Publications

Opon (prep): [variant spelling of "upon" used by Dickinson], also, a new web pub edited by Brad Vogler

I’ve long felt the need for a publication to appreciate the poem in context (isn’t it about time we admit poems are not worlds unto themselves and need not, or should not, “stand alone?”), so I was thrilled when Brad Vogler of Delete Press asked me to submit to his new publication Opon. Vogler is looking for “something more involved than just a poem or two” (as he sold it to me in our email correspondence), and encourages submitting process statements, revisions, video, sound, image… and I have to say the results in this first issue are truly exceptional.

Here is a space to tell the stories of process and product; Vogler presents the work as living things. The other poets/artists included in the issue are Jill Magi (with images and process notes from a new bookish project of procedural notes that will be kept in clay boxes), Kate Eichhorn (with poems documenting the process of cataloguing videos from the Feminist Video Vault) Eric Goddard-Scovel (whose process is computerized though exposes reading intimacy with Gertrude Stein), Tirzah Goldenberg (whose poems are “gathered and gleaned” from Dead Sea Scrolls), and Nico Vassilakis (whose visual poems nod to composer Conlon Nancarrow). I’m so grateful for my work to appear with such incredible company. I feel as though I’ve intruded upon these works in the most delightful way. Please do, also, intrude.

Politics (n): The theory or practice of government or administration & Poetry (n): Composition in verse or some comparable patterned arrangement of language

I am pleased to share that “Cinncinatus of the West,” “Luxury and Lack,” and “To Entertain,” three poems and their corresponding ceramic pieces by my friend and collaborator Stephanie Rozene, are up at The Offending Adam’s special issue on Politics and Poetry. These poems are excerpted from the larger 24-piece collaborative project, Simultaneous Contrast, which we initially shown as a part of the “DIS-arming Domesticity,” gallery exhibit in Wallingford, PA in 2010. We’re so pleased to have a “printed” home for these works and offer many thanks to Andrew Wessels at The Offending Adam for his support and giving this project such a wonderful home in this special feature. Along with our project, the issue also features Craig Santos Perez and Kristin Sanders. [Read an excerpt from Wessel's introduction to the issue and praise for TOA after the jump]  Continue reading »

Peacock (adj): Designating a person or thing like, associated with, or suggestive of a peacock, esp. in being ostentatious, proud

Two poems from the thesis/Olmsted manuscript are up at the Peacock Online Review, a lovely little poem webspace for innovative poets. Although relatively new on the circuit, editor Sophie Sills has brought in some wonderful poets, including Anselm Berrigan, Noah Eli Gordon, and Phoebe contributor Emily Carr, among others. This new issue, which I am proud to be a part of, includes fantastic collaborative poem-ing between Travis Macdonald, Michelle Taransky, Joseph Cooper, and j/j hastain, among other great new works. Take a look at the issue, for sure, and then look around some more.

Many thanks to Sophie Sills for giving these poems a home!

Word For/ Word “with an astute awareness of the materials, rhythms, trajectories and emerging forms of the contemporary”

Cover Art, Word For/Word Volume 19

Five poems from a sequence called “The Little Words,” manipulated erasures of some George Oppen poems, are up at Word For/Word‘s volume 19. George Oppen (1908-1984), the objectivist poet, expressed often his fondness forall the ‘little words,’ and that ‘All along I’ve had a sense that the structure of a sentence closes off the little words. That’s where the mysteries are, in the little words. ‘The’ and ‘and’ are the greatest mysteries of all.’ These poems are, I hope, both homage and new life.

While there are many incredible works in this issue, I want to personally recommend poems poems by Derek Henderson, Brad Vogler, and Emileigh Barnes. See also the stunning looking Crystal Gibbins visual poems and her poetic comic/collaboration with Joshua Ware (a Phoebe contributor).

Thanks to Jonathan Minton for giving these poems such a good home, and such great company.

Gently Read Literature (n): an internet journal that hopes to be useful

Well, this is exciting. Thanks to Daniel Casey, editor over at Gently Read Literature, for giving me the opportunity to review a book I love, Joe Hall‘s Pigafetta is My Wife. He aptly titled my review: “All Voyages are Destructive” and I like it. Go check out the whole issue — read about Carl Adamshick’s Curses and Wishes (via Lisa Wells) and Emily Kendal Frey’s The Grief Performance (via Megan Kaminski, a Phoebe contributor, I might add) and many more! Also, if you haven’t, please read Joe’s book. You deserve some destruction. 

Fringe: the Noun that Verbs Your World

Much gratitude to Anna Lena Phillips over at Fringe Magazine for publishing three poems from the Here Now, Myriads manuscript as a part of the special Maps feature. Fringe is an excellent online journal with three issues per year. They roll out each issue in several increments — the poems are fresh on the ‘net today! Anna had these lovely words to say as a form of introduction on the Fringe blog:

A map of a garden can be made before the garden itself exists or after everything’s been planted. Having tried both strategies, I can say that it’s easier to do the mapping beforehand; straightening out measurements and transferring them accurately to the page after the garden already exists can be a difficult task. But then, this is what descriptive cartographers do on much larger scales, for cities, landforms, landscapes.

This week’s poems take as their subject someone from the “before” camp: Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who designed New York City’s Central Park, among others. Olmstead wrote,

Nature shall be employed upon it for generations, before the work he has arranged for her shall realize his intentions.

We can forgive Olmsted, who died in 1903, the he’s and she’s. He’s right that whether they’re in a field returning to forest or a park just planted with roses and fruit trees, plants require time. (Fortunately for impatient gardeners, there exist annual plants, which grow happily and well on smaller timescales.)

Moriah L. Purdy, the author of the poems, is working on a manuscript that considers Olmsted’s work and borrows from his papers. About the quote, which serves as the epigraph for the manuscript, Moriah writes, ”I think this both describes his philosophy behind his greatest parks but I also hope/believe this sentiment parallels what time does for the language of poems.”

I’m so pleased these poems found such an excellent home. If you’d like to leave some thoughts re: the poems you’re encouraged to do so via comments on the Fringe blog. Please do comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts!