Journal, Day 2
Vantage, WA / Matthew Zapruder
Hey Everyone,
Well, that last entry was a little frantic. Now we’re on the road and there’s nothing to do but sit at Blustery’s in Vantage, WA, waiting for a grilled cheese.
Ok, now we’re on the road again, towards Spokane on I-90. We’re about to skirt the Columbia River. When I think of Washington State, I usually think of rain and mountains, but as many people probably know a lot of the western part of the state is dry, hilly high desert terrain (“high desert scrub,” says Jeff Gordinier authentically). It’s pretty hot out, kind of hazy, like maybe there’s still some forest fires around. But what do I know.
Anyway, for those of you who don’t know what this is all about, Joshua Beckman and I (Editors of Wave Books, formerly Verse Press) have spent the past year organizing a poetry bus tour that is going to go to 50 cities in 50 days for readings. Hundreds of poets will be read in a variety of venues. There’s all kinds of information on the poetry bus Web site
(www.poetrybus.com) so I won’t go any more into it—and I’ll let the poets who get on the bus describe it as it happens, since at this point it’s still really just the beginning—but I do want to introduce the main recurring characters, who might appear in the blogs of the various poets on and off the bus.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Joshua Beckman—Peaceful sage of the poetry bus. His eyes completely fail to belie a steely unwillingness to accept the strictures of what seems possible.
Travis Nichols—Tour manager, lithe young poet, prone to unfailing patience, gentleness, and good nature.
Bill Wesley—Driver, musician, explorer of back roads and their exciting dining possibilities. Today he found an incredible fruit stand in the town of Badger Pocket, where we were able to buy the most incredible Honey Crisp apples and something called a “pluot,” half plum half apricot, with a tangy goodness I had scarce dared to hope to taste.
Monica Fambrough—Director of Marketing, also Travis’s fiancee. Think Charlie’s Angel’s, with an angel giving orders to a bunch of Charlies. She’ll be reading in Missoula, Canada, and other places.
Charlie Wright—Publisher and owner of Wave Books.
Lori Shine—Managing Editor of Wave Books, and the other angel in the Massachusetts office, who will be joining the bus for readings mostly in the Southwest.
Linas Phillips—Filmmaker (writer/director of Walking to Werner, in which he walks from Seattle to Los Angeles to meet the director Werner Herzog) who will join us somewhere in the Midwest to make a movie of the tour.
Me.
Travis, Joshua, Bill, and I will be on the bus the whole time. Hundreds of others will be hopping on and off.
Poets/writers now on the poetry bus: Erin Belieu (I think next up for blogging), Catherine Wing (poet from Seattle), Blake Young (tall intern with a camera), Jeff Gordinier (Details editor from Tarrytown, on the bus to write a piece for PoetryFoundation.org), Melanie Noel (poet currently drinking a root beer float), Anthony McCann (formerly of Brooklyn, now of Los Angeles), Katy Lederer (poet and hedge fund recruiter).
Now you can follow along!
Today coming out of Blustery’s I had my first moment of realizing how fucking cool this is all going to be.
We’re meeting some poetry from Seattle and Spokane tonight to give a reading at a bookstore and then a sushi restaurant. Woody Guthrie mentions the Grand Coulee dam, which we’re passing right now. Thanks for reading, wish us luck and god or whatever speed, and please come visit if we’re coming through your town.