Contests
Win Diana George’s DISCIPLINES
I have an extra copy of Diana George’s DISCIPLINES, an amazing fiction chapbook from Noemi Press, who continues to do more and more amazing things.
I read this chapbook and couldn’t shake the verbiage from my head, still haven’t really. It is in the Lish-mind (the chapbook has a Gary Lutz blurb), and is about rooms and weird ritualistic behavior, and modes of study. The stories are kind of hard to describe, but they are amazing, have appeared in 3rd Bed and Denver Quarterly etc. A really amazing little book that reminds me in certain ways of Evenson’s ‘The Wavering Knife’ and maybe some Ben Marcus thrown in there, but really of a whole new mode all its own.
To win the chapbook all you have to do is read the new issue of Lamination Colony, pick one piece on the site, and say something about it in the comments here. A response, a review, a comment (though more than ‘I liked this.’ please, show yr work), something that shows you thought about the piece in some way. A response can be a few words or a longer thought or words it jarred from you in another mode, whatever you want. Don’t forget to include which you are responding to.
I will choose a winner Friday. The winner will get the Diana George chapbook. The author whose piece is reviewed by the winner will receive a gift too, also from Noemi Press: Joanna Howard’s In the Colorless Round, which is an insanely cool large-format chapbook of connected prose and drawings by Rikki Ducornet.
While you are thinking, go check out the rest of the work from Noemi Press. They are putting out important texts worthy of vast attention.
Tags: diana george, noemi press
i am responding to matthew savoca’s amazingly colorful piece called “something the won’t come out of my mouth”
this piece has a really strong and courageous voice, a voice similar to his other work in lamination colony called “vincent” and the one about the buffalo going to christmas dinner. the repetition in this piece is stunning, just stunning. i think this piece could win a pushcart.
i am responding to matthew savoca’s amazingly colorful piece called “something the won’t come out of my mouth”
this piece has a really strong and courageous voice, a voice similar to his other work in lamination colony called “vincent” and the one about the buffalo going to christmas dinner. the repetition in this piece is stunning, just stunning. i think this piece could win a pushcart.
Brandi Wells piece ‘the bleeding’ is something I’m still thinking about after having read it yesterday, or day before. Maybe my thoughst aren’t complete yet. I will try to type here now though. It takes cutting behavior and puts it into this almost happy atmosphere? It groups it into the same group we place all desirable things in, and usually we mark desire with goodness. Lately I’ve been drawn to stories that can do this, that can take something generally perceived as bad or horrible and put it into a context, where because of its surrealism, confuses you a little, and you come out thinking of it in an almost opposite light. The end felt natural and inevitable, like the story just bled all over itself, a happy ending.
Brandi Wells piece ‘the bleeding’ is something I’m still thinking about after having read it yesterday, or day before. Maybe my thoughst aren’t complete yet. I will try to type here now though. It takes cutting behavior and puts it into this almost happy atmosphere? It groups it into the same group we place all desirable things in, and usually we mark desire with goodness. Lately I’ve been drawn to stories that can do this, that can take something generally perceived as bad or horrible and put it into a context, where because of its surrealism, confuses you a little, and you come out thinking of it in an almost opposite light. The end felt natural and inevitable, like the story just bled all over itself, a happy ending.
This is easy because I read the new issue last night. I printed and saved the ones I liked the best. One of them was Brandi Wells’ piece, “The Bleeding”.
I always enjoy the theme of blood and children/parents/families. I wrote a similar story once, but involving a mother and her hair.
I loved how the children believe their mother’s reassurance that they are alive despite the blood she had caused. I like how the piece came full circle.
Thank you.
This is easy because I read the new issue last night. I printed and saved the ones I liked the best. One of them was Brandi Wells’ piece, “The Bleeding”.
I always enjoy the theme of blood and children/parents/families. I wrote a similar story once, but involving a mother and her hair.
I loved how the children believe their mother’s reassurance that they are alive despite the blood she had caused. I like how the piece came full circle.
Thank you.
Ryan Call’s Funnel as Paranormal Conduit. I’m blown away (sorry) by the control of language, uniformity of voice; by the intermingling of the scientific with the surreal given seamlessly, allowing for collapse of single mindedness of either outlook, Newton’s sleep; by the images which are beautiful and disturbing at the same time, really disturbing; by the focused and sustained meditation on a single trope, taking it below the facile; and still not everything is spelled out, esp the windershins nature of the event reported.
Ryan Call’s Funnel as Paranormal Conduit. I’m blown away (sorry) by the control of language, uniformity of voice; by the intermingling of the scientific with the surreal given seamlessly, allowing for collapse of single mindedness of either outlook, Newton’s sleep; by the images which are beautiful and disturbing at the same time, really disturbing; by the focused and sustained meditation on a single trope, taking it below the facile; and still not everything is spelled out, esp the windershins nature of the event reported.
‘Funnel as Paranormal Conduit’ got me pregnant.
I’m not lying.
I had the baby, I’m a single father now, THANKS Ryan.
:(
‘Funnel as Paranormal Conduit’ got me pregnant.
I’m not lying.
I had the baby, I’m a single father now, THANKS Ryan.
:(
read elizabeth ellen’s story – i liked this.
read elizabeth ellen’s story – i liked this.
Diana George is really interesting.
Diana George is really interesting.
yeah Funnel is pretty badass. can i append that statement to Grant’s, and use that as my comment?
yeah Funnel is pretty badass. can i append that statement to Grant’s, and use that as my comment?
you know, like in scrabble, when someone adds an ‘s’ or ‘ed’ to a long word and scores like a 1000 points. i hate that damn game!
you know, like in scrabble, when someone adds an ‘s’ or ‘ed’ to a long word and scores like a 1000 points. i hate that damn game!
What I like most about Mathias Svalina’s texts is that they are both instructional and impossible. I have been thinking a lot about what things literature can do that are proper to literature alone, and I think maybe these short texts get at that place where the text creates vivid and overlapping and impossible images in a way that is narrative (dynamic, like cinema) and yet also simultaneous (static, like painting).
But, as I said, what I like most in these is related to this static/dynamic tension, but is more exactly the conceit of instruction for games as mixed with the beautiful and bizarre and deadly impossible instructions (not even instructions really…abstract narratives?) that follow. The first text, Face Leaf, is especially vivid because it’s ending grounds it in the tragic whereas the beginning could almost just have been silly. Anyways, I read LC right when it came out and I have been unable these little texts from my thoughts.
What I like most about Mathias Svalina’s texts is that they are both instructional and impossible. I have been thinking a lot about what things literature can do that are proper to literature alone, and I think maybe these short texts get at that place where the text creates vivid and overlapping and impossible images in a way that is narrative (dynamic, like cinema) and yet also simultaneous (static, like painting).
But, as I said, what I like most in these is related to this static/dynamic tension, but is more exactly the conceit of instruction for games as mixed with the beautiful and bizarre and deadly impossible instructions (not even instructions really…abstract narratives?) that follow. The first text, Face Leaf, is especially vivid because it’s ending grounds it in the tragic whereas the beginning could almost just have been silly. Anyways, I read LC right when it came out and I have been unable these little texts from my thoughts.
in the second paragraph, the word vivid should be replaced with something like ‘strong’ or ‘powerful’
in the second paragraph, the word vivid should be replaced with something like ‘strong’ or ‘powerful’
also, the apostrophe in ‘it’s’ is wrong. I type too quickly. sorry.
also, the apostrophe in ‘it’s’ is wrong. I type too quickly. sorry.
last correction: last line ‘unable these’ should say ‘unable to shake these’.
i am not sure why i am posting corrections to a blog comment. i am feeling odd.
last correction: last line ‘unable these’ should say ‘unable to shake these’.
i am not sure why i am posting corrections to a blog comment. i am feeling odd.
[…] you should do is go to the HTML Giant website (), read the instructions/post a review. I reviewed Mathias Svalina, but since you are my friends […]
this page automatically posted what I put on my blog. i am way confused. i did not post that here. ??
this page automatically posted what I put on my blog. i am way confused. i did not post that here. ??
ben,
how much coffee have you had this morning?
ben,
how much coffee have you had this morning?
I would like to coin a neologism for what Peter Davis is doing in his contribution, 4 Poems. The neologism is: NextGen MetaPoetry.
It’s sorta like metafiction, except that it’s poetry. And it’s next generation because instead of the old generation of metatextual self-referencing, he uses the meta device as the entire content of the piece.
This is a brilliant example of what Gertrude Stein meant when she noted, “There is no There there.” You see, there is no poem in Peter Davis’s poems. There is only the metatextual self-referencing. They are “poems” about writing poems, but they aren’t poems themselves. That’s what makes it NexGen (and in my opinion badass): the act of noticing the act of writing is old hat if that act is in service of something greater – but in Davis’s “poems” the act is the end, not the means to anything.
It is the ultimate form of communication because it cuts through all fakeness, all language trickery, all costuming, all putting on makeup and trying to impress everybody at the party with witty metaphors and unlikely similes. These “poems” are like the most pure phone conversation you’ve ever had with anyone. You know what I’m talking about, when you cut the crap and say what’s really on your mind without hiding behind anything.
That’s how Peter Davis’s NextGen MetaPoetry strikes me. & to be honest, I find it delightful and refreshing. There, I said it.
I would like to coin a neologism for what Peter Davis is doing in his contribution, 4 Poems. The neologism is: NextGen MetaPoetry.
It’s sorta like metafiction, except that it’s poetry. And it’s next generation because instead of the old generation of metatextual self-referencing, he uses the meta device as the entire content of the piece.
This is a brilliant example of what Gertrude Stein meant when she noted, “There is no There there.” You see, there is no poem in Peter Davis’s poems. There is only the metatextual self-referencing. They are “poems” about writing poems, but they aren’t poems themselves. That’s what makes it NexGen (and in my opinion badass): the act of noticing the act of writing is old hat if that act is in service of something greater – but in Davis’s “poems” the act is the end, not the means to anything.
It is the ultimate form of communication because it cuts through all fakeness, all language trickery, all costuming, all putting on makeup and trying to impress everybody at the party with witty metaphors and unlikely similes. These “poems” are like the most pure phone conversation you’ve ever had with anyone. You know what I’m talking about, when you cut the crap and say what’s really on your mind without hiding behind anything.
That’s how Peter Davis’s NextGen MetaPoetry strikes me. & to be honest, I find it delightful and refreshing. There, I said it.
chris, i am really glad you posted about peter’s pieces. they spent a lot of time in my mind, me trying to decide what he was doing. had i not read his excellent ‘hitler’s mustache’ prior, i might have not been able to accept that he was intentionally doing those exact things you are saying, but having that prior trust installed in him as very wise, i came to believe in the same camp of what you are saying: you nailed it on the head. as simple as those pieces appear, i think they do a lot.
chris, i am really glad you posted about peter’s pieces. they spent a lot of time in my mind, me trying to decide what he was doing. had i not read his excellent ‘hitler’s mustache’ prior, i might have not been able to accept that he was intentionally doing those exact things you are saying, but having that prior trust installed in him as very wise, i came to believe in the same camp of what you are saying: you nailed it on the head. as simple as those pieces appear, i think they do a lot.
Concerning Christopher Higgs’ A Brief Unexplained History of Film Noir.
One difference between film & history is that a film actually happens, whereas history constructs itself in the syntax. Another difference is in the creation of facts. A man jumps off of a building & then the vehicles arrive & later the people do something about their feelings & then later they eat sandwiches. Whereas in a film the thing occurs & when you spin the projector’s wheels backwards the same thing occurs.
Film is not an art of becoming, but history is a craft of becoming. Which is why gangsters make such wonderful heroes in the noir films, since they never commit any crimes that we don’t see on the screen. This is why we replace words with other words. Which is why the rococo slang of the thieves’ cant & N+7 have at root the same impulse: to attempt to make the soul unstealable.
Like the cats you see in posters, how they are probably dead by now, the slang in films only means in relation to the aesthetic experience & not in relation to its currency. People don’t really talk like how they talk in The Wire, but they do talk like how they talk in The Wire. By which I mean that I am not trying to bleed you dry with my booshwash.
Concerning Christopher Higgs’ A Brief Unexplained History of Film Noir.
One difference between film & history is that a film actually happens, whereas history constructs itself in the syntax. Another difference is in the creation of facts. A man jumps off of a building & then the vehicles arrive & later the people do something about their feelings & then later they eat sandwiches. Whereas in a film the thing occurs & when you spin the projector’s wheels backwards the same thing occurs.
Film is not an art of becoming, but history is a craft of becoming. Which is why gangsters make such wonderful heroes in the noir films, since they never commit any crimes that we don’t see on the screen. This is why we replace words with other words. Which is why the rococo slang of the thieves’ cant & N+7 have at root the same impulse: to attempt to make the soul unstealable.
Like the cats you see in posters, how they are probably dead by now, the slang in films only means in relation to the aesthetic experience & not in relation to its currency. People don’t really talk like how they talk in The Wire, but they do talk like how they talk in The Wire. By which I mean that I am not trying to bleed you dry with my booshwash.
[…] this week there was a giveaway for Diana George’s DISCIPLINES offered to readers and commenters on the new issue of Lamination […]