Nagisa Ni Te

nagisa ni te musica japonica

Live in the Human Future

I've been in Jersey for the last 3 & half days. The bus ride back took forever, but it's nice to back & see so many people walking or biking-- as opposed to, the car culture of once-rural-now-suburban-South Jersey. I came home to the new ish of Crazyhorse (featuring a Michele Glazer poem!) and picked up Wong Kar-wai by Peter Brunette from the library, as well as, take-out from Lahore.

I left my radiator open while I was away and now the apartment is a sweat box. Ugh.

Here's some interesting info on BAP (Best American Poetry). What's really surprising is the ratio of women to men featured in the entire series. David Lehman seems to be rather "forward-thinking" so the number, or lack thereof, is plain unsettling.

2008 is almost gone. Will you miss it? I feel conflicted about the whole year. I've been lucky to have some editors publish (or accept) my poems, & belong to the Coldfront Crew, as well as, the No Tells collective, & as Ferlinghetti once wrote, "I've lain with beauty," plus I started teaching (which was the main goal of getting my MFA) & I moved to Chinatown which I love. I also witnessed the historical moment of Obama being elected as President. Yet, I remain skeptical of politics & life in general & in specific. More than anything, I'm exhausted & feel like I prolly regressed emotionally- which is disappointing. Been thinking a lot this year of individual responsibility to self & social responsibility to "others," especially the others we consider to be "close" and "dear" & well I have a lot of work to do in both regards; 'tis a heavy tiring load this thing of living. sigh &/or y-a-w-n

Anyway, yadda yadda ya... how was your year? Shits & giggles? Verse & boo-yas? Slinky songs & long arms? Smooth jumpers & fresh kicks? Do tell, do tell!

While I was away I mostly read jubilat, issue 15. There's an interview with the philospher Richard Rorty. Not everything completely jived with me, although I'll admit I know almost nothing of his work so don't have the proper background to orientate some of his comments & as a good friend is apt to remind-- my education is "spotty at best," but if you want to talk a little Whitman then I'm all ears. Below is the question/answer, which I think is a good note to end this post on... oh that & buy the issue 'cause it's pretty good.

I wanted to ask you about Whitman. You link Whitman and Lincoln a lot. What role do you think Whitman played in the American consciousness?

One thing Whitman did was simply to write poems about Lincoln. "O Captain! My Captain!" "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"-- these poems were very widely known. When I was a kid in elementary school, we had to recite, "O Captain! My Captain!" and that was eighty years after Lincoln's death. Just helping to fix Lincoln in the popular imagination through poetry was one thing that Whitman did, but the other thing was to write things like "Democratic Vistas," which said that the spirit of Lincoln is the true spirit of the country, that the hopefulness that Lincoln showed is the hope that can change the world. That we are naturally the place where the world will come to learn what it is to live in the human future. Just this inspirational, entirely secular rhetoric was very important, because it was at a level of exultation that had been met only by religious rhetoric. Whitman put it into secular poetry.

Stereolab - Cybele's Reverie

Xmas, it is

Wooden Shjips - Dance, California

uh-huh!

Terrastock 7 - BARDO POND

Jethro Tull it aint

Fa ya eyes

New Issue of At-Large Magazine

Worst poetry book covers here

Such An Icy Octave

The weather is rather cold today. While waiting to cross the street an image of a girl occurred to me. It was a Saturday night (late) and while she was attempting to a hail a cab uptown I held her shivering in my arms. Then two days later I saw her and she was sassin' me because the weather was in the 60s and I was uncomfortably over-dressed. Now silence and absence. I like to think of these two incidents as happening in separate seasons. Feels better that way, despite it being fictitious-- I'm tired of being disappointed in people. Which doesn't mean you won't be disappointed in me-- that's a rewrite only worthy of Proust's talents.

Speaking of novels, I finished B: A Novel by Jonathan Baumbach today. It's a fragmented story of a writer/academic who, suprise, is inept at relationships. Yeah we've all read this novel before... and yet I still enjoyed it.

Speaking of reading here's three new issues of poetry for you to feast on:

Anti-
Harp & Altar
The Cortland Review

Mojave 3 - Love Songs On The Radio

Slowdive - Souvlaki Space Station live Toronto 1994

I remember seeing Slowdive on this tour. It was the first time I'd been to Maxwells in Hoboken.

Last Day at last at last at last

I turned in my LaGuardia grades on Wednesday and handed in all my paperwork yesterday plus picked up my desk copy for Eng 102 so I'm completely done with Long Island City. Today is my last day at College of Staten Island. A few office visits and a half an hour to collect final papers. I'll submit grades on Monday then take a nice long break from ferry rides!

The timing couldn't be better as I have a ridiculous amount of reading piling up:

Barrow Street 10th Anniversary
Jubilat issue 15
Crayon Number 5 (which is massive & I've only read the Sawako piece)
Poets & Writers Jan/Feb 09 (but I don't read this cover to cover)
The Voyeur, a short story by Nicolette Wong
from Unincorporated Territory, by Craig Santos Perez

& then this is what I picked up from the library

B, a novel, by Jonathan Baumbach
Wake- Up Calls, 66 Morning poems by Wanda Phipps
The House that Jack Built, The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer (I've been waiting over 6mths for this to come in)
The Bubble of American Supremacy, correcting the misuse of American power, by George Soros
Collected Books of Jack Spicer
Selected poems 1958-1984, by John Weiners

I've read a bunch of Spicer so I won't read the collected books from cover to cover & I've read very little of Weiners' work so I'll randomly flip through this book to see if anything grabs me. If there is a better single volume book by Weiners that I should read, please let me know. I'll read the morning poems in the morning & the novel will be my train, ferry, & before bed book.

Reviews, Reviews, Reviews

The new issue of Galatea Resurrection is up. I have two reviews in it & there are a ton of reviews that I'm looking forward to reading. Check it out.

http://galatearesurrection11.blogspot.com

ISSUE NO. 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS
December 17, 2008


EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION
By Eileen Tabios


NEW REVIEWS
Michael Caylo-Baradi Reviews SHORT MOVIES by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen and Márton Koppány

Rachel Daley Reviews ZONE : ZERO by Stephanie Strickland

John Olson Reviews SCAFFOLD by Joel Chace

Eric Gelsinger Reviews SO THAT EVEN by Tawrin Baker

Kristina Marie Darling Reviews TORQUES: DRAFTS 58-76 by Rachel Blau DuPlessis

Denise Dooley Reviews THE SENSORY CABINET by Mark DuCharme

John Cunningham Reviews CAUGHT BY THE TAIL: FRANCIS PICABIA AND DADA IN PARIS by George Baker and I AM A BEAUTIFUL MONSTER: POETRY, PROSE AND PROVOCATIONS by Francis Picabia, translated by Marc Lowenthal

Eileen Tabios Engages DEMENTIA BLOG by Susan M. Schultz

Pamela Hart Reviews THIS IS WHY I HURT YOU by Kate Greenstreet

Jon Curley Reviews A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO MOUNTAIN CLIMBING by Jane Augustine

Karen An-Hwei Lee Reviews MENTAL COMMITMENT ROBOTS by Sueyeun Juliette Lee

Tom Beckett Reviews SUBSISTENCE EQUIPMENT by Brenda Iijima

Lisa Bower Reviews TRADING IN MERMAIDS by Alfred A. Yuson

Thomas Fink Reviews PARSINGS by Sheila E. Murphy

Michael Caylo-Baradi Reviews PERSUASIONS OF FALL by Ann Lauinger

Tom Beckett Reviews STRING PARADE by Jordan Stempleman

Karen Rigby Reviews THEORIES OF FALLING by Sandra Beasley

Wendy Lynn Cohen Reviews THE GREAT WHIRL OF EXILE by Leroy V. Quintana

James Stotts Reviews ITERATURE by Eugene Ostashevsky

Tom Beckett Reviews YOUR TEN FAVORITE WORDS by Reb Livingston

John Cunningham Reviews BLANK VERSE: A GUIDE TO ITS HISTORY AND USE by Robert B. Shaw

Elizabeth Kate Switaj Reviews IN NO ONE'S LAND by Paige Ackerson-Kiely

Wendy Lynn Cohen Reviews POLYVERSE by Lee Ann Brown

Eric Gelsinger Reviews OPEN NIGHT by Aaron Lowinger

John Bloomberg-Rissman Reviews ANIMATE, INANIMATE AIMS by Brenda Iijima
Another view

Eileen Tabios Engages HALLUCINATING CALIFORNIA by Richard Lopez and Jonathan Hayes

Emily Schorr Lesnick Reviews ARDOR by Karen An-Hwei Lee

Linda Rodriguez Reviews ROUNDING THE HUMAN by Linda Hogan

Helen Losse Reviews AFTER THE POISON by Collin Kelley (1)

Sam Rasnake Reviews AFTER THE POISON by Collin Kelley (2)

Robert E. Wood Reviews AFTER THE POISON by Collin Kelley (3)

James Stotts Reviews IN COMPANY: AN ANTHOLOGY OF NEW MEXICO POETS AFTER 1960, Edited by Lee Bartlett, V.B. Price and Dianne Edenfield Edwards

Denise Dooley Reviews UNBECOMING BEHAVIOR by Kate Colby

Tom Beckett Reviews WORLD0 and NO SOUNDS OF MY OWN MAKING, both by John Bloomberg-Rissman

Michael Caylo-Baradi Reviews THE SINGERS by Logan Ryan Smith

Wendy Lynn Cohen Reviews HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORDS by Joan Retallack

Lars Palm Reviews PLAYING THE AMPLITUDES by Christopher Rizzo

Karen An-Hwei Lee Reviews BOX OF LIGHT / CAJA DE LUZ by Susan Gardner

Jeff Harrison Reviews WALDEN BOOK by Allen Bramhall

Fiona Sze-Lorrain Reviews BONE PAGODA by Susan Tichy

John Bloomberg-Rissman Reviews ISSUE 1, Edited by Stephen McLaughlin and Jim Carpenter

Fiona Sze-Lorrain Reviews WOMEN POETS ON MENTORSHIP: EFFORTS & AFFECTIONS, Edited by Arielle Greenberg & Rachel Zucker

Eileen Tabios Engages TORCHWOOD by Jill Magi

Karen An-Hwei Lee Reviews SHADOW MOUNTAIN by Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan

Patrick James Dunagan Reviews GLAD STONE CHILDREN by Edmund Berrigan and DRUNK BY NOON by Jennifer L. Knox

Fiona Sze-Lorrain Reviews SAVAGE MACHINERY by Karen Rigby

Patrick James Dunagan Reviews ALL THAT'S LEFT by Jack Hirschman and ONE OF A KIND by Jack Micheline

Adam Halbur Reviews EYE-SENSING by David Jaffin

Steven Karl Reviews STATE OF THE UNION--50 POLITICAL POEMS, Edited by Joshua Beckman & Matthew Zapruder

Eileen Tabios Engages RED by Marilyn R. Rosenberg

Brett Duchon Reviews PRAU by Jean Vengua

Wendy Lynn Cohen Reviews LOUISE IN LOVE by Mary Jo Bang

Steven Karl Reviews SHY GREEN FIELDS by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

Nathan Logan Reviews THE ROMANCE OF HAPPY WORKERS by Anne Boyer

Patria Rivera Reviews FIELD OF MIRRORS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PHILIPPINE AMERICAN WRITERS, Edited by Edwin Lozada

Brett Duchon Reviews COMPLICATIONS by Garrett Caples

Linda Nguyen Reviews BRIDGEABLE SHORES: SELECTED POEMS (1969-2001) by Luis Cabalquinto

Linda Rodriguez Reviews THE PORTABLE FAMINE by Rane Arroyo

Reed Boskey Reviews WHAT THE FORTUNE TELLER DIDN'T SAY by Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Rebecca Holohan Reviews THE SPLINTERED FACE: TSUNAMI POEMS by Indran Amirthanayagam

Katherine Levy Reviews KALI'S BLADE by Michelle Bautista

Monna Wong Reviews MUSEUM OF ABSENCES by Luis H. Francia

Aileen Ibardaloza Engages PINOY POETICS: A COLLECTION OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL ESSAYS ON FILIPINO AND FILIPINO-AMERICAN POETICS, Edited by Nick Carbo and POEMCRAZY: FREEING YOUR LIFE WITH WORDS by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge

Aileen Ibardaloza Reviews PASSAGE: POEMS 1933-2006 by Edgar B. Maranan

Eric Gelsinger Reviews WHEN I COME HERE by Ryan Eckes

Nathan Logan Reviews ON THE FLY by Amy King

Aileen Ibardaloza Engages BARING MORE THAN SOUL by Reme A. Grefalda


THE CRITIC WRITES POEMS
Michael Caylo-Baradi


IN THE PHILIPPINES: “POETRY ALLERGIC TO THE PURELY VERBAL”
A PREFACE: Angelo Suarez engages with the works of Philippines-based poet-artists Bea Camacho, Costantino Zicarelli, Buen Calubayan and Cesare A.X. Syjuco

Angelo Suarez on THE POETICS OF INTERMEDIA: Bea Camacho’s Eulogy to Art

Angelo Suarez on A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS MORON: Constantino Zicarelli and Buen Calubayan

Angelo Suarez on CESARE A.X. SYJUCO AND THE NEW FORMALISM


FROM OFFLINE TO ONLINE: REPRINTED REVIEWS
Allen Gaborro Reviews DOVEGLION: COLLECTED POEMS by JOSE GARCIA VILLA, Ed. John Edwin Cowen

Patrick James Dunagan Reviews EVANGELINE DOWNS by Micah Ballard


ADVERTISEMENT
Tiny Poetry Books Feeding the World…Literally!


BACK COVER
A German Shepherd Most Assuredly Shall Grace the White House Lawn

Spiritualized - Stop your Crying

if i could take it on myself

Spacemen 3 -

and I'm tired soooo tired

Taken By Trees - Tell Me

Tell me when the snow has gone its way... this song came on and then I looked out the bus window and there it was- fat flakes falling all over Staten Island.

Luckily while enjoying the nice weather yesterday, M.V. told me it was going to rain and snow today. For once I was prepared.

Gots Love on Barrow Street

Taking a look at the contributors (including myself) in the latest ish of Barrow Street (10th Anniversary Issue) I couldn't help but think of the few degrees of separation such as Jackson Taylor who was my immediate boss while working at The New School and Teachers & Writers' Collaborative. Myself, Jared, and Adam, wrote a grant loosely based on the pedagogy of Marie Ponsot, then there's David Lehman who was my thesis adviser, Peter Moore, a former NS classmate of mine, Evan Glasson who came to my apartment a couple years back to look at a room for rent (he's rumored to have a nice jump shot too), the lovely Sharon Mesmer who I've known for a little while now, Mark Bibbins (who's classes and parties are the stuff of legends) and lastly, LIT co-hort, Nicole Steinberg. I think this is the third journal that Nicole and I have appeared in together... who's stalking who? Or maybe we both just have exquisite taste... nah words stalking words sounds much more sexy. Did I just use the word "sexy?" Yeah Saturday irony rules!

How will the man from Dream City keep it real?

Being multi-ethnic you know I'm drawn to discourse about ethnically or "racially" constructed identity and multiplicities there of. The other day a girl attempted to make me feel silly for admitting that I liked a writer as "pop" by which I take to mean, successful and known both in popular culture as well as literary circles, as Zadie Smith. Naturally, I remained unfettered, but as I post this lecture from a recent NYPL evening I am all grins.
Thanks to James Vincente for making me aware of this link.

http://blogs.wnyc.org/culture/2008/12/06/speaking-in-tongues-live-at-the-nypl/

The Viewing of the Reviews

Announcing: The Home Video Review of Books: Vol 1, Issue 2

http://thehomevideoreviewofbooks.blogspot.com/

The Home Video Review of Books is a monthly online review journal of
poetry & lyric prose.

In this issue you will find reviews of:

Gina Myers' Behind the R
Kim Hyesoon's Mommy Must Be a Fountain of Feathers
Lisa Jarnot's Night Scenes
Dan Machlin's Dear Body
Brett Price's Trouble with Mapping
John Taggart's There are Birds
Ara Shirinyan's Your Country Is Great
Brandon Shimoda's The Alps
Joel Chace's Matter No Matter
Jon Godfrey's City of Corners
Jen Tynes's Heron / Girlfriend
Anne Heide's Wiving
Anne Boyer's Art is War
Darcie Dennigan's Corinna A-Maying the Apocalypse
Allison Carter's Shadows are Weather
Mark Cunningham's Body Language

To submit a book for review send review copies to:

HVRB
c/o Julia Cohen & Mathias Svalina
505 62nd St, #C2
Brooklyn, NY 11220
Editors:
Julia Cohen & Mathias Svalina

Staff Reviewers:
Zachary Schomburg, Daniela Gesundheit, Dan Goldman, Stephanie Sherman,
Ken Rumble, Jon Pack, Jayna Maleri

The Home Video Review of Books
505 62nd St, C2
Brooklyn, NY 11220

Contact:
julesycohen@gmail.com & mathias.svalina@gmail.com
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I also found two reviews that I had written quite sometime ago for a couple of Dusie e-chaps, so I figured I'd just post them here, after all what are blogs for?

A Book of Days, Pt 1: Sorcery. February 1-May 31, 2007 by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

Dusie Press, 2007

To Put it One Way or Another

Hugh Behm-Steinberg’s Book of Days is a life project-- every ten years ten-line prose poems are written each day with two-inch margins for a complete year. Sorcery is the second installment of this ambitious and ultimately rewarding project. Behm-Steinberg navigates a territory somewhere between John Ashbery and David Lehman while carving out a space that is uniquely his own.

In Ashbery’s 3 Poems he writes, “ I thought that if I could put it all down, that would be one way. And next the thought came to me that to leave all out would be another, and truer way…” Sorcery operates on the impetus of trying to “put it all down” and also trying to “leave it all out.” In fact, the magic implicit in this work does both— pulls rabbits out of hats and disappears completely. Behm-Steinberg’s key is his ability to play on the tension of inclusion/exclusion like Miles Davis and John Coltrane trading solos. On April 20th we find the poet meditating about the sky, “There’s nothing wrong with/ writing about the sky, the/ sky could care less, its/ feelings are weather/ patterns, that zephyr when/ you’re happy, the patterns/ bend macroscopically. The/ accumulation is undec-/ tably vast, so much impli-/cation, so little time be-/tween now and the next / election cycle, so much/ work and so much sky,/ clouds and vapor trails…/"

or on April 1,

“Worry is a thing and an act./ As a thing it’s a creature,/ and you become encrea-/tured, when it sniffs you,/ when it flirts. That’s quick, / are you quick, and not/ good, are you good?/" His poems cover an amazing amount of ground for such meager space. He begins thinking about the sky but then wonders about the election— slyly moving the poem from the ethereal to the human or as in April 1, he begins with an emotional state but uses his wit to both amuse and banter.

Since there is a poem for each day and the book so format-driven it’s hard not to compare it to David Lehman’s The Evening Sun and Daily Mirror. On February 23, Behm-Steinberg writers, “ I come home and find out/ my brother has left his/ wife, so I can’t sleep. I/ read about Peruvian restau-/rants in Queens… /" or on February 25, “There was a good son and / there was a bad son and I/ want to be the bad son:/ when the phone rings I/ want to be the bad son:/"

The book is broken into three sections, Our Virginities, Heaven, and Raiment. The underpinning of this book is a spiritual crisis, a rumination of evil versus good, the otherworldly colliding with the daily everydayness of life. Behm-Steinberg’s form is the true genius of the book because it allows the poems only so far to meander before they are roped in or just end, which is again a way of leaving it out. One hopes that Hugh Behm-Steinberg lives a long and productive life so that every decade we can eagerly look forward to a new installment of his Book of Days.
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a gunless tea by Marco Giovenale

Dusie 2007

Loud there loud there Lou

This is a curious book that arrived enshrouded in mystery. I received a notice from the post office saying I had a package that required a signature. I had assumed it was my MFA degree so when I finally made it to there and was handed a little manila envelope from Italy I was completely bemused. As I footed it home, the sky losing last light and the tree leaves forming soft shadows I opened the envelope to find a letter and a Dusie Chapbook. Something got in the way, maybe it was dinner, maybe it was drinks, maybe it was a succession of days followed by the routine of work but somehow the chapbook got lost and forgotten and then found again months later in between a stack of New York Quarterlies, Barrow Streets, and some rejection notices. Ah, what a lovely surprise it was to find this chapbook again.

Sawako Nakayasu's chapbooks are focused on insects— mostly ants, Hugh Behm-Steinberg’s poems are written daily, and Almeder Logan’s an exploration of names so Marco Giovenale’s book fits this Dusie mold since it is a collection of cut-ups and google experiments from 2003 to 2007. As any reader/writer knows cut-ups and experiments always run the risk of feeling contrived or nonsense for nonsense sake so the real skill is in the organization. And how does Maestro Marco do?

Marco Giovenale’s poems succeed because they feel real and not pieced together. “ : not so sure: night came and went: twentieth day: / : the oil with the spider apple toasted the crescent dragonwagon :take a walk/ outside and see: they’ll verify: mango shave so intricately woven : with bloody/ nazi hybrids: small cookie:” This is from his poem Naïve Oven and “spider apple toasted the crescent dragonwagon” could almost pass for Joseph Cervelo. Although this collage is nonsensical its arranged in a way where it feels emotive, Giovenale clever enough to put in a directive “take a walk” orienting us to focus on an exterior, on a form of action.

This chapbook is packed with humor sometimes overt and other times perverse and political. The underlying politics: “nazi hybrids,” “countries joined in marriage,” “the bodies beneath the barbecue,” give the book an ominous weight, but they are tempered with laugh lines like, “love is the answer. while you’re waiting for the answer. sex.” It’s difficult to tell whether some of the poems go on for pages or if this collection contains a lot of untitled poems and that’s the risk a book like this runs. Since it’s cut-ups or experiments one has to work at orientating the speaker or even the poem, but I suspect that is exactly the ambition of Marco Giovenale. He wants to force us to read the words and not be completely preoccupied with beginnings and endings and to be fair, this book contains enough of what Donald Hall would call "mouth music" that after a few pages you’re simply enjoying the act of reading and imagining some of the more surreal word pairings. I found things like, “ drunk at lunch. cream scene. crowds of crows. pilot light, / lizard’s christmas jazz carols,” and “loud there loud there lou” to be irresistible and don’t we all want our words to be irresistible?

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Right, this is why I don't post reviews on my blog, I can't figure out the spacing format so they look silly.

Oh well, maybe it will at least give you a taste. You can go to Dusie's site to check out both chapbooks.

Bum Rush The Show

Join us for a special WoM event!

Word of Mouth
December 11th at 7pm
@ Bluestockings Radical Books
172 Allen St. (Between Stanton and Rivington)

Readers will be:

Jackie Clark (poetry)
Alana Joblin (poetry)
Brooke Shaffner (non-fiction)
Tara Betts (poetry)

Visit www.megpunschke.com/wordofmouth.html for a complete list of events.

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EARSHOT!

Friday, December 12th @ 8 PM
Rose Live Music, 345 Grand Street
Hosted by Nicole Steinberg

Featuring:
The ONE O'CLOCK POETS (This Full Green Hour)
Guillermo Castro, Amy Lemmon, Katrinka Moore, Joan Lauri Poole, Elizabeth Poreba, and Sarah Stern
Tennessee Jones (Hunter College)
Michelle Brule (Brooklyn College)
Marina Kaganova (Columbia University)

Rose Live Music is located at 345 Grand Street in Brooklyn, between Havemeyer and Marcy. Visit their website for directions: http://liveatrose.com/.

EARSHOT is a bi-monthly reading series, dedicated to featuring new and emerging literary talent in the NYC area. Visit http://www.earshotnyc.com for more information or e-mail Nicoleearshotnyc@gmail.com.

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more nicole:

Upstairs at Erika's Literary Salon

Saturday, December 13th at 7:30 PM

Featuring Joanna Cooper, Tim Stark, and Nicole Steinberg

Hosted by Erika Lutzner and Kate Hall

85-101 North 3rd Street, Apt. 508
b/w Wythe and Berry

Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Closest trains: L to Bedford, G to Nassau

$4 donation includes food + drink

This will be a special event as it will also be a holiday party: food, libations, music, and some good, old-fashioned poetry, prose, and non-fiction.

Joanna Cooper holds a PhD from Temple University and teaches literature and writing at Fordham University. Her work has appeared in the Cortland Review and Pleiades, and she has a poetry chapbook entitled The Crocodile Lady and Other Poems. Joanna is currently working on a book-length poetry manuscript, tentatively titled "How We Were Strangers."

Tim Stark is the proprietor of Eckerton Hill Farm in Lenhartsville, PA. His writing has appeared on National Public Radio as well as Gourmet, Condé Nast Traveler, Washington Post, Missouri Review, Alimentum, and Organic Gardening. Tim and his farm have been profiled on National Public Radio. He read at the first salon here at Erika's loft. He is an amazing farmer, writer, and friend. His book Heirloom: Notes from an Accidental Tomato Farmer is awesome and available everywhere. If you have ever been to Erika's house in the early fall, you've had his tomatoes, and Erika will make something for the party with some of his chili's.

Nicole Steinberg is co-editor of LIT and a contributing editor to BOMB. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Barrow Street, RealPoetik, Coconut, No Tell Motel, Eleven Eleven, Barrelhouse, Spooky Boyfriend, and elsewhere. She hosts and curates EARSHOT, a reading series dedicated to emerging writers of all genres (http://earshotnyc.com) and lives in Queens, NY.

There will also be an amazing musician and an open mike. Please bring something to read for the open mike - three minutes maximum!

No spikey shoes please, Erika's floors are too old...

Potluck welcome in lieu of the four dollar donation.
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Darling,

It occurs to me as I rediscover all these tiny, burning altars of our love that never were they paper-made. Never were they ash-born, nor have they blown into every hungry wild eye to seed. I rediscover them, relics of these months we've spent together in my home, and although I remain devoted to you love, I hope that you will pen this letter, or one of your own, light a match and set it free. I want us all to experience a new love, this Saturday, to walk in off of the cold streets, bleary-eyed and starving, unsure of how we got here, ready hold to so many strange and unfamiliar faces, with our words, like a hand.

Soon to pen and set on fire,

Madame

The Poetry Brothel

Saturday, December 13th

9pm-2am

The Zipper Factory

336 W. 37th St. (btwn 8th and 9th Ave.)

$15 admission (includes a free drink and one private reading with your very own poetry whore!)

Featured Reader: Patricia Smith

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How about a some sommer (browning) for your winter? Musically speaking, that is:

Hello Friends!

I am playing music this Sunday with Sportsman's Paradise!

A seven-man-and-woman-strong army of guitarists will generate a
forty-minute-long blast of psychedelic blissout mash-up with Tibetan
bell interludes.

There will also be four screens of hypnotic and luminescent video
accompaniment.

How does that sound?


It's free (except it's not. You have to buy $10 in food/drink. They
have good burgers.)

It will be loud.

Monkeytown
58 N 3rd St
(btw. Kent & Wythe)
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Sunday, December 14, 8pm

http://monkeytownhq.com/monkeytownhome.html

I like Monkeytown and will make a huge effort to check this out.

We put our peaches where they had to go

One of the best feelings is finding out you don't have to teach on a day you thought you had to teach- in other words, no Staten Island Ferry for me on Friday.
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Yesterday I had to do cross-exam-grading. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but definitely happy to be through with it.

Right before I left yesterday I stopped at a bench in the hallway to make a call. As I was on the phone a student passed by me and smiled. Then she said I was "cute." This was unexpected so I said nothing. She laughed and walked away (slowly). I thought maybe it was a joke, but I didn't see anyone else around, as yesterday the school was pretty empty except for evening students who had finals during the day. Weird. I was seriously rocking some corny, boring, black, teacher pants and need a haircut....
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I recently watched the French film, Elevator to the Gallows (1957) and I'm thinking about seeing Tell No One. Has anyone seen it?
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This week is the final Word of Mouth of 2008. I'll post details tomorrow. I also have a friend's bday party. Then holiday parties on Friday and Saturday night. Hopefully I'll get my haircut on Sunday.
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Today, I received an unexpected text declaring love for a particular poem I wrote. That was sweet and made my day!
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I'm eating Tempting Trail Mix from Trader Joes, ever have it? I recommend it. Tonight I think I'm making gnocchi with mushrooms, carmelised onions (sauteed if I get impatient), fresh salted tomatoes, black olives, and arugula in a cream sauce. I'll have to make it soon, before I lose motivation.

Loneliness, such a sad affair

GlitterPony Issue #6 is up. Julia Cohen, Elizabeth Lenson, Shane Jones, Mathias Svalina, Ari Feld, Donald Dunbar, Lisa Ciccarello, and Seth Parker.
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sawbuck 2.4 is here to warm you up with the fiery poetry of all these good people:

{Ewa Chrusciel} {Melissa Culbertson} {Mark Cunningham}

{Glenn R. Frantz} {James Grinwis} {Eli Halpern}

{Sean Patrick Hill} {Melissa Severin}

{Paige Taggart} {John Woodward}

hope to see you there.

& as always, we are reading for future issues, so send us your poems!

~samuel wharton, editor
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[Realpoetik] Thanh Tam Tuyen, translated by Linh Dinh

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failbetter
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Shampoo Issue 34
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Trickhouse vol. 3 – Winter 2008

visual artist: Eric Baden
writers: Brenda Iijima, Rebecca Brown, Michelle Naka Pierce
guest curator: Miriam Kathrein
sound: Andrew Klobucar
video: Abigail Child
correspondent: Erik Anderson
interview: Mathias Svalina with Shelton Walsmith
experiment: Denise Uyegara with Natalie Nguyen
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missed Eric Baus' reading on Friday? Head over here to check it out.

Pink Floyd With Syd Barrett - Interstellar Overdrive-Part 2

Pink Floyd With Syd Barrett - Interstellar Overdrive-Part 1

Pink Floyd - See Emily Play

Baus in the house

Eric Baus is the author of The To Sound (Wave Books) and Tuned Droves (Octopus Books). He edits Minus House chapbooks and writes about poetry audio recordings on the site To The Sound. He lives in Denver.

Adam Chiles' first book Evening Land was published this year by Cinnamon Press in the UK. His work has appeared in Best New Poets 2006, Indiana Review, Painted Bride Quarterly, Gulf Coast, Free Verse and others. He currently teaches English and Creative Writing at Northern Virginia Community College.

Mark Horosky was born in the 1970's and raised in New Haven, CT. He was educated at Southern CT State University (BA), University of Arizona (MFA), and Pace University (Masters of Science in Teaching). He is a Special Education Instructor in Brooklyn. His writing has appeared recently in Cue and Tight magazines. His new chapbook is out: Let It Be Nearby (with artwork by Amie Robinson; Cue Editions). He lives in Brooklyn with Miriam and Lucas.
Miriam Benatti lives and works as a licensed massage therapist in New York City. In between changing diapers, rubbing bodies, and cooking cutlets, she's currently working on a chapbook of poems called Open Your Mouth.

Only at Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(718) 302-3770

"L" to Lorimer, "G" to Metropolitan.

FREE!
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21st annual indie/small press book fair featuring Marsh Hawk Press, Black Ocean, and Ugly Duckling:

SATURDAY, December 6, 2008 10 am to 6 pm
SUNDAY, December 7, 2008 11 am to 5 pm Free Admission

The New York Center for Independent Publishing
20 West 44th Street (5/6) New York City
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Polestar Numero Cinco

Sunday, December 7, 2008
5 pm

Eve Grubin.
Cate Marvin.
Kathleen Ossip.

Downstairs at CAKESHOP
152 Ludlow (between Stanton & Rivington)

Trains to:
Delancey-Essex Sts (F, J, M, Z)
2nd Ave-Houston St (F, V)
Grand St (B, D)

About the Poets!

Eve Grubin's book of poems, Morning Prayer, was published by the Sheep Meadow Press. Her essay "After Eden: The Veil as a Conduit to the Internal" appeared in The Veil: Women Writers on Its History, Lore, and Politics (U of CA Press, 2008). Her poems have been published in the American Poetry Review, The New Republic, The New York Sun, Barrow Street, and many other journals and magazines. A chapbook size group of poems appeared in Conjunctions with an introduction to her work by Fanny Howe. She teaches at The New School and the City College of New York, and she runs the Arts Fellowships Program at the Drisha Institute for Jewish Education. She is a doctoral candiate in English Literature at CUNY, a senior editor at Lyric Poetry Review, and she publishes her essays in The Forward, nextbook.org, modestlyyours.net, and elsewhere.

Cate Marvin's first book, World's Tallest Disaster, was chosen by Robert Pinksy for the 2000 Kathryn A. Morton Prize and published by Sarabande Books in 2001. In 2002, she received the Kate Tufts Discovery Prize. Her poems have appeared in The New England Review, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Fence, The Paris Review, The Cincinnati Review, Slate, Verse, Boston Review, and Ninth Letter. She is co-editor with poet Michael Dumanis of the anthology Legitimate Dangers: Poets of the New Century (Sarabande Books, 2006). Her second book of poems, Fragment of the Head of a Queen was published by Sarabande in August 2007. A recent Whiting Award recipient and 2007 NYFA Gregory Millard Fellow, she teaches poetry writing in Lesley University's Low-Residency MFA Program and is an associate professor in creative writing at the College of Staten Island.

Kathleen Ossip is the author of The Search Engine and of Cinephrastics, a chapbook of movie poems. Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, Paris Review, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review, the Washington Post, Fence, and Poetry Review (London). She teaches at The New School, where she serves as an Editor at Large for LIT, and she is the Poetry Editor of Women's Studies Quarterly. She has received = a fellowship in poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Gift Hunting?

My friend, Mina, has updated her jewelry website, Neology by Mina, just in time for the holidays so if you're looking for a present for that cute girl (friend) or yourself check out her line here.

Children Amassed

A new week already! Last week started out rather busy with a potluck on Tuesday then Thanksgiving on Thursday, but I hardly managed to leave the house on Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday. I had and still have a ton of grading to do as my three classes are winding down.

Sunday, I finally left the apartment to see my friend, J.Mae, play violin at Carnegie Hall. This was the program:

New England Symphonic Ensemble

Stern Auditorium, Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 8:30 PM

Program Details

New England Symphonic Ensemble
John Rutter, Conductor
Alexandra Costin, Piano
With participating choruses

GRIEG	Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 16
JOHN RUTTER	Mass of the Children

It was pretty good and I surprised myself by really getting into Mass of the Children. There's something about so many voices joined in chorus.
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This week will be busy with work and then towards the end of the week there's the usual engagements of birthdays, dinners, etc. I think the Small Press Fair is in town this weekend? I'll look into it and post a blog later this week with details. I'm sure there are readings happening this week, but for the life of me I can't think where or when they are.