WhatsInTheBag Press presents a night of oneness and poetic outbursts followed by the music of Morticia's Chair. Scattered open mic's will mix in with features for full communion of audience, performers, and appreciators of aural art. Bring your own everything. Big ass frigs will be there. Small snacks and water soda will be for sale to benefit the Cleveland Food Bank, which is the house charity. The house, of course, is The Center for Rock Research.
The Line Up of Greatness:

Shelly Chernin
Blaire Miller Bommer
Steve Goldberg
Frank Prpic & Joker
Alex Nielsen
Nick Traenkner
John Dorsey
Cavana Faithwalker
Carmen Tracey
Latex Menagerie w/ Russ Vidrick, bree, and Adam Brodsky
Jack McGuane
Brian Fugett
Lynn Alexander
Dan Smith and the Deep Cleveland Trio (Morgan Ellington, Miles Budimir,Dan Wenninger)
Marilyn Oliveras de Ortiz

With a couple of open mic sessions for room for another 12 readers.

The evening ending up with a rocking good time from

Morticia's Chair.

Bring merch and books for artistic capitalism during the intermissions.
Click for directions to The center for Rock Research

I interrupt this blogging silence for an important poetic announcement!

Arriving into the Cleveland area is a talented writer and reader of poetry from the Upstate New York area. I had the pleasure of hearing and meeting Robert Milby last summer when I went on that adventure in poetics known as the Rusted Trim Poetry Tour with Dorsey and Bunsen. Robert impressed me incredibly and when I heard he wanted to come to Ohio I got right on it.

He will be at Mac's Backs Wednesday, July 20th at 7 P.M. Yes, that's right folks. This isn't the usual poetry reading night for Mac's. He will be joined by novelists, Grant Baillie (Cleveland), Peter Grandbois (Delaware, Ohio), Steve Himmer (Quincy, MA), and Jim Mason (Cleveland). Apparently, my opinion has a little weight for some as you can see from Suzanne's write-up for the event. (Yes, I'm humbled and a bit embarrassed, but I won't let it stop me from boasting).

I found out about Robert Milby when Steve Goldberg called and said he was one of the best poets he'd ever heard. Robert is the author of several poetry chapbooks including Crow Weather and has had his work published in lots of journals. He is an integral part of the Hudson Valley poetry community---he hosts a reading series at the Mudd Puddle Cafe and is the co-editor of the Wawayanda Review.

The short intro doesn't do Robert justice, so just come down to Mac's, catch a hippieburger at Tommy's, bring cash to buy Robert's stuff (cuz you're gonna want to after you...), listen to him versify like the you never heard versification before.

Please note that I was able to stop making this about me and shared the limelight with Robert Milby, even for just another paragraph.

So are you all tired of me reading my poems about Tremont? If not, or haven't caught me yet, or are just afraid to cross the river, I will be reading at Mac's Backs on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights. Mac's is carrying Tremont Crawl, so you can buy a copy and if you wish to lower the value, I'll sign it. Also, it will be my honor to share the stage with Lady Kathy Smith.

The reading will be Wednesday, December 8 at 7 pm. Hope to see you there.

Mighty Michael Grover saved the Rebels Without Applause reading in Toledo which Lou Suarez and I were scheduled to perform. With Common Grounds ground up and blowing away in the wind, Mike found us another venue at Brooklyn's Daily Grind in Holland, Ohio. It looks to be an extra exit on the turnpike, but hey! they got adult beverages! My kind of place.

It starts at 8 PM on Thursday November 18 and the Daily Grind is located at 7723 Airport Highway Holland, OH. Hope to see you there.

If any of you missed my reading at Visible Voice Books a few weeks ago, well you missed a good one. I really liked the vibe and the audience was cool and I felt like my reading was reflected all that. Too bad you missed it. However, I have a few more readings coming up and my confidence is strong, so they should be just as much fun.

• This Friday, November 12 at 8:00pm, I will be the feature at the Deep Cleveland reading series at the Borders Bookstore in Strongsville. This will be my first Deep Cleveland reading and I am excited to see my good friends that are part of the DC tribe. Since it is at a Borders, I will be . Fortunately, my stuff doesn't usually contain much to worry about. I'll have copies of Tremont Crawl and Corner Drugstore Cafe and other poems with me to "not" sell (since Borders doesn't carry them.) See me after the read or wherever we may post read imbibe.
• A week later, I'll be in Toledo Thursday November 18. Originally scheduled to be at Common Grounds coffeeshop, but they closed down this week. I'm going over to Toledo anyway, cuz I like it there and the peeps are great. I'm supposed to partner with Lou Suarez whom I admire a great deal. I'll read anywhere and Mike Grover is working on an alternate. Hopefully, Lou is in the same headset. Stay tuned for an update.
• Finally, I will be reading with Kathy Smith at Mac Back's in Cleveland Heights Wednesday December 8 at 7pm. They ARE carrying Tremont Crawl there.

So to hear pieces from the chapbook plus a few new ones, there are a number of chances for you to heckle me. So come out and have a good time. I'd love to see you there.

Miles Budimir posted a review of the chapbook on his blog. Found out what he really thought of me....hmmm. But apparently I grew on him and he liked the book.

And it’s a pleasure to read and re-read, seeing in it not only observations from a single Southside neighborhood but truths about our lives here in the post-industrial world of a once thriving Great Lakes city in the 21st century, with its contradictions of comfortable living and hard scrabble barely gettin’ by.

Wow, did I do that?
Thanks, Miles.

It is all scheduled. I will be reading from my chapbook, Tremont Crawl, at Visible Voice Books On Tuesday October 19 at 7:00pm. I'll include a few other more recent poems and we will have an open mic afterward. In case you didn't know, Tremont Crawl is my first chapbook inspired by the places and people of the historical neighborhood of Tremont in Cleveland. These poems are about those people and the spots where they gather. The Poems convey the sense, atmosphere, and nobility of an endangered mid-city neighborhood. What better place to launch this book but right in the neighborhood that aroused it.

Even though I am a neuvo-tremonter of a mere six years, I have developed a love of the grit as well as the beauty that is infused in Tremont. You know I have been published in a number of small press issues and has read in venues across Ohio and the US.

But what you don't know is that I'll have as a guest reader, my old partner in poetic crime, Nick Traenkner. We have not read together since Lix and Kix back in February 2009. We're the duo that is the brain/brawn trust behind the crazily successful Literary Cafe Poetry Night for four years. Nick was one of the early contributors to the nascent hyperlink, on-line literature movement and has been active in the performing arts, music, and art scenes. Nick is the author of the chapbook, Accidental Thrust (2007 Little Scratch Pad).

Here are a few comments on the chapbook:

"It's a fine read, for sure."---Miles Budimir, Poet, Author of Rustbelt Romance and Missing Albertly

“Good stuff!” ---Russell Vidrick, Poet, Author of Love Poems of the New Order

“you did the neighborhood. i learned more than i knew before. congratulations.” ---Steven B. Smith, Poet, Artist,Publisher Art Crimes Magazine

“Tremont Crawl is like an archive...it’s straightforward no-frills good.” ---Bree Bodnar, Poet, Book Artist, Publisher Green Panda Press

Don't miss the fun that happens when we share the stage. Remember, Tuesday October 10 7:00pm at Visible Voice Books. VVB is located at 1023 Kenilworth Road in the fairly refined neighborhood of Tremont in Cleveland.

Wow, Visible Voice Books in Tremont has my Tremont Crawl as one of their featured books. Click here to see the page. Thanks to Dave Ferrante, owner of VVB, and a man of good taste.

We are still working out a day for a reading, but the books will be available at VVB in about a week. I'm already on my second printing. If you want a pre-sale of the second printing, order via PayPal below.

It is again the sad repetition of the somber reality of remembering lost friends to over-zealous, self-righteous, perverters of a peace-loving religion, immediately after the joy of surviving another year of my own lucky life. I try to relish what I have in honor of my dear friends, who no longer can, their chance snuffed out suddenly and without any reason or fault of their own, except to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. I enjoy life for them and learn the lesson they taught me. That it can be finished as quickly as it started.

So on this Jewish New Year, L'shana Tova and L'Chaim, to life for my friends Glen Wall and Dennis Buckley.

I've been talking about for years, but FINALLY WhatsInTheBag Press is up and publishing. WITB Press (what I like to call it) is the latest addition to the small press universe. The goal is put out single author publications that is of quality and significance. Using the fuck-it-I'll-DIY attitude and my own sense of aesthetic, this press hopes to have an impact in print as the Literary Cafe Poetry Night had in the Cleveland scene. Product will be chapbooks, perfect-bound books, and whatever I want. Doubt there will be any broadsides. Nobody buys those anyway and it's hard to store. NO ANTHOLOGIES except perhaps a limited run for an event or tour, and the long awaited Pen-Pad collection from the Lit reading series. There certainly will be a preponderance of poetry, but not exclusively.

This is a press, where we have printers, pressers, and paper. It will not be nor ever have an online publishing presence, not that there is anything wrong with that. We even have ISBNs! The first product out is Tremont Crawl, a chapbook of 20 pages inspired by the places and people of the historical neighborhood of Tremont in Cleveland. The cost is $5.00 plus shipping and handling.

Yeah, I'm the author, but don't you think this a vanity press. I have 13 potential projects already. Where I'll get the time and cash, I don't know, but that is my problem. Given that, WITB Press is not accepting submissions. Basically the same setup I had for the Lit Readings. It seemed to work out well.

I'm a little cranky from paper cuts and trying to get ready for my first tour, so if it seems obnoxious to let you know that you can order a copy of Tremont Crawl buy clicking the button below, I apologize. But click the button anyway. PLEEEZE.