Buggeryville

1. Yeah, it's the end of the semester! So I don't have time to write here. But I'm not dead yet.

2. I make it a rule to befriend all the poetry people who want to my friend on Facebook. I am a friend to the poetry people. If you read this, and want to be my Facebookfriend, go for it. Or you can join that weird Facebook blog-following thing for Buggeryville... or don't, either way. It's just a website, and I'm not doing anything particularly poety on Facebook. Still, it could be nice and friendlylike.

3. I might be trying to set up a few readings this summer/fall for the greater NYC-Toronto corridor, with a possible stop in PDX. If you are somewhere in that world and want me to read for you, drop me a line. This also means I'll be writing some new stuff soon. Gasp.

4. There's a button now that suggests I could "monetize" this website, which I doubt would really work. But nice try, Blogger. Don't stop believing.

So, yes, this week grad school has begun with a battery of language competency tests (which so far seem to have gone fine), but. This blog's ridiculously frequent update schedule will probably take a severe hit over the next few weeks, and then come back to a far slower trickle. Your author would apologize, but we are all probably better off for it. Have I, in some way or another, made my point, and will I not just keep repeating my point? I don't know. If you think I haven't, let me know. If you see something and feel that you know "what would Chris think?", then surely I have. And there are so many other blogs to read, and so many other voices to consider.

Anyway this is just to explain why things will surely be slowing down for a bit. But not to a complete halt, not yet.

Hey, it just occurred to me: Some of you reading this have friendly feelings towards me, live in or about Toronto, and aren't friends of mine on Facebook, in which case: I'm meeting up with people for drinks tonight to celebrate my birthday (which was yesterday); 8pm at the Bedford Academy, and e-mail me (chrispiuma at google's mail service) if you need to. I have no idea how many people will be there (I suspect not too many, as it's all very short notice and I'm still new in town) but/so come if you can.

If you haven't noticed, I've started writing five-word poems via Twitter, which I'm Huthily calling "twitterms". The latest can be read on Buggeryville, the archive is on Twitter.


Also I've started a medievalist blog, which will surely be even less informed, less coherent, and less frequently updated than this one.


Which also reminds me: I've been thinking about writing a sort of user's manual or manifesto for this blog (and perhaps even more so the medievalist one), but all I've gotten so far is a half-formed aphorism:

That the erotics of failure should entice more than the erotics of righteouness.

Or, perhaps in a more practical way:

That I am here to be wrong, and you are here to correct me into a different state of being wrong, and vice versa.

Hence "erotics".

So I'm finally on the Silliman blog roll. Who are my neighbo(u)rs?

Below me is Dave Pollard, who has a blog at Salon.com that seems less about poetry than it is about "making the world a better place". He asks: "If we're going to spend time playing video games, why not make them informative and get that energy directed at ways that can make the world a better place?" Well. Also, if we're going to spend time making burritos, why not make them informative and get that energy directed at ways that can make the world a better place? Also, if we're going to spend time cracking our knuckles, why not make them informative and get that energy directed at ways that can make the world a better place? Also he has a chart where he "reframes" received wisdom. So, instead of "if you want smart people to work for you, you have to pay them a competitive rate for their time", he reframes the idea as "what if you could produce an invitation so compelling that smart people would be willing to come together and solve a problem for free?" Which is true and handy and based on the fundamental principle that smart people shouldn't be compensated for being smart. Which, you know, perhaps they shouldn't.

Above me is Pearl Pirie, whose blog is nicely titled "Humanyms"(which sounds like a cross between humans, homonyms, and Houyhnhnms). She links glowingly to a Geof Huth piece, has Crag Hill on her blogroll, and uses the word "poet-y". Although it looks like her actual poetry blog is here? Anyway her blog(s) look like they're worth exploring.

She lives in Ottawa, and Pollard lives in, oh, apparently Winnipeg. I have made some sort of Canadian tic-tac-toe in the middle of the P section! Nick Piombino, you're next...

1. Cradle the sonnet in your hands.
2. The Toronto Transit Map, anagrammed.
3. Yes. (Rather than: No.)
4. A method for presenting translation. (Via Languagehat)
   
5. Someone recently reached Buggeryville by searching google.ca for "canadian poet blogs"; this blog is hit #30, which cannot possibly be right.
   

This will be up for only a few days for perhaps obvious reasons, so if you actually want any of this crap, grab it quickly.

Sick of off-orange, I updated the look of the site. If you're reading this on RSS, why not swing by and take a peek?