Carol Frost reads from her new book Honeycomb this coming Tuesday, 6 PM, Galloway Room on the Rollins Campus

Listen, Carol Frost's new book Honeycomb is out, and on Tuesday, this coming one, 11/16, in the Galloway Room on the Rollins campus, at 6 PM, Carol will read. Come out and let's celebrate this fabulous poet who has come to Central Florida to direct Winter with the Writers, do her good work and teach us all. I first met Carol at Bread Loaf in 1991. That was many Carol Frost books ago, and she's only getting better.

See you soon, I hope.

Philip

Reads from the Title Story

Thursday night in the exquisitely fine Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Laura van den Berg made a triumphant return to her old college to read from her new book, the short story collection What The World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us. And what to say about the poise and smarts of this rising star. Her family circled around her and embraced her from the moment she arrived, and the celebration was large, thorough and complete. So was the fun.

Her stories have a dark surreal edge to them, and like Andrea Barrett she will make inquiry into science and quirky facts along the way. The stories emerge from the interactions of the characters, and she knows to let landscape act as a character, too. In a class of mine the following day, she explained that a story might click for her, in the writing, because of the oddest small thing. In the title story of her collection, she said, when she learned that in Madagascar the earth was red, the whole narrative came together and she was on her way. "Somehow," she said, "that small fact did it."

Patricia Smith!

On the occasion of the launch of Volume II of Rollins College's specs journal, a celebratory reading will take place this coming Thursday, Oct. 8, 7:30 in Bush Auditorium on the Rollins campus. I'm happy to pass along the news that the great Patricia Smith will read. Smith, who has two poems in this issue of specs, is something else entirely, let me tell you. Join us and see. You won't soon forget it.

Patricia is the author of five acclaimed books of poetry, including Blood Dazzler, a collection of poems (finalist for the 2008 National Book Award) chronicling the events of Hurricane Katrina.

A four-time Individual Winner of the National Poetry Slam (more than any other in the competition’s history), Smith has also appeared on HBO’s Def Poetry Jam and has performed three one-woman shows.

She was the winner of the first Hurston/Wright Award in Poetry for her book, Teahouse of the Almighty, which was also a National Poetry Series selection.

She currently teaches in the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine, and is a Professor of Creative Writing at the City University of New York/College of Staten Island.

Insider advice: Park in the SunBank parking garage, located directly across Fairbanks from Bush Auditorium. Maybe get there around 7. Join us to celebrate specs and show yet another national literary luminary who we are! :-)

Jeanie Comes to Town (Urban Think!, Fri., 9/18, 7 PM)

I'm pleased that Jeanie Thompson is coming to read from her new book The Seasons Bear Us. I had the opportunity to read this manuscript on its way to publication and found it moving, smart, and beautiful all at once. The manuscript became a beautiful and moving book. Jeanie is a poet of national importance, and one of the pleasures of having her here is to introduce her to our formidable community of writers. What better place than the fine literary scene at Urban Think! I hope you get a chance to join us at 7 PM this Friday. Bring friends.

And After

I caught you looking at my hand,
you held it up above us, light
in your larger hand, you held it
like a specimen –
splayed the fingers –
naked, ringless, white.

What were you thinking when I
caught you looking at my hand?
I wouldn’t call it beautiful, though you can.

After love, the body doesn’t care –
it slackens in a drowse, goes unaware,
just naked, ringed with pleasure everywhere.
The organ of the skin has ruled the blood,
the heart, the lumpish brain –

Were you thinking
that this hand,
that’d touched you deftly
back to life, to breath,
will lie so still in death?

Where had I been
when I caught you
looking at my hand?
Far away in the skin’s flush, pale now,
contracting, wondering,
where did this begin?

What were you thinking
when I caught you looking at my hand?
Were you thinking, “How small within
my larger hand, I don’t know this hand at all,
or even grasp her naked pleasure, when she alone
seems ringed with light.”

What were you thinking – (I didn’t ask) –
when I caught you – (you didn’t know) –
looking at my hand – (that afterglow,
held in morning light.)

by Jeanie Thompson
from The Seasons Bear Us