Another installment of My Friends Are Awesome.

Come to find out yesterday that Chris Lane, multi-talented illustrator of the cover of Trevor's first book as well as the entirety of Zombies: A Record of the Year of Infection and Harry Houdini: The Legend of the World's Greatest Escape Artist, and super good friend and all-around piece of wonderfulness in my life, is now a San Francisco Chronicle Bar Star, 2013!

And then: amazing author and magnificent human being Renee Swindle read to a packed house at my favorite bookstore, Diesel, A Bookstore, for the publication of her second book, Shake Down the Stars.

Yes, it was a good day. So proud!

Check this out! In celebration of National Poetry Month, the head of school at Marin Academy posted a lovely blog post that featured my husband, Trevor Calvert, as both an MA librarian and poet.

I love not only Trevor's contribution to this post as a poet -- his new work featured is wonderful -- but as a YA librarian. The way he thinks about accessibility and intersects that with a broad range of work, and his encouragement of students to not be intimidated by the written word is terrific.

On MA Library's poetry display:

I wanted to represent both collections of poetry as well as books on writing. When I was younger, I would read these great poems, and think, ‘Oh I wish I could do that’ without realizing that I needed no permission. So the books on writing act as a sort of permission to people that yes, they can write poetry, and also affirm that poetry is not an arcane set of symbols and allegory that must be deciphered if you are going to ‘get’ a poem. For the poets themselves I tried to choose books that would interest readers in multiple ways: Verse & Universe blends science and poetry for those lyrical scientists among us; Fat Girl is interesting as it directly and honestly addresses the body, femininity, and body-image; The Angel Hair Anthology is really interesting as it collects a 1960s Berkeley zine created by Anne Waldman and Lewis Warsh—which really helped shape a lot American poetry. I think this really echoes a lot of MA’s creative and independent spirit—I can imagine some of our students going on to do the same. Gary Snyder could not be neglected as he spoke here during LitFest! And because I like locals, I wanted to add another local poet who teaches as CCA, Donna de la Perriere. Her book, Saint Erasure, is lyric, haunting, and vulnerable.

So proud to be married to this amazing man.

WOO-HOO! Here's the New York Times Book Review of Harry Houdini, illustrated by my friend, the very talented Chris Lane.















"Beautifully illustrated." Big-time kudos.

Chris, as you may recall, also did the cover of Trevor's first book, Rarer and More Wonderful, and more recently, the illustrations for Zombies: A Record in the Year of Infection (in which moi was depicted as patient zero).

It looks like a fantastic book. So very excited for Chris!

Just found out that my honey-pie Trevor Calvert's book of poetry, Rarer and More Wonderful, was not only nominated, but was a finalist for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association 2009 Book Award in the poetry category, alongside such poetic luminaries as John Isles, Andrew Joron, the late Barbara Guest, and the late Jack Spicer.

From the NCIBA:

Northern California Independent Booksellers 2009 Book of Year Awards: Honoring books published in 2008 and written or illustrated by Northern California authors and artists

The second annual Book of the Year awards, presented by members of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA), have been announced. The 2009 awards honor local authors and a children’s book illustrator whose books were published for the first time in 2008.

Independent booksellers representing 200 stores in the region voted for their favorite titles from a Finalists ballot created by bookseller committees.

Woo-hoo!

You can still get this hot number from Scrambler Books. Try before you buy here.

Check out one of my favorite poets, Ryan Bartlett, at Back Room Live, which was curated this month by poet (and my honey), Trevor Calvert.

One of my favorite lines in one of Trevor's poems is, "she becomes a gorgeous disaster." When I read Ryan's work I always get a sense of just that: the beauty in tragedy. Like fragile and stunning butterflies pinned to a piece of corkboard, his poems build a structure around those parts of the human experience which are fleeting and that we cannot -- or perhaps should not -- hold on to. His poems are redolent with saudade, and they are nothing short of brilliant. Do yourself a favor and check them out.

This month Back Room Live also features the epic work of both Bhanu Kapil and Steffi Drewes.

Trevor also has new work up on his blog, The Casual Tee. The poem is "Letter to electricity." Like Ryan, Trevor has a knack for constructing architecture around a flickering moment in time, gathering all of the disparate pieces and bringing about a sense of beauty and form to melancholy and tumult. Wonderful!

It's a good week for poetry.

Trevor's book, Rarer and More Wonderful, was reviewed by Michael Roberson on CutBank Reviews -- the blog for the literary journal of the University of Montana.

The craft of reviews is something I never really appreciated until Trevor started doing them himself. Michael's review of Trevor's book is a really terrific piece in its own right, seamlessly transitioning from one set of unique poems to another and capturing the book's many themes, then tying this fecund, wild world together by laying each component bare so we can all have a good look at what it contributes to the landscape. Fantastic.

Incidentally, Michael also has another claim to fame: he's from our backwoods 'hood. Tuompton, holla!

Trevor reading his book, Rarer and More Wonderful, and talking about publishing for our friend Ryan's Creative Writing class at Crafton Hills College:















See Rarer and More Wonderful on Facebook here!

Trevor's book, Rarer and More Wonderful has been nominated for the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association award in the poetry category.

And while I hope he wins or is at least a finalist, that old adage "it's an honor to be nominated" rings very true. Past nominees and winners include Willis Barnstone, Adrienne Rich, Ben Lerner, and Robert Hass, just to name a few.

I am so proud of him!

Trevor has work in the second issue of Mrs. Maybe.

Very excited to see this, mainly because, 1) I had never seen this poem before it was published, and 2) he totally name-checks me. :)

Also glad to see the man writing again.

San Jose School of Library and Information Science has an sweet article about my honey-pie, Trevor Calvert, and his book, Rarer and More Wonderful, here.

Sexy author photo by moi. :*

BTW, if you still haven't picked up this little gem, you can do so at Scrambler Books.

So, Denver.














I think Trevor sums it up nicely.

Big love to Eric, Noah, Sara, and Lucas.

And while we were gone -- here is a review of Rarer and More Wonderful.

Colorado beckons. We're on our way tomorrow! And Trevor shall be reading in Denver in support of his book, Rarer and More Wonderful, this Saturday.

Via Noah Eli Gordon...

Please join us for a house reading and party on Saturday, June 14th.

Things will begin at 7 pm.

Feel free to bring snacks, beverages, and friends.

Readings by Barbara Barg, Bhanu Kapil, Bin Ramke,
Danielle Pafunda, and Trevor Calvert

1014 E 10th Ave
Denver, CO 80218

Weekend wrap-up...

Trevor's reading Friday at Pegasus for Rarer and More Wonderful was fantastic! Many thanks to the friends and other folks who came out to support his first book, and for extending the celebrations later on at Jupiter.


















For folks who couldn't make it, you can pick up Trevor's book at Scrambler Books. And there will be more reading dates to come!

Saturday was Adrienne and Tobin's wedding at Hakone Gardens in Saratoga. Bride was stunning in a strapless corseted wedding gown with a lacy dress train. With pearls in her hair, she was reminiscent of a mermaid. Groom walked in to the Imperial March, cello-style. Nerds! The wedding was gorgeous and brilliant, just like the bride and groom.














Sunday was to be a day of rest, but lo, Chris' siren's call of BBQ and beer in the afternoon was too much to resist -- as was the requisite game night, now with pad thai.

Good friends, good times, good living, here in the Bay.

Home now. Going to bed.

Trevor Calvert will be reading from his first book, Rarer and More Wonderful -- out from Scrambler Books -- on Friday, June 6, 2008 at 7:30 pm at Pegasus Books in downtown Berkeley.

Please come out to support Trevor's first book, and both independent bookstores and independent small press. The inimitable Eleanor Bayne Johnson will also be reading.

Plus, a very fat cat.












































Irresistible!

Trevor Calvert's first book of poetry, Rarer and More Wonderful, is being published at the end of the month by Scrambler Books. I am so excited for him!


















(gorgeous cover art by the obscenely talented Chris Lane)

Trevor's work is simply brilliant. But, as you may think me biased, I won't allow you to merely take my word for it...

[T]hings / hidden remain alive." Like—and with—Jack Spicer before him, Trevor Calvert helps us to celebrate this notion by bringing light to the lives of hidden things—answers, insects, music, the heart—without ridding them of the veils, the walls, or the hidey-holes to which we're initially drawn. Rarer and More Wonderful is aptly named. -- Graham Foust

Rarer & More Wonderful are the attachments, the combinations, of these poems. Here, language, carved and specific, secures one figure to the next, to its double, or is that a ghost? Perhaps both. And then what appears in the negative space of what happens: "none of these things / will act as the thing itself that / is soon ending." So there is a serious struggle here with experience, with being, and then when you least expect it comes the debonair turn, like getting away with wearing period hats. The period? Well, there's no closure, either. Of its moment. -- Stephanie Young

Trevor will be reading from his book at Pegasus Books in Berkeley on June 6th, and in Denver, Colorado on June 14.

Times, guest readers, and more reading dates will be coming soon!

Reminder: Trevor is reading tonight at Book Zoo as part of the celebration of the release of the journal Back Room Live from Life Long Press.

If you can't make it, to tide you over until his next reading, check it -- Trevor's is the current poem being pimped over at Weird Deer. Listen to "Complexity Trumps Static" here.

Reading for Back Room Live book release Friday April 25th, 7 pm at Book Zoo, 6395 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland.

With /BackRoomLive/ Contributors ~ Trevor Calvert ~ Challen Clarke ~ Zach Demby ~ Eleanor Johnson ~ Blake Ellington Larson ~ Sarah Garrigan

My sweetie-pie, Trevor Calvert, has new poetry in the February issue of The Scrambler. They are from his ongoing series (one of my favorites) about Punch, of Punch and Judy fame.

Click to read or listen.

My sweetie-pie will be joining our good friends Julie and Ellie to read some new poetry September 29th at McNally's Irish Pub in Oakland.

Back Room Live ! Proudly Presents ! Eleanor Bayne Johnson ! Hillary
Gravendyk ! David Larsen ! Julie Choffel ! Trevor Calvert ! Saturday
Night ! September 29 ! Mc Nally's Irish Pub ! 7pm !

McNally's Irish Pub
5352 College Ave
Oakland, CA 94618
(510) 654-9463
Minutes from the Rockridge BART Station
and on the 51 bus line

See you there!