12.24.02

Anyone who’s frustrated with finding literary magazines at their local bookstore might want to try out Small Press Distribution. Recently I purchased three literary magazines online from SPD, which they delivered to me faster than anything I've ordered from Amazon.com. As for the three magazines I purchased: Gulf Coast (Winter/Spring 2003) has some stellar poems, including “Fetish” by Beckian Fritz Goldberg, a poem that I keep going back to again and again. The Georgia Review (Summer 2002) has some wonderful poems by Lawrence Raab, Rodney Jones, and Bob Hicok. Crowd (Summer 2002) is certainly the most beautiful magazine of the three and features more experimental poetry, ala Fence and Conduit. Nothing knocked me out here except the full-color photography and art, especially the paintings by Amy Sillman.

With the end of another year approaching fast there’s the inevitable “The 10 Best (fill in the blank) of the Year” list that you’ll find in various magazines, print and online. I won’t attempt my own Top Ten list simply because I haven’t read/seen/listened to everything I’ve wanted to over the past 365 days. I just know that I was blown away by D. Nurkse’s book of poems The Fall and, earlier this year, Terrance Hayes’ Hip Logic. I know that I was rattled by Adaptation, Punch-Drunk Love, Y Tu Mamá También, Far From Heaven, The Good Girl, and Elling. And I know that I’ll keep listening to the following albums well into the new year: Modest Mouse’s Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks, Spoon's Kill the Moonlight, The White Stripes’ White Blood Cells, and Pavement's Slanted & Enchanted: Live & Reduxe. Perfect sounds forever.

 

12.9.02

Thanks to all who showed up at Michael's Room in Los Angeles for the publication party and reading for Sweet Jesus: Poems About the Ultimate Icon. It was a hoot. It was better than a hoot. There were roughly 70 people at the bar. Didn't think I was going to be able to read at first; I lost my voice (I sounded like Phyllis Diller), but then found it a half hour before the reading began. I printed out a poem to read in which Jesus makes a cameo appearance and asked my beloved to hold the poem in her purse. And wouldn't you know it, she stuck her gum in it later on in the evening, thinking it was just a folded piece of paper. She's still the best wife west of the east coast. Here's a big, gentle hug to a very pregnant Mia Pardo for setting up the event, for publishing Sweet J, and for asking me to be part of this exciting project. And here's a hearty handshake to Mia's husband Patrick Pardo for all the hard work he put into the anthology. You the man.

 

11.26.02

My favorite literary magazine, Field, just came out with its Fall 2002 issue. Too many gems to name, but the ones I keep going back to are David Baker's haunting "Post Meridian", Kurt S. Olsson's "What Kills What Kills Us", Ellen Wehle's bad girl poem "Maid of Honor", and Rynn Williams' "Big Yard". From the latter: "In that moment I was memorizing soot: / square black flakes like urban butterflies -- / and pigeons: greasy, with their emerald necks, those pigeon- / blood eyes, feet like scored wire."

My writer pal Simone Muench recently had her web site created by a friend. Check it out. Her debut book of poems, The Air Lost in Breathing, won the Marianne Moore Prize a few years back. It's a wonderful collection with lots of swagger and crisp imagery. A blurb from Stephen Malkmus to boot, too.

I was going through some old sketchbooks today and found this little drawing I did on a Post-it note. Must be about five years old. Wish I had a halo. It would be easier to find the keyhole to my front door at night, what with all that light blazing down from my head.

 

11.11.02

Thanks to everyone who drove in the rain to see us read at the Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana. There was a wonderful spread at the reading, with lots of sandwiches, cheese, wine and champagne. Thank you Lisa Dowling for all your efforts! If you happen to live in the area, you should definitely swing by the GCAC and check out the Peter Zokosky exhibit. An extremely gifted artist who knows the human body inside-out. Literally.

Here's a giant bouquet of flowers for my beloved Lisa Glatt for recently finishing her wonderful novel A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That. Six years in the making. How anyone can write a novel is beyond me. The equivalent of scaling a mountain, with your eyelashes crystallized with ice and oxygen sucked out of your lungs. Me? I prefer climbing an anthill and calling it a day.

Click here and here to read my poems on Prairie Schooner and Slope. Click here to find out why I'll always be humble at what I do.

 

10.24.02

I've been reading Dave Eggers' latest, You Shall Know Our Velocity, which has its moments, including the amusing images that appear throughout. For instance: "In the parking lot we watched a trio of milk-white Broncos drive by----and we all stopped momentarily to watch." In another passage, Will and Hand, in their quest to give away $32,000, devise a plan to tape a portion of the money to a donkey for its owner to find, the cash safely tucked inside a pouch made of graph paper. So we get a picture of the handmade pouch with Hand's written note, which reminds me of the artwork on Pavement records. The jury is still out whether YSKOV is a sophmore slump or not. If you haven't already, check out his memoir instead.

I took my car in for a smog check on Tuesday. It passed. My car looks like this: .

 

10.8.02

I'd like to send out a special thank you to the mysterious man who pissed on the men's bathroom floor where I work, which prompted the janitor to Scotch-tape a note above the urinals that read: "Hold your thing, aim, and do not hit the floor!", which prompted me to write a poem called "Janitor's Lament," which made me feel good inside like when I won a blue ribbon for Softball Throw at Carver Elementary School (never mind that I didn't even place the following year). Maybe the mysterious man at work missed on purpose? Maybe he'd seen beauty in the urinal the way Marcel Duchamp had back in 1917? Just maybe.

I've been reading lots of poetry collections over the past couple of weeks, and the one I keep turning back to is Mike Doughty's debut collection Slanky (Soft Skull Press). Mike once fronted for the band Soul Coughing, which would explain all the praise from singers on the back of the book. Don't let a lame blurb by Dave Mathews scare you away. If you love the wild imagination in David Berman's Actual Air, then you'll love this. My favorite poem has to be "She Got the Good Shoes, She Got the Bad Teeth." Here's an excerpt: "a shimmy that sent / her hips in a liquid / piston motion to the floor / like cream shifting in a glass."

I was going to try and write today, but we're having our roof replaced here. Hammers have been assaulting the quiet all morning. Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack! Impossible.

 

9.25.02

I should tell you about this new poetry anthology coming out soon from Anthology Editions called Sweet Jesus: Poems About the Ultimate Icon, edited by Denise Duhamel and Nick Carbó. The cover features a chocolate Jesus, as does the back cover, but with a bite mark on his crown. I should also tell you that those teethmarks belong to me, that I Photoshopped the whole thing: I took a bite out of a slice of American Cheese and slipped it under my little Canon scanner. I don't recommend that you try this on your own scanner as you will have to scrape the cheese off the glass afterwards. But back to the anthology: great poems by great poets, including Stephen Dunn, Maureen Seaton, Tony Hoagland, Jim Daniels, and Lucia Perrilo, the latter of which has become my new favorite poet. Check out her latest book of poems, The Oldest Map with the Name America. It's simply genius.

There's another wonderful anthology hitting the bookstores soon as well called Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos (Warner Books), edited by Kim Addonizio and Cheryl Dumesnil. This collection features poems, stories, and essays from such notable writers as Rick Moody, Flannery O'Conner, Dorianne Laux, Brenda Hillman, Darcey Steinke, and Franz Kafka. I had nothing to do with the cover of this anthology, which is the back view of a woman wearing long red gloves, her tattooed arms raised in a V. If I had anything to do with the cover I'd invite barflies from O'Connell's and scan their arms right here with my trusty Canon scanner. Honest.