CZAR news (& how to get a copy)

July 28, 2016 / marybid

It’s CZARmania here in Akron, OH, and we couldn’t be more pleased. But how to get a copy of this book for yourself, when it hasn’t officially been released yet? Allow me to elaborate.

A limited number of advance copies of THE CZAR will be sold at EarthQuaker Day in downtown Akron, thanks to the awesome folks of the Big Big Mess Reading Series. Stop by their table at the event and they will hook you up with your czar (until they are sold out).

We’re also thrilled to share the news of our czar release party reading on Saturday, August 13th at Annabell’s in Akron, thanks (once again) to the Big Big Mess Reading Series. We’ll have copies of the book available for purchase, and you can have one, or both, of the authors autograph them, in addition to hearing us read live.

Finally, the lovely folks of Black Lawrence Press are still offering pre-orders of THE CZAR at a discount price. Hop on this deal before it’s over!

A Czar is born.

July 25, 2016July 25, 2016 / marybid

Unboxing The Czar was extra emotional because it’s Jay’s first book. It was also impossible to do just the perfunctory flip-through with this book, because it’s pretty funny, and I found myself reading it again (and again) at odd moments when I should have been doing something else. The Czar is about a lot of things: a hyperbolically ridiculous fictional figurehead, the white noise of our present day, sexy underpants and odd recipes, family histories we might be best to forget, pop culture and its trash.

I think this book shows that collaboration can create something entirely new, not just a fusion of narratives and styles. Maybe that’s why I am so damn proud of this one. We took some risks, and let the book lead the way. I hope readers enjoy The Czar!

On THE CZAR:
The poems of The Czar by Mary Biddinger and Jay Robinson stand at the intersection of ironic political commentary and hyperbolized body currency. In the world of this collection, the Czar is a figurehead replete with ceremony and artificial gestures. But is he provocative humor or allegorical heft? And what happens when power is passed to the powerless in a secret handshake that’s more tongue on tongue than tongue-in-cheek? This book-length collaboration pivots between comic interludes and satirical exposés, at its heart the rhythm of the present tense, history’s most unreliable narrator no matter the king or kingdom.

Must be the summer of The Czar

July 4, 2016July 5, 2016 / marybid

July already? Soon we’ll be proofing pages of The Czar, and I’ll be getting the Akron Poetry Prize finalists off to the judge, and then: czar watch. The birth of The Czar is especially exciting because it’s Jay‘s first book. The unboxing will be even more meaningful.

My summer World Lit class was a true delight (what a brilliant bunch of readers and thinkers). It seems like I enjoy teaching more and more with every class. As of this fall semester, it’ll be my 20th year of teaching college English. So happy that I am nowhere near disenchanted after all this time.

Goals: once I’ve read these manuscripts (468 total) I need to write some poems and send them out. I need to revise some poems I’ve already written, and to send them out. Here and there I have been making notes for poems, but soon I need to write those poems.

Over at Twitter I’ve been posting a poetry prompt every Wednesday. Friends and students and former students often ask me for prompts over the summer, so I decided to make it a #summerofprompts feature for everyone to check out. Here’s a sample.

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Happy July to all! Maybe next week I’ll have a sneak peek at the first pages for The Czar. There’s nothing like the excitement of bringing a new book into the world.