy are in one of the worst crashes in decades, among a host of other issues that extremely important and this won't be dealt with by the Bush administration, it's up to whomever we elect (that's not supposed to be a jab at their lack of ability to get anything done, but merely a fact of their limited time left in office).

So, before I ramble on too long, please register to vote. Leave comments on your funny registration story, encourage your friends and family to vote and get involved. It's easy to say that your vote doesn't make a huge impact, but how many anecdotes are there about congressional elections being determined by 500 or less votes? Lots. And that is where the change comes from, having your candidates in control of state or national congress, every election makes a difference and every vote counts for something. Saying that your vote doesn't make a difference is hypocritical, how can we expect our voices to be heard at a national level when most of America isn't using the little say they do have? I'll get off the pedestal now and hope that you are going to click that link and register if you haven't already.

Much love from InDigest.

Poetry Politique

Wave books has just kicked off a brand new site that will post on politics and poetry everyday until the election. PoetryPolitic.com is a pretty fantastic site doing some interesting stuff. Go check out a site that sort of doesn't use as many of those, you know, vagueries, like some literary blogs do, sometimes.

Issue 7 is now up

Issue 7 of InDigest is now up. Thanks for your patience on this one, folks. As some of you may know, Dustin has recently moved to New York, so it's been a new adventure getting this issue together with half a country between us. Among other things this move prompted us to do our first Letter From the Editors.

What else you'll find in this issue:

Crows and the poltical machines of the world are satirized and recontextualized in a series of paintings by Pamela Kirton. HERE>>>

Flash Fiction from Brandon-Scott Gorrell.

The other men in black suits and sunglasses began running around in small circles and shooting at Alex with Uzis. Alex shot them and killed them. Alex said something to Keith about how good he was with the sniper rifle.

The hardest working woman in music, Holly Munoz, sits down with Ellen Frazel to talk about running Draw Fire Records, plotting cross-country bio-diesel tours, and recording a new album with her band Aviette.

Reverend Billy talks to Dustin about consumerism run amok in the U.S. Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir have been singing and screaming the perils of over-spending, global warming, and frivolous globalization for over a decade.

On the heels of the Republican National Convention, I offer my thoughts about rappers Atmosphere, Mos Def, and The Pharcyde not speaking up enough at a concert that took place right next to where the Republicans were congregating. There are fewer than two months until we vote for the next President (and VP) and all opportunities have to be taken advantage of.

Hope you enjoy. Thanks for continuing to support this thing, InDigest.

David Luke Doody & Dustin Luke Nelson

David Foster Wallace (1962-2008)

David Foster Wallace, author of the novel Infinite Jest and fantastic collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, passed away Friday, in an apparent suicide. From the NYT:

David Foster Wallace, whose darkly ironic novels, essays and short stories garnered him a large following and made him one of the most influential writers of his generation, was found dead in his California home on Friday, after apparently committing suicide, the authorities said.

Mr. Wallace, 46, best known for his sprawling 1,079-page novel “Infinite Jest,” was discovered by his wife, Karen Green, who returned home to find that he had hanged himself, a spokesman for the Claremont, Calif., police said Saturday evening.

It's sad every time a literary figure of this stature passes away. The world of letters is better for having him in it.

Call for Submissions

InDigest, a literary magazine that seeks to create a dialogue about and between the arts, is interested in submissions focused on Hurricane Katrina. Why Katrina? Why now? We at InDigest were extremely troubled by the politicizing of events surrounding Hurricane Gustav—the photo ops, the self-serving talk of doing good for others, et al.—while people affected by Katrina are still living in FEMA trailers three years after that hurricane hit. We feel that, unlike our other national tragedy—9/11—Katrina has been dismissed, forgotten. We have our own opinions about why, but we seek artists’ and writers’ response to this national scar. It is our small way of trying to not be a part of the ignoring.

Please refer to indigestmag.com/submit.htm for guidelines to submit poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, and music.