I just realized that I haven’t posted about this here.  Nine days from now you can have a copy of American Fractal in your hands if you live in Southern California, or love me so much that you want to pay the ridiculous last minute airfare to fly in to L.A.  The book’s official release date is February 15th, but it will be available pre-release at the book release party.  (That’s a lot of release.)  The info’s been listed on my readings page, but who checks that?  So here it is again:

Saturday, January 17th, 7pm

Church in Ocean Park (map)
235 Hill St
Santa Monica, CA 90405

I’ll be reading from the book and signing copies, while you consume free wine and cheese and seedless grapes.  Could life get any better? This is my first reading in a long time — I didn’t want to get sick of the poems before the book even came out, so I stopped scheduling them, and really haven’t looked at the content of the book much over the last year, other than to proofread.  I used to have the whole thing incidentally memorized, but I don’t think that’s going to work right out of the gate.  Besides, it’s good advertising to read book-in-hand, lest people forget what they came for, right?

Anyway, even better than my book release is Rattle’s event earlier in the day — starting at 3pm, same location, we’re going to feature a Tribute to Cowboy & Western Poetry. From the winter issue, Robert Ayres, Thea Gavin, Mark D. Hart, Ciara Shuttleworth, Luke Shuttleworth, Jeff Streeby, and Donald Mace Williams are reading — most of them coming in from far out of town.  There will also be live western music by the Cross Town Cowboys, and a few venders selling western merchendise. And the first 50 in the door receive a free copy of Rattle (#25).

It’s going to be a lot of fun — cowboy & western poets are performers by nature, so much so that I really regret not including an audio CD with the issue.  But far-away-readers fear not — the good folks at poetry.la will be there to film it all, and put portions online.  I’ll link to those videos as soon as they’re available.

Both events are free, with a basket for donations to the church at the door.  The Church in Ocean Park does a lot for the community and the arts, so they certainly deserve to have the coffers filled.  Mosy on over and enjoy some poetry — make a day of it!