Aug 27, 2006

Melancholia's Tremulous Dreadlocks keeps to its decidedly un-saturnine biweekly publication schedule, releasing Issue Three right on time. I am excited to see many faces (literally) old and new whose work I admire in there. And, also there's me and some of my poems for Francesca Woodman--this is a nice format because you can see the poems side-by-side with the images.

Aug 23, 2006

She Hath Risen



Jam-packed new issue of Eileen T.'s review webzine Galatea Resurrects, featuring a reprint of my review of Sandra Simonds' Steam here, and a kind review of my Film Poems chapbook (which has turned 21 in chapbook years, buy it some drinks!) here. How does she do it? No matter where you look in the poetry world, there is Eileen--she's like the 10th muse or something...

Aug 19, 2006

:D :D :D :X ROTFLMAO @ HIH pwns STC.

Aug 17, 2006



OK, I am a geek; I freely admit it. Now that I am 34 years old, I don't have to worry about being hip anymore. That said, has anyone out there played the Xbox game "Dreamfall: The Longest Journey?" A completely amazing game, and the bizarre, depressing cliff-hanger ending actually choked me up a little. Seriously. Pretty stupid, but true. Has anyone else played this game? I am dying to discuss it with someone.

(Before you guys start mocking me, I'd just like to point out that the game boasts some of the following: a library in a giant tree run by ghosts obsessed with amassing every book ever written, a race of religious fundamentalists who are building the Tower of Babel, a main character who is a former art student, humor involving elevators and a stuffed pet robot gorilla played by the same voice actor as the teddy bear in "AI." (I also got choked up about the teddy bear in "AI.") What more do you need?)

Aug 15, 2006

It looks like alongside Face Time Cy Gist Press will be releasing Caracas Notebook by Guillermo Parra and Exertions by Scott Glassman. I am excited to be publishing both of these chapbooks; work that I have been bugging people to publish for a long time; but, as they say, if you want something done right. Then I will probably have to take a break from Cy Gist until the winter when I will probably release another anthology and 2 more chapbooks, by women this time (they are both already in the works--so please don't send me chapbook manuscripts right now unless you're prepared to wait until next summer).

Aug 14, 2006

Congrats to my old pal Catherine Meng on being published by Apostrophe Books Congrats to the other people who were selected as well, but I haven't eaten Barbeque with them.

Aug 7, 2006

Some interesting names in the first issue of Drag City's literary magazine (Courtesy of Jordan D.). But the world needs Bill Callahan's poetry about as much as it needs a new Smog record. Rock stars get to be poets when poets get to have groupies (I'm thinking of my single associates here, and not myself. Though I am willing to be Eleni Sikelianos's platonic groupie) or, like, get paid lots of money for gigs. One man's indie rock is another man's Hades (wink, nudge, mon ami!...) But then again I have been listening more or less exlusively to Eurotrash techno and modern composers since 2003 or so.
Please look at the art on this blog from Lebanon. This conflict occupies a very precarious position in my life; but I cannot deviate from my fundamental belief that war is wrong, always. An eye for an eye for an arm for a leg for a heart continues until there is no body and no soul left. Violence is a crime against God, whoever and whatever your God is.

Aug 5, 2006

It looks like I have been meme-tagged by Francois. I'll answer the questions unironically, despite the urge one always has to answer lists of quesions ironically.

1. A book that changed my life? Life seems to change more or less on its own, but one book which had significant impact upon my poetics was Ange Mlinko's Matinees, which somehow clued me in to the fact that it actually was possible to write with the diction and register I wanted to write in and still be taken seriously. The contemporary impulse is generally to push towards sparseness and brevity, whereas the voices in my head were lush and discursive. Reading Matinees pointed me in the direction that I had for a long time wanted, but was reluctant to travel in. Ironically enough, I read this book before I met Bill Corbett or any of the other characters who populate its pages and would later become important people in my personal pantheon. It seems weird to answer this kind of question with a book essentially written by someone more or less of one's own generation. But ultimately we learn more from our peers than we often let on.

2. A book I've read more than once? Any given poetry book that I enjoy I read umpteen times, so I'll answer this with a novel: Paul Auster's In the Country of Last Things.

3. What is a book I'd want with me on a desert island? A Complete Shakespeare. Boring, but true.

4. What is a book that made me giddy? I find Proust's In Search of Lost Time to be really funny. Particularly Volume One.

5. What is a book that has made me sad? Eleni Sikelianos' The Book of Jon. Father-angst pushes my buttons pretty easily.

6. What is a book I wish had been written? I don't really understand this question. What is a book that wasn't written that I wish had been written? There's no answer to that question since the pool of answers is more or less infinite. Or maybe it means something that got started but not finished (e.g. how was Spicer's detective novel supposed to end?) I guess I could say Gerard Manley Hopkins' juvenilia. When he became a Jesuit, he burned everything he had written prior to that point. I'd like to be able to see Hopkins' secular poems.

7. A book I wish had never been written? None. Even Mein Kampf is useful as a document of what can make a person truly evil. Though I guess maybe whatever books Oppenheimer wrote (though the man himself lamented his creation pretty intensely), or whatever book tells you how to build a nuclear missle.

8. What is a book I'm currently reading? It was my summer project to try and get through all of In Search of Lost Time, but there is no way that is going to happen. I just finished Volume II and now I am taking a break. Presently I am rereading Sebald's The Emigrants because I am teaching it next semester. Poetry-perfect-bound-book-wise (simply to narrow the field down a little) I need to check out Elizabeth Treadwell's Cornstarch Figurine that Susana sent me and also I wanted to reread Mina Loy's The Lost Lunar Baedecker because there is a reading this weekend commemorating her work, but I seem to have somehow misplaced (e.g. lent and never got back) my copy of that book.

9. One book I've been meaning to read? See Proust project above. I also really need to read D&G's A Thousand Plateaus but that is also something else that is not going to happen this summer.

As far as tagging goes, I never like to do that in case the person tagged is really busy or something and doesn't actually want to do the meme but feels like they need to so they don't offend me. So, if you are reading this and want to answer the questions, consider yourself tagged by me.

Aug 4, 2006

My links seem to be blinking now. I just downloaded Firefox 1.5, so perhaps they have been blinking all along but my browser did not support...um...blinking. If the blinking bothers you, just open and close your eyes rapidly when you look at my blog and you shouldn't notice any difference.