AWP Conference

I was just at the AWP conference in Atlanta. I met some wonderful people. Matthew Schmeer from Poetry Midwest, Chad Prevost from C&R Press, Laura McCullough (a poet who is also interested in mirror neurons), Gregory Orr (a helluva poet) very briefly, Kurt Brown also briefly, Cindy St. John and Beth Marzoni from Third Coast, Stan Rubin and Judy Kitchen, Mike Dockins with his new book and with Redactions: Poetry & Poetics (which has great ribbon magnets that read "Support Poetry"), Thom Caraway at Sage Hill Press (Dockins' publisher), Michael Robins (who was also with a new book, winner of the 2006 Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry), Cory Green with his t-shirt that read "Smile if your Gay," Jaime Iridell and Travis Wayne Denton from Terminus, Thomas Lux, Ginger (Lux's girlfriend or friend), Christopher Howell, almost Dana Gioia, Sandy (a man) an editor for Marshhawk Press, Ralph Black, Sam Lignon from Eastern Washington University, Adam O'Connor and Zack from Willow Springs, Linda Frost from PMS, Beth from The Academy of American Poets (she bought my friends and me drinks), and a bunch of other people I can't quite remember due to the excessive drinking. Yes, American poets and writers have just as much passion and ability to drink as poets and writers from the rest of the world.