Being away from Finland means I don’t always notice things when I should - Mikael Brygger’s excellent book, Emily, is not only out but FREE as a PDF on Nokturno. Check it: http://npc.nokturno.org/mikael-brygger/

Next up is a book of visual poems and sound poems (on CD), out in a few weeks.

Ida Börjel reads from Konsumentköplagen (Consumer Law) in Swedish, with Bryndís Björgvinsdóttir reading my Icelandic translation.

Christian Bök reads a poem. A poem. Not a soundpoem. Just your run-of-the-mill poetified meanings. I think I can even smell the scent of “message”! But then again, who knows, it might be methodical or apropriated, or maybe I’m not paying enough attention and he’s simply speaking in one vowel and two consonants, or something. In any case, I recommend it, the reading’s a hoot and the poem’s a blast.

Today’s poem is Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl

When you kneel below me
and in both your hands
hold my manhood like a sceptre,

When you wrap your tongue
about the amber jewel
and urge my blessing,

I understand those Roman girls
who danced around a shaft of stone
and kissed it till the stone was warm.

Kneel, love, a thousand feet below me,
so far I can barely see your mouth and hands
perform the ceremony,

Kneel till I topple to your back
with a groan, like those gods on the roof
that Samson pulled down.

Leonard Cohen
(from an anthology of canadian love poetry)

I just got back from the Scream Literary Festival in Toronto. I went to Niagara Falls, up the CN Tower, and poetried a duett with Paul Dutton. Ate persian food with a.rawlings and Derek Beaulieu, went to the movies with my beautiful wife, bought one million books and marvelled at a Jack Spicer impersonator. We had breakfasty dinner and watched different people read from Gwendolyn MacEwens A Breakfast for Barbarians, took a workshop on Naive Translation, saw apropriators agree on their profession being a good thing (and agreed with them, but missed copyright nazis from the panel), admired the dancing skills of computer-game characters of Machinima and watched the indie-rock band the Bicycles be too indie and not enough rock. Icelandic krútt-músic has nothing on Canadian cute-music.

Also: Fantastic Vocable workshop with Angela Rawlings and Ciara Adams; and loads of great readings, most memorable of which were Alixandra Bamford’s beautifully chaotic style (with Steve Venright), Mariko Tamaki’s reading of a comic book, Sonnet L’Abbé’s O’s, Sina Queras’ repetitions, Kenny G’s court transcripts, Rob Read’s bird-sounds and Beaulieu’s How-To’s.

Travelling home was a bitch, as such things tend to be. The plane was small and filled with people, whom at the time I felt deserved to get shot, but have since taken a more lenient, more humane stance.