Saturday, October 31, 2009
Calliope Nerve Interview Series: Richard Wink
Tell us about Dead End Road.
Dead End Road is a collection of everyday snapshot poems, focusing on fictional characters such as the soldier home from Afghanistan, the pensioner, the housewife, the frustrated office worker, all of the characters live on the same road, yet there is no sense of community; just individual isolated lives. The concept originated from a chapbook I put out through Trainwreck Press titled Apple Road. I wanted to expand upon some of the ideas floated in Blur’s album Modern Life Is Rubbish and Richard Yates’ novel Revolutionary Road about the sterile nature of life in the suburbs.
What is Gloom Cupboard and what makes it so unique?
Gloom Cupboard is a litzine I founded that has been in existence since August 2007. The aim was always to showcase writers, give them a platform and if possible promote their work to a wider audience.
In a sense it is just another online based zine, but the difference is that there is no agenda, and really no game plan, the whole editorial process is very much Laissez-faire. Recently I assembled an editorial team to give the zine an injection of new ideas because I was beginning to lose a little passion towards GC; it became a bit too much running the whole show on my lonesome. Eventually, one day I hope to hand over the baton to someone else and let them take over, in fact if anyone wants to be an editor of a moderately successful litzine then let me know and I will hand it all over.
I attempted to model GC on Factory Records initially, in that profit would be secondary to the artistic output. My abiding memory of GC will always be getting the Print Editions through the post in a medium sized cardboard parcel from Erbacce Press, and then carefully dispatching them out across the world to all the writers that contributed. It was a great feeling to put something out in Print.
Do prefer writing or editing? Why?
Writing most definitely, the problem with editing is that you are required to reject people, I hate rejecting people. What right do I have to tell somebody that their writing isn’t up to scratch?
Writing is more suited to my introverted, somewhat misanthropic persona, though the process is painful. I get a pleasure from that pain. I’m not a natural writer so I have to graft, this is perhaps down to some kind of working class guilt, as I’ve always felt I shouldn’t be writing. Despite getting published I still have trouble considering myself as a writer or even a poet, the crown certainly doesn’t sit well. But self doubt is good, it keeps you on your toes and you never get complacent.
Do you have a day job? What other careers have you had? What's the worst job you've ever had?
I am moving into the Security Industry next month so that will be a new challenge after a hard last two years where it has been spells of unemployment interspersed with various temporary contracts.
Speaking openly I can say that I lost my way a bit when it comes to work. I went through one of those ‘What am I doing with my life?’ moments a few years back and have never really recovered. Back then I left a stable job position in pursuit of something more, though unfortunately I didn’t find what I was looking for.
But I can’t complain because working in a wide variety of roles, struggling on minimum wage, working in grotty factories and out in the pouring rain. All those roles have fed the creative process and given me a different perspective on life.
Why do you create? Do you have any particular goals in regards to your editing and writing?
As an outlet, the process is therapeutic. Jotting down thoughts and opinions, and then setting them free like doves. It takes a load off my mind.
Like many I started out scribbling in notepads and then after a while I decided to start submitting my work. My first acceptance was in Print so primarily that was where I aimed, and then I discovered a lot of small press luminaries through the internet and began to network. Contacting people via email and getting a response within 24 hours seemed a better way to communicate then sending an envelope stuffed full of poems and not getting a response for over six months, sometimes later. I once received a polite letter of rejection three years after I mailed over the submission.
Over time things developed, I put out half dozen chapbooks through various indie publishers and eventually my debut Full Length Collection Dead End Road.
Do you consider yourself an underground artist?
No, I don’t. The underground doesn’t exist anymore. You can track down writers all over the world via a Google search. You can wander into local pubs and art centres and find poetry readings from unknown poets. Everything is open and available.
Where does you voice come from? What influences you?
Sometimes the poems appear from nowhere, they just arrive on the page like magic. Other times I have a specific idea in mind, and I build upon that idea.
As far as influences, I would say Carol Ann Duffy, George Orwell, Haruki Murakami and Lester Bangs are the writers that I have looked up to most.
How do you approach a write? Believe in writer's block?
With a blank page and an open mind, I’m of the belief that when inspiration strikes you drip everything you can out of the moment. I try to avoid forcing the words out. As I said before I am a grafter so I rely on inspiration to strike and then I work hard with whatever comes.
Funny you should mention Writer’s block. Since I have released Dead End Road I have struggled to put together a single poem. Part of the reason for this is because I am thinking – Where do I go from here?
Listen to music while you create? Who?
I dabble in music criticism, so over the last 12 months I’ve heard a lot of new music. I’ve been particularly impressed by Wild Beasts, a new band called The Puncture Repair Kit and a Mancunian singer songwriter called Liam Frost.
Often I have music on in the background whilst I’m creating. My go to albums are usually the complete back catalogues of Pixies and Joy Division, Jackson Browne’s Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1, Two Gallant’s The Throes and Deerhoof’s Friend Opportunity.
How do you define success? Have you won any awards? Do money or accolades matter much to you?
Money doesn’t matter as far as reward goes, of course in ‘real life’ I worry about money all the time, but I’m quite realistic when it comes to what I might earn from writing. Even if things go exceedingly well I will still most likely need a day job.
Defining success? I suppose I have already achieved everything I wanted to achieve through putting out my debut Full Length Collection of poetry. But it would be nice to maybe write a novel.
What other interests do you pursue?
I love art, whether it be perusing through art galleries or attempting to paint, though I’m a novice when it comes to painting I am really keen to improve. I’m also getting into photography.
I’m also a keen fan of Sports, and though my playing days are over thanks to a dodgy knee I travel hundreds of miles supporting Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. I’m also obsessed by Cricket, I love that sport. Recently I’ve developed a keen interest in Mixed Martial Arts, it’s very much a misunderstood sport, sure there is brutality, but there is real skill and dedication involved, to be an elite athlete you need to master a number of disciplines.
Do you consider yourself prolific?
Yep, I have a solid work ethic, and I like to get things done whilst I am in the mood; the draw back to this is that I can occasionally rush things. I guess a lot of this is because I am very much an all or nothing personality, so with me you either get gold or you get shit.
What advice do you have for other writers/editors whether new or seasoned?
For writers I would advise them to read as much as they can, this applies particularly to those who write poetry. You learn a lot from others. I think writers workshops are a good idea, I’m about to begin one myself locally and believe it is important to bounce off other writers.
For editors, especially those who might be thinking of starting a litzine, simply Good Luck!
What does the future hold for Richard Wink?
The future probably holds a lot for me, the question is whether I can actually grab hold of the opportunities that are likely to come my way.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Robert Laughlin's Twittered Classics #8
Amoral punk loves classical music—and raping women. Only brainwashing can make him ignore celebrity petition and go to US for trial.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
Quoteable
From an ad in Smithsonian that caught this Editor's eye:
"Calculus has made it possible to build bridges that span miles of river, travel to the moon, and predict patterns of populations change. Yet for all its computational power, calculus is the exploration of just two ideas--the derivative and the integral--both of which arise from a common sense analysis of motion."
Felino Soriano reviews harwrs
Language is the paradoxical fortune for the poet. Engage with the reader is not always a unity of self-sufficient milieu, for with language, the poet must engage beyond another’s understanding of text (topographically), and allow the self to flourish into an understanding, bridging environment with articulate interpretation.
Edward Wells II’s “Hawrs” displays a fascination with language which deems what is actuality within the poet’s rare eyes, the imperative: a reality based on uncovering, rerouting, retelling, erasing, building construct of association with realistic truisms. When the reader delves into this collection, one may realize the contours words manipulate into malleable understanding within a subjective tone of mind:
recombinant audio text:
valerie god proper day lighter and day
obscured
fifty belgium little and it facing a holy fridays
a _ the pounds
we facing and in of it fridays and regained the
pounds
are belgium are obscured god
( each (
regained of it facing holy is uh puzzle of name
) mine ) ( size )
are proper holy
) six ( are of every Valerie
The disjointed happenstance of combining imaginative genetic code with poetic language is a line of blurred environment, of full-function quotidian act of the esoteric dimension.
Wells II displays this brand of language as if it were spoken in the everyday conversation of normality; this is the gift, his gift, one of explanation through positing understanding of the non-traditional.
Read this work with openness, and become a reader of neoteric ability to discover the hidden through naturalized unveiling.
--Felino A. Soriano, is the author of 16 collections of poetry, including “Construed Implications” (erbacce-press, 2009.) Edward Wells II's collection hawrs is available as a free download from Calliope Nerve and soon to be in paperback.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Robert Laughlin's Twittered Classics #7
Time traveler in 802,000 AD finds that humans have diverged into two species: Fox News and MSNBC are still airing then.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
Equinox
Equinox
An observation of Thomas Blackshear’s Night In Day painting
oil on your hair reflects light
a thousand moons orbit your head,
a human equinox appears
Man in perfect balance
with himself and his evolution—
your arm reaches along your side
like the Appalachian mountains,
carrying the sun on your back
and holding the clouds in your hands
--Serena Tome is a poet and humanitarian who enjoys writing about social justice, and personal heritage. In 2009, she launched an international reading series for African children to connect, learn, and participate in literary activity with students from around the world via video conferencing. She is married to a Maasai man from Kenya and they have one child. She has literary work published and/or forthcoming in The Litchfield Review, Foundling Review, The Legendary, Breadcrumb Scabs, Word Riot, Counterexample Poetics, Full of Crow, Boston Literary Magazine, and other publications. You can find out more about Serena at www.serenatome.blogspot.com.
Conversation
Conversation
You slam your thoughts,
your history at me like hitting a tennis ball
against a wall.
I carve my feelings, my life into you,
a pen leaving grooves in paper.
We don't listen.
I wait for you to ask me something.
You talk. You talk.
You talk. I wait.
I talk over you. You talk louder.
I talk louder. I wish you would
shut up. Already.
Our purpose universally
selfish. We are receptacles for contents
we forget are valuable.
To someone.
--Lauren Becker lives in Oakland, California. Her work has appeared in Storyglossia, Opium, PANK, Monkeybicyle, and elsewhere.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Robert Laughlin's Twittered Classics #6
French memoirist starts drinking tea, finishes his tale 3300 pages later. That’s bladder control.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
Porcelain Doll
Porcelain Doll
Cracks run down the sides
Of your face, aging lines reveal
Your crimson smile is only fool’s gold
You call yourself a butterfly,
Yet you live like a dirty bird,
Picking up nasty things in the street
I ask why,
Your eyes drop,
Lashes tremble like tones
In Middle Eastern music
Tears entreat
--Serena Tome is a poet and humanitarian who enjoys writing about social justice, and personal heritage. In 2009, she launched an international reading series for African children to connect, learn, and participate in literary activity with students from around the world via video conferencing. She is married to a Maasai man from Kenya and they have one child. She has literary work published and/or forthcoming in The Litchfield Review, Foundling Review, The Legendary, Breadcrumb Scabs, Word Riot, Counterexample Poetics, Full of Crow, Boston Literary Magazine, and other publications. You can find out more about Serena at www.serenatome.blogspot.com.
THE STORY BEHIND "WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU..."
THE STORY BEHIND "WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU..."
Herman fell hard, bedded his girl, joined the army to pay child support, was KIA. Herman’s life impulse led him to the opposite.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
Huddle
Huddle
He wasn’t the man he used to be;
the glory of his past had waned.
No longer could he run as far, as
fast, or as frequently, as in his days
of fame
But despite the toll of the passing
years, he still followed his historic
patterns, by walking the gridiron
sidewalks of the city in which he
lived.
Walking down and out along an
avenue, he would suddenly cut
right or left onto a street as called
in the huddle of his mind. And
farther along, he relished the
reverse he would make and then
his hand-off to another, from whom
a flea-flicker would be launched in
surprise.
But his greatest joy was looking at the
sky where an oval sun spiraled over his
shoulder and dropped gently into his
outstretched hands as he crossed the line
to his goal, the front door of his apartment,
where he kicked off his shoes, poured his
aperitif, and enjoyed the satisfying
point-after.
--Eric Miller is a retired dentist who has laid down his drill for a quill. His work appears or is forthcoming in Calliope Nerve, Foundling Review, Bartleby-Snopes, The Storyteller, Stories that Lift, The Cynic Online Magazine, Word Slaw, The Stray Branch, Flutter Poetry Journal, Word Catalyst, Short Humour, Poetry Friends, Boston Literary Magazine, Blink | Ink, Writers’ Bloc (Rutgers), Clockwise Cat, A Handful of Stones, Bolts of Silk, Oak Bend Review, tinfoildresses poetry journal, The Green Silk Journal, Poets Against War (Canada), and The Fib Review.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Calliope Nerve Interview Series: Jonathan Penton
I'd like to start out this interview asking you about Make It New Media. What is it? And what goals do you have for it?
Make It New Media is a Limited Liability Corporation in the state of Texas; a partnership between a number of publishers, editors, writers and artists. I am the manager. Our goal is to be a single firm that artists and publishers trust with media reproduction, marketing, distribution, and direct sales.
The idea for Make It New Media began during a postal rate hike, a few years ago, under the Bush Administration. The United States Post Office was considering eliminating its “media mail” class, by which books can be sent more cheaply than other parcels. This would’ve had a devastating effect on the small press in this country. Many small pressers were protesting the USPS’s proposal. You might remember some other, bigger, totally ineffectual protests going on at the time, and I was highly skeptical that Washington would be listening to the complaints of the small press. I began to contemplate a way around the problem, and I concluded that small pressers should stop warehousing their own books, and instead contract firms that printed and shipped the books from a single location. Lulu.com does this, but it’s geared for self-publishers, not small presses. I wanted to create a firm that did the same thing, but was well-suited for micropresses. Upon investigation, I was astonished to find how cheap the necessary printing and binding technology has become. I began to talk to my friends in the small press, and eventually, Make It New Media, LLC was born.
When I say “technology,” I refer to Print-On-Demand: the process by which single copies of books can be rapidly made from a computer file. Unfortunately, it has not caught on in the Do-It-Yourself circles which are rightfully integrated with the small press. The simple methodology of POD (print, fold, bind, and trim) is not widely understood. Corporations have arisen to market POD, and they’ve surrounded it with industry buzz and meaningless jargon that is naturally mistrusted by individual micro-publishers. These corporations have purchased by larger corporations such as Amazon and Ingram, and many individual publishers working with POD have lost control of their own distribution and marketing. Small publishers of art and literature, with a smaller profit margin, are easily ignored by these huge companies, and squeezed into an inappropriate business model. Literary publishers who pre-date POD technology seek to disassociate themselves from this debacle. POD, by its inexpensive nature, could be something passionate and joyful, an ecstatic extension of the Do-It-Yourself movement; instead, it is mired in the stink of vanity publishing. But the technology is solid, effective, and easily personalized. It has the potential to assist artists and publishers of every stripe in taking control of their of their work in a way previously impossible.
Meanwhile, the USPS decided not to eliminate media mail, though their rate hikes do tend to tax small presses more heavily than big ones. And Make It New Media grew from a cost-saving measure into an unique business model: the leap from the “Do-It-Yourself” philosophy that has made the small press such a necessary counterpoint to mainstream presses into something new: “Do-It-Ourselves.”
We want to work with artists and publishers to create media which truly reflects their vision, and distribute it to those who truly desire it, in a way that creates goodwill among consumers. Products should be unique and recognizable, carrying a branding appropriate for the artist and/or publishers involved. We want to produce books for our clients which emphasize the creativity of our clients, not ourselves. That’s why we want to spend time with each individual client and give each project personal attention. We know that the goal is to fill people’s bookshelves, not on-line catalogues.
Tell us about Unlikely Stories and Unlikely Books.
Make It New Media is a company dedicated to fulfilling the visions of other editors. Unlikely 2.0, the current incarnation of Unlikely Stories, is my editorial vision, and predates the creation of MINM by a decade. I started it in 1998, when I was twenty-three years old, completely clueless, and had absolutely no business attempting to run a literary journal. Fortunately for me, there was no competition: there was no other Web-journal putting out neo-pulp writing (more on that term below) on a regular basis. I was able to publish monthly. And although I was out of my depth, I was very disciplined. Unlikely Stories defined transgressive Web-literature for a long time, and inspired numerous imitators—sometimes very blatant imitators. I was focusing strictly on poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, and lucked into publishing such diverse geniuses as Shane Allison, Laurel Ann Bogen, Tom Bradley, Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Ira Cohen, Alan Kaufman, Peter Magliocco, B. Z. Niditch, Elisha Porat, John Sweet, and Nina Zivancevic.
By the beginning of 2004, the quality of Unlikely Stories had been surpassed by newer sites, and my vision for it had stagnated. The anti-academic rage which had fueled my early work was leaving me; I was discovering more serious evils in my world, both in the vicious, often violent nature of the small press and the U.S.’s amazingly rapid slide into fascism oh and did I mention my phone was fucking tapped. I was increasingly of the opinion that every U.S. citizen was obliged to try, however futilely, to stop the current political trends, and that creative writers were obliged to make a sincere, if easily mocked, effort to speak out against the systematic dismantling of the democratic aspects of the republic.
So in March 2004, I shut Unlikely Stories down, with a half-formed plan for Unlikely 2.0, which some friends and I released in June of 2004. Unlikely 2.0 is a multimedia journal of culture and art, with an emphasis on, but not a dedication to, transgressive and neo-pulp material. In most months, we publish twice—a text-based issue at the beginning of each month, and an issue focused on audiovisual material mid-month. We currently run two serialized columns: A Sardine on Vacation by Bob Castle and Opposites Day by Tantra Bensko. We’ve serialized reviews by Dan Schneider and limited-run stories by Bill Berry and Richard Jeffrey Newman, among others. A list of artistic luminaries who have graced Unlikely 2.0 can’t really be condensed into this space—Unlikely 2.0 covers more than 2000 web pages of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, essays on culture, diverse essays of political thought, reviews, interviews with figures of artistic and political import, visual art, film, spoken word and music. We’re able to keep it going due to a sincere belief in our mission—we believe that we have something to share, and that sharing our vision is worth the brutal hours, miserable incomes, and cobwebbed genitals that a project of this size requires. We are half-missionaries, half-megalomaniacs, and we are a unique presence in American literature.
In 2005, we published a couple of poetry chapbooks, and I eventually started referring to these chapbooks as “Unlikely Books” because “An Unlikely 2.0 Production” always looked stupid and I don’t know why I ever used it. This year, we’ve ramped up production, producing chapbooks by Anne Lombardo Ardolino and Belinda Subraman, and we’re currently running The First Annual WRITE REAL GOOD Poetry Chapbook Contest, as an antidote to what passes for competition in literary circles. Next year, Unlikely Books will be taking advantage of the services of Make It New Media to go to the next level in print publishing. In 2010, we will publish poetry chapbooks by Donna Snyder and Lawrence Welsh, and we’ll run another WRITE REAL GOOD contest. We’ll be publishing a two-author paperback of poetry, with Monolith by Anne McMillen on one side and Soy solo palabras but wish to be a city by Leon De la Rosa (with illustrations by Guillermo Ramirez) on the other—a flip-book, like the classics from 2.13.61 Publications. We’ll be publishing a two-author book of essays, with My Hands Were Clean, by Tom Bradley, on Alistair Crowley and his influence, and Dr. Gonzo, by Deb Hoag, on the sickness in our approach to mental health. And we’ll be publishing Unlikely Stories of the Third Kind. Loosely, Unlikely Stories of the Third Kind will be a print edition of the Unlikely sites—“print” in the sense that it’ll be 400 pages sandwiched between a CD of Unlikely music and a DVD of Unlikely films. It will contain some of the best of Unlikely Stories and Unlikely 2.0, as well as new and exclusive material.
Our expansion into paperback books warrants a party, and we’ll be having one, in the only arts venue big enough, sexy enough, and physically uncomfortable enough for the job—our paperbacks will be released at Burning Man of 2010. Be there. And bring me presents.
Unlikely 2.0 and Unlikely Books are not solo projects. Currently, our staff includes Gabriel Ricard, who selects and reviews the music every month, as well as keeps the Unlikely Blog running, and hunts down interviews and other public events that would keep me scatterbrained. I’ve grown to really rely on him, and it’s hard to imagine Unlikely 2.0 without him. We are assisted each month by Belinda Subraman, who keeps our film section running, and C. Derick Varn, who oversees our visual art. Donna Snyder will be joining us to select the fiction and creative non-fiction for Unlikely Stories of the Third Kind. Over the years, we’ve received indispensable help from folks like K. R. Copeland, Lora Gardner, Kirpal Gordon, Danielle Grilli, Mary Jo Malo, Eric Smiarowski, and Jeffrey Spahr-Summers.
Which do you enjoy more editing or writing?
I don’t enjoy writing at all, so that’s an easy question to answer. Mostly, I enjoy reading.. It’s the most important aspect of a “writer’s” occupation, and hours spent with it are more important than hours spent with a pen. Fortunately, most people who want to be writers would rather read than write. As a result, they produce more quality work for me to read: a delicious cycle.
Why do you write? Do you have any particular goals in regards to your writing?
To paraphrase Dickinson, I am writing letters to a world that never wrote to me. Thus, I want to be read, and I want to be readable. I even want to be understood. Unfortunately, there’s a great deal of the human experience that no one’s found a way to express or communicate – hence the need for artists, to warp means of communication so that they might cover these aspects of our experience. Poetry, particularly, is well-suited to the task of warping language to express concepts for which there are no words, if only because people expect metaphor from poetry in a way that they don’t from “creative non-fiction.” Still, it’s never an easy task: using words to mean something words never previously meant while still being read, readable, and understood. I fail a lot.
Tell us about presenting at the Association of Writer’s & Writing Programs? What is it? How did you get involved?
The Association of Writers and Writing Programs is a US-based organization that attempts to ally various academic creative writing programs while still remaining open to experimental and non-academic movements in literature. Their results at this noble and difficult task are understandably mixed. For example, you’ll always find non-academic and unusual panels at their annual conference, but it might cost you about $200 more to attend if you’re not enrolled in a creative writing program.
I’m not “involved” in the sense of working with them. I’m not even a member (non-academics can become members, which is groovy). I attended in 2007 because it happened to be in Atlanta, where I happened to be living, because I was thirty-two years old and had to move back in with my mommy, though in my defense she was just about as broke as I was. Anyway, I figured that was a good time to check it out, and I’m glad I did, because in 2008, I was invited to be on a panel on the proliferation and correct production of literary Web-magazines.
Each year, the AWP conference changes cities, and they always try to get a number of panels that encourage local participation. The 2008 AWP conference was in New York City, where my friend Carol Novack, of Mad Hatters’ Review, lives. She wanted to submit a panel for presentation at the 2008 conference, and invited me to work on it and be on it with her. I accepted, as did four other Web-literature specialists. The AWP accepted our panel, and we were allowed to present. That is itself a very competitive honor, moreso given that the non-academics on our panel outnumbered the academics, moreso for a butt-naked asshole such as myself. So I guess I’m not surprised that I’m associated with the conference among indie-types, but “involved” is too strong a word.
I respect the AWP, the conference, and the conference organizers. The 2008 AWP conference in New York City had 8,000 attendees, and I promise you it had more than a few “attending” without tickets. It’s an extremely difficult thing to run, so when I discuss the conference’s problems, it’s with the recognition that I couldn’t run anything that large no better.
The AWP is doing the best it can to handle the absurd bloat of writing programs in the U.S. I did say 8,000 attendees, right? Let me spell it out for you: the vast majority of attendees to the AWP conference are not real writers and never will be. They have been swindled: they are enrolled in an MFA or undergraduate program that will yield them a poem or two in their local alternative weekly paper, but never as much as a feature therein. Most of them know that on some level, but have already sunk years of their short, sad lives as well as tens of thousands of dollars into the pursuit of becoming famous. Naturally, the AWP conference is a horrible nest of viciousness and backbiting. It is also a place where real friendships are formed and beautifully maintained. I think every English-language writer should go there at least once, early in their career. It’s a fantastic wake-up call; the business of literature at its most active and sometimes-worst. And it’s vital for every writer, pregnant and glowing with that massive artistic ego, to go to this conference and see how pathetically small they are. The dismissive contempt that tends to be shown by hotel staff also helps. After all, they’re higher on the social ladder than the typical MFA grad, and they know it.
As for my presentation at the 2008 conference, well, I rose to the challenge and the challenge rose to me, and I don’t feel the need to do anything quite like that again. The size of the conference, and therefore the reliance on hotels, is a problem. You might not be aware that Hilton, which charges $15 a day for wireless service (most $60-a-night motels give it away for free), dampens that wireless in the conference rooms so that they can charge over $100 an hour there. We were unwilling to pay this fee, and had to teach Web-literature without Web access. We were loaned a projector which failed at its basic reason for existence, and my carefully-prepared slide presentation was reproduced with various gestures and gesticulations. Frustrations and tempers were abundant. My temper, especially.
That night, we presenters read at the KGB Bar, headlined by Rikki Ducornet, an evening which remains one of my life’s high points, and one which I have no desire to recreate.
Nonetheless, I’ll be attending the 2010 conference in Denver, though I have no intention of paying for a ticket. The 2010 conference will be at the Denver Convention Center, and I bet we’ll be treated better than we have been at Hiltons. Unlikely Books will be doing a joint off-site reading with Ahadada Books, and we’re going to kick ass and fuck bubblegum. Ahadada will have a table at the bookfair, and will be presenting information about Make It New Media. Their table will be theoretically accessible only to paying ticket-holders, and I hope to see you all there.
Do you consider yourself an underground artist?
I don’t find that label useful, partly because it conflates a marketing methodology (the “underground publisher,” associated with “indie publishers” and opposed to “academic” and “mainstream publishing”) with an aesthetic: “underground literature,” which is characterized by taboo subjects and the combination of sex and violence in socially unacceptable ways. As far as aesthetic, I’d like to see the word “underground” used less and the word “neo-pulp” used more: neo-pulp being usefully described as literature which seeks profundity through unreasonable and/or shocking extremes of human behavior. As a publisher, I’ve always been attracted to neo-pulp and think I can often be associated with it, but not exclusively: every issue of Unlikely will see some neo-pulp and some stuff that ain’t. As a writer, I’m not sure the neo-pulp label fits. I think “transgressive” is a fair self-description, as is “neurotica.” Stylistically, I think I’m writing spoken-word librettos. That might change.
As for the marketing methodology of “underground publishing,” I am loyal to no marketing structure. I lay out, at the beginning of this interview, a detailed approach to producing and marketing literature, because I believe it’s the approach that’s best for American literature now. If our society changes, I’ll drop my plan immediately and encourage others to do the same. Despite my disrespect for the current popular models of mainstream and academic publishing, I do not believe the problem is inherent to schools or bookstores, and I’m always looking for ways to cross the divide.
Loyalties breed oppositions. They shut down experimentation and discourage alliances that might push literature into a more positive direction. I do not want to ever say, “these publishers are my people and those other publishers are not.” I’ve met publishers who genuinely love art, and publishers who put their own vanity and/or finances above their work. The people in the first group aren’t necessarily indie and those in the latter group sometimes are. As such, these labels are useless, and I’ve said far too much about them already.
Where does you voice come from? Influences?
Like I say, a writer’s primary function is reading, and any answer given in this space will thus be hopelessly truncated, possibly to the point of being completely wrong. Any accurate answer would be hopelessly boring, though, so let’s give this format a shot.
Michael Rothenberg once described my poetry as “Anne Sexton with a splash of William Carlos Williams,” which made me very happy. I was a father at a young age, and attracted to Anne Sexton much more than her fellow confessionalists, as she talked about her kids so much. John Fante, Emily Dickinson, Marina Tsvetaeva (under-translated into English, unfortunately, but check out Andrey Kneller’s translations), Fyodor Dostoevsky, Zora Neale Hurston, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. loom gigantic in my thoughts. Charles Bukowski used to, but these days he mostly just visits to knock me around when I get too uppity. He knocks me around a lot, but rarely suggests lines any more. There’s Lytton Strachey, and, more recently, Philip Roth. The Marquis de Sade and Jean-Paul Sartre, and I’m finally starting to understand Friedrich Nietzsche.
Stylistically, I might borrow more from Philip Whalen and David Meltzer. I try not to limit my influences to books—Suzanne Vega, Leonard Cohen, and Kurt Weill were very important as I was developing. Trent Reznor and Phil Ochs gave me lots of ideas. Alan Moore thoroughly dominates my perceptions, and I doubt I’ll get through this interview without pulling some sort of Rorschach. The film Adaptation by Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman represents precisely what I want to do in a poem, and I’m a huge fan of oversexed filmmakers like Todd Solondz, Melvin Van Peebles and Paul Verhoeven. I learned everything I know about life from either Joss Whedon or Shohei Imamura. And I try to remember the need to complain in such a way that people mistake me for a humorist, which is a paraphrasing of something a pothead once told me Mark Twain once said.
Back in the day, my friends Anne McMillen, Kurtice Kucheman and I really taught each other the precepts of neo-pulp and how to apply it to our poetry and our own experiences. We did this by reading very different books, and sharing what we learned, and sharing the best of those books.
I read The New American Poetry 1945-1960, and Charles Olson’s essay, “Projective Verse,” but didn’t understand it. I read a great deal on projective verse, but wasn’t able to apply it to my own work until the aforementioned Rothenberg took one of my own poems and did it for me. After that, the dam in my mind broke, and I did a few of Anne’s for hers. Since then, Anne and I have moved in a very projective direction, whereas Kurtice began working more with his own brilliant sort of fiction. I really think Anne and I are doing something original and new with layout; we’re investigating tricks of spacing that are peculiar to American poverty and disenfranchisement; stuff you won’t see from Black Mountain writers or the Zen roshis of California.
A quick word on American political poetry: we’re doing it wrong. We are attempting to compete directly with Bill Maher’s rants, and we will always lose that game. If you want to read political poetry, go with authors from Eastern Europe, such as Marina Tsvetaeva or Lidija Dimkovska. We Americans have the right to be loud and profane, and should do so, once we learn to mix this loud profanity with the subtle political innuendos of those in stifled regimes.
How do you approach a write? Believe in writer's block?
I approach a write in the way that a half-dead rodent approaches a vulture’s gullet.
I was about to give an equally dismissive answer to your question about writer’s block. I had it all planned out, about a space for my neck and a blade and various self-destructive fantasies. I decided that this was unfair. We artists have an oft-deserved reputation for being self-serving, narcissistic, and neurotic in ways that are very hard on our loved ones, interpersonal connections, and stuffed animals. Because we tend to be sensitive as well as self-obsessed, we vacillate from being unaware of the hurt we do others to being paralyzed with guilt.
My defense against self-hatred is my conviction that my work makes the world a better place, however marginally. As artists, we seek to transform all our pain, including guilt and shame, into art. We go back to Philip Roth, who tries to atone through over-the-top confession, not because the confession itself has power, but because in sharing the confession he makes the life of his readers a little less harrowing. The artist thus looks at his loathsome, vicious lifestyle and says: “through my art, others will learn from my mistakes, and the world will improve.”
As an editor, I can be relatively relaxed about this justification for my existence, because editing is an art that simply won’t leave me. So as far as I’m concerned, that other, crueler art of mine can come or go. It never brings me any pleasure. But if writing poetry were my only source of redemption, I guess I’d live in constant fear of its departure.
I can’t fathom why anyone would want to be an artist more than they’d want to be an editor.
Do I believe in writer’s block? Of course. I guess people can choose to disbelieve in writer’s block, which seems akin to refusing to believe in cancer. As it happens, I’ve never had either. I’ve been too depressed to walk to the bathroom to avoid pissing on myself, let alone hold a pen, but that’s not quite the same thing.
Listen to music while you edit/write? Who?
No, never. I listen to music when I copyedit, work on layout, code web pages, build books, cook my books, and conduct correspondence. Lately, I’ve been listening to Outkast, the Evita soundtrack, and Lady Gaga. The four most common names in my music collection are Leonard Cohen, Suzanne Vega, Conor Oberst, and Townes Van Zandt. I’m listening to Elya Finn as I type. On an unrelated note, sometimes people have a hard time believing I like girls.
What other interests do you pursue?
Fetish porn. And beermaking. I think it’s important to have a hobby that, unlike poetry, one can master in the space of a lifetime. I believe I will eventually master the making of porter, and my favorite pornographies feature people saying the word “master.” On an unrelated topic, I am not overcompensating.
Do you have an 'ideal' reader?
I think “ideal” says too much. To me, it implies perfection, which is inherently absent from human relationships (hence the human need for art). As I’ve said, I want to be understood, but there’s no way to measure understanding. So. You, gentle reader, are my ideal. You can buy my books at http://shop.makeitnewmedia.com/. Get copies for all your friends.
Have you won any awards? Do accolades matter to you?
In 2001, the original Unlikely Stories won the Editor’s Choice Award from Poetry Super Highway and The Poet Watch Poet’s Award.
I was very proud to be invited to read, my name on the playbill, in Manhattan in 2008. I was very proud of the way my work was received, as I am at any read in which I sell books. So accolades matter to me. That said, most of the accolades and awards that my peers seek seem pretty lame. If you go through Poets & Writers Magazine and look at the list of awards, most of them sound unpleasant to win. Which is fine—no accounting for taste and all that. But The WRITE REAL GOOD Contest was created, in part, to present the world with something Unlikely-type poets might find more appetizing. We created it as something more like a contest we’d want to win.
What other careers have you had? What is the worst job you've ever had?
I flunked out of high school at the right time to bullshit my way into the dot-com world and jobs in Information Technology, which I had difficulty holding down; a healthy mind rebels against such an insane industry, and by coincidence, my mind did also. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one jumping from job to job. That was a thoroughly unpleasant time, although I had enough money for a bottle of wine every night. These days Cisco seems like a splurge.
I held on like that for a year after the dot-com crash and eventually had the sense to stop. I went to work at Oxford Books in Atlanta, Georgia. Oxford Books was a citywide chain owned by a local millionaire, and had served Atlanta for decades. I discovered Shel Silverstein in Oxford; Oxford deserves at least partial credit for my love of books and literature.
While I was working there, Barnes & Noble placed a store across the street from each Oxford branch and systematically erased us with, of course, the complicity of Atlanta’s book buying public. Oxford’s owner was not perfect, but he provided a beautiful and essential service to Atlanta’s readers, its local authors, those authors who chose to come hang out in Atlanta, and the many musicians featured in Oxford's cafés. When Oxford vanished, Atlanta became a less literary city, following the nationwide cycle of more books with fewer readers.
America is an observably less educated place than it was a decade ago. It is observably less kind, less friendly, less empathetic, and less wise. These things are all tied together, and, yes, people like Dick Cheney and Bill O’Reilly deliberately engineered this situation for their own financial benefit, and should be recognized and prosecuted as the monsters they are. They did not, however, accomplish all this alone. All I’m saying is that if you feel the need to give a speech on the evils of Glenn Beck, try not to do it while sipping a latté made for you by the Starbucks inside a Barnes & Noble while flipping through a glossy magazine about Bennifer. Thank you.
Do you consider yourself prolific?
Why, do you find me long-winded? I am not a prolific writer, by any definition, and thus doth Heaven grant us its small favors. There are many prolific and talented writers in this world, and an editor who is willing to work at their craft will find it easy to become prolific, provided they are willing to put aside their own ego and do the task of editing; that is, working to put forth the visions of another above their own.
What advice do you have for other writers/editors whether new or seasoned?
If a publisher or would-be publisher calls Make It New Media with a specific scenario, I am happy to offer consultations; to offer specific advice, to explain what Make It New Media can do for the person, or to recommend a firm who could be of more service. The question here supposes that I have advice for everyone, that everyone who wishes to write and/or edit could benefit from—the question seems to seek philosophy, rather than business acumen. Even if I knew anything useful about the writer’s life, I wouldn’t be able to offer much advice, because the writer’s life is incredibly diverse. There’s simply not enough shared experience in the lives of writers to offer much universal advice, whatever twatsnot books like Bird by Bird and Wild Mind might claim.
Of course, you didn’t actually ask for a book’s worth of advice, did you? You wanted a couple of paragraphs that could be inserted into a BlogSpot entry, yes? Making yours a perfectly appropriate question which I’m denigrating for no reason. I shall now quote a dead person.
In The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor we find an old country prophet who finds himself psychoanalyzed by a younger relative. The prophet quotes the relative as writing, “His fixation of being called by the Lord had its origin in insecurity. He needed the assurance of a call, and so he called himself.”
As writers and editors, that is who we are, and we are obliged to recognize it. We must be called. We have no business doing it if we are not called. And we must recognize that we were not called by God, or Melpomene, or Dita Von Teese. We were called by ourselves, by something within ourselves. And then we must take this calling, which originated in our own minds and does not exist outside of our imaginations, and we must surrender to that calling utterly. We must surrender our ego, our desires, and our will entirely to a calling that we know has no external validity. Despite the reputation of the artistic ego, writing involves a complete sacrifice, a deliberate annihilation, of ego and self (causing our vanity to come out in other areas and in other ways, I grant you).
When acting as authors, we get a few more social benefits than when acting as editors. But that doesn’t matter; it can’t. A real writer would rather see his works stolen than unread. As an editor and publisher, I find that any “writer” who can’t grok that is wasting my fucking time.
What does the future hold for you?
In less than the blink of a geologist’s eye, I will die. Also, all of my work will be forgotten, and everyone who has ever known me will die. It’s unclear, at this time, which will happen first, but it doesn’t matter much because these events, too, are negligible in their chronological scope. Meanwhile, my own body will have completely dissolved into the earth, and be recycled like that song in The Lion King. Some time after that, the human race will become extinct, replaced by a more fit species. This species might evolve from humans, or it might evolve from another species more appropriate to the planet. Long after that, the earth’s orbit around the sun will begin to deteriorate, and the sun itself will eventually burn out. Life on earth will cease completely and my atoms, long processed through innumerable other species, will become part of a space-rock. Eventually, the Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy will collide, after which my path is anyone’s guess.
Make It New Media is a Limited Liability Corporation in the state of Texas; a partnership between a number of publishers, editors, writers and artists. I am the manager. Our goal is to be a single firm that artists and publishers trust with media reproduction, marketing, distribution, and direct sales.
The idea for Make It New Media began during a postal rate hike, a few years ago, under the Bush Administration. The United States Post Office was considering eliminating its “media mail” class, by which books can be sent more cheaply than other parcels. This would’ve had a devastating effect on the small press in this country. Many small pressers were protesting the USPS’s proposal. You might remember some other, bigger, totally ineffectual protests going on at the time, and I was highly skeptical that Washington would be listening to the complaints of the small press. I began to contemplate a way around the problem, and I concluded that small pressers should stop warehousing their own books, and instead contract firms that printed and shipped the books from a single location. Lulu.com does this, but it’s geared for self-publishers, not small presses. I wanted to create a firm that did the same thing, but was well-suited for micropresses. Upon investigation, I was astonished to find how cheap the necessary printing and binding technology has become. I began to talk to my friends in the small press, and eventually, Make It New Media, LLC was born.
When I say “technology,” I refer to Print-On-Demand: the process by which single copies of books can be rapidly made from a computer file. Unfortunately, it has not caught on in the Do-It-Yourself circles which are rightfully integrated with the small press. The simple methodology of POD (print, fold, bind, and trim) is not widely understood. Corporations have arisen to market POD, and they’ve surrounded it with industry buzz and meaningless jargon that is naturally mistrusted by individual micro-publishers. These corporations have purchased by larger corporations such as Amazon and Ingram, and many individual publishers working with POD have lost control of their own distribution and marketing. Small publishers of art and literature, with a smaller profit margin, are easily ignored by these huge companies, and squeezed into an inappropriate business model. Literary publishers who pre-date POD technology seek to disassociate themselves from this debacle. POD, by its inexpensive nature, could be something passionate and joyful, an ecstatic extension of the Do-It-Yourself movement; instead, it is mired in the stink of vanity publishing. But the technology is solid, effective, and easily personalized. It has the potential to assist artists and publishers of every stripe in taking control of their of their work in a way previously impossible.
Meanwhile, the USPS decided not to eliminate media mail, though their rate hikes do tend to tax small presses more heavily than big ones. And Make It New Media grew from a cost-saving measure into an unique business model: the leap from the “Do-It-Yourself” philosophy that has made the small press such a necessary counterpoint to mainstream presses into something new: “Do-It-Ourselves.”
We want to work with artists and publishers to create media which truly reflects their vision, and distribute it to those who truly desire it, in a way that creates goodwill among consumers. Products should be unique and recognizable, carrying a branding appropriate for the artist and/or publishers involved. We want to produce books for our clients which emphasize the creativity of our clients, not ourselves. That’s why we want to spend time with each individual client and give each project personal attention. We know that the goal is to fill people’s bookshelves, not on-line catalogues.
Tell us about Unlikely Stories and Unlikely Books.
Make It New Media is a company dedicated to fulfilling the visions of other editors. Unlikely 2.0, the current incarnation of Unlikely Stories, is my editorial vision, and predates the creation of MINM by a decade. I started it in 1998, when I was twenty-three years old, completely clueless, and had absolutely no business attempting to run a literary journal. Fortunately for me, there was no competition: there was no other Web-journal putting out neo-pulp writing (more on that term below) on a regular basis. I was able to publish monthly. And although I was out of my depth, I was very disciplined. Unlikely Stories defined transgressive Web-literature for a long time, and inspired numerous imitators—sometimes very blatant imitators. I was focusing strictly on poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, and lucked into publishing such diverse geniuses as Shane Allison, Laurel Ann Bogen, Tom Bradley, Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Ira Cohen, Alan Kaufman, Peter Magliocco, B. Z. Niditch, Elisha Porat, John Sweet, and Nina Zivancevic.
By the beginning of 2004, the quality of Unlikely Stories had been surpassed by newer sites, and my vision for it had stagnated. The anti-academic rage which had fueled my early work was leaving me; I was discovering more serious evils in my world, both in the vicious, often violent nature of the small press and the U.S.’s amazingly rapid slide into fascism oh and did I mention my phone was fucking tapped. I was increasingly of the opinion that every U.S. citizen was obliged to try, however futilely, to stop the current political trends, and that creative writers were obliged to make a sincere, if easily mocked, effort to speak out against the systematic dismantling of the democratic aspects of the republic.
So in March 2004, I shut Unlikely Stories down, with a half-formed plan for Unlikely 2.0, which some friends and I released in June of 2004. Unlikely 2.0 is a multimedia journal of culture and art, with an emphasis on, but not a dedication to, transgressive and neo-pulp material. In most months, we publish twice—a text-based issue at the beginning of each month, and an issue focused on audiovisual material mid-month. We currently run two serialized columns: A Sardine on Vacation by Bob Castle and Opposites Day by Tantra Bensko. We’ve serialized reviews by Dan Schneider and limited-run stories by Bill Berry and Richard Jeffrey Newman, among others. A list of artistic luminaries who have graced Unlikely 2.0 can’t really be condensed into this space—Unlikely 2.0 covers more than 2000 web pages of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, essays on culture, diverse essays of political thought, reviews, interviews with figures of artistic and political import, visual art, film, spoken word and music. We’re able to keep it going due to a sincere belief in our mission—we believe that we have something to share, and that sharing our vision is worth the brutal hours, miserable incomes, and cobwebbed genitals that a project of this size requires. We are half-missionaries, half-megalomaniacs, and we are a unique presence in American literature.
In 2005, we published a couple of poetry chapbooks, and I eventually started referring to these chapbooks as “Unlikely Books” because “An Unlikely 2.0 Production” always looked stupid and I don’t know why I ever used it. This year, we’ve ramped up production, producing chapbooks by Anne Lombardo Ardolino and Belinda Subraman, and we’re currently running The First Annual WRITE REAL GOOD Poetry Chapbook Contest, as an antidote to what passes for competition in literary circles. Next year, Unlikely Books will be taking advantage of the services of Make It New Media to go to the next level in print publishing. In 2010, we will publish poetry chapbooks by Donna Snyder and Lawrence Welsh, and we’ll run another WRITE REAL GOOD contest. We’ll be publishing a two-author paperback of poetry, with Monolith by Anne McMillen on one side and Soy solo palabras but wish to be a city by Leon De la Rosa (with illustrations by Guillermo Ramirez) on the other—a flip-book, like the classics from 2.13.61 Publications. We’ll be publishing a two-author book of essays, with My Hands Were Clean, by Tom Bradley, on Alistair Crowley and his influence, and Dr. Gonzo, by Deb Hoag, on the sickness in our approach to mental health. And we’ll be publishing Unlikely Stories of the Third Kind. Loosely, Unlikely Stories of the Third Kind will be a print edition of the Unlikely sites—“print” in the sense that it’ll be 400 pages sandwiched between a CD of Unlikely music and a DVD of Unlikely films. It will contain some of the best of Unlikely Stories and Unlikely 2.0, as well as new and exclusive material.
Our expansion into paperback books warrants a party, and we’ll be having one, in the only arts venue big enough, sexy enough, and physically uncomfortable enough for the job—our paperbacks will be released at Burning Man of 2010. Be there. And bring me presents.
Unlikely 2.0 and Unlikely Books are not solo projects. Currently, our staff includes Gabriel Ricard, who selects and reviews the music every month, as well as keeps the Unlikely Blog running, and hunts down interviews and other public events that would keep me scatterbrained. I’ve grown to really rely on him, and it’s hard to imagine Unlikely 2.0 without him. We are assisted each month by Belinda Subraman, who keeps our film section running, and C. Derick Varn, who oversees our visual art. Donna Snyder will be joining us to select the fiction and creative non-fiction for Unlikely Stories of the Third Kind. Over the years, we’ve received indispensable help from folks like K. R. Copeland, Lora Gardner, Kirpal Gordon, Danielle Grilli, Mary Jo Malo, Eric Smiarowski, and Jeffrey Spahr-Summers.
Which do you enjoy more editing or writing?
I don’t enjoy writing at all, so that’s an easy question to answer. Mostly, I enjoy reading.. It’s the most important aspect of a “writer’s” occupation, and hours spent with it are more important than hours spent with a pen. Fortunately, most people who want to be writers would rather read than write. As a result, they produce more quality work for me to read: a delicious cycle.
Why do you write? Do you have any particular goals in regards to your writing?
To paraphrase Dickinson, I am writing letters to a world that never wrote to me. Thus, I want to be read, and I want to be readable. I even want to be understood. Unfortunately, there’s a great deal of the human experience that no one’s found a way to express or communicate – hence the need for artists, to warp means of communication so that they might cover these aspects of our experience. Poetry, particularly, is well-suited to the task of warping language to express concepts for which there are no words, if only because people expect metaphor from poetry in a way that they don’t from “creative non-fiction.” Still, it’s never an easy task: using words to mean something words never previously meant while still being read, readable, and understood. I fail a lot.
Tell us about presenting at the Association of Writer’s & Writing Programs? What is it? How did you get involved?
The Association of Writers and Writing Programs is a US-based organization that attempts to ally various academic creative writing programs while still remaining open to experimental and non-academic movements in literature. Their results at this noble and difficult task are understandably mixed. For example, you’ll always find non-academic and unusual panels at their annual conference, but it might cost you about $200 more to attend if you’re not enrolled in a creative writing program.
I’m not “involved” in the sense of working with them. I’m not even a member (non-academics can become members, which is groovy). I attended in 2007 because it happened to be in Atlanta, where I happened to be living, because I was thirty-two years old and had to move back in with my mommy, though in my defense she was just about as broke as I was. Anyway, I figured that was a good time to check it out, and I’m glad I did, because in 2008, I was invited to be on a panel on the proliferation and correct production of literary Web-magazines.
Each year, the AWP conference changes cities, and they always try to get a number of panels that encourage local participation. The 2008 AWP conference was in New York City, where my friend Carol Novack, of Mad Hatters’ Review, lives. She wanted to submit a panel for presentation at the 2008 conference, and invited me to work on it and be on it with her. I accepted, as did four other Web-literature specialists. The AWP accepted our panel, and we were allowed to present. That is itself a very competitive honor, moreso given that the non-academics on our panel outnumbered the academics, moreso for a butt-naked asshole such as myself. So I guess I’m not surprised that I’m associated with the conference among indie-types, but “involved” is too strong a word.
I respect the AWP, the conference, and the conference organizers. The 2008 AWP conference in New York City had 8,000 attendees, and I promise you it had more than a few “attending” without tickets. It’s an extremely difficult thing to run, so when I discuss the conference’s problems, it’s with the recognition that I couldn’t run anything that large no better.
The AWP is doing the best it can to handle the absurd bloat of writing programs in the U.S. I did say 8,000 attendees, right? Let me spell it out for you: the vast majority of attendees to the AWP conference are not real writers and never will be. They have been swindled: they are enrolled in an MFA or undergraduate program that will yield them a poem or two in their local alternative weekly paper, but never as much as a feature therein. Most of them know that on some level, but have already sunk years of their short, sad lives as well as tens of thousands of dollars into the pursuit of becoming famous. Naturally, the AWP conference is a horrible nest of viciousness and backbiting. It is also a place where real friendships are formed and beautifully maintained. I think every English-language writer should go there at least once, early in their career. It’s a fantastic wake-up call; the business of literature at its most active and sometimes-worst. And it’s vital for every writer, pregnant and glowing with that massive artistic ego, to go to this conference and see how pathetically small they are. The dismissive contempt that tends to be shown by hotel staff also helps. After all, they’re higher on the social ladder than the typical MFA grad, and they know it.
As for my presentation at the 2008 conference, well, I rose to the challenge and the challenge rose to me, and I don’t feel the need to do anything quite like that again. The size of the conference, and therefore the reliance on hotels, is a problem. You might not be aware that Hilton, which charges $15 a day for wireless service (most $60-a-night motels give it away for free), dampens that wireless in the conference rooms so that they can charge over $100 an hour there. We were unwilling to pay this fee, and had to teach Web-literature without Web access. We were loaned a projector which failed at its basic reason for existence, and my carefully-prepared slide presentation was reproduced with various gestures and gesticulations. Frustrations and tempers were abundant. My temper, especially.
That night, we presenters read at the KGB Bar, headlined by Rikki Ducornet, an evening which remains one of my life’s high points, and one which I have no desire to recreate.
Nonetheless, I’ll be attending the 2010 conference in Denver, though I have no intention of paying for a ticket. The 2010 conference will be at the Denver Convention Center, and I bet we’ll be treated better than we have been at Hiltons. Unlikely Books will be doing a joint off-site reading with Ahadada Books, and we’re going to kick ass and fuck bubblegum. Ahadada will have a table at the bookfair, and will be presenting information about Make It New Media. Their table will be theoretically accessible only to paying ticket-holders, and I hope to see you all there.
Do you consider yourself an underground artist?
I don’t find that label useful, partly because it conflates a marketing methodology (the “underground publisher,” associated with “indie publishers” and opposed to “academic” and “mainstream publishing”) with an aesthetic: “underground literature,” which is characterized by taboo subjects and the combination of sex and violence in socially unacceptable ways. As far as aesthetic, I’d like to see the word “underground” used less and the word “neo-pulp” used more: neo-pulp being usefully described as literature which seeks profundity through unreasonable and/or shocking extremes of human behavior. As a publisher, I’ve always been attracted to neo-pulp and think I can often be associated with it, but not exclusively: every issue of Unlikely will see some neo-pulp and some stuff that ain’t. As a writer, I’m not sure the neo-pulp label fits. I think “transgressive” is a fair self-description, as is “neurotica.” Stylistically, I think I’m writing spoken-word librettos. That might change.
As for the marketing methodology of “underground publishing,” I am loyal to no marketing structure. I lay out, at the beginning of this interview, a detailed approach to producing and marketing literature, because I believe it’s the approach that’s best for American literature now. If our society changes, I’ll drop my plan immediately and encourage others to do the same. Despite my disrespect for the current popular models of mainstream and academic publishing, I do not believe the problem is inherent to schools or bookstores, and I’m always looking for ways to cross the divide.
Loyalties breed oppositions. They shut down experimentation and discourage alliances that might push literature into a more positive direction. I do not want to ever say, “these publishers are my people and those other publishers are not.” I’ve met publishers who genuinely love art, and publishers who put their own vanity and/or finances above their work. The people in the first group aren’t necessarily indie and those in the latter group sometimes are. As such, these labels are useless, and I’ve said far too much about them already.
Where does you voice come from? Influences?
Like I say, a writer’s primary function is reading, and any answer given in this space will thus be hopelessly truncated, possibly to the point of being completely wrong. Any accurate answer would be hopelessly boring, though, so let’s give this format a shot.
Michael Rothenberg once described my poetry as “Anne Sexton with a splash of William Carlos Williams,” which made me very happy. I was a father at a young age, and attracted to Anne Sexton much more than her fellow confessionalists, as she talked about her kids so much. John Fante, Emily Dickinson, Marina Tsvetaeva (under-translated into English, unfortunately, but check out Andrey Kneller’s translations), Fyodor Dostoevsky, Zora Neale Hurston, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. loom gigantic in my thoughts. Charles Bukowski used to, but these days he mostly just visits to knock me around when I get too uppity. He knocks me around a lot, but rarely suggests lines any more. There’s Lytton Strachey, and, more recently, Philip Roth. The Marquis de Sade and Jean-Paul Sartre, and I’m finally starting to understand Friedrich Nietzsche.
Stylistically, I might borrow more from Philip Whalen and David Meltzer. I try not to limit my influences to books—Suzanne Vega, Leonard Cohen, and Kurt Weill were very important as I was developing. Trent Reznor and Phil Ochs gave me lots of ideas. Alan Moore thoroughly dominates my perceptions, and I doubt I’ll get through this interview without pulling some sort of Rorschach. The film Adaptation by Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman represents precisely what I want to do in a poem, and I’m a huge fan of oversexed filmmakers like Todd Solondz, Melvin Van Peebles and Paul Verhoeven. I learned everything I know about life from either Joss Whedon or Shohei Imamura. And I try to remember the need to complain in such a way that people mistake me for a humorist, which is a paraphrasing of something a pothead once told me Mark Twain once said.
Back in the day, my friends Anne McMillen, Kurtice Kucheman and I really taught each other the precepts of neo-pulp and how to apply it to our poetry and our own experiences. We did this by reading very different books, and sharing what we learned, and sharing the best of those books.
I read The New American Poetry 1945-1960, and Charles Olson’s essay, “Projective Verse,” but didn’t understand it. I read a great deal on projective verse, but wasn’t able to apply it to my own work until the aforementioned Rothenberg took one of my own poems and did it for me. After that, the dam in my mind broke, and I did a few of Anne’s for hers. Since then, Anne and I have moved in a very projective direction, whereas Kurtice began working more with his own brilliant sort of fiction. I really think Anne and I are doing something original and new with layout; we’re investigating tricks of spacing that are peculiar to American poverty and disenfranchisement; stuff you won’t see from Black Mountain writers or the Zen roshis of California.
A quick word on American political poetry: we’re doing it wrong. We are attempting to compete directly with Bill Maher’s rants, and we will always lose that game. If you want to read political poetry, go with authors from Eastern Europe, such as Marina Tsvetaeva or Lidija Dimkovska. We Americans have the right to be loud and profane, and should do so, once we learn to mix this loud profanity with the subtle political innuendos of those in stifled regimes.
How do you approach a write? Believe in writer's block?
I approach a write in the way that a half-dead rodent approaches a vulture’s gullet.
I was about to give an equally dismissive answer to your question about writer’s block. I had it all planned out, about a space for my neck and a blade and various self-destructive fantasies. I decided that this was unfair. We artists have an oft-deserved reputation for being self-serving, narcissistic, and neurotic in ways that are very hard on our loved ones, interpersonal connections, and stuffed animals. Because we tend to be sensitive as well as self-obsessed, we vacillate from being unaware of the hurt we do others to being paralyzed with guilt.
My defense against self-hatred is my conviction that my work makes the world a better place, however marginally. As artists, we seek to transform all our pain, including guilt and shame, into art. We go back to Philip Roth, who tries to atone through over-the-top confession, not because the confession itself has power, but because in sharing the confession he makes the life of his readers a little less harrowing. The artist thus looks at his loathsome, vicious lifestyle and says: “through my art, others will learn from my mistakes, and the world will improve.”
As an editor, I can be relatively relaxed about this justification for my existence, because editing is an art that simply won’t leave me. So as far as I’m concerned, that other, crueler art of mine can come or go. It never brings me any pleasure. But if writing poetry were my only source of redemption, I guess I’d live in constant fear of its departure.
I can’t fathom why anyone would want to be an artist more than they’d want to be an editor.
Do I believe in writer’s block? Of course. I guess people can choose to disbelieve in writer’s block, which seems akin to refusing to believe in cancer. As it happens, I’ve never had either. I’ve been too depressed to walk to the bathroom to avoid pissing on myself, let alone hold a pen, but that’s not quite the same thing.
Listen to music while you edit/write? Who?
No, never. I listen to music when I copyedit, work on layout, code web pages, build books, cook my books, and conduct correspondence. Lately, I’ve been listening to Outkast, the Evita soundtrack, and Lady Gaga. The four most common names in my music collection are Leonard Cohen, Suzanne Vega, Conor Oberst, and Townes Van Zandt. I’m listening to Elya Finn as I type. On an unrelated note, sometimes people have a hard time believing I like girls.
What other interests do you pursue?
Fetish porn. And beermaking. I think it’s important to have a hobby that, unlike poetry, one can master in the space of a lifetime. I believe I will eventually master the making of porter, and my favorite pornographies feature people saying the word “master.” On an unrelated topic, I am not overcompensating.
Do you have an 'ideal' reader?
I think “ideal” says too much. To me, it implies perfection, which is inherently absent from human relationships (hence the human need for art). As I’ve said, I want to be understood, but there’s no way to measure understanding. So. You, gentle reader, are my ideal. You can buy my books at http://shop.makeitnewmedia.com/. Get copies for all your friends.
Have you won any awards? Do accolades matter to you?
In 2001, the original Unlikely Stories won the Editor’s Choice Award from Poetry Super Highway and The Poet Watch Poet’s Award.
I was very proud to be invited to read, my name on the playbill, in Manhattan in 2008. I was very proud of the way my work was received, as I am at any read in which I sell books. So accolades matter to me. That said, most of the accolades and awards that my peers seek seem pretty lame. If you go through Poets & Writers Magazine and look at the list of awards, most of them sound unpleasant to win. Which is fine—no accounting for taste and all that. But The WRITE REAL GOOD Contest was created, in part, to present the world with something Unlikely-type poets might find more appetizing. We created it as something more like a contest we’d want to win.
What other careers have you had? What is the worst job you've ever had?
I flunked out of high school at the right time to bullshit my way into the dot-com world and jobs in Information Technology, which I had difficulty holding down; a healthy mind rebels against such an insane industry, and by coincidence, my mind did also. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one jumping from job to job. That was a thoroughly unpleasant time, although I had enough money for a bottle of wine every night. These days Cisco seems like a splurge.
I held on like that for a year after the dot-com crash and eventually had the sense to stop. I went to work at Oxford Books in Atlanta, Georgia. Oxford Books was a citywide chain owned by a local millionaire, and had served Atlanta for decades. I discovered Shel Silverstein in Oxford; Oxford deserves at least partial credit for my love of books and literature.
While I was working there, Barnes & Noble placed a store across the street from each Oxford branch and systematically erased us with, of course, the complicity of Atlanta’s book buying public. Oxford’s owner was not perfect, but he provided a beautiful and essential service to Atlanta’s readers, its local authors, those authors who chose to come hang out in Atlanta, and the many musicians featured in Oxford's cafés. When Oxford vanished, Atlanta became a less literary city, following the nationwide cycle of more books with fewer readers.
America is an observably less educated place than it was a decade ago. It is observably less kind, less friendly, less empathetic, and less wise. These things are all tied together, and, yes, people like Dick Cheney and Bill O’Reilly deliberately engineered this situation for their own financial benefit, and should be recognized and prosecuted as the monsters they are. They did not, however, accomplish all this alone. All I’m saying is that if you feel the need to give a speech on the evils of Glenn Beck, try not to do it while sipping a latté made for you by the Starbucks inside a Barnes & Noble while flipping through a glossy magazine about Bennifer. Thank you.
Do you consider yourself prolific?
Why, do you find me long-winded? I am not a prolific writer, by any definition, and thus doth Heaven grant us its small favors. There are many prolific and talented writers in this world, and an editor who is willing to work at their craft will find it easy to become prolific, provided they are willing to put aside their own ego and do the task of editing; that is, working to put forth the visions of another above their own.
What advice do you have for other writers/editors whether new or seasoned?
If a publisher or would-be publisher calls Make It New Media with a specific scenario, I am happy to offer consultations; to offer specific advice, to explain what Make It New Media can do for the person, or to recommend a firm who could be of more service. The question here supposes that I have advice for everyone, that everyone who wishes to write and/or edit could benefit from—the question seems to seek philosophy, rather than business acumen. Even if I knew anything useful about the writer’s life, I wouldn’t be able to offer much advice, because the writer’s life is incredibly diverse. There’s simply not enough shared experience in the lives of writers to offer much universal advice, whatever twatsnot books like Bird by Bird and Wild Mind might claim.
Of course, you didn’t actually ask for a book’s worth of advice, did you? You wanted a couple of paragraphs that could be inserted into a BlogSpot entry, yes? Making yours a perfectly appropriate question which I’m denigrating for no reason. I shall now quote a dead person.
In The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor we find an old country prophet who finds himself psychoanalyzed by a younger relative. The prophet quotes the relative as writing, “His fixation of being called by the Lord had its origin in insecurity. He needed the assurance of a call, and so he called himself.”
As writers and editors, that is who we are, and we are obliged to recognize it. We must be called. We have no business doing it if we are not called. And we must recognize that we were not called by God, or Melpomene, or Dita Von Teese. We were called by ourselves, by something within ourselves. And then we must take this calling, which originated in our own minds and does not exist outside of our imaginations, and we must surrender to that calling utterly. We must surrender our ego, our desires, and our will entirely to a calling that we know has no external validity. Despite the reputation of the artistic ego, writing involves a complete sacrifice, a deliberate annihilation, of ego and self (causing our vanity to come out in other areas and in other ways, I grant you).
When acting as authors, we get a few more social benefits than when acting as editors. But that doesn’t matter; it can’t. A real writer would rather see his works stolen than unread. As an editor and publisher, I find that any “writer” who can’t grok that is wasting my fucking time.
What does the future hold for you?
In less than the blink of a geologist’s eye, I will die. Also, all of my work will be forgotten, and everyone who has ever known me will die. It’s unclear, at this time, which will happen first, but it doesn’t matter much because these events, too, are negligible in their chronological scope. Meanwhile, my own body will have completely dissolved into the earth, and be recycled like that song in The Lion King. Some time after that, the human race will become extinct, replaced by a more fit species. This species might evolve from humans, or it might evolve from another species more appropriate to the planet. Long after that, the earth’s orbit around the sun will begin to deteriorate, and the sun itself will eventually burn out. Life on earth will cease completely and my atoms, long processed through innumerable other species, will become part of a space-rock. Eventually, the Milky Way Galaxy and the Andromeda Galaxy will collide, after which my path is anyone’s guess.
Robert Laughlin's Twittered Classics #5
Norse hero rips off arm of man-eating monster. Norse hero is no relation to white whale.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium
Monday, October 26, 2009
Calliope Nerve Interview Series: Felino Soriano
What is Differentia Press? What are your goals for it? Do you only publish e-books?
Differentia Press is a residence for poets who maintain an existence within the realm of experimental poetry. Experimental is a subjective definition of self-imposed or/and others’-deemed revelation. The collections I publish/plan on publishing are from those poets, ultimately writing poetry sans the damaging aspect of cliché. Goals vis-à -vis the press are to highlight artistry of the excellent demeanor, artistry developing a pattern of neoteric greatness of the italicized attention.
Yes, I only publish e books. This allows for me to ascertain myriad of possibilities of which I can fathom exact layout of the poet’s original intent. Also, this brand of publishing fulfills the ability to posit work without monetary base of achievement. Thus far, the collections released have received excellent feedback, which pleases me, greatly.
What can people expect from your book Apperceptions of Reinterpretations?
The expectation is often an unfulfilled invention the mind predicts to collaborate with assumption-based analysis. Apperceptions of Reinterpretations is a collection from my ongoing 2009 series, Painters’ Exhalations. As the series conducts interpretational conversations from the realm of ekphrasis, I delve into the endeavor of finding paintings I find marvelous, inspiring, and willing to reciprocate on the basis of dialogical encounters.
Which do you enjoy more editing or writing?
The mode of editor is rewarding because it allows for opportunity to read the rarity of an authentic poem. These opportunities blend with situational happenstance, as I am beforehand, unaware of what will be submitted. Even work from those I have solicited constantly surprise me, although I am well aware of their exceptional works.
Writing though is a superlative gift of ascertaining surroundings through metaphysical concepts, allowing language to interact with unseen entities of environmental occurrence.
Are you a full time writer/editor? If not, what is your day job?
No. These aspectual realities only physically engage me on a part-time basis, although the acquired mode of the poet is constant. Observation is the necessity of the poet’s disposition, and this parallels the importance of metaphysical understanding of surroundings. When not physically writing a poem, ideas are still collaboratively involving my attention, which then uncovers a layer of reality showcasing an object within the disparate ideal than previously understood.
Day job: I am a case manager for physically and developmentally disabled adults, a career in which I find an absolute joy.
Why do you write?
I write poetry to inform others of my vantage point, and to find the reader that may possibly understand the version of my environment. I write to posit a truth while using the differentiated language that has been used to ascertain various untruths. A job of the poet is to unravel language to its most barest and naked ability, and rewrite a brand of truth into which philosophical awareness builds up a body of solid vernacular.
Do you consider yourself an underground artist?
In attempting to answer this question, I will reveal my understanding of its symbolism. Of the underground, my interpretation is outside of the mainstream concept, whatever subjective or esoteric definition this may believe. Too, perhaps, the reality of pursuing the love of poetry sans any stylized accolades, akin to laureates or high monetary awards. I am an artist of intent to posit my brand of truth through metaphysical understanding and paradoxical reinvention. The function of my writing is to associate absence of cliché with a language of poetic consciousness alive within the realm of neoteric ideas. Whether I achieve this function is unknown to me, but I strive to accomplish such with each poem I create.
Obviously music plays a huge role in your life, Listen to music while you edit/write? Who?
Indeed, jazz is a sacred part of my life. I do not listen to music when I edit, for I feel this dislocates my attention from the work presented before me. However, I always listen to jazz when writing, as this facilitates a dialogical paradigm between the musical conversation occurring within a recording and my interpretation of the music I am attempting to ascertain.
My major influences revolve around classic and avant-garde jazz artists, ranging from circa early 1950’s to recent releases. Some favorites are Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Eric Dolphy, Sun Ra, Eric Lewis, Mathew Ship, Terrance Blanchard, Jason Moran, Bill Evans and Wynton Marsalis.
How do you approach a write? Believe in writer's block?
The concept for one of my poems is never predetermined in the facet of thinking of or meditating on an idea to create a poem. The wonderment of poetry, perhaps paralleling the sacredness of this art is in spontaneous occurrences. Although I have a planned directional purpose for my “Painters’ Exhalations” series, in that the basis is existent within ekphrasis, I cannot sit down and diagram form or image with subsequent reality of the finished poem. The language, when writing is a surprising facet, becomes unobstructed, and does not reveal a forced unnaturalism.
I have never understood the term “writer’s block”.
What other interests do you pursue?
My life is very much routine acclimated. I choose to exist this way in that I must make space for the passions in my life. Outside of my familial and relational activities, employment, writing, editing, studying, and listening to jazz, very little is performed by me, for at this time in my life, I attempt to only achieve and participate in functions which will assist in bringing me the rarity of elation.
Who is your 'ideal' reader?
I am unaware of who reads my poetry on a grand scale. I receive messages from readers that are very kind, and I become quite excited when a comment is made through philosophical dialogue. When this occurrence arises, I am thrilled into understanding a reader has grasped concept and intertwining language within the finished poem.
How do you feel about 'spirituality'? Does your work have spiritual aspects?
Spirituality is the fundamental attraction to adhere a peaceful disposition to a life living outwardly within a life of occasional chaotic dimensions. Meditation is prevalent, as is an inward goal of betterment of self.
Poetry is sacred, the most sacred self-activity I posses within my existence. Some facets of spirituality are contained within specified language; thus, when writing from peaceful inclinations I am involved in the spiritual dimension of constituted happiness, the euphoria of creation towards poetry and self-known happiness.
Have you won any awards? Do accolades matter?
I have not won any literary awards. I have won over 100 martial arts awards, as I trained in Tae Kwon Do for 15 years, achieving my black belt at age 15.
Accolades are niceties of the unnecessary comprehension.
What other careers have you had? What is the worst job you've ever had?
I’ve had over a dozen jobs, ranging from building custom computers to retail sales. Every job I’ve encountered has not brought me the supreme happiness I am experiencing in my current case management profession.
Are you prolific?
In dealing with productivity, for most of this year I’ve written three poems daily. As of today, I have written a total of 742 poems since 1/2/09, and have had 610 poems accepted for publication since that same date. I have been honored with receiving 12 collections of poetry accepted this year as well. I am aware that my writing frequently is proactive because of my love for poetry, therefore writing is never an unwanted effort, but a chance to engage with language in ways I haven’t before. Conceptual newness is engrained in my attempts to create a poem never repeating stylized sameness.
You seem to be everywhere contributing, editing, publishing... how do you find the time?
Earlier, I stated my existence of routine-based comprehension. I’ve been asked this question by several people this year, as it has been my most productive since beginning writing in 2000. I tend to, during the work week, to write my poems at night; so therefore, I set a structured time to write my three poems. I do not spend a lot of time on a specific poem; I take as little as four or five minutes, and depending on length, up to 20 minutes. The longest poem I’ve written was an 11 page poem written after Miles Davis album “Kind of Blue”. This poem took me two hours to write.
Regarding editing and publishing, too, I spend time each evening answering submissions, adding content to the journal, and editing/laying out books for the press. Weekends give more allowance to write and edit.
What's on your recommended reading list?
I have several favorite poets. I suggest to any poet to read work by Duane Locke. One needs only search his name on Google to find thousands of his published poems. I am very honored to publish his work both at “Counterexample Poetics” and the inaugural book for “Differentia Press”. I also highly suggest reading Constance Stadler, as her work is philosophically sophisticated and is beautifully alarming. Others include Kane X. Faucher, Matina Stamatakis, Rich Follet, Alan Britt, Peter Gizi, and Sheila Murphy.
What advice do you have for other writers/editors whether new or seasoned?
Editors have a responsibility to provide a forum for artists representing invigorated newness.
The poet has a responsibility to relay a language of truth which replaces the quotidian brand of dialect superimposing will on aspectual monotony.
What's next for Felino A. Soriano?
I plan on continuing with “Counterexample Poetics”, and have some wonderful artists forthcoming. Also, “Differentia Press” will present collections from very brilliant poets, and I am excited to be allowed to showcase their works.
My attempt to write will surely surround my continuation of “Painters’ Exhalations”. This series has brought me supreme happiness, for I have engaged in the dialogical gift of interpretational constructs of painting and poem.
Differentia Press is a residence for poets who maintain an existence within the realm of experimental poetry. Experimental is a subjective definition of self-imposed or/and others’-deemed revelation. The collections I publish/plan on publishing are from those poets, ultimately writing poetry sans the damaging aspect of cliché. Goals vis-à -vis the press are to highlight artistry of the excellent demeanor, artistry developing a pattern of neoteric greatness of the italicized attention.
Yes, I only publish e books. This allows for me to ascertain myriad of possibilities of which I can fathom exact layout of the poet’s original intent. Also, this brand of publishing fulfills the ability to posit work without monetary base of achievement. Thus far, the collections released have received excellent feedback, which pleases me, greatly.
What can people expect from your book Apperceptions of Reinterpretations?
The expectation is often an unfulfilled invention the mind predicts to collaborate with assumption-based analysis. Apperceptions of Reinterpretations is a collection from my ongoing 2009 series, Painters’ Exhalations. As the series conducts interpretational conversations from the realm of ekphrasis, I delve into the endeavor of finding paintings I find marvelous, inspiring, and willing to reciprocate on the basis of dialogical encounters.
Which do you enjoy more editing or writing?
The mode of editor is rewarding because it allows for opportunity to read the rarity of an authentic poem. These opportunities blend with situational happenstance, as I am beforehand, unaware of what will be submitted. Even work from those I have solicited constantly surprise me, although I am well aware of their exceptional works.
Writing though is a superlative gift of ascertaining surroundings through metaphysical concepts, allowing language to interact with unseen entities of environmental occurrence.
Are you a full time writer/editor? If not, what is your day job?
No. These aspectual realities only physically engage me on a part-time basis, although the acquired mode of the poet is constant. Observation is the necessity of the poet’s disposition, and this parallels the importance of metaphysical understanding of surroundings. When not physically writing a poem, ideas are still collaboratively involving my attention, which then uncovers a layer of reality showcasing an object within the disparate ideal than previously understood.
Day job: I am a case manager for physically and developmentally disabled adults, a career in which I find an absolute joy.
Why do you write?
I write poetry to inform others of my vantage point, and to find the reader that may possibly understand the version of my environment. I write to posit a truth while using the differentiated language that has been used to ascertain various untruths. A job of the poet is to unravel language to its most barest and naked ability, and rewrite a brand of truth into which philosophical awareness builds up a body of solid vernacular.
Do you consider yourself an underground artist?
In attempting to answer this question, I will reveal my understanding of its symbolism. Of the underground, my interpretation is outside of the mainstream concept, whatever subjective or esoteric definition this may believe. Too, perhaps, the reality of pursuing the love of poetry sans any stylized accolades, akin to laureates or high monetary awards. I am an artist of intent to posit my brand of truth through metaphysical understanding and paradoxical reinvention. The function of my writing is to associate absence of cliché with a language of poetic consciousness alive within the realm of neoteric ideas. Whether I achieve this function is unknown to me, but I strive to accomplish such with each poem I create.
Obviously music plays a huge role in your life, Listen to music while you edit/write? Who?
Indeed, jazz is a sacred part of my life. I do not listen to music when I edit, for I feel this dislocates my attention from the work presented before me. However, I always listen to jazz when writing, as this facilitates a dialogical paradigm between the musical conversation occurring within a recording and my interpretation of the music I am attempting to ascertain.
My major influences revolve around classic and avant-garde jazz artists, ranging from circa early 1950’s to recent releases. Some favorites are Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Eric Dolphy, Sun Ra, Eric Lewis, Mathew Ship, Terrance Blanchard, Jason Moran, Bill Evans and Wynton Marsalis.
How do you approach a write? Believe in writer's block?
The concept for one of my poems is never predetermined in the facet of thinking of or meditating on an idea to create a poem. The wonderment of poetry, perhaps paralleling the sacredness of this art is in spontaneous occurrences. Although I have a planned directional purpose for my “Painters’ Exhalations” series, in that the basis is existent within ekphrasis, I cannot sit down and diagram form or image with subsequent reality of the finished poem. The language, when writing is a surprising facet, becomes unobstructed, and does not reveal a forced unnaturalism.
I have never understood the term “writer’s block”.
What other interests do you pursue?
My life is very much routine acclimated. I choose to exist this way in that I must make space for the passions in my life. Outside of my familial and relational activities, employment, writing, editing, studying, and listening to jazz, very little is performed by me, for at this time in my life, I attempt to only achieve and participate in functions which will assist in bringing me the rarity of elation.
Who is your 'ideal' reader?
I am unaware of who reads my poetry on a grand scale. I receive messages from readers that are very kind, and I become quite excited when a comment is made through philosophical dialogue. When this occurrence arises, I am thrilled into understanding a reader has grasped concept and intertwining language within the finished poem.
How do you feel about 'spirituality'? Does your work have spiritual aspects?
Spirituality is the fundamental attraction to adhere a peaceful disposition to a life living outwardly within a life of occasional chaotic dimensions. Meditation is prevalent, as is an inward goal of betterment of self.
Poetry is sacred, the most sacred self-activity I posses within my existence. Some facets of spirituality are contained within specified language; thus, when writing from peaceful inclinations I am involved in the spiritual dimension of constituted happiness, the euphoria of creation towards poetry and self-known happiness.
Have you won any awards? Do accolades matter?
I have not won any literary awards. I have won over 100 martial arts awards, as I trained in Tae Kwon Do for 15 years, achieving my black belt at age 15.
Accolades are niceties of the unnecessary comprehension.
What other careers have you had? What is the worst job you've ever had?
I’ve had over a dozen jobs, ranging from building custom computers to retail sales. Every job I’ve encountered has not brought me the supreme happiness I am experiencing in my current case management profession.
Are you prolific?
In dealing with productivity, for most of this year I’ve written three poems daily. As of today, I have written a total of 742 poems since 1/2/09, and have had 610 poems accepted for publication since that same date. I have been honored with receiving 12 collections of poetry accepted this year as well. I am aware that my writing frequently is proactive because of my love for poetry, therefore writing is never an unwanted effort, but a chance to engage with language in ways I haven’t before. Conceptual newness is engrained in my attempts to create a poem never repeating stylized sameness.
You seem to be everywhere contributing, editing, publishing... how do you find the time?
Earlier, I stated my existence of routine-based comprehension. I’ve been asked this question by several people this year, as it has been my most productive since beginning writing in 2000. I tend to, during the work week, to write my poems at night; so therefore, I set a structured time to write my three poems. I do not spend a lot of time on a specific poem; I take as little as four or five minutes, and depending on length, up to 20 minutes. The longest poem I’ve written was an 11 page poem written after Miles Davis album “Kind of Blue”. This poem took me two hours to write.
Regarding editing and publishing, too, I spend time each evening answering submissions, adding content to the journal, and editing/laying out books for the press. Weekends give more allowance to write and edit.
What's on your recommended reading list?
I have several favorite poets. I suggest to any poet to read work by Duane Locke. One needs only search his name on Google to find thousands of his published poems. I am very honored to publish his work both at “Counterexample Poetics” and the inaugural book for “Differentia Press”. I also highly suggest reading Constance Stadler, as her work is philosophically sophisticated and is beautifully alarming. Others include Kane X. Faucher, Matina Stamatakis, Rich Follet, Alan Britt, Peter Gizi, and Sheila Murphy.
What advice do you have for other writers/editors whether new or seasoned?
Editors have a responsibility to provide a forum for artists representing invigorated newness.
The poet has a responsibility to relay a language of truth which replaces the quotidian brand of dialect superimposing will on aspectual monotony.
What's next for Felino A. Soriano?
I plan on continuing with “Counterexample Poetics”, and have some wonderful artists forthcoming. Also, “Differentia Press” will present collections from very brilliant poets, and I am excited to be allowed to showcase their works.
My attempt to write will surely surround my continuation of “Painters’ Exhalations”. This series has brought me supreme happiness, for I have engaged in the dialogical gift of interpretational constructs of painting and poem.
Robert Lauglin's Twittered Classics #4
White whale bites off leg of crazy sea captain.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Robert Lauglin's Twittered Classics #3
Greek woman finds out she married her own son. She kills herself, instead of becoming a guest on Oprah.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
...TRYING AGAIN IS NOT WORTHWHILE
...TRYING AGAIN IS NOT WORTHWHILE
As for his application to patent a steel wool condom, they cut that one into paper dolls.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
Quoteable
From The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks:
Around him, the walls were lined with shelves, some so widely spaced that they might have doubled as bunk space for humans, others so small that a child's finger might have struggled to fit. Mostly these held book, or of some sort. Spindle secured carousels tensioned between the walls and between the floor and a network of struts above held hundreds of other types of storage devices and systems: swave crystals, holoshard, picospool and a dozen more obscure.
Around him, the walls were lined with shelves, some so widely spaced that they might have doubled as bunk space for humans, others so small that a child's finger might have struggled to fit. Mostly these held book, or of some sort. Spindle secured carousels tensioned between the walls and between the floor and a network of struts above held hundreds of other types of storage devices and systems: swave crystals, holoshard, picospool and a dozen more obscure.
rain cycle
rain cycle
streams of piss & rain
lead to sewage drains
to mix in the ocean
become the same
and find their way back
into separating into
piss & rain
the end, the beginning
the beginning, the end
always the same
always the same
--Andrew Hilbert lives and works in Orange County, CA. He is a regular contributor to NewVerseNews.com and will be in upcoming issues of the Chiron Review, Pearl, and the Blue Collar Review.
streams of piss & rain
lead to sewage drains
to mix in the ocean
become the same
and find their way back
into separating into
piss & rain
the end, the beginning
the beginning, the end
always the same
always the same
--Andrew Hilbert lives and works in Orange County, CA. He is a regular contributor to NewVerseNews.com and will be in upcoming issues of the Chiron Review, Pearl, and the Blue Collar Review.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Robert Laughlin's Twittered Classics #2
Irish hod carrier dreams about various historic eras. In none of them does anyone understand a word of this book.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED...
IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED...
He tried to patent an alarm clock with a vibrate-only setting. The patent office folded his application into a paper airplane.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
Quoteable
From Iain M. Banks The Algebraist
"I would like to to take a look round some of the libraries myself. I hope you don't mind. I shan't disturb you."
"Ah. I see. Well, if you think you can be discreet. Are you seeking anything in particular, Mr. Taak?"
"Yes. and you?"
"Only enlightenment. And what would it be that you are looking for, if I am ask?"
"Exactly the same."
"I would like to to take a look round some of the libraries myself. I hope you don't mind. I shan't disturb you."
"Ah. I see. Well, if you think you can be discreet. Are you seeking anything in particular, Mr. Taak?"
"Yes. and you?"
"Only enlightenment. And what would it be that you are looking for, if I am ask?"
"Exactly the same."
Friday, October 23, 2009
why I liked t.c.
why i liked t.c.
after we broke up,
when i went to get some of my stuff from his house (my biology book,
a red bag with a drug ad on it,
some quarters in a plastic bag),
he tried to get me to come
down to the basement with him
to give me something.
my friends and i thought it might be part of his penis,
cut off,
or a love letter in blood or something.
but it was this bear blanket his dead dad gave him.
like i meant so much to him.
like i meant something to him.
we dated two or four months.
i liked him cause his dad had died,
and he'd technically died, too, drowned for a little bit
when he was two or four years old.
i thought it was cute. and sort of sad,
like
'i'm fucking someone who died,
i hope he doesn't die again soon.'
i didn't take his fucking blanket.
--Lena Judith Drake is the editor-in-chief of Breadcrumb Scabs poetry magazine (http://www.breadcrumbscabs.com), as well as a Creative Writing and Women & Gender Studies student at Grand Valley State University. For more information or previous publications, please investigate her personal site (http://lenajudith.sedentarygecko.com).
Little Russia
Little Russia
No one knows for sure how
Maybe some ice age fluke
Some shamanistic trance gone awry
But some how it is there
Just a few acres wild weeds witnessed by an empty house an
Abandoned sheet metal shop standing where once the white wood slaughter house once stood where layer after layer of thick lead paint could not keep old blood from seeping through
Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery
just a few acres wedged in by a half circle ridge of glacier rock and sapling hardwoods where wolves though heard are never seen and leave no trace not even in the snow where only smooth soled sets of footprints going in disappear mid filed and like wise sometimes appear mid filed heading out and all through the month of November any remnant of growing thing be it stem or stalk or stick, each night is tipped with a single never freezing liquid drop such are the tears from all those who pass in one direction or the other through what we called Little Russia.
2. When I was a kid at school we had the books
They had all the symbols in them even satanic ones
All the symbols of the world
Old and new.
But one day this man came, he went around to all the class rooms.
He took away all our books.
Even the teachers were mad at this
But they had to give us other books.
New books without all the symbols.
Now they don’t teach you anything,
Just reading comprehension – you read something they give you,
Then you answer a question about what you read
Then you get a degree
Then you forget it.
But I remember we had the books
They had ever symbol in the world even the satanic ones
All the symbols old and new –
Now people don’t know anything.
They don’t know this is an ancient world,
They think it’s only six thousand years but its not.
Its millions and millions.
We had the symbols once but they were taken away.
And I know this, even though people don’t know them anymore,
There would be no world without the symbols.
And I know this, there’s still a place where you can find them,
Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery
Under the bark of old wood, drifting under pieces of bark and branches
All what people say are just worm marks the symbols of the world old and new made by such worms as those there are in Little Russia.
3. What they don’t teach anymore about photosynthesis in schools?
That each leaf of each tree makes a photograph, an image of what’s around it. This is how there are many worlds at once.
each year when the leaves fall the images are stored inside the tree and when the new leaves appear they do so with all the images taken by all those leaves that came before and then through out the growing season these fresh leaves take additional photographs. The images get stronger and stronger depending on how many photographs of them have been stored. The longer something is there the stronger it becomes – building up substance over the years.
that’s why if you parked a model A here beside this tree and left it there eventually the real car would disintegrate but then be replaced by an image of the car an image created by thirty years of constant photographing by multitudes of leaves. Thus these photos are synthesised into an image so
That long after the original had rotted away
That model A
No mechanic can make run
No grease fills its crank case
No gasoline fills its gas tank
You sat in it made it go up and down up and down
Then ran home shouting
Grandpa! Grandpa! I flew the car! I flew the car!
Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery.
Didn’t we meet there once?
Weren’t you the one draped in skins?
Smile polished sepia
Black eyes stranded behind silver languages
Mindful of Ukraine choirs before the war
Dear one, dear one, my dear dear dear one
Starlings of tears each familiar voice polished crystal snow
Beside those trees where the road parallels those tracks over that stone grey arch bridging this river tainted now as then by run off from the tannery
(for Jim when he lived in a tent by a river in New Milford ct. – we met while I stopped for a smoke, we shared a few and had a conversation. it was winter and I only had a fiver to give him and a half a pack of Marlboros – he gave me this poem. I tried for years to do it justice. He’d a done it better himself. Anyway the important thing is Jim not the poem – so here you go Jim – this ones for you, and maybe all those who unlike yourself never had a chance with all the symbols of the world.)
--PD Lyons blog for poetry publishing info and new releases is http://pdlyons.wordpress.com/. Lyon's LULU page is available at http://stores.lulu.com/pdlyons.
"the miracle is not to walk on water but to walk on earth" - Zen master Lin Ch
Robert Laughlin's Twittered Classics #1
Venetian general strangles his wife after she loses her handkerchief. They didn’t have anger management classes in those days.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
--Robert Laughlin lives in Chico, California. He is the creator of the Micro Award, an annual competition for previously published flash fiction. Two of his short stories are MWA Notable Stories, and his first novel, Vow of Silence, is available from Trytium.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
O'R
O'R
nothing comes so softly as this day of leaving
even stones, once cursed
now picked up at random
savoured almost by mouth
a kiss
let fall gently
as if they'd remember only that
as far as the eye can see
small diamond stars
tattooed unspeakable skin
ancient linens
a memory of water
a beautiful woman has come
pure infant dreams
deep on my strong shoulder swaying songs the rain peers into
be good Tanya, be good
I can see you twice
once in the mirror
walking into yourself
disappearing
no matter how much love we die
no matter how much religion or philosophy
eventually no one will remember us
even history forgotten no matter what
some day there will be no one, nothing left
not terror but something else kills poetry
--PD Lyons blog for poetry publishing info and new releases is http://pdlyons.wordpress.com/. Lyon's LULU page is available at http://stores.lulu.com/pdlyons.
"the miracle is not to walk on water but to walk on earth" - Zen master Lin Chi
Your fingers in my throat
Your fingers in my throat
I'll slip on your see-through dress for my bloodless deflowering.
I wanted to kiss you yesterday.
I get stubble-burn in a rash on my left breast.
It's a sneeze between my legs, and I like the hard press of him
against the underwear marks on my hip-skin.
People all broken up, with ripped-off limbs
and pieced together
in pipes inside of me, squelching out again
all sealed up and tidy.
I like that,
being the coagulate,
but I didn't want to kiss you today.
--Lena Judith Drake is the editor-in-chief of Breadcrumb Scabs poetry magazine (http://www.breadcrumbscabs.com), as well as a Creative Writing and Women & Gender Studies student at Grand Valley State University. For more information or previous publications, please investigate her personal site (http://lenajudith.sedentarygecko.com).
Boomerz
Boomerz
I live only in memory.
The day to day does not inspire me,
Only wanting to sit here and think of what used to be
Strung out on the drug America.
Safe only in my own home,
Locked doors, paid taxes, insurance policies protect me.
TV-petrol- chemicals nourish me.
People not like me, outrage me.
--PD Lyons blog for poetry publishing info and new releases is http://pdlyons.wordpress.com/. Lyon's LULU page is available at http://stores.lulu.com/pdlyons.
"the miracle is not to walk on water but to walk on earth" - Zen master Lin Chi
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
summer vacation masturbation
summer vacation masturbation
it's one thing to fuck loud in college
with the neighbors who throw thumping parties,
and probably think it's funny, and wonder who the dirty talk girl
with the loud orgasms
is. not the girl with the glasses
who doesn't say hi, right?
it has to be her roommate?
some hot one we've never seen?
but i wonder if the neighbors here can hear me
and my mainstream why-not porn switched on.
probably.
the cop next door who told me i was leading on the guy
who stalked me a little,
looked in my window at night.
the cop who blamed me for leading this guy to my house,
next door to his twelve-year-old daughter.
his chain-smoker wife, listening to country music about a father
who's upset
who heard
his young son say the word "shit",
except they can't even say it in the song.
they probably heard me come.
--Lena Judith Drake is the editor-in-chief of Breadcrumb Scabs poetry magazine (http://www.breadcrumbscabs.com), as well as a Creative Writing and Women & Gender Studies student at Grand Valley State University. For more information or previous publications, please investigate her personal site (http://lenajudith.sedentarygecko.com).
The Indian Girl Who
The Indian Girl Who
She was the Indian girl, who sat on the bench,
Five foot maybe four n a half.
Walked with a limp, used a stick.
Turquoise sometimes in her hair
Tied with bandannas even in braids.
In the manner of true primitives, we deemed her wise.
Not because of what she said,
Although on those slight occasions of our interacting -
When she spoke we listened.
Not because she was older,
Although she must have been.
But because she was the Indian girl who sat on the bench -
Creatures of the city we did not know sometimes kept her company.
We were high school pot heads.
Come to school from the edge of town,
Tripped some on LSD
(Orange sunshine of the purple haze micro dot window pane mind)
Pan handled spare change for Marlboros, drugs and wine
Bought for us by our friendly neighbourhood winos, in those days when it was easier to buy drugs than liquor.
Some of us said we blew a joint with her,
That she went to university,
That she was Cherokee or Sioux,
and I wish I’d kissed that red red lipstick right off her mouth
Spoke to her about everything amidst the pillows,
Shiniest midnight hair,
Full moon belly deep water echoes
Laughter all along her precious wilderness -
Cheyenne.
--PD Lyons has been writing as a survial mechanisim for years now and hopes to keep at it for years longer. For more information go to http://pdlyons.wordpress.com/.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Pensioners Remiss
Pensioners Remiss
When I wanted to see you
Young and available
Dresses out amidst a blue jean wasteland
Stoned as laughing smoky charms
Dancing at any moment unannounced
On the steps of Spanish little Harlem
Turquoise as your eyes church doors
Sacramental wine just open
A spiral of possibilities each as believable as the past
When I wanted to see you
Roads wide open looking to ride
Strong as summer sweat
Muscles love like horses into sunset
Diamonds across that midnight sky lived only in your fuck me eyes.
Breathless barefoot pirouette octagon tiles
Limitless kitchens by dull Frigidaire ice cold India ales
Fast as you can drink ‘em
Back porch third floor dawn Aegean blue
Away among a city of fearlessness
When I wanted to see you
Saint Johns Christmas balsam scented crushed blood velvet
Crystal singers choir of angles
Mysterious as snow the mouth you used
For me an accent of hypnosis lead like sorrow obsessed with green as if summer surfaced between live pines
And the first breasts I ever saw
You stripped for the reservoir
My hands held showing me to cup each one instead
When I wanted to see you
So much more so than
Where ever you were
So much sooner than now
--PD Lyons blog for poetry publishing info and new releases is http://pdlyons.wordpress.com/. Lyon's LULU page is available at http://stores.lulu.com/pdlyons.
"the miracle is not to walk on water but to walk on earth" - Zen master Lin Chi
Quoteable
No wonder you're late. Why, this watch is exactly two days slow." -- Mad Hatter (Lewis Carroll)
washing clean
washing clean
when i'm here, my mom still washes my laundry,
force-removes it from my room, my underwear,
bathing bottoms, with sand piles from scooting
along the beach,
your fingers behind me in water trying to scoop it out,
or wet patches from your two fingers inside me,
or white smears from when you come inside me, doggy style,
and i eat breakfast with your mother.
do i taste like fabric softener now?
am i clean?
--Lena Judith Drake is the editor-in-chief of Breadcrumb Scabs poetry magazine (http://www.breadcrumbscabs.com), as well as a Creative Writing and Women & Gender Studies student at Grand Valley State University. For more information or previous publications, please investigate her personal site (http://lenajudith.sedentarygecko.com).
Monday, October 19, 2009
Days Inn
Days Inn
It is difficult to write a good poem
about a good relationship.
Here I am, dating a white man with camping gear
in his trunk
and still you are against my chest
crying about being human
and I am somehow just saying
don't leave me don't leave me don't leave.
My self-cannibalism on the insides of my mouth, my lips,
digesting myself, 20 days
is not long enough to break a habit;
stepping in the 4-year-old's urine again;
these are gritty details.
This is a raw, scraped-off poem.
But the clocks are all wrong--
the plastic hands, the rented microwave--
and so
in between wet-spotted sheets
and kneeling in front of you on the hotel floor,
waiting/weighting your knees, we've gained an hour.
I skip away from you in this poem.
I close my eyes
and stumble to the sound of you, to my hands on your face,
while you make bat noises
and I laugh
and we both look down my bra
and you are warm.
--Lena Judith Drake is the editor-in-chief of Breadcrumb Scabs poetry magazine (http://www.breadcrumbscabs.com), as well as a Creative Writing and Women & Gender Studies student at Grand Valley State University. For more information or previous publications, please investigate her personal site (http://lenajudith.sedentarygecko.com).
Fuckin Bukowski
Fuckin Bukowski
Idiot me picks now
6000 miles away at 52
To discover him
Still glad I didn’t stay in Waterbury
Find him sooner
Probably still be pukeing
Out in the after last call
Parking lot of now what am I gonna do
Or else back in jail
Or else still with one of the xes
Or else not even alive
~
Tonight just had a chicken and ham sandwich on rye
And its sometime after midnight
And I’ll probably still be up @ 6 maybe half 6
Do some yoga make coffee for the wife
Bring it to her in bed
Get some pancakes going for the kid
And be happy to do so
~
No not envious
Not regretful
Rather peaceful
Glad to be out of it
That’s the kind of poet I’m happy to live with
Now.
--PD Lyons blog for poetry publishing info and new releases is http://pdlyons.wordpress.com/. Lyon's LULU page is available at http://stores.lulu.com/pdlyons.
"the miracle is not to walk on water but to walk on earth" - Zen master Lin Ch
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Quoteable
"In the long country, cut with rain, somehow there is nowhere to begin." --Samuel R. Delany
We Read Him Everyday
We Read Him Everyday
you sit upon your throne
of ungreatness,
you look down upon us
with your blind eyes,
you speak to us in a language
far from us,
and judge us because we don't understand.
you are the poet of the ages,
lost in your own metaphors,
tied up in your own idiot secrecy,
no wonder the lowest of us
don't read you.
there is a man, a pauper,
who sits on the corner every day,
he sings his sad songs of memory,
they are clear because he loves us.
they are true because he cares.
we read him everyday.
--Mike Meraz is a poet from Los Angeles who currently lives in New Orleans. He has been published in Pearl Magazine, The Chiron Review, Word Riot, Gutter Eloquence, The Exuberant Ashtray, Mad Swirl, Straight from the Fridge, and many others. He is also the author of two books of poetry Black-Listed Poems and All Beautiful Things Travel Alone. Both are available at Lulu.com.
You Are Famous In My Life
You Are Famous In My Life
I talk about you more than any celebrity.
I’m inspired by you more than any artist.
you don’t write. you don’t paint. you don’t sing
and you don’t dance.
you are hardly the movie star or performer.
you are the most important person in my life.
it is the intangible things that make a difference.
it is the simple things that stand out.
it is the ordinary care and concern for others
that is unordinary.
to want to be famous, to want to be known,
to want to be seen, heard and listened to are plights
of all human beings.
to want to love, nourish and help, now these things are rare,
to want to give yourself to another, now these things are rare.
to want to make a difference in someone’s life, a solitary life,
not the masses, now these things are rare.
you never had a successful book, you never made an award winning movie,
I never saw you in a magazine
but you are famous
in my life.
--Mike Meraz is a poet from Los Angeles who currently lives in New Orleans. He has been published in Pearl Magazine, The Chiron Review, Word Riot, Gutter Eloquence, The Exuberant Ashtray, Mad Swirl, Straight from the Fridge, and many others. He is also the author of two books of poetry Black-Listed Poems and All Beautiful Things Travel Alone. Both are available at Lulu.com.
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