C+ for other movies is like an A+ for Romcoms Press

My 2010 is going to be all about Lady Gaga. Okay?

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Some journals that have bit it in 2009 due to Universities pulling funds:
TriQuarterly (Northwestern)
New England Review (Middlebury)
Isotope (Utah State University)

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Justin Taylor writes about reevaluating the process/meaning of submitting one's work.

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Luckily, small presses persevere & you should order copies of these two awesome books from Letter Machine Editions:

Texture Notes, by Sawako Nakayasu:


Iowa, by Travis Nichols:
What are you waiting for?
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You can read a new poem by Aaron Kunin at RealPoetik.

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Some hot mess videos I love:




If you are going to review video games, this is the way to do it:

Cadaverous Vs. Cavernous Press

Which would you prefer to be?

Neither?

Good call.

Feliz Navidad!



Sometimes you have to sail a paper airplane into the manger.

Roof Dog & Mangers Press

Ham Hollower and Low Beard Press

Frost Biters Press

Today I'm heading down to Mexico. I got a new pair of wings, they are shiny & filled with blood. I hope they won't get too cold flying through all this snow.

I packed a few summer dresses, which is a little exciting.

I also packed a bunch of books, which I will tell you about once I get their safely & know I'm alive to read them. I'm charging my ipod right now. I have not listened to my ipod since June. My ipod looks like this:

The Code's Not Just Genes But Songs Press

I've been reading the new issue of Dear Camera. Stephanie Anderson continually rocks my world. check out this little section from her longer poem:


As I mentioned yesterday, I am reading Notley. I wanted to show you some lines:

"This is not that kind of inheritance."

"A different language for when the mind breaks. The language doesn't break at all, the mind does, I do, do you?"

"You don't have to solve the murder. You did it. You sold everyone a human killed by a human."

"I always knew the house was on fire. It was one of the first things I knew."

"You wanted her to be hard, too, so you could punish her. But she was only thoughtful of you, small with bright hair."

"What can I trust? he said.
Your death?
My death, he said. For that was right.
Mine will not be right, I say. For I won't have vindicated women. I won't have seen the fall of male power....Why should I have lived to be treated like a woman"?

I like this song, "Snakes and Tea," by the Metallic Falcons:


Also, this song: (though the music does not kick in until 40s seconds into the video):


Also, this might be the most disturbing rendition of Guided by Voices' "Hot Freaks" I have ever seen. This one is on the house:

Just When I Needed The Vending Machine They Relocated It Somewhere Else Press

So, how are things?

I have been eating purple grapes. Also, toast with peanut butter and honey. Also, I'm trying to figure out holiday presents for everyone. What are you getting your loved ones? I ordered a one year subscription of Gun World for my leeetle brother.

I've been thinking about starting a fan club for BD Wong. BD Wong is a theater actor who's also the FBI psychologist in Law & Order SVU. But you already knew that, right? Don't deny yourself this love. He looks like this:
OR he can look like this:

If anyone wants to silk screen him onto a shirt for me, I promise to wear it every day.

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I've not been doing that much reading, as you can see I prioritized BD Wong over literature...but I've recently read:
Tumble Home, by Amy Hempel. I realized that I had read it 2 years ago, but it was worth re-reading:

But if you don't like dogs, maybe you won't like this collection. Because Hempel loves dogs and they are in almost every story.

I'm in the middle of reading In The Pines by Alice Notley. There are needles, defective species, men and sisters calling from the dead, there are a variety of hospitals, diamonds, there is a caustic anger in the poems slightly mitigated by tenderness of the wounded. In these poems everything is relentless.

I'm Always Sincere Although It Might Not Be My Own Sincerity I Convey Press

I read books every now & again. Here are some quotes I like from those books:

“The true enemy of time is language. Language lives in harmonious union with the spirit of revolt against its own time. Out of this conspiracy art is conceived. In contract, conformity, in complicity with its time, robs language of its own vocabulary.”—Szasz, Thomas; Karl Kraus and the Soul-Doctors, pg 158

“…within a hothouse language we force the myth of the Land to act as both political resource and mystic origin…The trajectory of the pastoral poem has prepared a self-congratulatory site for the reproduction of power….Femininity and nature float both as specters of the state imagination and as symbols for the nation.” Lisa Robertson

“I just don’t think that whatever the source of energy is gives really very much of a damn about you. It wants to keep you in good condition, just like the farmer wants to keep the cow in good condition.”--Spicer, Vancouver Lecture 1

“You have to interfere with yourself”--Jack Spicer, Vancouver Lecture 1

“If you want to write a letter to the editor, then the thing to do is to write a letter to the editor as far as I can see. And it doesn’t seem to me that’s what poetry is for.”--Jack Spicer, Vancouver Lecture 1

“And the business of history is an important thing, but essentially it’s furniture.”--Spicer, Vancouver Lecture 1

“That’s one of the advantages of the tight rhyme structure- that it keeps you out of it. But, on the other hand, you don’t put on a straightjacket in order to not pick your nose.”--Jack Spicer, Vancouver Lecture 1

“I don’t know if it’s tragic or not, but I just know that you better make certain that you don’t get in on the things unless you really want to pay the price for them.”—Spicer, Vancouver Lecture 3

“Your enemy is simply something which is going to try and stop you from writing poetry.” Spicer, Lecture 4

I found a bean pod that was all curled up and wore it as a bracelet:

Don't Dub Over the Experience Press

So, I'm really pleased to let you know that my new chapbook is available from Brave Men Press. It has a beautiful letter pressed cover:

The poems in For the H in Ghost represent what I've been working on over the last year, so if your "in the mood," please consider buying a copy. Click here.

If you buy your mom a copy of this chapbook for the holidays as well as a Snuggie, you'll cover all your bases.

Is Your Oven Your Only Heat Source? Press

I'm back in Denver, it's snowing! It was awesome to hang out in Cambridge for a while with friends I've known for 15 years, but it feels good to be home again. We have not had proper heating in our apartment so the oven has been on (350 degrees) and I've been wrapped in blankets. Today the electrician/handyman is installing our own heat source, so I'm excited. Heat, heat!

I've been reading Anne Carson's translations of Sappho's poetry. She uses single brackets to indicate that a line is missing the beginning, so I'll use the bracket as well, and show you some of my favorite fragments:

…smiled in your deathless face
and asked what (now again) I have suffered and why
(now again) I am calling out

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to shine in answer
] face
]
]having been stained

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Some men say an army of horse and some men say an army on foot and some men say an army of ships is the most beautiful thing on this black earth. But I say it is/ what you love.

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the one with violets in her lap
]mostly
]goes astray

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]you, I want
]to suffer
]in myself I am
aware of this

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you will go your way among dim shapes. Having been breathed out.

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]rumor
]hair
]at the same time
]man


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3 photos of my whiskey glass:

We Clamor We Like The Sound Of It Press

Some photos of my friend's kitchen:







Some photos from a Russian children's book:





I took a shower here:

I wore Ray Bans here: