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On Saturday February 23rd, I celebrated the release of my third book, The Diegesis. As you may know (from my previous blog post about it), this book is a collaborative poetry-hybrid project I wrote with Chas Hoppe, with whom I studied in Western Washington University’s MA program. The reading was great! So many friends and strangers came out to support me and poetry and community. It meant a lot! SO MUCH!

This is how it came together: I was hanging with Tara and said, “I got this book coming out in Feburary, and I want to do a release party. Where should I do it?” And she said something like, “Duh, my place!”

So there it was—in a matter of seconds, I had a venue and host. We quickly invited Abi and Patrick to open the reading and talked about who else would be a good fit. I invited Nicole Wilson almost immediately, and we both decided that rock-star poet Nate Slawson would be a great addition. From there, we waited. I enlisted master designer and essayist Ryan Spooner to make the flyer, which he NAILED!

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I can’t say enough about the night. There were a lot of people—a lot of support, and a lot of fun! Patrick and Abi read some great poems and really showed the diversity and breadth of poetic range within Columbia College Chicago’s Creative Writing – Fiction MFA program. Nicole Wilson (who, as you may or may not know, is the goddess of all things MFA in the English Department. . . as well as my boss) KILLED IT! Nate Slawson is Nate Slawson. Man, I had yet to see him read, so this was a treat and an honor.

Then I read. I read a poem from each of my previous books then a whole slew of poems from The Diegesis. Of course, since Chas lives in Washington, he couldn’t be there. But I enlisted Jacob and Sarah (my poetry road trip friends) to reprise their roles and read with me. I closed out with some DIY poems. Then we all partied. Hung out.

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It was a great night! And it wouldn’t’ve been the same without the community established here at CCC. It just reminded me of the importance of a cohort who cares about each other’s work and accomplishments! I’m really lucky to be here and have these friends.

OK. Next post will probably be about AWP. But we’ll see.

Laters,

J