Reading at City Lights

Tomorrow evening I'll be reading from NatureS over in Sylva, at the wonderful City Lights bookstore; I'd have had a note up earlier, but Blogger has been down more-or-less constantly for days - as you probably know, if you read Atrios or Digby or ... a host of others, as many have mentioned it. Argh.

Anyway, here's the City Lights notice of the reading:

(Fri. 6/9) Poetry Reading with Jeff Davis
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Please join us on Friday, June 9 at 7:30 p.m. for a reading and booksigning with poet Jeff Davis. A long- time resident of Asheville, Davis will be celebrating the publication of his selected poems, NatureS, which is being published by Thomas Rain Crowe'’s New Native Press in Cullowhee. Area residents perhaps know Davis from his thoughtful articles as a features writer for Rapid River and for his role as one of the hosts for the WPVM radio show “'WordPlay'.” A renaissance man, he studied with Fred Chappell and Robert Creeley, and has also taught at UNC-A as assistant professor of Anthropology, worked as a baker and photographer, and founded a computer programming and trouble-shooting business. The poems in NatureS were written over the course of a career, and are love poems to and of nature, to and of flesh. The many natures of what we, as humans, are, as well as what we strive for, wish for and dream of. Davis'’s poems in this collection are place-specific to the western North Carolina mountains, their fauna and flora, their cultures and seasons. Commenting on Davis's new book, western North Carolina's own Jonathan Williams has written: "“I divide poetry into what I can read and what I cannot read. I am new to Jeff Davis'’s work but hit'll read!!! It reminds me that writers named Robert Creeley and Charles Olson once taught at Black Mountain College in Buncombe County, NC - and made a difference."

The June 9th event will include a formal reading by Davis followed by refreshments and an opportunity for those in attendance to meet and talk to the author and to buy signed copies of the new book. The evening is free and open to the public.

That's lightly edited; City Lights originally had Joyce Blunk attending also, but she has family in town and won't be able to make it. And they'd promoted me to associate professor, which I wasn't. I'm not so sure about that "renaissance man" thing, but thanks anyway. And since they mention Fred Chappell, I suppose I'll have to tell my Fred story. Fred, in an oblique way, actually made it possible for me to go to Buffalo and study with Robert Creeley, and others, though I'm sure that's not what he had in mind.

Juicy details at the reading. And if you can't make the reading, I'll post the story here sometime next week - assuming Blogger permits it. Computer (or, more often, software) weirdness has contributed to my livelihood over the years, and I'm usually grateful for the opportunity to figure out what the hell is going on, but sometimes ... Unfortunately, in the case of Blogger, all one can do is wait while the guys in California come to grips with whatever's whacked the system.