2 Bloofy events this week!

Friday night, Danielle Pafunda comes to NYC to read at Earshot in Brooklyn. If you've never been to Earshot, it's a treat. Always a good crowd, always a great energy. Nicole rocks it. Mobile Libris will be on hand to sell the very first copies of My Zorba available in NYC.


Friday, April 25 at 8:00 PM
in Brooklyn, NY

Danielle Pafunda reads for the Earshot Series

Danielle Pafunda (My Zorba, Pretty Young Thing)
Michael Quattrone (Rhinoceroses)
Adina Schoem (Sarah Lawrence College)
Emily Wolahan (Columbia University)
Lisa A. Locascio (New York University)

Lucky Cat
245 Grand Street
(Between Driggs & Roebling)
Brooklyn, NY
$5 includes a drink

The following night, Shanna Compton makes outrageous noises in the Flarf Festival with the Drew Gardner Orchestra, featuring Katie Degentesh, Brandon Downing, Rob Fitterman, Benjamin Friedlander, Drew Gardner, Nada Gordon, Mitch Highfill, Rodney Koeneke, Michael Magee, Sharon Mesmer, K. Silem Mohammad, Mel Nichols, Eiríkur Örn Nor∂dahl, Kim Rosenfield, James Sherry, Rod Smith, Christina Strong, Gary Sullivan & the Saw Lady. (More festival info here.)

SATURDAY, APR 26, 6:00 P.M.
BOWERY POETRY CLUB
308 BOWERY
$8, a Segue reading to benefit Bowery Arts & Sciences

The Belmar: Binghamton, NY

87 cheers for the good people of Binghamton. They win Best Audience Award of the Bloof Hobby Loss Tour '08!

We had waaaaaaay too much fun. Luckily, we also had a designated driver. (Thanks, James!) I've lost exact count of the # of books sold on the book tour, but we broke the 100 mark last night. (Unreal! Thank you again & again!)

I may do a few retrospective report about some of the spots we didn't write up. But in general, they would all just say: thanks--that rocked. (There *are* poets and poetry-liking people out there who are kind, enthusiastic, warm, wonderful, and a little bit crazy in all the right ways, and danged if I don't feel sometimes like I know them all.)

I have a bunch of photos left to post too.

Now it's back to our regularly scheduled NaPoWriMo, which our dear pal Ada Limon talks up today on Harriet. I'll catch up by the end of the weekend or sprain something trying.

Audioblogging from the road

Having some trouble getting Gabcast to work as it's supposed to. Episodes won't publish directly to the blog from the phone.

With this manually added embedded player, new episodes will show up, but only after we go online, log in, and add titles or tags to them. (That defeats the whole idea of audioblogging. If we were going to have internet access, we'd just type the dang posts.)

So, we'll capture some audio posts and just add them to the player when/if we do get access along the way. Stay tuned.

[Moved the audio player to the sidebar and erased those tests posts.]

It's going to look something like this

1 rental car
2 planes
3 poets
10 cities
1742 miles of skyway
2700 miles of highway

We've all committed to the NaPoWriMo challenge, and will be posting our poems here during the tour, along with photos and reading reports, and hopefully some interviews with friends we meet along the way.

Gearing up...

...to get on the road, assuming the Midwest doesn't completely wash away in all these floods!



Without the following folks, we'd be spending National Poetry Month at our day jobs, which would be way less fun:

Katie Steinbrecher & Furrow magazine in Milwaukee
Amy Guth in Chicago
Jessica Block & Ann M. Erickson of Tributaries, Didi Menendez & Gabriel Gudding in Normal/Bloomington
Anne Boyer & Robert L. Baumann in Lawrence
Adam Deutsch in Urbana/Champaign
Peter Davis in Muncie (Pete made the cool flyer above)
Nate Logan in Moorhead/Fargo

Here's a story on the Illinois Wesleyan University conference we'll be doing in Bloomington on April 5. The conference is free and open to all. You can register online and get a full list of the events here.

And yes, we are then getting in the car and driving to Lawrence, KS to do a reading for An Actual Kansas later that same day. Because that's how we roll. (Compared to the 2005 tour, this is cake.)

A buncha Bloof news this week

1) Tonight at KGB Bar in NYC, Jennifer L. Knox and Shanna Compton will be kicking off the Monday Night Poetry Series, reading from their new books DRUNK BY NOON and FOR GIRLS (& OTHERS). It's free, and Mobile Libre will be there selling books.

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

2) Publishers Weekly is running a review of DRUNK BY NOON this week too:

"This second book from Knox, a young New York poet, continues the playful romp through the warped Americana she began in her debut, A Gringo Like Me. Here, Knox gives voice to wayward teens, drug-addled sages and fat dogs fantasizing about killing babies—among other unsavory characters—through dramatic monologues and quick narrative sketches. ...[F]ascination with the down-and-out lurks behind Knox's layers of irony and comic distance. She's at her best and most entertaining in bursts of everyday surrealism—like the poem 'Pastoral with Internet Porn,' which bristles with energy and imagination."

3) DRUNK BY NOON is also ON FIRE at Amazon.com, thanks to you folks--showing up on the Poetry Bestseller list at #45 as of this morning! Also, Coldfront Magazine has awarded it "Best Second Book of 2007" props. Go Knox!

4) Finally, Bloof is tremendously excited to announce that we'll be publishing WARSAW BIKINI by Sandra Simonds in October, which along with Danielle Pafunda's MY ZORBA in April completes our 2008 catalog. You've probably seen Sandra's work in Action Yes!, Barrow Street, Cannibal, Coconut, Fence and dozens of other places, or maybe you're a fan of her chapbooks Tar Pit Diatoms, The Humble Travelogues of Mr. Ian Worthington, and Steam. WARSAW BIKINI is Sandra's first longer book and it blew us away--we can't wait to make it available for the wider audience Sandra's work deserves. For more information, stop by her blog.

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.

More photos from the pageant

Via Jessica Smith's Flickr collection

Results of the Micropress Poetry Pageant

Friday night's pageant was so much fun. Thanks to everybody who came out in that awful rain. What a crowd!

Extra special big thanks to Maureen Thorson & Jeff Eaton, who ran the book table, and our bartender Drew, without whom we'd not have been able to pull it off. (Sorry we emptied the beer cooler! Sort of!)

Reb Livingston's got some photos at her blog, which render mine mostly redundant:

The Talent Competition

The Snowsuit Competition

The Poetrywear Competition

The Judges

The winners

But here's a video of the finale:

Meet our lovely contestants LIVE!

MICROPRESS POETRY PAGEANT

FRIDAY FEB 1 @ 8PM
STAIN BAR
766 Grand Street
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(L TRAIN to Grand Street, 1 block West)

FREE! PUBLIC! PRIZES!
No AWP badge required!

BLOOF BOOKS
COCONUT BOOKS
NO TELL BOOKS

Hugh Behm-Steinberg
Jenna Cardinale*
Shanna Compton
Bruce Covey
Jill Alexander Essbaum
Shafer Hall
Jennifer L. Knox
Sueyeun Juliette Lee
Reb Livingston
Danielle Pafunda
PF Potvin
Ravi Shankar

(Sponsored by Lulu.com, the place for people to publish. Empowering
anyone to create, buy, sell and control their work with the click of a mouse.)

* Unfortunately cannot attend in person, yet will be attending in spirit, which is also good company.

Tonight at KGB...

Monday, December 17 at 8:00 PM

Great American Prose Poems

Mark Bibbins, Charles Bernstein,
Jenny Boully, Billy Collins,
Jennifer L. Knox,
Mark Strand, Paul Violi,
Susan Wheeler, & others

KGB Bar
85 West 4th St
New York, NY

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?

Knox tonight!

Monday, November 19 at 7:00 PM
in Manhattan

Jennifer L. Knox, Rachel Simon & Kenneth Goldsmith
read for Readings Between A & B

11th Street Bar
510 East 11th Street
New York, NY

Photos from the Drunk by Noon party

Is that a cat playing piano? Why, yes it is.

See what else you missed in this cool slideshow by Jeremy Hinsdale.

Here are a few more from Kaelea's Flickr set:


Total Poetry Freak-Out!
Originally uploaded by kaeleaann


Total Poetry Freak-Out!
Originally uploaded by kaeleaann

& some crappy phone cam shots:

Bloof invades the Midwest Territories

Advance warning so there's plenty of time for you to sweep the cobwebs outta the fallout shelter in your backyard, lay in some canned goods, toiletries, purified water, matches, etc. & get whatever shots you're gonna need:

Bloof Books will be making a tour of the Midwest...& possibly West...come April.

Here's what the schedule looks like so far:

April 2: Shanna Compton at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, WI.
April 3: Jennifer L. Knox, Danielle Pafunda & Shanna Compton at the Fixx Series in Chicago, IL.
April 4: TBD
April 5: TBD
April 6: Jennifer L. Knox, Danielle Pafunda & Shanna Compton at the Actual Kansas Series in Lawrence, KS.

We're also planning to hit Fargo, ND (date to come), and possibly Iowa City (where, as we know from "The Best Thanksgiving Ever,"* Jennifer's spent "a lot of time.")

So where else should we go? We've got this roadtrip thing down. Four or five hours in a car is nothing for poets with our stamina. Heck, we've done much as 10.5 at once, back in 'aught-five. (Those were the days.) We've got a cooler.

If you're in the Midwest or West Coast--or really any place at all--we'd like to come see you. If you invite us, we'll do our best to get there. Shoot us an email (address in the sidebar).

*A holiday favorite from A Gringo Like Me & way less risky than turducken.

This Saturday

Click if it's too small to read.

Her big German bra*...

Jennifer L. Knox took it off in the company of Aaron Belz, Michael Schiavo & Peter Davis last night at Lolita & Gilda's Burlesque Poetry Hour.

Photographic evidence here.

*Disclaimer: "My Big German Bra" actually appears in A Gringo Like Me, not the new book.

Pics from Buffalo...

Rocking beetle podium at Rust Belt
Originally uploaded by abelz



Jennifer L. Knox reading from Drunk by Noon
Originally uploaded by Michael_Kelleher



Jennifer & Shanna signing books
Originally uploaded by abelz



Kevin Thurston & Aaron Belz at Founding Fathers
Originally uploaded by abelz



Aaron Lowinger & Becky at Founding Fathers
Originally uploaded by Michael_Kelleher



Shanna, Aaron & Jennifer at Founding Fathers
Originally uploaded by Michael_Kelleher

"The Invisible Stuff"

Aaron Lowinger warms up Buffalo for our upcoming reading and takes a look at Drunk by Noon, For Girls & Aaron Belz's The Bird Hoverer in ArtVoice:

"[...] Knox has the uncanny ability to make you laugh and then make you feel weird about what you just laughed at. The reason for this being, of course, that the subject matter is actually germane to something important. The entertainment value in Knox’s work is balanced by the intelligence and ingenuity of her verse."

"[Belz's] poems have the remarkable ability to turn the mind in multiple directions, line by line. The subsequent dizziness approximates euphoria rather than chaos, as Belz’s energetic verse charges on to the next line, the next take, the next punch, the growing mystery masked by layers of representation. [...] Belz here is throwing the party; times are weird, God is a mummy, so let’s dance!"

"The text of the poems [in For Girls], culled from a variety of other sources as well, presents an unceasing attack on female humanity for the sake of perceived femininity (“never let them see you perspire”). The prevailing and unabashed objectification of women should not come as a surprise in a text that predates universal suffrage, however Compton makes her point inside the many surviving prejudices. When Britney Spears shearing her golden locks is followed with such intense public zeal, surely the unwritten gender rules continue to be heeded. Using this critique as her context, Compton delivers the unexpected other side of the coin, reaching beyond the politics on the surface and delivering delicately crafted and amusing poems."

Read the rest. (Thanks, Aaron!)

A Bloof Books celebration at Earshot!

Join us for the next installment of EARSHOT at The Lucky Cat, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. EARSHOT is a bi-monthly reading series, dedicated to featuring new and emerging literary talent in the NYC area.

Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 8 PM
Hosted by Nicole Steinberg

EARSHOT!
A BLOOF BOOKS CELEBRATION

Featuring:

Jennifer L. Knox (author of Drunk by Noon and A Gringo Like Me)
Shanna Compton (author of For Girls and Down Spooky)
John Reid Currie (Queens College)
Seamus Scanlon (City College)
Olivia Kate Cerrone (New York University)

Admission is a mere $5 plus one free drink (beer, wine or well drinks only)!

The Lucky Cat
245 Grand Street
Brooklyn, NY
(between Driggs and Roebling)

For more information on Earshot or e-mail Nicole Steinberg at earshotnyc [at] gmail [dot] com.

Bloof Books fall reading schedule

The first local reading with books! Jennifer L. Knox and Shanna Compton will be reading from their brand new Bloof books on Friday, October 26 at the Earshot Series in Brooklyn. And whaddaya know, the night before that, they're alllllll the way up in Buffalo reading for Just Buffalo with Aaron Belz. Because that's how they roll.

Now that the books are on the truck, we can get totally excited about Jennifer L. Knox's Drunk by Noon launch party, planned for November 10 at Stain Bar in Brooklyn.

Check the events page for details! (If you'd like to book a Bloof reading, please get in touch.)