Moving /Violations ✖️

Okay Lovelies,

First let’s welcome the newcomers 🥂

You make the place better just by turning up; a joy to have you here. I’m just trying Substack out (this is my first time writing on it) but I’ve found the community hereabouts unbelievably nourishing and supportive.

But to business…

An Invitation (Thursday!)

You are all cordially, even fawningly, invited to a farewell Seattle poetry reading next week at Two Kick Motorcycles.

After 20+ years (minus hiatuses) I’ll be departing the city in a month or so. Come hear new work, see old friends, raise a toast or deliver parting shots among Seattle’s cognoscenti.

➡️ 7pm Thu June 6. Facebook event page here.

Publications

With the good folks over at the Rabbit Room, I’ve been doing a Substack-takeover; they’ve sent out 2 poems from each of the books, and are publishing 4 there (from the new mss) for the first time! It’s been big fun. Here’s what’s out as of this missive.

• Cheers

• Picture This

• The Cold-Hearted Son

• Dream at Bethel

• This Gift Card

• A Primer

Then, one of my very favorite poems from the new book was published over at Heart of Flesh literary journal. Hold Up is about my time on the Cornish coast and, separately, about my time in a long cafeteria line. Audio version included. 🎧

Making ready

Big News

After a long search and some hard decisions, my family and I are moving to sunny AZ 🌞 this summer <cue zithers> It’s where I was born and it’s full of people I love, but until recently, there wasn’t been a liberal arts college there where I could teach; but then (!) Arizona Bible College became Arizona Christian University ➡️ grew ➡️ moved to a beautiful new campus ➡️ grew some more ➡️ launched an enviable Humanities program ➡️ hired me to teach in it.

I’ll join their august faculty in..er..August. (though we’re still determining under what auspices)

New Books

City Nave by Betsy Brown. Here’s my endorsement:

The poems in City Nave twist and slither off the page, never still, ablaze one breath and ashen the next, here admonishing, there searching, always, like a Phoenix, fiery, always re-birthing.

Sonnets to Orpheus by Mark S. Burrows

Remember that time I wrote a book thinking about angels along with Rilke and called it The Elegy Beta? Burrows wrote the fabulous introductory essay. He’s spent years on the pilgrim-way with these poems—available for pre-order now.

Word Made Fresh by Abram van Engen

Honestly, I don’t know anything about this book, but I was pretty excited to see it. Planning on reading this summer. Join me?

Painting Over the Growth Chart by Dan Rattelle

Look at that cover from Wiseblood. Mmmm.

Oddments

• this essay is a marvelous ode to that most wholesome of institutions: the English pub

• Anybody cook on a Blackstone? I keep getting ads and I’m…tempted.

• Luxury has a new record out this morning: Like unto Lambs. You know what to do.

Okay fam; that’s probably enough for now. See you Pacific Northwesterners on Thursday 😎

I’ll send word again next from the desert. 🌵