Tonight at 7pm, IPRC has a couple of heavy hitters tonight. Sid Miller, who runs the Burnside Review, will be reading poetry from a new book called Fighting Pancho Villa. I was going to say Miller's poetry doesn't pull its punches, because that's true, but in the context of that title it seems like too cutesy or something. So I'll say Miller's poetry is real and grounded in a conversational but precise language. Here's a couple lines from a poem called "Quietly Waiting," a response to Henry Miller's (no relation?) line, "If God had to choose a hiding place, he would choose man to hide in," after which Sid suggests he is that man:

God feels safe within me,
like a chicken embryo in the shell,
seeing only white,
only rabid hazy skies

The book is being released as this year's poetry chapbook from local small press Bedouin Books, known for championing emerging writers and hand-printing gorgeous covers. Bedouin is also re-releasing a new edition of some short stories by Shane Joaquin Jimenez. Jimenez' short fiction is very short, which lends itself to this kind of reading (sharing the stage with a poet, chapbook crowd, etc.) and can easily match Miller's poetry for intensity, linguistic exactitude, and gut-punching emotional finality.

The reading is at 7pm at IPRC and you can expect to see other beautiful editions from Bedouin Books for sale.