Black Ocean's Halloween Buy One Get One Free Deal

a note from Black Ocean:

Black Ocean is offering a very special Halloween Sale this week! From 12:00 am on 10/30 to 11:59 pm on 11/1 any purchases of Zachary Schomburg’s limited edition hardcover Scary, No Scary (scfrom our website will receive any other book in our catalog for free. Simply specify which title you’d like in the notes during PayPal checkout and we’ll include it at no extra charge.

Each hardcover edition of Scary, No Scary comes signed and numbered by Schomburg himself, and includes a limited edition letter pressed mini-broadside from Brave Men Press. This package was created in a limited quantity of 200 and only about half of them remain.

As always, every order receives free shipping from our website. Thanks for your time and enjoy your Halloween!

TARPAULIN SKY PRESS IS HIRING

a note from Tarpaulin Sky:

TARPAULIN SKY PRESS IS HIRING

No pay--aside from fame and free books. Start immediately.

Over the next couple weeks, Tarpaulin Sky Press will be filling
a variety of editorial and production positions. If you are
interested in working for us, please email Christian Peet
& Editors at newstaff[AT]tarpaulinsky[DOT]com, and let us know
your experiences with (or your desire to be part of) Tarpaulin
Sky Press and the small press community as a whole.

Please understand that we would be delighted for you to read
submissions, but also that we consider reading submissions to be
"the fun part" of editing, and that editors at TSky have many
other responsibilities. Also, while ambition will serve as a
fine substitute for experience in several positions at TSky
Press, we are also looking specifically for people with
experience in one or more of the following areas: web design,
book design, event coordination, marketing and promotion.

It is not necessary to send a resume/CV--a letter will do fine--
but we will happily peruse anything you send.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Christian Peet & Co.
Tarpaulin Sky Press

Where the Wild Things Are - A Brief Review

"Where the Wild Things Are" suffers the fate many movies suffer. It starts off well enough. Sets up possibilities. Then kind of just fizzles out. And the ending's a cop out. A morality lesson. Yeah, Yeah: i'm all vague about town here. Well, so what. It's a decent movie all in all. But I wanted to feel as strongly as I did when I was terrified as the creatures encircled our wayward adolescent, threatening to eat him. From there o in it was all downhill, intensity-wise. And I was needing a good sound nap.

Agassi admits use of crystal meth (me too)

Agasssi admits use of crystal meth. And lied about it.

"Then comes a tidal wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I've never felt so alive, so hopeful - and I've never felt such energy."

Black Warrior Review: New Issue and Submission Guidelines

a not from Black Warrior

Hello BWR Fans,

It's time - our Fall/Winter 2009 issue is out! Mary Caponegro, Lily Hoang, Andrew Zawacki and Joanna Klink are just a few of the authors on board. Stop by our page to check out a complete list of the excellent authors and artists whose work awaits you; our News page offers a more detailed explanation of the issue as a whole.

While you're there, be sure to take a look at our special calls for submissions; we are currently seeking both Creative Nonfiction and Comics for our Spring/Summer 2010 issue. If you know someone who might be a good fit, please pass the word along; likewise, if that person is yourself, get your work to us ASAP! Submission guidelines can be found both on our FB page and on our website.

Thanks for your support,

Jenny Gropp Hess
Managing Editor

Happiness and Magic: Interview with Justin Marks re his "A Million in Prizes"

The following's an interview with Justin Marks re his wonderful "A Million in Prizes." (the more time I spent with this book the more I enjoyed it. it's simple and complicated. smart and accessible. blah. blah. i highly recommend it).

Here's the Bio Justin provided:

Justin Marks’ first book is A Million in Prizes (New Issues Press). He is also the author of several chapbooks, the most recent being Voir Dire (Rope-a-Dope Press). He lives in New York City with his wife and their infant son and daughter.


Also, Justin's the featured poet at Tusculum Review this week. Check it out here.


RK: Early on in the middle section, [Summer insular], the speaker seems to be talking to the reader “And you/I know you.” And on the next page “A poem about summer/should be happy right?” Indeed. But the middle section of A Million is, generally, not happy. And neither is the book. But the speaker does know the reader. And the speaker, going into the middle section, has set up a lot of expectation. All “antecedents” have been removed, killed, set aside, muffled, murdered: God, childhood, selves, ambition, money. And the presumption is that a certain “form of magic” is going to be discovered/
encountered. Even though this is put in quite cryptic terms: “understanding reality as different/than it’s already unknown to be/a form of magic.” Ultimately, then, the casual reader is going to be disappointed. And by casual reader the one who really expects a summer of magic. A happy ending. Real fulfillment. Your thoughts please.


JM: I think in a lot of ways [Summer insular] is about--and is in the book specifically to--subvert pre-established expectations from the first section. A poem about summer should be happy. But just a few lines later it I say "Happiness / for example is lacking". That's a fairly ambiguous phrase. Happiness is lacking, perhaps from the poem, the book or life itself. On the other hand, it may simply be that happiness, as a feeling, isn't that fulfilling. It may be that happiness is indeed in the poem and the book, in life in general, but, like most other things, fades, is disappointing.

So, yeah, the casual reader may well be disappointed. But that seems to always be the case. In that sense, I don't think too much about a reader.

I try to apply the same ambiguity to magic, or maybe I am just being cryptic. I do believe in it, at least as I understand Spicer to have meant it--or maybe it's just that I want to believe. The only place I mention magic explicitly is in the first section of the book which, as you point out, is in many ways about failed ambition. So, I don't know. It's there as a kind of possibility (as are many other things, I think) but also, in part, as something already unknown. Already a kind of disappointmnet, at the least, and total failure at worst--a metaphor for the difficulty of making art, as well as being a person.


RK: Despite what I said in the first question there is a kind of happiness at play in these poems. Achieved in moments that are a kind of magic. Occasionally only and only fleetingly. I’m talking about Zen moments of beauty like “whiteness without end,/ but touched with such shading as needed/to keep things interesting.” Or “A clear plastic cup on my tray table./ Cold water almost perfectly still.” Or the short poem in its entirety: “Another painting:/six large shoreline rocks/(stanza break)no shore/no sea.” These are hopeless and hopeful. Formed and formless. Instances of a form of magic. The other way in which this magic is attained is through a Whitmanesque sort of loafing. A good example of this is where the speaker’s stretched out on a bus, sun through the windows, sleeping in bits and pieces: “I sing a little song to myself.” These twilight loafing moments of the mind in a kind of trance are another sort of magic that comes and goes. Briefly. Your thoughts on the magic and happiness in this your debut book.


JM: Whitmanesque. Nice. I'll take that comparison any day. Thanks!

But to answer your question: I'm glad some sort of happiness and magic got through. Actually, that sounds moronic. What I mean is: I'm glad not all the ambition of the book failed. That there is some sense of hope. The loafing, the dualities of form and formlessness, hope and hopelessness...these are qualities I find difficult to talk about in ways other than I did in the book. I love Whitman's work, he's certainly an influence, but I've never thought of my work as Whitmanic. I feel an affinity for a lot of zen philosophy and beliefs, but I'm certainly no Buddhist. The only thing I can say is that maybe these qualities in the work are the strains of those influences and affinities coming through.


RK: I’ve just started seeing a psychiatrist/therapist so I’ve got lots of new terms and ideas in my head. Always dangerous. (If you've just bought a duck you seem to see ducks and duckish behavior everwhere. Duckish designs. Moods. Broods. etc. etc.) But, anyways, I want to talk about the "psychological" arc of A Million in Prizes. The book begins with muted ambition. A kind of gathering manic energy. With a goal of magic in mind. The summer in which this is going to happen though becomes, in spite of its moments of magic, increasingly morbid. Not the summer we expected at all. (Or maybe it is if we paid attention.) A crashing down into a depressed state. But the book is jolted back into brighter awareness and energy by being hit by a car in “The Voice Inside the Cheerleader’s Megaphone). A place where “inner gaze” makes the speaker “dizzy” and later on in “Home Again” where the speaker is “adept at never truly sleeping.” Lack of sleep’s a clinical symptom and trigger of manic phases. And psychotic episodes. Episodes of paranoia. (excuse me if I’m not quite accurate here, clinically.) And, indeed, the speaker in “Home Again” is absolutely paranoid. And in the next poem “False teeth” the speaker knows that he “was a really paranoid and neurotic kind.” These last poems are also the most surreal. Spectalularly surreal. Documents of borderline psychotic states that the artist sometimes treads. So in a sense for me the book’s a kind of Bipolar journal. Am I totally full of shit here? Imposing my current preoccupations on yr book? Your thoughts please.


JM: You are completely full of shit. (Kidding.) There certainly is a journal quality to the book. A friend once said I could hand the book to my shrink and he'd have all he needed to know about me. Which is true. And not.

That last section of the book is the result of another struggle to do something different. At the time I wrote it I definitely felt there was an energy gathered that I'd suddenly found an outlet for. I'd been spending a lot of time worrying about how my work fit into the larger contemporary conversation. What kind of poet was I? SOQ? Post-avant? Did it matter? I wanted so badly to be "cool," but at the same time not to simply imitate all the other cool kids. Then I went to my first AWP conference. It was in Austin, TX that year. I was hanging out with some friends talking about all this and I just decided, "fuck it," I was going to write however I wanted. That's when the more manic/surreal energy started coming out. Maybe that's why you're reading the book as a bipolar journal. It sort of charts my development as a writer over a five year period, a time when I and my writing changed a lot, essentially went from a more quiet, restrained style to something looser, more free.


RK: If I remember correctly "A Million in Prizes" nearly didn't get published. You sent it out to contests and open-reading periods and made inquiries. But nothing happened. Then when you were about to scrap it and start anew you got word from New Issues. Unless you're extremely fortunate it's tough, very tough, to get a manuscript (especially a first manuscript) published. Contests are at best a difficult lottery system and at worst a scam. And finding a press outside the contest route is extremely difficult too. Your thoughts on the system? What can be done? And what advice (beyond "persevere") can you give writers trying to find a home for a first manuscript?


JM: Well, that’s not exactly accurate. I had started a new manuscript, but I hadn’t given up on A Million in Prizes. I had, however, given up on contests, for basically all the reasons you mention. My intention was to focus on small presses. I was convinced I could find someone to believe in the book and publish it. I was also seriously thinking about publishing it myself. I think the whole idea of “vanity publishing,” at least among many contemporary poets, is being given the lie; that is, really great poets are starting small presses and publishing their own books. Ariana Reines is one example. She started Mal-o-Mar Editions and published her second book, Coeur de Lion, on it.

And that’s essentially what I think about “the system.” There’s no reason to adhere to it. I mean, you can if you want, but you don’t have to to be taken seriously. You can start your own press and publish your own book and, if the work is strong enough, it will be taken just as seriously. I realize that may sound hypocritical of me to say, since I did wind up having my first book come out by winning a contest, but I can assure you I won’t be sending my second manuscript to any contests. I mean, with lulu and such, it’s fairly affordable to self-publish. If I would have taken all the money I spent on entry fees—an average of $20 per contest, and I entered at least 70 contests, so that’s about $1,400—I basically could have covered the cost of publishing the book myself.

But that’s just my opinion. A book is a deeply, deeply personal object for the writer who created it. Self-publishing may be an unacceptable option for many. But if you feel your book is really ready, and your goal is to reach an audience, but you’re not having luck with contests or simply want to avoid them all together, I think self-publishing is a great option.


RK: I just read a few of Charles Wright's poems in the latest Valparaiso Review. They're good. But same-old Charles Wright and his famous and accomplished back-porch and back-yard staring up into the night sky pessimism. The one thing I've admired about you and your poetry is that it keeps changing. You're not afraid to dive into new styles. New approaches. Can you tell us a bit about the work you've done since "A Million in Prizes?" Chapbooks published and forthcoming? New full-length manuscript(s)? Where on-line, perhaps, you could find some newer work?


JM: Ha! Well, if there’s only one thing to admire about me and my work, I’m glad it’s that . But, yeah, change is immensely important to me. I mean, when you settle on one style and do it over and over book after book you’re kind of saying you think that style is so great, so interesting, that people want to see a whole career’s worth of it. For some poets, that may well be the case. I love Ashbery, and he’s been writing essentially the same book for—what?—50 years. In that sense, I guess it’s just a matter of taste, but to be honest, I’ve tired of even Ashbery. So change, for me, is very important. If my style isn’t changing then I’m not developing as a poet, and development, for me, is of the utmost importance. At the same time, though, I don’t think my new stuff sounds so different that it comes across as written by a completely different poet. It’s a complicated balance/issue.

Regardless, yeah, I’ve published some new stuff since A Million in Prizes came out. I had a mini-chapbook (it amounted to about a 5 page poem) called Voir Dire come out with Rope-a-Dope Press [http://rope-a-dope-press.blogspot.com/2009/03/voir-dire.html] in February, 2009. As I said earlier, I’ve also been working on a new manuscript. At this point, it’s a collection of sonnets, some of which have appeared in the following:
Six Finch (2)
Sin Review (2)
Harp and Altar (2)

I’ve also been working on this prose memoir-ish thing called Naïve Melody, some of which you can find here: I’ve thought about publishing it as a chapbook, but it needs more work. I’ve also been thinking about ways to break it apart and fit it into my new full length manuscript. We’ll see.

RK:
For some time now you've been a part of the small press world publishing an impressive collection of chapbooks through your Kitchen Press. But it seems that you've moved on from Kitchen Press and are now involved, along with some other poets, in a new venture publishing full-length collections. Can you tell us a bit more about this? Who are you publishing? Just poetry? Open reading periods or just by your solicitation?


JM: I have moved on. Me, Sampson Starkweather, Chris Tonelli, Dan Boehl and Matt Rasmussen have started a press called Birds, LLC. Our first two books are The Trees Around, by Chris Tonelli and The French Exit, by Elisa Gabbert. We’re planning to have both of them out in time for AWP in Denver.

It’s something we’ve wanted to do for a while, but only just got our act together on. Our plan is to publish our own books, as well as other people’s. It’ll probably be solicitation only, at least at first. We’d like to publish two books a year, one of our own books and one from someone else we solicit. We haven’t determined an order yet, but my personal guess is that either Sampson’s or Dan’s book will be one of our 2011 releases. I know they both have books that are really close to being done. So, we’ll see. But I’m super excited about it.

The big motivation for me personally came after A Million in Prizes came out. I just couldn’t bear going through that whole process of finding a new publisher for my second book. I kept thinking how awesome it would be to just have a publisher ready to publish your book whenever you had a new one, someone to build an actual publishing relationship with.

We also wanted to bring back the idea of having editors that work closely with poets on their manuscripts, which to my knowledge isn’t standard practice any more. Our structure is that there is a lead editor who works one-on-one with the poet to really polish the manuscript. The rest of us read the manuscripts and offer our thoughts, and then the lead editor relays those to the poet. The poet and lead editor handle things from there. I’m the lead editor for Chris’ book. I’ve read and commented on it so much already over the last four years that he’s been working on it, and I felt like I really “got” what he was doing, so I wanted to be his editor. Sampson is working with Elisa on hers.

With all that going on, plus being the father of nine month old twins, having a job, and recently becoming a homeowner, I’ve had to put Kitchen Press on the back burner. I’m putting out Elisa Gabbert’s My Fear of X and after that Kitchen Press will be on hiatus. I’m not saying it’s gone for good, but for now my energies in terms of publishing are devoted to Birds, LLC.

Holy Land: Bi-Polar and Paranoid Schizophrenic (??)

one of the more interesting comments about my book Holy Land:

"My best woman friend was a severe case of what used to be called manic depression. And my son was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic as a teenager. For some reason, those relationships have made me better able to understand some of your stuff."

Rauan Klassnik Fondles Seth Abramson

Over on HTMLGIANT today (the beginning of their Mean Week 2) Blake Butler makes the connection between Sex Ableton (House-Mouse Cock) and Seth Abramson and asks if I've gone too far. Have I?

Whale Wars (kind of)

click on image for better view

(by my friend Dan Dever)

Seth Abramson: Pineapples and 1936

Seth Abramson gets in the action over at HTMLGIANT,..... (damn, how I wish he'd start blogging again. real semi-pro blogging.)

A Huge Vat

I've become just a huge vat of appetite. Wanting to glut myself on all sorts of foods and tastes (and as much of it as possible) that may or may not have been interesting to me before. Everything within arm's reach goes in my mouth and I find it all so intriguing. And then it's gone. I had no idea what the glutton experiences. Feels. etc. etc. It is beautiful. It is torture. I am indeed a glutton. A pig. An epicure? No. Just a glutton. A glutton. A glutton. O, my!!!

Stars (before one of the most boring nights of my life)

Stars (before one of the most boring nights of my life at Kitt's Peak Observatory... i'm getting bits of bored fire coursing through me again just remembering this night...and my wife was nearly arrested for not having her visa on her as we returned home...nice soldier was understanding tho, etc, etc,.... Christ!!)

Stars: the cold clockword of nothing. The horror spread out like salt. A long coming out of sugar. And inside this all the blood, tongue and voice of the hero pulses. But not for long.

A bunch of monkeys with manners and sweet personalities. Wolves and demons. A world of the insane and twisted trying, through the group's aura, to make sense of itself...to be ok, normal, quiet, peaceful...to render order from the chaos... to fight the ruin which seeps into us so slowly....

(i was excited to visit Kitt's Peak. thought i'd see soooo much cool stuff. equipment, stars, etc. sat around for 5 hours to see the moon and then two little dots pulsing. yawn. yawn. yawn. and then drove down the mountain like criminals in pure darkness. the skies in south africa are much nicer. blah blah. am i bitter? i can't remember a bigger waste of time and money....blah, blah,....)

Reading at Poison Pen in Houston Next Week

Next week I'll be reading in the Poison Pen series in Houston.

I'll be reading with Emily Fox Gordon and Rich Levy.
1641 Westheimer, just east of the intersection of Dunlavy and Westheimer.
8:30 PM.

For more info click here.

What's Right and What's Wrong with Reb Livingston (sort of).....

Over at Htmlgiant Reb Livingston talks about what's right and what's wrong about the small (indie) press world.... and some interesting insights (??) about why men go to strip clubs......

check it out here

New Night Train (9.2)

the new Night Train Magazine is now available here

Kirk Cameron - A Hollywood Story of Redemption

sorry i won't be in town for this.... (found this in the DFW airport men's toilet, stall 3, terminal C, gate 25)......

Trumpet - Rooster - Henry Miller's Whores etc etc

Someone's playing a trumpet across the street. Perhaps it's a rooster. In L.A. county there's a new ordinance limiting a household to one rooster. Perhaps this is for the noise. More likely the fighting.

An SPCA commercial says 250,000 puppies are born to fight each year. It showed all sorts of neglected animals: dogs, cats, birds, cows, pigs, horses, tasmanian devils, mammoths and paramecium. I got teary eyed. As usual.

Last Halloween was the last time I drank. And the dead (my dead) are all still dead. Yeah! Sigh.

People are waiting for taxis. It's cold. The roosters and trumpets are honking.

As we all verge into extinction.

Like Miller's whores.

Germaine was different. Verging. Rundown. Cheap. Rouged. etc. etc. Rubbing her pussy. etc. etc.

A woman just burped in the elevator next to me. Her hands were full and I'd just pressed her button. 6. The burp was a thank you, I guess.

Had dinner with Joe Hall. Lunch yesterday with Reb Livingston.

Lots going on. Life's good.

Absent (new issue now Live)

a note from absent:

Issue 4 of Absent is live. It's an all-poetry issue featuring work by:

Dan Boehl * Karen Carcia * Darcie Dennigan * Jessica Fjeld * Andrea Henchey * Lauren Ireland * Matthew Klane * Reb Livingston * Marc McKee * Daniela Olszewska * Matt Shears * Kim Gek Lin Short

HTMLGIANT, Planet of the Apes, Proteas, etc

I'm now writing for HTMLGIANT. Check it out.

I'm reading in Tucson this Wednesday. Check it out.

Was in the Mall last night (D.C.)--Stood up on the Lincoln Memorial and felt awe. Thought of the Planet of the Apes. Sometimes everyone looks like a monkey to me. Everything collapses into monkey faces and chimp-squawking.

This hotel lobby's full of Proteas. I'm a Protea. A Springbok too. (South African.)

Marble is more and more interesting. Sidewalks too. And bums' faces.

I've lived in a paper bag. I break out of it. Another descends.

Proteas are hardy flowers. But cactus-fragile. Blah, blah, blah

White Gleaming Pig

Dead stuck in traffic on the way to a wedding in cold drizzle we saw a big fat white gleaming pig come trotting past us. It was holding a sign that said

I Love you I Love you Don't do it Don't do it Please don't do it

Then we saw it had wings and it was lifting off. And it was using its long red penis as a rudder. And headed, evidently, to intervene at the point of the question before the two questions. The one about holding your peace forever, etc,....White gleaming and flying. Flying with its bright-red penis.

We sat there in awe. Unmoving. Becrawled. And the pig gleamed on.

As I type this the happy couple are preparing for a rehearsal dinner while somewhere near, perhaps in this very hotel, the pig is waiting. Brooding. Flushing. And blushing. And ready. Ready. Ready.

Blake Butler's Scorch Atlas

So, I've started into Blake Butler's Scorch Atlas and it's like biting into a burning apple. A sizzling cherry. Each taste's a piece of fire that whirrs on the tongue and surrounds the brain in a live-dead sack of cold-burning aura.

This book's going on my night stand next to Finnegan's Wake and for the same purpose. To be taken down some afternoons for small doses of brain buzz-disfigurement.

Blake Butler's an original. Big. Teeming. Burning.

(note: I've got a small tolerance. Easily blown apart. Thus, small doses.)

--------

Scorch Atlas is a beautiful book that speaks to on many levels and through many tongue. One tongue says don't write in me. Keep me sacred. Another says desecrate me. Destroy me. Scribble all over me. And this I am doing. The only book I haven't written is in the bible my dad got for his bar mitzvah and which he, in turn, (having never even opened it) passed on to me the day I supposedly became a man. Damnit how I'm itching to write in that gold-leafed beautiful book. Soon. Soon. Soon.)

---------

What I've read so far of Scorch Atlas (through about page 45) depends on and is made by speed. The speed at which the language and action move is really thrilling. A joy.

But then every now and then it slows. Sketches. Lingers.

And everything narrows down into one moment blooming.

A Needle Hits

A needle hits and a whale gets roped—eyes bulging, jerked back to dirt. Sharks go at my body, but lightning holds me together, and a girl with long grey fingers rubs my chest as she stares out to sea. The sky’s trying to speak. Rocks and trees all bent in heat.

from my book, "Holy Land"

She's on top of me

She’s on top of me, thrusting down, and I’m in her eyes—as bright and dead as a glass-sculpted wall of flowers—bent back and blood, like the tail of a horse, splashed all over my chest. Her face is smashed.

from my book "Holy Land"

Colored Birds Chirping

Lying next to each other after we made love, she told me about the operation and how the blood flowed weakly through her body. Her eyes lit up as though she was remembering a boy who’d died at war, and I saw you, my brother, in bed surrounded by colored birds chirping.

from my book Holy Land

Van Gogh - Holy Land

I can feel the cells in me strengthening: a horse rising up in a field of broken wheat Van Gogh is painting the day he killed himself.

from my book Holy Land

2nd Hand Books and All their Blood & Violence

I used to be fine with second hand books. But now I'm terrified of them. Is this just me? They haunt me like the eyeballed roll of money in those annoying Geico ads. The roll that's able to text as well as just sit there staring like the dog in Frasier.

In fact I wasn't just fine with 2nd hand books I was fascinated by them. Wonder who owned this before me? I'd wonder dreamily and glowingly. And was so interested in any notes made in the book. Any underlinings. Was mesmerized by the handwriting. And more often than not I just didn't care. Skipped over the scribblings and markings. Didn't give a damn at all about who'd come before me.

But now a 2nd book's a loaded gun for me. A carcass. An eye into death, rape, suffering. And love. Love with its violence and its Gods. Barbaric and carnivorous. Sad apes. Cold fisted. Death in an icebox. Or a rainforest. Drums and dribbling ritual blood. Heart in fist. Etc. Etc. The everyday blacks and whites of the human animal.

Think of all the violence these books have sat through. Violence in the history and potentialities of its readers. Its readers holding it with vicious or gentle fingers.

Violence in the room around it. Think of all the fornicating and meanness perpetrated around this book! This sweet looking lamb of a 2nd hand book. What has it heard? Witnessed? What blood smelt?

And think of the love, the violence of that love. Yeah, sure, there are so many ordinary, quiet, exhausted moments. But the book's untouched by these. Undulled. It perks under Love and Violence. Those hunting dogs. Those barking gods.


Damnit!!!

(p.s. the "image" i've used with this post doesn't really have much to do with the price of 2nd hand book apples. O, well,.... damnit!!)

Introducing Kathleen Rooney

Introducing Kathleen Rooney!

If you're a writer interested in sending me a headshot (i like "eyes" and nice colors. or a sharp-featured black and white) please do so to ronklassnik2001 (at) yahoo (dot) com and I may well do one up of you.

Am thinking also of starting a blog with just these (writer portraits)

Turtles & Love Birds

I’ve got six turtles. I’ve also got six Love Birds, 2 green, 2 blue and 2 multicolored. A hawk swoops down and attacks them. They’re all ok, but understandably, damned shook up. Last night I dreamed two were dead. I took their heads and necks into my mouth and breathed gently.

(from my book "Holy Land")

p.s. those Love Birds pictured are hotel keys from when I stayed in Chicago in the spring.

New Valparaiso On-Line Now (Charles Wright poems, etc,...)

The New Issue of the Valparaiso Review is on-line now.

The "Featured Poet" is Charles Wright. And the three poems of included in the issue are vintage Charles Wright: a unique brand of Accomplished Back-Porch Pessimism that's wonderful in small doses.

And work by lots of other poets including Mary Biddinger, Virgil Suarez, Dorianne Laux, etc, etc,....

Talking to God

Talking to God’s like jerking off. You strain in the dark for years, but then a fuse gets lit, and people come screaming out of the fire. They land in the streets, their arms and legs blown off. A man on a horse tips his hat. Marilyn holds down her dress. In the charred air, angels hang.




(poem from my book, Holy Land)

In the Sack - "Ten strong men working in regular shifts!!!"

There's a Michaux poem where the speaker talks about putting people in sacks and then beating them "up with impunity and with an energy that would wear out ten strong men working in regular shifts."

The speaker develops incredible patience. Patience for assholes, etc.

And so he puts up with people for hours, months, years.

Patience. Patience. Patience.

Patient because he knows he's going to get them in the sack and then have at them. Have at them "with an energy that would wear out ten strong men working in regular shifts."

Like Michaux I am patient. And like Michaux I have a sack. And assholes. I've got them. O, yeah, I've got them. Plenty of them.

The sack, in my hands right now, feels sooooo good.

And the anticipation sooooo sweet.

Patience. Patience. Patience.

Alien vs. Predator - Michael Robbins' very Unsquirrel-like New Yorker Poem

Here's a very unsquirrel-like poem by Michael Robbins that appeared in the January 12th issue of the New Yorker.

I'm not sure what to make of this poem. But it's very exciting to read. Thrilling. A wild ride.

I'm not saying that the New Yorker should publish a bunch of poems like Michael's. But mixing in more different "stuff" more often would be nice.

Alien vs. Predator


Praise this world, Rilke says, the jerk.

We’d stay up all night. Every angel’s

berserk. Hell, if you slit monkeys

for a living, you’d pray to me, too.

I’m not so forgiving. I’m rubber, you’re glue.



That elk is such a dick. He’s a space tree

making a ski and a little foam chiropractor.

I set the controls, I pioneer

the seeding of the ionosphere.

I translate the Bible into velociraptor.



In front of Best Buy, the Tibetans are released,

but where’s the whale on stilts that we were promised?

I fight the comets, lick the moon,

pave its lonely streets.

The sandhill cranes make brains look easy.



I go by many names: Buju Banton,

Camel Light, the New York Times.

Point being, rickshaws in Scranton.

I have few legs. I sleep on meat.

I’d eat your bra—point being—in a heartbeat.

New Typo (13) on-line now (includes 3 of my poems)

The New Typo (13) is on-line now

featuring

CYNTHIA ARRIEU-KING
ZACH BAROCAS
LAYNIE BROWNE
BROOKLYN COPELAND
CHRISTOPHER DEWEESE
CLAIRE DONATO
KATHRYN DONOHUE
CAROLYN GUINZIO
JOSHUA HARMON
LUCY IVES
PHILIP JENKS
RAUAN KLASSNIK
BEN MAZER
RACHEL MORITZ
SARA MUMOLO
TOM ORANGE
ANTHONY ROBINSON
SUSAN SCARLATA
NATE SLAWSON
STEPHEN STURGEON

(Three poems of mine are included.)


Versions of two of these poems are included in my chapbook Ringing.

The illustrated and badly-handwritten poems included with this post are colored versions of those Ringing versions (pages 5 and 17 of Ringing). Click on each for better view.

Da Lyrical Pitbull

just received the following from Facebook:


Wakefield became a fan of Wakefield Brewster aka da lyrical pitbull on Facebook and suggested you become a fan too. To see more details and confirm this invitation, click here: The Facebook Team


This makes me smile. And makes me jealous.

I want a name (or an aka) like Da Lyrical Pitbull

To follow is the description at Da Pitbull's Page:

Poet, Brokun Werd Artist, Hip-Hop Recording Artist;FNDR: b.funkee productionz, pitbull poetree reading seriez, pitbull poetree slam seriez ~ poetree tutor, canadian poetry'z urban icon ov da west ~ daddee

And to follow's more info you can find at Da Pitbull's website:


From traditional music theory starting at age six, to his acceptance in the York University Music Program it was only a matter of time before his artistic muse pushed him beyond the confines of academia.

Writing poetry for the past 16 years, performing live for the last eight, producing two CD’s and winning numerous accolades and International Slams! Wakefield Brewster has left more than 800 stages blistered and bruised eagerly awaiting his return.


Intriguing. But, damnit, I am so damned jealous! Of the name. The name. The aka.

Damnit!

I want to leave stages, hundreds of then, "blistered and bruised"

Cheers to you, Pitbull! Keep at it!

new issue of FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics

a note from Oberlin College:

Dear OC Press Listserv Member:

My sincere apologies for an inadvertent forwarding of a message meant for internal use yesterday. Kindly disregard it and thank you for your patient understanding.

I’ll take this opportunity, though, to let you know that the fall issue of FIELD: Contemporary Poetry and Poetics will be mailed the last week of October. This fall’s symposium celebrates Philip Levine’s work with essays by David St. John, Kate Daniels, Peter Klappert, Lee Upton, Edward Hirsch, Tom Sleigh and Kathy Fagan. You’ll find two new poems by Levine as well as ones by such favorites as Marianne Boruch, Michael Chitwood, Elton Glaser, Betsy Sholl and Chana Block. And, of course, there are plenty of poets making their FIELD debut in this 81^st issue.

If you are not a subscriber, or if your subscription has lapsed, you might want to subscribe or renew now to be sure to receive the fall issue. A year’s subscription is $16, 2 years $28.

Marilyn Hacker’s translation of HE AND I by Emmanuel Moses is coming out this month, and we already have copies in hand. We’ll be happy to send you a copy from our office postage-paid upon receipt of a check for $15.95.

Just use the address below for your subscription and/or book order.

Oberlin College Press

Attn: Linda Slocum

50 N. Professor St.

Oberlin, OH 44074-1091

My Grandfather - Giacomo Joyce - A Kind of God - The River

My wife's mother's in the hospital with kidney and liver problems.
And she's really afraid. Reminds me of my fear.
Reminds me of Joyce's Giacomo Joyce.

Dreamed of my grandfather last night. He's been dead nearly 20 years.
We were at a school picnic and he wanted to see the headmaster.
Was crying. Shaking.
Teachers walked past us. Some looked at me. Some didn't.

We woke to a short-lived storm. Very windy. Rain blowing in.
This makes my dog, Chuy, very afraid.
The river's huge now. And filled with trash.
The power went out for a few minutes.

My chapbook Ringing is filled with trash.
It too is afraid. It too cries. And shakes.
Cowers under the bed. Like a little bird.
Joyce's Jewish student. And mistress.
Like Dante's Beatrice he says, tying back her hair.

The hits from "Seth Abramson" keep piling up.
One was "Seth Abramson Dick."
Seems pointless-- watching the river.
Seems pointless-- hearing it. Feeling it.
To calm this world my wife massages its feet.

I'm a total atheist but when I dream someone
like my grandfather who's dead
I feel good. As though I've resurrected them
For a few moments even. As though
I am a kind of God. No, a God.

There's a Child in a Ditch

There’s a child in a ditch by the side of the road. She’s the source of every drop of blood. Shadows, knives, machetes——angels sharpening the horns of beasts you’ll never see. Over the long, dazzling fields they come: one small piece of time, chained to the next, howling and deep. They stomp and they spit. You belong to them.

The first poem of section I of my book Holy Land

(That feels like a million years ago)

(this poem was first published in Poemeleon)

The Moose Goes to Heaven----

And finds red flowers, pumpkins, and apples. In fact, Heaven looks like Alaska.

But this is because the moose is "upright." At the end there is no room for "the wicked" who will "be cut off."

Heaven here is the continuation of life on earth. Eternal life.

All quite exciting ("All suffering SOON TO END!". Especially for the Moose. And such a nice picture!! Mwah!!

Foreign-Language Titles: MC Hyland's Poems in the New Slant (Rachel Mallino): To French or not to French

I really like MC Hyland's three poems in the latest Slant.

Great pacing and lots of beautiful images and phrases like "Then winter came on, scratchy/ with stars" and "Seasons/ fell away, creaking on the doorjambs." All in all a quite dreamy effect. Choreographed and ballet-like.

That being said it's strange that I'm going to quibble with the titles (Ballet Mécanique (i),(ii) and (iii)). But I am.

Most any english-language poem using French or Italian or Latin, etc, in the title, is just being pretentious in the way that Charles Simic's titles are pretentious (bandying around terms like "History" and "Knowledge" etc,... Gosh how I like to smack Charles around for this. Smack him smack-damn on the top of his eastern european head. his not-so-original eastern european head. smart head, though. anyways.)

Most foreign language in the bodies of english-language poems fails too I think. Fails because the poet is almost always trying to be "high." That is to say, taking on airs.

Is MC Hyland doing that here? I'm not sure. The title comes off that way. And I'd much rather she'd have come up with something else. Even though there is Ballet Mécanique precedent:

Ballet Mécanique (1924) was a project by the American composer George Antheil and the filmmaker/artist Fernand Léger. Although the film was intended to use Antheil's score as a soundtrack, the two parts were not brought together until the 1990s. As a composition, Ballet Mécanique is Antheil's best known and most enduring work. It remains famous for its radical style and instrumentation as well as its storied history. (Wikipedia)

But does this have anything to do with these Slant poems? I dunno.

And if so shouldn't the poet have put a little note with an asterisk. Or something like that. It's not exactly common knowledge. And was it my responsibility to look it up. O, the age-old questions I've failed to question-mark. I dunno.

Anyways, I'm just venting here. Talking up a pet peeve. Like my not liking raw onions. But who wants to hear me venting about raw onions. Well I suppose it depends on how I do it. Style, that is. Naked, bruised, livid, on a chandelier. Maybe. With all my savoir faire on display. Blah, Blah. Quid Pro Quo. I Dunno.

On the other MC Hyland (what a great name) also uses French in the body of these poems. And uses it really well. A compound noun: "Haut-parleurs." High talkers. And in context it works brilliantly. Brilliantly 3 times.

Again, I really like these MC Hyland poems. (if i didn't you all know I'd say so.) And I'm probably just using this as a chance to fly my raw onion flags from every chandelier I can nip this aging fattening flabbying mind-body on to.

Vive la France (not really. decadent, backward-looking, tourist-sucking country! Maybe i'm just talking about Paris here. Generalizing. WTF. I'm in the mood)

Vive la France
Vive la France
VIVE!

Introducing Chris Tonelli

Introducing Chris Tonelli


If you're a writer interested in sending me a headshot (i like "eyes" mostly) please do so to ronklassnik2001 (at) yahoo (dot) com and I may well do one up of you.

Am thinking also of starting a blog with just these (writer portraits)

Introducing Ross Brighton

Introducing Ross Brighton (New Zealand Poet-Critic-Blogger)

If you're a writer interested in sending me a headshot (i like "eyes" mostly) please do so to ronklassnik2001 (at) yahoo (dot) com and I may well do one up of you.

Am thinking also of starting a blog with just these (writer portraits)

Tarpaulin Sky: Open for Submissions of Full-Length Manuscripts: October 2009

a note from Tarpaulin Sky:


Dear Friends and Readers,

During the month of October, Tarpaulin Sky Press will be reading full-length manuscripts of poetry, fiction, and cross-genre work. Manuscripts should be postmarked between October 1 and October 31, 2009. There is no need to query first; simply mail the manuscript according to the directions below.

Send one copy of your manuscript along with two copies of the title page
(note: the reading process is not "blind"--we ask for two title pages only
so that we may keep one with the manuscript, and the other for
reference/notes, etc). Be sure that your title pages include your name,
address, telephone number, and email address.

Cover letters are read with interest. We like to know who your are, what
you're up to, and where we can read more of your work.

We do accept simultaneous submissions but ask that you let us know
immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. Individual pieces from
the manuscript may have been previously published in magazines, anthologies,
and short-run chapbooks, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished.
Manuscripts will not be returned. Please do not send us your only copy.

Writers who have not been published in our literary journal should include a
$20 reading fee in the form of a check or a money order made payable to
Tarpaulin Sky Press. Past contributors to Tarpaulin Sky may submit their
manuscript with a $10 reading fee. Current subscribers to Tarpaulin Sky
Press do not need to include a reading fee (you've already done plenty to
support the press--thank you). Everyone submitting a manuscript is welcome
also to choose from any TSky Press trade paperback (sorry, no
chapbooks)--just let us know which title you would like, and enclose with
your submission packet a 9x12, self-addressed, stamped envelope with $2.64
in postage. We will ship the books separately from your notification SASE.

Mail your submission to

Tarpaulin Sky Press
PO Box 189
Grafton, VT 05146

For notification of decisions, include a business-size SASE. If you would
like to receive acknowledgment of the receipt of your manuscript, please
include a stamped, self-addressed postcard. Notification of decisions will
be made in February 2010. Publication of accepted manuscripts will be in
2010 & 2011.

If you are not familiar with our press and the type of books that we
publish, we encourage you to explore our work before submitting, by
purchasing one of our titles.

Rauan Klassnik - Serial Killer (?) A Blast from the Past

are these poems the work of a serial killer?

Introducing Reb Livingston!

Portrait of Reb Livingston. (stern looking!)


If you're a writer interested in sending me a headshot (i like "eyes" mostly) please do so to ronklassnik2001 (at) yahoo (dot) com and I may well do one up of you.

Am thinking also of starting a blog with just these (writer portraits)

3 of My Poems on-line now at Ishmael's Dog

Three of my poems (all from The Sea, a chapbook due out early next year from Mud Luscious) are now available at Ishmael's Dog

I'm really proud of these poems. And of The Sea.

Ishmael's Dog is a newish blog devoted to criticism and reviews of poetry, movies, etc. And it's just starting to publish poetry and fiction also. Check out my poems and check out some of the posts there.

Walking Around

Watchdog takes a break. A block down the street from me.


a bit further on: pile of garbage


and around the corner: cat sleeping on window ledge


A poster in the doorway to city hall


Across the river on the hanging bridge and to the left: Dog on a barstool.




A coconut I'm buying. 15 pesos. About to be worked into two bags for me. One for the milk. One for the meat. Damn, I'm Kosher!



while the coconut's being prepared a parakeet watches on.

New "Lamination Colony" now on-line

The latest Lamination Colony is now on-line.

Edited by the ubiquitous (maybe the first time i've used this oily word!) Blake Butler. (not saying Blake's oily. Though I'm sure he is sometimes. And one time, in my bed-camp, I dreamed of snakes and Blake and James Iredell and Amy McDonald,...true, true, true)

anyways, I'm going to check this issue out when I get a chance.

This new issue includes work by

Bobby Alter (winner) and Mark Doten, James Chapman, Mel Bosworth, Christian Tebordo, Darby Larson, Sasha Fletcher, Drew Kalbach, Andrew Borgstrom, Ben Segal (all finalists).

Lamination Colony Publication Schedule, according to the website,
"Who gives a fuck"

Laundry Day - Across the River from Me

Sunday--- day of rest. And day of laundry. On the other side of the river, under the trees.

(Click on image for larger view)

The Inching Worm, etc -- Some Time with Mud Luscious 9

One of the things I like about Mud Luscious is that although it lacks a bit of user interface (can't click on each author or piece for example) it's easy to print out the entire issue (with other on-line journals this can be quite tedious.)

So, last night and this morning I've been reading the current Mud Luscious (number 9).

Another thing I really like about Mud Luscious is that their issues contain, for the most part,
writers I wasn't previously familiar with.

The following pieces really stuck out for me:

Apart with Other People (Kate Wyer)
Untitled. Diptych (Christina Farella) (especially the first half of the second half)
Obese with Armor (Cortney McLelland)
Other Sisters (Roxane Gray)
Concerning Your Holes (Gregory Sherl)

But the piece that really struck me is "In Five Sentences" by Kimberly E. Ruth.



In Five Sentences by Kimberly E. Ruth

1.

we breathe controlled air. outside, the large mass of weightless, uncontrolled, matter takes recognizable form. i point to the inching worm in the distance. we spear through him with shiny blades and heavy wings. i am in the air now.


2.

funny how the sun didn’t inform the flowers of its departure. they are stuck now, on this shade, like dried foundation on a towel. it's like a censored bedtime story illuminating shapes on the wall. a rooster looks down from a rooftop. close your eyes, you tell her.

3.

i am witnessing the wind and it is moving empty shopping carts. i am reminded of you. you held me tight, once, here, in front of the eggs and condensed milk and i miss that. it is still cold here. a black cloud rolls over and it, too, reminds me of you.

4.

there is too much air up here. the cross roads below don’t. i take out a ball of string, black in all its order, perfect in its shape. i try to tie myself to a cloud but it does not take. quick, grab a camera before the wind comes, he says.

5.

he blew up my balloon and i held my breath. as it got bigger, so did my eyes, as though air were being blown into me instead of the balloon. i was filled with air. it was filling with air. i am in the car now and the window is down and the air is blowing and my hair is blowing and the balloon is dancing and mom says hold it still she can’t see behind her, so, i held it still.


Reading this piece over a couple of times, slowly, I thought, among other things, of Shane Jone's "Light Boxes" and Emily Kendal Frey's "Airport."

Seth Abramson, Obscenities, Taboos and Self-Obsessives

This blog gets lots of hits from people (?) googling phrases like "Big Cock Contest," "Angry Cock," "Fuck Off," "I'm Gonna Beat Your Fuckin' Ass," "Mouse Cock," "Female Pleasure," etc, etc.

But, strangely, "Seth Abramson" also brings a lot of folks here. As many as any of the obscene phrases listed above.

Is Seth really so popular? Or does he just google his name several times a day? :) I'm playing :)

This isn't a post about Seth. It's a post about obsessions.

People are obsessed with sex. (Duh!!!). Obscenties. (Duh!!!). Taboo. (Duh!!!) Themselves. (Duh!!!)

I wonder how many people google themselves regularly? Daily? Certainly a lot of poets and so-called poets do.

Long live obsessions!
Long live Seth Abramson et al !
Long live Fuck Off!
Long live Big Cock Contest!
Long live House Mouse Contest!

Actually, I'm just realizing this IS a post about Seth Abramson. Or, more accurately, my infatuation with Seth. Or, more accurately, my infatuation with Seth's semi-pro blogging. Seth's semi-pro blogging which is now defunct. Or for a while anyways.



But, please come back, Seth. Please.

I have visions of yr blog in disrepair. People abusing it. Blood. Urine. Dog shit. Bird shit. Bat shit. All sorts of manner. So much happens to neglected things, Seth. I can see your columns and pensive looks and they are on fire. Peeling. Fading away. Covered up in a mess of fluids and dirt. O, Seth.

Come back, young man, come back. This is driving me absolutely insane!!