Did you know I'm featuring at TranScriptions this Thursday? Neither did I until Friday!

But it turns out I am, so you all should come be my shills and applaud and stuff. Barring a miracle I won't have copies of New Problems to sell yet, but I have a few Oxygen Catastrophes left.

It's December 10th, from 7:15-10 at Spontaneous Celebrations, 55 Danforth St. in JP (which is right next to the Stony Brook T stop on the Orange Line).

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Also! Despite early pessimistic estimates as to New Problems's landing date (for those of you who saw the Facebook status update), I'll be placing an order for the first printing this afternoon thanks to a gracious advance on my reading fee which a member of the TranScriptions crew brought all the way up from Dedham this afternoon. So I should hopefully have copies to sell in person by early next week!

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You know what's exciting? Realizing at the literal last moment possible that you need to completely redo the cover. Bizarro Rachel am so happy to realize her brilliance in not using low-resolution image on book cover! Hopefully, though, that's the last fire to put out and the book is finally done.

This book's been a little more emotionally taxing than I expected it to be. It's not all pre-transition poems like The Oxygen Catastrophe, but I'd guess as much as half of the work is from before 2007. I think I made good use of it -- the book has is loosely about living in the past and inability to adapt -- and the poems are good and I'm glad I found a good use for them. But I'm also glad that I've now used 80% of the pre-transition poems that I'd actually want to, because it's always surprisingly difficult to step back into that unhappy time. I'm relieved to put that part of my life to rest.

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A little sample of New Problems:

This Poem Could Never Be Good Enough

This poem is a pool of
clear water crowded with shells, this
poem is writing itself as it is written

by me. This poem came
down from G-d, and is beautiful
simply for that, this poem

may never consider that
enough. This poem may
move through the world convinced

that it needs to be a poem
by Robert Creeley or Rae
Armantrout, this poem

wishes it was by Ellyn Maybe.
This poem wishes it could be Ellyn
Maybe. This poem thinks that you

would like it better if you knew
the poet. This poem
may be wrong about that.

Remember the water, and the shells?
This poem doesn't. This poem has tiny fish
schooling inside it, vivid little red-finned

fish weaving among themselves in the blue-
green light filtering through the gaps
in my keyboard. Still

this poem would prefer to be a bird.