This part of an ongoing project I am working on called AGEISM.
Pest Age
Juliet Cook has brought forth Ectoplasm Necropolis a new one off magazine. I have an evention in it. So does Adam Fieled, Andrew Lundwall, Daniela Olszewska, Jayne Pupek, Sean Kilpatrick, and someone named Misti Rainwater-Lites. There are a bunch more contributors, but I havent gotten to know them yet. Thanks to Juliet for putting this together. Check it out and buy a copy.
I hosted a reading with a very famous poet last night, who when she learned that I was working towards chapbooks, she made the sardonic comment of "thats great you still do that." I don't blame her for her the disconnect, but it made me consider how my mind becomes a selfish epicenter for what can only by a microcosm. I forget that not everyone is familiar with what I am familiar with because it become so prevalent and dominating in my mind.
These days I think everyone has heard of Will Oldham. I believe he is an entity like Willie Nelson, known to artists and NASCAR fans alike. He is not though, he is just in the places I look. Eyewhere in the places I look. But thats okay though because I love and respect him. He has a new poem in Octopus magazine. My friend Patrick just gave me WAI NOTES, demos versions of his last album. It is better than the album. Also, a trailer for a film I heard about two years ago has popped up on youtube. The film is a documentary featuring Will and the director tripping on mushrooms.
This reminds me of OLD JOY, the film Will starred in a few years ago. Except that was fiction. OLD JOY one of my favorite movies of all time. If you haven't seen it, please do.
Blake Butler has a new e-book online called, PRETEND I AM THERE BUT VERY LITTLE, and is great. The man seems to hame no shortage of imagery that shakes you from the inside. I honestly can't wait to see what Blae is doing in ten years. Also, I like the nice viewer in which this book is formatted. It makes me want to do an e-book.
Wigleaf has posted a new story of mine. A thanks to Scott for putting in the extra time.
I'm reworking my current manuscript titled GREEN PARENTHETIC SUITCASE. I am adding and subtracting, and hopefully send it to a few places soon. I may retitle it. I am bad with titles. I used to be good. I would think of good titles while mowing the lawn. I never wrote them down.
I am currently on Cape Cod at my parents house. My parents are in Ireland. I've had a nice vacation over the last few days. I've eaten oysters, drank rum and cokes, drank Baileys and coffee, watched several movies, watched herring pile on top of each other, watched birds sing, ran ona treadmill, walked the dog, read the sunday paper. Pretty good.These things are important.
I brought a load of books with me. Most half read. Today I will finish some of them.
I read Ron Klassnik's new book HOLY LAND. BLACK OCEAN put this out. They did another incredible job. Ron (I am using the 'classic spelling.' I think he's using 'RAUON' these days) is a classic literary pornographer. The images of cum and sex blend perfectly with his scope of blood, destruction, nature, rivers, and sardonic humor. He reminds me a bit of Henry Miller, but so much more concise.
Ron will now be reading on Sunday June 8th at Brookline Booksmith with Zach Schomburg,Chad Reynolds, and Carl Annarumo.
The Booksmith also now has copies of Zach's THE MAN SUIT and Ron's HOLY LAND. Email me if you want one. I will buy it for you.
REMEMBER
SIR!, my new literary magazine, is taking submissions. Submit something now.
The Big News:
Announcing SIR!
SIR SIR! is to be a new online literary junction. It will host wayward writings by miscreants and casual norms. The goals is to have a stalwart issue for a set time period to be determined, with a section of rolling updates.
There will be no outright emphasis on content, but will remain enthusiastic about the beasts called microfiction and prose poetry. As for our aesthetic, Wigleaf, Alice Blue, Lamination Colony, and Octopus are all current publications that make us squirm with joy.
Send 2-6 inventions of your personal liking. You may send them in the body of an email, or as a RTF attachment. We currently accept prose poems, poetry, microfiction, and fragments. No genre fiction, no boredom. Please include a short cover letter and a bio, as well as your email somewhere in the body.
Submit to - sir.editor@gmail.com with the word "submission" in th title.
This past Saturday Dara Wier, Caroline Knox, and Dorothea Lasky read at the Booksmith. Their poetic and audible voices are very different, but are brilliant nonetheless.
I had watched Dottie read on youtube and was pretty apprehensive about her style. But seeing her read in person was much more visceral. Though her poems are confessional and earnest, her presentation is almost confrontational. It sweeps you away and forces you into the poems voice. My favorite line of the night was delivered by her.
People think I'm weird.
I'm not weird.
THE LATE 70'S
Those were wistful times, everyone was deep
In thought for something yearned for or lost.
Sometimes we mulled things over.
I'd lean down the gingham sheets and speak
To your wife. We used indoor voices.
Thanks to a popular soap opera
Pianism was in the air, everyone
Listened to the second movement
Of Beethoven's “Pathétique” sonata. Your wife
Was keen on lambent humanism.
When the heretics returned wearing sackcloths,
She wore the coarsest sackcloth
To the Academy Awards. On odd numbered days
I siphoned gas from your black Mustang.
Everyone was using their minds to form
Thoughts or bend spoons. When I called
On your mother in her nursing home,
I wore my genius lightly. I always brought
A lei of wildflowers and recited
The interstate highway numbers
Until the pear juice was served.
Did that square the circle? Sometimes
We chewed over the tip of the iceberg.
Then we came up for air. I don't know
What my life would be now if I hadn't
But I wish I hadn't.
--Peter Jay Shippy
I am reading Kim Chinquee's Oh Baby. I've been judging books lately on whether they're good or not by whether they inspire me to put them down continually to write. So far I think I like this book. Some her pieces I've read recently have done nothing for me, but she is varied in content and structure. When devoting your artistic life to short inventions you take more chances. Therefore you earn more leeway. I'm only halfway though, so more to come.
A new issue of Alice Blue Review is up. I haven't touched it yet, but Mike Young is in it.
My favorite new discovery is Etgar Keret. He is an Israeli writer who specializes in tiny absurd fables. He been around for decades now, but his work is now being reissued by FSG. I'm reading his new collection, The Girl on the Fridge, and wondering why no one has ever told me about him before. He's right up there with Edson and Tate (so it seems, I need to read more) as a large imagination crammed into a small format.
Yesterday I went to Concord, MA and drank sangria. Tonight I am alone and will probably eat oysters and write nothing.
I read the Pshares blog. Here is an article about Aram Saroyan and the most expensive word in history. It is a great article that winds into a poem of Kenneth Patchen.
Contributor Kathleen Rooney writes about her new book with Elissa Gabbert. The Boston Review has a new poem from this book. I stole it. Here it is.
If this bed is the tracks I’m tied to, you
can’t be lax at this crux of our junction.
You must be able, like a wolf, to smell fear,
to leer like a wolf at the length of my legs.
These are the legs that got me here.
These are the teeth I use to bite you,
or rather used, when I used to bite you,
leaving you bruised in little heart shapes
on your vocal box. What can I say?
Tonight is the happiest day of my life.
—Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney
The Boston Review is one of the best things about Boston.
It is National Poetry month. That title is only 12 years old, but it seems like its been going on fucking eternal. Every article written about National Poetry Month starts like this - "T.S. Elliot once wrote 'April is the cruelest month'.''
I do not care about National poetry Month. It is a month long affectation. It is similar to the feeling I get during St. Patrick's Day where the populous unifies for a certain amount of time to pretend and ape another species with complete disregard. In April, pretend to care about poetry. Here is a good example. Notice how the article begins. Notice how these poets don't give a fuck and are bored. Nothing has changed for them. They will be reading Mark Doty and thinking about budding credenzas no matter what month it is. Ask me what I'm doing in November of next year, and then I'll know you care. They should have asked Peter Shippy what he was doing, or Chad Reynolds about National Poetry Month. The answers would have been more interesting.
Let's not think about it. Let's look elsewhere.
Saltgrass might be a good journal, but I don't know. I bought an issue and never received it. I just remembered this. I've wasted $5.00 on worse things. They have a new one coming out soon.
Blake Butler is on day three of his 10-15 day novel. This is a great idea. Blake says he has generated over 10,000 words already. Damn. This is an idea I'd like to try, but I'd probably only get as far as 3,000 words. Some good novels were written swiftly - most recently Jesse Ball's Samedi the Deafness, which I enjoyed a lot. Jesse Ball supposedly works very fast. His web page alludes to many mysterious works. He is a mysterious man. Here is a picture of Jesse not being very mysterious. He is having a good time. He is with Sloane Crosley, who is a publicist at Vintage and an author who I hosted last night. She was funny and kind. She wrote this book, which has a great essay on the Oregon Trail. Did you play the Oregon Trail? I did. I loved it. Matt Bell writes about his love for this essay too. Jesse Ball looks like he is not used to being around funny women like Sloane. This doesn't matter. I will buy his next book regardless.
This weekend I host the poets Caroline Knox, Dara Wier, and Dorthea Laskey. This reading is at 7pm at Brookline Booksmith. I am anxious for this, as I like the work of all three people. We will celebrate National Poetry Month. In blood.
I just noticed two new pieces of mine were posted up at Word Riot last week. A lot of things to read this week.
I also have a new thing up at elimae. That was quick. There is work by Jimmy Chen and Jess Rowan. Cooper Renner is a crucial dude. He puts out some of the best. When I one day open my gas station/garden shop, he will take board in the back room.
I cant stop changing the colors on my blog.
Pequin has a new story of mine up. It inspired by my friend's name and coffee. My friends' name is Michael. Thanks very much to Steven. I read Pequin most everyday.
This weekend I went to Groliers and bought
Matthew Rohrer - Green Light
Christan Hawkey - Citizen Of
Cannibal #3
I couldn't believe they had Cannibal on hand. I do love the all poetry mart, but its selection can be a bit stuffy. I'm delighted with Green Light. His latest Rise Up inspired me a lot this winter. Other things I acquired lately are
Nin Andrews - Dear Professor
Nin Andrews - Sleeping With Houdini
C.D. Wright - Rising, Falling, Hovering
The Best American Prose Poems - edited by David Lehman
Nin Andrews sister left those books for me last Friday and asked if she could read at my bookstore. People leave behind books for me all the time. They're mostly garbage, but this was awesome. I had read her before. She will be coming in September.
I feel an obsession with C.D. Wright coming on. It may just be her commanding name. Either way I have her Selected Poems coming my way that I need to read as soon as I can.
I have been reading a lot, but am having trouble finishing anything. I am still reading Jane Kenyon. In his collection of essays,Orphan Factory, Charles Simic considers Jane Kenyon and the lyric poem. He evades critical analysis, instead wraps her into an impassioned voice of "naked humanity." I picture her as with a sweater on. She strives to ascertain the "uncomplicated mind" through the precarious mundanities as captured through everyday witness. I honestly find her work helpful and am surprised I've gone so long without it.
I came across this blog which regards a thought I've been mulling over lately. I've seen a few editors when stating guidelines for their magazines ask for "pure" work (my words, not theirs) where it cannot be previously published in any realm, including personal blogs. I don't know how I feel about this. For one, it is good to regard the work as more sacred than the writer may treat it, giving it the devoted attention it may or may not deserve. But calling into question the credibility of a piece because it has surfaced on the authors blog seems extreme to me. Writers' blogs in particular walk an odd line between an attempt at a personal connection and a curriculum vitae. There is a self awareness, especially when the possibility of writers/editors/mothers who may find you through links to your work. But however polished an individual may seem this medium is basically a practice. There needs to be room for do overs and drafts. I often like to post work, usually to counter self indulgent rants like this one with a product of productivity. Lots of great writers post what they're working on. The voyeurism can sometimes be an inspiration for a creative process. Sometimes its finished, sometimes it'll be changed. Either way, I'd hate for it to be considered "published." Just because the little orange button on the left says it, it doesn't make it true.
Tonight, under heavy eyelids, I have written a tribute to do overs set in my favorite annual celebratory time of doing things over, daylight savings time. It is called Practice. For now anyway. Most likely it will change.
PracticeLet the annual party to turn back our clocks commence in the moonlit field. Let us dance in the headlights to the sound of our car radios tuned to one late night harp solo. And then, as if fireflies aborted from a jelly jar, all the shit we’ve said in the last hour never really happened. Like the mention of an underwater kiss shared between you and your brother last summer. Or the confession you fed me by the tire that you keep the allowance left in your daughters’ pockets when you do her laundry. In that hour was the only time you didn’t call me uncle and for once I felt positively corrected in my wet clothes. The country calculator. The reason we hate math and the days drive slower.
Today at work I received in the mail this book (look up). It is A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness - four short chapbooks of short short fiction by four women - Amy L Clark, Elizabeth Ellen, Kathy Fish, and Claudia Smith. I love what I've read of Claudia Smith, and Amy Clark I have read with and hosted before. She has a story, collected here, called "How to Burn a House" that is very good.
Rose Metal Press is really doing great work these days. I like their designs as well. Take a look at their new web page.
I just got a piece accepted in elimae. It should be posted in a few days. I'm glad to finally be in elimae.
I am thinking of opening up my own store. This morning I did not wake up thinking that.
I have read through the new NOON. The stories by Lydia Davis and Brandon Hobson are just about as good as it gets. The cover rules too.
I forgot I had a sandwich, then I remember I had a sandwich, now I am eating a sandwich.
I am also reading Jean Valentine's Little Boat and Louise Gluck's Averno. I am reading quiet poetry. Sometimes I like reading more conventional poetry because it translates so strangely into my brain. Also, it makes me write better. Possibly. The words Little Boat makes me feel peaceful.
It's Friday. Payday. Have you ordered Peter Berghoef's News of the Haircut? You should.
Go here
In the mirror shaving. I find a long grey hair, hiding. I separate it from the crowd and pull. It doesn’t budge. I exert a greater effort and again it refuses. With a great pain I give it the strength of my manhood. It finally gives way. But it has not been torn out. It multiples in length, its expansion significant in size. I pull a little more. I hold the fine end in my palm, the loop falling to the floor. I am afraid to go further, afraid of what it will do to me. I pull a little more. I could forget something vital, like a birthday or feeling. Its roots seem deep like a tree, unraveling from an unknown spool immersed in the soil of my skull. I pull a little more.
There is a new Lamination Colony. A few weeks ago Blake posted a link to Didi Menendez's new magazine, called Oranges and Sardines. Didi is the mind behind MiPOesias. I told Emily to send some of her artwork. She did and Didi accepted it. I saw the proofs this morning and they look good. I submitted too, but I don't think I'll get in.
It is 70 degrees outside today. I am inside.
I caved to the sounds of Battles. I used to think they sounded like a Volkswagon commerical. Now I think they sound like Smurf R&B. Someone called them "future funk" and that seems right on. Here they playing to the Japanese. The Japanese are nuts for them. Check it out. I like this song.
I have been reading the Collected Poems of Jane Kenyon. I am reading her Collected Poems on Greywolf Press. They are comforting in a New England menutia sort of way and good to read as the weather is getting nicer outside. I had never read her before this week. I know Chareles Simic like Jane Kenyon. She lived in New Hamppshire and was a fox. The poem below is a response to her poem of the same name, which I liked a lot.
The Guest
For Jane KenyonThrough the hole in the screen door comes the guest. I am the kitchen, swearing. He is spinning his wheels, making a play, for what I do not know. He dives in and about, coming close to the cave entrance of my mind where he knows he’s not aloud. I swipe at him, crunching his body like a cornflake. For a moment I am proud, then elsewhere. Days later, a knock at the door. A man of several beards. He says he is looking for his friend Ronald, that he followed him this far to my home where the trail ends abruptly. I ask him what Ronald looks like. He tells me, small and troublesome. He puts a finger through the hole in the screen door. I tell him I’m sorry, but cannot help him. He goes on his way. I move into the living room and sit down, relieved. I am awakened by the silence. Suddenly, as if haunted, I start at a sound in the valley. A far off chainsaw, turning trees into pencils
It has been one week since Peter Berghoef's chapbook, News of The Haircut, has been released by Greying Ghost Press. I have read it four times. This is what the outside package looks like.
The insides, the heart and groin of the book, are special and cannot be shown. But believe me - it is spectacular. First, the poems are word grenades. I am extremely impressed with the amount of imaginative punch packed into such brevity. Most poems are about nine lines or so in ultimate free verse. They will pull you through a hole causing minute alterations to your mind and/or day. I have no reason to lie about this. I think this book needs to be read and Peter's work needs to be published wide and far. Read a sample, here.
Secondly, Greying Ghost Press honcho wolf Carl Annarummo did an intense job with the packaging. This is no twine and glue operation. We have true craft here in a version of 75 editions. Of all the chapbooks I've come across this year, Carl's budget production by far exceeds any expectation any writer could have about someone taking their writing and putting it into a format. This is a book you're going to hold onto for a long time. Go here to buy it. It's cheaper than a city sandwich.
Carl is still accepting manuscripts for future releases. He is truly one of the few. Check him out.
I have a new manuscript of inventions. It is called Green Parenthetical Suitcase. It is a short manuscript. I am looking for homes. Home searching.
Should you know of any places that accept unsolicited short chapbook manuscripts, please suggest some.
Above is a picture that appears when you Google G.P.S.
I just realized the acronym. Interesting.
Yesterday morning I found an email in my spam sent late Saturday night. It was from three poets from Minnesota. They asked to send poetry before dawn for a new project that was going up in the morning. I was a little late but sent a few new things. The result is Left-Facing Bird, a collection of 100 poets put together in less than 12 hours and it looks pretty good. Kate Greenstreet, Noah Eli Gordon, Chris Tonelli, Elisa Gabert are there.
I guess between 12-3:45a.m. on Saturday they'd already received 75 submissions. I sent mine through the curtains of a hangover. And while I don't feel especially proud of that, I do find it a little sad 75 of these people were around the country, inside, on the interenet on a Saturday night. Someone needs to throw a party.
Friday night was something special. My friend Jen hosted a reading at her house. Her house was one of the nicest I've ever seen in the area and she made the best appetizers - Brussell Sprout leaves friend in canolda oil with cayenne pepper, stuffed mushrooms, hot Mexican cookies. She, a fella named Paul, and Chad Reynolds read from their works. I wished I'd had a camera. There were a whole bunch of people, drunk and full, who paid the utmost respect and interest to the reading, even when it ran a little long. Really something special.
Very special to finally hear Chad Reynolds read. He knows his stuff. He also read from a Frank Stafford poem, whom I have to check out. He'll be reading in June with Zach Schomburg and Carl, which is gonna be great.
If anything though, Friday inspired me to put together a reading at my house. My place is small, but I think it'll work out. If you would like to read at my house in May, let me know.
Blaze Vox has posted their new issue with three poems of mine, The Woodpeck, The Saw, and An Act of Violence. Please enjoy them.
Also, there is a good poem by Mark Cunningham, which I am going to steal to show to you now. Here it is.
Squash Beetle
In the future, everyone will be unobserved for fifteen minutes
There is a new magazine online I found leaking from Julia Cohen's blog. The new magazine is called Fou. It's pretty astonishing. Mathew Rohrer, Zachary Schomburg, Michael Earl Craig, Elaine Equi, Matthew Zapruder. And it's some good work too. Rereadable. Around each authors poems are some great illustrations by a fella named Brad Soucy. They're playful and a bit ominous at the same time and all of them star a fox.
If I were a crappy middle aged marketting exec, I would now writesomething like -
"Now go get your Fou on!"
Instead I will now write what I overheard a group of young hipster girls warning one another whilst walking towards pizza -
"Prozac is a pill that makes you fall out of love."
***
Speaking of Julia, I am very very very slowly reading her new chapbook, Who Could Forget The Sensational First Evening of the Night. She is a perplexing word goblin. Perplexing word goblin is not a very good description of a talented poet. Sorry Julia. I will try harder next time. I can say, though, the cover is great. It looks like this.
***
I am about to realize I am an awful speller.
Read this new story called Lawnmower Season by Spencer Troxell up now at Eyeshot. It's brilliant. Here is a lure -
In the suburbs, we know that if the angels of the apocalypse choose the first day of spring to blow their horns, we can drown out the noise with the sound of our lawnmowers.
Blaze Vox has accepted three inventions of mine for their Spring issue. They are my favorite pieces yet and I'm really happy this is where they'll be going.
I can't tell if its obnoxious to post acceptances or not. Should I just post them when they go live? Whatever. I've not much else going on. I should post rejections as well, to keep it fair and balanced. Here are two publications that have rejected me recently.
Yankee Pot Roast
Sawbuck
Jhumpa Lahiri will visit me on Saturday. Shit is sold out. People are nuts for her. I don't know why. I read Interpreter of Maladies and it reminded me of eating a benign pear or something. I only now think of her in the context of Tao Lin's EEEEE EEEEE EEEEE.
"Jhumpa Lahiri won the Pulitzer Prize".
I want to do something like this for my chapbook release, but my apartment is small. Maybe I will takeover an UNO's instead between the hours of 9pm-1am. UNO's.the piano&scene reading serieswho: jennifer cacicio, paul calvert, and chad reynoldswhat: fiction, poetry, food, wine, kissing, cursing, pre-recorded musicwhere: 71 boylston st., 2nd floor, brooklinewhen: friday, april 4th; come after 7, readings begin at 8
questions or directions? 617.308.3235
