Zachary Schomburg

Reviews

25 Points: Fjords Vol. 1

FJORDS_SC_webFjords Vol. 1
by Zachary Schomburg
Black Ocean, 2012
72 pages / $14.95 buy from Black Ocean

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Fjords Vol. 1 is something I could have read in a few hours—easy.

2. It took me 17 days to read Fjords Vol. 1 all the way thru.

3. Fjords Vol. 1 is 57 pages.

4. I have been fascinated/infatuated by Zachary Schomburg-stuff for quite some time. I sent him an email once but he never replied. I assume this is because he was too busy writing awesome fucking poetry.

5. If I wrote awesome fucking poetry like Zachary Schomburg, I probably wouldn’t have the time to reply to emails from people I have never met IRL.

6. It’s not very hard to read Fjords Vol. 1, which is nice. But it’s also not meant to be very hard, I don’t think. It’s like something that is easy to learn but hard to master. Like chess, for example. Or swimming. The Tecktonik dance. I don’t know. (But) that’s how I feel about Zachary Schomburg poetry.

7. If Fjords Vol. 1 had been a homework assignment in high school, I would have found it to be very easy. You could definitely read it all in one night/sitting (if you really wanted to, and I sort of allude to this already).

8. But there is so much to understand and feel and grasp and learn and write down and think about—which is why I love Fjords Vol. 1 so much.

9. Like the poem Staring Problem, in its entirety. “A woman walks into a room. I am in a different room. What has happened to your eyes? she asks.”

10. I feel like, maybe, sometimes, Zachary Schomburg is too smart for me to understand—but I generally feel like this about all poetry—so I keep reading the same line over and over, because I keep thinking “No, this is not hard. I am making it hard. I am pretty sure I can understand anything,” and even after several re-readings (now)—I still cannot grasp everything there is to grasp in the book. That’s fine though. And this is not a bad cannot-grasp-everything. This is a good cannot-grasp-everything. A book that is challenging (to/for) me. Something I can come back to, later in life, after I have read more books and feel like I can finally maybe understand things better. READ MORE >

6 Comments
February 26th, 2013 / 12:09 pm

HTMLGIANT Features

The Rolls Should Be Warm: An Interview w/ Michael Earl Craig

Michael Earl Craig’s third book, Thin Kimono, was recently published by Wave Books. He is one of my favorite poets. I asked him some questions when he was traveling in Michigan, but normally he is in Montana. -ZS

ZS: What brings you to Michigan? And what do you think about Michigan’s fudge?

MEC: The Michigan trip is for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary.  We’re in Leland, Michigan. In addition to my parents, my brother and his wife and their daughter are here, as well as my sister, her husband, and their three kids. Susan and I brought our Chia Pet, Nancy.  When we were kids we’d vacation for a week (sometimes two) in this part of Michigan, so we have a lot of family history here.

And the fudge is big time in Michigan.  My favorite is Murdick’s Fudge—the store in Traverse City, specifically.  There are a few other Murdick’s stores but the Traverse City one is the best.  I normally don’t eat fudge.  Fudge is usually gritty and makes me want to knock my front teeth out on a banister.  But this fudge is different.  It’s creamy.  It melts in your mouth (or wherever you put it).  My favorite flavor is Black Cherry.  Also Vanilla Chocolate Chip.  And the Maple is very good.  And the Chocolate/Peanut Butter.   I know I sound like some sort of candy hillbilly here but it’s all true.  When you eat this fudge it changes you.

ZS: What else do you eat that changes you?

MEC:  Fudge is the only thing.

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17 Comments
January 3rd, 2011 / 1:59 pm

Live Giants 6: Zachary Schomburg

You missed Zach’s live reading but you can still buy his books.

Author Spotlight / 14 Comments
June 30th, 2010 / 8:58 pm

One week from today, Wednesday, June 30th, Zachary Schomburg will read for the 6th installment of the Live Giants reading series, via live feed here at 9 PM EASTERN. More info and RSVP here.

NYC Area Alert: Lutz, Schomburg & Krusoe on Thursday at St. Marks Series

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Hey everyone- it’s 1 AM here in Hong Kong. I’ve been at an all-Indian dance party for the last several hours. I’m pretty drunk right now, and I have to wake up in 5 hours, at 6 AM, to be out of the house at 7 AM to be at the airport by 8 to fly at 93. The flight is about 15 1/2 hours, and if all goes well I’ll be at JFK around 1PM on the 16th, which will actually be the same day I left. What’s the point of this post? It’s that even though I’m super-bummed that my EPIC JOURNEY is finally coming to its close, I’m hugely excited to be back in the USovA in time to go to this reading. Full details about it (swiped from reading curator Greg Purcell’s facebook post) after the jump.

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Uncategorized / 13 Comments
August 15th, 2009 / 1:09 pm

Zachary, I’m sorry…

I found a copy of Zachary Schomburg‘s The Man Suit at a used bookstore a couple of weeks ago.

First, this should be evidence that Seattle has really amazing used book stores. The copy was originally purchased at Open Books, an all-poetry bookstore. (How Open Books manages to stay in business selling nothing but poetry to an increasingly disinterested-in-poetry audience* remains a mystery to me, but I love that they exist.) I tend to walk by the poetry sections of used bookstores because, really, I have The Spoon River Anthology already and don’t need another copy. But this little store—Ophelia’s Books in Fremont—had a book I’ve been thinking of purchasing anyway.

Second, who the heck sold The Man Suit? It’s really good—full of surreal images and dream logic

Here’s an image that stuck with me: a voicebox—removed from its throat—still full of words. A person can pick up said word-filled voicebox, and blow through it to hear what was left unsaid when the voicebox belonged to a body.

I am fairly certain that some time in the future, I will forget that I read about this voicebox in The Man Suit by Zachary Schomburg, and I will use it in a story, thinking I came up with it. I’m sorry, Zachary. Eventually I will remember, and then I will feel bad for stealing from you.

(This has happened before. I have an as-yet-unpublished story that features a character named Boy. I stole this from a Peter Markus piece I read on elimae. I thought it had been my idea. There are other examples.)

(Actually, I wonder if this post will serve to stop this from happening. If it will immunize me from the Schomburg voicebox image that could some day infect my writing.)

Is this a bad thing? I’m not sure it is a great crime for artists to steal from one another in this way. Art bubbles up from a subconscious place, and it shouldn’t shock anyone that the things that bubble up are dropped into the stew of the subconscious mind by other artists.

Are you familiar with the concept of sperm trains? Some animals create sperm cells that hook themselves onto one another. They drag one another toward their goal. And move faster. The voicebox, I’m pretty sure, will one day find another idea hooking itself onto it, and they will both swim out onto a page of my writing.

(There’s an image for you: my pages of fiction are covered in sperm.)

Because I feel bad that I will steal from you, Mr. Schomburg, I would like to at least pay you the royalty you should’ve gotten for the book I purchased used. If you would like, I don’t know, five dollars, you should write to me at giantblinditems at gmail dot com.

Please use the comments section of this post to cop to things you have stolen.

Author Spotlight / 38 Comments
November 25th, 2008 / 5:17 pm