Morning Briefing: Portland Edition

Let me tell you, there are several hundred things I would rather be doing than watching the sun rise from the Portland airport, although this is the thing that I have most recently done. Unfortunately, this is all I’m going to get to see of the Rose City. So without further ado, your briefing.

Ta-Nehisi Coates pens a love song of sorts to his days at Howard, U Street, his search for the Real and, finally, Biggie Smalls.

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Poet Mark Irwin talks about the evil word “if.”

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Kevin Stein has a new book coming out.

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The calls start for Dungy’s non-playoff-winning head.

oh hey look … a poem

Okay, I will seriously start posting interesting stuff soon, I promise. But check it out: It’s my poem, yo.

I should use this space to say thanks to Kevin Stein, who has a poem about working on a ladder, which inspired this one. I can’t remember the name of his poem off the top of my head, and all my poetry books are a’scattered across the office floor.

Ya’ll should check out Kevin Stein, by the way, because he’s the ma-fuckin man.

“Falling Off the Ladder” (I can remember the names of my own poems, it seems) opens up Stone Speak, my manuscript, which is MFA-speak for “dumb unpublished book.” It’s pretty cool The Brooklyn Review (which you should also check out, incidentally) decided to stick up my poem on its site. Thanks, ya’ll.