A Fantastic Time in Pittsburgh

My sister and I went to the Gist Street Reading Series' July event last night in Pittsburgh.  It was their annual Cookout Extravaganza and this year involved Soft Skull Press.

It was my first time meeting co-curators Sherrie Flick and Nancy Krygowski, after having corresponded via email for nearly a year now - it's always nice to meet folks you've been "talking" to for a long time.

The readers were Shanna Compton, Shafer Hall, and Jennifer L. Knox.

Shanna led off, reading from her soon to be released Winnow Press Award winning collection, Down Spooky.  She was quite funny and her poems always have great wordplay.  She also snuck some other information via her introductions such as the fact that she writes "hot copy" for Macys.com!  She read quite a few poems that Shafer Hall gave her titles for - a project they worked on where they'd give each other titles to write poems to.

She read:

Good Cookin' Kitchen
Under the Umbrella is Another Umbrella
Will that be all Mrs. Kickboxer
I am not Related to any of you yet
Mouth Made Out of Trees
My Huge Napolean
Thicket
The Local (which was originally titled Homeslice per Shafer Hall)
Knowing and Saying are Two Different Things (which was written as part of a project for Ron Silliman trying to utilize the letter K in a special manner)
Even a Zoo
Fortieth

Next up was Shafer Hall, who had an even larger Texan accent than Shanna!  His poetry was also quite humorous.  He is curator of the Frequency Reading Series in Manhattan and is a bad bartender and proud of it.  He also had funny introductory comments for his poems.  He read:

Blasting Hotloads in a Concrete Bunker Somewhere in Texas (this after allowing the audience the fact that the definition of hotload is when somebody makes their own ammunition and adds a bit too much gunpowder - this so we wouldn't believe the title to be obscene in any manner)
The Once Great John's Delicatessan
A Congenial Octegenarian
Low Res Lifestyle
Kickin' Chickens
Learning to Snap
The Monster that Challenged the World (This after announcing that America has many moustaches, but he was damn proud to be in Bill Cower Moustache Country)
Things that I've Learned From You and My Radio
Space Ptrol Girls
My New Coleslaw Recipe
Salt Preserves
Big Plans Small Apartment
Tundra
Today is a Chevy Truck
Square Hut
Another Change of Flavor
Saturaton

Last was Jennifer L. Knox, whose book, A Gringo Like Me, will be published by Soft Skull Press in September.  Her reading performance enhances the poems incredibly.  All three readers were definitely entertainers but they saved the big performance for the finale.  She is co-curator of the Pete's Big Salmon Reading Series.  She read:

We are Afraid
So Sweet Our Teeth Ache (title from Shafer Hall)
Another Motive for Metaphor (after Wallace Stevens' Motive for Metaphor)
The Hot Ass Poem
All Nite All Right (which was inspired by Rock n Roll High School, which she just saw last year, much to her chagrin)
Samurai and Chlld
And Now a Message from Our Sea Horses Whinnying in Our Mail Bag
Freestyle Vagina or Free Vagina Style

If you hear that any of these three individuals are coming to your area to do a reading - GO!  In fact, talking to Shanna afterwards, I heard the fantastic news that she and Jennifer will be reading in Ann Arbor in October and I'm marking the calendar already.  I can't recommend more that you visit Shanna's blog and order Down Spooky, that you visit Shafer's blog and order anything he's selling and pre-order Jennifer's Gringo from Soft Skull ASAP.

And if you live within five hours of Pittsburgh, start planning on going to the cookout extravaganze next July, no matter what press is involved - Sherrie and Nancy do a great job, and drew a crowd easily topping 150.  All the books Soft Skull brought with them were bought, the potluck was incredible and much interesting mingling occurred before and after the readings.

Lastly, a big thanks to friends of Gist Street, Jon and Patty, who allowed two total strangers to follow them home and crash in their apartment.  Thanks to co-curators Sherri and Nancy for taking time away from setting everything else up, to set up these sleeping arrangements too.  Very nice people indeed.