Bloof Books Tour: On ten-hour drives, plus a reading report & interview (Peter Davis)

Saturday, at about 11:00pm, we arrive in Raleigh, after driving from Tallahassee. We dropped off kindred spirit Bruce Covey in Atlanta and off we fled, through the hills, through the stoplights and gas stations, through one O’Charley’s and one Ruby Tuesday’s, racing against the time, hoping to arrive as  soon as is possible. We discussed the viability of Worm Holes and the hope that the blue dot on Shanna’s GPS would jump ahead, skipping us along the highway, and making the shit go quicker. Ten-hour drives are long. They take at least ten hours. Those ten hours feel exactly like 666 minutes. But when we arrive we are happy, setting ourselves up with a Gin and Sprite and retiring to our rooms to just do nothing. But now I’m writing.  

But at The Warehouse (the venue in Tallahassee) the reading was excellent. Fellow Bloofer and Atlanta reading companion, Sandra Simonds, organized the  reading at a cool venue that was like a cool bar in Texas. In fact, Shanna said, “This is like a cool bar I used to go to in Texas.” It was large and there were wooden rafters and a long back porch that made you feel like you were waiting  for a train.    

 None of our photos really came out all that well. This is Scott Sweeney though, trust us.

Among the many kind people we met, was Scott Sweeney, [PDF from BlazeVox 2KX] who read with us and runs Grey Book Press. Scott was vivacious and kind and had a very well-dressed wife.    

His life in poetry goes a little like this:

Scott had a 10th grade creative writing class that was great and thus he wrote lots of “horrible, horrible, horrible” work, which certainly makes a great deal of sense. By senior year, his excellent teacher brought him from writing “serial killer short stories” to the more enjoyable “serial killer poetry.”) Later, (like in, and after, college) Scott felt a vacuum which resulted in him founding Grey Book Press, which selfishly  allowed him to read and publish some good poems. He named it Grey Book because he wanted something that was “unadorned” and reflected how “poetry should stand on its own.” It was also “fuckin’ awesome” and fun and very enjoyable.    

Besides, if he didn’t get involved more seriously in poetry he might have ended up in a “post shoe-gaze rock band.” This, in and of itself, might not have been a bad thing. On the other hand, it might have been a bad very thing. As it stands, there he was in Tallahassee, with us, not looking at his shoes, just  poeming it up like a motherfucker. Amen.

--Peter Davis