Another Blazevox Post

If you're a small press, you've likely heard of this tempest in a teapot already and formed an opinion. In case you haven't, Sandra Beasley makes a great deal of sense here.

If the epicenter of your annual sales model is the AWP conference, you gotta shake it up. That's right, even if you plan to have really cool swag (shot glasses!) at your table, and an offsite reading at the grubbiest hipster bar in town. We have got to stop thinking that credibility in our own community is enough (emphasis mine).

You need to bust your ass, whether you can or not, getting out there personally among the potential readers. It's not enough to be great poetry, you have to make your poems known by reading them at events and publishing them where non-writing friends and other people can see them (online, if you ask me). It doesn't take a salesperson to sell them, it takes simply your presence along with a desire to discuss what you already love.

Prosody and Other Fun Things

If you've ever struggled with meter, this place can help you out.

http://prosody.lib.virginia.edu/

I'm still here, just distanced for the moment from poetry. I'm writing two new stories for someone who solicited me, and banging away on my old novel trying to make it better for public presentation. What are you all up to?

John Wieners - Hyannisport, MA - 2.21.02 - Last Public Reading

Found at Silliman's blog, but worth reposting.

Clare Pollard, Poet

Clare Pollard is a English poet, and new to me. I read her book Changeling, from Bloodaxe Books in England recently, and was struck immediately by some refashioning of myth that so many people do badly, but not her, thank God, as well as some stark confessional poetry that hit me even more. It's Sextonish, yes, but with a contemporary and more cynical feel. Well worth the time to track it down, this book. Go forth and do what you must: consume.

Adventures in Capitalism

Nothing is real and I want it to stop.

I cut my wrists, but the blood looks like make up.

I slump in toilets snorting cocaine

but it doesn't seem true, just a grimy dream.

I wanted to feel, so had a tattoo done.

I chose a sea-blue anchor near the bone,

then saw it in a tabloid and felt a fake.

Crashed a car dad bought me. Nothing broke.

I went to see Othello swallow a lie

and cried at the end, but it was only a play.

Read some Rimbaud, bought a black polo-neck

and a bottle of absinthe, but felt like a prick.

I whisper 'I love you' and 'Tie me down,'

but all that moan and fisting is just porn.

Signed an online petition but it made no difference.

I bought a house, but it's like playing house.

I own How to be a Domestic Goddess,

but I've never cooked from it, if I'm honest,

and the brownies and aprons are only props

and my wardrobe's a Fancy Dress box,

and I yell at everyone who cares. I hurt them

because I need something to fucking happen.

New Poem (exists for a couple days only before it poofs)

Hi. I know it's been a while. I've been unnaturally busy elsewhere, otherwise known as 'life intrudes.' Here's a new draft with an awful, obvious title. In fact, I think I'll leave it titleless it's so bad.

SEE TITLE HERE

Poem goes *poof*.

From Bill Knott's Latest Collection Murder/Suicide

which is available for free, as all of his books are, or you can pay a few bucks for a print copy via Lulu. This is the first poem from this edition. I had not read it before, but now I can't stop thinking about it.

1946


The year Noir was born; the year Nazis hid
In monasteries to restore their force;
Peace, but peace that made some things even worse
Than they were pre-war: I was just a kid,

Hard at play, cap pistols, hooky, apples
Filched through a farm fence: then my mother dies,
Killed illegal abortion style by guys
Quoting God, his badboy lies, his bibles.

Pope Vandal burnt the last Complete Sappho
Publicly, my mother was butchered in
A secret site; their results much the same,

So I blame him and him and him and him,
All of them from Adam onwards are men,
Meaning me, meaning the worst thing I know.

Note: In 1073, Pope Gregory VII ordered the public burning of all books containing the poetry of Sappho

from Three Variations, All About Love, by Philip Whalen

I love this poem so much I typed it in.

I.

So much to tell you
Not just that I love
There is so much more
You must hear and see

If I came to explain
It would do no good
Wordlessly nibbling your ear
Burying my face in your belly

All I would tell is you
And love; I must tell
Me, that I am a world
Containing more than love
Holding you and all your other
Lovers wherein you
And I are free from each other
A world that anyone can walk alone
Music, coathangers, the sea
Mountains,ink, trashy novels
Trees, pancakes, The Tokaido Road
The desert--it is yours

Refuse to see me!
Don't answer the door or the telephone
Fly off in a dragon-chariot
Forget you ever knew me

But wherever you are
Is a corner of me, San Juan Letran
Or Montreal,Brooklyn,
Or the Lion Gate

Under my skin at the Potala
Behind my eyes at Benares
Far in my shoulder at Port-au-Prince
Lifted in my palm

Anywhere you must be you
Drugged, drunk or mad
As old,as young, whatever you are
Living or dying the place will be me

And I alone the car that carries you away.