To succeed in writing, as in all things, one must press the flesh. I think Elizabeth Bishop said that. So I took that to heart and volunteered a day-and-a-half to man a table for Omnidawn table, a small CA-based publishing company, at the Association of Writer’s and Writing Programs (AWP) conference in the City. The AWP is just like a comic book convention, except comics cons have less women than men (although that is changing), they have action figures instead of chapbooks and broadsheets; however, in both environments, the level of self-seriousness can be deadly. Omnidawn publishes poetry and fiction, and my friend Justin Courter had his great and funny book Skunk published by them. By volunteering, I got free passage into the AWP, the chance to: see some top poets read; press the flesh with influential literati; glare at editors who rejected my work; flirt with many damaged, bespectacled literary women as possible; purchase lots and lots of lit journals at discounts. I also got the chance to hawk and talk up Asinine Love Poetry.
For most of the event, I had to remain at the table, inveigling people with fancy-looking chocolates to get their attention. This was slightly embarrassing, but once I got into the spirit of things, it was just silly fun and a good way to start conversations. Well, I did end up mostly just trying to catch the attention of women. And there was a loverly loverly poetess also behind the table with me named Paige. With glasses! But after I started getting a bit friendly she mentioned “WE live in Vermont,” etc. etc. Maybe I shouldn’t have offered to massage her feet so quickly. Later, I had a lot of chance to walk around. I met somebody from Center–Chad, I think. I met editors from Palabra and Laurel Review. Felt a bit shy and out of my element. What I should’ve done, if I had the balls, was to take an empty table and push Asinine Poetry books and tees. But I was worried about being hustled out. On Saturday though I went around and handed out Asinine Love Poetry to anyone who gave me a book. I saw John Ashbery read, but made a loud sound when I dropped the fruit salad in my hand (good thing I was way in the back); also saw this old guy who was very funny and really read small stories but he called them poems–what the hell was his name?? Also saw my old pal Bruce Jay Friedman, but didn’t get to say hi, as I knew I had to duck out of his lecture pretty quickly to go drinking, which I needed to do. All in all, not too AWPful.