Braincase

Two new ones.

Books soon, I promise. Working steadily.

Tag response soon too.

Closing done. New house!

"Take a whiff of my pant leg," stuck in my head all morning.

The base of Whalen's poetry is not so much the perception or even the object itself, the historic grounds of Imagist esthetics, but the phrase in which a sensation enters the language function of mind. That point of impact marks a transformation of outer to inner realm, a cross-over into the yielding human imagination which doesn't seek to translate or manipulate the experience, but enjoy it in a felicitous wording of the encounter. That can only be by flashes and intuitive leaps, so the phrase is necessarily like its antecedent, the image, a discrete entity lacking in emotional or psychological connections to anything else. The phrase or sentence in Whalen is in itself a complete occasion, bounded by the input of an experience which the words embed in a lucid perception.

two sticks of dynamite

Order them here. Kaboom!

Landscape Odes is now available. I will create a page for it later tonight so you can peek at its contents.

Landscape Odes is a folded broadside featuring 6 "pages" of poetry written by myself. A paean to place. Each copy is individually stamped.

If you think $3 is pricey, it includes S&H and accommodates Paypal skim...more importantly it is to help fund finishing Joe's and Chris'.

Images of the covers for Property Line and the Breaks, including their respective specs, will be up soon. You can read excerpts from these manuscripts on their individual pages. The first twenty orders of the Breaks and Property Line will receive a free doublesided signed broadside. Readers of this post can beat the rush and pre-order now before the publication announcement. There are benefits to reading this blog. An official press release statement will go out early next week. There will also be special editions of both publications, if you are interested in those please email the editor.

I am broke. If you still balk at $3 for the folded broadside after reading this, you can kiss my whitebread butt. If you decide to include extra monies or make a donation to F&F Press, I won't forget you. You can do this by Paypal-ing to the editor's email.

Coming Soon

Added a link at the sidebar to a PDF of my Anchorite Press publication In(ex)teriors. There are no more print copies available.

the full skinny

Closing in on the end of vacation. Here's the gist of the past bit:

• F&F is in full production mode. There have been wrinkles and hopefully they've been ironed. I'm nervous, I've stretched my skills. I want these publications to approximate how I feel about the work and what it deserves. My lack of cake, and the lack of a reasonable print shop in this area, ridiculous!, has compelled me to do much of the work myself with less than state of the art technology. So remember these are productions of humble devotion. The moon is made of cheese.
• Langston, my beloved dog, for those of you who haven't been playing along from home, tore his ACL leaping a high fence. This will require an expensive surgery. He isn't in any pain and should be up to speed six months after surgery. He's a star, think kindly towards him.
• My car transmission needs work. $$$$
• I move into my new place the Monday after next. Woo hoo! Hopefully I'll have enough money to seal the deal.
• Spent a couple of days in North Adams at the Wigwam cabins. It is a wonderful little getaway spot that is very reasonable. I re-read a chunk of Solution Passage whilst looking out at cloud shadowed mountains. Mass MoCA is here.
• Spent a day working with my friend on his organic farm. I used to manage an organic farm, so whenever I get the opportunity to put my hands in the ground, I do. We hoed the collards, the joi choi, the broccoli, the dinosaur kale, the beets, harvested his onions, and pruned his spring raspberries. He paid me in produce: new potatoes, sweet corn, beets, joi choi, tomatoes, onions, and garlic.
• My neighbor continues his earnest homesteading by extending his skills to smoking foods as he prepares to harvest the pigs he is raising. He has a large grill which he is welding a fire box to in order to have the fire separate from the cooking. On the evening when we corked 270 bottles of our Syrah-Merlot blend, he prepared grilled sweet corn, keilbasa, chicken, and ribs. If you've never had grilled sweet corn, this is the ideal way to prepare it: soak it in water unshucked, place on the high heat part of the grill until the husk begins to blacken, remove from heat and serve. The high heat crystallizes the sugars.
• Not enough hammock time.
• Reading with Tony Robinson in NYC early next year! Very excited about this, as if the exclamation point didn't say this enough.
• Finished what might be the final draft of "the Rothko poems" which now has a title. I think... 105 meaty pages. I've tried prunning without much success. I need to figure out what this means.
• The Red Sox nickle and diming might cost them this year. This is not necessarily a criticism.
• Aaron Tieger continues to crank out the work. It is funny because Aaron lets on like he isn't doing anything, then you receive CARVE 7 in the mail, his After Rilke from the inimitable Anchorite Press, and he has another forthcoming from Skysill. & he is buying a house. I need to be relaxing like that.
• Lame House has a new one.
• & more good news, two poets who deserve more work in print: Scott Glassman and Guillermo Parra have forthcoming books from Cy Gist Press.
• Lastly, glad to see Jordan giving props to this.

Pouring rain this morning. Very nice. A dark light. Woke early, 5:30 or so, walked Langston. Now a pot of tea and to work.

Hopefully finishing touches this morning.

Watched this Saturday night at our local outdoor cinema, i.e. my good friend's house. I almost forget how much I love Rodney Dangerfield, his delivery style.

Complaining about injuries as a sports fan is like a farmer complaining about the weather...but you can't tell me Varitek doesn't call for a splitter from Papelbon last night in the eighth, rather than a third straight fastball.

stellar deal

FRAME has a great deal for you. Both issues are gorgeous and feature top notch poetry.

SMALL TOWN

Small Town #10 is out folks. Whatcha doin' here? Get over there and check out that lineup.

contrast to hot

The heat. The heedt. The heeght.

I have no AC. I park the fan in front of Langston and Archie. The shades are drawn. I sit in my boxers and work on projects. My leg sticks to the chair. I need to shave my head.

Vacation starts tomorrow afternoon. Can I get an aw yeah?

from the Globe via The Joy of Sox

"Ortiz has come to the plate 19 times in walkoff situations since the end of the 2004 regular season (postseasons included) and reached base 16 times. He is 11 for 14 (.786), with 7 HRs and 20 RBIs. This season, he is 8 for 9, with 5 HRs and 15 RBIs."

no deals, etc.

Theo didn't pull any triggers. Wise. There was nothing to be had worthwhile. He was apparently close on some big names, but who knows.

Looking forward to impending vacation. Have no money, so I'll be hunkered and working on projects.

David Ortiz is beyond comprehension.

Someone etched, "square pants" into the hand dryer in the men's bathroom. This is the kind of seemingly inconsequential detail that will be stuck in my head for the next week. Meanwhile I'll be unable to remember what time I'm supposed to meet with my insurance agent to review the results of my home inspection.