In the me me meantime: two things about me and one about my friend

While I wait to hear back from the library in Kansas, I'm going to use this blog for its usual purpose: to call attention to what I'm up to. I have two pieces of me-news:

1)  dancing girl press is putting out my chapbook of fake eulogies, Little Eva, the Insomniac from Mars. Go here to order it! There's a sample poem on the shopping page if you want the flavor.

2) I'm reading at the Brown Bookstore (244 Thayer St., Providence, RI) on Wednesday, October 3rd, at 5:30 p.m. I'll be reading work from The Soft Place as well as some newer poems. Providence-area people, I'd love to see you there.

I also have one piece of friend-news: the book of my very dear friend Michael Tod Edgerton is coming out, and his publisher, Lavender Ink, has an Indiegogo campaign up. Have a look! You'll want to buy this book anyway, so ...

More library news soon.

Thank you for the INCREDIBLE DELUGE!

Since yesterday morning, when I posted the call and first rain dance for the Oxford Lane Library, I've been inundated (yes, yes, the pun is on purpose, it's just not funny) with donations in the loveliest possible way. Including my "seed" contributions, $465 came in yesterday!

Rather than fund one library twice as much as all the others, I'd like to divide that incredible amount between the Oxford Lane Library and a sixth library. I've written to one in Kansas and am waiting to hear back; I'll post an update soon. In the meantime, for all of you who donated (special thanks for whopping donations from John Brett and Robin Dahlberg), donated for a second time, and let people know about this project:

DANCE OF THANKSGIVING


Thanks for the liquid.
The digging. The piercing
of crusts. Thanks for buying
it that there might be
a wet day, later, when
people are reading inside
the gray windows. Thanks
for thumbing open,
for retelling, for pealing
like a wet animal on a wet wire,
thanks for imagining or
remembering thirst, for
being the record,
for now, thanks for making
an offering to later. 

Make it Rain for Butler County, OH!

Our fifth and last library is the Oxford Lane Library in Oxford, OH (Butler County). If you haven't donated yet, and you can now, I and they would really appreciate it. If you can't donate right now or have donated already, please let people know about this last series of rain dances.

FIRST RAIN DANCE FOR OXFORD, OH

The woman from Ohio says
she loves the fall. Says it makes her
feel peaceful and alive at the same
time. Those of us feeling neither couldn't help
but smell your promise, rain, coming to knock
more smells out of her leaves and her air.
Say you will. Then do. It was night not day,
we were over here, not in Ohio, but don't
be led astray by fracas. Say you will
fall in love with impact, tiny drops of you clicking
teeth with lights the size of drops of you. Then do.

As before, I'll seed the cloud with $50.00. Please donate to bring it up to $200.00 for the Oxford Lane Library.

The total for the White Hall Township Library is $210.00 and the check will go out today.

Money for Greene County!

We've raised $210.00 for Greene County! Thanks so much to all who donated.

I wasn't super happy with yesterday's rain dance, poetically speaking, so I'm going to do one more for the White Hall Township Library. If anyone wants to top up the funds with another donation, that would of course be lovely. The check will go out tomorrow, when I'll also announce our final library.


TENTH RAIN DANCE FOR WHITE HALL, IL

Rain, bowl over all
the days I assured I knew
what would fetch you.
How what I thought was a cowl
looked like harness. More
or enough. I see through
you like stair-rails,
that is, perpendicularly.
Rain, take a notion. Form
enough acute angles, you'll be in
relation to everything,
lie flat on nothing. If I
can bring you I can fail
to bring you. If I contract,
still I may fail you.

Make it Rain for Greene County: Day 9

Still at $195.00! Who has $5.00 for the White Hall Township Library?

NINTH RAIN DANCE FOR WHITE HALL, IL

The water plant is charged
with the duty of supplying the city with fresh and safe drinking
water. Rain, strange in your armor, any child
can learn about you, what you've got
to lose to the river bottom.
Color flushes. Seminary sediment.
Rain, can you fathom down
instead of up, can your longlines draw out
whatever's happening down there, mud and record
the trawl of our follies? You can, I know. All the town
ordinances conserve you. Please swerve. Show us
your mark on the surface.

Only $5.00 more to bring us up to $200.00!

Make it Rain for Greene County: Day 8

So close! $195.00 donated, only $5.00 to go! If you were putting it off, do it now, and I can send the White Hall Township Library what we've gathered for them.

EIGHTH RAIN DANCE FOR WHITE HALL, IL


Rain, I could be forgiven
for thinking the dishwasher sound
was the sound of you
but not for long.
The water I water to be
caught up in you, I offer
first to the air. A sliver.
Rain, re-enter the story.
Be a wedge. Smudge
from horizon to margin,
from center to center.
You're practically there.
Your sweep to their sill,
your heft to their roof,
your weft to their hall.
Rain, be their already.


Only $5.00 more to bring us up to $200.00!

Make it Rain for Greene County: Day 7

$190.00 donated -- just $10.00 to go. Make a second donation of $5 and get a present! Or donate for the first time and be the one to bring the total up to $200.00 for the White Hall Township Library.

SEVENTH RAIN DANCE FOR WHITE HALL, IL

Someone should tell me
you're not listening
to me. That my nib's a dry seed.
A scorched hoof. I should bethink
myself of how little
we know and can do
in the meantime, time we
could spend trying to find
out, not to dampen.
Someone should take
a toll on me where I live,
see how I like it.
I might like it. You never know
about people, rain, or is it
that they never know
about you till you're brawling,
silver, down their collar?
Well, tell us. Inform us. Infuse us.