sitting at the terminal at TF Green waiting to go to Dallas for work (just overnight, getting in late/leaving early tomorrow — sorry, Dallas friends)…

business travel is really just really long commutes, and we all love really long commutes, don’t we?

more later.

to the Lizard Lounge tonight to see Iyeoka feature.

See you there, anyone?

Just filling folks in on the latest weirdness.

Got a call from my ex two days ago — her father had been found dead after what appears to have been a heart attack from shoveling out of the storm last week. He died in his house and wasn’t found for a week.

As you can imagine, everyone’s pretty upset. As you can imagine, it arouses all kinds of conflicting feelings in me.

I won’t go into the details, but Mel had a fairly complex and dysfunctional relationship with his family. This is just the final act.

So if I continue to be a little withdrawn for a bit, you now know why.

After reading through the comments, I think I’m going to go with columns only for the manuscript.

It does mean excluding those columns that refer directly to specific poems — but since there are over 100,000 words to choose from, I suspect I can pull something reasonable together without them or after editing them.

I may expand the topic area from just “A Life In Slam” to “A Life In Poetry” to increase potential readership, but we’ll see. Since the column focused on slam and performance poetry issues, it shouldn’t be an issue for slam readers, and it may attract non-slam folks.

In other news, my poem “Man At The Pharmacy” was just accepted for future publication by Breath and Shadow, an online zine dedicated to writing by people with disabilities. Although I’m always reluctant to claim that status, reading the guidelines for the zine made me think about the number of poems I’ve written related to my struggles with bipolar illness — so I went for it.

Disability with this condition is so hard for me to assess, y’know? Clearly it does hamper my abilities in many ways, and God knows the severe episodes, both manic and depressive, shred my life. The cognitive therapies I use to maintain daily are a chore as often as a blessing. But I go through periods where I barely notice it except for that shelf of pills in the kitchen.

Sleep apnea is, in some ways, a more chronic disabling condition. The years when I was untreated were terrible. I can’t sleep anywhere without the CPAP device. And despite the treatment and the pills, I still have many nights where I can’t sleep, and that’s a major problem.

So…anyway. There it is.

I’m in the preliminary stages of pulling together a manuscript.

The book will be titled “Zero Point Zero: Reflections on a life in the Slam Family.” It’s exactly what it sounds like — ruminations on the world of slam as seen by an insider.

This will be based on the years of columns I’ve written for Gotpoetry.com. For those of you familiar with the column, I’ve got a couple of questions:

— Would you rather see a manuscript that included some mix of my poems, other people’s poems, and a selection of the columns, or:

— a simple selection of the columns edited into a coherent whole?

Either way, it’s going to be a lot of work to do this, but one requires getting permissions from other folks as well as my own editing work. But I’m game to do it if people think it might be more useful.

If you don’t know the column, it’s on http://www.gotpoetry.com. The specific link for the column is http://www.gotpoetry.com/News/topic=8.html. Keep in mind that the columns appear in reverse chronological order.

Y’know, life just keeps getting crappier and crappier. I’d like to start this month over.

Whenever I feel this way, I know that people like to call, see how I’m doing, try to cheer me up, etc.

I don’t work that way, folks. I become quiet and introspective, and shake myself out of things my way.

This is a hard time. I’m fine. Thanks for understanding.

Come see 200 Proof Poetry, the Boston Intercollegiate Slam Team, tonight at the reading.

Or else.

A brief meditation on ambition and such.

http://www.gotpoetry.com/News/article/sid=3944.html

If you’re gonna comment on it, please comment over there, k? Thanks.

Just did a big trim of the friends’ list.

I’m kinda laconic lately, I know. Feeling tentative. Don’t trust myself right now. Skittish.

It’s awful to feel so afraid of words.

been among the missing this week because frequegrl‘s grandmother passed away after a long illness. we had the various events, etc., so we haven’t been around.

she’s doing ok, but it was a tough week.

Busy week. More later.

Gotpoetry Live is on for tonight — haven’t heard from LV, so I’m assuming she’s on her way along with Zork.

Bring yerselves down before we’re snowed in!

Just posted a recording of “Political Art” on the Myspace. Enjoy.

http://www.myspace.com/poetrybytonybrown

This could get wordy, so I’ll keep it brief.

1. I’ve been a notable critic of the state of slam poetry. While I think that’s still my right, it’s been a long time since I slammed regularly. I’m starting to feel like I need to be inside again.

2. I want to try newer work on stage. While I used “Mission Statement” last night in the first round, I did that for me and me alone — sort of a nod to the past. I used “Snakes on a Plane” in the second round — a poem less than a year old, albeit a fairly slammy one — and since we have a no-repeat rule in Wormtown, I can scratch both of those off the list. 🙂

Look for newer stuff in the semis and (if I make it) finals, although I never discount the use of older stuff if it fits the night. I’m not a believer in the stuff about not using your old poems. I wrote them, and I stand by them.

3. I would like, personally, to be part of mixing up the demographic at NPS. Old poets represent.

4. I was nervous going in, was nervous throughout, and am still nervous. That’s a very, very good thing. I’ve been writing hard for so long — between the new work with Duende and this, I want to keep honing the performance of new work. Getting scared is crucial to getting and keeping that edge, at least for me.

That’s it.