The Zingara Project

Tag: Bad Mouth

  • Bad Mouth, Good Friends

    Bad Mouth, Good Friends

    My and Gary’s reading for Rebecca Aronson’s Bad Mouth Poetry Series in Albuquerque, New Mexico on September 6, 2025 at the Q Staff Theater was a long time in the making.

    We used to live in Albuquerque but relocated to Charleston, SC in July 2013 when Gary was hired as an Assistant Professor at the College of Charleston (and I was later hired as an adjunct) thus bringing to close my third and Gary’s second stint living in our favorite city so far.

    Though I should not have been, I was surprised by how overwhelmed with emotion I became the moment I stepped off the plane. The mesa, the mountains, the endless sky, that particular ineffable light that I’ve only experienced in Albuquerque, all brought back a rush of deeply seated memories of my early childhood years. Having not been back to New Mexico since my mother’s passing in 2018, those past moments popped up like so many perky roadrunners alert to to every scampering lizard.

    Anyway, we were delighted to read with our dear friend Christina Socorro Yovovich, whom we’d read with in at the UNM bookstore for National Poetry Month in 2008 (we think) and to have with us the talented musician Keith Brunstein.

    If you ever get a chance to read for Bad Mouth, you should totally do it. The Q Staff venue is exceptional — theater style raised seating, great acoustics, and a darkened interior to contrast with the enchantingly hot, bright sun of the high desert. And there is plenty of room in the foyer for social gathering and book signing.

    Many of our dearest friends and chosen family came out to exchange warm, genuine embraces, touch on recent griefs as a gesture of kinship, and share heartfelt anecdotes as a way to remove the sting from our collective recent troubles.

    I honestly couldn’t see leaving again, except that, well, I am building a good life here in Pittsburgh where new friends embrace me with the same level of warmth as those in Burque and the literary community appears to have plenty of room for newcomers — and outsiders — like me.

    Invitations for more readings have us making concrete plans to return to Albuquerque with more frequency and the many requests for virtual meetings and classroom visits will ensure our attentions are not so easily distracted from our Southwestern home this time.

    We’ll be back soon, Albuquerque. As soon as we can.

  • Upcoming Bad Mouth Reading in Albuquerque

    Upcoming Bad Mouth Reading in Albuquerque

    Gary and I will be returning to one of our hometowns for Rebecca Aronson’s Bad Mouth poetry reading series in just under two weeks.

    We can hardly believe it has taken twelve years for us to return to Albuquerque.

    Leaving the mountains, the high desert, and our good friends that summer twelve years ago was heart wrenching and we thought for certain we would get back to visit often, even made promises to do so, but building careers and navigating hurricanes with limited funds and, of course, dealing with the Covid Pandemic all bent our futures and our wills to other priorities.

    Actually, I was scheduled to do a live Bad Mouth reading back in 2020, but lock-down conditions required we do a virtual event instead. I think one person has viewed it in all these years, probably because I am terrible at self-promoting, but I read poems from my first collection, Flint & Fire (Word Works Books) for that reading, which you can view here, as a kind of teaser, if you are interested: 2020 Bad Mouth Reading with Lisa Hase-Jackson.

    I have since published my second collection, Insomnia in another Town (Clemson University Press), from which I will be reading on September 6.

    Gary will be reading from his newly published collection, Small Lives (UNM Press), as well as from his previous two collections, Origin Story (UNM Press) and Missing You Metropolis (Graywolf Press). This is the first time he will be reading from Small Lives, so I guess that makes this a kind of book launch. Appropriate, since UNM Press is locating in Albuquerque.

    Now that I think about it, Gary and I read together at a salon-style gathering in Rebecca’s home that last week we were in Albuquerque, so I guess this means we’ve come full circle. Or at least completed one of the many circles we find our selves a part of.

    So, if you’re in Albuquerque on September 6, please do try to come by. As the flyer mentions, most of the proceeds from donations will go to support NM Dream Team, which I’ve linked here so you can get a sense of the good work they do.

    If you are unable to make the Saturday reading, Gary will also be interviewing with Sara Daniele Rivera at Beastly Books (yes, the bookstore owned by George R.R. Martin) up in Santa Fe the night before, Friday September 5, from 5-6:30 PM.

    Or, better yet, come to BOTH readings!!

    It’s so cool that we get to promote our newest books and do a mini book tour together. Please come out and help us celebrate. We’re excited to get to see everyone again!