{"id":4130,"date":"2012-11-12T20:01:50","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T01:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=4130"},"modified":"2012-11-12T20:01:50","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T01:01:50","slug":"savannah-based-poet-patricia-lockwood-lands-on-bestseller-lists-with-balloon-pop-outlaw-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/11\/12\/savannah-based-poet-patricia-lockwood-lands-on-bestseller-lists-with-balloon-pop-outlaw-black\/","title":{"rendered":"Savannah-based poet Patricia Lockwood lands on bestseller lists with &#8220;Balloon Pop Outlaw Black&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5595881567027133\";\r\n\/* Medium Rectangle *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8584504377\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>I keep writing about the great creative energy in Savannah these days.<\/p>\n<p>Savannah-based poet Patricia Lockwood has just published her first book: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.octopusbooks.net\/details_lockwood.php\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Balloon Pop Outlaw Black<\/em> from Octopus Books<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>And things are going swimmingly, with the book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/features\/books\/contemporary\" target=\"_blank\">at #29 on the poetry bestsellers as tracked by the Poetry Foundation<\/a>. If #29 sounds pretty far down the list, take a look at some of the names ahead of Lockwood: Mary Oliver, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Billy Collins, C.K. Williams, Sharon Olds, Mark Strand, Natasha Trethewey, Wendell Berry, and other familiar names.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"4131\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/11\/12\/savannah-based-poet-patricia-lockwood-lands-on-bestseller-lists-with-balloon-pop-outlaw-black\/lockwood_patricia_balloonpop\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/lockwood_patricia_balloonpop.png?fit=259%2C284\" data-orig-size=\"259,284\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"lockwood_patricia_balloonpop\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/lockwood_patricia_balloonpop.png?fit=259%2C284\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/lockwood_patricia_balloonpop.png?fit=259%2C284\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/lockwood_patricia_balloonpop.png?resize=259%2C284\" alt=\"\" title=\"lockwood_patricia_balloonpop\" width=\"259\" height=\"284\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4131\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>Bill DeYoung at Connect Savannah wrote recently about Lockwood. From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.connectsavannah.com\/news\/article\/107389\/\" target=\"_blank\">The word absurd<\/a>, which came out in advance of her first book: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The daughter of a Catholic priest, Lockwood grew up as part of a strict religious family in Indiana and Missouri.<br \/>\nBoth precocious and a self\u00e2\u20ac\u201cprofessed nerd, she started writing poetry at the age of 8. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was obsessed with Greek mythology. I had a fossil collection. I was extremely lame.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>As a teen, things got a bit more serious. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have a sort of insane self\u00e2\u20ac\u201cconfidence that what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re doing is genius work. And obviously it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not. But if you persist in that belief for a period of like 15 years, that gives you the sort of swagger that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s necessary to sit down every day and write.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Young Patricia entered one poetry contest after another, and as the years passed, and her work took on a more surreal tone, she got published in The New Yorker, The Awl, Denver Quarterly, American Letters &#038; Commentary and other prestigious publications.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was always very ambitious, even psychotically so,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she explains. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In the sense that when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 16 and you have this manuscript of awful poetry, and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sending it to contests, clearly you want it to be your destiny that you eventually have a book published.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Here&#8217;s Lockwood at Seersucker Live in fall 2011 reading &#8220;An Animorph Enters the Doggie-Dog World&#8221;:<br \/>\n<center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0gU5_AspmaE\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Lockwood can be found occasionally <a href=\"http:\/\/emperoroficecreamcakes.blogspot.com\/2012\/10\/balloon-pop-outlaw-black-and-puppeye.html\" target=\"_blank\">on her blog<\/a>, but she&#8217;s especially busy <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TriciaLockwood\" target=\"_blank\">on Twitter<\/a>, where she has over 15,000 followers. She&#8217;s currently on a tour of the Northwest promoting the new book.<\/p>\n<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"2\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:300px;height:250px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-5595881567027133\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"4374909701\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>And things are going swimmingly, with the book <a href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/features\/books\/contemporary\" target=\"_blank\">at #29 on the poetry bestsellers as tracked by the Poetry Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2012\/11\/12\/savannah-based-poet-patricia-lockwood-lands-on-bestseller-lists-with-balloon-pop-outlaw-black\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5],"tags":[865,50],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/lockwood_patricia_balloonpop.png?fit=259%2C284","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-14C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4130"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}