Rauan Klassnik
http://rauanklassnik.blogspot.com
author of three collections: Sky Rat (Spork, 2014), The Moon's Jaw (Black Ocean, 2013) and Holy Land (Black Ocean, 2008) ... ----- @klassnik ------
Dear Rauan,…(3)
Rauan – Ready to Help
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[ note: I’ve never been happier, never felt more fulfilled, because I know that I am helping people — and thanks again to Kim Gek Lin for turning me on to this xoxox ]
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and this time we have a desperate cry for help from Paul in Massachusetts:
dear rauan
my wife won’t fuck me because I’m not “alt lit” enough and when we do get hot and heavy she demands we role play tao lin and marie calloway doing 69 while we’re tripping on shrooms. And I just can’t do it, rauan, even though it does sound very erotic. One time, also, a whale stuck its head out of my wife’s Mumu (yes, this is what she makes me call it) and started licking my balls
and i was just freaked out
and i was just freaked out
and i was just freaked out
and i was just freaked out
…
…
is there something wrong with me, rauan?
thank you in advance,
Paul “boost” Refrere
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Science
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And, so–
Rauan Responds:
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Dear Paul,
1) first of all, “tao lin” READ MORE >
Seattle Author Spotlight (4) — Greg Bem
Seattle Author Spotlight
This is the 4rd Seattle Author Spotlight (previous ones were Richard Chiem, Maged Zaher & Deborah Woodard)
And it’s Greg Bem!
Greg was one of the first Seattle writers I saw read/perform here in Seattle and Greg was one of the first Seattle lit people I actually talked to here in Seattle. Greg was really friendly and every time I saw him (he seems to be everywhere, reading, video taping, listening, enjoying, networking) he introduced me to other people. He also invited me for Mexican Happy Hour and that was grand. Greg also organizes readings in bars, on trains and in abandoned buildings, etc.
Greg, in his own words, is mainly a “situational poet”, preparing text (sometimes accompanied with video, music, musicians, etc) that’s only for that situation, that performance. Greg, though, is set to leave for Cambodia and will be gone for at least six months. He will be missed.
Here, on the other hand, is a link to some poems Greg just got published on-line.
Greg Bem — “Situating”
Brief Bio:
But Let’s All Make Out — (by Donald Dunbar)
[ note: To follow is my friend Donald Dunbar’s take on poetry community’s loud and passionate (but empty?) retort to Mark Edmundson’s charge in Harper’s that Poetry is dead, blah, blah,… but first, here are my 2 cents on what, in the end, is Donald’s call to action (& nudity, too, I guess).
1) Donald’s much more polite, politic, subtle, extended and diplomatic than I’d present such viewpoints. Basically I think Donald’s saying that people should quite bitching and do something. Donald is also, I think, suggesting that academia (poetry anyways) is pretty much a lazy, turgid toad croaking in its safe ivory tower. READ MORE >
Carina Finn’s Poetry Youth
Some people, especially the eldery and more stuffy members of the Poetry Community, are disturbed by Carina Finn and her Poetry’s (LEMONWORLD & Other Poems)– brashness and bubbly-ness, “bratty”-ness. There’s an unwritten rule, for many, that success needs to be earned, not just by talent and the writing itself, but by paying your dues. (Gross!)
For these Ageists, these bigots, strong “bratty” writing is like Spring, cruel and raw, ruthless, and something to cry and bitch about. Blah, blah, blah.
But, anyways, following Joe Hall’s Poetry Road and Reb Livingston’s Poetry Home, this is the 3rd such photo shoot/interview where, again, the only rule was that Carina answer in language from her new book, LEMONDWORLD & Other Poems)
Besides Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Taylor Swift (is she really like Nazi art?), READ MORE >
Dear Rauan,… (2)
Rauan – Ready to Help
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[ this is the 2nd installment of my “Dear Rauan” advice column. special thanks, again, to Kim Gek Lin Short for reminding me that I can and should “help people” ]
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and, anyways, this time we have Marc from California
dear rauan,
i’m up for tenure–this is not the route I thought my life would take, and in the meantime every where I turn I hear a snide bro poet remark about lower than prestigious writing school teachers with shit for names and shit for publications. hmmm maybe I could give my shit name-brain to htmlgiant and mar their tar-stained code of duress. but I’m motivated to pursue higher than dick personality types READ MORE >
Rauan Klassnik—
“the only honest American movie star” — Paul Constant
Paul Constant, at the Stranger, tells us why Nicolas Kim Coppola is a prophet!
read it, and more, at NIC TILL YOU’RE SICK
& if you’re in Seattle then go to Saturday’s one-day Cage Film festival called Nicolas Cage Match
(note: i’ve been a member of the Cult of Cage for quite a while already)
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Seattle Author Spotlight (3) — Deborah Woodard
Seattle Author Spotlight
This is the 3rd Seattle Author Spotlight (previous ones were Richard Chiem and Maged Zaher) and I plan on running new ones every 10-14 days because Seattle has plenty of talented and interesting writers. So, anyways, here’s the 3rd installment:
And it’s Deborah Woodard!
When I told one of my new Seattle writer friends that I was going to meet with Deborah they told me I’d love her and that she’s “a hidden gem.” And after meeting with Deborah, and our follow-ups, I can indeed say that she is a wonderful writer–and an open, curious and generous person READ MORE >
Dear Rauan,… (1)
Rauan — Ready to Help
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[ this is the 1st installment of my “Dear Rauan” advice column. special thanks to Kim Gek Lin Short for reminding me that I can and should “help people” ]
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So, anyways, without further ado, here’s Sue, from the Midwest:
dear rauan,
i hate when men yell from cars “god! i’m so horny!” sometimes when i am walking to Rite Aid to buy Otter Pops because it helps with side effects of global warming, i hear men screaming “god! i’m so horny!” READ MORE >
25 Points: Cloud Atlas (RK)
visual aid – © Rauan Klassnik, 2013 (all rights reserved!)
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[ I’m sorry, everyone, that it’s taken me this long to join the Cloud Atlas conversation. And I’m talking the movie Cloud Atlas which made a tremendously profound impression on me–so profound, in fact, that just the mention of the words “Cloud Atlas” (by tongue or in print), causes, usually, something in my brain to short circuit. And I start to sweat, and to drool, and, within a second or two, pass out on the spot. But this morning I have, miraculously, been able to overcome the beast of those two simple words, “Cloud Atlas,” and, laboring in a kind of inspired, biblical and epic fervor/trance, have organized my thoughts into a complex, intricate and classical analysis of the movie, Cloud Atlas. ]
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1. Boring. READ MORE >
Save the Pit Bull! – Talking to Jereme Dean
Jereme Dean’s Facebook page is filled with macho, sexist and self-professed “asshole” comments. But mixed in are posts concerned with the environment, the socially and politically embattled, and, above all, posts asking, poignantly (with pictures), for people to save, or help save, a dog’s life: ie, a dog, usually a pit bull, that’s about to be euthanized.
What follows, then, are some questions I sent Jereme and the answers he sent back. The core of the interview is the Pit Bull (“most every dog I’ve posted about is dead”) but it is also Jereme Dean, his views on people, culture, the media, etc.
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Do you prefer dogs to people?
I wouldn’t necessarily say I prefer dogs over people but… have you ever witnessed a dog walking around in sweatpants and boots or making faux inspiration videos or quipping a passive-aggressive remark on some forum or writing a pre-school philosopy poem about beyonce? I haven’t. I appreciate their lack of language–their honesty.
Human beings are great while in the concrete world: fucking; fighting; dancing; crying. It’s their abstractions which creates a psychological division. Most people revel in the bullshit creations of the 21st century. I can’t relate.
I enjoy specific human interaction though, but not much. 4, maybe 5, people, total.
I do think dogs prefer my company, people not so much.
one of Jereme’s FB shares — “Adorable Puppy Needs Adoption” — (Jereme’s Note)