Wave Books Poetry Bus Tour: 09.05.06-09.08.06 ANYWHERE, USA Dispatches from poets stuffed in a bus touring 50 cities in 50 days. Friday: 09.08.06 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Day One / Seattle, WA / Matthew Zapruder

It’s just about midnight. What can I say? I’m finishing up packing, doing a little laundry, trying to catch a few last hours hanging out with Sierra, who’s caravaning along to Spokane to take Catherine Wing back home to Seattle after she reads. To whom am I talking? It’s creepy to write to some indeterminate audience with god knows what sort of expectations for what sorts of things you might find in a blog, late at night, staring out the window at the Space Needle (really), with most of my crap in some luggage and plastic containers and the rest in storage, wondering what’s going to happen starting tomorrow when we take off at 9am.

Probably less and more than I think.

I’m super-beat right now. I gave my first reading from my new book, The Pajamaist, to a very cool crowd at the Bumbershoot Festival, with Erin Belieu, Arthur Sze, and Eileen Myles, all of whom were totally amazing in their own ways. I’m too tired to go into why I liked their readings so much, but I’ll try to get to it tomorrow when I’ve had a little more time to think. I just tried to let the room be, and read my poems in a way that gave them (the poems) some space to be in it (the room). Don’t know if I did it, but it seemed to go ok. I felt vaguely insincere afterwards (always the contrast between the naked face and the social one), but talking to Eileen helped. She pointed out that other performers almost always have a space to be in between the performance and the socializing. Something to think about.

Also, there were a series of readings of poets on the bus, which was parked right in the middle of the festival. People got on the bus, then a poet did, he/she read, then everyone filed off the bus. I heard Katy Lederer read—she was terrific, very cool, and direct and funny and laser smart—but that was it, I was really too nervous before my reading to sit on that bus where I’m going to be for the next seven weeks. It was important for my psyche to be out among thousands of stoned teenagers and other denizens of the indie rock nation stuffing their faces with unnaturally large pieces of corn and strawberry shortcake, in order to ease into a good reading space.

Very relaxing. I heard that the readers were terrific, especially John Marshall and Christine Deavel, and others too.

The bus by the way says POETRY BUS in big red letters on the side. It’s packed with books, camping gear, food, blankets, audio visual equipment, pillows, five typewriters, poets.

Things I’m worried about:

1. feeling like total crap on the road
2. spacing out and making people feel like I don’t care about talking to them when actually I’m just overwhelmed and tired
3. other stuff

Things I’m excited about:

1. getting my mind blown by poets and poetry
2. writing some new poems
3. hanging out with my friends on the bus
4. making new friends

Re: #1: I feel like despite the fact that I read tons of manuscripts, try to follow at least some literary magazines, read a decent amount of contemporary poetry, and run a readings series in NY, that I’m always missing so much about poetry. Like my idea of it is very very narrow, and that I’m always struggling to be strong and aware enough to grow when I hear and read things which don’t fit my limited ideas of what a poem can be. I try to approach poetry—all art—with the idea that discriminating between what’s good and bad is the least interesting prism I can hold up for new things to shine through.

So let’s get going, and see all the poetry, and find out what’s going to happen. I’ll write more on the way to Spokane tomorrow, where we are going to a baseball field to play the ceremonial first whiffle ball game, then to Auntie’s Bookshop, then to a sushi restaurant where there will be more readings. Then to an R.V. park where there will surely be a hilarious late-night tent setting up scenario. More tomorrow.

Day Two / Vantage, WA / Matthew Zapruder

Hey Everyone,

Well, that last entry was a little frantic. Now we’re on the road and there’s nothing to do but sit at Blustery’s in Vantage, WA, waiting for a grilled cheese.

Ok, now we’re on the road again, towards Spokane on I-90. We’re about to skirt the Columbia River. When I think of Washington State, I usually think of rain and mountains, but as many people probably know a lot of the western part of the state is dry, hilly high desert terrain (“high desert scrub,” says Jeff Gordinier authentically). It’s pretty hot out, kind of hazy, like maybe there’s still some forest fires around. But what do I know.

Anyway, for those of you who don’t know what this is all about, Joshua Beckman and I (Editors of Wave Books, formerly Verse Press) have spent the past year organizing a poetry bus tour that is going to go to 50 cities in 50 days for readings. Hundreds of poets will be read in a variety of venues. There’s all kinds of information on the poetry bus Web site
(www.poetrybus.com) so I won’t go any more into it—and I’ll let the poets who get on the bus describe it as it happens, since at this point it’s still really just the beginning—but I do want to introduce the main recurring characters, who might appear in the blogs of the various poets on and off the bus.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Joshua Beckman—Peaceful sage of the poetry bus. His eyes completely fail to belie a steely unwillingness to accept the strictures of what seems possible.

Travis Nichols—Tour manager, lithe young poet, prone to unfailing patience, gentleness, and good nature.

Bill Wesley—Driver, musician, explorer of back roads and their exciting dining possibilities. Today he found an incredible fruit stand in the town of Badger Pocket, where we were able to buy the most incredible Honey Crisp apples and something called a “pluot,” half plum half apricot, with a tangy goodness I had scarce dared to hope to taste.

Monica Fambrough—Director of Marketing, also Travis’s fiancee. Think Charlie’s Angel’s, with an angel giving orders to a bunch of Charlies. She’ll be reading in Missoula, Canada, and other places.

Charlie Wright—Publisher and owner of Wave Books.

Lori Shine—Managing Editor of Wave Books, and the other angel in the Massachusetts office, who will be joining the bus for readings mostly in the Southwest.

Linas Phillips—Filmmaker (writer/director of Walking to Werner, in which he walks from Seattle to Los Angeles to meet the director Werner Herzog) who will join us somewhere in the Midwest to make a movie of the tour.

Me.

Travis, Joshua, Bill, and I will be on the bus the whole time. Hundreds of others will be hopping on and off.

Poets/writers now on the poetry bus: Erin Belieu (I think next up for blogging), Catherine Wing (poet from Seattle), Blake Young (tall intern with a camera), Jeff Gordinier (Details editor from Tarrytown, on the bus to write a piece for PoetryFoundation.org), Melanie Noel (poet currently drinking a root beer float), Anthony McCann (formerly of Brooklyn, now of Los Angeles), Katy Lederer (poet and hedge fund recruiter).

Now you can follow along!

Today coming out of Blustery’s I had my first moment of realizing how fucking cool this is all going to be.

We’re meeting some poetry from Seattle and Spokane tonight to give a reading at a bookstore and then a sushi restaurant. Woody Guthrie mentions the Grand Coulee dam, which we’re passing right now. Thanks for reading, wish us luck and god or whatever speed, and please come visit if we’re coming through your town.

Day Three / Missoula, MT / Erin Belieu

Sorry to have missed yesterday—our beloved bus is a bit touchy (as in it shakes like it has the DT’s with a broken toilet and a generally cranky attitude). She’s a good old girl, but one by one our connections to the electronic world have died along the way. No cell phones. No computers. It’s pathetic that I feel like some inalienable right has been taken from me . . . my goal for today is to work on mustering a more appropriately pioneer attitude—

So we read in Missoula last night, and there was a little drama to report. Moments before we pulled up to the ranch where we were reading, some random chucklehead in the audience, gorked up on Ativan and Maker’s Mark (always a winning combination) decided to freak out,
jump in his truck, and tear off with the pedal to the metal. He missed running over a few people by inches, according to no doubt embellished reports, and then promptly tore off up the road to crash into God knows what and flip his truck. I hear that this sort of fetching behavior is this guy’s regular MO. It shows just what a lovely and kind community the Missoula gang is in that they were very concerned for the guy’s welfare (he turned out not to have been hurt badly at all). I, on the other hand, think a little injury, maybe a small maiming, might have done him a world of good, or at least have been immensely satisfying. But apparently God protects fools, children, and obnoxious, cross-addicted shit heads who ruin everyone else’s good time and destroy other people’s property.

And yet, the good time was not ruined! Once everyone stopped being freaked out, the reading commenced and their were some terrific highlights. Anthony McCann gave a reading that raised the roof—smart, funny, sexy, and filthy in the best ways. Joshua Beckman and Matthew Zapruder never leave it in the locker room but were particularly hot last night, too. Michael Earl Craig was hilarious and one of wave’s young interns, Maggie Jackson, got up their and kicked some serious ass.

Alright my batteries about to die. More later . . .

Day Four / en route from Missoula, MT to Boise, ID / Erin Belieu

Have you ever had altitude sickness? I thought that sort of thing only happens on Mt. Everest or something. But apparently if you go from Florida to Montana within a day or so you can get it—which is exactly like being as plastered as you’ve ever been but without the fun parts. I didn’t realize what was happening to me until I got up to read at the ranch in Missoula last night. Right as I was finishing my first poem I had the singular sensation that the top of my head was unscrewing itself to float freely away from my body. All I could do was say “THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT, MISSOULA” and wobble down off the stage as gracefully (not) as possible. Of course, my choice to wear platform wedgies in the middle of a field covered with cow pies didn’t help matters much.

We’ve been on the bus since 7:00 this morning, racing to get to Boise in time for our gig this evening. We’re reading at bar called Neurolux (which sounds like an antidepressant to me). Apparently it’s very “hip,” though I’m never quite sure what that means. Or I guess I do and I just find the whole notion boring. Hip people exhaust me—it must take so much energy to dampen down any enthusiastic or earnest responses one might accidentally have.

Joshua Beckman and I have perfected the art of power smoking any time we stop for even two minutes. Presently Anthony McCann is hosting an impromptu cocktail party at the front of the bus complete with beef jerky and a NASCA-themed 40 of Bud. Blake Young, one of our Wave keepers on the bus is the most physically beautiful man on the planet, so when the ladies get bored we take turns staring at him. Good way to pass the time.

Okay, we’re about there. More tomorrow. Shout outs to my Tallatrashy homeys. Hey Ad Roc, you better be taking good care of my cat!

Day Five / en route from Boise, ID to Salt Lake City, UT/ Erin Belieu

On the way to Salt Lake City. The reading in Boise last night was fantastic—totally packed, very attentive, responsive audience. And I discovered the most amazing pharmaceutical!

I have small, semi-panic attacks when I read—sweating shaking, leg wobbling—it’s a nightmare and I never know when it’s going to happen. I was talking to someone on the bus about it and she said “Oh, yeah, that happens to me, too. You need beta blockers.” Turns out beta blockers are what lots of musicians take to deal with stage fright.
So she gave me a couple from her personal stash and I tell you, if you’re prone to panic attacks, this stuff is life changing. It’s not a tranquilizer or any kind of controlled substance, it just somehow keeps your body from over reacting to stress (apparently it’s usually prescribed for people with heart problems). Last night was the first time I’ve read in a couple of years where I didn’t feel as if I was going to fall down in the middle of it. I was able to really concentrate on the poems and gave one of the best readings I’ve ever given! Of course, I only have two left and five more readings to do (one of which is being filmed for the Jim Lehrer News Hour—yeek)) . . . hmmm, problematic. I’m wondering if I can get my doctor to prescribe them over the phone for me. Probably not. He’s a homeopath as well as an MD and he’s always suggesting yoga and neti pots and saying stuff like “Erin, ask your body where you are with forgiveness . . . ” And that’s why I like him. The last thing I need is some Elvis doctor encouraging my inner Judy Garland.

After Salt Lake we get into my part of the world—Wyoming on then on to Nebraska! Yeehaw! I haven’t been home in a long time and I’m especially looking forward to driving through the Nebraska panhandle.

Both of my folks are from tiny towns out there so I spent a good deal of my childhood in places like Broken Bow and Alliance. The Nebraska sandhills are absolutely beautiful and the sky is so big it lets you know right quick just what your significance is in the scheme of things. That freaks a lot of people out, but I find it deeply comforting. I’ve never understood existential dread. I like knowing how unimportant I am—it’s a great alleviator of responsibility.

Joshua and I have challenged each other to write poems about flying cars, so I’m off to work on mine. The bus is pretty quiet today as the crew had a bit of fun last night (ahem). I miss my son Jude. He’d love the bus . . .