Mouth: Eats Color - Sagawa Chika Translations, Anti-Translations, and Originals

Is now available for purchase here (http://tinyurl.com/7t4muoc), as the inaugural publication of Rogue Factorial. The webpage link is here: http://www.sawakonakayasu.net/mec/ -
Mouth: Eats Color is a brilliant infra-textual work, brainchild of the bi-cultural poet/translator Sawako Nakayasu. The collection provokes, expands, and disavows the parameters of language and person and tradition, to forge a beautiful weave of performance and interrogation. This is a project of multilingual wit and passion, echo upon echo upon echo…..
------Anne Waldman

You will not read this book. Your mouth is full of birds, believe me. Their song is vulgar, coarse and that’s not their natural coloring. Or you either for that matter. If a translator is not polite, what good is she, if she asks what it matters who is speaking?
------Steve Dolph

Glorious transgressive inventivity of permutation! Reveling glissement, poem into poem---it’s really a single poem, it’s the single poem that realizes the dream in which there is no “original”---which implicitly asks, then, what a poem is: a burst of moving words, words moved, like the reader is, deeply. The glass, the gloves, the sun pouring down. The reader is mostly the sun pouring down. The text.
------Cole Swensen

Don't ever let anyone tell you that literature exists for the sake of truth: rather, it exists to create better and more beautiful lies, and to enshrine like insects frozen in crystal the gorgeous and inventive asymmetry of mistakes. In this rigorously irreverent book, Sawayaka not only accepts the fact that every translation is "always already" [sorry] a mistranslation, but capitalizes on it, romping, torquing, messing up, re-galvanizing. A tour de force!
------Nada Gordon

Great interview

Conducting by Thomas Fink and directed to the wonderful Sawako Nakayasu. Check it out here.

Sawako, J.Mae, Rob, & Chris Enter A Room & Awe Begans

I had an idea, probably three years or so ago when I curated the Teachers & Writers reading series to have Sawako as a reader. She was never able to make it from the West Coast to NYC. Emails, postal mail, & friendship continued. Last year she was going to be at AWP, but again the traveling, the distance, proved not so. So when I found out she would be in New York briefly (2-3 days) I immediately set about to schedule a reading. I also wanted J.Mae Barizo & Chris Martin to read with Sawako. Mae & her husband generously offered the use of their beautiful apartment which made the reading much more intimate and cozy-- it also helped with the little ones (Marina & Ada) as bars tend to not be the most baby-friendly.

Chris Martin read first, delighting us with new poems which he referred to as "hymns." He finished off his reading with an acapella rap. Yep, dope.

J.Mae Barizo read her poems to the accompaniment of musician Rob Moose's( Anthony & the Johnsons) guitar. The music & poems fit perfectly & everyone seemed transfixed including Anne Carson- who was kind enough to stop by & support poetry & music & her fellow Canadian (J.Mae).

Sawako Nakayasu closed out the evening. It was my intention to get her set-list for Coldfront but in my awe & consumption of wine, this did not happen. She read two titles then would ask the audience which they wanted to hear. The first group of poems were "ant" poems. She said they were old poems, but for most us they were "new" poems. She followed this up by reading a few translations from Time of Sky // Castles in the Air by Ayane Kawata (which Sawako translated).
Sawako closed her set out by reading from the immensely popular book, Texture Notes, if you haven't read this book, definitely do!

Then after the readings people mingled, ate bread & cheese, & drank wine. It was a great night & we were all lucky to hear Sawako, J.Mae, Rob, & Chris.

Special thanks to J.Mae, Wolfram, & Lila without whom the reading would not have happened.

Summer Hits!

My Summer reading recommendations here! Thanks Reb!

2010 Begins With A Bang

I is to Vorticism by Ben Mirov
Texture Notes by Sawako Nakayasu

H_NGM_N portable document format chapbooks here

New issue of DIAGRAM

Good Stuff for a Rainy Wednesday

Niina Pollari's new chapbook is out! You can check it out here.

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My interview with Sawako is up on Coldfront, as well as, a review of Jill's book (not by me).

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& how about an interview with Justin Mark's here?

Preview

I have a brief interview or "snapshot" with Sawako Nakayasu forthcoming on Coldfront so I figured I'd give y'all a quick preview:

Insect Country (A) and Insect Country (B) (Dusie Press) are very ant-centric so let’s talk about ants— did you have a fascination with them as a child, perhaps a proud owner of an ant farm, or did they just appear in a poem and then the appearance triggered the idea that you could write a series of poems around them?

S: I’ve also always found collective energies really fascinating too, like when I used to go to concerts when I was younger – in those giant American stadiums – I loved the thought of being with so many people who were interested in the same music, being so in love with the moment and the music – but then again some very atrocious things can take place via collective masses of human energy too, so I can’t really advocate for it, but it’s nonetheless fascinating to me. I remember something Endo Shusaku once wrote, about how he couldn’t stand to go to baseball games because he couldn’t help but think about the fact that the huge number of people collected in this one building was a result of twice that many people having sex, and the thought of all that sex was just too much for him. Funny prudish man!

I suppose there’s also something endearing in the fact that ants are relatively small creatures. I am a relatively small creature too, so there’s some sympathy there. If only I had an exoskeleton too…I do remember one fine day in Providence, RI after I had purchased my first-ever set of full hockey padding, so that I could learn to play ice hockey. I put on all my pads and ran around the house crashing into walls and furniture, marveling at the fact that it didn’t hurt at all!

Anyway…on the other hand it’s not that I’m such an ant lover either – I do squash them if they invade the house, and there were some that once got sacrificed in the course of their involuntary participation in a performance piece. I just find them interesting, and for a while they served as some kind of poetic medium. It was only recently that I read The Earth Dwellers (by Erich Hoyt), and now I’m looking forward to reading those giant ant tomes by Edward Wilson and William Brown. Oh, and of course I loved that film, Microcosmos –

So Much To See & Do Don't Bother Shaking A Stick Or Twitching A Tweet

New ish of Spooky Boyfriend featuring a plethora of great poets such as Dan Magers and Nicole Steinberg.

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Always lava hot is Sous Rature so check out the new ish here

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I went to a panel yesterday on Hip-Hop, Pop, and Poetry for the Brooklyn Bookfest and wrote up a 'lil something for it, read that here

There's also a snapshot on G.C. Waldrep here

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How about a new e-chapbook collaboration from Sawako Nakayasu and Jen Hofer. What? Yep completely ridiculous in the way you love it most. Read it here.

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How 'bout the fact that Dan Magers & I are both reading on Saturday? Sadly at separate locations. Here's the info on Dan's reading. I'll post the flyer for mine on Wednesday.

Dear Gmail,

Please tell my friends that I am reading on Saturday at 2pm with Flarf powerhouse Katie Degentesh. I hear she's reading some new stuff, and I completely expect it to be amazing. Tell them that if they are not too hung over, or walking in the park with their loved ones, or making $$$, or staring into the void of your peeling bedroom walls, to please stop by and hear some Poetry.

Your #1 fan,

DPM


September 19: Katie Degentesh and Dan Magers

Katie Degentesh is the author of The Anger Scale. She lives in New York City.

Dan Magers is the co-editor of Sink Review (sinkreview.org). His chapbook Exploitation Poems was published in 2007, and he's had poems published in the tiny, Red China Magazine, and Thirteen Myna Birds.

2 PM on Saturday, September 12th at the Grand Central Branch of the New York Public Library: 135 East 46th Street, in the community/program room, which is on the upper level. Elevator available. Phone: (212) 621-0670. blog:http://grandcentralpoets.blogspot.com

I Can Only Eat Fruit In A Relaxed Apartment

I picked up a copy of Sampson Starkweather's City of Moths on Friday at the Earshot Reading. I ran into Niina there who has a pretty good summation of the reading here.
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I had to work on Saturday and then came home and went to bed early.
Yeah I'm exciting that way.
Sunday I ate brunch at Cafe Olea, worked on poems, hung out with deep disco (roommate) & then watched Rashomon.
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I'm going to the Poets & Writers reading/party tonight in DUMBO (see previous post for info).
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Wednesday, the ever affable Mark Bibbins is reading along with John Deming.

6:00PM INTERCULTURAL POETRY SERIES
Cornelia Street Cafe 29 Cornelia Street, NYC 10014 212-989-9319
Julia Istomina, host
Mark Bibbins; John Deming; Michael Quattrone

Mark Bibbins is the author of The Dance of No Hard Feelings,
forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press, and the Lambda Award-winning Sky
Lounge.

Michael Quattrone is the author of Rhinoceroses (New School Chapbook
Series, 2006), and a curator of the KGB Monday night poetry reading
series. His work has appeared online in Octopus, McSweeney's, and
Jacket, and in the anthologies The Best American Erotic Poems
(Scribner, 2008) and The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel—Second Floor
(No Tell Books, 2007). He works with Visible Theatre and lives in
Sleepy Hollow, New York.

John Deming is Co-Editor in Chief of coldfrontmag.com. His poems have
appeared or are forthcoming in POOL, Parthenon West Review, Tarpaulin
Sky, Past Simple and elsewhere. A New Hampshire native, he currently
lives in New York City and teaches at Baruch College and L.I.M.
College. He holds degrees in journalism and poetry from the University
of New Hampshire and The New School.

Cover $7 (includes one house drink)

Hope to see you there!

How to get to the Cornelia Street Café by Subway

A, C, E, B, D, F & V TRAINS

Get on the south end of the train.
Take the train to the West 4th Street stop.
Exit at West 3rd Street.
Walk one block north to 4th Street.
Make an acute left onto Cornelia Street.
1 & 9 TRAINS

Take the train to the Sheridan Square stop.
Walk 21/2 blocks east on West 4th Street.
Make a right onto Cornelia Street.
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Issue 3 of Saltgrass is hot off the presses! If you read this blog then you know I've blogged about quite a few contributors in this issue so you can imagine my excitement.

Eric Baus, CAConrad, Jessica deCourcy Hinds, Johannes Goransson, Kate Greenstreet, Brenda Iijima, Kristi Maxwell, Sawako Nakayasu, Keith Newton, Joshua Poteat, Joy Rhoades, Ken Rumble, Matt Sumell, Chris Tonelli, and Mike Young.

It's just waiting for you to read it. The basics: $5.00 print journal.

You can order the issue online & read sample poems at www.saltgrassjournal.blogspot.com.

Please pass on the good word.

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The Winter Issue of diode is up and eager for your eyes

Dear All,

I just wanted to let you know that the Winter, 2009 issue of diode is now live.

Dilruba Ahmed
Aaron Anstett
Tamiko Beyer
Ash Bowen
Charlie Clark
Arpine Konyalian Grenier
Angela Hibbs
Dennis Hinrichsen
dawn lonsinger
Bobbi Lurie
Ron Mohring
George Moore
Deborah Poe
Patrick Rosal
Michael Salcman
Maureen Seaton
Floarea Ţuţuianu, trans. Adam J. Sorkin and Irma Giannetti
Jakob VanLammeren

Sous Boog, Stark Weather comes to Williamsburg, and Poets & Writers do Brooklyn

Thanks to J. Li who lent me her old macbook, I'm temporarily back in action. & oh what action we have! The new ish of Sous Rature is up and it contains work by two of my favorite writers & good (frequently virtual) friends: Brooklyn Copeland & Sawako Nakayasu. There's lots of other great writers too, I just haven't had the chance to read them yet.

Boog City 3 is here.
So far I've like Mathias (Svalina) Amy (Lawless), David (Sewell), and Geoffrey (Olsen) but I've only had a chance to glance at it.

The first Earshot of 09 is going down on Friday & Starkweather's the jam!

EARSHOT!

Join us at our new venue, ROSE LIVE MUSIC, located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn!

*Friday, January 9th at 8 PM*
Admission: $5 + FREE DRINK!

Hosted by Nicole Steinberg

Featuring:
Ciaran Berry (The Sphere of Birds)
Sampson Starkweather (City of Moths)
Ann Podracky (Queens College)
Bianca Stone (New York University)
Carter Edwards (The New School)

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 Nicole Steinberg at earshotnyc@gmail.com.

& how about a little Poets & Writers function on Monday? I might actually see both fiction & poet friends under one roof.

DATE: Monday, January 12

TIME: 6:30 -8:30 pm

LOCATION: Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main St., DUMBO, Brooklyn

Join us to celebrate the launch of the January/February Inspiration issue of Poets & Writers Magazine (now printed on all-recycled paper) at the all-green Galapagos Art Space and Bar.

Enjoy a night of music, art, and poetry, featuring the poets and writers, agents and editors, and literary magazines and small presses featured in the magazine --poets Mike Cirelli, Matthea Harvey, and Patricia Smith; literary agents Jeff Kleinman, Julie Barer, Renee Zuckerbrot, and Daniel Lazar; A Public Space and Slice Magazine.

This is a 21+ event with a cash bar. Admission is free.

Nearby Trains: F, A, 2/3 - first stop in Brooklyn for each.
For more detailed directions, please click here.

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.

Can We Talk Suck?

Boarding Gate wasn't really a surprise since Olivier Assayas' other recent films, Clean and Demonlover weren't very good. Actually Clean wasn't bad, but like every Gus Van Sant movie, it was nothing new. Boarding Gate's problems are the same as Demonlover, a poorly written script, slow French pacing which makes the movie crawl (which only works if there is atmosphere, instead in both movies Assayas' uses this pacing as a stand-in for atmosphere) and over-hype for depravity.

Assayas' tries to sell sex, eroticism, and violence but has failed to have a significant voice except for Irma Vep (a movie I love). In this movie the sexiness is exuded through costume, through body language, and a lot less talking. Maybe it's because Maggie Cheung is better actor. It's like in poetry where they say show, don't tell. Assayas spends too much time trying to tell us that Boarding Gate is controversial and sexy. Asia Argento can stand around in a bra and panties holding a gun but it doesn't replace the ability to act or action. This movie is short on both. Sure, Argento can coo, and look helpless, and play with herself on top of a desk-- but she lacks nuance to establish anything outside of a cardboard cut-out character. Kelly Lin is an even worse actor- it's almost laughable.

This is a fairly simple story of drugs and big business take-overs, and there should be a lot more action, or at least mood/tension, but it drags on and on. It's pretty to look at, but boring as hell to watch-- I ate a lot of popcorn and restlessly shifted in my seat.



My oh my.... what to say about this disgusting disaster? People warned me not to see it. Sawko even sent me a bootleg copy from Shanghai so that I wouldn't waste money at the box office. Still it was unfathomable to imagine not seeing WKW latest creation on the big screen. Sure it was a Hollywood affair, a road movie no less, but I imagined it would still be worth watching. I was willing to like, as opposed to, love. Fat chance--- this movie sucks on every damn level.
If I say atrocious am I being too kind? First things first, like Assayas the script is undeniably weak. Who would read such a thing and think this equates movie? Even with the most superb actors this movie would still stink!

But let's talk acting. Norah Jones. What you heard is correct. Girl can't act her way through life's simplest task. Apparently girls do or once did find Jude Law dreamy and Norah Jones is pretty, yet here are two attractive people/actors with zero chemistry. Seriously none. Norah Jones is dressed all frumpy and stumbles her way through the movie, always off beat, always mis-timed, always flat. Since she's a singer I expected that she would have some stage presence some charisma but she's got nothing. Rachel Weisz has a pulse (thankfully 'cause she's definitely an actor I think is amazing) but it seems like over-acting(compared to the rest of the dead-beats) Natalie Portman is neither good nor bad and Chan Marshall seems like Cat Power.

Road movies are hard to do intelligently and very few resonate emotionally. Intelligence, emotion, and mood are all calling cards of WKW genius so I can see how as a director he felt challenged to make this movie. Or maybe he wanted to do something light. Whatever the reasoning is this movie has nothing going for it. Same canned shots of sky and road. Same dullness as anytime Lifetime special. I could go on and on, but all you need to know is that everything you'd expect from a WKW movie this is NOT.

Review Posted for Four From Japan

Hopefully a lot of you are already reading Cold Front Magazine with frequencies but for those that aren't my review of Four From Japan is up so check it out and give Cold Front some love.

http://reviews.coldfrontmag.com/emfour-from-japanem-edite.html

CALQUE ISSUE 3 OUT NOW!/ Calling all translators

This is a translation-focused magazine looking to expand its readership and its translators. Issue 3 has a translation by none other than Sawako Nakayasu!

Check out Calque here:http://calquezine.blogspot.com/

A Look At A Busy Weekend

First things first, unless you're planning on being where I am planning on being (Public then Ghenet) I hope you're planning on attending Earshot tonight. It's over on Grand (Willamsburg) at Lucky Cat. Tonight Shanna Compton will be doing a reading for a new Bloof book which you can read all about on her blog and specific information about the Earshot reading can be found on the website which is a link on this here blog so click away and then check out an amazing reading!

As I alluded to I'll be at Public for drinks to help a friend who is freeing herself finally from the terrible claws of Skadden, Arps then it's off to Ghenet for a friend's birthday dinner- yum!

Tomorrow I'm going to the Roasting Plant over on Orchard for the first time- having Pacific Northwest snobbery when it comes to coffee I'm hoping I won't be too disappointed-ha! Actually, I frequent Joes and Think Coffee but you know, it doesn't ever really make the tongue tingle the way Stumptown in Portland does- ah sigh to be sipping coffee for a weekend in Pdx...

On my list of things to do are buy cat litter, buy bedding which i may postpone until next paycheck then go crazy i.e. new duvet, flat sheets, and pillows!, finish manuscript preparations for Poets Out Loud and Bakeless/Breadloaf (hopefully mail them out) go to the post office and send Sawako the Poetry Project, Rain Taxi (both reviewed her Four From Japan) and the lastest issue of Teachers & Writers Magazine. Speaking of reviews I need to write 2 reviews for a couple of Dusie chapbooks, one for a Wave book, and one for Sawako's Four From Japan...

Let's see how much I actually get done. I want to take a nap just thinking about it but as my lunch break is drawing to a close it's back to work I go!

2 Partial Poems

MEASURE: all in the same season, but spanning many years and tears
of foolish sincere youth and promise and no bells just beings
and theres and a lost token touch, resting on the shoulders
of a couple of tenuous

CHARACTERS: here unnamed but tender nonetheless and resting
as usual on the fragmentary exchange of

CHARACTER: in relation to an international picket fence.


from So We Have Been Given Time Or (Verse Press)
by Sawako Nakayasu



May
flowers

Frank shuts
his legs

but

music

seeps

through

from the Frank Poems (ypolita press)
by CA Conrad

A Quick But Productive Drop-in at Teachers and Writers

Today was the going away party for Bruce Morrow, assistant director at T&W so I swung by there for hellos and some wine. Sat in "my office" realized how much I miss that job but one has to make at least enough chedda to pay the bills and have a little luxuary left over, right?

I had a copy of T&W newest book, Structure and Surprise, which I did a ton of work for and it made me inexplicably happy to have a copy sitting on the desk with a yellow post-it saying "Steven." I also had the new issue of Rain Taxi which has an interview with fiction writer David Markson (DO READ HIM!) and an envelope from Wave Books-Thanks Monica!!! Enclosed was a copy of Sawako Nakaysu's book, "So We Have Been Given Time Or" I'm thinking of trying to put together a reading with her maybe next year to correspond with AWP... we shall see.

Well both my body and beer are sweating. Goddamn I really need to remember to get an extension cord for my air-conditioner... ah summer you feckled fuck!

Two Poems from Sawako Nakayasu

This poet has all these ant poems and for some reason I just can't get enough of them! There's a few more in issue #12 of 6X6 which is a pretty solid issue put out by Ugly Duckling Presse.
http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/page-6x612.html

Insect Medleys

by Sawako Nakayasu

Progress

One year ago today, a video camera was released upon the public market – a camera that is the result of years and years of development by a pair of French engineers, having been fine-tuned to such a degree that it can capture the kissing of a pair of ants – mandible to mandible, from a great enough distance so as not to disturb them.

All issues of privacy aside, the true test of academic excellence in our children now rests entirely on their ability to measure the heat transfer in an ant kiss – which will be exhibited at this year’s International Junior Insect Olympics, which is something like a science fair for the young minds of the world. Who will go home with the gold medal this year? Which Asian country is showing the greatest promise in its youth? A controversy breaks out when a group of Americans from somewhere with a low literacy, high bravado rate pull up to the event with their own version of the Ant Kiss Project, involving genetically mutated ants, ants as big as your average American SUV. Oh you ain’t leaving our children behind just yet, insist their parents. Just you wait an’ see.


No Collective
for Yu Nakai

Believing themselves to be quite progressive for their species, a group of ants get together and decide to form a collective. They gather the necessary documentation, fill out all the proper information in the correct little boxes, get photos taken in appropriate size and dimension and angle, and step precisely through every single hoop required of them to become an officially recognized collective.

Their application is denied, however, on the grounds that ants are an inherently collective species, and this designation would be redundant and downright unnecessary.

One ant is so upset by this verdict that it begins to cry, thereby forging a breach in the collective emotional unity of the group. This very breach, however, makes the officer falter, reconsider for a brief moment, entertaining the possibility of a radical change of heart, but this very possibility of a change in the officer’s heart makes the ant’s tears dry up, which lands them all back at their original, inherently collective state, and that’s the end of that story.

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