Friday, March 10, 2006

Quick hello from Austin. This AWP will stand out from others as a University of Montana reunion: almost everybody I knew and cared about from my Griz days is here and we've been hanging out and having a great time. Been to the whole of one really good panel, the Beauty & Ethics thing, and I'll have some notes to post later on; I also stuck my head into the Kenneth Koch panel long enough to hear remarks by Jordan (he's doing three panels, at least!) and Jonathan. Austin makes a good first impression in spite of being very car-oriented, almost a little L.A. Heard some great music at The Continental Club right after arriving Wednesday night, and I loved the space at the Unofficial Garden Party (I won the raffle! A gorgeous chapbook from Hot Whiskey Press), though it was kind of an unfortunate venue for a reading. People really can't stop shmoozing long enough to listen to poems. Some valiant efforts did break through for me, including readings by Aaron (there's a beautiful, surprisingly Zukofskyan poem about flowers in his new chapbook February from Jess Mynes' Fewer & Further Press), Tony, and Hoa Nguyen (I missed Stephanie, sadly, but I made up for it later by recommending the Magna Cristo sandwich at the Magnolia Cafe later that night (picture a sandwich with everything on it and the bread is French toast). Also caught the tail end of the Legitimate Dangers reading, which was literally the tail end, alphabetically: Monica Youn (who I know from my Stanford Days) and Matt Zapruder. It was held in a bar called Ego's, which as Matt noted is only fitting.

That's all I've got time for—it will probably be a while before I can organize my further thoughts regarding the previous post. The Ethics & Beauty panel might have helped me along a bit there.

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