Books I brought to California

Books I've bought while in California

Books I need

(Ray Dipalma - Numbers & Tempers)

And here is a poem by Graham Foust, to make me feel better.

POEM WITH SIDE EFFECT

Every recollection - from the smallest, most in-
significant jangle of trash to watching
someone care for machines to fan-blade
shadows of blood-begins
as a secret. (That's the truth, and of course
I can't prove it; I think I mean what I don't
want to say.) But why's the dull tangle of denial
half of life? Lying's lonely-to lie
alone is least as good. And I'm over here, keeping
split, requiring assembly. Forget weeping.
Get silent. My lack of desire says hi.

Ben Mirov & Amy Lawless did a lil featurette on The Constitution over at Best American Poetry Blog. I got some Rage to go along with. Also featured were Luke Bloomfield, Chris Salerno, and Brave Men Press's Ben Kopel.


Did you hear about Ben Kopel?

H_NGM_N Books is going to be putting out his first collection, VICTORY!

That, is right.


You can still get a copy of Ben's chapbook BECAUSE WE MUST in the Brave Men Press Coin Library.


In other news, Greying Ghost is going to release a chapbook of mine before the end of the year. Its called GOING ATTRACTIONS.

GOING ATTRACTIONS is also the name of my manuscript, which I just finished. So now, I have a manuscript. Finally.

Salt Horse & Bed

The new issue of Saltgrass is out. Poems by Cynthia Arrieu-King, Anselm Berrigan, Justin Carrol, Tina Brown Celona, J’Lyn Chapman, Cathy Linh Che, Sandra Doller, John Gallaher, Anne Cecelia Holmes, Lily Ladewig, Heather Monley, GC Waldrep.

I have two poems in the issue. See one of them, here.

Also, I'm pleased to let you know that I will be the new co-editor of Saltgrass with Julia Cohen.

We have an open reading month this June. Right now. We hope you submit your weirdest shit.



Also today, Horseless Review #9 is out. Horse Less Review #9 includes writing by Brian Foley, Chris Hosea, Catherine Meng, Rhiannon Dickerson, Anne Shaw, Carrie Olivia Adams, Kerry Webster, Tony Mancus, TaraShea Nesbit, Adam Reich, Kevin McLellan, Mark DeCarteret, Travis Cebula, Elizabeth Robinson, Megan Burns, Thomas Trudgeon, Erik Anderson, Jennifer H. Fortin and Nate Pritts, Brooklyn Copeland, Maria Getto, Linda Dove, Carrie Bennett, Michael Flatt, James Yeary, Nicole Wilson, and Shawn Huelle. Cover art by Michael Sikkema.

I have four poems up around in there. Thanks Jen & Jen! Check out the issue here.


When I said I live here I actually meant I live here -

I Live in Here Now

Son Ark, Coyote, Broken Numbers Band
@ Pappy & Harriets,
Pioneertown, CA

Matt Henriksen, Phil Cordelli, Brandon Shimoda, Dot Devota, Lucas Farrell
@ Flying Object, April 2011

A few weeks ago I posted this conversation between Matt Henriksen and Brandon Shimoda on HTMLGiant. Its spooky & brilliant. See it here.

MATTHEW: I don’t understand “through” as a process of knowing, only as a motion witnessed (“the duck passed through the rising smoke”). I think we know “in.” The women I admire in my personal life, as suggested by the poetry I most admire by women, seem to have a larger “in.” They live more intimately with the world than any men I know, and that intimacy brings a wealth of abstract connotations and connections, which must make their worlds larger and more real. I have a grandmother who can empathize straight to the bottom of anyone’s despair, and so she directs her action with kindness. I’m tightly bonded with my daughter, but by father-daughter actions, play and goofiness. Katy and Adele have a mother-daughter “in” while they sit on the couch nursing that I can’t sit “in” on. Maybe because our mothers pass us on into the world they remain in us partially and represent a larger intimate unknown that brings us comfort. But I don’t know that. I know marriage changed me and made me a feminist. In my marriage, at least half comprised by the pure feminine instinct, I feel more privy to the logical nature of tenderness—which I formerly attributed to values, as an act of rebellion against the will to power. Didn’t a woman give birth to Nietzsche? But after mother-love, we make a choice to love another. I don’t know if that love exists.

Also good news: Cannibal Books is not yet dead. New chapbooks by Dot Devota, Adam Roberts & Tom Andes are now available.

I woke up this morning to budgeted time this put aside to read THIS ISA NICE NEIGHBORHOOD by Farid Martuk, a book I love a lot. This is my favorite poem.

(*I apologize. The line breaks wont appear as they should in blogger. But I think the content overcomes this. To see the real, go here)



Anamorphosis

Two shepherd collies lie in the grass
of the children’s outfield
A woman stands between them so tall

their mistress, mistress smokes
She keeps sunset

A slow cloud bank rises over the park
to refract the light through particulate
garbage air,

light honeyed
in the methane

Islanded in the long grass I am drinking a bottle of water
keeping sunset

Warm air trades places with cold air
knocking a plastic bag around
the new leaves of a park tree

I’m a shitty listener—
too many things sound like paper
or a phone ringing

Usually there is plane
traffic above me
but I am allowed to see it
intermittently
by steam trails

My mother has been allowed to grow old—
I visit
drive her
away from her TV
so she can say things before she dies

Today she talked about her rape
he took pictures of her at gunpoint

A long time ago painters
laid out
shadows such that if
you stand in the right place
they coalesce for your eyes
into a skull

So we
learn to look
at anything and recognize death

That’s alright I’ll
do that

but right now I want a bigger
compass to draw the register of planes above me

the woman and her dogs
gone home
the Marlboro in the grass
the plastic bottle in my hand

I want to hear the plastic bag
in the tree
I want to look up
and see that it’s death
and a plastic bag
and a city tree

---

I have five poems in the new SPRINGGUN. They're the first (finished) versions of a long poem called TOTEM. View it here. Big thanks to Erin and Mark for working with me on these.

I had a banger of a time in Denver. Saw so many I care for and admire. Heres what some of that saw looked like.

Im reading this Saturday in Denver at the Bad Shadow Affair with Amy Catanzano, Aaron McCollough & Richard Froude. Im excited.

Have I shown you this book? This is to celebrate the Brave Men Press reading with Chris Martin, Michelle Taransky, Ben Kopel and me that we had back in March. 2 poems by each writer. Each fingerprint a signature. 30 were made.

Greg Purcell and Ish Klein do a podcast. Its great. This week that has on Dara Wier. Dara had a poem this week in the the Boston Review

"She told me about someone who was specializing for a while in cute-gay-guy emo-porn‚
which seems to be a fad market for teenage girls in Japan."

Last week, here, we had the Juniper Festival. Had the good graces to see Sommer Browning explode. Here are some pictures from after party at Flying Object.





Also saw Abraham Smith come to. His new book HANK is my favorite this year by far. Just unhinged music. See what its like to be sung.

Last night Brandon Downing read his new long poem last night. I think its called "At Me," but last night it was called "Jar Jar Dump."

I love Brandon. He breaks poetry.

Tonight is the opening of his art show at Flying Object, called BETA Pearls. Some videos will be shown. This is my favorite.

There is Yes

Blake Butler is a crucial dude. One of the nicest dudes I've met. The type of guy that makes you happy to be a part of the writing community because you get to know, by email or face, good humans such as he. And there is no one who can write like him. No one. His new book THERE IS NO YEAR is out today from Harper Perrenial. Im glad "the man" is paying close attention. It feels like victory. For one and all. So glad things are happening for this guy. Couldnt happen to a better human/writer.