Anyway, one of the main reasons i enjoy haiku is their brevity: haiku are as brief as the moments they depict. Yet, they contain a kind of expansiveness, a contemplative element that gives them great depth despite their brevity.
I love small moments, and i love how small moments so often tip over into a sense of the profound.
I’m not saying that every small moment does every time, but i feel they all have the potential to, so it’s worth taking notice of as many of them as you can.

Which, to me, is where haiku come in. I use haiku as a kind of catalogue, or at the very least a record, of the small moments i encounter/experience. They make me feel connected to the world around me, and when i’m working a shift in the café, i could probably stand for a little more connection.
So, that being said, here are four haiku i wrote a few days ago during an unusually slow day at work.
(if you like what you read, check out more of my haiku on my tumblr)

daily haiku, café edition//april 9, 2013

slow day
wishing customers
good afternoon-
and meaning it

the boss is watching
i take a rag and
wipe the clean countertop

money on the counter
“give me a big coffee”-
decaf

in the midst of a rush
someone orders
a tall coffee

1.       Atomic Books, (Hampden) Baltimore, Maryland.

I figured I would start with my favorite bookstore in the city in which I currently reside. I am a bookworm. I am a hipster. I am a culture-whore. This bookstore – which promotes “literary finds for mutated minds” – is my paradise. Here, one can find a coexistence of NY Times Bestseller novels, small-press books, magazines, literary journals, comic books, records, and figurines. You might even run into John Waters if you hang out here long enough. Atomic Books has been my favorite Baltimore bookstore for a while, but even more now that they just announced their expansion into a larger venue with a bar/bottle shop and a larger record and rare books area!

 2.       Kramerbooks & Afterwords, (Dupont Circle) Washington, DC.

In keeping with the theme of bookstores and bars (my two favorite things), this list would not be complete without showing love to Kramerbooks & Afterwords. On one side of the venue is Kramerbooks; a large selection of books and an amazing staff to help you find items you didn’t even know you were looking for. The other side is Afterwords; a café/bakery/restaurant/bar that has been “serving latte to the literati since 1976.” I lived in DC for a year and this bookstore was my refuge. I would go here after work. I would bring out-of-town guests here. I would browse the stacks with a coffee in my hand for hours. I hope you get a chance to do so as well.

 3.       The Dusty Bookshelf, (Aggieville) Manhattan, Kansas.

This gem is located in the middle of Kansas, right outside of Kansas State University (and apparently, there is a new location in Lawrence near Kansas University!). It definitely has the most apt name of all of the bookstores I’ve ever been to; when you walk in, you are greeted with stacks and stacks of loosely-ordered books, old chairs in which to lounge, and maybe a cat or two. Most of their books are gently read and therefore very inexpensive. While this isn’t the bookstore to go into if you have a specific book in mind (although their staff will try their hardest!), it is one of those stores to wander into on a rainy day, find a pile of books that pique your interest and read until they close.

4.       Strand Bookstore, (East Village/Manhattan) New York City, New York.

This is probably the most famous bookstore on this list and that was actually the reason that I stepped foot into this bookstore. This independent bookstore boasts an impressive 18 miles worth of books. I believe it; this bookstore is huge. It is both overwhelming and surprisingly cozy. They both buy and sell books, and because of this, the prices for a book will vary based upon its availability. This is great because you can find popular and rare books in the same place. They also have a very large staff ready to help you at any turn.

5.        Harvard Bookstore, (Harvard Square) Boston, Massachusetts.

I haven’t been to this bookstore in YEARS and that makes me so sad. They have a great selection, extremely knowledgeable and book-loving employees, and a bargain basement (hello, rare $5 finds!). For you self-publishing authors, they have an awesome printing press and binding station. I also hear that they have great author events and even a bike delivery service! I can’t wait to go back soon & see what else they have to offer.

Please comment below and let me know where your favorite bookstores are located. What makes them special to you? And, as you may have noticed, I have never lived on the West Coast and I’d love to hear from some West Coasters on your favorite bookstores out there, too!

-Ann Marie

Joseph Young
Biographies

Benjamin Britten
Childhood’s teeth, a war history in boys. A thousand spirochetes, skyrockets, the outcasts of peace.

Margery Kempe
Whose tongue is turned — man in women, god for man, 14 thundering mouths. Wondrous devils sounded to whores and bound.

Willem de Kooning
Later, unaboard the ship, the shore and sea light. Un-name it, these red carving of women.

Walt Whitman
Boy of girlfriends, Oscar Wilde, a thousand births. A hundred of our stony tribes.

Zora Neale Hurston
The eyes and alligators, and yet such ending wounds. Snap shut in penury, risen wide the rising south.

Haile Salassie
In great sequence, the murdering of queens, hunger’s savior. God returns to his airplane, afraid of the crowds.

Joseph lives in Baltimore, where he writes freelance (zzzz) and microfiction (ok), makes things, and sometimes curates. His book, Easter Rabbit, was released from Publishing Genius in 2009. Visit him at verysmalldogs.blogspot.com.

Those of us who traveled up to Boston this year for the annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing programs lagged for several days after we got back from a weekend that overflowed with reading, writing and drinking. We shook hands. We shared drinks and ideas. We listened to (and loved) readings from Anne Carson and Cheryl Strayed and TC Tolbert. We Tweeted with Versal and Electric Literature and a new friend from The Florida Review.  We met literary crushes and formed new ones. We’d love to meet even more of you next year in Seattle.

In hotel rooms we drank and we wrote and we read new work. We did erasure poetry on wine bottles. We forgot about the universe outside of the world of writing for a few days.

We tipped well.

Here’s a quick roundup of our favorite and least favorite things from AWP this year. We are already looking forward to next year.

Me (Anthony):

Favorite:

Not giving a damn about anything but reading and writing for a few days — dereliction of adulthood for the sake of literature.

Least Favorite:

Coping with falling five days behind real life upon my return.

Ann Marie:

Favorite:

Going to sessions about social media, fundraising, or online marketing and being completely & utterly surrounded by people that were both literary nerds & social media nerds (MY PEOPLE!). Oh, and seeing Cheryl Strayed. She made my heart so happy.

Least Favorite:

Trying to navigate my way around the Convention Center to find all of the sessions I wanted to see, all of the books I wanted to buy, and all of the tables I wanted to visit. A convention app (to help plan my schedule, to give me a map, and to share with friends) would be incredibly helpful in the future.

Mychael:

Favorite:

Being around that many people passionate about writing, so many different people that all had that one thing in common. It was wonderful.

Least favorite:

Some of the panels felt more like self-promotion than presentations/discussions. It was disappointing when the people up there just talked about what THEY were doing…which a lot of times really didn’t have anything to do with what the panel was supposed to be about.

Michael B. Tager
Dinner and the End of the World

Kyle’s smile is lazy and comfortable and it’s meant to put me at ease. But the taut way he holds his body and the tapping of his wingtips on the streaky linoleum kind of puts the lie. “It’s not going to kill you,” he says. He’s got a grin on, but it doesn’t touch his eyes. He turns and flags the waiter, waving his oversized red cup.

I glower and shrink into the giant menu. It’s larger than my sketchbook and coated in tough plastic, shaded pastels. There are ‘helpful’ diagrams of meat: fried and sandwiched and heaped. The light coming through the windows reflects off the menu into my eyes and I blink.

“I know that,” I say and I can’t keep quaver out of my voice. It goes high, making me sound like that cartoon mouse with a cape. The waiter fills Kyle’s glass for the umpteenth time and looks at me with resigned hope. When I wave him off again, he rolls his eyes. He stopped bothering to hide it three refills ago. What’s behind those eyes, I wonder?

It’s beyond me.

I’m drawn to Kyle’s face and I sneak a glimpse from around the side of the menu. The sun is beating down on his golden head and sets off halos. “I’m really sorry,” I say again when I meet his eyes. I wrench my gaze back after he smiles. His eyes crinkle and I think he’s still somewhat amused. His patience isn’t quite exhausted. He might be tense, maybe from frustration (though I warned him), maybe from hunger (I told him to go ahead), but he’s not giving up yet.

“It’s fine, Dee.”

“It’s strange,” I say, my eyes flickering between glossy images and Kyle. When he smiles again, prompting me to continue, I manage to eliminate the chicken salad. I feel a flicker of pride. I ignore the dimming of the light outside just as I make my decision –just a passing cloud. “I know that deciding makes no real difference. Me eating bacon, between slices of bread or whatever, has no bearing on anything except my tummy. I know the world won’t end if I make the wrong choice.” As I say this, I decide against soup and feel an unclenching in my chest. “But it doesn’t change anything.”

Kyle takes a sip before responding. He’s taking it seriously. When I see that, and it emboldens me and I say ‘no’ to the steak. I’m absurdly grateful. “You aren’t like this at work,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “There, you’re decisive and commanding. It’s refreshing, actually, how you take charge.”

“Not the same.” I decide against the Reuben and hear a distant crash of thunder. “When the stakes are high, logic and instinct prevail, you know? Necessity and all.” Kyle nods and I block out all thoughts of breakfast foods. It’s a major victory, clearing out one third of the menu just like that, a cannon shot. Boom. Almost immediately, rain falls against the window in a deluge like buckshot. It looks like a river of slime flowing down. “But who cares if I get chicken tenders and fries or chicken tenders on a salad? It’s inconsequential.”

“Exactly!” Kyle claps his hands and my temperature rises. The other patrons are looking behind me, outside. I can hear the rising wind. They all look concerned but Kyle’s eyes are full of me as I narrow my options. It’s either going to be chicken tenders or a cheeseburger. Kyle starts to talk and there’s a flash of lightning followed by an almost instantaneous crash. Kyle looks startled, but he manages to say, “It’s totally unimportant and you know that. How can there be consequences?”

“Because there’s no logic in consequences.” I make my decision, turn and signal for the server. It takes him a moment to snap out of his daze. He can’t break his gaze from the outside, but I refuse to look. My eyes are only for him. “It’s always the End of the World when you make a mistake. It’s the little stuff that haunts you – the wrong turn down the one-way street when you blink or the undercooked meat when you’re watching the game. It’s the tiny bit of water that hasn’t dried in the shower. Those are the things that wreck your world.”

The waiter is standing in front of me, not looking at me and I can see Kyle is torn. He wants to listen, but there’s something outside. “It’s the whispers that you don’t listen to, Kyle. That’s what paralyzes you.” I make my decision and open my mouth to order. As I try to get it out, there’s a giant crash and I can feel the floor shaking, as if a giant punched the ground. I ignore it, steady myself and touch the waiter’s arm. He looks at me and I can see he’s terrified.

“I want the burger,” I say and a flash lights up Kyle’s frozen grin and

Michael B. Tager is an MFA student at the University of Baltimore. His work has been published in a variety of print and online media, most recently The Realm Beyond (Volume 4), Fantastic Horror: Good versus Evil and Night Terrors II: An Anthology of Horror. The rest is a short Google search away.

(he loved He’s Not There, was disappointed in Howl, and me vice versa)

• Michael snores

I went to Normals Bookstore today. I like going to used bookstores because I think it’s the literary equivalent of getting a rescue dog. I often forget that I live so close to Normals and don’t go half as much as I should. Though, I suppose Parisians don’t get engaged under the Eiffel Tower too often either. This isn’t a bookstore review however. I wouldn’t be saying anything that locals haven’t read in the City Paper anyways, but I will say this: if your bookstore’s shelves don’t sag, you need to make some serious life changes.

It won’t surprise you to know that I love books, and bookstores are probably my favorite places to go to. I look like I belong in a bookstore. I even worked at one for a couple summers out of high school. I told this to a girl once, and she told me she would never want to mix love with work. It’s one of the smartest things I ever heard.

Every time I go to a bookstore, I am reminded of Rob in High Fidelity who arranges his record collection autobiographically because it’s comforting. This is how I feel in a bookstore; reminded of myself, comforted. I look at the spines of books and remember things, people, stories that I don’t normally think about. To quote Martha Stewart, “It’s a good thing.”

We literary types are defined by the books we read. It’s in our nature, it’s our thing. Other people probably get the same way over their thing – food recipes, records, car parts, whatever – but for us it’s books. They say the most about us.

I saw two copies of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugendids sitting side-by-side. I was reminded of the mother of my nephew who, in her house, has two copies of Middlesex living together as well. It seems this book mates for life. I thought about buying one of them, but I didn’t want to separate them. I wanted them to have each other.

 I saw a copy of Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons and remembered when it first came out. I was in high school. My English teacher offered extra credit to anyone who read the book. I refused on some moral ground that, now, I don’t remember exactly, and couldn’t have been that moral to begin with.

I found a book that has been on my list for a couple of years now, The Name of the World by Denis Johnson. This book has been elusive to say the least. I thought about buying it off Amazon plenty of times, but that always feels like cheating, and cheapens half the fun of books for me, finding them. It’s like that book has been waiting patiently on the shelf of Normals for me, and only me, to find. I found you book. You can come home with me.

I also bought The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories by Charles Bukowski. I had to have this book because on the inside cover was written the name of its previous owner. I know nothing about Dan Hanrahan except that his hands have been the same places that mine have, and that’s enough for me. (Side note: I lied. I searched Dan Hanrahan on Google and think I found him. The internet is a creep show’s paradise.)

I also bought a book I know nothing about called Coyote v. Acme by Ian Franzier because I thought the title was hilarious, and Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs because why not buy Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. I thought about getting James Joyce’s Ulysses, but I couldn’t figure out how to buy it without looking like someone who just bought Ulysses. I’m convinced that people who read Ulysses all the way though are people who want to say, “I read Ulysses all the way though” at dinner parties. The thing I don’t understand about these people is why they don’t just lie about it. No one is going to question you on the plot of Ulysses.

I paid the man behind the counter $22 and some change and walked home with my new stories. I can’t wait for these stories to have stories attached to them by me. The things I wish I hadn’t said to strangers while I was reading Naked Lunch, or the first time I got locked out of my apartment at 1 a.m. and had to sleep in my car and used that Bukowski book with the blue cover as a pillow. This is all hypothetical of course. I don’t know what part of my life these books will represent on my bookshelf biography, but I know they will hold something particular to them, and that’s the other half of the fun about books, finding them.

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time figuring out where social media and the lit scene fit together. Following blogs like Book Riot, witnessing the growing popularity of GoodReads, and seeing how wide-spread Twitter hashtags like #amwriting and #submissionsunday are, really gives me hope. Most literary magazines – big and small – now have a website, Facebook page, and Twitter account. Not only are we able to reach folks that we probably would never be able to before (the Internet is a beautiful thing!), we are able to network & make friends with other local lit mags like Seltzer Zine, Artichoke Haircut, Cobalt Review, and Espresso Ink, to name just a few. Industry Night has stated that we are committed to reading and publishing good work, but we are also committed to tweeting about it, sharing it, and learning how to make our web presence better and more fitting for our contributors and readers.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, and check out our website (and oh hey, submit your work while you’re at it!).

Check out this trailer the team at Ink Press made for the event, then come out for drinks and verse tomorrow to support your scene.

Details:
Friday
February 15, 2013
8:30 p.m.
E.M.P. Collective
307 W Baltimore St
Baltimore, MD 21201

Tell me you heard about this story: writing professor James Lasdun recounts his tale of being stalked, life-altering-type stalked, by a former M.F.A. student. The way he tells it, the stalker went all out: anti-Semitic emails; accusations of plagiarism, sexual assault and “verbal terrorism;” malicious attacks on his Wikipedia webpage and in the reviews of his books on Amazon; even emails reporting the aforementioned accusations to his colleagues, his agent and his bosses.

“Very rapidly my relations with all of the publications and colleges I’ve worked with became tinged with anxiety. Had she contacted them? If so, were they concerned? I could have asked them, of course, but doing so seemed fraught with difficulties. If they hadn’t heard from her, what would they make of my strange tale of a former student’s denouncing me as a plagiarizing sexual predator?” — excerpt of Lasdun’s story in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Lasdun tells his story while exploring themes of reputation, character and public self in the age of information. The part where reality becomes ‘stranger than fiction:’ Lasdun wrote a novel several years earlier delving into the life of a college instructor framed for sexual assault. Of course, as Maureen Corrigan points out in a recent piece covering this story for NPR Books, we only have Lasdun’s side of the story here, his written counter to the attacks.

The full essay is a long read, but it is absolutely worth the time; it comes ahead of Lasdun’s book-length account of the events, Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked. You can also Check the story out on NPR if that is more your style.

Want to blog for Industry Night? Email the editor today at Moll.AnthonyW (at) gmail (dot) com