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Mack at AWP 2016 in LA

I’ll be in Los Angeles next week for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference. I’m still working out where I’ll be other than these times, but here is my official list!
Reading from Theater of Parts at

“What Toast?”: Gender, Sexuality, and Language in the Poetry of M. Mack
Milquetoast has found his way into Tropics of Meta.
Milquetoast, n.
a bland, timid, or ineffectual person easily dominated
from Caspar Milquetoast, character in H.T. Webster’s
The Timid Soul comic strip, 1924 to 1931
and later, Milquetoast the cockroach, purple crossdressing character in
Berkeley Breathed’s comic strips Bloom County and Outland, 1980 to 1995
And now, this.
What Toast?
When Milquetoast became a cockroach, he lost his mustache. He tried fulfilling this lack of apparent gender with a penchant for what he and many others understood as crossdressing, in a wig and an ugly green dress, but this became an occasional activity: the Christmas special, big fights or fancy dinners with Opus the penguin.
*
When Milquetoast was a man with a name given and not received, he longed for the silent middle syllable to assert itself in conversation. When given the opportunity, he pronounced it as the Spanish what or the English wuh? When folks called for Milktoast…
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Three poems from Imaginary Kansas at Melancholy Hyperbole

Three poems from Imaginary Kansas, forthcoming from dancing girl press in spring/summer 2015 went up at Melancholy Hyperbole: Poetry About Longing on March 12. I love longing. Well, my poems love longing. Or, I’ve always said that Imaginary Kansas fragments and queers longing. So.
The micro-poems featured are “[In this one, I imagine myself as a],” “Why can’t we be married and live in the farmhouse your parents bought on a whim?,” and “Undressing in front of your photograph in the evening.” These are some of the tiniest fragments in the project and, especially in the case of “Why can’t we…” some of my (terrifying) favorites. I’m really excited by the format of Melancholy Hyperbole, which invites direct commenting from readers. What a thrill!
Knoxville mini-tour: Pop-up Poetry, Monsterworks Workshop, SAFTA Reading Series

This weekend February 6 through 8, Sarah Ann Winn and I will be on a mini tour of Knoxville, Tennessee thanks to Sundress Academy for the Arts and Sundress Publications!
On Friday, we will participate in the Dirty Laundry First Friday Reception at Paulk+Co. The event features the photography of Diane Corey, community arts projects from KnoxKnowHow and Breaststrokes Knoxville, and, of course, pop-up poetry from SAFTA.
On Saturday, we will give a writing workshop at SAFTA. In Monsterworks: Hybrid Genres and Revision, we will explore collage, remix, and a little bit of book arts to revise stuck projects in any genre and to create new pieces. We did a mini-sode of the SAFTAcast to talk about the workshop and…other things. A lot of other things.
On Sunday, we will join Artress Bethany White in the SAFTA Reading Series at The Birdhouse.
This weekend is the launch of Sarah’s chapbook from Sundress Publications, Portage. My full-length collection Theater of Parts is forthcoming from Sundress in 2016. I’m so excited for this trip and to hang out with the wonderful folks of SAFTA and Knoxville!