Friday, August 25, 2006

Jack Kimball sent a pdf of Post~Twyla, which shall soon be published by Blue Lion Books. I've heard Jack read much of it publicly and privately, and I've been poking thru since it arrived. verdict: highly recommended (word!). it's 346 pages, less'n Jack has last minuted it, so it qualifies as an anti-chapbook. no offense to the which, but I like extent and large scale in my po books. what I mean is, it has ambition. for all the 346, it's breezy and varied. it makes good on Jack's enthusiasm for the book.
I'm not sure I linked to this wonderful e-book by Robert Fiterman: This Window Makes Me Feel. he read some and talked about it when I saw him last spring in the Demolicious Reading Series. this work is touching, odd, funny, chilling, make your own selection of adjectives. it also can answer those who feel that googled poetry co-opts. I see no co-opting in here. I hear variety in the voices, see people awash in distances and differences, and feel a touching connection. nor, to reply to another claim against 'this type of writing' is there anything mechanical about this work. Fitterman googled on the the phrase this window makes me feel, then collected the responses. I quote at random:

This window makes me feel like an unemployed useless lump. This window makes me feel guilty like I’ve committed some horrible crime; the spider never did anything to me. This window makes me feel better when I convince myself that I am not angry with the Lord but with myself. This window makes me feel great; it reminds me of when I was doing lots of exercises and felt good about myself. This window makes me feel like I’m all out of options, that I’m so poor and cheap I think I might cry but I need new shoes and jeans and shirts and shit real bad. This window makes me feel sick and grossly irresponsible, so I will hunker down and berate myself for a few hours.

such momentum and embrace!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

up to 87th installment of Antic View. I think this work inquisition or disquisition is worth reading. because I am surprised by what Jeff writes, and by what I discover as I write as well.
oh, hello. apparently I wrote a number of reviews for Galatea Resurrects 3 [wait a sec: reviews! that rhymes with Tom Cruise!!! Paramount just cut ties with Tom, poor Tom, poor Tom, poor Tom, and he with new bride and baby to support...]. I think Galatea Resurrects is a wonderful opportunity, an internetty sort of fresh model allowing immediacy into the review process. I review Jon Leon, Anny Balladini, Ernesto Priego, Mark Lamoureux and Stephen Ellis. I was already well-acquainted with the work of Stephen, which, friends, you should keep your eyes peeled for, but had read very little of the other writers until I put nose to book. check out this treasury of engagement, a useful tool.