The (naughty) birds & the (bloofy) bees

Hello, friends of Bloof. Here are a few new newsy bits for you:

1) Jennifer L. Knox is guestblogging at the Best American Poetry blog this week. Her first post was on animal sex (note: not sex with animals, sex between animals). Her second is allllllll about Burt Reynolds. What will she say next? Only one way to find out. She didn't think she could blog, but heck, she seems like a natural!

2) Which reminds us to tell you that Jen's poem "Another Motive for Metaphor" appears in The Best American Erotic Poetry, edited by David Lehman. (Scribner, 2008). You can read all the poems that come (ahem) before and after it in its native habitat, A Gringo Like Me.That's sexy.

3) Along with 99 other poets, Jennifer L. Knox and Shanna Compton appear in Poet's Bookshelf II, edited by Peter Davis & Tom Koontz, which is also a new release. (Barnwood, 2008). Shanna includes Dr. Seuss in her top 10, no kidding. You can sample her essay and a few new poems in the new issue of the DMQ Review too.

February readings & a new Knox interview

These are on the (newly updated) events page as well, but...

Sunday, February 24th at 4:00 PM in Philadelphia
Shanna Compton, Teresa Leon & Elizabeth Scanlon
Hosted by CAConrad

Robin's Bookstore
108 S. 13th Street
FREE

Monday, February 25 at 7:00 PM in NYC

Bloof Books kicks off Spring's Monday Night Poetry Series at KGB
Shanna Compton & Jennifer L. Knox
Hosted by Laura Cronk & Michael Quattrone

KGB Bar
85 E. 4th Street
Between 2nd and 3rd Aves.
F to 2nd Ave or 6 to Astor Place
FREE

And hey...check out this new interview with Jennifer L. Knox in the Southeast Review.

Tomorrow night in Brooklyn!

& now a message from the sea horses whinnying in our mailbags:*

Hi everybody! I'm doing a little reading tomorrow
for an awesome new magazine called
The Agricultural Reader at Stain Bar
with Jared Hohl and Mary Jo Bang

You remember Stain Bar? aptly named for
all the beers one spills on oneself
when one's there having one. Or four.

Will I see you there? Gosh I hope so.
I'm reading first so I'll have plenty of time
to chat with you!

Friday, December 7, 7:30
For the Agriculture Reader
with Jared Hohl and Mary Jo Bang

Plus a music/theater performance of
"A Kind of Madness" by Aaron Petrovich
and Chris Forsyth.

Stain Bar
766 Grand Street, Brooklyn
L train to Grand Street, 1 block west

Jen will have copies of both of her books on hand for your holiday shopping pleasure. (Give the gift of laughter, yo.)

*The ever-popular poem "And Now a Message from the Sea Horses Whinnying in Our Mailbag" is available in A Gringo Like Me.

Report from Florida...now with audio!

Jennifer just got back from FSU & the reading was a smashing success. The campus bookstore had 20 copies of each book...& sold them all!

Here's a podcast from the reading.

Rocking good news. We love FSU.

If you were there & have photos to share, give a shout, will ya?

RIP Soft Skull. Long live Soft Skull!

Soft Skull Press is being acquired by Winton Shoemaker, which is also acquiring Counterpoint Press. [More info.] Soft Skull and Counterpoint will be restructured as imprints of the larger organization, and Soft Skull's former publisher Richard Nash will be overseeing both.

Shifts in focus related to the Soft Skull's growth, our own theories about what works and doesn't for poetry publishing, and everything we learned along the way have lead to the founding of Bloof Books, which will continue to publish poetry in the same spirit.

As Richard notes in his post, Soft Skull is not over. And they deserve and can really use your support now! He's offering 40% off ALMOST EVERYTHING now at the Soft Skull store. So allow us to take this opportunity to suggest you pick up some of the poetry, if you haven't. You might consider the following: there are fewer than a dozen copies of Jennifer L. Knox's A Gringo Like Me left in stock there. (After those are sold, Bloof will be rereleasing the book in a new edition to match her forthcoming Drunk by Noon.) [Update 10/8/07: Bloof's version of Gringo is now available.]

Our best wishes to Richard & Soft Skull.