Poem Beginning With a Line by Lionel Messi

So, there's this great thing that happened called The Knox Writers' House Recording Project, in which these three Knox College students traveled around the country recording writers reading their work and talking about it. Last year, they found us in Atlanta and sat in our cold dining room with us and encouraged us read to them. Now they have this amazing website where you can listen to all sorts of interesting people read their work. It's great! This week, poet Chris Tonelli has picked a poem of mine as the weekly featured poem, which is really nice, and what is even nicer is that he calls me "the Lionel Messi of poetry," which is the best compliment possible. Here is the text of the poem, just in case you can't understand my weird voice.

 POEM BEGINNING WITH A LINE BY LIONEL MESSI

It’s true I still have a thorn inside me,
a little personal weather.
Pace blossoms when I am running.
Districts unfold cement picnics
and spells for athletics
between the arable suburbs.
My calories propagate them
like strange, tiny stars.
I close my eyes.
I cry “Oh cryptic murmurs
listing within my Doppler!”
I slow down, find a great hotel
for my wind to get wasted in.
I go poolside
and ash there a while.
My friend, when it comes to the sweaters,
you are not the wool:
you are the insane gigantic bear design.
I will think of you if I ever see a bear.
I mean, whenever.

Interview at HTMLGIANT

It's not every day you get interviewed by Blake Butler, especially if you are, in fact, me. In other news:

Juniper Festival and an Interview

The Juniper Festival is this weekend! So many good people will be in town to read their poems and stories and to buy and sell beautiful books and magazines and chapbooks!I will be reading from The Black Forest on Saturday at noon at the UMass Fine Arts Center.

Also, an interview! I made one, with the help of the poet Brian Foley. The interview is up here at The Common's Tumblr page and is full of my thoughts on witches, Calvino's Italian Folk Tales, and the "real" Black Forest.

THE BLACK FOREST

My first book of poems, The Black Forest, looks like this:



It is available from Small Press Distribution. They will send it fast!


"These poems sock home truth and enact poetic somersaults that leave me out of breath. It's a pleasure to recommend them to anyone brave enough. Chris DeWeese is the real thing, a poet true to his calling."

— James Tate


"Christopher DeWeese's The Black Forest is a world that splinters into halves, fourths, and thirds all at once. The book is actually a forest, or it is many forests, and they're all ones we know, but they don't look the way we remember. When the book ends, we feel very brave, as if we have gone through the tall and muted trees into the darkest place of all, a place of fundamental urges. DeWeese has painted this forest for us so we might see clearly into the fall."

—Dorothea Lasky

LEAVES LIKE WOAH

I live in Northampton now/again. It's good to be back here.

POEM BY GUNTER EICH

QUOTATION FROM NORWAY



We continue to think
the grass on the rooftops,
leave the fjords to the left,
partisans of the fog.
Where can you cry
in this country?
The lemmings
have gone into the sea.
The tobacco pouches
of polar explorers
preserve Time
in little crumbs.


-Gunter Eich, Trans. David Young

"The Narrows" featured at The Common

The Common is a new print journal dedicated to work that explores a sense of place. It is based out of Amherst College. The first issue is really gorgeous, and I am happy to have two poems in it. One of the poems, "The Narrows," is this week's feature on the Common Online. Check it out! These poems are the first two published from a new manuscript I have been writing for the past year, and I am very excited to have them out in the world.