Dan Boehl's Les Miseres Et Les Mal-Heurs De La Guerre from Greying Ghost.
These short stoical poems are grim and then surprisingly not, like: "Apparently unaware of the lessons/of the Greeks, a team of scientists de/veloped a chemical weapon that would/provoke widespread sexual behavior/among enemy troops" (from LA PENDAISON (The Hangman's Tree)). Also,I think this is the prettiest Greying Ghost title I've seen yet. It has these perfect royal blue inlays. Never mind. You'd just have to see it.
I've also dug Ben Black's story "The Kettle Pond" in Fence, from vol. 12 no. 1, and it's the sample from that issue so you can read it here. Baffling in the best way. Ben Black is not very googleable. I want more of his kettle ponds. "Well, I began reeling in the line with a prayer in my chest."
I also finished Molly Gaudry's We Take Me Apart.
I would not mind a glut of verse fiction if most of it moved like this. Actually, I'm surprised there hasn't been a glut of verse fiction yet.
It's easy to dig when you're an archaeologist.
Monday, February 08, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Saturn Descends to Earth; Lands in Texas
Salvador Plascencia is speaking in Austin next week!
The details as I received them:
On Thursday, February 4, novelist Salvador Plascencia will speak in the Joynes Room at 7PM. Plascencia is the author of The People of Paper, a Los Angeles Times Favorite Book and San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year. "The People of Paper is a novel like no other . . . Calvino, Borges, and Garcia Marquez will come to mind, but Plascencia's novel is a creature of its own, firmly grounded and soaring at the same time." -T.C. Boyle
"The Joynes Room" is on the University of Texas campus.
It does say speaking. Not reading. In any case, a chance to see what's happening with him these days.
The details as I received them:
On Thursday, February 4, novelist Salvador Plascencia will speak in the Joynes Room at 7PM. Plascencia is the author of The People of Paper, a Los Angeles Times Favorite Book and San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year. "The People of Paper is a novel like no other . . . Calvino, Borges, and Garcia Marquez will come to mind, but Plascencia's novel is a creature of its own, firmly grounded and soaring at the same time." -T.C. Boyle
"The Joynes Room" is on the University of Texas campus.
It does say speaking. Not reading. In any case, a chance to see what's happening with him these days.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Reading///Reading
I'll be reading at the next Five Things as part of the new year's celebration. My story has something to do with reusable mail and cult dynamics. And the turning of the calendar, of course (that's the theme).
Details: 7:30pm///January 29th///United States Art Authority///510 West 29th Street
*
I'm reading Where I Stay by Andrew Zornoza. Really great. To me its road manias read a bit like a cross between The Journals of Lewis and Clark and Richard Linklater's Slacker.
If you don't believe:
EX. 1 (Slacker)
from "Sept. 30, Moran Junction, Wyoming":
"Fuel-can man grabs the letter from me, his braids are tied into a chunky top-knot that whips around his head. You know the stamps have gone up, 37 fucking cents? You know what you got to do, you got to take the return address and reverse it with the real address. See, that way when they return the letter, they return it where you want it to go. He pushes the letter back into my chest. We've got a camp, up in the mountains, he says."
EX. 2 (Journals of Lewis and Clark)
from "Oct. 13, Lincoln City, Oregon":
"Then he goes down the steps, faces the seawall, kneels and prays. It is early morning, nothing but gray and fog. A chill comes through the open window. I thought that seeing the ocean would be the end of something. It is not."
Monday, January 18, 2010
Poetry, Not Poetry Blogging
Poetry: There is a new Alice Blue Review. I've got a couple poems in it from a series I've been sporadically abandoning and then later reconsidering for about a year now.
*
Not Poetry: The fish counter at the Asian supermarket is intimidating but ultimately satisfying to navigate.
*
Going to read The Camp by Ohle first, wait a couple months, and then read Boons. Time-release imagination gratification. Unless I decide to read them both in one sitting.
*
Not Poetry: The fish counter at the Asian supermarket is intimidating but ultimately satisfying to navigate.
*
Going to read The Camp by Ohle first, wait a couple months, and then read Boons. Time-release imagination gratification. Unless I decide to read them both in one sitting.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Excerpt from JANUS
They were moving. “What income bracket has your father fallen into?” Janus heard Katydid Clark say, but he couldn’t tell if this question was directed at him or another student unit.
In the auditorium, they waited for Stone to appear onstage. Janus drowsed down into the deep brown padding, drowned into the comfort of its foam and scratchy cross-stitch. He was almost out when Stone’s voice detonated hello. Janus looked up. Stone was ghost-blue and blurry, pixels shifting in the huge projected image.
“Settle down,” Stone said, though the room was already silent. A recording, Janus noted. “Students. I have some good news to start the school year.” His voice sounded distant but booming, twice-removed, like a recording of a recording. “Our school has been chosen out of over 1,000 applicants in the State Department’s Adopt–a-Country program. Now all we have to do is decide on a nation-state from the list provided, and we can get down to business. Each home room class will be responsible for a sector of the government of our chosen country. This is not only a great service project, but an opportunity to learn a lot, and I hope you young adults take advantage of that. We never would’ve dreamed of such fortune as schoolboys, in my time.”
Every once in a while Stone’s image flexed into a demented grin and the grain of the projection crackled like old film disintegrating. Stone’s recording kept reading from the script. There were additions to the school’s code of conduct, apparently. Janus heard some passing reference to the Hammurabi Code.
Back in class, the other kids argued and bickered over a world map. “Burma!”
“No, Sierra Leone!”
“You’re all idiots, the country that most needs our help is Nicaragua” said effervescent Katydid Clark, with her curly dirty blond hair named after a certain river. "My father was very briefly the President of Nicaragua, so I would know!" Janus thought that the name of the river for which Katydid's hair had been named made a lovely disyllabic gurgle when mouthed to oneself.
Mrs. Denton hushed them. She turned to Janus, oh no. “Janus, which country do you suggest?”
Janus knew the name of every sovereign nation and principality in the world, had learned them from The Units in his third year actually - with corrections forthcoming according to potential geopolitical flux in the years to come, he knew - but in a rare lapse of his infamous memory, he couldn't seem to summon the correct answer to Mrs. Denton’s question.
Janus attempted to blush but could not.
In the auditorium, they waited for Stone to appear onstage. Janus drowsed down into the deep brown padding, drowned into the comfort of its foam and scratchy cross-stitch. He was almost out when Stone’s voice detonated hello. Janus looked up. Stone was ghost-blue and blurry, pixels shifting in the huge projected image.
“Settle down,” Stone said, though the room was already silent. A recording, Janus noted. “Students. I have some good news to start the school year.” His voice sounded distant but booming, twice-removed, like a recording of a recording. “Our school has been chosen out of over 1,000 applicants in the State Department’s Adopt–a-Country program. Now all we have to do is decide on a nation-state from the list provided, and we can get down to business. Each home room class will be responsible for a sector of the government of our chosen country. This is not only a great service project, but an opportunity to learn a lot, and I hope you young adults take advantage of that. We never would’ve dreamed of such fortune as schoolboys, in my time.”
Every once in a while Stone’s image flexed into a demented grin and the grain of the projection crackled like old film disintegrating. Stone’s recording kept reading from the script. There were additions to the school’s code of conduct, apparently. Janus heard some passing reference to the Hammurabi Code.
Back in class, the other kids argued and bickered over a world map. “Burma!”
“No, Sierra Leone!”
“You’re all idiots, the country that most needs our help is Nicaragua” said effervescent Katydid Clark, with her curly dirty blond hair named after a certain river. "My father was very briefly the President of Nicaragua, so I would know!" Janus thought that the name of the river for which Katydid's hair had been named made a lovely disyllabic gurgle when mouthed to oneself.
Mrs. Denton hushed them. She turned to Janus, oh no. “Janus, which country do you suggest?”
Janus knew the name of every sovereign nation and principality in the world, had learned them from The Units in his third year actually - with corrections forthcoming according to potential geopolitical flux in the years to come, he knew - but in a rare lapse of his infamous memory, he couldn't seem to summon the correct answer to Mrs. Denton’s question.
Janus attempted to blush but could not.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Review: A NEW MAP OF AMERICA
My review of A New Map of America, a pamphlet of creative prose (Louis Streitmatter, ED. James Brubaker) published by The Cupboard, is up at the Tarpaulin Sky reviews and interviews page.
I'm excited to explore more of The Cupboard's cupboard. They're doing something interesting with that term "creative prose," incorporating both poets and fiction writers. Their newest volume is an actual encyclopedia of magic by Michael Stewart, whose "moths" pieces I remember fondly from horse less review a few years back.
Check out The Cupboard
I'm excited to explore more of The Cupboard's cupboard. They're doing something interesting with that term "creative prose," incorporating both poets and fiction writers. Their newest volume is an actual encyclopedia of magic by Michael Stewart, whose "moths" pieces I remember fondly from horse less review a few years back.
Check out The Cupboard
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
