AWP? AWP!

I am doing two official-type things at AWP, in addition to generally wandering the halls, chatting with writers and sharing from my flask.


Official-type thing #1:


FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4 ~ 9 AM to 10:15 AM



Diplomat Ballroom / Omni Shoreham Hotel, West Lobby


F117A. Potomac Review Celebrates Best of 50. (Julie Wakeman-LInn, Kirk Nesset, Sandra Beasley, Jacob Appel, Jennine Capó Crucet, Marilyn Kallet) 


To celebrate its fiftieth issue, Potomac Review offers a sampling of its history with readings by Kirk Nesset, Sandra Beasley, Jacob Appel, Jennine Capos Crucet, and others. Based in the Potomac region, PR has always had concern for the environment at its heart, but over the past two decades, its focus has evolved nationally and internationally and culturally; the reading represents the diverse voices and styles who have appeared in the pages and taps our Best of the 50 issue.



Official-type thing #2:

A note on the Black Cat: IT ROCKS. Don't leave DC and think you've gotten to know our city unless you've been there. Great jukebox. Quarter pinball. Sweet Red Room bar. 

Head over via the Red Line metro (just one stop, which costs less than $2; go toward Glenmont; use the Q Street exit). From the Q & Connecticut exit, cross toward Kramerbooks bookstore (a nice 24/7 pit stop, BTW) using Q Street all the way to 14th Street NW. Black Cat is just a few blocks up, heading from Q toward S Street. 

Also...a big ol' updated spring 2011 schedule is displayed to your right, with some dates still to come. On the road, on the road, on the road. I'm going to be living off V8, bananas, almonds, and Triscuits. Ah, the glamorous life of a traveling poet! 

Odds & Ends

A few carryovers from 2010:

Though I've shared the full-length interview I filmed with Poets & Writers for their 40th Anniversary, I'd never linked to the amalgamate video that they showed at their big gala dinner, which I got to attend this past March. The P&W folks just posted it a few weeks ago, so it is linked below. To be sitting in the ballroom of Manhattan's Capitale and see my face pop up alongside the talking heads of A. M Homes, Roxana Robinson, Jonathan Franzen, Peter Straub...to look over at the neighboring table and see Tom Wolfe (in his white ice-cream suit) watching the screen on which I was yapping away...holy hell. One of the highlights of my life.



Also, Square Books just announced their list of 2010 Bestselling Books, and I Was the Jukebox snuck intot he mix--spot #100, to be exact. For a poetry book to clamber its way up among the Barry Hannahs and the Curtis Wilkies is kind of miraculous. I love those guys. I love that town.

I go to New York tomorrow to meet the publicist who has been assigned by Crown. She works on books by Frances Mayes! I vote that if my memoir merits a sequel, it be something like "How I Survived Eating Pasta in Every Town of Italy." The research would be brutal, sure, but somehow I would summon the strength to carry on.

Kauai Diaries

A typical shoreline in Kauai. And by typical, I mean "extraordinary."

The hurricanes of '82 and '92 liberated roosters from the farms. They now roam free, cawing at all hours, the prettiest pests you have ever seen.

The Kilauea Lighthouse, which had a nearby farmer's market that yielded a fantastic meal of roasted Opa with chives, island rainbow chard and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms sauteed with local ginger and garlic, and slices of fresh pineapple...

The incredible Napali coast! Just one of the waterfalls.

And another, nested within a shoreline cave.

One of my oldest friends, who helped me land in Hawai'i for New Year's Eve: "Eric, if only we could feature your glorious individually-toed shoes..."

"Did you really just do that?"

"Yes, you really just did that."

The beach at the St. Regis hotel in Princeville...by day.

The beach at the St. Regis...by dusk. Made the mile-and-a-half walk home worth it!

O, Kauai. May I someday return to you with a love in hand. In the meantime I am grateful, grateful, grateful.