Why the 2011 AWP Conference should be held in Vegas:
1. Death: Poets love death. And Vegas is where things go to die.
2. The Riviera: It could really use the business.
3. Fanny Packs: You're already wearing them.
4. High Levels of Oxygenation: To help keep you awake through the inevitable Q & A's.
5. Poetry Nightclub: - "Vegas’s premier hip hop destination...You never know who you’ll see drop by or who’s canoodling in the secluded corners of this aesthetically pleasing night spot." Apparently. Anybody could be canoodling.
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7. Craps: I'm officially addicted to Craps.
8. Cirque du Soleil: If you like the AWP Conference, we also recommend: Cirque du Soleil.
9. The Eternal Mysteries of Life: Where else do all literary terms, all forms attempting to approximate life and life's approximation in language--synechdoche, hyperbole, literalism, metonymy, foreshadowing, antithesis--come to such a direct point as at the peak of the replica of the Eiffel Tower outside of the replica of Paris so aptly named Paris?
10. Joan Rivers: - Engh? I mean, I ran out of reasons. But need I say more?
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The carpet design team calls this pattern 'Half-way to Vegas.'