Erin Keane

Schnitzelburg in Flames

Or the camelback on the corner ignites:
bam, a methamphetamine explosion.
Another night, another end of the world,
barely worth mentioning, like the stinging
ammonia we all pretended not to smell.
What else can we ignore away? Days
like this, every one of my scars twitch,
fused seams humming my skin�s own
secret language. It will rain in a bit
is their promise, and my joints agree,
rubbing together, sparks shooting
from my knuckles. Walking disasters
tended in private, we hardly notice
the whole neighborhood�s been set aglow.

— Erin Keane, originally published in The Lumberyard
Reprinted by permission of the author.

Erin describes The Lumberyard as:

a cool new letterpress magazine edited and designed by brother/sister duo Jen and Eric Woods (Jen is also an editor at Sarabande Books, Eric runs Firecracker Press in St. Louis).

About itself, The Lumberyard says:

Lumberyard was born out of the minds of two rural children climbing the rafters and rolling in the sawdust of a lumber supply shed in the 1970s. Their father was a carpenter, a man of hammer and nail, always a tape measure hooked to his belt. His trade: perfection. The children watched his hands and dreamed they, too, might grow up and make something beautiful. Their tools would be those of ink and paper, of word and symbol, signifier and signified. Their medium: Lumberyard magazine, a collaborative project combining the art of letterpress and the literary arts.

Erin Keane is the author of The Gravity Soundtrackk, a full-length collection of poems (WordFarm, 2007), and The One-Hit Wonders (Snark Publishing, 2006), a chapbook of poems about and inspired by rock & roll. Her new novel-in-poems, Death Defying Acts, will be published by WordFarm in early 2010. For more information about Erin, including videos of some of her readings, check out her web and her blog eek!

Speaking of readings, Erin will be reading at Carmichael’s in Louisville on the 19th (4 pm) and at the Actors Theatre Late Seating on the 17th (10:30 pm).