If I Had Money

Black Ocean are having a Black Friday sale.

On November 28th, from 12:01am to 11:59pm, buy any book priced $11.95 or more and get a second title of your choice FREE (offer does not apply to issues of Handsome). Just write in a note on the PayPal order page which title you’d like to receive. And, as always: Free Shipping! Go to http://www.blackocean.org/catalog.html to place your orders. Support independent publishing and have a very handsome holiday.

B.O. are responsible for Zach Schomburg's The Man Suit and Rauan Klassnik's Holy Land. If you don't own either of these books, now is the time to help yourself.

If you're not familiar with Rauan's shattering work, read some poems from the first issue of SIR! and some in the new issue of Coconut.

Recent Library Aquisitions

Autumn Sonata - George Trakl
Gathering Up The Bones - Gregory Orr
Collected Poems - George Bataille
Collected Poems - Tomaz Saluman

A Piano in the Woods

Where I grew up, they found a piano in the woods. It had a stool and it was in tune.

Baby Burrito

Congratulations to Chad & Emily Reynolds who on Nov 7th successfully created a human, Emmett Charles Reynolds. I hope if anyone grows up to be the real life John Conner, it's this guy.

Read this fantastic article on Lewis Hyde, author of The Gift, that appeared in this past weeks NYTimes. A primer for thoughts on gift economy in the arts and an understanding why we poor ourselves over poetry. I haven't yet read the book (I will) but it seems a belief system I could get behind.

In the article the author talks about Hyde's refutation to Emerson's "Self Reliance," prompting me to got back and read the entire essay this afternoon. Man, there is some shit in there.

Thanks to all who visited SIR! over the past five days. We've had more than 900 visitors so far. This is in large part due to all those who blogged about it. Thank you one and all. I particularly like this sweet rendition of the floating heads motif by Rauan Klassnik-


I'll be taking submissions for the next issue come December 1st. I ask you to send poetry.

Another installation of Chris Tonelli's sentient gravitron over at Verse Daily.

I have a lot of poems out in the world right now. I wish some of them would come back to me dressed up in an editors design. Two are soon to appear in Anti- and Gander Press Review.

I'm working on essays for grad school applications. I'm writing an essay on Croatian poet Slavko Mihalic who I wrote about here. I've searched pretty extensively but have only come up with his 36 page chapbook of selected poems, Atlantis, as the only resource of his work translated into English. Biographical information on him is scant as well. I wonder if this is a poor subject to pursue, to speculate on certain details because the information is not readily translatable. Is it a poor choice to analyze a selected poems that cannot be filled with context, or even a date of authorship? I would choose to focus on the words themselves, but much of it is informed as a reaction to the politics and conditions of the time. It seems arrogant and halved not to consider them, to find out where the poet himself was at the time. I guess I need to learn Croatian.

I hate this part.

SIR! Issue 1

After wrong turns and long evenings, I am proud to announce the debut issue of SIR!
a new online literary journal of poetry and prose - The flagship issue is jammed with 23 contributors of varying temperaments and styles. It includes - Chad Reynolds, Noah Falck, Blake Butler, Ryan Walsh (of the band Hallelujah the Hills), Scott Garson,Mike Young, Juliet Cook, Brooklyn Copeland, Rauan Klassnik, Peter Berghoef, Elisa Gabbert, Carl Annarummo, Peter Schwartz, Zachary Schomburg & Emily Kendal Frey, Sean Kilpatrick, Julia Cohen,Charles Lennox, Shane Jones, Spencer Troxell, Brandon Hobson, Nicolle Elizabeth, Nathan Logan, and William Walsh.

We ask you to please tell your friends about SIR! by blogging, email, or by cordless telephone.
This is vital for our continuation and motivation to get up in the morning.
Currently we are not accepting submissions .
We will be accepting submissions for for Issue 2 come December 1st.

VISIT SIR! HERE

This issue would not have been possible were it not for the gracious patience of the contributors
and the hard work of Emily Goodale who designed the issue.

If you have any feedback, I would love to know what you think.
sir.editor@gmail.com
sir-magazine.org
www.eunuchsblues.blogspot.com

Often I find myself surrounded by political disillusionment. After Bush, it is understandable. It is, in fact, fine. But it can also screw up convictions, especially for someone like me who is a natural cynic and contrarian who so badly wants to be optimistic upon occasion. Well the is week the air conditioning has been replaced by actual air. So for all cynics who feel unchanged after Tuesdays' wake, this optimistic poem seems appropriate.

Try To Praise The Mutilated World

Adam Zagajewski

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.


Translated by Renata Gorczynski

The danger is that we live in a world where there’s irony on one side and fundamentalism (religious, political) on the other. Between them the space is rather small, but it’s my space.” - A.Z.

Readings

Tonight - Kim Chinquee & Michael Kimball at the Dire Literary Series.

Monday - Peter Markus in RI.

The mountain makes a strange sound

The Corduroy Mountain, Issue 1. Really liking the poems of Emily Frey.

Reviews

I have two book reviews at New Pages. They are of Jesse Ball's Parables & Lies and Matthew Rohrer's They All Seemed Asleep. In short, I loved them both.

Books I recently received from NP -

Dear Professor, Do You Live in a Vacuum? - Nin Andrews
Body Language - Mark Cunningham
Dear Ra - Johannes Goransson
The Ant King & Other Stories - Benjamin Rosenbaum

I am sick. I haven't been sick in over two years. Nose runs. Yesterday I spent the majority of awake hours working on SIR! The issue will be posted this time next week. I can't apologize enough for the delay.

While in wait, look at Fou 2. Its great. I would like SIR! to look like Fou, but it will not. Fou is what an online literary journal should be. SIR! will be the boring looking teenager with a great personality.

Tomorrow is the day. It is all I can think about. As with anything, i hope for the best, but expect nothing.