……National Poetry Month Death Match #1……
April, because of National Poetry Month, is a traumatic ordeal of a time for me.
A prevailing, I guess, part of me thinks “What a total bunch of fucking bullshit”– and for the past few years all April long I’m in a grouchy stupor-rage making snide and mean remarks, pissing on anything even remotely “poetry,” and relentlessly posting up pictures of beached whale carcasses.
And yet–a part of me identifies with this impressive cadre and camaraderie of poetry munchkins gathered squawking and encouraging and reassuring each other on the cliffs of poetry each April because, well, it must be a good thing. It must be, right?
And so this year I’ve decided to face the disturbing contraries of my soul and the way they bristle and soft-feather up at National Poetry Month by setting up, as any good Caesar of the soul, some death matches. And in each case the death match will consist of a “for” and “against” stance fought out between two of my friend surrogates. And in each case I’ll stand up above the fray with thumb at the ready.
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And, the first death match is between Reb Livingston and Jereme Dean.
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NaPoWriMoHoHoHo
by Reb Livingston
What’s ruining/killing poetry this month? Well, it’s April so that must mean the culprit is National Poetry Month. Or so claims my anti-NaPoMo poet pals on social media.
41 Comments
April 21st, 2014 / 3:10 pm
April 21st, 2014 / 3:10 pm
POEM-A-DAY from THE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN LUNATICS (#1)
A Good Titty Is Hard To Find
Reb Livingston has amassed 2250 Facebook friends, 876 Twitter followers, 625 Google+ circle inclusions, 568 Goodreads friends, 309 Pinterest followers, 234 LInkedIn connections and has been awarded an impressive 60 Klout score. Upon turning 40, Ms. Livingston was unanimously declared the champion of the Male Series of Middle Aged Poets, the first woman to achieve this honor since the award’s inception in 1919. She resides in Northern Virginia with her husband, son, dog and a solitary fish named Wolverine who just won’t die.
by Reb Livingston
O if I had two titties to rub
together I would rub them
together until together they
created one good one
and I’d strut around with
my one good titty
that I’d push up with my firm palm
imagining that it was your firm palm
and I’d keep it in place with packing tape
imagining that it was your packing tape
and eventually my one good titty
would spill over
my custom one-tittied tape bra and
disappear into my scoop neck crop top
but before it did
I’d use my one good titty to pound your face
like my titty was some soap in a sock
participating in a retribution
my sweetness, please, give my one
good titty, a little more time
to settle and
stretch into a lithe hand of delight.
One morning I woke up very sad. So I decided that since I was a poet, I would express my sadness in poem form. This poem explores the concepts of friction, combination, sexuality, gender, aging, gravity, fashion, metamorphosis, violence and love. The titty works as metaphor for a much larger idea.
note: I’ve started this feature up as a kind of homage and alternative (a companion series, if you will) to the incredible work Alex Dimitrov and the rest of the team at the The Academy of American Poets are doing. I mean it’s astonishing how they are able to get masterpieces of such stature out to the masses on an almost daily basis. But, some poems, though formidable in their own right, aren’t quite right for that pantheon. And, so I’m planning on bridging the gap. A kind of complementary series. Enjoy!
5 Comments
October 28th, 2013 / 12:25 pm
October 28th, 2013 / 12:25 pm
Reb Livingston’s Poetry Home
“not impressed” — “not impressed at all”
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When Reb Livingston saw Joe Hall’s Poetry Road she wasn’t impressed. Wasn’t impressed at all. Hell, she told me, more shit goes on in my Poetry Home (where I’m working on my novel, Bombyonder) than all that stupid-ketchup-&-knives, “Poetry Schmoetry Road” bullshit. And so Reb and I did a little interview and photo shoot (her husband, aka “man-meat,” took the shots. Poor devil!).
And the rule, again, fyi, for the interview was that Reb could only answer with language from Bombyonder– samples here and here.
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Besides Beyonce’s “All the Single Ladies,” Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and the entire Bette Midler canon, what sort of music and sound things or voices have you been listening to in the ol’ lonesome Poetry Home??
Songs on the fly
The unconscious lizard
A zipper up his ass
Silently managed
Mice crammed into books
The offspring’s first meal
A dead bird blasted
Someone’s dick
Is breaking
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When Chris (yr monogamous partner of a long, long time) is out of town how do you deal with the physical loneliness and strange arousals of an empty, abandoned Poetry Home (all the bible salesmen, mermen, mail men, athletes, pool boys, James Francos, Nicolas Cages (ahem), hunks, man-sluts, etc, etc, yawn) ??
Snickering like dragons
Hands pawing, probing my privates
Scared, vile and leaking
What’s Right & What’s Wrong #1: Reb Livingston
(This is the first in an interview series: What’s Right and What’s Wrong with the Small Press World ?)
QUESTION ONE (Rauan Klassnik): What’s right and what’s wrong with the small press world?
ANSWER ONE (Reb Livingston): There’s a lot that’s right. There’s thousands of gatekeepers and thousands of others sneaking in the side. I like that. I like that on an almost daily basis I stumble across a magazine, press or website I never heard of before. Try as I might, I can’t keep up. That’s good. Nobody should be able to keep up. I like that the traditional publishing tower is beginning to topple. It’s time to start over. Tear that shit down. I’m waiting for someone to radically change how literature gets to readers. Or what it means. Or something I can’t even comprehend at this very moment. Yes, it’s changed a lot already this past decade and changing right as I write this, but I’m talking about something few of us can imagine. It’s going to come from an individual or a small group of people. That’s the only prediction I feel comfortable making. It’s not going to come from Amazon or Random House or Conde Nast (snort!) or a university (which these days are run more and more like wannabe corporations, despite some of the fabulous people they employ as teachers and staff).
Free Tarot Reading/Dream Interpretation with Purchase
No Tell Books is offering a psychic special this weekend. Buy a title from No Tell Books and with proof of purchase, receive a Tarot reading or interpretation of your dream from editor/publisher Reb Livingston.
Buy one No Tell Books title between now and Sunday, August 9, 2009 and receive a FREE tarot reading or dream interpretation! (One free reading or interpretation per customer)
If you buy a No Tell title this weekend, not only do you receive a stellar collection of poetry, you also receive FREE PSYCHIC ADVICE from me, poet and editor, Reb Livingston. This psychic advice will be dispensed via either a tarot reading or dream interpretation. BUT WAIT, THAT’S NOT ALL, if I receive any clairvoyant nuggets while I’m doing your reading or interpretation, I will share them with you AT NO EXTRA COST.
Been having a recurring dream that’s been worrying you? Then you might want to take advantage of this offer. Oh, and books and stuff.
Word Spaces (8): Reb Livingston gives us a tour
Reb Livingston recently posted over at her blog a tour of her office where she does a lot of her work on No Tell and other things. I asked her if I could link to that post here, and she said yes.
Anyhow, above is one of the pictures she posted. If you’d like to take the tour and see more, click on over to her blog.
Haut or Not: An Assortment
David Hodges
Heller, Kafka, Orwell, Vonnegut — welcome to class kids. This semester Mr. Hodges will be teaching us how horrible society is and how to maintain a negative attitude. Then we’re gonna read A Confederacy of Dunces and all kill ourselves in hopes of also being posthumously published. And don’t forget, you can use Tom Wolfe’s book as an ottoman. Lastly, we’ll finish off with a biography of Clarence Thomas, cuz there’s nothing that says justice more than a pube on a can of Pepsi.
Rating: not.
MASSIVE PEOPLE(9): Reb Livingston
Reb Livingston is a MASSIVE person for two reasons: 1) I have a crush on her and 2) in an interview with Orange Alert in February of 08, she said, “I believe every ‘serious’ poet should, in some way, assist and cultivate other poets.” Reb lives by that belief. She co-edits No Tell Motel, in which appear a great variety of poets; she runs No Tell Books, a micro press that follows the print on demand model; she is very active online and off when it comes to supporting the community; and she is the author of Pterodactyls Soar Again (Coconut 2006), Wanton Textiles (w/ Ravi Shankar, No Tell Books 2006), Your Ten Favorite Words (Coconut 2007), and God Damsel (forthcoming No Tell Books 2009).
A personal bit from her website:
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she now resides in the greater Washington, D.C. area with her husband and son. Once she worked for America Online. Although that was a long time ago.
After the break begins the email interview. All pictures are taken from her own site or from her blog. I encourage everyone to check out her blog, as there are some great posts in the archives about the starting a journal, starting a press, publishing that first book, etc (look for the ‘publishing’ label). Also, don’t go away: there’s something special at the end of this post. The something special is FREE BOOKS.