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Over really good happy-hour-priced wood-fired pizza and a local pilsner, I've decided to try to capture the arc of the A Northern Spring as well as I can by reading a bit from the beginning, a bit from the middle, and a bit from the end. I'll start with prose that sets the scene—us in Derry, in the North of Ireland, when the travel ban is announced. After that, I'll talk a bit from notes to contextualize the book as a whole, how the prose is set in four preludes plus a coda with the poems intervening, and maybe a bit about why it's structured that way. Then I'll read a couple of my shorter, most reading-friendly poems, will say a bit more from notes—how the book coming to be was a matter of a confluence of events I'll likely never experience again—putting the arc I'm trying to capture inside a frame, and then I'll close with some prose from the coda. Boom.
PHOTO, LEFT: The handbill for the AWP offsite reading that Trio House Press is co-sponsoring, along with the South Dakota Review, Gold Wake Press, and the Minnesota Historical Society Press. The readers representing the various presses are discernible by the color-coding, the press names being the same color as the stars in which the names of their readers appear. The reading theme—"WE'RE THE FLOWNOVER"—is a tongue-in-cheekish (or not so tongue-in-cheekish) reference to the denotation of "flyover":
flyover—as modifier—US informal, derogatory denoting central regions of the US regarded as less significant than the East or West coasts: his appeal extends way beyond the Bible Belt and the flyover states.
The stars are homage to the stars of First Avenue & 7th Street Entry, the two historic and iconic music venues (known by locals as "The Mainroom" and "The Entry") housed side by side in the same building with a passageway between them, in downtown Minneapolis, known to the world as as the club featured in the Prince film Purple Rain.
PHOTOS, RIGHT: Top, a close up of the some of the First Ave stars inside which are the names of bands/performers who have appeared at either The Mainroom or The Entry. Bottom, First Ave main entrance.
PHOTO, LEFT: The handbill for the AWP offsite reading that Trio House Press is co-sponsoring, along with the South Dakota Review, Gold Wake Press, and the Minnesota Historical Society Press. The readers representing the various presses are discernible by the color-coding, the press names being the same color as the stars in which the names of their readers appear. The reading theme—"WE'RE THE FLOWNOVER"—is a tongue-in-cheekish (or not so tongue-in-cheekish) reference to the denotation of "flyover":
flyover—as modifier—US informal, derogatory denoting central regions of the US regarded as less significant than the East or West coasts: his appeal extends way beyond the Bible Belt and the flyover states.
The stars are homage to the stars of First Avenue & 7th Street Entry, the two historic and iconic music venues (known by locals as "The Mainroom" and "The Entry") housed side by side in the same building with a passageway between them, in downtown Minneapolis, known to the world as as the club featured in the Prince film Purple Rain.
PHOTOS, RIGHT: Top, a close up of the some of the First Ave stars inside which are the names of bands/performers who have appeared at either The Mainroom or The Entry. Bottom, First Ave main entrance.
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