Big Night

One of the reasons why Just Buffalo’s fantastic new “Big Night” reading series attracts so many different Buffalo arts demographics: everybody loves good food.

 

I have something to say and I’m saying it and that is poetry as I need it

“Have something worth telling in the first place.”
1. Brooklyn 2. Elisa

 

Gender and Blogging Redux

As you may already know, there are a couple of discussions going on about gender and poetry now, one at Mark Wallace’s blog and one at Harriet.  There are a couple of things I want to say, or observe, that are not going to be terribly organized in their presentation.*

1. The comment streams at these places seem very male-dominated.  On the Harriet blog, there are a few astute comments by women that have been overlooked by the train of conversation.  This makes me wonder** the following things: a. Are women sick of talking about gender and poetry? b. Do men feel they have a particular stake in the discussion (more than women feel that they do)? c.Do these male commentators even see/read the comments by women? What do they think about them? … I know comment streams are often male-dominated.  I haven’t really participated in an extended blog discussion for about three years; I guess I thought the dynamic would have changed by now.  Speaking of…

1.1.  Anonymous comments? Really? Aren’t we past that?

1.2. … One such astute and un-replied to comment from Michelle Detorie (not sure this even needs a response– it’s as “true” as anything can be):

The men who have established the professional standards that govern the world of poetry are by and large men who have benefited from many different kinds of unearned privilege, including the uncompensated labor of many women (domestic, secretarial, and creative). Therefore, the question should not be “how can women learn the skills that men seem naturally to possess (self-promotion)?” Those skills, upon closer inspection, reveal themselves to be not much more than plain, old-fashioned bourgeois entrepreneurialism that is rooted in inequality. I think it is good that men are asking what they should do vis-à-vis feminism, but I think the best way to begin is through careful scrutiny of their own practices. If one finds oneself with a creative project that does not include women, one should not conclude that it is the fault of women. Rather, one should ask “what’s wrong with this creative project in that it excludes women?” (cite)

2. The idea that anyone ever says anything “objectively” is kind of insulting.  The idea of godly or scientific objectivity is a male construct (or, to take gender out of it for a minute, it’s a power construct– it’s just that men have had the power, or the Phallus, for as long as anyone can remember).  It’s an idea meant to keep people without power in line.  If you’re not in power, your experiences of the world aren’t “true.”  Liberal-minded thinkers are happy to agree with this claim when it’s applied to history and race– the idea that the victor writes history is one we’re all pretty comfortable with.  But in no universe would any oppressed people claim to be objective, because they know from experience that everyone’s experience of the so-called objective (or truth) is different.  So I’m not sure (Mark) why the attack on the claim that women are writing better poetry these days focuses on “objectivity” and “truth” when those ideas are antiquated and false and non one in their right mind would claim to know the “objective” “truth” (such knowledge is probably in the DSM IV by now as a god complex– not that men don’t often have such a complex).

3. In rereading Martin Earl’s older Harriet post, I came across this gem by Reb Livingston which sums up,  or rather complements, my own experience and position (as a reader, editor, female poet) (sorry to drag you into this again, Reb):

Well I feel all kinds of superiority and not just because of my gender, but that’s a start. Heh.

I concur with much of what Martin Earl has written, of course he can get away with writing it and not being labeled as bitter or a ball snipper.

What I mean is that as an editor, I too have noticed a trend in the submission pile. On *average* I find the work of contemporary female poets to be more daring, original and interesting. My magazine receives more submissions from men (about 10-15% more), but it publishes more women. Years ago when I first noticed this, I was surprised. All along I thought I preferred male poets. I owned more books by them, was definitely more familiar with their work from major literary magazines and from my education. Turns out I was incredibly ignorant.

So when certain editors talk about the “number troubles” I don’t understand why this is even an issue. Are these editors living in a cave?

One can chalk up my observations to my taste and bias, which I most certainly have, like every other editor and poet.

Reb (cite)

4. ‘Why Don’t More Women Do Blog-Oriented Writing?’ or why they do it differently than men: it appears to me, based solely on my own observations which are of limited scope (see! not “objective”) that the following may be posited as answers: a. Women’s blogging is largely overlooked unless it includes or threatens male readers b. In comment streams, comments from men abound (just as their sperm-like poetry spatters against every editor’s desk) while women’s less abrasive, more astute, carefully considered comments are overlooked c. Women (for whatever nature or nurture reason***) don’t like to get into heated arguments, would rather spend their time working on more productive and useful things (perhaps because women do have less leisure time).  If you say something that someone thinks is controversial, you’re likely to get dragged into a heated argument with lots of men who don’t read your post or comments anyway, so you might as well just stay out of the whole thing, or keep to your own little knitting — I mean blog.

It’s not that women aren’t blogging.  It’s that they do it differently than men, and thus men just don’t see it.

Maybe this is the case with self-promotion, too.  It’s not that women aren’t self-promoting, it’s that men say things like “oh, I guess there aren’t any female visual poets” because they’re blind to the delivery systems women use.

5. Based on this evidence, it seems to me that FOURSQUARE is still a crucial project.

* Some people seem to think I am using my blog to write dissertation chapters.  This is not the case.

** When I “wonder” things or have ideas, it doesn’t mean that the ideas are right or that I stick by them 100%.  I’m just thinking aloud– I don’t have to be right all the time.  People seem to assume that if it’s on a blog, you’re willing to go to your grave defending it.  This is not the case. (However, I do still think most of the best/greatest/most talented poets writing today are women.)

*** Note, none of these are essentialist arguments.  It would be perfectly easy to blame everything on sperm and eggs, but it really seems to me to  have to do with cultural background as well, if not exclusively. For example, women pay attention to what men say because men are loud and aggressive, and men don’t pay attention to what women say because women aren’t, generally, loud or aggressive.

 

Best Emergen-C Flavors

I drink a lot of Emergen-C, so I figured someone, somewhere in the world probably wants to know which flavors are best.  Before I go into that, I first want to say that Emergen-C is way better than Airborne because it is substantially cheaper and dissolves more easily.  Now, my Emergen-C flavor ranking is based on two major factors.  First, Emergen-C is a fizzy drink, and fizzier flavors taste better; the less fizzy flavors end up tasting chalky (like Metamucil).  Second, tastes vary, so my favorite flavors may not be your favorite flavors, but this should still serve as a good guide.  The best way to tell what your favorite flavors are without buying a whole box ($10-$14) is to go to a corner store where they sell individual packets and try them all.

Best Emergen-C Flavors:

1. Tangerine. Fizzy and orangey.  If you want an orange-flavored vitamin drink, this is your best bet.  Good as a daily standard.

2. Pink Lemonade. Fizzy, tastes like pink lemonade.  Good as a substitute for higher-calorie, lower-nutrient lemonade.  Also, sales of this support breast cancer research.

3. Lemon-Lime. Very fizzy.  These are good mixers– they taste good mixed with things other than water, such as Sprite.  You can also use half a pack like you’d use a lemon in a drink.  There is a low-calorie version of lemon-lime as well.

4. Tropical Fruit.  Fizzy; doesn’t taste like Hawaiian Punch (which is what I feared when I tried it); tastes like tropical fruits (papaya? mango? something).  I think I’d get sick of this flavor if I drank it every day but it’s a nice variation.

5. Pomegranate-Cherry.  Pretty fizzy, but you have to drink it quickly before the fizz wears off.  Summery flavor; kids would probably love this.

Worst Emergen-C Flavors:

1. Raspberry. Some people I know like this one, so if you’re on the fence, try it out before you buy the whole box.  I don’t find it fizzy enough.

2. Orange. Most disappointing Emergen-C flavor.  Tastes like Metamucil; orangey but very chalky. Get Tangerine instead.

3. Mixed Berry. Also chalky, but since this one is a calcium supplement it kinda makes sense that it’s chalky?

If you get a box of Emergen-C you don’t like, try mixing packs with flavors you do like.  Lemonade and Lemon-Lime mix well with other flavors, making them taste less chalky.

Haven’t Tried:

1. Acai Berry (not a fan of Acai, so pretty sure I won’t like this)

2. Blue

3. Apricot-Mango

4. Cranberry-Pomegranate

5. Any of the new Kids’ flavors

6. Black Cherry

7. Electro-mix

8. The new “shots” (which seem pretty dumb to me from a consumer standpoint– who doesn’t carry a water bottle or have access to a cup?)

 

Interview at Tarpaulin Sky

Julie Strand of Tarpaulin Sky recently conducted an interview with me about Foursquare for their blog.

 

How to Write a Good Bio

As you can tell from my “about the author” blog page, different media have different ideal bios. I certainly wouldn’t send that whole thing to a magazine, and under normal situations I would not send it to a curator of a reading series either. A good straightforward bio has a few essential components, and it’s basically formulaic. You need: your name (obviously), your location, your most recent most major publications, and if you would like to add a personal detail or your day job that is fine too. URLs are important to include if you have one.

So, some bios I might write would look like this:

(super short) Jessica Smith lives in Buffalo, where she edits Outside Voices Press. She is the author of Organic Furniture Cellar (2006).

(short) Jessica Smith lives in Buffalo, where she teaches writing at SUNY Buffalo and edits Outside Voices Press and Foursquare magazine. Recent publications include Organic Furniture Cellar (OV 2006) and What The Fortune-Teller Said (a+bend/dusie, 2009). View her work online at looktouch.com.

In almost no situation do you need to include the following: grants, scholarships, or other awards (save it for the c.v.); your full job title and description (again, it’s not a c.v. or resume, it’s a bio); your entire life history (where you grew up, where you live now, a passing comment about your family or pets may be fine); your recent magazine publications (no one gives a crap about what obscure magazine recently accepted your work– stick to chapbooks and full-length books unless you’ve never published one).

Don’t be intimidated by the bio. Just crack one out according to the formula. Even with the formula, everyone’s is going to be different! Of course, fictionalized and creative bios are always fun too, but it’s not necessary to do that.

 

Women in Poetry (Again)

Since I am currently out of work, I am working on a few much-delayed issues of Foursquare and I am reminded that although Foursquare is not a unique project in the world of poetry magazines, it is still a sometimes controversial thing to publish a magazine that only accepts work from women. I think this is a fruitful way to run a magazine, but inevitably there are people who say “what if I ran a magazine that only accepted work from men?” and of course those people are men, and usually very ignorant men who put feminism back a hundred years every time they open their mouths (in other words, I don’t think this question is worthy of an answer). Anyway, although Foursquare aims to provide a safe and productive meeting place for creative female minds, I do still have problems getting work out of female poets and artists, who despite their obvious talents and needs to express themselves are still caught up in a society that tells them to erase themselves and their work, or deliver it with a kind of rhetorical curtsy. The most difficult part of the editorial process is getting bios out of people. Many people, regardless of gender, hate writing bios. I will give you a little guide to writing bios in a separate post, but first I want to say something more about female poets writing today.

 

FOURSQUARE Digital Archive

I can’t believe I didn’t tell you about this.  Shows how preoccupied I’ve been.  Jeannie Hoag, who earned her MFA at UMass Amherst, and I collaborated this semester to make a digital archive of Foursquare for our “Introduction to Information Technology” class (which is a requirement in the MLS program) (Reminder: I am sometimes blogging about the MLS program over here).  These pages compile front and back images of each issue for the first two years of issues (Vols. 1-2); since Volume 3 is both still in progress and still for sale, it is not yet available for free online, and indeed it may be a long time before it is, as poetry, though enjoyable, must take a backseat as a “hobby” for me as long as my financial situation remains what it is.  The Foursquare pages currently reside on Jeannie’s server but will soon be migrated to looktouch.com; regardless of migration status you can always reach the archive through looktouch.com/press.

 

Too-long FB status.

Jessica Smith feels pangs of guilt for being on FB instead of reading a good book and thus contributing to a post-literate society.  But FB does require literacy– it’s like reading a constantly updated, never-ending book that you can’t reread & that changes based on who/how many write it. & though simultaneity and succession bond all reading at a basic level, FB’s constant stream and dependence on memory (since rereading is limited) makes it more of a successive art like music.

 

Update

Where am I? I am here. In Buffalo.  It has finally started snowing.

I am almost done with classes.  I’ve finished three of the five of them and received my grade in one, an A (I think I will end up with 3 A’s, an A- and a B of some flavor).  I have quit my PT job at the BPO but still have another week of work left from the 2 week resignation date.  The classes that I teach are over but there’s still grading to do.

I have two, almost three issues of Foursquare ready to print/fold/mail, which I’m hoping to do with my parents’ help (hi Mom and Dad) over winter break, when I will be visiting them for two weeks.

That’s all. The semester of working 20-30 hrs/wk, teaching two courses and taking 5 graduate courses is over.  Next semester I hope to be working 20 hrs/wk, taking 4 classes and doing a 8-hr practicum (internship)… so about 20 hrs/wk less work.  This semester has taken a toll: I spent half a day at the chiropractor last week trying to ease the tension out of my back.

 

Protected: Elsewhere

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

Protected: National Survivors of Suicide Day

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

Thesaurus Project

So here’s the short paper that resulted from the previous post…

 

Difficulties of Cataloging Artists’ Books

I’m doing a few of my LIS projects on artists’ books, and I’m currently doing one on contemporary poetic objects by women, incorporating works from Hex Press, Dusie, recombinant dna press, Big Game Books, dos press, ellectrique press, and a few others.  I came to the world-famous poetry library today to do some research and try to find some materials that I know are in here.

Libraries like this one raise the question of whether it is more important to catalog things excessively well or to have very good librarians who know the collection.  Ideally, you’d have both.  The curator of the collection isn’t here today, so I can’t get him to bring me the uncataloged materials that I know are here.  There is, for instance, a certain box of tissue paper, feathers and sequins (no words) by Amelia Etlinger that I can’t get because it’s not cataloged.  I need the curator to be able to find this strange thing.  But I also need it to be cataloged so I can ask someone else to find it (in the closed stacks) if the curator isn’t here.

Other problems include: where do you put art objects when a library is designed for books that fit on shelves in neat square-like ways? How do you catalog objects that don’t have copyright pages or colophons?  Part of the responsibility lies with the publisher/artist– I have materials from my personal collection that I only know the publication data of because I know the artist personally and either know how the object came about or know how to contact the artist for the publication data.  How do you catalog asemic/post-literate objects (that is, books without words)?

It’s a little infuriating as a researcher and as a poet, because I can’t find what I need and that experience makes me realize that if researchers can’t find these works, they can’t do research on them.  That’s basically an entire subgenre that relies on relationships/viral marketing/etc. to “be known” (the same is true of little magazines, but these are easier to catalog/store most of the time).  This “oral tradition” underlying the textual is certainly interesting, but it also makes things unnecessarily difficult.

To wit: if you donate objects/materials to a library or if the library buys your work, please include as much data about the object as possible on a separate sheet of paper so that future researchers know what’s going on and can write about your work. Please put your name on your paper before you hand it in.

 

Protected: Digitess

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

Protected: Albertine Disparue

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

Update

I drove to Lowell, MA last weekend, where I met the Bootstrap boys, Derek Fenner and Ryan Gallagher, for the first time. Bootstrap is the mother-press of which Outside Voices is an imprint, but we had never met in real life. The chemistry was instantly great, though, and we set up for my reading in the huge Lowell H.S. auditorium. I was able to project poems from Organic Furniture Cellar on a screen (as I did for the L.A. reading last October) and read along. When I do this, I don’t try to read the whole poems. I trace one path through the poem and don’t focus on completion. A couple of people I spoke to afterwards about the reading were surprised by this. Reading OFC is almost a performed erasure, and when I’m really “on” I devise a theme by which to erase the text and then read through it, creating a new text. In this way OFC is endlessly renewable, and just as its nonlinear plastic form is like the cloudspace of memory, its forgetting/erasure and replenishment/renewal (“make it anew”) is like the (re)newness of memory.

 

Upcoming Readings

I’ll be giving two readings soon: one in Buffalo and one in MA. Check out the Readings page for details.

 

Noriko Ambe at the Albright-Knox

Although many of the assignments I have to do for my MLS degree are dull, simplistic activities, some of the larger projects involve researching things I’m actually interested in. For example, for one of my courses my partner and I are working on a virtual archive of Foursquare that will include readings, facsimiles of the back issues, and a video exploration of the way the issues unfold. And two of the projects I’m working on involve studying how artists’ books are cataloged and archived (Johanna Drucker has been working on this issue). So I was excited tonight when I went to the Albright Knox and saw the altered books of Noriko Ambe. Recommended viewing for those in the area.

 

New Translation

Check this out!

(It’s this.)

 

Attention Span

Mine is short.

 

Marking time

Remember this?

And then 1410 Grady Ave, Charlottesville; 593 Meeker Ave, Brooklyn; and 547 Richmond Ave, Buffalo within the space of a year. But I just renewed my lease here at XXX Richmond Ave, Buffalo. I’ve lived here a year and about 2 weeks.  Yay for the security of staying in the same place for more than six months. 

I’ve also started my second year of adjuncting at UB and have worked PT at the Buffalo Philharmonic for sixteen months now.  And my cats are 4 years old.

I keep waiting for things to calm down, to have disposable income (for poetry, for anything) but it’s still work, work work for low wages, and I just started the MLS program at UB (which is going ok so far).  So “calm” probably won’t happen for awhile.  But a hectic schedule is better (and less expensive) than being unemployed and moving around a lot.

 

Protected: Next

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

Gargantuan poetry reading

Buffalo kids like to do it up big.  Every year during the Small Press Book Fair, we have marathon readings– this year’s lasted for (if memory serves) 7 hours.  This Friday, starting at 8pm at Sugar City (19 Wadsworth), we’ll have a huge reading.  One of the House Press poets, Barrett Gordon, is getting married, and all the House Press boys from Chicago will be in town.  Thus the reading line-up (coordinated by Mr. Russell Pascatore) looks like this:

Eric Unger – Barrett Gordon – Tom Joyce – Peter Pascatore - Jack Topht – Jen Karmin – Mock Syringa – Greggreg – Emily Caligari – Nick Gordon – Jill Mertz – David Gluchowski – Jessica Smith – John The Gentlemen – Chris Fritton – lindsey-tidy0;s Grate – Johno (grandfather clock) – Dietrich-Olivier – Zev Gottdiener – Russell Pascatore – Zachary Keebaugh

Ready? Go.

 

Anxiety

I’ve had PTSD, I’ve had Depression, but the thing that creates a constant buzz, makes life constantly a little more difficult than it should be, is Anxiety.  Looking back on my life I think I’ve experienced Anxiety for most of it, at least since I was 12 or so.  It’s currently a livable condition in the sense that it doesn’t interfere with my everyday life–I’m able to work, maintain intimate relationships, maintain superficial relationships (an art in itself for someone who tends to be all-or-nothing about everything), etc.  At work, telemarketing, I experience the most anxiety, and then only on nights when one particular manager is in the room, because he’s unstable and unpredictable and it goes right to those deep triggers that say, “irrational angry man. hide.”  Then I drink lots of kava kava tea.

Besides kava kava tea on the front lines, I take a B-complex and steer away from caffeine (I drink 1-2 cups of green tea per day).  I don’t get enough exercise (read: any) which would probably help.  Sometimes I take valerian.  I dislike chamomile and licorice (which seem to be included in most “relaxing” teas).  I don’t have health insurance so I can’t get meds until school starts, but the process of getting meds is its own minefield of anxiety triggers (I don’t know who these doctors are who hand out Prozac like candy, but I’ve always had a hell of a time getting any medication–I’ve even had to argue about birth control) so I’d prefer to stick with herbal remedies.

So my question to you, knowing that many of my readers are artists who experience it too, is this: what do you do to stave off The Anxiety?

 

August

Not a whole lot going on here.  The usual poverty and working (I have resigned but there are two weeks to go before course prep for the upcoming semester takes over), plus some personal stuff that depresses me.  The huge backlog of poetry editing projects hanging over my head, parts of which are more pressing than others.  At the end of the month, school will begin, with the entirely too many courses that I’ll be teaching/taking simultaneously, which will hopefully leave me no time for poetry (which has become an enemy) or anything but the most superficial social interaction.

 

Fall Readings

I’d like to set up a couple of fall readings in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Eastern Canada, and/or Great Lakes areas. Any takers? Boston, Toronto, Cleveland, NYC, Philly, DC…

 

Town & Gown Reading

UB Poetics student David Hadbawnik is starting a reading series with the goal of bringing “townies” (Buffalo area poets not affiliated with the Poetics Program) and Poetics Program poets together.  This schism is just one of many on the Buffalo poetry scene.  Given Buffalo’s population, it’s kind of surprising how many poetry cliques there can be.  Anyway, the innaugural reading is a bit of a bust because the Gown part of the Town & Gown lineup bailed, so I will be stepping in to read instead, although I’m not a Poetics student and haven’t been in, oh, seven years? The “townie” for this reading is Michael Sikkema, whose work I blogged about before.  He’s a great reader, and he’s moving away so this will be his last Buffalo reading for the foreseeable future, so you should come.  But if that’s not enough of an incentive, I will also be reading, so you can come hear me read, or just come to hang out with me on the one night in a billion years I am not either at work or too tired after work to be social.

Details: July 10, 7:30-10pm, 82 Russell St. (Lower), Buffalo, NY

 

Are You Listening? We try not to play to an empty room.

One of my favorite aunts recently sent me some granola and some cash (thank you) and reminded me that I haven’t been blogging lately.  Well, there’s really not much to say.  There are some interesting poetry things now and then to tell you about, but basically I’m working and trying to pencil in some summer fun, too.  I went camping over the 4th of July weekend.  I got a new adjuncting gig at Medaille, which means I’ll be teaching PT at both SUNY Buffalo and Medaille (a very small local college) next semester while pursuing my MLS degree.  Till school starts at the end of summer, though, I’m just trying to hang in there.  Dead-end minimum wage jobs suck, but I like my coworkers and I need the money, so I work.  In six weeks or so I’ll be able to quit and rejoin my career path, and all of my energy will once more be directed toward a serious career–not just a job that pays the bills.  Till then my life is mostly sucky and boring.  You’re not missing anything.

 

K. Lorraine Graham’s Terminal Humming

Is technically available now from Edge Books. I imagine that there’s a lot of overlap between readers of her blog and readers of mine, so you probably already know this. And if you read her blog then you already know about Elisa Gabbert’s interview with her and Mark Wallace’s commentary (I wanted to mention this post on feminism and poetry from Mark too, which is probably old news to everyone else by now, but just in case). I have a big stack of books on my desk that I want to mention here, well actually it’s a small stack, maybe a dozen books and chapbooks, maybe 10% or less of what I’ve received over the past 6 mos. But here in Jessica Land we’re still scuttering around like ants in a kicked bed, so….

 

Spell/ing ( ) Bound

..

.

.

Spell/ing () Bound is a tripartite book, arguably harkening back to the Oulipo tradition,* by Cara Benson, Kai Fierle-Hedrick and Kathrin Schaeppi.  I saw it at the Dusie Press reading in New York last month, shuddered at the $15 price tag, and decided that it was one of those objects I must have.  The price is fair, even low considering what the labor and materials for this book must have cost, but I’m poor and miserly. But when rare book objects present themselves, one cannot haggle with one’s inner Scrooge.  Thus I ended up with #49 of 135 copies of this beautiful book.  You can buy other numbers at the ellectrique press website.

The amazing thing about Spell/ing () Bound is how fully conceived it is.  There’s not a false step, but there are many surprises.  I’m not sure how closely the collaborators worked together or what their parameters were when writing their three individual parts, or whether the magic came together in the editorial process, but it seems like each combination brings off a new meaning and metacommentary.  The book performs its own poetics, as each combination comments on its formation.  It’s delightful to thumb-dance through the pages, seeking out new tracks of meaning as the elements collide.  Poetic collaborations are, in my opinion, very rarely successful.  To pull off a collaboration with three people leaves me with feelings of awe, jouissance and respect.

* I say “arguably” for two reasons: first, that Oulipo seems a rather misogynist tradition and thus such a wonderous success of female collaborations would probably not have found sustenance enough in the dried-up womb of Oulipo to have been birthed there.  Second, to claim such a heritage assumes a progress narrative that I don’t want to get into.  Those arguments notwithstanding, the “large number of physical combinations of poetic fragments within the confines of a single bound book” cannot help but remind one of Raymond Queneau’s One Hundred Thousand Billion Sonnets.

 

Organic Furniture Cellar Sale

In the spirit of sales, Organic Furniture Cellar for $10 over here. (Etsy.com)

 

Archive Fever

I don’t think I mentioned this here. But, I am going back to school this fall for the Master of Library Science degree. 

 

Jeff Encke’s “Most Wanted: A Gamble in Verse”

-

A toss of the dice will never abolish chance. Take advantage of Jeff Encke’s “fire sale” of this amazing poem published on playing cards.  Jeff writes:

When you find a moment, please take a look at the card gallery on my Website (preview the deck for sale HERE) and follow the link to the homepage to read more about the project. For sales prices and PayPal links, scroll to the bottom of this e-mail.

During the spring and summer of 2004, I wrote, designed, and printed a book of poetry on a deck of stylized, casino-quality playing cards. Design-wise, I took my inspiration from the multitudes of art card decks I found on the Internet from artists throughout the world. The wealth of deck variety and obvious intelligence and creativity that went into the design of the cards I found astounded me. Hoping simply to approach the level of quality I had seen, working collaboratively with a friend in Boston on the design, I took four months to research and create all 55 card faces.

For one deck ($7.50, including S&H), click HERE.

For two decks ($12.50, including S&H), click HERE.

Might I suggest that this is one of the best ways you might spend $7.50 on a book of poetry.  But then, if you’re reading this, I’m pretty sure you’ll be as excited as I was. (I bought two decks and have been shuffling one. The other is still in the plastic wrap.)

 

Dear Reader

-

I’ve decided to write single poems for single readers such that writing is publication and the reader I appeal to is the one precise reader who receives the poem.  This is partly practical: I don’t have the time or money to write many poems or make multiple copies.  It’s partly on curmudgeonly principle: there are too many poems in the world, floundering around looking for the right reader, trying to appeal to large audiences in hopes of catching that single sensitive soul (a tuna net for a dolphin).  And it’s partly that I am satisfied writing one poem for one person. A poem is always a valentine, it is always about love (that connection between mortals, that fragile language-game) even when it isn’t “about” love; it always says “remember me when this you see.” A poem has to be an open letter because the writer and reader will die, are mortal, must appeal to others to remember their love.  A closed letter, a valentine with one specific recipient, a poem addressed to one reader, is never really closed: it always risks being found out,intercepted or read afterwards (does it hope to be, even in seeming to “risk”?).

As I love: my poetics.

 

Pink-Collar Blues

From a four-part series on women in the workplace in the recession (Thx Katy Henriksen).

 

delirious hem

This seems good.

 

Protected: Lentil Soup Recipe

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

Slow Poetry

Here.

There’s a stack of cool stuff on my desk I want to tell you about, but I don’t have time right now to do it justice.

 

R.I.P. Robin Blaser

honestas

.

what do you think of that building

without knowing the architect ….. knowing

the architect, what do you think of

that building ….. the answer:

they have expanded cheaply,

beautifully, or otherwise in the

streets, holes and parking places

.

the fire which consists of burning iron

discovered early, is like iron

itself ….. love is that unity with the happiness

of another ... mind and body, …. such

pools, …. winged fishes

.

‘a’ is a fig and reducible

‘o’ is the same thing, ... shamed

in the garden ….. what do you

think of that garden without

knowing the gardener ….. knowing

the gardener, what do you think

of that garden ………. the answer:

the glass perfectly dark, or

burning in pieces

.

Robin Blaser

 

Love Your Layoff

Love Your Layoff: An awesome blog from Foursquare poet Katie Kemple.

At the moment I’m gainfully employed and have been employed at least 20 hrs a week for almost exactly a year. But before that, there were some spotty months. And this year I’ve gone 4 or 5 weeks without pay at one of my two jobs.

(This is also why I don’t blog a lot anymore, or write poetry much anymore. Most of the time I’m thinking about one of my jobs or how to get another job or how to balance my checkbook for the month.)

 

What I did Monday Morning

Charles Alexander covers the Poet-Publisher Roundtable, etc.  My own thoughts, perhaps, one day– if I ever have time!

 

Poetry Collection Assistant Curator

If you have a Ph.D. in English, experience working in libraries (especially Special Collections), and an interest in 20th Century poetry, there’s a great job posting for an Assistant Curator at the UB Poetry Collection.  The salary is $50-55k, which is a good salary in Buffalo. Heck, you could buy a couple of houses for that.

 

Protected: NaPoWriMo Week 1

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

 

How to Win (and Lose) A Scorpio Woman

Since this post on the Scorpio Woman is the most popular page on my blog, I figured I would supplement it with some more astrological insight.  Before I do so, I want to say that astrology is a lot like chance-determined poetry.  There are so many factors to take into account when determining a chart or a daily horoscope that there are hundreds of thousands of combinations for any given chart on any given day.  This in itself is fascinating.  But then there’s the use-value–why do people turn to astrology, and what motivates astrologers? Thirdly, why is astrology such a threat to “rational-minded” people (often men)… there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatios.  What is “rationality,” anyway?  Astrology raises more questions than it answers, which is part of the point of astrology.

That said, I want to make an attempt at an answer to two questions that people often search for when they arrive at my blog: how does one seduce a Scorpio woman and how does one manage to keep her?

 

Michael Sikkema and the Microtradition

Last weekend was the third annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair, which brings together poets, artists and bookmakers from the East Coast, New England, the Great Lakes, the Midwest, and Canada. It’s a regional event, I suppose, over a large region. The first night there was a marathon poetry reading, and Saturday vendors set up shop at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum and bought, sold and traded poetry.

Unlike the majority of the AWP Book Fair, the Buffalo Small Press Book Fair focuses on craft–the book as handmade object. So there is a lot of beautiful stuff to see– screenprint, letterpress, sewn binding, etching, gocco, and many types of binding. The visual poem has a certain privilege here, since the visual aspect of bookmaking is privileged. (All of this is due to organizer Chris Fritton’s aesthetic.)

One of the things that caught my eye this year was the poetry of Michael Sikkema. According to his new Blazevox title, Futuring, Sikkema “was born and raised in rural Northern Michigan” and has been through the Bay Area and Buffalo poetry communities, resulting in an individual style that isn’t particular to any scene. There’s Niedecker, Eigner and Grenier in here, to be sure, and I would like to think there’s a particular Buffalo influence, but all of that is already more than “local.”

I should mention that although Sikkema’s work is new to me, and might be new to you, it’s not new to other people: Gina Myers posted this blog entry about Futuring months ago, and she published his chapbook CODE OVER CODE in 2006 with Lame House Press (review).

Futuring probably wouldn’t have caught my eye from its place within the vast and uneven Blazevox library if I had not been at the marathon Small Press reading on Friday. This reading lasted for over five hours and most readers had 5-minute slots. Audience members were a buzzing beehive of greetings, arrivals, goodbyes, departures, and other such human noise, so it was hard to give any reader the attention he or she deserved. In such a setting, specialness stands out– Outside Voices author Ric Royer, for example, gave an incredible performance. Sikkema’s performance caught my attention and drove me to investigate his work further–exactly what a poetry reading is supposed to do (but rarely does, at least for me). At the podium, he drew tiny books from his breast pocket and read from them. Of course, I was immediately enchanted by the size of the books.  I borrowed them from him after the reading and liked the content of many of them.  They are 1″x3″, with about six handwritten pages inside, staple-bound with blank construction paper covers.  Asking him about them, I learned that they are “details”; he mentioned Grenier’s smaller works.

(Here I would like to mention, in passing, the Eigner-Grenier microtradition.  Eigner not as a producer of small books, which he wasn’t, but the microcosm of influence and poet-love between just those two men.  I feel myself as a follower treading in that very thin trail of a tradition.  Although both Eigner and Grenier also have other influences, and I have other influences, the Eigner-Grenier bond has its own weight.)

Reading Futuring, which like Organic Furniture Cellar uses the page space openly, my favorite poems are “The Surfaces” and the series of “Calendars for Hazel.”  I have less fun with the poems that sit on the page in more conventional way, but they’re easier to reproduce here, so I will use a couple of them to give you a sense of the language:

the fossil record

fills in with static

your “rain leaves mirrors

in the earth” is made of time

like likeness

and

all the apples footsteps

the stranger we can become

the better and sooner you say

with your eyes see this

all into YES

To hear Sikkema read, go to Sugar City on April 9 (7-10p, endocrinology reading series) or Rust Belt on April 23 for the Futuring release.

[P.S. This isn't a review.  I don't review books; I don't know how to review books.  I point to things I like.  I like this. Thumbs-up.]

 

Veil

Helen took some great pictures of Veil at the infusoria exhibit. I also found the text for Veil, which has been lost since I originally created the piece for Bridge St. Books in 2002– there are six passages embroidered in morse code. (“Passages,” ha, because it was created as a doorway installation! I’ve been reading Laura Riding’s poem, “Poet: A Lying Word” this morning which makes this piece more resonant. I loved that poem as an undergraduate, so it was probably a major influence for this piece.)

 

Hand/Homemade + infusoria

Beautiful pictures from the Handmade/Homemade exhibit are up! (Thank you Deborah!)

The infusoria exhibit also has a blog!  (And what is more enchanting about it, the sensitive portrayal of Michelle’s work or the pictures of setting up the exhibit, with the fragile objects under bell jars?) (Thank you Helen!)

 

Buffalo Small Press Book Fair

Celebrate National Small Press Month by attending the Buffalo Small Press Book Fair, to be held March 21, 2009 at Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, 453 Porter Avenue, Buffalo, NY.  Come early for an all-night reading extravaganza March 20.

 

Tony Green

Al Filreis introduced me to this “accumulator” from Tony Green (via Al’s Twitter).  Read Al’s blog post about Tony’s work and how it works.