Adam Robinson—
Since it’s Poetry Month, the awesome SPD is offering a 40% discount on poetry books that came out before 2000. Lots of amazing titles to remember and dream about and buy. I finally bought books by Lorine Niedecker and Linh Dinh. I feel bad that it took me this long to buy them, but happy that I got them at a great discount.
18
Nick Antosca—
Do you have a literary agent? Do you think you want/need a literary agent? Has a literary agent ever sold anything for you? Are agents a good thing for literature or just a necessary element of publishing?
Roxane Gay—
I have a strange aversion to hardcover books so I really enjoyed this article about how paperbacks influenced popular literature. It really shows how publishing does evolve. Perhaps e-books are the new paperbacks.
Understanding Campaign
The wonderful Justin Sirois of Narrow House and his MLKNG SCKLS co-author Haneen Alshujairy have created a campaign to teach the world one word of Arabic. I think this is a great idea. Buy a button, some stickers, share the image here!
March was small press month. Here’s my haul.
How was your Small Press Month? I got a bunch of books:
Adam Robison and Other Poems by Adam Robinson
In This Alone Impulse by Shya Scanlon
The Failure by James Greer
Iowa by Travis Nichols
Stories II by Scott McClanahan
The Awful Possibilities by Christian TeBordo
Imago Bird by Nicholas Mosley
The Complete Works of Marvin K. Mooney, a novel by Christopher Higgs
The Late Work of Margaret Kroftis by Mark Gluth
Misadventure by Millard Kaufman (galley)
Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder by Travis Nichols (galley)
Hiding Out by Jonathan Messinger
Sons of the Rapture by Todd Dills
Boring boring boring etc, by Zach Plague
OK, Goodnight by Emily Kendal Frey and Zachary Schomburg
How to Take Yourself Apart, How to Make Yourself Anew by Aaron Burch
What I Want and What I Want by Chelsea Martin
How about you?
Nick Antosca—
How come we never have writer sex tape “scandals”? That could actually be great promotion. (Cue release of Tao Lin “sex tape.”) I suppose it isn’t prudent to list writers whose sex tapes I’d like to see. I’ll do it in my head.
Rauan Klassnik Poems
To do it she sits on the floor, and presses a talon against her clitoris, and then rips upward. Tearing up through her navel. Up to her neck. It’s the most intense orgasm, brilliant and chic, and she just absorbs it—lying back, arms spread, like a crucifix. Her eyes brighten. Then close. She bleeds out. Hardening. Paled. A carnivorous flower.
The back of his neck’s red, and badly wrinkled, and I want to touch it and make him young again. We sit down in the living room. And we talk about nothing. Then about her. His daughter. My wife. And I can see me breathing down on her. To heal her. I breathed all over her. At the funeral I imagine us together. And, in my arms, she’s changed into a corpse. And I’ve entered her. And I’m fucking her harder and harder. And my tears splash down on her cold white neck. The light’s dazzling. A garden of statues throbbing.
In the Louis Vuitton storefront windows there are birdcages. And in each one there’s a shiny handbag. Or a glinting shoe. And, then, the maimed raccoon in the park—hunched over like it’s about to crap. It came towards us. Slumped over. And rolled on its back. This happened over and over. And the whole time it looked like it was smiling. I didn’t sleep well. I dreamed I shot you and ground you into powder—and the wind just swept you away. Elephants were chasing me, too, I think, and I woke up frantic, and horny, and you ended up having a tiny climax. The tiniest ever. A diamond stud. In a giant cage.
Rauan Klassnik’s book “Holy Land” (http://www.blackocean.org/holy-land/) released from Black Ocean in April 2008. Rauan’s currently working on a book of monsters, pacing back and forth in a fever, pitching up higher and higher: “slave ships moor inside me. And daisy rashes.”
“much like the second coming of christ on easter, this book will make you feel bad about yourself”
Frowns Need Friends Too
by Sam Pink
Sam says, “definitely a must-have for fans of good-ass poetry. this book is lines written from 2007-2009, including what little remains of the rare chapbook “yum yum i can’t wait to die”. journalists have dubbed the genre “schiz-emo.” and, you know my friends, i was touring for this book, in the phillipines, and, and i’ll never forget. after this reading, a little old lady came up to me, and, and, i’ll never forget it, she had this look on her face. and i said, “mother, what is the trouble.” and she took my hand in both of hers and she started to cry. and friends, i’ll never forget what she said. she said, “young man, your book, FROWNS NEED FRIENDS TOO, it, it gave me the courage to do what i thought i could never do: murder my first born son in his sleep.” the book also includes front and back cover art done by the author, me. many of the poems were published with journals affiliated with a college, so, you know. “
Uncategorized / 16 Comments
April 4th, 2010 / 11:24 am
April 4th, 2010 / 11:24 am
Harry is a world, laced with rivers of wizardly blood.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPVhmZodaLA
fuck
1. Fuck that story by that guy. Read something else. I wanted to introduce you to this new writer anyway and this story will make you pant-pee and laugh like a photogenic butcher.
2. Has anyone seen the fucking new Hayden’s Ferry? Number 46 is re-donk. I can’t link it’s so new. What’s up with these people? In a short time, they have made their magazine crisp, beautiful, full of bad-ass writing, crazy. I mean they stepped up their Slay and are not looking back. My mind on their magazine has gone from throw-me-a-bone to ranch-style nacho pie. Fuck yes. Get it.
3. fuck you. punk.
4. Yesterday walking the hallway and I see a lady at a table and advertising a free raffle. A FREE RAFFLE. What the fuck?
5. Heroin. Sex. Scientology. What do you want? NSFW pics, so sorry if you work on Saturday. I include this because I think the guy’s write-up was CW techniques all glow (He uses Tao Lin quotes and all types of solid pacing, transitions–“This is where things get weird.”) Also I’ve been drinking fake absinthe and it fit well in my “fuck” theme I have going here.
Last Thanksgiving I was staying at a friends house for a few days before a trip to South America.
Stories that begin this way always end up with heroin and Scientology, this we know. A lot could be learned from that opening sentence. If you say friends should be friend’s I’ll punch you in the spleen. It is Saturday. relax.
6. Kristen Shaw with a great fucking flash at decomP. It includes the term fuck.