AWP Recap and Recovery!

AWP was about 3 weeks ago, and we are still enjoying the memories. Here are a few "best of" moment's from a few of the editors of IR.

Keith's Top 5 (incoming Poetry Editor)
1. Hot tub!
2. The Mind's Wild Geography Panel
3. Photos with contributors.
4. The kind people of the Kenyon Review
5. Modcloth's Par-tay.

Editor Nina's Top Five
1. Meeting (and taking pictures of) all of our amazing contributors!
2. Being in Denver and seeing mountains again
3. The "How Words Matter" panel with Lance Olsen, R.M. Berry, Vanessa Place, and Lydia Yuknavitch
4. Working the IR table with our amazing editors
5. Selling out of the journals we brought!

Alessandra's Top 5
1. Buying breakfast burritos at the taco truck!
2. Taking photos with contributers and meeting people at the bookfair.
3. Seeing peoples faces when they realized the matchbooks were petite notepads (some disappointment, but mostly joyful surprise). 4. Thinking about how two words for one thing makes you more tender to the world, after a panel with Alberto Rios.
5. Going on a run through downtown Denver one early morning, seeing the cool archetecture.


Ryan's Top Five
1. The From the Fishouse Anthology reading. Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Oliver de la Paz, Major Jackson, Adrian Matejka, Erika Meitner, and Jeffrey Thomson delivered a knockout reading. What made it special was that the poets also read poems from the anthology that weren't their own--the pure love of poetry was on display during this reading.

2. Sarabande's "Performing Poetry: Good on the Stage, Good on the Page" panel. Karyna McGlynn, Brett Eugene Ralph, Kiki Petrosino, and Simone Muench all had smart things to say about reading poetry to an audience (Petrosino's talk on Michael Jackson's "Thriller" as a gateway into poetry was particularly delightful) and then they all read killer poems. Brett Eugene Ralph's description of his reading style? "Loud and slow." Indeed.

3. Talking with the great editors at Washington Square, Ninth Letter, The Pinch, The Journal, Black Warrior Review, sycamore Review, Pleiades, and too many other journals to name. Also, having a 15-minute conversation about the Philadelphia Phillies with The Southern Review's Drew Ervin. (Their new baseball issue is outstanding.)

4. Ander Monson's reading with Graywolf. Never have I been so moved by a description of a giant ball of paint. (My low point of AWP: Graywolf selling out of Monson's new book, Vanishing Point, before I could buy one.)

5. Getting to spend AWP with the IR family.