"The poems in (this book) are ravenous, rich, and exquisitely built. (The poet)'s language makes visible how yearning tethers the mind to the world and how hurt spawns an astonishing self-awareness. Her gaze alights on beauty and violence; it 'scurries from birth to blight.' Such attentive looking brings closer the brokenness of the world. This gaze is also restorative; it alleviates and mends and delights."

"(This book) is haunted by violence and catastrophe, by the consequences of human desire turned to incommensurate ends, and anxious about the resources of language. There are no glib answers, only a certain kind of belief (the kind Emily Dickinson might recognize) embodied afresh in poems that are richly textured, and filled with energy, wit, and intelligence. (The poet)'s work is serious, but there's joy here, too, in a balance that defies gravity."

This book has an interesting title, and I liked the cover art, and was going to buy it, but these blurbs are tepid nothings. It sounds like the person likes the author but hasn't read the book at all or, at best, skimmed it. I'm now not buying this collection, and rethinking whether I will buy the next books by the poets who wrote the blurbs.

Blurbs should say something about at least one specific poem. They should make the book sound like a Must Read, not like it's something to read at bedtime when you're having trouble sleeping.

I've seen slight variations on these same two blurbs over and over on poetry collections by writers who deserve better. I would rather see a generic description of the book by the publishers than these echoey farts of generic praise.

​If I see "yearning tethers the mind to the world and how hurt spawns an astonishing self-awareness" in a book, I'm putting it down and probably never picking it up again. And that's if it's in the middle of a book. If it's on the cover, I'm never buying it in the first place. These blurbs are the margin notes of a really supportive English teacher who doesn't know what they're talking about.

An Erudite Man enters the store. "Well, isn't this just perfection. You work here, correct?"

Me: "Yes."

EM: "My daughter is a graphic novelist."


Not Yet A Graphic Novelist: "No. No. I'm a children's author who is thinking of getting into graphic novels."

EM: "Yes. Well." He gives me the eyeroll. "If, let's say, I was a person who read real literature and thought graphic novels were just a failed rebranding of comic books to intimidate adults into foolishly investing their money in comics until they died. What would you say to me?"

Fuck you?

Me: "I would say you sounded so convinced in your argument that it would be a waste of my time to try and convince you otherwise."

EM: "Oh, I like you."

Me: "Thanks."

EM: "Gun to your head, what's the best graphic novel in the store."

I look to my left.

Me: "Daytripper. It's a book by two Brazilian twin brothers. I don't want to spoil the joy of reading it, so I'll just say that it's a story about family focusing on a young man whose father is a famous novelist, but he writes obituaries and is trying to find his voice as a writer."

NYAGN: "Oh wow."

EM: "That was spectacular. I grew up in Brazil, where I was a journalist in a newspaper. I didn't write the obituaries, but one of my mates did."

NYAGN flips through the book. "I'l definitely be getting this."

We discuss different art styles, what she's looking for, and she mentions that she's in town to have a surprise conversation with an author she particularly likes, who happens to be a subscriber at our store.

EM: "You seem very well informed. About comics and literature. Do you know anything about poetry."

This is not going to end well.

Me: "Yes, I have spent a great deal of time working in the Cambridge area poetry scene."

EM: "Do you know" name I've never heard of.

Me: "No." I look up the name on the computer. "They are quite dead. And have been since before I moved here."

EM: "Gun to your head. Favorite living American poet."

Me: "Patricia Smith."

EM: "I've never heard of her."

I give him a quick rundown, and tell him to start with Blood Dazzler.

EM: "Do you know Sharon Olds?"

Me: "Not personally, but I love her work, and saw her read once, many years ago."

EM: "Seamus Heaney."

Me: "I'm familiar with him, but I don't know him. He wasn't precisely local."

EM: "Of course, of course."

I return to talking with NYAGN about her influences, and different graphic novel categories.

EM approaches me with a book. The Cantab Anthology, which sits on the front counter.

EM: "Are you Adam Stone?"

Me: "I am."

EM: "I read one of the Patricia Smith poems, and then one of yours. What makes this poetry and not prose?"

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

Me: "A local legend name Jack McCarthy once said that if you wrote or performed something that everyone agreed was poetry, then anything you write thereafter can be considered poetry." (I'm aware this is not the precise quote.)

EM: "But this is just formatting, then. And repetition. Hemingway used repetition. Would you call that poetry?"

Me: "I'm not a big Hemingway fan, so no."

EM: "So how is this" yeup "Drunken Conversations At Hampshire College poetry, and not just prose with line breaks?"

NYAGN: "What classifies anything in the 21st century? Do you have anything from the mid-seventies? That's when I'm setting the book, so I'm curious as to what comics looked like in that era." She says, saving her father from violent stink eye.

We continue talking about 70s art, and a Very Drunk Cantabrigian comes in.

EM, to me: "Is there a second hand clothing store nearby?"

Me: "The best option in Cambridge is The Garment District."

Very Drunk Cantabrigian: "And how."

EM: "How would we get there?"

VDG: "Take the fucken bus."

EM: "Um. Yes. Is there another way?"

VDG: "You could drive, but parking sucks."

EM: "That's fine, we haven't got a car. Could we walk?"

VDG: "Hoooooo. Could you walk? Can you?"

While VDG gives Horrible Directions, NYAGN and I talk about shipping comics to the UK. She ends up buying "Daytripper" and Guy Delisle's "Pyongyang". She and her father leave, taking down my info.

VDG: "I want a copy of the In The Wind 40th Anniversary Edition."

Me: "I don't know what that is."

VDG: "This isn't a place I could get it."

Me: "Ok."

VDG: "It's a motorcycle magazine."

Me: "Ah. Yea, we don't have that."

VDG: "I know. I know. But where would I get it."

Me: "The Coop is the most likely place to have it."

VDG: "Of course! My mother used to work there fifty years ago. 'Til the towers went down. Then she started making butter soup and she sold my house to the communists."

Me: "Ah."

VDG: "Right on the coast of Oregon, they got her to give half the house to the city to secure her legacy. And then Helen....you know Helen?"

Me: "No."

VDG: "Sure you do. She works over at...over at...uhh...Charlie's."

Me: "Oh sure, Helen." No idea.

VDG: "She kicks me out all the time. I don't think she knows that Cheny was behind the towers. People blaming Bush. Barabara was a lovely woman. I never met her, but what a lady. If any of those boys ever did wrong. KRAK! Melania, if Trump ever goes nuts..."

Me: "If."

VDG: "Think she'd...KRAK!...him? Helen never hit me or nothing, but you know."

Me: "Sure."

VDG: "They called Barbara The Iron Lady."

Me: "Good old Barbara Thatcher."

VDG: "Get those communists....KRAK!"

Me: "Indeed. Well, I've got to close the store for my lunch hour. You should get to the Coop to get your magazine."

VDG: "What? Oh! The Coop. My mother used to work there."

Me: "Yeup."

VDG: "But rent got so expensive."

Me: "Uh huh. See you later."

​VDG: "I'm always getting kicked out of places. Thanks for not using your foot."

There is no bigger red flag in poetry than when you ask someone who their greatest influence is, and they reply with "Myself."

Everyone who has ever said that is awful.

Me to Bobby, discussing Those Who Ride The Night Winds, "This is the book that made me hate ellipses."


Bobby: "I've always hated ellipsies. This is the age of the semi-colon."

​Me: "Ehh. I never liked the semi-colon, either. I'm a full colon kind of guy." Then, I made prolonged eye contact with the queer couple down the bar who've been talking about Pokemon Go since I got here.

Me to Bobby, discussing Those Who Ride The Night Winds, "This is the book that made me hate ellipses."

Bobby: "I've always hated ellipsies. This is the age of the semi-colon."

Me: "Ehh. I never liked the semi-colon, either. I'm a full colon kind of guy." Then, I made prolonged eye contact with the queer couple down the bar who've been talking about Pokemon Go since I got here.

One of my favorite types of e-mails is

We would like you to organize this show for us, using these specific guidelines that don't seem to mesh with your work or your work ethic. We need you to first work at creating a description of your event, find multiple readers to feature, set up an open mic, secure a location, and set a date. Please make sure your event will run smoothly. It should be family-friendly and free. Because why should people pay to experience art? Isn't it all about getting your work out there? Make sure to do the proper promotion and marketing to secure an audience. If the show goes well, we MIGHT deign to pay you for you this work. But probably not. We can give you a fun little title, though.

                    ----Sent from the desk of someone who is paid well to ask artists to do work for free​

My favorite point in reading poetry recently was saying a philosophical line really sincerely, and hearing a segment of The Cantab audience making the approving "that's so deep" sound, and then finishing the line with "is a TERRIBLE metaphor", and making eye contact with a couple of the people who mmmmmmmmmmmed.

​Actively listen if you're going to pretend to be engaged. Don't just passively accept absurd affirmations as wisdom.

5: Karen yells at and kicks out a guy who blatantly takes a bottle of Jack Daniels out of his backpack and starts drinking it five feet in front of the bar. His excuse? "I bought one drink. And I even tipped! But I couldn't afford another one."

4: Kimberly Hyphen-Surname refuses to serve a clearly intoxicated guy who tries to sneak in through the back door. During the open mic, both Emily and Kimberly have to approach him as his drug-fueled enthusiasm is bothering the people sitting around him. As the last poet takes the stage for the open mic, the guy comes to the bar and asks me for a beer. I say no. So he asks for a ginger ale. As I turn to get a glass, he grabs a bottle Jack Daniels and starts to pour it into a plastic cup. I yell. Very loudly. Dude, who was hella high, jumps up, drops the cup, first tries to run into the ladies' room, then the mens' room, then the doorman leads him up the stairs and out of the venue. He hasn't returned.

3: Having driven all the way to Providence to pick up the night's feature, Zuzu expected to be able to read on the open mic. She is denied by the host, so she orders food (remember when there was food at the Cantab?) and a drink. When she pays for her bill, the server gives her incorrect change. Like, change that doesn't even make sense. Zuzu and the waitress argue quietly, and Zuzu goes next door to what is now Tavern On The Square but was then...something else, and gets deeeeeerunk. She re-engages with the waitress after the night's slam (which was a regional bout). The waitress who keeps repeating that she is from Revere and she will "fight a bitch" and all hell breaks loose. I don't think there were punches thrown, but the room cleared out entirely. Apart from the host, even the other emplyees got the fuck out of that basement. The waitress continued to shout that she'd "fight a bitch", Zuzu kept shouting "where's my nineteen dollars?", the host soft-voice shamed everyone still in the room, and the bartender did a lot of shouting. Zuzu was banned. When I interviewed the bartender for a project I was working on, she admitted that the waitress had almost definitely stolen the money, as she "had a history of taking things from people she didn't like". Independently of this, Zuzu was unbanned.

2: The first of two entries which could be subtitled "When Emily's Not At The Bar, The Crazies Take Over". In 2007ish, somebody great was featuring. This was before fire code, and I don't even want to consider how many people were crammed in that room before the doors were locked. Rudy snuck in through the back and nodded at the host. The host nodded back. Rudy's nod meant "I want to read tonight." The host's nod meant "Hello." The open went way over time (again, no Emily), and Rudy, who'd showed up forty-five minutes late and never actually used verbal communication or written communication to express his desire to read, didn't get to read. So, in a crowded room, he went up and started shouting at the host. Asterisk got involved. And thenthe bartender. The bartender was annoyed enough that she got out from behind the bar, leaving me behind it for, I think, the first time. In the midst of his tantrum, Rudy decided to leave, and threw an elbow at someone who was in his way. Someone who happened to be The Owner's Granddaughter. The bartender yelled at and banned him, which, in the long run, probably saved his life.

Rudy would also appear on a list of the Top Five People Thrown Out Out Of Tuartas By An Angry Bar Staff. I think he's even show up on that list multiple times. Perhaps, he would be all five. We're a bit stricter about the kind of people we let back in.

1: A Poet Who Shan't Be Named Because Fuck Him Getting Any More Attention came to the bar on yet another night that Emily wasn't around. Apparently, he had started a fight with me at Seattle NPS in 2001. I have no memory of this. But he was in a bout with the team I was on that year. Flash forward to 2010 and the guy buys three drinks from me, and seems amiable. He's loud, but he's not obtrusive. Then, during the feature, he starts talking during a few of the poems.  Asterisk approaches him to be quiet. I don't know if he got quiet, but I didn't hear him. As the slam starts, he is loudly talking nonsense to a friend. Asterisk, again, approaches him, this time snidely. The guy starts yelling that he "read at The Nuyorican" and is "allowed to be loud" (He was not FROM the Nuyo, he was just letting us know that he'd been there once). He then tries to order a drink, and I refuse. He responds by offering to fight me, Asterisk, and Wiz. Wiz laughs. Asterisk gets enraged. The featured poet tries to subdue things. I go upstairs to get Cowboy, the bouncer. The upstairs bartender asks why I'm getting Cowboy, and when I say "I'm throwing somebody out." he joins the party. All of this is taking place WHILE the slam is happening. When the upstairs bartender, Cowboy and I get downstairs, The Attention Glutton is still yelling about himself and how he's not going to leave the bar. One look at Cowboy changed that. (Cowboy is....6'5? 400 pounds? Not to be fucked with.) As he was being led up the stairs he shouted at us that he was a former Mass Poet Fellow (Turns out he shared the title with another individual because he helped design a website for poetry. Using Angelfire. Remember Angelfire sites?) and we would never be as important as he was. He then stood outside and took video of poets, asking them why I was crazy. By the time I got home, he'd sent me four e-mails calling me pejorative terms for female genetalia, and asking me to call him so he could help ME be less crazy. He also claimed to have helped book our show (translation: he'd been on an e-mail chain wherein poets were invited to participate in a regional), and has since claimed (falsely) to run another reading that I've gone to.

He has not returned.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: All y'all pillowhumpers who won't stay off the fucken stairs, or who think you're cool enough to go into the back room. There's probably fifty of you on my FB page. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

Events "Organizer" At Venue, March 11th:

"Hi, I'm looking to run an event at my space and your name was given to me as a possible organizer. We have a diverse community" (read: white people in their forties AND fifties) "interested in diverse entertainment. Since April is National Poetry Month, we were hoping you could put together a show for us. Thanks in advance, Name Redacted."

Me: "Hi, Name Redacted. Thanks for the e-mail. What sort of budget do you have for this show? How long were you hoping it would go for? Is there a content restriction (language, mature themes, etc.)? What day/date were you looking for? April is a very busy time for poets. Many of them may already be booked for the entire month, but if you can send me a budget and more of an idea of what type of show you'd like to put on within the next week, I can probably line up a show. But right now, I don't have enough info to commit to anything. Thanks for keeping me in mind, and I hope we can work together to put on a great show. --Adam"

Event "Organizer" At Venue, April 13th:

"Hi Adam, thank you for your e-mail. We don't have it in our budget to pay anyone at this time, but might be able to for future events. We set aside this Thursday, April 16th for your show. Please send a list of performers, and we'll put the event up on our website. Cheers, Name Redacted."

Me: "Sorry, Name Redacted, Four days is not adequate time to put a show together. I wish you luck on future events. --Adam"

EOAV: "Can you suggest someone else to run this event?"

Me: "No. Four days is not adequate time put a show together. I wish you luck on future events."

Happy National Poetry Month, everyone!