$650 apartment for $650

Bad Shadow Press

2012-01-18T13:58:00.001-08:00

Also, you must come to this reading on Saturday. I get real nervous beforehand because of the intros I write for the readers. So, you can watch me be jittery and then refocus your attention on the awesome readers. Sommer Browning will introduce people too, but she won't be nervous because she is invincible:

Exciting Bad Shadow Affair reading this Saturday, January 21st, also celebrating the release of Richard Froude’s second book. This reading will feature Kristin Naca, Heather Green, Peter Streckfus, and Richard Froude. Details and bios below:

Bad Shadow Affair: This Saturday, January 21st

Time: 7:30 (we will start on time, yo)

Location: Lost Lake Lounge

3602 E Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80206

Kristin Naca's writing has appeared in Poetry, Indiana Review, and Octopus. Her collection of poetry, BIRD EATING BIRD, was selected for the National Poetry Series mtvU Prize and appears with Harper Perennial. BIRD EATING BIRD was named finalist for the Audre Lorde Prize and Lambda Literary Award in 2010. In 2010-11, she served as Poetry Mentor for the Loft Literary Center's Mentor Series Program. This past summer she lived in Marfa, TX, on a residency with the Lannan Foundation. Naca is a long-time member of the Macondo Writers’ Workshop in San Antonio, Texas.

Heather Green's translations of Tristan Tzara appear in Barrelhouse and Denver Quarterly. Her two chapbooks, No Omen and The Match Array, were published in 2010 by LATR Press and Dancing Girl Press, respectively. Her poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Octopus, Phoebe, DIAGRAM, and other journals.

Peter Streckfus's first book, The Cuckoo, was the 2004 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. His work has appeared or is forthcoming this year in Pleiades, The Academy of American Poets'poets.org, The Seattle Review, and Slate.com. He teaches at the University of Alabama.

Richard Froude is from Bristol, England. He came to the US in 2002 as has not yet left. He is the author of FABRIC (Horse Less, 2011) and The Passenger (Skylight, 2012) as well as a book of translation, Tarnished Mirrors (Muffled Cry, 2004). He graduated from the English/Creative Writing PhD program at DU in 2011 and currently serves as Research Co-ordinator with an interdiscplinary team studying the benefits of narrative therapies for under-served cancer patients. He is an associate of the Arts and Humanities in Healthcare program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, a premedical student at CU Denver, and works with palliative care patients at University Hospital and at Denver Health. This summer he'll return to teach the weekly MFA class at Naropa's Summer Writing Program. He lives in Denver with his wife Rohini.

Pencils for Protein! Press

2012-01-18T13:18:00.000-08:00

I'm starting a campaign on behalf of pencils that want more protein in their diet. Pencils for Protein!

PfP!

Or, maybe it's like Overly Concerned People Who Think Pencils Need More Protein!

OCPWTPNMP!

"Oh hey there lil' pencil. I didn't see you, you're lookin' so thin. WANT SOME PROTEIN?"

Oh, why don't you try this ZONE cookie dough bar. Then you can tell me how in god's forsaken world it is considered a health bar. IT'S PURE COOKIE DOUGH & PRESERVATIVES:

I went to my friend's art opening the first friday of Jan, when many studios and galleries are open to the public, and this one gallery had a bowl of these ZONE bars, as if they were pistachios or grapes.

I took two.

***

On a more sane note, sort of, Mathias Svalina and I have two bestiaries up at Dark Sky Magazine. Where? RIGHT HERE.

Oh yes, we're writing a book of bestiaries. Maybe we'll need to add the Zone Bar to the list of beasts.

Also, check out Brian Foley's poem up at Dark Sky Magazine, too. Oh yes you should.
***

I emailed my Colorado representative and 2 senators about SOPA & PIPA. I recommend you do that too, where ever you are. Join the "End Piracy, Save Liberty" campaign (admittedly, it is way better than Pfp!):

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

or:

http://www.stopthewall.us/?gclid=CJDB5ojD2q0CFWrktgodRzHJoA

Or: if you go to wikki, it will direct you to your own state reps and senators when you plug in your zip code.

When the Sun Blinds the Book Press

2011-12-25T11:34:00.000-08:00

One Act Play at the End of Xmas Eve Dinner:

Guest: That was delicious....so where is the launcher?
Parent: I have the rockets.
Guest: Are those the matches?
Julia: No, that's my camera.
(mother finds matches, guests & family go to the patio to explode things)

FIRE & EXPLOSIONS ENSUE.

the End.

***

Yes, a very exciting Christmas Eve! I ate so much food I could hardly move, yet we still managed to light 3 sky lanterns & float them into the night, and then launch some rockets, polishing it off with 3 foot long sparklers.

***

Um, in all seriousness, though, I do feel very lucky to have spent the evening eating delicious food & meeting my parents' friends. Friends who like to cook delicious food & explode things, too. I feel very lucky that I get to not just hear about my parents' lives in Mexico, but be a part of the adventure.

I Hated That I Could Not Take Photos In The Mask Museum Press

2011-12-23T18:17:00.000-08:00

Luckily, I could sneak some photos at the Mexican Toy Museum, a few blocks from where my parents live:

Family Hang Time Press

2011-12-23T17:38:00.000-08:00

Just hangin' out with my dad:

Pre-Historic Comedy Press

2011-12-22T07:25:00.000-08:00

Garden of babies? I planted the sun under the tongue of returns. A whimper winds the sound gears grind over. Foraged syntax. Who romps the ruins? To locate a glance in the forest, stride through the wild chives, the beehive swinging like a lantern. Honey & hiccups.

Who kneed the hummingbird that despaired the tulip's chalice. Who in the leaf-lavished air will stick. Belly-ached into an album. Light lifts nothing. Forged opacity. Face.

I Reached for the Ruins Press

2011-12-22T07:05:00.000-08:00

Well, my parents have a frog made out of sugar in their study room. I would like to show it to you. Coming out of the darkness:

I like it's sloppy mouth.

The only thing not edible about it: sequined eyes. I'm glad it has an anus.
**
I went to newly excavated ruins in San Miguel yesterday. The archeologists are waiting for DNA samples to determine who actually build them and lived there between 440-1110 AD, although right now they think the Otomi tribe:

We were allowed to climb on them. That was awesome & weird.
**

Laura Sims has poems up at Omni Verse: http://www.omni-verse.net/?p=1902
this awesome line is in her poem: "We with our canons and spaceships were children"
**

Also, if you're in NY tonight, I hope you go to this. I've known Mitch maybe since he was 19. He broke 2 teeth on a cookie:

One and all,

If you find yourself in town this Thursday, December 22nd,
then may I recommend you join us for an eve of raucous
soul-punk-love-core music?

http://www.killmelover.com

Lech Szporer - vocals, keys, clarinet
Mitch Van Dusen - drums

w/ special guest Marissa Mickelberg on keys, guitar and vocals

But that's not all!

The Controversy will share the stage this eve (Matt Blair, Lech and Marissa
on vocals/guitar/keys/drums)

This is Kill Me Lover's first show on the town and are looking for a
crowd to warm the room with. We would like you to be
amongst that crowd, celebrating with abandon.
We assure you your ears will follow suit.

Thursday, December 22nd at 10 PM sharp
The Trash Bar
256 Grand St.
Williamsburg, BK
$7 21+

Forward this email and bring your friends!

May your feet find you there,

Mitch

Frozen Food Isle Press

2011-12-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

The room I'm staying in is painted like a hatbox. I feel like I'm inside a wrapped present & about to burst out. Also, I might be a hat?

I dreamed that I was a mini person and a normal sized bad guy put me in the freezer at a super marker to watch me freeze to death. So to save myself I tore into a package of frozen corn & built an igloo with the corn to stay warm.

Tidal Clouds Press

2011-12-17T11:17:00.001-08:00

What have I done today, you might wonder? It's noon on Saturday.

1. I ate oatmeal with sunflower seeds & almond extract.
2. Wrote some letters & postcards.
3. Went to the post office, where I listened to the conversation of a woman with brain damage talk to the postal worker. That was sort of horrible. She apologized for her brain damaged slowness & I don't know, I just felt so bad.
4. I'm not sure if this is a response to the above, but then I came home & checked to see if there were any jobs at the Big Apple Circus: http://www.bigapplecircus.org/utility/employment.aspx .
Sadly, there are not.
5. Contemplating ordering fiber optic wands, because I loved them when I was younger:

But the ones I'm finding aren't bushy enough. Know what I mean?
6. Currently, I'm dogsitting, so there is an 8 pound black dog on my lap right now. I think 3 pounds of that is fur.
7. The amazing poet Andrea Rexilius is picking me up soon & we're going present-shopping.

Bessie Smith Press

2011-12-14T16:55:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm listening to Bessie Smith & hanging out with Jen Denrow & Selah Saterstrom. And our dogs, D'Count & Shamwow, have been wrassling each other all afternoon. There is a pie on the table. I might be typing in cutoff gloves & a coat, though. I cannot get warm. I cannot clip the syrup from the homespun tree. Cannot scrape the banquette into the baby swing. Blue leaves.

Neck Neck Press

2011-12-13T16:53:00.001-08:00

My neck is so stuck & doesn't want to turn to the right! I must have been dreaming of giraffes last night.

I made two pumpkin pies today. I overcame my fear of the blender, which was an integral part of the pie process. I can wash the blender when it's in the sink, but I really don't like to use it: it sounds like the world is collapsing into shredded newspaper & sleet & demented goats. Is this like how dogs fear vacuum cleaners? I am a dog? Are you a vacuum?

Tonight I'm going to make dinner & then watch as many movies as I can. I just spelled movies as "moovies."

Ooompa Pa Pa Press

2011-12-12T07:56:00.000-08:00

Saw this:

I got 10 hours of sleep last night & I feel like I can feel.
***

Have you watched the new Marcel the Shell video?:

Airport Press

2011-12-11T16:28:00.000-08:00

Who will continue the bleached rhythm of sand? Who will impeach the lighthouse? And if I sink my lilac imitation in night's wool to vase grief? Call. No, call. Moss traps in a necklace clicking at the gate. Flashlight. Canteen. Instructions for temperature. Who will incline the lemon shore?

***

Heading back to Denver tomorrow. Cindy King is driving me to LaGuardia & Sommer Browning is picking me up at DIA so what could be better than that? All I have to do is depart & arrive. Please.

A Schooner Loose on the Eyelid Shedding Iambs Press

2011-12-09T07:30:00.000-08:00

Who will skip over radio regret on the crumbling wave? Slinking mischief cracks open an egg or loosens the pine cone. Wrapping-paper grip? A leveled statue releases.

***

After 2 weeks of not having a charger for my computer, I finally bought one on Amazon!

And that's today's update!

***

I am hanging out with, oh my, NON-poets tonight, so I can't go to this, but YOU should:

Jerome Rothenberg @ 80: A Celebration
Friday, December 9, at 6:00pm
ELEBASH RECITAL HALL at the Graduate Center
The City University of New York
365 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
Fully Accessible. Free and open to the public.

I will be roaming the streets with ol' college friends.

Dismantle Dismal Press

2011-12-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

Farrah, Jared, Justin Marks, & I hit up galleries in Chelsea yesterday & I saw:
1. the Walton Ford show
2. late paintings of Joan Mitchel
3. Sugimoto
4. Neo Rauch
5. Mark Rydner

I LOVE THEM ALL SO MUCH.

For example, Walton Ford:

You could buy this collection (and I've seen it in person and the book is quite elephantine) for only 44 dollars:

If you buy this book for a friend that friend will love you 4eva.

Also, for example, Neo Rauch:

Strange strange strange

The Wetlook Press

2011-12-07T17:30:00.000-08:00

Ok, where would you rather stay?

A tree house hotel?

Or an ice hotel?

Actually, I think I'd rather just camp on the beach and then live in a tree house permanently. Oh yes.

***

I thought I would not like this sculpture exhibit but then found it very pleasing. Carsten Höller:

The yellow walrus guy is my favorite.

Gross Marine Press

2011-12-07T15:12:00.000-08:00

Will someone string the cold lights through the tulips? Will someone close grief's atlas & ship the salt to bookend the night? Will someone briefly touch my shoulder while I sleep? Moat, moat, moat. My arm like a drawbridge lowers to the grasses, an unstamped postcard, slight glances through curt branches, grey trousers, the hand-drawn airplane. Addresses. I pack myself with milkweed & thistle. Season of what?

***

I'm briefly in NY. Which means, a whirlwind of MOMA, the New Museum, McNally Jackson, and The Strand.

One of my favorite journals, GlitterPony, has a new issue up, starring these fine reindeer:
Alina Gregorian, Andrew Morgan, Ben Mirov, Billy Cancel, Bruce Covey, Cynthia Arrieu-King, Daniela Olszewska, Dara Wier, Dot Devota, Elizabeth Witte, Emily Pettit, Guy Pettit, Heather Christle, Lyndsey Cohen, Maia Elgin, Matt L. Rohrer, Matthew Mahaney, Megan Leonard, Mike Young, Ryan Eckes, Sampson Starkweather, Seth Parker, Travis Macdonald.

For example, a poem by Dot Devota:

And The Girls Worried Terribly

I.

Splendid the time that laid eggs in our nest!

Bending to worship the self in thin winds. At the end of the stick

the disease of numb tongues

and yet, it was the end of the stick. I have only one lung.

Give me the others, each exhalation hell reaping the benefits.

And in the wrong poem is death, from which the beginning

is a frail dessert. Bees as lively as champagne bubbling from our flutes!

I leave the table and dig a circular grave beneath the peach tree,

then dig more circular graves the size of peaches

for the fruit that doesn’t get picked to fall in.

Children holler at us, the flowers are blooming!

chained pets leaning into the sun. The child I give birth to

otherwise inappropriate in the presence of the dead,

cauldron simmering our egos

breaking the skin of the porridge

and disappearing to speak of courage,

rescuing all future inadequacies.

Prying the eye apart, I begin

with the wrong poem—we toast,

To death!

For example, poem by Guy Pettit:

My Life's Work

You think

I’ll talk to just anyone

It’s amazing

How beautiful

The man in the tree

Looks

His open hands

He cleans up

He’ll nod

Undistracted

That’s what I like

Why I’ll talk to anyone

About the president.

Or more likely

I’ll make them talk

About the president

With someone else.

I want to hold the hand of modesty.

I want to hold the hand of modesty

But I don’t and I deny myself

The strange

Ancient carriage

Predicting

Loss of memory

Behind the

Beauty of trees

Always yelling

I always yell at you

I want to stop

And yelling always

To another planet.

And I am alarmed.

Believe me because I am.

If you find an egg in the air

That is my alarm.

Punish Press

2011-11-29T22:53:00.000-08:00

I watched a bad romcom and consequently I'm being punished because I've had this song stuck in my head for days. DAYS, I tell you:

Good thing songs like this also exist:

and:

I am heading to Northampton tomorrow. Are you there? Are you parting your hair? If so, let's fucking rage. You know?

Shiny Golden Shine Bone Press

2011-11-28T21:11:00.000-08:00

Traveling:

On Saturday, I'll be apart of this Awesome:
December 3rd, 7pm: WWFLI Presents: jubilat 20 Release Party. Featuring readings by Ewa Chrusciel, Julia Cohen, Ben Fama, Peter Gizzi, Rachel B. Glaser, James Tate, Paige Taggart, & Dara Wier. There will be a raffle that we hope you help us with! www.jubilat.org

Jagaur Average Press

2011-11-18T16:39:00.000-08:00

Jaguar Average
(for Zach & Mathias)

there is a loose tangerine jaguar flinging itself against
a tough year, remind me
of spinsters engulfed in a jungle, slapping again.
A belief reviewed into dust or: rivered prize morbid opening
already dead. Inside the pets
our pets tablecloths catch
mustard & hearts. How long does it take
to get to new Orleans how long is the jump rope hissing
back to me. Taken. Taken. Immediately logic has no
place in us solicitors
in the soldiers holding pages of matter divorced from projects.
For weapons. In a way I am discrete in another way nothing
discrete can be placed infinitely. Inverted, I miss toughness
in the year of the hammer. Regrets heave through summer
like the jaguar
average. Handy fireplace I lit with the dead I bought
this man a figure of a cloud. Pets shame
the form we mess up.
It depends. On the reminder. Where it started I would
like soldiers in jaguar, mouths speculate this loose man.
I would love to so invite me.
I’m going to read from my mother, she is a world when I am
small or when the phone rings into years. Don’t you ever ever. Yell.
Face again. Karate jaguar. I don’t want it to arrive
in pieces or like a shriveled thumb.
My face is pornography, an infinite number of trees.
Real loud taken. Close to a starting point. I’m giving up
arm wrestling because I want to hold the page.
I want to depend on instinct but it’s the year
of the cerebellum & we all know the body
has to wait in the pool. The preventative aspirin.
What do I do? I sleep in the fireplace like wax.

by Jennifer Denrow & me, written right now. You can add on in the comments box. Yes, it's friday and we're sitting around writing poems and shuffling tarot cards.

Grief Comb Press

2011-11-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

Not to be bossy or anything...but I do hope you buy this book:
PANIC ATTACK, USA. by Nate Slawson.
A whole lot of info and kind words are available at the book's website: http://store.yesyesbooks.com/product/panic-attack-usa

***

While you're at it:

Fewer & Further Press is pleased to announce the publication of Asterisk 10, featuring collaborative poems by Greg Fuchs and Jason Morris. Copies of Asterisk 10 can be purchased for $3.50, postpaid: http://fewfurpressasterisk.blogspot.com/.

Please visit the Fewer & Further Press site for details: http://fewfurpress.blogspot.com/. Payments can be made through the site with Paypal. If you would like to pay by check, my address:

Jess Mynes
121 Lockes Village Rd
Wendell, MA 01379

And now that you have his personal mailing address, I hope you send him gifts. Like frozen raspberries and lemongrass.

Mommy Qualm Press

2011-11-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

This is happening next month. Get ready:

Tuesday, December 13, 2011, 6:30 pm
Annual Belladonna* Benefit Performance and Live Auction

Location: Hi Art! 227 West 29th Street, 4th Floor (between 7th & 8th) New York, NY 10001

The evening will showcase a performance by Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye, live auction by renowned auctioneer Erin Ward of Star Benefit Auctions with special assistant Amy King, a silent auction, and a dance performance by the A.O. Movement Collective.

The auction and benefit will support Belladonna*s 2012 season of publications and events, which share a theme of caring for the material realities of poets, viewing a publishing project holistically. We're referring to 2012 as The Year of Material Lives, and we plan to host combination readings/dinners with ample time set aside to discuss the economic and social concerns of writers, artists, publishers, and other creators. In addition to continuing our commemorative chaplet series, we hope to publish five full-length books of hybrid and experimental work in the coming year including new work by Julie Patton, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, and Tonya Foster.

***

And, right now, new issue of H_NGM_N:http://www.h-ngm-n.com/cur_ent-i_sue

Carrie Olivia Adams • Bryan Beck • Erica Bernheim • Jackie Clark • Smarie Clay • Kate Colby * Ryan Collins • Christy Crutchfield • Daniel D’Angelo • Carolina Ebeid • Jennifer H. Fortin • Joanne Hart * Matt Hart • Anne Cecelia Holmes • P.J. Horoszko • Gina Keicher • Ben Kopel • Kristin Marie Kostick * Travis Kurowski • Travis Macdonald • Gina Myers • Alexis Orgera • Kiki Petrosino • Eléna Rivera * M. Bartley Seigel • Natalie Shapero • Amanda Smeltz • Nick Sturm • Aaron Tieger • Gale Marie Thompson* Andrew James Weatherhead • Laurie Saurborn Young • Mike Young

***

This weekend I'm going to Portland for the first time ever. Buckle up.

The Air Is Filled The Air Is Filled Press

2011-11-03T11:42:00.000-07:00

I have a lyric essay and a poem in the new issue of DIAGRAM. I hope you fall in love with the issue:

It's up at thediagram.com. Here's what you'll find:

TEXT and multimedia by: Mary Buchinger, Susan Briante, Joseph Chapman, Julia Cohen, Jamison Crabtree, Jonathan Dubow, Phil Estes, Devin Gribbons, Christopher Janke, Melissa Jones, Eric Kocher, Eric LeMay, B. J. Love, Sarah Fawn Montgomery, Luke Reid, Christina Stoddard, and Christian TeBordo.

And two REVIEWS, of Frederic Tuten's SELF-PORTRAITS and one of Jenny Boully's NOT MERELY BECAUSE OF THE UNKNOWN THAT WAS STALKING TOWARD THEM.

I hope the issue will make you feel like this:

This is my new favorite painting.

Skin Graft Press

2011-11-02T13:44:00.000-07:00

This was the despicable game I played in the car the other day. It's so wrong, it must be right. Right? Right? See if you can guess the game by the answers:

Massachusluts
Slut Dakota
Nebraslut
Arkanslut
Minnesluta

****

Friends!

An incredible Bad Shadow is lined up for your pleasure. Poetry! Non-fiction! Non-proetry! All of it!

Featuring Eleni Sikelianos, Carmen Gimenez-Smith, Evan Lavander-Smith & Megan Nix.

THIS Saturday:
November 5 · 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Lost Lake Lounge, Denver

Evan Lavender-Smith is the author of From Old Notebooks and Avatar.

Megan Nix directs the young writers program at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. She received her MFA from the University of Alaska. Her work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction, Shadowbox Magazine and elsewhere. She sometimes updates this site with new thoughts: www.megannix.com.

Carmen Giménez Smith is the author of a memoir, Bring Down the Little Birds (University of Arizona, 2010), three poetry collections—Goodbye, Flicker (University of Massachusetts, 2012), The City She Was (Center for Literary Publishing, 2011) and Odalisque in Pieces (University of Arizona, 2009)—and three poetry chapbooks—Reason's Monster (Dusie Kollectiv, 2011), Can We Talk Here (Belladonna Books, 2011) and Glitch (Dusie Kollectiv, 2009). She has also co-edited a fiction anthology, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (Penguin, 2010). She is the recipient of a 2011 American Book Award, the 2011 Juniper Prize for Poetry, and a 2011-2012 fellowship in creative nonfiction from the Howard Foundation. Formerly a Teaching-Writing Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she now teaches in the creative writing programs at New Mexico State University and Ashland University, while serving as the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Puerto del Sol and the publisher of Noemi Press. She lives with her husband, the writer Evan Lavender-Smith, and their two children in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Eleni's bio to come. But seriously, you should know her work.

Hermano Press

2011-10-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

Dude, my younger brother looks cool on his motorcycle:

Like, I Get How Good Ham Tastes Press

2011-10-24T13:13:00.000-07:00

Lighght.

***
Photos of my favorite person in the world under the age of 5. (Sticker-poem by Lisa Ciccarello):

Photos of awesome poets/writers in NY:

Men who write & also wear similar shirts out in public & laugh about it:
Paige Taggart:
Ben Fama & Lisa Ciccarello gaze at Paige Taggart's jewelry:
Sampson Starkweather:

Photos of awesome poets/writers in Denver:
D'Count:
Sommer Browning reads:
Sara Marshal reads:
Nick Demske reads:

J. Michael Martinez & Lisa Ciccarello climb rocks:
Molly Gaudry reads:
Dan Beachy- Quick reads:
Mathias catches me taking a photo:
Eric Baus reads:

Derick Mund introduces while looking flippant:
some audience:
Roger Green performs:
A. Minetta Gould reads:

Samaritan Press

2011-10-20T14:13:00.001-07:00

My new collab chapbook, SAMARITAN, with the devilish Brandon Shimoda, is now out from dancing girl press. Thank you to Kristy Bowen for supporting & publishing this collection.

The lovely & precocious 6 yr old Eva Grace Sikelianos Hunt provides the images:

You will need to order it to see the backcover & inside images!

You can order this lil chappy here for the wee amount of $7.00: Dancing Girl Press.

Vanity Press vs. Vanessa Williams Press

2011-10-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start "The Julia Cohen Press for Julia Cohen's Books, Manuscript Selections Made by Julia Cohen" so that my manuscripts stop being sad that they're in a drawer and start being sad that they're published and read only by me!

***

Anyways, I'm going to this awesome event on Saturday. I hope you put your back into it:

Saturday, October 22 · 6:00pm - 8:00pm
at Counterpath Books, Denver

Poet, filmmaker, provocateur Brandon Downing will be in Denver to present his pastiche films & to read from his new chapbook At Me (Octopus Books).

Denver musician & pedal-wrangler Roger Green will be playing music at the event. (www.myspace.com/rogergreen)

Brandon Downing is a videomaker, visual artist, and writer, originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 2000, he has lived in New York City, where he works as an exhibit designer and writer. His poetry collections include The Shirt Weapon (Germ, 2002), and Dark Brandon (Faux, 2005). An online gallery of much of his recent photographic work can be seen at www.brandondowning.org. A feature-length DVD collection of recent video works, Dark Brandon // Eternal Classics, was released in 2007.

Born and raised in Denver, Roger Green is a former member of the Czars. In 2006 he was contracted to write a composition for 25 typists and 5 musicians presented a the Blemar Laboratory of Art and Ideas in Lakewood Colorado. He appears on the Blossom half of Ron Miles' Stone/Blossom album which was released by Sterling Circle Records in November 2006. He has opened for or played with Sixteen Horsepower, Woven Hand, Munly and the Lee Lewis Harlots, David Gray, Low, The Flaming Lips, Elf Power, Imperial Teen, Ron Miles, Violet Indiana, Hem, Devics, Joe Sampson, Porlolo, Patrick Park, Heirloom, Scout Niblet, Red Cloud, Cowhause / Janet Feder, Momen Terra, among others. His releases include: The Way Things Go (2003): What Would This Be For? - Porlolo / Roger Green Split(2004): Roger Green S/T (2005): Blossom (2006); Clear Running Water (2007); The Glenn Taylor Orchestra (2008).

Late Fee Press

2011-10-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

Poetry is being born & growing tentacles & sprouting patches of moss & mica. For example:

Please click on over to Sink Review and check out our new issue
Issue 8 features poems by Eric Amling, Nathan Austin, Jason Bredle, Molly Brodak, Francesca Chabrier, Jackie Clark, Brooklyn Copeland, Marisa Crawford, Ian Dreiblatt, Garth Graeper, Ben Fama, Brian Foley, Kate Greenstreet, Ben Pease, Leigh Stein, & Mathias Svalina and reviews of Julia Story's Post Moxie, Peter Richards's Helsinki, Andy Fitch's Island, Emily Kendal Frey's The Grief Performance! Art by Naomi Reis!

***

I just got my quarterly bill from the University of Denver. The bill is for a single dollar. And if I don't pay the dollar on time I get a $70.00 charge. Although when I tried to pay this dollar via their online payment system, they don't accept visa cards. WTF? So this is the email I had to send yesterday:

Hi,

Sorry to bother you, but I received a bill for one dollar from my ecobill. I tried to pay it via credit card, but it seems that the online system does not accept Visa, which seems strange. I can come in and pay this one dollar bill in person on Thursday, but I would like to confirm that I will not receive a $70.00 late fee for this. Thank you,
Julia Cohen

Office Hours Press

2011-10-18T10:37:00.000-07:00

I'm going to read another 100 pages from the Maximus Poems this week. What else? I might go to a haunted house.

Do you feel like spending a little bit of money to get a whole lot back? Maybe you should consider these new chapbooks from Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs:

SECOND STORY OF YOUR BODY
Angela Hume

Second Story of Your Body, a series of lyric fragments, seeks to write body—body that is always also a register of ecological collapse. Sex and song, symptom and sickness—the experience of body bears world, and world it.

Furthermore, as Giorgio Agamben writes, “The concept of the ‘body’ is always already caught in a deployment of power. The ‘body’ is always already a biopolitical body and bare life” (Homo Sacer). Bare life: that which may be killed but not sacrificed (per Agamben). That is, that which, in the aftermath of its destruction, is not experienced as lost.

How might lyric, both register of and response to this destruction, imagine loss? How might fragment intone that which is subordinated or obscured in and through the administration and degradation of body that is now the rule of the West? Without giving way to a kind of infinite mourning, how might lyric suggest form for the loss—or collapse—that is so constitutive of body and of ecosystem today? Such questions as these underpin this work.

Angela Hume lives and writes in Oakland, California.

and then:

STUDY IN PAVILIONS AND SAFE ROOMS
Paul Foster Johnson

Portable Press @ Yo-Yo Labs would like to remind you that Paul Foster Johnson’s book, Study in Pavilions and Safe Rooms is a brilliant book and you can order it now for a discounted price of $12 ppd.

**

From Lowbrow Press, the lovely Jennifer H. Fortin has her first full-length book out called Mined Muzzle Velocity. You can buy it here.

Laconic Cliff Press

2011-10-09T14:59:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Denver!

Hello. How are you?

Do you part your hair?

Do you sleep in the crib of a tree?

Do you parse the clouds for mercy?

I saw Alexis Gideon play last night. His logo explains everything:

He's on tour so you should go here and see if he's playing in your city. And get down on your knees if he is: http://www.alexisgideon.com/performances.htm so you can pray to the radness.

**

Yesterday I went to a mountain with J, Michael Martinez. (And I bought a fossil.) We saw a stump:

We took turns sitting on the stump:

This is what we saw from the stump:

***
Today I will strap skulls to my hands & jaunt around with my legs in the air. Rabbits, join me in my parade of beaks.

Throat Ache Press

2011-10-02T07:26:00.000-07:00

Man, my throat has been hurting for two weeks. I think I need to see a doctor. But I can't until I'm back in Denver. Any suggestions for helping the throat? I've been drinking tea with honey and taking Wellness Formula pills. And vitamin C. What else????

**

Thanks to everyone who came out to the reading. And thanks to everyone who read with me & also Ben Fama for organizing the event.

I will be part of a second reading today at Cakeshop and then hustling over to the Zinc bar to hear Paige Taggart read at a different series for the Lungful release.

**

At the apartment I'm staying in, I'm looking at the world through red curtains.

Midnight Dorito Press

2011-09-29T06:36:00.001-07:00

Hi.

Two weddings later (in ME and MA), I'm in NY! I'll be reading this Saturday and Sunday. Here is info for the Saturday reading:

SUPERMACHINE's first reading of the 2011 Fall season:
+Julia Cohen
+Dan Boehl
+Dan Hoy
+Lisa Ciccarello

We are going to read your pants off, watch out.

Saturday, Oct 1st. 8pm.
Outpost: 1014 Fulton (grand & classon)

***

Ok, wait, here is also info for the Sunday reading:

POLESTAR POETRY SERIES
SIAMESE DREAM
poems inspired by the smashing pumpkins

THIS SUNDAY OCTOBER 2 // 5 PM
CAKE SHOP
(152 ludlow st bet. stanton + rivington)

SET LIST:
cherub rock // martin rock
quiet // emily brandt
today // ben fama
hummer // julia cohen
rocket // michael leong
disarm // sean edgley
soma // natalie eilbert
geek u.s.a. // alina gregorian
mayonaise // lisa marie basile
spaceboy // rebecca bates
silverfuck // danniel schoonebeek
sweet sweet // amanda calderon
luna // carter edwards

***

Please come! I want to see your face!

j

Uh Oh Plutonium Press

2011-09-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Return the Swan to the Foam Press

2011-09-11T17:09:00.001-07:00

The newest New American Writing is really, really good. I have the print issue but you can read many poems here:
http://www.newamericanwriting.com/current.htm
**

I'm about to turn in my phd comp exams. It is both exciting & terrifying.

**

Tonight I'm going to watch season II of Torchwood. Yes, it is a Doctor Who spin off. Yes, I am filled with shame. But that shame will be negated by the broccoli raab sandwich I eat with M while watching Torchwood.

Deal with it.

**

My close friend is the dude starring in the new Beruit video. Hope you enjoy it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/video/2011/sep/09/beirut-santa-fe-exclusive-video

Self Portrait in a Convex Balloon Press

2011-09-04T17:43:00.001-07:00

On my 30th birthday I read Rimbaud for the first time ever. And outloud to Mathias while he made almond and banana pancakes:

This is my version of Ashbery's "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror."

2011-08-28T16:49:00.000-07:00

I'm really happy to be in issue #6 of notnostrums with:

3 poems here: http://www.notnostrums.com/Cohen.html

I'm surrounded by radness: Dara Wier, CA Conrad, Bianca Stone, Rob MacDonald, Paige Taggart, Ish Klein, Kevin Holden, Ben Mirov, Betsy Wheeler, Rebeca Bridge, Sasha Fletcher, Paul Legault, Ben Pease, Sam Starkweather.

***

What else? I went white water rafting yesterday. I was on the look out for brown bears. No bears. But I got a lot of Colorado River all over me.

Today I've been reading articles about the New York School first generation poets. My notes about Schuyler look insane right now, this is a direct cut and paste from my word document:

“Schuyler’s poem is ultimately suspicious of Romantic uses of nature, ones that co-opt nature by translating other into self or using other for selffulfillment. Instead, Schuyler’s poem greets otherness from a distance. That “various field” is not reaped, stored, nor invested, but instead is lingered with, repeated, saluted.”-Silverberg, pg 3

“the gay love poems in The Crystal Lithium (1972) and the collections that follow are implicitly political in positioning homosexuality in the midst of the everyday, presenting it as normal and integral, rather than as either marginal or predominant.” (Thompson in Diggory, 298)

“his readers partake in the organizing process” (Bauschatz in Diggory, pg 267)
-“sonic binding” (Bauschatz in Diggory, pg 270)
-integration?????
“hints that are revelations” from “December”

Things as on display but not still. movement, transition, transformation, ephemeral connectivity continually renewed. interstices

***

I'll let you know when I delete all the question marks and have coherent thoughts....I need to have coherent thoughts by Sept 12 or I fail my PhD. Woot!

The Bigs the Bigs Press

2011-08-28T11:38:00.000-07:00

Uh, I have this little piece up at Her Circle: http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/08/25/poetry-the-words-we-choose/

Tight Tight Jeans Press

2011-08-25T07:58:00.000-07:00

Mathias has an awesome interview on HTMLGiant, check it out.

Today I' writing about patriarchy and Marianne Moore and Mina Loy.

In the last 20 days, there are the books I've read. Now I need to circle back and read B Guest before my comp exams begin next Thursday:

Babyfucker, Urs Allemann
Sixty Stories, Donald Barthelme
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, Aimee Bender
Willful Creatures, Aimee Bender
The Baron in the Trees, Italo Calvino
Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Calvino
The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
Blow-up and Other Stories, Julio Cortazar
ParaSpheres: Extending Beyond the Spheres of Literary and Genre Fiction - Fabulist and New Wave Fabulist Stories, edited by Rikki Ducornet
The Hungry Dolls and other Stories, Patricia Eakins
Franz Kafka; The Complete Short Stories, Franz Kafka
Magic For Beginners, Kelly Link
Stranger Things Happen, Kelly Link
Extreme Fiction: Fabulists and Formalists, edited by Robin Hemly and Michael Martone
Conjunctions 39: New Wave Fabulists, ed. Peter Straub
The Art of Hunger, Paul Auster
Conversations with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, edited by Gene H Belle-Villada
Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations, edited by Richard Burgin
Postmodernism and the Contemporary Novel, edited by Bran Nicol
The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, Tzvetan Todorov (trans. Richard Howard)
Calvino, the writer as fablemaker, by Sara Maria Adler ; with a pref. by Dante Della Terza
“Embedded Narrative in the Fiction of Kelly Link,” Jason Erik Lundberg. Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction (Foundation) 2007 Spring; 36 (99): 15-28.

Postliteracy Press

2011-08-19T12:50:00.000-07:00

A conversation with my brother prompted me to search the internet for "truck nutz face tattoos." Apparently no one has gotten drunk & had that brilliant idea.

Yet.

So what I'm saying is, you can be the first!

***

I've been reading articles today that use terms like "postliteracy" if that tells you what kind of mood I'm in.

Also, if you could give me one reason why the "crisis of historicity" is actually a crisis, I will send you a present in the mail.

The Pedagogy of the Imagination Press

2011-08-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

Calvino, Italo. Six Memos for the Next Millennium. Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press, 1988.

“Whenever humanity seems condemned to heaviness, I think I should fly like Perseus into a different space. I don’t mean escaping into dreams or into the irrational. I mean that I have to change my approach, look at the world from a different perspective, with a different logic and with fresh methods of cognition and verification…in the boundless universe of literature there are always new avenues to be explored, both very recent and very ancient…”-8, “Lightness”

“The motif that interests us here is not physical speed, but the relationship between physical speed and speed of mind.”-40 “Quickness”

“Since in each of my lectures I have set myself the task of recommending to the next millennium a particular value close to my heart, the value I want to recommend today is precisely this: in an age when other fantastically speedy, widespread media are triumphing, and running the risk of flattening all communication onto a single, homogeneous surface, the function of literature is communication between things that are different simply because they are different, not blunting but even sharpening the difference between them, following the true bent of written language.”-45 “Quickness”

“My work as a writer has from the beginning aimed at tracing the lightning flashes of the mental circuits that capture and link points distant from each other in space and time.”-48, “Quickness”

“Contributing to this pleasure is the variety, the uncertainty, the not-seeing-everything, and therefore being able to walk abroad using the imagination in regard to what one does not see…in this regard I observe that the pleasure of variety and uncertainty is greater than that of… immense uniformity…Highly pleasurable also…is the sight of an innumerable multitude, as of stars, people, etc, a multiple motion, uncertain, confused, irregular, a disorder, a vague rising and falling, etc, which the mind cannot conceive definitely or distinctly…”-62, “Exactitude”

“The universe disintegrates into a cloud of heat, it falls inevitably into a vortex of entropy, but within this irreversible process there may be areas of order, portions of existence that tend toward form, privileged points in which we seem to discern a design or perspective. A work of literature is one of these minimal portions in which the existence crystallizes into a form, acquires a meaning—not fixed, not definitive, not hardened into a mineral immobility, but alive as an organism.”-70, “exactitude”

“…to use writing to investigate the world in all its polymorphous manifestations…”-78, “Exactitude”

“…all its transparency and its mystery.”-80, “Exactitude”
“Will the power of evoking images of things that are not there continue to develop in a human race increasingly inundated by a flood of prefabricated images?...The memory is littered with bits and pieces of images, like a rubbish dump, and it is more and more unlikely that any one form among so many will succeed in standing out. If I have included visibility in my list of values to be saved, it is to give warning of the danger we run in losing a basic human facility: the power of bringing visions into focus with our eyes shut…”-92, “Visibility”

“pedagogy of the imagination” 92, “Visibility”

“attempts to escape the vortex of multiplicity are useless”-98, “Visibility”

Smash Smash Press

2011-08-13T06:56:00.000-07:00

I'll smash my empty heart against the soda machine

I'll sail across the ocean in a green melon rind

With fisticuffs I'll smooth out that wrinkled leaf

I'll plug your icecream cone with my pinky

I'll mountain I'll

**

I have two poems from my book, Triggermoon Triggermoon, up at Everyday Genius:
http://www.everyday-genius.com/2011/08/julia-cohen.html

Maybe you read?

**

Hope you can come to the Bad Shadow reading tonight:
Saturday, 7:30pm
Lost Lake Lounge, Denver CO

Announcing a Very Special Bad Shadow!

This Saturday please join us in celebrating Mathias Svalina's NEW BOOK, I am A Very Productive Entrepreneur, with amazing readings by Maureen Owen, Steven Karl, J. Mae Barizo and Mathias Svalina!

Bios:

Maureen Owen is the author of many books including American Rush: Selected Poems, AE [Amelia Earhart], Hearts in Space, Imaginary Income and Zombie Notes. She has served as the Program Coordinator and Acting Director of the Poetry Project at St Mark's-in-the-Bowery, New York City, where she has also taught workshops in writing and magazine production.

Born in Toronto, J. Mae Barizo was shortlisted for Canada's 2008 Robert Kroetsch award for Innovative Poetry and Ahsahta Press's Sawtooth Poetry Prize. She has received an International Publication Award from Atlanta Review, and was an Editor's Prize finalist for Spoon River Poetry Review. Her work has also appeared in Baltimore Review, Boxcar Poetry Review, Sink Review, Atlanta Review, among others. She is the author of two chapbooks, "The Concert Review" and "The Marble Palace."

Mathias Svalina is a co-editor of Octopus Books and Octopus Magazine. He is the author of Destruction Myth and the newly released I Am A Very Productive Entrepreneur.

Steven Karl is the author of the chapbooks, emissions/ of (H_NGM_N, 2011), (Ir)Rational Animals (Flying Guillotine Press, 2010) and State(s) of Flux w/ Joseph Lappie (Peptic Robot Press, 2009). In one way or another, he is involved with Sink Review, Cold Front Magazine, Borough Writing Workshops and Stain of Poetry. He sometimes blogs at stevenkarl.blogspot.com.

Forbes Press

2011-08-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

Mathias's new book is mentioned on Forbes today! Weirdly, I find this *very* exciting that the world of Forbes is merging with absurdism in a way that they're actively acknowledging. YEAH:

http://blogs.forbes.com/booked/2011/08/04/the-reference-desk-a-productive-entrepreneur-and-books-about-the-filthy-rich/

more info to come once I take a photo of it in some freezer.

Hibiscus Quesadilla Press

2011-08-03T19:55:00.001-07:00

Photos from today's adventure:

Sometimes cups are in trees!

Lounge Chair Press

2011-07-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

I found this on my dad's computer screen when I went to check my email. I thought it was sweet:

I'm in Mexico visiting my parents. I've been reading the Collected James Schuyler, which has taken me two full days to read.

Star Grit Press

2011-07-25T16:53:00.000-07:00

I invent a feeling. It is like stretching without touching.
It is a hum-object. A glance of light. Behind all silence:
a clicking, a swaying of eyeball, sheets of sea, star grit.
Strange bouquet.

**

I listened to this song a lot today, "Lemonade" by Braids:

**

I drank some ice tea with soymilk for energy.
And then I had some coconut juice to re-hydrate.
I think that officially makes me a yuppie.
But don't let that stop you from ordering my new chapbook (see below, yo)!
Then I continued to read "Forces of imagination: writing on writing" by Barbara Guest. There are some lovely sections. But let's be honest, it is a little half-assed. It clearly reads like someone who knows she is famous and has decided she doesn't really need to finish her thoughts. But those beginnings are so good, I'll take what I can get, Guest.

1 + Scattered = 0 Press

2011-07-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

The amazing ypolita press has released my new chapbook called 1 + Scattered = 0. I hope you are just dying to order a $6.00 copy here: ypolita press.

Thank you to Larry Lorca for his cover image.

Why Do Lima Beans Have Such a Bad Rep Press?

2011-07-22T11:43:00.002-07:00

And why have I never thought of Repression Press as a Press name before?

Somebody lost at poker again ($20.00) last night & biked home in the midnight air.
Somebody finished reading The Collected Frank O'Hara and is now reading The Gooch's City Poet.
Somebody thinks a bikini made of onion rings should be sold at Coney Island.
Somebody is wearing a skirt with secret pockets.
Somebody is rocking pigtails.
Somebody is trying to shake an impending sense of doom off of lightly freckled summer shoulders.

Wedding Wedding Wedding photos:

Dominoes Vs. Doomsday Press

2011-07-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

oh, I have a poem up at Everyday Genius, along with many awesome poets this month:
http://www.everyday-genius.com/2011/07/julia-cohen.html

What else? I have been reading Frank O'Hara again today. Frank O'Hara never ends. When will I get to Ashbery and Schuyler and Guest? Fuck.

***

This is what I was thinking last night:

I swam to the raft & the sun
lit me among the toasted wood & seagulls
& as they warned
I could not swim back
the water somehow tighter than before
the water like a snake with no mouth
water too hard smooth & beakless

**

the flippant stars gallop off
to leave me
a botched escape plan
when was the last
time I screamed? & there
you go, with the moon
swooning after you

Old As Balls Press

2011-07-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

Some photos from some campings and birfdays:

Also, I noticed that there are still copies of Sugar Means Yes available at Greying Ghost Press, so if you have not snagged a copy of this chapbook, please do. YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED, only re-appointed: there is disease, dirt, bedding sheets, tree roots & cousins swarming these poems, and for only $4.50: http://www.greyingghost.com/sugar.html

Field of Flashlights Press

2011-07-18T15:44:00.000-07:00

I'm going a bit batty. Not in a good way. Like, the apocalypse, for example.

I played tennis in cut-off jean shorts and an 84 Lumber baseball cap last week.

I'm currently reading Frank O'Hara's collected poems, which weirdly don't seem to be organized in terms of order of THE BOOKS HE PUBLISHED, which would be HELPFUL. But I'm only up to page 64 so far, which are his earliest poems.

But who else handles exclamation points as well! as Frank O'Hara?

I've also been reading James Schuyler's writing on artists and his diaries. James Schuyler is a cloud poet. He obsessively documents what the clouds are up to. My favorite diary entry goes something like (I'm paraphrasing since I don't have the text in front of me), in its entirety: "The clouds are behaving like dilettantes and I have a stomach ache."

***

Paige Taggart has a new chapbook out which means what the fuck are you doing right now if not ordering her chapbook, Polaroid Parade, from Greying Ghost Press:
http://greyingghost.tumblr.com/#7635680028

***

New issue of Rabbit Light Movies featuring:
Carrie Olivia Adams, Michael Anichini, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Josh Corey, Kate Eichhorn, William Fuller, Lisa Janssen, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Simone Muench, Hideaki Noguchi, Kristy Odelius, Michael O'Leary, Melissa Severin, John Tipton, and Anne Waldman (featuring Junior Burke & Ambrose Bye): http://www.rabbitlightmovies.com/

I Have Seen the Swan & I Have Seen You Press

2011-06-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

I have been reading for my comp exams. Books I have read in the last 21 days:

Sea Garden (1916), H.D.
The God (1917), H.D.
Notes on Thought and Vision (1919), H.D.
Hymen (1921), H.D.
TS Eliot Selected Essays: 1917-1932, T.S. Eliot
The Lost Lunar Baedeker, Mina Loy (Selected and ed. Roger Conover)
Early Writings, Ezra Pound (ed. Ira Nadel)
Personae, Ezra Pound
Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, Ezra Pound
Complete Poems, Marianne Moore
Selected Letters of Marianne Moore, Marianne Moore
The Art of Twentieth-Century American Poetry: Modernism and After, Charles Altieri
British poetry in the age of modernism, by Peter Howarth (not good)
The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism, Pericles Lewis
H.D. And The Image, Rachel Connor
Modernist articulations : a cultural study of Djuna Barnes, Mina Loy and Gertrude Stein, Alex Goody
The critical response to Marianne Moore, edited by Elizabeth Gregory
Cultures of modernism : Marianne Moore, Mina Loy, and Else Lasker-Schüler : gender and literary community in New York and Berlin, Cristanne Miller.
Marianne Moore: Questions of Authority, Cristanne Miller
Marianne Moore : the art of a modernist, edited by Joseph Parisi
Marianne Moore : the poetry of engagement, Grace Schulman (not good)
H.D. and the public sphere of modernist women writers 1913-1946 : talking women, Georgina Taylor

Now on to Gertrude Stein!!!!

Giant Pancake Press

2011-06-10T11:37:00.001-07:00

So.......this is what I spend my day doing: reading & taking notes. Like this:

Pound, Ezra. Early Writings: Poems and Prose. New York, New York: Penguin Classics, 2005.

essay How I Began:
“The artist is always beginning. Any work of art which is not a beginning, an invention, a discovery, is of little worth.”-211

essay The Serious Artist:
“It is obvious that ethics are based on the nature of man, just as it is obvious that civics are based upon the nature of men hwn living together in groups.
It is obvious that the good of the greatest number cannot be attained until we know in some sort of what that good must consist. In other words, we must know what sort of animal man is, before we can contrive his maximum happiness, or before we can decide what percentage of that happiness he can have without causing too great a percentage of unhappiness to those about him…
The arts give us a great percentage of the lasting and unassailable data regarding the nature of man, of immaterial man,of man considered as a thinking and sentient creature. They begin where the science of medicine leaves off or rather they overlap that science….
From medicine we learnt hat man thrives best when duly washed, aired, and sunned. From the arts we learn that man is whimsical, that one man differs from another. That men differ among themselves as leaves upon trees differ. That they do not resemble each other as do buttons cut by machine….
This brings us to the immorality of bad art. Bad art is inaccurate. It is art that makes false reports….If an artist falsifies his report as to the nature of man, as to his own nature, as to the nature of his ideal of the perfect, as to the nature of his ideal of this, that or the other, of god, if god exists, or the life force, of the nature of good and evil, if good and evil exist….; if the artist falsifies his reports on these matters or on any other matter in order that he may conform to the taste of his time, to the proprieties of a sovereign, to the conventions of a preconceived code of ethics, then the artist lies….”-
“One does not need to read black print to learn this ethical fact about physicians. Yet it takes a deal of talking to convince a layman that bad art is ‘immoral.’ And that good art however ‘immoral’ it is, is wholly a thing of virtue. Purely and simply that good are can NOT be immoral.”—236

“The cult of beauty and the delineation of ugliness are not in mutual opposition.”-238

“He is constantly urging someone else to behave as he, the theorist, would like to behave. Now art ever asks anybody to do anything, or to think anything, or to be anything. It exists as the trees exist, you can admire, you can sit in the shade, you can pick bananas, you can cut firewood, you can do as you jolly well please.”-239

“The arts give us our data of psychology, of man as to his interiors, as to the ratio of his thought to emotions…The touchstone of an art is its precision.”-241

“…I mean something like ‘maximum efficiency of expression’; I mean that the writer has expressed something interesting in such a way that one cannot re-say it more effectively. I also mean something associated with discovery. The artist must have discovered something—either of life itself or of the means of expression.”-250

essay A Retrospect:
“An ‘Image’ is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time….it has the presentation of such a ‘complex’ instantaneously which gives that sense of sudden liberation; that sense of freedom from time limits and space limits; that sense of sudden growth, which we experience in the presence of the greatest works of art.”-253

“When Shakespeare talks of the ‘Dawn in russet mantle clad’ he presents something which the painter does not present. There is in this line of his nothing that one can call description, he presents.”-256

“I think one should write vers libre only when one ‘must,’ that is to say, only when the ‘thing’ builds up a rhythm more beautiful than that of set metres, or more real, more a part of the emotion of the ‘thing,’ more germane, intimate, interpretative than the measure of regular accentual verse…”263

essay The Tradition:
“The tradition is a beauty which we preserve and not a set of fetters to bind us.”-266

essay Vorticism:
“In the ‘search for oneself,’ in the search for ‘sincere self-expression,’ one gropes, one finds some seeming verity. One says, ‘I am’ this, that, or the other, and with the words scarcely uttered one ceases to be that thing.
I began this search for the real in a book called Personae, casting off, as it were, complete masks of the self in each poem.I continued in long series of translations, which were but more elaborate masks.
Secondly, I made pomes like ‘The Return,’ which is an objective reality and has a complicated sort of significance…Thirdly, I have written ‘Heather,’ which represents a state of consciousness, or ‘implies,’ or ‘implicates’ it…
These two latter sorts of poems are impersonal, and that fact brings us back to what I said about absolute metaphor….”282

“All poetic language is the language of exploration.”-285

“The ‘one image poem’ is a form of super-position, that is to say, it is one idea set on top of another. I found it useful in getting out of the impasse in which I had been left by my metro emotion: I wrote a thirty-line poem, and destroyed it because it was what we call work ‘of secondary intensity.” Six months later I made a poem half that length; a year later I made the following hokku-like sentence:
The apparitions of these faces in the crowd:
Petals, on a wet, black bough.
I dare say it is meaningless unless one has drifted into a certain vein of thought. In a poem of this sort one is trying to record the precise instant when a thing outward and objective transforms itself, or darts into a thing inward and subjective.
This particular sort of consciousness has not been identified with impressionist art. I think it is worthy of attention.”-287

“We do not desire to evade comparison with the past. We prefer that the comparison be made by some intelligent person whose idea of ‘the tradition’ is not limited by the conventional taste of four or five centuries and one continent.”
“Vorticism is an intensive art. I mean by this, that one concerned with the relative intensity, or relative significance of different sorts of expression. One desires the most intense, for certain forms of expression are ‘more intense’ than others. They are more dynamic.”-287

***

An then sometimes I do the dishes! and take photos:

Smell Like Frank Press

2011-06-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day to submit to the Boston Review poetry contest. I hope this year's winner is female. Consider:

9 men: 4 women. Maybe 2011 will help balance it out.

Winners from past years:
Anthony Caleshu (2010)
John Gallaher (2009)
Sarah Arvio (2008)
Elizabeth Willis (2007)
Marc Gaba (2006)
Mike Perrow (2005)
Michael Tod Edgerton [PDF] (2004)
Susan Wheeler (2003)
Max Winter (2002)
D.A. Powell (2001)
Christopher Edgar (2000)
Stephanie Strickland (1999)
Daniel Bosch (1998)

Trophy Wife Vs. Trophy Wiffle Bat Press

2011-05-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

What have you been up to ALL month? Picnicing? Playing squash? Squashing ants with ice cubes? Perfecting your head nod?Coughing? Trying to learn how to wash your hair without using your hands? Whinnying like a pony?

I may or may not have been doing all of those things. I have, though, been reading. This is what I've read:
Nox by Anne Carson

Iteration Nets by Karla Kelsey

From Old Notebooks by Evan Lavender-Smith

A Tomb for Anatole by Stephane Mallarme

Do you like me more now? Do you?

Do you?

Trump Press

2011-05-17T06:44:00.000-07:00

So Donald Trump finally decided NOT to run for President.

Why?

Because he would rather participate in another season on the reality show Celebrity Apprentice. I am both disheartened and relieved:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/us/17trump.html?hp
His face is so gross:

Moving Day Press

2011-05-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

My friend is moving and has some things to give away. I am posting her email because it made me laugh in public when I read it:

dear ones,

(optional background music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBU1okBsAuA)

free
-one very nice mirror, oak-looking frame. thick durable wire for hanging on back.
-white ikea-style bookshelf, classique
-nice white table lamp
-box fan - so cute!
-shitty looking floor lamp w/ pier one/new jersey motif (i am sorry this is more like a feeling but do you know what i mean? no offense!)
-two years of artforum (2008-1010?? who cares!)
-five million issues of the new yorker
-maybe like 6-10 terra cotta plant pots. with or without dirt, lady's choice

negotiable
-queen sized mattress, box spring, steel frame - this i am hoping to get $$ for but will give to you for free if you just take it away please just take it

Is It Food? Press

2011-05-15T17:13:00.000-07:00

Mathias has a story up at The Collagist: http://www.dzancbooks.org/the-collagist/2011/5/14/school.html

Fiction!!

**

Asthma/allergies are not so good in Denver this week. My head rests within a cloud of sleepiness. However, Mathias planted wild flowers & I'm VERY excited to see them start to sprout.

**

I think in the last week I have gotten like 8 rejection letters from various presses and journals. KEEP 'EM COMING! "I" "dare" "you." From now on, I'm just going to submit my photos as poems:

How could you reject mailbox love or coconut faces?
**

I saw Thor and Priest this weekend. Great double-hitter. Although the vampires in Priest were not the sexy kind, more the gross-monster kind.

**

Live-In Lover vs. Liver Donor vs. Lonely Liver vs. Lively Donut Press

2011-05-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

Oh, you better come to this reading Saturday.

Or else!

Blog-threats are very convincing are they not?:

Bad Shadow Affair this Saturday! This will be a fantastic reading with Laird Hunt, Tina Celona, Keith Newton and Eugene Lim. I hope to see your beautiful faces here:

Saturday, May 7th · 7:30pm - 10:00pm
Lost Lake Lounge
3602 E. Colfax Ave
Denver, CO 80206

Keith Newton’s writing has appeared in Denver Quarterly, 1913, Harvard Review, Konundrum Engine, and Typo, among other journals, and his chapbook of poems Sent Forth to Die in a Happy City was published in 2009 by Cannibal Books. He is co-editor of The Harp & Altar Anthology (Ellipsis Press, 2010), a selection of writing from the online magazine Harp & Altar, which he foun...ded in 2006. He lives in Brooklyn.

Eugene Lim's is the author of the novel Fog & Car and co-editor of The Harp & Altar Anthology. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Denver Quarterly, Fence, The Brooklyn Rail, Sleeping Fish and elsewhere.

Tina Brown Celona is 36. She has been studying Edwardian writing, poetics, confessions and prosody at the University of Denver. She hesitates to publish her poems because seeing them in print fills her with unacceptably intense self-doubt. Her most recent unpublished work is My Cat Jeoffry, a chapbook about her cat, Jeoffry, who disappeared last June under mysterious circumstances.

Laird Hunt is the author of 4 novels, including, most recently, Ray of the Star. His translation from the French of Oliver Rohe's Vacant Lot was put out by Counterpath last fall and his first book, The Paris Stories, was just rereleased by Marick Press. His writings, reviews and translations have appeared in, among other places, McSweeney's, Ploughshares, Bookforum and Brick.

***

The reading will make your heart feel like this...

...crossed with this:

...I promise that's a GOOD thing.

Plain Jane Jane Eyre Press

2011-04-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

I saw the movie Jane Eyre last evening on Date Night. I liked it. I didn't even mind the flashbacks. Then we ate Indian food & had the most upbeat waiter in the world. The world.

I'm not wearing socks today. Deal with it.

I think my hair might be long enough for PIGTAILS. How do you feel about that? Tell me about your feelings. Please.

***

quotations I like from Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

What’s at stake:
“I shall prove that imagination augments the values of reality.”-3

“…can we isolate an intimate, concrete essence that would be justification of the uncommon value of all of our images protected from intimacy? This, then, is the main problem.”-3

“…the primary virtues, those that reveal an attachment that is native in some way to the primary function of inhabiting.”-4

“…the real beginnings of images, if we stuffy them phenomenologically, will give concrete evidence of the values of inhabited space, of the non-I that protects the I.”-5

“…all really inhabited space bears the essence of the notion of home. In the course of those work, we shall see that the imagination functions in this direction whenever the human being has found the slightest shelter…”-5

“Now my aim is clear: I must show that the house is one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts, memories, and dreams of mankind. The binding principle in this integration is the daydream.”-6

“We are unable to live duration that has been destroyed. We can only think of it, in the line of an abstract time that is deprived of all thickness.”-9

-can we have an intimacy that is not isolating???

On poetry/the poet:
“The house, the bedroom, the garret in which we were alone, furnished the framework for an interminable dream, one that poetry alone, through the creation of poetic work, could succeed in achieving completely. If we give their function of shelter for dreams to all of these places of retreat, we may say, as I pointed out in my earlier work, that there exists for each one of us an oneiric house, a house of dream-memory, that is lost in the shadow of a beyond of the real past.”-9

“Poetry gives not so much a nostalgia for the expressions of youth, which would be vulgar, as a nostalgia for the expressions of youth.”-33

“In the tiniest of hatreds, there is a little, live, animal filament. And the poet-psychologist—or the psychologist-poet, if such a one exists—cannot go wrong in marking the different types of aggressions with an animal cry. It is also a terrible trait of men that they should be incapable of understanding the forces of the universe intuitively, otherwise than in terms of psychology of wrath.”-44

“When the poet unfolds [the image of the house] and spreads it out, it presents a very pure phenomenological aspect. Consciousness becomes ‘uplifted’ in contact with an image that, ordinarily, is ‘in repose.’ The image is no longer descriptive, but resolutely inspirational.”-53

“In reality, however, the poet has given concrete form to a very general psychological theme, namely, that there will always be more things in a closed, than in an open, box. To verify images kills them, and it is always more enriching to imagine than to experience.”88

“And yet I receive the message of this extraordinary image, and for a brief instant, by detaching me from my life, it transforms me into an imagining being. It is in such moments of reading as this that, little by little, I have come to doubt not only the psychoanalytical origin of the image, but all psychological causality of the poetic image as well. Poetry, in its paradoxes, may be counter-causal, which is yet another way of being of the world, of being engaged in the dialectics of the passions. But when poetry attains its autonomy, we can say that it is a-causal. In order to receive directly the virtue of an isolated image—and an image in isolation has all its virtue—phenomenology now seems to me to be more favorable than psychoanalysis, for the precise reason that phenomenology requires us to assume this image ourselves, uncritically and with enthusiasm.”168

On images, imagination, dreams and memory:
“…real images are engravings, for it is the imagination that engraves them on our memories. They deepen the recollections we have experienced, which they replace, this becoming imagined recollections

“Great images have both a history and a prehistory; they are always a blend of memory and legend, with the result that we never experience an image directly. Indeed, every great image has an unfathomable oneiric depth to which the personal past adds specific color. Consequently it is not until late in life that we really revere an image, when we discover that its roots plunge well beyond the history that is fixed in our memories. In the real of absolute imagination, we remain young late in life. But we must lose our earthly Paradise in order actually to live in it, to experience it in the reality of its images.”-33

“…images are never capable of repose. Poetic reverie, unlike somnolent reverie, never falls asleep. Starting with the simplest of images, it must always set the waves of the imagination radiating.”-36

“Here, however, the image does not come from a nostalgia for childhood, but is given in its actuality of protection. Here, too, in addition to community of affection, there is community of forces, the concentrated courage and resistance of both house and man. And what an image of concentrated being were are given with this house that ‘clings’ to its inhabitants and comes the cell of a body with its walls close together….from having been a refuge it becomes a redoubt…such a dwelling has an educative value…”46

“But can this transposition of the being of a house into human values be considered as an activity of metaphor? Isn’t this merely a matter of linguistic imagery? As metaphors, a literary critic would certainly find them exaggerated. On the other hand, a positivist psychologist would immediately reduce this language to the psychological reality of the dear felt by a man immured in his solitude, far from all human assistance. But phenomenology of the imagination cannot be content with a reduction which would make the image a subordinate means of expression: it demands, on the contrary, that images be lived directly, that they be taken as sudden events in life. When the image is new, the world, is new.”-47

“the image is created through co-operation between the real and the unreal, with the help of the functions of the real and the unreal. To use the implements of dialectical logic for studying, not this alternative, but this fusion, of opposites, would be quite useless, for they would produce the anatomy of a living thing. But if a house is a living value, it must integrate an element of unreality. All values must remain vulnerable, and those that do not are dead.”--59

“The pure recollection, the image that belongs to us alone, we do not want to communicate; we only give its picturesque details. Its very core, however, is our own, and we should never want to tell all there is to tell about it. This in no way resembles unconscious repression, which is an awkward form of dynamism, with symbols that are conspicuous. But every secret has its little casket, and this absolute, well-guarded secret is independent of all dynamism. Here the intimate life achieves a synthesis of Memory and Will.”-85

“In this case, the animal is merely a pretext fro multiplying the images of ‘emerging.’ Man lives by images. Like all important verbs, to emerge from would demand considerable research in the course of which, besides concrete examples, one would collect the hardly perceptible movement of certain abstractions….only images can set verbs in motion again.”-109

“We want to see and yet we are afraid to see. This is the perceptible threshold of all knowledge, the threshold upon which interest wavers, falters, then returns.”-110

“To live alone; there’s a great dream! The most lifeless, the most physically absurd image, such as that of living in a shell, can serve as origin of such a dream. For it is a dream that, in life’s moments of great sadness, is shared by everybody, both weak and strong, in revolt against the injustices of men and of fate.”-123

“Here one sense clearly that this is a mixed problem of imagination and observation. I have simply wanted to show that whenever life seeks to shelter, protect, cover or hide itself, the imagination sympathizes with the being that inhabits the protected space. The imagination experiences protection in all its nuances of security, from life in the most material of shells, to more subtle concealment through imitation of surfaces.”-132

“Consciousness of being at peace in one’s corner produces a sense of immobility, and this, in turn, radiates immobility. An imaginary room rises up around our bodies, which think that they are well hidden when we take refuge in a corner. Already, the shadows are walls, a piece of furniture constitutes a barrier, hangings are a roof. But all of these images are over-imagined. So we have to designate the space of our immobility by making it the space of our being.”-137

“For great dreamers of corners and holes nothing is ever empty, the dialectics of full and empty only correspond to two geometrical non-realities. The function of inhabiting constitutes the link between full and empty. A living creature fills an empty refuge, images inhabit….”-140

“If we were to give the imagination its due philosophical systems of the universe, we should find, at their source, an adjective. Indeed, to those who want to find the essence of a world philosophy, one could give the following advice—look for its adjectives.”-144

“In such imagination as this, there exists total inversion as regards the spirit of observation. Here the mind that imagines follows the opposite path of the mind that observes, the imagination does not to end in a diagram that summaries acquired learning. It seeks a pretext to multiple images, and as soon as the imagination is interested by an image, this increases its value.”-151-152

“This warm intimacy is the root of all images.”154

“I myself consider literary documents as realities of the imagination, pure products of the imagination. And why should the action of the imagination not be as real as those of perception?”-158

“But in this poetic life of images there is more than a mere game of dimensions. Daydream is not geometrical. The dreamer commits himself absolutely.”-167

On forms of enclosure/shelter:
“The hut can receive none of the riches “of this world.” It possesses the felicity of intense poverty; indeed, it is one of the glories of poverty, as destitution increases it gives us access to absolute refuge.”-32

“But however cosmic the isolated house lighted by the stars of its lamp may become, it will always symbolize solitude.”-36

“Objects that are cherished in this way really are born of intimate light, and they attain a higher degree of reality than indifferent objects, or those that are defined by geometric reality. For they produce a new reality of being, and they take their place not only in an order but in a community of order, from one object in a room to another, housewifely care weaves the ties that unite a very ancient past to the new epoch.”-68

“Wardrobes with their shelves, desks with their drawers, and chests with their false bottoms are veritable organs of the secret psychological life. Indeed, without these ‘objects’ and a few others in equally high favor, our intimate life would lack a model of intimacy. They are hybrid objects, subject objects. Like us, through us and for us, they have a quality of intimacy.”-78

“The lock doesn’t exist that could resist absolute violence, and all locks are invitation to thieves. A lock is a psychological threshold. And how it defies indiscretion when it is covered with ornament!”-81

“but in order to make so gentle a comparison between house and nest, one must have lost the house that stood for happiness, so there is also an alas in this song of tenderness, if we return to the old home as to a nest, it is because memories are dreams, because the home of other days has become a great image of lost intimacy.”-100

“If we go deeper into daydreaming of nests, we soon encounter a sort of paradox of sensibility. A nest—and this we understand right away—is a precarious thing, and yet it sets us to daydreaming of security. Why does this obvious precariousness not arrest daydreams of this kind? The answer to this paradox is simple: when we dream, we are phenomenologists without realizing it.”-103

Bottle Press

2011-04-25T17:48:00.000-07:00

Houses made of class bottles!

Escapism.

Baby Baby Press

2011-04-24T12:42:00.000-07:00

What do Super Mario Land and Frank Sinatra have in common with The Bible, platelets, Mickey Mouse, friendly fire, Elvis’ still born twin, Bristol, a wife named Rohini, a prayer, and a cloud? These objects, people, places sway together and swarm Richard Froude's first novel, Fabric. They fuse and dissolve in stunning alinear symmetries to ask the reader, “What is night? What is silence? What is transition? In place of logic, can I offer you these trinkets? Will we meet ghosts on our journey? What did I bring to the occasion?” Richard brings to us the proximity where stillness and movement meet. A collapsing of distance that renders our world expansive and real.

I spent a good chunk of Saturday reading this book and I think you need to read it if you haven't already:
FABRIC by Richard Froude
from Horse Less Press

Knee Deep in Light Press

2011-04-20T16:34:00.001-07:00

I've been reading Swensen's Such Rich Hour.
And have been thinking about the polarized purposes of the book(s) of hours. On the one hand, they undermine the hierarchy of the church because believers can conduct religious rituals in their own homes. In this way, these books re-appropriate authority to the household, they allow for individuals to interpret and reshape rites to fit each person’s needs. To develop familial customs, to create meaningful interaction beyond the confines of the pew. On the other hand, these books serve as an extension of the church: the church infiltrates and permeates the boundaries outside of its gates, it becomes infused in daily rituals. Then, there is no room in the house or occasion to which the church does not gain access. To me, this is terrifying. The false relinquishing of control in order to influence and guide all aspects of one’s life. You think you are appropriating but in fact, you are being appropriated. And the question I have is, what happens to the women? Always, how are the women happening? I don’t think this question is ever anachronistic, out of place, inappropriate.

In the Roald Dahl book, Witches, witches have the power to take children and stick them in paintings. The child keeps on living though, stuck inside the painting, free to move around the landscape of the image but never to escape. Often these paintings sit in the parents’ house, and while the parents are busy dealing with the police, looking for robbers or kidnappers, they ignore their children, captured within the bounds of a wooden or metal frame that hangs on their living room wall. The child glides across the canvas, his or her shouting and pounding on the glass completely muted. The child will grow old here. This terrified me when I was younger, I was afraid I might disappear in a strange way and my parents wouldn’t know how to look for me.

In Such Rich Hour, Swensen has cracked this glass and wispy sighs, blistering secrets, honest observations kept silent for centuries are suddenly rippling toward the reader. She has opened the trapdoor, unlatched the memory box, dug up the “grave just large enough for the face” (19) and performed CPR. I think the term “remediate” is an interesting one, because it means the action of remedying, and remedying as we know, offers treatment or a means of counteracting or eliminating something. Is Swensen fixing something? Counteracting? What about the women? To me, this text voices women, it moves them. To animate. Who were these women? We can’t see them, but we could guess that in these paintings, women are relinquished to the roles of nuns, mothers, wives, pious virgins, or (virginal) saints. In this collection of poems, I see the women shifting around, seeping outwards to the reader, stretching their vocal cords into 3Dness, into histories no one knew they had. Melusine says, “what // are you doing in my sky?,” Mary says, “What are you doing in my house / What am I doing in my house? /What am I doing? and what am I incapable of doing?,” and “every woman given thus thus said / Pardon me.” For what? For not fearing to ask questions. For claiming. These poems re-evaluate all space as female-dominated, the space to ask questions and deserve consideration. And as Marie says, for wanting “the extravagant promise of an imminent earth”

So much dust between me & the light Press

2011-04-18T10:09:00.001-07:00

I have 6 collab poems with an English poet, Frances Presley, up at Like Starlings. I hope you like them, it was incredibly fun writing with someone I've never met and being given the opportunity to do so.

Can you tell who wrote what?

**

Word for/word has a new issue: www.wordforword.infowith poetry by:
* Mónica Gomery
* Stephen Ratcliffe
* Anhvu Buchanan
* Gracie Leavitt
* Ian Seed
* Jim Berger
* Kara Imre
* Sara Michas-Martin
* Serena M. Tome
* Karen Lepri
* Kate Dougherty
* Lily Ladewig
* Elizabeth Sanger
* Laura Kochman

And lots of vis-po to boot.

The Heart without Authority Press

2011-04-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

on concerns of the Body/Language/Book, from Cixous' The Book of Promethea::

“doing the one thing that now seems urgent and right to her: shouting her loud hymn of ecstatic pleasure, breaching the hide of the old tongue’s hard blare.”-6
“The boom that follows is inside [Promethea]. It is maybe even her womb itself.”-9
“There are words with obligations. There are sentences that carry the person who spoke them galloping away in a foaming race to the edge of the earth. There, if one has lied, the sentences turn back into wind, the words are reduced to ashes, and one falls into the void, without being able to utter a cry.”-23

“Luckily, Promethea is untranslatable. That is my one consolation; she races on in an out-of-breath language that is, for me, unbearable. Everytime she tosses something out it is so impassioned and so sudden, it so naked, that each time I shudder as if she has handed me a heart taken fresh from someone’s breast…”-23

“Her vocabulary comes always from the guts, hers or the earth’s.”-23

“No, we do not speak at all the same language, things she lets bubble up in a shower of sparks, I would like to collect and bind. She burns and I want to write out the fire! Luckily, I’ll never succeed.”-24

“[Promethea] frightens me because she can knock me down with a word. Because she does not know that writing is walking on a dizzying silence setting one word after the other on emptiness. Writing is miraculous and terrifying like the flight of a bird who has no wings but flings itself out and only gets wings by flying. She doesn’t know how I tremble with terror and certainty. Because to write is to work with a certainty that is demoniacal, solely, shakily, demoniacal, and yet to work with absolute confidence. / I am just as sure as I am uncertain.”-27

“There are still three or four small chambers I want to take you through in my labyrinth, and then there will be only the great treasure room. Entirely present. Entirely pure and clear. In the first stark, dark chamber, seventy-five feet down, I announce: This is raw eternity shining at the end of the gallery. It is a sort of luminous book, perhaps, not the slightest need for my circumlocutions.”-30

“I am in the next small chamber…and it is the same sort of questions, the same ordeal, the same agony. The question of birth, of nonbirth, of Noluck. How close I came to not being alive. To not being born…a bit of luck…That is why I still tell what is, with the astonishment of any little girl who exlores.”-32

“We are innocent. That is all I have to say. I know, it was a long time coming. I would have liked to begin our book with this phase but was afraid that by exposing it like this to the first glance I might alter the transparency of our innocence.”-39

“Everything that happens in this book has a pure violence. Everything, at least, is just being born or else dying.”-39

“This book can kill me. I am not spontaneous enough…Instead of leaping in with whinnies of joy, I start counting sparks: I mean—I slow down to listen to the words crackling in my heart; that is why I groan in pain. There is nothing to be done: I am incapable of simply enjoying fire. I want to understand its tongue, I want to grasp its words…”-40

“Sometimes where you hide is inside me, I have to search myself to drive you out of hiding. And that is the cause of our drama. The book opening behind this page is the journal of that drama. Our drama is that we live in a state of mutual invasion.”-53

“The most beautiful things cannot be written, unfortunately. Fortunately. We would have to be able to write with our eyes, with wild eyes, with the tears of our eyes, with the frenzy of a glaze, with the skin if our hands.”-53

“But it is a book of changes….This is a book of raw flesh.”-63

“No one had ever yet written on my heart. And now I am the one asking: ‘Come in Promethea, please come in. Write yourself on me, I want you to cover my organs with your great signs of life. The truth is, therefore, I am not writing: I am exposing myself to impressions as faithfully as I can. This takes guts.”-93

“Thing written so freely are made of blood and will and living phrases that need not communicate any knowledge but that cast enough of a glow to light our separate ways.”-99
“Yes. Sometimes I think a moment is so beautiful. I want to toss it handfuls of delicious words so gluttony will keep it there. Sometimes it makes me want to weep words, to pour all my eye’s words on her face. (if you don’t understand my contradictions I won’t be hurt.”-112

“I press on my breasts, I press against my heart. Sometimes words spurt out…”121

“You put your mark on me: because I don’t run away from you. You leave traces in me. You write me. You crowd me. You populate me. I recognize you: you are one of my people. You are my people. I don’t comprehend you. I contain you. No longer am I anything more than all your sensing space.”134

“But Promethea cares carnally about what she says. Watch out for words with her! Because Promethea is the person who has not cut the cord binding words to her bidy. Everything she says is absolutely fresh.”-154
-is that how we stay in the present? By not cutting the cord between our body and writing? How can that be done non-metaphorically?

“…in the darkest eroticism, I mean in a burning and painful obscurity of soul, with the soul in a state of raw nerves so that every word, every thought that brushed past me made me cry out in pain.”-174

“…her ecstasy is such that she is unable to murmur a single word.”-193

“But with you, Promethea, I am ready and willing to leap out of the Book, even to go visit some emaciated people, even if I don’t forget all my beautiful shoes, each of which is worth more than a bag of rice.”-198

Clan of the Cave Bra Press

2011-04-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

on love, from Cixous' The Book of Promethea:

on concerns of LOVE:
“I am a little afraid of this book. Because it is a book of love. A burning bush. Best to plunge in. Once in the fire one is bathed in sweetness. Honestly: here I am, in it.”-page 4
--confront fear, violence (plunge) of entering love. Love is a location, a place of fiery sweetness.

“Because it is a book of love. Sometimes I call it the Book of Rages. It is a raging book…Because it is a book about now…. This book is composed of first pages.”-13/15
-“I am armed with love and care. Which is not enough. Sometimes I need to add writing as well”-14

“Because it is easy to love and sing one’s love. That is something I am extremely good at doing. Indeed, that is my art. But to be loved, that is true greatness. Being loved, letting oneself be loved, entering the magic and dreadful circle of generosity, receiving gifts, finding the right thank-you’s, that is love’s real work.”-20

-showing/telling how internal chambers as an open structure that people can enter. “Come, I am going to show you where you can get through. There’s the way. Through love.”-35

“I am living now beyond my power, I have to conquer every moment of my life, which has become immense and fre ad wild, and altogether new. This life, I do not know how to live it. No one taught me. No one told me about its turbulence. I think I thought ‘loving’ was the sweetest, easiest thing in the world. Which is not at all what it is….neer could I have imagined the terrors there are in joys. Wanting to scream for mercy. Joy is unbearable. And I never suspected it. I am exhausted. What happiness!”-42

“Sometimes spasms of desperate wrath shake our history: because when the hands of one tremble just a little, the idea that one of us might drop the other shoots through our heart (and then we have only one heart, one is inside the other, one is the other, each of us is herself, terror, the other, the arrow, the scream tearing through one another’s womb.”—52

“Things I would have condemned in the name of caution, proper limits and temperance, delight me. When Promethea tells me: “I want to be your slave,” it doesn’t frighten me, o don’t reproach her for wanting to give up her most precious possession…We have already given each other so much that what do we have left to give? Almost nothing. So now we give ourselves away.”-56

“That is why sometimes I want to go to the market the same way I want to reread Les Illuminations. Or the same way I want to see a dream of a Hindu palace, which rarely happens to me. In the market things to eat are so alive, so meaningful, so eloquent and young, that one starts loving the things one will end up devouring. It is a love story that is both magic and absolutely real; it is our history. The story of love.”-58

“Never am I you. That is what is astonishing. That is what is reassuring. That is what is too much for my love. I lick your soul right down to the bone, I know the taste of every inch of your nerves, but I do not know you I do not know.”-65

“Because in love not all is love. But also: injustice, anger, hunger, delicate hunger and raging hunger, innocent hungers and cruel hungers proud of being so and ashamed of being so and even prouder.”-67

“Everything she wanted to tell her, was unable to tell her because she was afraid of hearing her own voice come out of her heart and be covered with blood, and then she poured all her blood into these syllables, and she offered it to her to drink like this: “You have it.”-68

“‘What I wanted was that you be smitten,’ and the word fell dead center onto the other’s breast, she was smitten, a word so keen and so charged, which took a long, long time to plunge dead center through the breast toward the heart, and finally, touch it. Finally found the heart and there slowly buried itself, blade into the soul.”-69

“We are in the process of descending into the depths of the heart. To where bodies communicate with each other.”-70

“—Why do you love me?
--Because, your throat distorts your voice when you say,
‘why do you love me?’
Because even if I did not love you, you love me.”-75

“to drug herself with love, to get drunk on god”-81
-so can love be equated with god?

“It is a matter of our human inability to adapt to our own possibilities for growth. We go beyond ourselves with love’s help. Sometimes we leap over our own limits…but sometimes the leap is not magical enough, we have forgotten a word, a heartbeat, and we stay put with a heavy shudder. That is a bad sign: that means there is bad faith, unwillingness, and especially: separation. That means: go without me. Because sometimes there are unforeseen, often imperceptible, breaks in love…but if such a break happens in the midst of a leap, then something that is only space with no gravity suddenly can deepen into an abyss. But it is a matter also of how difficult it normally is for us to bear the infinite. Nothing would distress us more than continual happiness, other than the discovery that our much cherished happiness would eventually suffer from not being threatened.”-87

“I am infiltrated. I am loved. It is a new feeling.”-103

Diff between love of another adult and love of a child:
“To the child she wants to swear the way a mother lies and yet does not lie: ‘I will always be there.’ But only to a child. Because to the woman she loves, whom she wants to make tremble she cannot say—‘always’”-117

“All my energy is employed in the great maneuvers of my desires. That is where everything happens.”-131
So how is love different from desire?

“That is how Promethea won H’s soul, without taking it, by not taking it, giving herself boundlessly. Does not consider the powers of her humility because she is truly so humble that she does not know she is humble. So much more power than herself. Survivor. Survivor from divine times.”154

“The enigma of this love, this rage: it is because Promethea gives herself so truly wholly that I want her even more: I want everything she gives me, but it is not enough. I want to take also. And so how can one take when all is given?..”181

Eliot Log Jam Press

2011-04-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

These are quotes I like from Susan Howe's The Nonnconformist Memorial that I've been reading:

Actual world nothing ideal
-6

We plural are the speaker
-11

A question of overthrowing
-13

Love may be a stumbling //
Out on the great meadows
-14

The motif of searching
-15

She has a voice to cry out//
No community can accompany her
-15

I stray to stray
-16

Or break its boundedness
-20

Arranges and utters
words to themselves
Of how and first she
was possibly body
-24

Confessions implode into otherness
-25

Love is the orbed circle
-25

I will cross the frontiers
-28

It is the Word to whom she turns
True submission and subjugation
-30

Any trajectory is dense
outside the threshold
-33

who is the transgressor
-38

I’m free and I’m famished//
…Please feel my arms open
-40

the issue of legitimation
-41

turn your face to what told me
love grazed here at least
mutinous predominant unapparent
-45

theme theme heart fury
all is mutiny
-46

strange always strange
-48

Walk of Shame Hall of Fame Press

2011-04-02T08:58:00.001-07:00

I'm in Colorado Springs right now.

Snowy mountains. We drove by so many mountains.

I'm writing a letter to myself. I'm drinking orange juice out of a pickle jar.

Ish Klein has a new poetry podcast. Check it out here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-no-slander-podcast/id419725253

I love Dan Beachy-Quick's note on poetics at Evening Will Come:
http://www.eveningwillcome.com/issue4-dbeachy-quick-p1.html

Bison Delay Press

2011-03-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

Hi.

It's Friday. I'm "watching" basketball at Seth Landman's apartment. We are rooting for Kentucky and VCU.

I have 2 poems in the new So & So. They're here.

They will make you feel like if you take these two images & combine them together in your mind. Can you do that?:

Poor Man's Press

2011-03-20T13:36:00.000-07:00

Q. Who is the poor man's Aiden Quinn?
A. Aiden Quinn.

***

What movies did you watch this weekend?

I watched:

The Frisco Kid
MacGruber
Case 39
Empire Falls
The Greatest
Faster (starring The Rock)

Cage Fight Press

2011-03-13T10:25:00.000-07:00

I went to an MMA fight on Saturday night because my friend is a coach. All I can really say is: brutal & awesome.

***

If you go the Anti- website, you'll see new work featuring Amaud Jamaul Johnson.

http://anti-poetry.com/

***
I love Martin Johnson Heade. His work, on first glance, looks pristine. But then you notice how eerie his paintings are. Like the jungle is unnaturally gray.

I think something bad is about to happen in this habitat!

Petite Freak Press

2011-03-12T09:46:00.001-08:00

What woke up this Saturday?

Fewer & Further Press is pleased to announce the publication of Asterisk 8, featuring poems by Stacy Szymaszek and Corrine Fitzpatrick. Copies of Asterisk 8 can be purchased for $3.50, postpaid: http://fewfurpressasterisk.blogspot.com/

**

New Issue of Gently Read Literature:

Reviews of Contemporary Poetry and Literary Fiction

At Once Elegant and Deadly: Joan Biddle on Daniel Johnson's How to Catch a Falling Knife
http://wp.me/pcuKI-Ky

Endlessly Rewarding: Joe Sullivan on Shya Scanlon's In This Alone Impulse
http://wp.me/pcuKI-Kw

The Unbearable Weight of the Present: Glenda Burgess on Anna Rabinowitz's Present Tense
http://wp.me/pcuKI-Ku

Vengeful Beast: Cicily Janus on David Nash's Van Gogh's Ear
http://wp.me/pcuKI-Kq

Intimate Narrative: Joanna Terrero on Robin Reardon's A Question of Manhood
http://wp.me/pcuKI-KC

The Wallet You Dropped May be Your Own: David Atkinson on William Trowbridge's Ship of Fool
http://wp.me/pcuKI-Ko

Khurshid Alam's Investigative Poetry—An Interpretation on Subject, Treatment, and Technique
http://wp.me/pcuKI-KA

A Tendency to Distort the Real: Allyson Hicks Heyen on Alta Ifland's Elegy for a Fabulous World
http://wp.me/pcuKI-Km

Primal Matter: Nadine Dalton Speidel on Snaketown by Kathleen Wakefield
http://wp.me/pcuKI-Jn

Helen Peterson on Redneck Poems by Rusty Barnes
http://wp.me/pcuKI-Ks

**

I received this exciting message today, so you better get your sleepy asses over to Brooklyn:

Hey Friends and Family,

We are writing to let you know that Berl's Brooklyn Poetry Shop is open for business!

We will be selling poetry at the Brooklyn Flea this Saturday and Sunday, March 12th and 13th. Please come out and say hello! We'll be offering a wide selection of handmade poetry books, which you can buy and read with a knitted pair of poetry reading mitts, also handmade and for sale.

The Flea is located at 1 Hanson Place, in Fort Greene, Brooklyn and is close to almost every subway. The hours are from 10-6. More information can be found here:
http://www.brooklynflea.com/

Hope to see you this weekend or soon; Berl's will be at the Flea every weekend this month.

Your friendly poetry booksellers,
Farrah and Jared

Good Thing I Escaped the Prison of New Criticism Press

2011-03-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

This is the conversation I just overheard. This is what happens when laymen try to explain medical procedures:

Woman 1: Did you hear Gilda's retina is detaching?
Woman 2: No. What's she going to do?
Woman 1: Well the doctor's going to get in there and do whatever.
Woman 2: Oh, I see.

***

This is what you look like after retina surgery:

Actually, this is what happens if you fall asleep while my brother is still awake.

Watermelon, Elephant Press

2011-03-08T07:59:00.001-08:00

Starting Thursday evening I am on Spring Break.

Should I go to the New Jersey shore?

I think I will hang out in Denver & read as much as I can. I'm currently re-reading Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen. The first story in the collection is so sad & forlorn. And the third story, "The Specialist's Hat," is so terrifying I had to skip over it because I remember that last time I read it I had to jump & run out of the room.

**
Here is a very kind review of my book at NewPages Book Reviews.

**

The third issue of DewClaw is out:
http://dewclawjournal.com/

Featuring work by:

Darren Angle
Mark Bibbins
Amina Cain
Emily Carlson
Susan Daitch
Farrah Field
Kate Greenstreet
Shelley Jackson
Noelle Kocot
Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi
Damon Tombin (introduced by Noelle Kocot)
... as well as drawings by Hannah Reiff.

Never Play Poker Against a Goat Press

2011-02-26T15:12:00.000-08:00

Secret #6:
Sometimes I feel
I’m existing
in a time that doesn’t
want me

**

For example, look at the very last "security question" on this list:

Another Mtherfcking Myth? Press

2011-02-24T20:16:00.000-08:00

How are you?

This week has had at least 15 days in it, hasn't it? It feels that long.

Last night I heated up left overs & M thanked me for cooking dinner. Aw man. I have to step it up. I gotz some fresh asparagus, yo.

I just finished reading the Iliad. Spoiler alert: the war never ends!

If some one gave me an Orangina right now, spiked with vodka, I would not turn it down.

***
Photos from AWP:

***
Remember how I said I was going to persuade you to come visit? So far the lovely & talented Elisabeth Grindcore is coming soon, & then my cousin Zoe will live here this summer. She kicks ass & saves lives.

So here is the next secret. I will keep revealing as long as you buy a ticket & visit me.

Secret #2: I don't understand why people would buy frozen pancakes.

Secret #3: I love, love love orange soda.

Secret #4: I like the name Wolfgang Wren. For a girl. Watch out, babies.

Secret #5: I'm doing neck exercises to improve my posture. So far, no improvement, but it's only the second day. It's hard to do, because you have to look in the mirror & make weird faces, so then you can't really take yourself seriously for the rest of the day. Which is good, I guess.

Now that I have embarrassed myself, you should trust me, so trust my chapbook recommendation:

Buy this chapbook by Gena from Octopus Books, it will blend in so well with your collection of other awesome books

The Night Was Mad Press

2011-02-20T10:38:00.000-08:00

It has been beautiful in Denver. You should come visit. Every day until you buy a ticket I will tell you a secret.

Secret #1: If I could wear my black, fingerless gloves all the time, I would.

Things are brewing.

1. Emily Kendal Frey's new book is out. It looks like this:

and you buy it here.

2.Justin Marks & Paige Taggart have chapbooks out from Poor Claudia.
DIGITAL MACRAME by Paige and ON HAPPIER LAWNS by Justin. I highly advice you order them:

http://www.poorclaudia.org/purchase/

2.5 Also, I have work in the new issue of Poor Claudia. Check out the new issue here:

http://www.poorclaudia.org/purchase/

3. Sommer Browning's book, Either Way I'm Celebrating, is officially out. If you didn't snag a copy at AWP, you should order one here, at Birds LLC:

Blanket Monster Press

2011-02-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

Richard Froude and Seth Landman are reading in NYC this Friday. You are so lucky! You need to go! Here are the concise details:

Friday Feb 18th, 8pm, SUPERMACHINE at Outpost, 1014 Fulton St, Brooklyn NY

Valentine Press

2011-02-14T14:45:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day! Are your cheeks two glowing hearts?

Some good things to pass on today:

New Issue of La Petite Zine
http://www.lapetitezine.org/

New Issue of alice blue is up:
http://www.alicebluereview.org/

P O E T R Y
jennifer stockdale
thomas patrick levy
ruth williams
dana guthrie martin
trey jordan harris
jenn marie nunes
daniela olszewska
nate slawson
russell jaffe

P R O S E
katie jean shinkle
sam martone
karin gottshall
michael k meyers
jenniey tallman
nate liederbach
reynard seifert

RIP Press

2011-02-06T06:40:00.000-08:00

Last Monday Bill Cassidy died. He was amazing & I miss him very much. I'm pasting below one of the poems he wrote that I love:

ME & MY GOODBYE FRIENDS & ME & TOOTALOU

& to the testy secretaries & to the bunch up dresses & humid swirl
chairs & hail to that scent perfume that reminds me of you & the women

coming out of discount stores that don’t remind me of you & the rage
& the used book pushers in dreadlocks & the caricatures the hula hoops

embarked flames & to elephants that cry real human tears & to running water
embarrassed of sounding shit & protesters with hell no posters & to war-

mongers & the pirates that look like hells angels & 1996 & jody reed &
bolstered nudist collectives & count the stars collectives & the awards i never

want & the mantels i’ll never afford & the hammock by the ignored swimming
pool & dead mans float to freckles in summertime & untrimmed pubic brush in

wintertime to 12 hour plane rides buses in the sky & feet falling asleep to subtle
strokes de ja vu this happened it did i need a mickey in my comedowns & walking

the debris & to the cops fondling in sleep & to watching you eat a banana & not
thinking of sex & to the tomato off the vine to box of moonlight & frenchy bookclubs

in circlesquare & to the law uck & uhl’s parakeets the birdie lightshows & jealousy
uck & meghan & all the urban poets that write about trees & all the woodsy poets

that write about trees & rock n’ roll albums croon about trees & bexy her tees &
to understanding things is overrated & sharing the toothbrush & tomorrow at work

you will die & jumping overboard & bypass drowning & sincere birch & to i’m quite
a person today & cad chauvinistic bruhaha plagiarism to infield basehits being the

laughingstock & dreams of one time rooms & the complexity of every room & cops
& garbage can fires & sheepdog & they’re all mad at me seesawing hearing chainsaws

in the city & indian food in the country & to what people do in that neighborhood &
to not being caught dead in that neighborhood & staying clothed in sex at beach 3 sheets

to the wind & dave huddled in new paltz reading henry james & messy arrangements &
leaking everyone & dance party in corner not dancing & rebelrebel & adolescent everyone’s

divorced parents cockfights in basements the temperature the lady due date & cousins
coloring watching you pull into driveways funerals bring back family to everyone has

killed themselves free transportation & nicotine sheer stampede & the steps at christie &
east houston finding the desk for 2$ & cowboy & DMT eyes fold hubba my insides are

wallpaper they’re no walls & showoffy & look what i can do lift spackle toss & vague ways
& vacant ways & minnie on her perch & her gretting & retreating & big pete up for anything

to 2 years to philosophies in wheeling carts the rose tarp on janey’s head & shit janey where
did you go placing a gun to your façade turning dung where there’s no air & bye janey see

you soon janey & there i was all crossed & thinking greedily about what i would eat & the
enigmatic compartment jason hides in in berlin missing covers & kids playing hitman

shoot you dead & spending & fainting the left over meat cribbage the rubbing down
wiping posh out of posh & my mother my mother the baby’s spitbubble the treehouse

i called home & no overdose & percocet circus adam yernie looking at the overhearing
sky talking weatherman & trizzle in his leather vest hiding who knows what under floorboards

& apologizing for eating chicken & dolly parton pinball & iv’s ontop iv’s & the royal flushing
the conveyer silk & cigarette catches the hawk i saw in woodstock the car crash the ambulance

the daybed & the stressful intermissions to it coming when not looking to never not looking to
down boy down boy the battle the normalcy of addicted & hovering & the quilt i cover skull the

avenue of day breaking failed noose & the prey & inactive holler to going on & digging the shovel
going on & it’s ok it’s alright the engine puttering the me the me the me the me redhanded.

Fix the Fern Back Press

2011-02-01T08:51:00.000-08:00

So I have to ask.

Are you going to AWP?

I will be stationed at the Denver Quarterly table. And if I'm not there, I'm probably at the Octopus/Saltgrass table in the Table X area. I will feed you whiskey & hugs. Okay?

I am also reading for 6x6 this Thursday night and I hope you can come. I'm going to read you something so awesome your future children will have an extra brain where their spleen should be.

Time: Thursday, February 3 · 7:30pm - 10:30pm
Location The Black Squirrel, upstairs lounge
2427 18th Street NW
Washington, DC

JOURNALS READING:
Versal, Trickhouse, Lumberyard, 6x6 and 1913.
We've put together an amazing and incredibly wide-ranging line-up of readers. Please come join us!

READERS:
Lee Ann Brown
Katie Byrum
Julia Cohen
James Copeland
Brandon Downing
Lucy Ives
Joanna Klink
Matthew Lippman
Sawako Nakayasu
Elizabeth Frankie Rollins

The Black Squirrel's in walking distance of the conference, in Adams Morgan between La Fourchette and the Amsterdam Falafelshop.
http://www.blacksquirreldc.com/

**

Oh, here are some photos, we have had some awesome visitors in Denver recently!:

Pol Potluck Press

2011-01-14T17:28:00.000-08:00

Come to this reading this Saturday, yo:

The year's first installment of the Bad Shadow Affair is going to knock you out.

Bin Ramke, Cynthia Arrieu-King, Michael Friedman & Joshua Allen will read their work.

Promptly at 7:30pm
at Lost Lake Lounge 
3602 E. Colfax Ave
 Denver, CO 80206

Bin Ramke edits the Denver Quarterly and teaches literature and creative writing in the English Department. His first book won the Yale Younger Poets Award, and he has since published nine other books of poems, most recently Theory of Mind (Omnidawn, 2009).
...
Cynthia Arrieu-King is an assistant professor of creative writing at Stockton College. Her book People are Tiny in Paintings of China is out with Octopus Books. Her poems and other work appear in Boston Review, Witness, Jacket & Harp and Altar.

Michael Friedman's books include the comic novel Martian Dawn (Turtle Point, 2006) and the collection of prose poems Species (The Figures, 2000). Several poems from Species were included in the anthology Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present (Scribner, 2003), and Martian Dawn was named by The Believer editor Ed Park one of his ten favorite books of fiction of 2006. Since 1986 he has edited the influential literary journal Shiny. He grew up in Manhattan and is a former chair of the board of directors of The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church.

Joshua Allen has been writing online at fireland dot com since 1995, which is sort of sad. His current project is a confusing set of adventure tales called Chokeville. Andy Dick emailed him out of the blue last year.

Hot Off the Press

2011-01-05T10:42:00.000-08:00

2011 brings us:
1)

2) Gently Read Literature
January 2011 Issue 34
www.gentlyread.wordpress.com

3) and JMW writes to announce this new creation:

I write to announce a new monthly journal called "Evening Will Come."

Dedicated to poetics, "Evening Will Come" will appear online,
twelve times a year, on the first day of each month.

The first issue features a new essay by C.D. Wright.
http://www.eveningwillcome.com/

Future issues will include poetics pieces by Tyrone Williams,
Nathanaël Stephens, and Sueyeun Juliette Lee, among others.

Dan Beachy-Quick is at work on a poetics daybook for us,
and Joshua Clover, Juliana Spahr, and Chris Nealon
are conducting a roundtable on poetry and the political.

Still other pieces and projects are in the works,
and we are open to queries: eveningwillcome@gmail.com.

Our editorial board: Rosa Alcalá, Nathan Brown, Brian Foley,
Tim Johnson, Dorothea Lasky, Sara Marshall,
Summer Robinson, Evie Shockley, and Joshua Marie Wilkinson.

We hope you'll enjoy this new endeavor.

Happy New Year,
Joshua

http://www.eveningwillcome.com/

Road Trip Press

2010-12-29T21:16:00.000-08:00

Photos from where my parents live:

Nervous Nurse Press

2010-12-27T16:36:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking.

You can pat me on the back for that, or you can wait.

Was it worth the wait?:

I've been thinking about friendships. And balance, reciprocity. And what you need to know about yourself to have friendships that span coasts & continents. I've been thinking about culpability & excuses. Guilt. And how you need to acknowledge your own selfishness & tiredness in order to fight those urges & have friendships that expand & grow, not just simmer & maintain. That friendships can't really be enriched or flourish (I know these are totally new-agey terms) without being honest with yourself, without an awareness of how you, specifically, engage.

I love my friends so much! I think about my friends all the time. And I've been thinking that often I let 1) my tiredness 2) my relatively not-fascinating life 3) & my pure, unadultered hatred of the telephone inhibit or even prohibit the frequency & intensity in which I keep in touch with the people I love.

I've realized that saying I hate the phone is NOT a real excuse. Because I love the people who pick up the phone when I call. And that because I hate the phone, I avoid making phone calls, and then when I finally call people, I dread it, because it's been so long that I get nervous I won't remember any of the details of my life that might be good to share. I'm afraid that I will call someone and then say, "Oh, I don't know what I've been up to..." And then my friend will realize that I'm a dull brick of a person.

So one thing I'm going to do is start calling my friends more often. Are you ready? Are you? I hope you are.

The other thing is that I love handwritten letters. And postcards. And I do not dread sitting down to write a letter. I don't dread that at all. Sometimes I let my tiredness get in the way. I say, "I'm so sleepy." I forget how little effort & energy it actually takes to find a pen & write a letter to a friend. So I am going to make a serious attempt at writing letters with unflappable frequency to those I love. So, if you would like letters, send me your mailing address to my gmail & I will save it & write to you.

It's already begun. Letters are being written & sent through the mail.

Also, apologies if there is a high amount of typos in this post but I'm in Mexico & the spell check switches to Spanish here...so.

Blood Under Pigeon Press

2010-12-26T12:03:00.000-08:00

How has your holiday season been?

Do tell.

Now tell me more.

**

Lovely article by Lily Brown in Michigan Quarterly Review, "The Poetry Reading in Real Life."

**

New book in the world:

The release of QUANTUM SPIT, a new project by Douglas Kearney for Corollary Press.

Quantum Spit is a collection of seven broadsides, outfitted in a 12" LP jacket. These visually acoustic pieces render a poetic investigation of lyric identity, commercialism, and race into a rowdy rap-off between an MC and his various manifestations. A turntable spins song snippets over a drum kit while America periodically chimes in. Aggressive, melancholy, and undeniably entrancing, these pieces are a must for lovers of poetry.

$15, shipping included.

You can order via the site, www.corollarypress.org

2010 Press

2010-12-22T13:30:00.000-08:00

Some very bad things have happened this year:

The Tea Party.
Earthquake in Haiti. And the people who stopped caring after a few days.
Cholera epidemic in Haiti.
The limp dick health care plan, thanks to moderate democrats and all republicans.
Madolf.
Oil Spill. And the people who stopped caring after a few days, or all republicans/people who don't see this as symptomatic of much larger problems.
Sarah Palin's reality show.
The collapse of Iceland's economy.
In my inner world: I have no dental insurance.

But a few good things have happened, too:

20 year overdue repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell. 'Bout time.
Mathias has a new baby nephew.
The World Cup.
The Microscripts by Robert Walser
joanna Newsom's new record, Have One On Me.
The wall paper that exists my grandma's new apartment. See all the animals killing each other? (stabbing, strangling, etc):

That time I kissed your cheek & you kissed mine.
Learning that you can say "You're worse than Reagan" & it works like a stun gun.
You can pre-order Sommer Browning and Dan Boehl's books here:

http://www.birdsllc.com/

4 Loko 3 Genius Tour Ends Press

2010-12-21T22:08:00.000-08:00

Aw, our east coast tour is over. Thank you, thank you, to all who came to the various readings. My little heart muscles flex & burst with gratitude.

Here are some photos from the road:

I Heart The Drawings of Frederick Ruysch Press

2010-12-16T21:25:00.000-08:00

Friday, this very Friday, I am reading in NY to support my new book. You should come. I'd like to tell you I think you're pretty. okay?

Here are the details:

Brooklyn, NY, FRIDAY, December 17th :
Cynthia Arrieu-King, Lily Brown, Julia Cohen
7pm
Yardmeter Editions
Location: 267 Douglass Street, Brooklyn, NY
for more detailed directions: http://yardmeter.blogspot.com

The reading will be exactly like this:

And yes, those are skeletons using human tissue as handkerchiefs.

If You Don't Take Andy Home With You You'll Regret Not Taking Andy Home With You Press

2010-12-16T05:39:00.000-08:00

Have I shown you these before? Oh, I like these paintings:

Photo Essay Number Three Press

2010-12-14T19:32:00.000-08:00

Beets were peeled and roasted. Can you see our pink/red beet thumbs?:

We saw an abandoned basketball court:

We saw a rat & tadpoles in jars:
Butterflies on pins:
A Mongolian Saiga & JPH:
Monkey skeletons are very nimble climbing trees:

This picture is deceptive because JPH's head was supposed to show how large the blowfish is, but that doesn't really come through here. The blowfish is very large, and going in for a kiss:
TEETH:

Throat Press

2010-12-12T06:16:00.000-08:00

I'm leaving Richmond today and heading to Philly. In Philly I think I will sleep a lot and then do some drywalling. Get a little dirty. I am trying to get rid of a soar throat that is persistent. Any suggestions?

**

New issue of Anti- is out:
Anti- Issue #7. 21 poems by Keith Wilson, Zach Savich, Joshua Rivkin, Patty Paine, Christina Olson, Dan Nowak, Eric Morris, Jeff Mock, Patricia Lockwood, Joel Lee, Stephanie Kartalopoulos, Megan Hudgins, Elizabeth Hoover, Jennifer H. Fortin, Cynthia Cruz, Jamison Crabtree, and Michael Cantor. Plus a review of Paula Bohince by Brent House and a review of Joel Brouwer by Weston Cutter. Happy Holidays!

http://anti-poetry.com/

Holiday Photo Essay Part Two Press

2010-12-11T22:17:00.000-08:00

I saw a movie and these are stills from the movie. Do you know what movie it is? I was terrified, truly:

I saw these at the MFA, Boston:

Holiday Photo Essay Press

2010-12-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

Berman-Cohen Holidays:

Double Load Daycare Press

2010-12-08T13:20:00.000-08:00

More Celan lines to bring you to your knees:

I am the first to drink of the blue that still looks for its eye.
I drink from your footprint and see:
You roll through my fingers, pearl, and you grow!
You roll: the black hailstone of sadness
Is caught by a kerchief turned white with waving goodbye.

**

Make me bitter.
Count me among the amonds.

**

and carry the thing that’s uncertain
and carry the green thing into your Ever.

**

Set your flag at half-mast,
memory.

**

Speak—
But keep yes and no unsplit.

**

In the wind-shadow, thousandfold, you.
You and the arm
with which naked I grew towards you,
lost one.

The beams. They blow us together.
We bear the brightness, the pain and the name.

**

We
don’t know, you know,
we
don’t know, do we?,
what
counts.

**

and at times when
only the void stood between us we got
all the way to each other.

********

So I am reading this friday and saturday in Raleigh and Richmond. Hope to see you there, yo:

Raleigh, North Carolina, FRIDAY December 10th:
Lily Brown, Julia Cohen, Anna Lena Phillips, Nellie Bellows
8pm
Morning Times, 10 E. Hargett St.

**

Richmond, Virginia, SATURDAY December 11th:
Lily Brown, Julia Cohen, with contributors of the RVA zines lips and celestial bodies
6pm Vegan potluck
7 pm reading
The Flying Brick
506 S.Pine St., Richmond 23220

Memory Flag Press

2010-12-08T09:27:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of text messages saved in my phone. They are mostly sweet messages from M that I want to save because they make me feel good. However, there are a number of texts I save because they are weird and I can't bring myself to delete them. Here are a few from friends and family that I'll keep anonymous:

The beetle is in a better place now.

**

Don't forget to take the ammo out of your bag!

**

ant-whaling.

**

I read your text message in the middle of a dream. Buy two pairs of everything.

**

Call me when you get off the train if you're confused or scared.

**

Please remind me that Republicans are f*cking dumb.

**

I saw a cool pigeon.

**

That does not give you permission to eat him.

**

Then I washed your face off.

**

Just shiv one of them so the others get the message.

**

What does AWOL mean?

**

Can we call out metal band Duckblood?

Celan Salon Press

2010-12-07T15:11:00.001-08:00

I’ve been reading Poems of Paul Celan translated by Michael Hamburger. Basically, Celan makes me cry.

I typed up some of my favorite lines for you:

The forest gave you a necklace of hands. So dead you walk the rope. To your hair a darker blue is imparted; I speak of love.

**

In the vault of swords the leaf-green heart of the shadows looks at itself. The blades are bright: who would not linger in death before mirrors?

**

High up they hurl hearts, the mossy globes of dementia:
O water-colored fleece, our one flag on the tower!

**

Ok, I will show you more tomorrow. If you're lucky.

Singer Sargent Press

2010-11-29T23:31:00.001-08:00

I love this Sargent painting:

Poets 4 Loko Reading Tour Press

2010-11-28T14:17:00.000-08:00

I hope if you are in one of these 7 cities, you will make it to one of my and Lily Brown's (and Cindy King for the second half of the trip) first book tour readings.

Can you, can you make it?

We will be selling our books for real cheap and we will dedicate all of our poems to you:

Here are some details:

Poets 4 Loko Reading Tour:

Atlanta, GA, FRIDAY December 3rd:
Lily Brown, Julia Cohen, Nichole Steinberg
8:00PM
Emory Bookstore, Atlanta, GA, US
http://www.poetrycouncil.campuslifetech.org/

**

Raleigh, North Carolina, FRIDAY December 10th:
Lily Brown, Julia Cohen, Anna Lena Phillips, Nellie Bellows
8pm
Morning Times, 10 E. Hargett St.

**

Richmond, Virginia, SATURDAY December 11th:
Lily Brown, Julia Cohen, with contributors of the RVA zines lips and celestial bodies
6pm Vegan potluck
7 pm reading
The Flying Brick
506 S.Pine St., Richmond 23220

**
Philly, PA, THURSDAY, December 16th:
Cynthia Arrieu-King, Lily Brown, Julia Cohen, and Patrick Lucy
6pm
Fergie's Pub
1214 Sansom Street
Philly, PA

**

Brooklyn, NY, FRIDAY, December 17th :
Cynthia Arrieu-King, Lily Brown, Julia Cohen
7pm
Yardmeter Editions
Location: 267 Douglass Street, Brooklyn, NY

**

Providence, RI, SATURDAY, December 18th :
Cynthia Arrieu-King, Lily Brown, Julia Cohen
6pm
Ada Books
717 Westminster St, Providence

**

Hadley, MA, SUNDAY December 19th :
Cynthia Arrieu-King, Lily Brown, Julia Cohen
Flying Object
Sunday, Dec 19th, 6pm.
42 West Street, Hadley, MA 01035
flying-object.org/

If you come, we will turn you into the cutest baby tapir. We promise:

Vacation Press

2010-11-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

I might be watching tv & googling weird things: