Letting Up Despite Great Faults: 'Pause'

Really cool things afoot! My good friend Mike Lee, lead singer for Letting Up Despite Great Faults, has a new full-length (self-titled) album due out this October 13th. It's been too long since their last brilliant EP ('Movement') & he and his band have been working hard to put this new album together. In fact, it's already garnering excellent reviews from the blogosphere!

Fortunately for me, I've been lucky enough to collaborate with Mike on the lyrics for a song! He's taken lines from two of my poems (Pause and In the Parking Lot) and made them into track 5 on the new album. He's titled the song 'Pause', and the female vocals are by Amy Izushima. It's totally exciting to me to see the way he's taken parts of the two poems and set them to music to create something completely new.

I've included the lyrics here below and a link to some of his other new tracks to sample online. PLEASE go support Mike's band if you like what you hear. The new album is available for pre-order off of Amazon and in the iTunes store & I'm sure Letting Up will be touring Los Angeles & beyond as we speak. I'm so pleased with how this turned out.

Pre-order the full-length at Amazon.com: click here!
And here in the iTunes store: click here!

I'll definitely post again once I've got a copy of the CD here so you can see all the album art, etc. And of course a HUGE thanks to mlee for this collaboration - even the sea can't stop us!


Pause (lyrics)

I blew into it; I dreamed it real
Could it be you?

And I trail you
I think you know this.
My pace increases
The rest of the way

Stock-still in the parking lot,
I snap out of this, catch myself

I stand on the causeway of time,
A suitcase of sentiments trailing behind,
Waiting for you (to carry me)

I'll catch myself
where we first met
holding out your hand

'Masters', a chapbook from Read This Press

News! 'Masters', the latest chapbook from Read This Press, is now available for pre-order! Head over to One Night Stanzas for more information on how to buy:
http://www.readthismagazine.co.uk/onenightstanzas/?p=1075

My classmate, Claire Askew, editor & founder of Read This Press has put together an anthology of poetry representing the poetry students (me!) on the MSc course at Edinburgh University. The anthology showcases seven other poets & myself, including (copied from Claire's website):

"Niki Andrikopoulou, a passionate political poet from Athens, Greece // Aileen Ballantyne, journalist-turned-poet and winner of the Sloan Prize 2009 // Dave Coates, originally from Belfast in Nothern Ireland, now a librarian at the Scottish Poetry Library, the lucky swine! // Aiko Harman, American poet and recently a London Poetry Festival Poet in Residence // Natalia Herrero, hailing from Mexico and now living in Edinburgh, previously published in Tontine and Read This // Struan Robertson, Read This Magazine editor, metapoet, budding filmmaker // and Hayley Shields, previously published in Textualities and a reader at Blackwells 2008 Best of Scottish Writing Event. (I’m also in there of course, but you all know who I am!)

The anthology is not yet OUT, only available for pre-order. There is a reason for this, however — there will only be TWENTY COPIES available for general sale, so if you want one, I suggest getting a pre-order in as they’ll go quickly. Copies are a bargainous £5 (plus p&p), and if you pre-order one now you can expect it to land on your doormat sometime in mid to late September."

Excited yet? I am!

My poems Authenticity is a Bird and Hart are featured in this chapbook, so if you haven't seen them already at Poets Letter or Poetry Super Highway, respectively, then this is your chance!! Also, I'm positive the contributions by my classmates are more than worth your poetry ££s.

Please do pick up a copy from Read This Press while they last.

I believe we contributors will receive a few copies as well, so if you miss out from Claire, do give me a shout and I'll try to send one along.