Birthing…

I forgot about this kick-ass picture Jennifer Firestone and I posed for some year or so ago (Well, mostly she’s kick ass and daring while I ride her coattails here!). That is, I forgot until I got word of her new book, HOLIDAY. Then, I thought that celebrating this book would also be a means to showcase the above.

But don’t let the photo override Firestone’s new bliss! Eileen Myles writes,

“Jennifer Firestone’s Holiday makes big sense to me. It make me think largely about why I like anyone’s writing – and sometimes it’s as simple as this: I like its physicality. I like its jumps. Holiday is extremely private, extremely active. It’s notebooky in the best sense of the word because I feel privileged to get these fractured views of how Jennifer Firestone moves around the world. Her style at times is telegraphic (and insatiable) like Ginsberg. Let me say Gail Scott and Ginsberg. Also why do we bother reading. Why do we want to trail around in anyone’s else’s mind at all. Jennifer asks:

‘Is it worth
going down these steps
are the bottom rooms worth it?’

I say yeah. Enthusiastically yes.”
—Eileen Myles

I’d say she’s right on the money, and here’s a poem to further tempt you to it:

OR

Away it is creeping to find out what to do

It tunnels to a home that burns at the tip

Art barely gave

Sand was vast

All vacations fused

Red flags disappeared

There was wheat and fog

–Jennifer Firestone, HOLIDAY

Never a More Generous Man

Never a more generous man have I met than poet and friend, Matthew Rotando. I take great pleasure in singing the praises of his first book of poems, THE COMEBACK’S EXOSKELETON. I wish you could all know him too, as you will find that once you fall in love with this collection, you will long to meet the person who has such zest for life as well as an eye not afraid to behold our evils. It’s really a lovely collection — and I’m not just saying that because I’ve been waiting for years for it to appear. You should throw caution to the wind and take up this EXOSKELETON! Discover how well dresses up your own worldview!

What others are saying:

Incorporating the density of Spanish surrealism and a sprawling Whitmanesque line, this amazing first book finds Rotando engaged in a poetic biathlon which draws equally from maximal and minimal traditions. There are tight, economical poems, free verse forms derived from the sonnet, poems leaping about the page, but my favorites are the wonderful prose poems tumbling over and under themselves toward gnomish statements that feel both didactic and self-parodying. –Tim Peterson, from the Foreword

The rich, exultant writing in Matthew Rotando’s first collection is both comic and cosmic. Lyrics steeped in the Latin American literary tradition disclose what might be called the surreality of reality in contemporary American culture, while cadences of Stein and Barthelme make the prose poems in The Comeback’s Exoskeleton ring with laughter of great philosophical depth. This is a writer unafraid to love and to err, and to do so with irrepressible grace and humour. To read such unapologetically joyous work is a tonic for melancholy and a prescription for wonder. –Srikanth Reddy, Facts for Visitors
And a few short poems from the collection, though there are many longer ones to gleefully sink into:

THE OCTOPUS MAN, TO HIS SON

 

Son, watch the way the eaves bend when you breathe.

They move the way a star would

If you could corral water into spheres.

 

Shadows play in the paint under the floor:

Tentacular spirits!

They will hold your cages and laboratory equipment.

 

Your time as a human is near at hand;

I am repealing all the old regulations

Regarding prostrations and guttural pronouncements.

 

There will be things called Souvenir Shops;

Bring back an “I ♥ Mt. Rushmore” keychain for your mother.

 

~~

 

TOM DEVANEY, LON CHANEY

 

I snave this heaking suspicion

That the poung yoet, Tom Devaney,

Is really the mold oviestar, Lon Chaney.

If lou yisten to the way they laugh,

Or notice their hartling, storror movie eyes,

You’ll sefinitely dee

That they’re both obvious dasters of misguise.

 

 

AMY, I’M GOING TO CALL YOU THE TROUBLE GIRL

 

I like trouble. I like to shoot watermelon seeds at passing barges. I wanna

put Elmer’s Glue in your hair and make it stick straight up. I wanna go

down to the docks and kick some ass! Your shoes small like skunk. And

so do mine. If we were lizards, I bet we would both be geckoes with

sticky round fingers. A friend is someone who decides to find you out.

Let’s have a broken bottle party! A Chinese dude, Shih-Wu, said, “Pine

trees and strange rocks remain unknown to those who look for mind

with mind.” So let’s not bother. Let’s just walk arm in arm through a

crumbling metropolis, clacking castanets.

 

–From THE COMEBACK’S EXOSKELETON by Matthew Rotando

 

 

In the mood for one more? Try this one, complete with a nearly naked pic!

☻☺☻☺☻☺

Dusie, Dusie, Dusie CHAPS!

hands half face. (king)

a bodyfeel lexicon. (gordon/bozek) dimestore operetta say. (bowen) developing poetic ideas. (chirot)
time space repetition. (armentrout) vie et pli. (giovenale) afar buzzing stars. (scappettone)
props of henwifery. (sprague) digress into residency. (berridge)
laced with forethought. (murphy) postcard of the. (tate) I posit no. (fieled)
erratogenic paraparasitic postpoem. (goodland) erotic false consciousness. (ward) first swifts come. (shaeppi)
will be waxing. (art) &lipstick&moss&bodice. (carignan) flamenco pierced her. (tabios)
a citizen I. (snyder) engirth, discorrupt, linger. (workman) correspondence, obscure, reveal. (fletcher)
enhanced ego-interference patterning. (orange) fairly clear the. (boyer) telephone as intermediary. (hunter)
vista of verdancy. (stengel) pale blue twilight. (phipps) (an historical site) magi.
little decisions thrumming. (boykoff) writing records eden. (farr) production of hormones. (marcacci)
our crops far-flung. (sand) going not gone. (hofer) informed by light. (compton)

my embroidery she (abulhassan) ruby large enow. (gardner) composition as process. (hayes) like you tiger-shock. (smith)
distance presence print. (pusateri) certain fields escape. (muench/allegrezza) fragile engines flashing. (detorie)
the great desire. (nakayasu) behold a glimmering. (quimba) splendid drifts of. (kunz)
salt, line, obedience. (cox/cox-farr) eyes glass hands. (lamoureux)
template, some vicissitude. (mauro) little red song-book. (newman) imagistic kinetic dizzy. (stamatakis)
a need for. (behm-steinberg) gaga futurism pales. (cooper) a lavish spectacle. (deming)
him, wings adjacent. (heide) hands half face. (king) presently be said. (stempleman) known as “we”. (nelligan)
underground I go. (graham) adorn honour bright. (mangold) paced awning graces. (klinger)
courting in earnest. (spahr) grew inside we. (madison) a running plotline. (janssen)

Quickie

Yes, that’s John Travolta and Kirk Douglas lip wrestling, but this post is about much more than curing the daily — Jim K wrote a quick review of my recent Dusie chap, Kiss Me With the Mouth of Your Country (send your address to amyhappens @ gmail dot com for a copy). And thank you, Jim!

For more sexiness, click here now!

~~

4 Responses to “Quickie”

Kiss Me With the Mouth of Your Country

 

 

I have just finished sending out my chapbook copies for the DUSIE Chapbook Kollectiv.

The title is this post’s title. I have a few copies left over, so if you’re interested in receiving one – freely and imminently  – I’ll post it to you before the holidays.

My DUSIE chapbook from last year can now be viewed online here, “The Good Campaign“. Read a review of it by Chris Rizzo here or read another review of it by Fionna Doney Simmonds here.

5 Responses to “Kiss Me With the Mouth of Your Country”

Are Your Papers in Order?

This is your passport. It will cost you $8. It’s really a now or never situation. Think of it as boarding a transatlantic ship. The one you love is on the ship. But now you need the passport.

Document by Ana Bozicevic-Bowling
Hand-bound, envelope-style chapbook, letterpressed brown on grey cover
Edition of 88
$8 (includes shipping)
Order from Octopus Books and read a sampling here.

6 Responses to “Are Your Papers in Order?”

This is your passport. It will cost you $8. It’s really a now or never situation. Think of it as boarding a transatlantic ship. The one you love is on the ship. But now you need the passport.

Document by Ana Bozicevic-Bowling
Hand-bound, envelope-style chapbook, letterpressed brown on grey cover
Edition of 88
$8 (includes shipping)
Order from Octopus Books and read a sampling here.

6 Responses to “Are Your Papers in Order?”

Quick Learn

At dinner last night with a brilliant poet, we shuffled through the encyclopedia of poets between us. I noted the brilliance of Anne Boyer; she noted the recent “Good Apocalypse”; I revisited today. Yes, for you, two below from Anne Boyer’s “Good Apocalypse” and vital parting advice: if you don’t know, you don’t know. So go. Yo.

~~

~~

I LOVE LITERATURE

I was attacking Culture.
I have seen her and she is so big and so beautiful.

Pulling a thirty-six-inch strip out of Language
and eating it,
she has given me an opportunity

to pattern gothic specialties, small farmers, and starfish
out of the reddish-brown essence that implies a native land.

Outlines of legacy are a minimal-production glass creature.
I worry it’s too much like voice and structure.

What’s better is when we can eat our fermented hurt

and someone gives a seminar on Kathy Acker’s
regional, agricultural, and mining sectors.

I am not free to be mad.

When I smell Archer Daniels Midland
it is as if an oligarchy has dived into the wreck.

Yes, I love Literature
but what I love about it is
the reproductive organs of Capital.

~~

TRAVAIL MECHANIQUE

Bunnies occupy the same
semantic field as question-begging.

KEEP MOUTH SHUT.

Ours is no vigorous religion–
packages from Acme piled up under the stairs.

The problem of distribution:
How do you want to die?

Not in the course of self-examination,
but in the loop

of the public discourse:

shaking the razor,
shaking the shipping container:

serving the cause
of the common error.

–Anne Boyer’s Good Apocalypse

~~

9 Responses to “Quick Learn”

Speaking of Small Press Productions…

I failed earlier to note Jessica Smith’s publication, FOURSQUARE, which is also something of a work of art. She solicits poetry and then crafts these pieces from publication layout to hand sewn pocket. The booklet itself is a folded page that allows for four poems to be published on four by four pages, complete with cover art that gets housed in a very cute pocket. I have a poem in one issue (pictured above) and have been meaning to subscribe to get these do-hickeys in the mail for awhile now. Of course, I’m late in all things, including essay grading. Blegh.

Is It the King?

I met Farid Matuk last night and heard him read from his Effing chap, IS IT THE KING? Now, I might be partial to the title since we share an affinity (or rather, a name), but still, the work itself carries along a sweet blend of inquisitiveness & humor, a sly knowing, some sharp sounds of race and class & the behaviors that tendril from such awareness, as well as pop culture notes that, at once, bring us together with familiarity and delineate with prejudice.

I like the work, so will share two to encourage you to support Effing’s efforts to send such poetic queries into the world.

~~~~~~

TALK 1

I am Moroccan today I carry
my backpack full of Kleenex
fifty packs across Sicily
I memorize their thirteen
variations of the latest haircut the shoes
I will buy will raise me incline me
as the whole of Europe is inclined
this summer. I learn everything about women
from Fendi handbags from Puma pants
everything about men I am a boy of eleven
why not a skinny thirteen and I ask the waiter
“Are you Ireesh?” since this is the Irish Caffetteria
in Caltanissetta Sicily
here are my young Italians
who won’t buy the Kleenex
though one woman takes me
for a beggar and I get a half Euro — “not bad” I’d
have said in Tangiers on my way out
of Africa (aren’t we all moving out of Africa?)
and nothing not the dry grass of Sicily reminds me of it.
I learned about little leather tags on jeans in Africa
there goes the cow hide I’d say there goes the cow
and I smelled the people’s evaporating hotel soaps. It’s June
in Sicily and the skies are gray with field smoke.

We can have some fun my Sicilians
laugh I take their mobile phones make as if
I’m going to steal one’s scooter helmet cock it
jauntily on my head I am playing with their fear
of me I am dancing to the American songs. It is hot
so everything must be funny.

~~~~~

TALK 2

I am Sicilian today when the skies
are gray with field smoke I share a cigarette
with my friends nothing is new to me
I’ve ridden over three hills to get here
and here are my friends at the Irish
again I love this city and I can walk its length and breadth
when it’s cooler its lights the road back
from Lido Neptuno. All we talk about is leaving but I know
they love like I love threading our parents’ cars
between a salt or phosphor truck
and the oncoming car I know the tolerances of our Fiat
and I love the stupid unnecessary hugs my boyfriend gives
and how we smell each other I think everything
happens beneath the cover
of something else something prettier
now there are Arab African boys everywhere.
Where have the gypsies gone?
Can gypsies love anything like I love Caltanissetta
the vests on their own backs?
I don’t need the kid’s Kleenex my nose is dry in these fires
but I give one a Euro and he stays at our tables
plays at taking our cell phones and helmets who
would you call what would you ride? He plays with our fear
of his thievery I think it is sad and beneath that? Our sort
of friendship. And beneath that? His thievery.

–Farid Matuk, from IS IT THE KING?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

3 Responses to “Is It the King?”

The Second Is Thirst

That’s some juicy chap, Jane. The Henriksen’s have released Jane Gregory’s first book, THE SECOND IS THIRST, in an edition of 100 at the low price of seven smackers. I’d say, after spending a bit of time with it this morning, you’re getting a deal. Matt and Katy put each copy together themselves, so the book has that handmade feel only true small press conniseurs can achieve. You might want to order before they’re all gone…

Jane’s work reminds me of Dan Hoy’s. But here’re two from the chap itself to help you decide.

~~~~~~~~~

MIRROR THEORY

If the shadow of purple is purplish

do you think my car will be safe here

during Hedda Gabler and afterwards

if you opine on myth I’ll open

a fifth while the clocks are

doing terribly. Nothing stalks

no circular hour. The digital hand

the hard connection for instance

forehead, windshield. Holding a pole.

Avoiding an actress. Holding anything but

threads: when I move closer it goes.

Look, or get drunk like dusty

quicksand. Tell me the truth. Stop

by the funeral. Where Herzog said

he didn’t know the color of his own eyes.

~~~~~~~~~

FIAT NOX

“Fatigue is the organic realisation of a preconceived idea. Begin by not thinking it.” –Proust

An idea is a hat made. If it ends up on a bed
or a table, this particular hat was a bad idea.

The verb To Use describes the action that was needed To Make
a bloody lapel. Although, that may not be so.

Coming down the stairs something in the garbage
I’m carrying keeps banging against the wall.

There are things that make one want to beat oneself
between thinking about and not thinking about that banging thing:

between being the first to look away but the last
to know everyone wants to: between screaming at an empty mirror and

the first rule of magic. A kid that tells on another kid is a dead kid.
It’s not that I miss being barefoot it’s that

it doesn’t even occur to me. Not contemplating
the axe. Not hugging the machine.

–Jane Gregory, from The Second Is Thirst

~~~~~~~~~