An Interview with Marc McKee

Barn Owl Review’s Eric Morris recently interviewed Marc McKee, author of the poetry collection Fuse. He writes “Marc, aside from being a cool, funny dude, provides some generous insight into the poetic craft, from catalyst (is that what we want to call it?) to the evitable chaos one incurs when experiencing poetry.” Click here to read the entire awesome interview, and here to buy a copy of this awesome book.

A New Review of SAINT MONICA

The National Poetry Review loves Mary Biddinger’s chapbook Saint Monica, writing “Monica’s is that most epic and ordinary of tales, and like a series of images on a reel, the poems show us fragments of her life, woven together in a story that is both arbitrary and of universal, archetypal importance, a poetic reminder of who we are and who we were, and how to stay our course.” Buy a copy here.

Brad Ricca on Writer’s Almanac

Check out Brad Ricca’s poem “The Beautiful Sandwich,” from his collection American Mastodon, on The Writer’s Almanac! It’s a thrill to hear one of our authors read for such a storied program. You must read the rest of this tremendous collection; click here to buy a copy.

Upcoming Readings: Joe Wilkins

Don’t miss these upcoming opportunities to hear Joe read from his acclaimed poetry collection Killing the Murnion Dogs. (Note that the Chicago date is at AWP, where we’re throwing a killer party with our friends at Devil’s Lake! We’re so excited!)

Wednesday, February 8th
Briar Cliff University
Stark Student Center
Assisi Room
Sioux City, IA
7:00 pm
Thursday, March 1st
Black Lawrence Press/Devil’s Lake Reading @ AWP
Salud Tequila Lounge
Chicago, IL
7:30 pm

Tuesday, March 13th
Grand Valley State University Writers Series
2215/16 Kirkhof Center, Allendale Campus
Allendale, MI
7:30 pm

Reminder: The Big Moose Prize Deadline is Jan. 31!

Fiction writers, don’t forget that next Tuesday is the deadline for our Big Moose Novel Prize: click here for more details. Last year we offered contracts to the winner of the contest and to the first runner-up, so don’t let this opportunity pass you by!

Larry Matsuda Reads “Higo’s Five and Dime”

Larry Matsuda, author of the incredible poetry collection A Cold Wind From Idaho, recently read “Higo’s Five and Dime” at the Wing Luke Asia Museum in Seattle. Click here to see it on YouTube! The reading was part of the opening night festivities for the exhibit “Meet Me at Higo: An Enduring Story of a Japanese American Family,” which is on display through May 27, 2012. (Artisan gallery KOBO at Higo is located at 602-608 S. Jackson St. in Nihonmachi.)

Brad Ricca on Verse Daily

A poem titled “Customs of Golems,” from Brad Ricca’s phenomenal collection American Mastodon, is up at Verse Daily. (Click here to buy a copy.)

Coming up in this week’s Sapling

This week, we talk chapbooks, chapbooks, chapbooks with Greying Ghost Press founder Carl Annarummo. Also, we feature the latest from the likes of: The Kenyon Review! Sentence! Finishing Line Press!

Sapling goes out via email every Tuesday. To join our growing list of Sapling subscribers and to read a little more about what we do, visit http://blacklawrence.homestead.com/sapling.html.

Weekend Event: Helen Marie Casey in Cambridge, MA

Bostonians: Helen Marie Casey will be one of six authors of books published in 2011 to read at the National Writers Union (Boston Chapter) Book Party on Sunday, January 22nd, at the YMCA in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She will read from her biography, My Dear Girl: The Art of Florence Hosmer. The reading will be followed by member book sales and celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the National Writers Union, including an address by NWU President Larry Goldbetter. Don’t miss it! (And if you won’t be in town, click here to buy a copy of this lovely biography.)

Joe Wilkins: A Master of the “Poetry of Place”

Escape Into Life’s Kathleen Kirk included Joe Wilkins’ collection Killing the Murnion Dogs in her year-end review, and writes “Reading Wilkins, I had an experience very like the one he reports in this excerpt from “Daybreak, Spokane, September 2001,” about reading the poet James Wright:

I dream winter—wind leaning hard
down the mountains, blown snow

and ice—reading James Wright
for the first time.

How sad and lovely,

because in his poems everything and everyone
was always dying,

yet looking up from the page
I had never before wanted so wholly to live.

Read the entire review here, and buy your copy of this beautiful book here.