Peter Jay Shippy (USA) 1961

Peter Jay Shippy (USA)
1961

Peter Jay Shippy was born in Niagara Falls, New York. He was raised on his family’s apple farm, on the shore of Lake Ontario. He was educated at Northwestern University, Emerson College and the University of Iowa, where he received an M.F.A.
     Shippy’s first book, Thieves’ Latin (University of Iowa Press) won the 2002 Iowa Poetry Prize. BlazeVOX Books published Alphaville in 2006. About Thieves’ Latin, Bin Ramke, editor of the Denver Quarterly wrote, “Shippy’s strange little machines of words are all kinetic, disturbing, and weirdly graceful, unlike anything else available in American poetry.
     His work has been published in numerous journals, including The American Poetry Review, Fence, FIELD, The Iowa Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency and Ploughshares, among others. Shippy has been awarded writing fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches at Emerson College and lives with his wife in Jamaica Plain, MA.

BOOKS OF POETRY

Thieves’ Latin (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003); Alphaville (Buffalo: BlazeVOX Books, 2006); How to Build a Ghost in Your Attic (Rose Metal Press, 2007); Spell of Songs (Saturnalia Books, 2013); Kaputniks (Saturnalia, 2021)


╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006

from Alphaville

17

Luna moths,
nightglow, orange
pekoe, quayside,
red spiders
tat, undulant
velocipedes weave
xenias.
Years zeroize.
Zills yearn.
Xuzhou
weeps vines.
Umbrella trees
stalk,
raining quirks.

______
Reprinted from Aught, no. 15 (2005). Copyright ©2005 by Peter Jay Shippy.

Mark DuCharme (USA) 1960

Mark DuCharme (USA)
1960

Mark DuCharme was born in Detroit in 1960 and grew up in its suburbs, the only child of a divorced mother who worked as a secretary. He earned a BA from the University of Michigan and, later, an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.

     He self-published a rather large chapbook in 1990 with which he later became dissatisfied. Numerous chapbooks have followed, as well as three books: Cosmopolitan Tremble (2002), Infinity Subsections (2004) and The Sensory Cabinet (2007). All of these contain “serial poetry” as well as “individual” poems. Beginning with The Found Titles Project (published in 2009 but written earlier in that decade) he abandoned serial poetry in favor of what he calls writing projects. The bulk of his work from this point on has been in the context of various writing projects. Since 2008, he has been at work on a project called The Unfinished. In 2018 he wrote We, The Monstrous: Script for an Unrealizable Film.

     In addition to poetry, DuCharme has published numerous poetics essays. In 2006 he won the Neodata Endowment Grant in Literature, and he has also been selected for the Gertrude Stein Award in Innovative American Poetry from Sun & Moon Press. DuCharme was a coordinator of the Left Hand Reading Series, the archives of which can be found on the University of Pennsylvania’s PennSound website. He now curates the Stratford Park Reading Series in Boulder, Colorado, where he lives.

BOOKS OF POETRY

Life Could Be A Dream (Ann Arbor, Michigan: last generation press, 1990); Emphasis (Peacham, Vermont: :that: [issue of :that: magazine], 1993); i, a series (Cleveland: Burning Press, 1995); 4 sections from Infringement (Ra'anana, Israel: Oasis Press, 1996); Contracting Scale (Morris, Minnesota: Standing Stones Press, 1996); Three Works (Invasive Map) (Amman, Jordan: Oasis Press, 1998); Infringement (electronic publication: Light and Dust Books, 1998); Desire Series (Boulder, Colorado: Dead Metaphor Press, 1999); Near To (Brooklyn: Poetry New York/Meeting Eyes Bindery, 1999); Anon [with Anselm Hollo, Laura E. Wright and Patrick Pritchett, with illustrations by Jane Dalrymple-Hollo] (Boulder, Colorado: Potato Clock Editions, 2001); Cosmopolitan Tremble (Columbus, Ohio: Pavement Saw Press, 2002); Infinity Subsections (Brooklyn: Meeting Eyes Bindery, 2004); The Crowd Poems (Boulder, Colorado: Potato Clock Editions, 2007); The Sensory Cabinet (Kenmore, New York: BlazeVox Books, 2007); The Found Titles Project (electronic publication: Ahadada Books, 2009); Answer (Kenmore, New York: BlazeBox Books, 2011); The Unfinished Books: Books I-VI (Kenmore, New York: Blazevox Books, 2013); Counter Fluencies 1-20 (The Lune, 2017)

╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2006-2007

Because


Because I could not stop for
What was no longer hidden
After the addictive necessity
Therefore I do not speak

Because I can, or whisper
Into the opening which could resubmerge
You in darker nights than we’d conceal
Encasing what was strange

Even turbulent, for a moment, because
I could find you, not there, but real, before
Drawing breath in order to linger
There because I could find you yet

We still could be submerged in
It, it does not matter where
It was, no more, turnabout to image
Image which is constant change

Because I could not stop, but dared
To inform the speaker of the matter
Matter which encompasses us
Do I find you here, up to the wicker

Steeped in lucent trafficking
For death, death to remain active in
A texture, an accidental barrier
& I cannot stop until then


____
Reprinted from The New Review of Literature, III, no. 2 (April 2006). Copyright ©2006 by Mark DuCharme.

Katy Lederer (USA) 1972

Katy Lederer (USA)
1972

Katy Lederer was born in 1972 in Concord, New Hampshire. Her father taught English at St. Paul's, an Episcopal boarding school on the outskirts of town. After attending St. Paul's, Lederer attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in English and anthropology. While there, she began writing poetry and studied with Robert Hass, Lyn Hejinian, and John Ash.

     After a stint in Las Vegas learning poker from her professional poker playing siblings, Lederer attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop as an Iowa Arts Fellow, where she was awarded an Academy of American Poets Prize. In her first year at Iowa, Lederer started publishing Explosive Magazine, featuring emerging poets and hand-printed covers designed by the poet and artist David Larsen. She also published the chapbooks Faith (Idiom Press, 1998) and Music, No Staves (Poets & Poets Press, 1998).

     After completing her degree, Lederer moved to New York, where she worked briefly for an Upper East Side psychoanalyst and as an administrative coordinator of the Barnard New Women Poets Program before joining the quantitative trading firm, the D. E. Shaw group, where she currently works.

     In 2002, she published her first full-length collection, Winter Sex (Verse Press), and in 2003 she published Poker Face (Crown), a full-length family memoir detailing her family's obsession with gambling.

     Lederer has been awarded three fellowships from the Corporation of Yaddo and a 2005-2006 fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts. "The Apperceptive Mass" is from The Heaven-Sent Leaf, her second full-length collection, was published in 2008.

BOOKS OF POETRY

Faith (Berkeley, California: Idiom Press, 1998); Music, No Staves (Elmwood, Connecticut: Potes & Poets Press, 1998); Winter Sex (Athens, Georgia: Verse Press, 2002) ; The Heaven-Sent Leaf (Rochester, New York: Boa Editions, 2008); The Bright Red Horse--and the Blue (Atelos, 2017)


╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006


The Apperceptive Mass

Systemic and assembled with great calm.
On the face of one
Who goes into the silent place—

Who goes into the silent place,
Before the inner temple,
and aspires.

Who goes,
That presence,
In the den,
An even-tempered lens through which the transmittal of all that is
Beautiful goes.

We are hushed in our external sense
Our inner hearts are
Rockets.



___
Reprinted from Crowd, V, nos. 1-2 (2005). Copyright ©2005 by Katy Lederer.

POETRY FOR READERS | Katy Lederer : The Bright Red Horse -- and the Blue [link]

 

PIPPOETRY

      FOR READERS

                        Featuring books of poetry

                        and where to order them. 

today’s title:

The Bright Red Horse—and the Blue

Katy Lederer

order here:

https://www.spdbooks.org/Products/9781891190391/the-bright-red-horseand-the-blue.aspx

Ange Mlinko (USA) 1969

Ange Mlinko (USA)
1969

Ange Mlinko was born and raised in the Philadelphia area. She earned her under-graduate degree in Philosophy and Math-ematics at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Brown University.

     In 1996 Lift Books published a chapbook, Immediate Orgy and Audit. It attracted the attention of the Boston-based publisher Roland Pease, whose Zoland Books brought out her first full-length book Matinees in 1999. It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and was named one of its Best Books at the end of that year.  

     Her second volume, Starred Wire, was selected for the 2004 National Poetry Series by Bob Holman for Coffee House Books . It was also a finalist for the James Laughlin Award, and garnered mentions in national publications.

     Mlinko's poetry is often linked to the influence of Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery, with its love of language and urban contemporary life, but she thinks of herself as reverse-engineering the New York School back to Marianne Moore, Stevens, Williams, and Crane and then bringing it all back to the very brink of the present. In 2014-15 Mlinko was a Guggenheim Fellow.

BOOKS OF POETRY

Immediate Orgy and Audit (Boston: Lift Books, 1996); Matinees (Boston: Zoland Books, 1999); Starred Wire (Minneapolis: Coffee House Books, 2004); The Children's Museum (Prefontine Press, 2007); Shoulder Season (Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2010); Marvelous Things Overheard (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013); Distant Mandate (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2017); Venice (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2022)

╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006


Everything’s Carousing


Even the baroque gets lost in it.
Grass vests the dirt lest wind, twanging the skyscrapers

that merely sleeve the elevators, as we go sleeveless
except for the atmosphere, file it under Oceans.

Recalling the equations derived for ballistics —
aiming cannonballs is not like squaring lintels,

and skyscrapers are all lintel.
There isn’t a straight line amidst all these that never meet;

I will write away for it. A sound that breaks
“the record and the tie with the most singles in a season.”

Sparrows petulantly, like petals, adding subtracting
to crumbstrewn cafe tables, then boarding the ferries.


____
Reprinted from Jacket, no. 28 (October 2005). Copyright ©2005 by Ange Mlinko.

George Murray (Canada) 1971

George Murray (Canada)
1971

George Murray spent his earliest years living in rural southwestern Ontario on the shores of Lake Eerie. His family later relocated to a rural environment north of Toronto where he attended high school. He dropped out of university after one year in a theatre program, traveling North American by thumb off and on for a few years. He later returned to school and earned his degree, a B.A. Honors in Creative Writing, summa cum laude, from York University (Toronto). He won several academic and writing awards.

     After graduating he taught at several schools in Canada and Italy, including Humber College (Toronto) and Canadian College Italy (Lanciano). On returning from Italy, he married and moved in 2000 to New York City, where his partner began pursuing a PhD in Sociology (studying poets, no less). He was asked to teach at New School University and had his first play for children, The Swan Chronicles, produced in Manhattan by Locomotion Dance Theatre. He returned with his partner and new child to Toronto in 2003.

     Murray’s three books of poetry are The Hunger, The Cottage Builder’s Letter, and Carousel, all of which have been broadly reviewed and critically praised. He has published several chapbooks with small presses, and has been widely anthologized and has published poems in numerous journals and magazines in Canada, the US, United Kingdom, Australia and Germany. He won the 2003 New York Festivals Radio and Television Gold Medal for Best Writing for his poem “Anniversary: A Personal Inventory” (commissioned by CBC Radio) and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize (2003). He has also won awards from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council.

     Murray is a regular reviewer for several publications, including Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail. A former Poetry Editor for the Literary Review of Canada, he remains a contributing editor for several journals and magazines as well as Associate Editor for Maisonneuve Magazine. In 2004, he was featured on the documentary television program The Writing Life (Bravo). Currently, Murray sits on the Board for One Little Goat Theatre Company (NYC/Toronto), is the editor of the successful literary website Bookninja.com and is working on a book of new poems and some translations. 

     More recent collections of poetry have included The Rush to Here, Whiteout, Diversion, and his new and selected poems, Problematica.

    In 2010 he also published Glimpse: Selected Aphorisms and a second book of aphorisms, QUICK (2017).

BOOKS OF POETRY

Carousel: A Book of Second Thoughts (Toronto: Exile Editions, 2000); The Cottage Builder’s Letter (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2001); Who Do You Think You Are? (Toronto: Wayward Armadillo Press, 2002); The Hunter (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2003); A Set of Deadly Negotiations (Victoria, BC: Frog Hollow, 2005); The Rush to Here (Vancouver: Nightwood Editions, 2007); Whiteout (Toronto, ECW Press, 2012); Diversion (Toronto: ECW Press, 2015); Problematica: New and Selected Poems, 1995-2020 (Toronto: ECW Press, 2021)

╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006


A Moment’s Autograph

Still enough sky-glow left to distinguish
colour, even as the trees descend
through the registers of green and the stoop
becomes shrouded and difficult to discern.

From a crack in the dark wall hang loose wires.
Give a tug and watch society start
to unravel. There’s no real need to begin
worry; just be aware where the pulling leads.

We use the same yellow diamond to sign
elderly cross here as we do falling rocks;
the colossal meteor that astounds
observers burns but a moment’s autograph.

Apprehension may settle around us like dusk,
but the telescopes still capture first light.


____
Reprinted from New American Writing, no. 23 (2005). Copyright ©2005 by George Murray.

Stephen Cope (USA) 1970

Stephen Cope (USA)
1970

Stephen Cope was born in Houston, Texas, in 1970, and lived briefly there and in Ohio before moving with his family to Santa Cruz, California in 1977. He received a B.A. in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1996 and a PhD in Literature from the University of California, San Diego in 2005. 

     Cope’s publications include three chapbooks: to be alone… (Santa Cruz: We Press, 1991), Two Versions (Buffalo: Meow Press, 1999), and Versiones Vertiges (Buffalo: Meow Press, 2000), although he is perhaps best known for his work with George Oppen’s unpublished “Daybooks” and “Papers,” a critical volume of which he has edited and annotated for the University of California Press. Numerous selections from this volume have already been published — most notably in Robert Creeley’s edition of the Best New American Poetry 2002 — and in 1999 he delivered the George Oppen Memorial Lecture in San Francisco.

     Cope is also known for hosting memorable poetry readings and reading series’ in Santa Cruz and San Diego. He served for years on UCSD’s “New Writing Series’” committee and, with Joe Ross, founded the “Beyond the Page” reading series in downtown San Diego in 1997. Cope has previously been an editor at We Press and Zazil magazine, and, with Eula Biss and Catherine Taylor, recently co-founded Essay Press, an imprint devoted to publishing book-length works of innovative non-fiction writing.

     Now living in Ithaca, New York where he teaches at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Cope is working on a on-going podcast, "Conference of the Birds," of post-colonial, cross-cultural, and poetic musics from Africa, Asisa, Europe, the Americans, and the Middle-East.

BOOKS OF POETRY

to be alone… (Santa Cruz: We Press, 1991); Two Versions (Buffalo: Meow Press, 1999); Versiones Vertiges (Buffalo: Meow Press, 2000)



╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006


Bellerophonic Sonnet

because desire does decorum one
better are the inverse fragments
one another insufficient parts
issues otherwise for counting
from my mouth sounds addressed
to depart as if alone autonomous

language I am haphazardly identical
with

draw from narrative broken-ness
veneration lawlessly absorbs in
verse my masochism’s cross-dressed
passing on transubstantiation, love
implications hung still upside-down
nonetheless well w/o intention in

to the letter I’m indicted by
with love’s fealty’s recorded

___
Reprinted from Denver Quarterly, XL, no. 2 (2005). Copyright ©2005 by Stephen Cope

Tammy Armstrong (Canada) 1974

Tammy Armstrong (Canada)
1974

Born in St. Stephen, New Brunswick in 1974, Tammy Armstrong moved to Vancouver in 1992. There she completed a B.F.A. and M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of British Columbia. She worked for fives years as an ESL teacher before moving to Fredericton, New Brunswick in 2005.

     Over the past ten years, Armstrong has traveled to nearly twenty countries, which has been an influence on her writing. Her poetry and fiction have appeared extensively in literary journals in Canada, the US and Europe. She has published two collections of poetry, Bogman’s Music, which was nominated for a Governor General’s Award and won the Alfred G. Bailey poetry prize for best unpublished poetry manuscript. Several of the poems also won individual literary prizes.

     Her novel, Translations: Aistrean (2001) won the David Adams Richard Prize. Her second collection of poetry, Unravel, was nominated for a Relit Award. A third collection of poetry, entitled Take Us Quietly, was published in 2006.

     Armstrong was also the recipient of Canada Council grants and New Brunswick Arts grants. She currently lives in Fredericton where she writes and teaches literacy to physically challenged adults.

BOOKS OF POETRY

Bogman’s Music (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2000); Unravel (Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2004); Take Us Quietly (Fredericton, New Brunswick [Canada]: Goose Lane, 2006); The Scare in the Crow (Fredericton, New Bunswick [Canada] : 2010); Hermit God Spot (2017); The Varying Hare (Victoria, British Columbia: Frog Hollow Press, 2018)

╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006

After Snake River Canyon Jump

Was there a time mid-air to recollect
the years, the women, incorrigible flight
over burnt out trucks, radial tires?

It was never the idea of launching but landing
the ability to strike a pose, let the rhinestones
glitter to envy flashbulb spray.
Ovations in your name
at the lips of every kid with a BMX, oil barrel.

Now talk show mornings, kitchen clock hum
accentuate the state of your liver
rivered with infection
the cheapening of Wild Turkey
sump oil apothecary.

This stilted charade, old man
arc welded between the bourbon and a nap--
nostalgia close-captioned
red, white and blue.

The rest clings:
carefully chosen vistas
out of retirement complexes
a bathroom mirror moment:
feet slipped from kick pegs
but a hell grip on handlebars.


____
Reprinted from New American Writing, no. 23 (2005). Copyright (c) 2005 by Tammy Armstrong.

"Writing in Place: A Poetry of the Gulfstream" | review/essay by Lytton Smith (on Rob Stanton's The Method) [link]

 For an essay/review from the Los Angeles Review of Books of Rob Stanton's collection of poetry The Method by Lytton Smith, go here:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/writing-in-place-a-poetry-of-the-gulfstream/

Rob Stanton (England / lives USA) 1977

Rob Stanton (England)
1977

Born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham on August 11th, 1977, Rob Stanton spent his childhood in Solihull, Birmingham. He has a B.A. in English Literature from the University of Wales, Cardiff, an M.A. in American Culture and a Ph.D. from the University of Leeds. He has worked as a postgraduate and then postdoctoral teaching assistant at the School of English, University of Leeds since 2001. He currently lives and teaches in Austin, Texas.

     From 1999-2001, he edited the University of Leeds-based Poetry & Audience. In 2005 he was short-listed for an Eric Gregory Awards. His poems have appeared in can we have our ball back?, Fascicle, Great Works, Octopus, The Rialto, Shampoo, Shearsman and Stride. Critical writing has been published in Canadian Literature, Jacket and How2.

     From an ars poetica in process, Stanton writes: “Operational metre/Inexplicable orchard….Sing, thing, and / set to off: go blam…. Language is vast. Vast and obvious…. Bite-size interaction. Mind- / found micoscapes. Marks made…. Nuts. Bolts. Let flower…. ‘To jangle and confute the English tongue.” ….Outta breath. Exegetes / speak for themselves. The dad / do not speak…. Our piece our poem…. Any source legitimately yours…. Concussive sun, percussive between bars. The fence occludes (all fences do)…. Good / tread. Sound / system…. Late student of beginnings. I have favourites. ‘I’m no / one to talk.’ ….You yourself your captive audience. The / turn. Nail maker. Splurge rightly. Duck.”

BOOKS OF POETRY

The Method (Penned in the Margins, 2011); Trip-- (Knives Forks and Spoons, 2013)

Click below for the poem:
http://www.greeninteger.com/pdfs/Rob_Stanton.pdf

Go here for another poem:

https://mollybloom19.weebly.com/rob-stanton.html

POETRY FOR READERS | Standard Shaefer : Nova [link]

 

PIPPOETRY

      FOR READERS

                        Featuring books of poetry

                        and where to order them.

today’s title:

Nova

Standard Shaefer

order here:

https://www.greeninteger.com/book.cfm?--&BookID=395

Sandra Moussempès (France) 1965

Sandra Moussempès (France)
1965

Sandra Moussempès was born in Paris in 1965. Her first book, Exercices d'incendie was published by Fourbis in 1994, and three years later the prestigious French publisher Flammarion published her second collection, Vestiges de fillette. Since that time, she has published eight further titles.

     Moussempès was a resident at the Villa Médicis of the Academy of France in Rome in 1996, and in 1999 was awarded the Villa Kujoyama residence. She has received several grants from the Centre National du Livre for residences in France and aboard.

    Her work has appeared in several anthologies. And she translated several poets from the United States, including Kristin Prevallet, Serge Gavronsky, Lee-Ann Brown, and Carolyn Drucker.

      Moussempès works as a creative writing teacher in a Paris high school and sings with several Paris- and London-based bands.

      More recently several of her books have been awarded major literary prizes.

BOOKS OF POETRY

Exercices d'incendie (Paris: Fourbis, 1994); Vestiges de fillette (Paris: Flammarion, 1997); Hors Champs (Besançon: CRL Franche conté, 2001); Captures (Paris, Flammarion, 2004); Le seul jardin japonais à portée de vue (Bordeaux: L'Attente, 2005); Biographie des idylles (Bordeau: L'Attente, 2008); Photogénie des ombres peintes (Paris: Flammarion, 2009); Acrobaties dessinées (Éditions de l'Attente, 2012); Sunny girls (Paris: Éditions Poésie/Flammarion, 2015); Cassandre à bout portant (Paris: Editions Poésie/Flammarion, 2021)

POETRY IN TRANSLATION

Sunny girls (selections), trans. by by Eléna Rivera (Ottawa: AboveGround Press, 2017) 

Author statement in French:

Je travaille sur la surface et les interactions internes des "apparences" en tentant d'exprimer (intonation/détonation) la face cachée des événements retracés. Entrer au plus près du langage formel et de l'intime (le contenant nécessitant un contenu) dans les diversions scéniques d'une "cosmétologie" du miroir. Je travaille sur la surface et les interactions internes des "apparences" en tentant d'exprimer (intonation/détonation) la face cachée des événements retracés. J'écris par fragments en tentant de décaler les imageries "conventionnelles" notamment les clichés autour de la féminité ou d'un environnement inquiétant. De déchiffrer les codes mentaux qui nous entourent en accueillant des matériaux syntaxiques et sensoriels qui me semblent indéfinissables par essence mais non dénués de beauté. L 'étrange est pour moi une forme d' arrangement entre les diffractions/effractions du mouvement & de la lanque. Une solution peut-être au vacarme consensuel."

The Enraptured

(Stills: decoction/invitation/puzzle/heart spirit)

/situated in the basement

—for him all eviction remains artificial

the house bears
its deficiencies

(vapor on the windowpane)

hides a bend

/coming in the night: this night, the act and the audience more than ever
leaves, clusters of life, emptied pumpkins
point of the first step under the arch
# fear

/the man remained sitting for hours in the penumbra
at night, the door stays open, easy to reach to puncture the tube
already long and silent
assembles the infiltrated water
since the eddies of the bathroom

/common extension
of the grand ball with no guests
the shadows thrash about
returning
this red of the Basque country, this anvil red
& the thousand rooms
the apartment too in this case why not all recollections
not in accordance with regulations

/there was this chill, more than anywhere else and no reason for it
a sharp peculiar smell
the noise in the attic
an altogether unpleasant combustion
all that in front
and in the interior, that which no longer opens since some of the luster holds
the whole family, the joy, the hidden efforts, the academics’ summers,
the mixing of types (coming from everywhere to live intensely …), the
suckling pig or the dismounting of hierarchies


*

even though it might seem strange to think
one will search amid the virtues, that physiology of the spirit
a substance porous to one’s liking
—care shimmering from lips, a small upturned nose, overly delicate hair,
vigorous body in the prime of life—
seeing that, feminine strength or no
the being is suspicious, restrains muscles and freak events
applies itself to the contusion of foreign bodies
—that inject themselves—


*

entirely light and hidden outside the game
not to become that other that dogs assault on the road
the knife will serve me as a major
weapon
because a raptor arrived at the wrong time
from the wrong side
I run to the infirmary (through a long passage)
“is it the bird?”
I hear the first shots
end of the match, in three remissions:
the creaking of the door, of the green elementary school blackboard,
the little cage fastened to the radiator
freezing requires similar plans of departure
for this operation it will be necessary to take off from the eXemplorary world
entrust ones task to professors of instrumentalism
(diverging from their original form)
then, they will excel
in the methodical art of extracting vital substances from
each organ in action
for the snare to close itself and resolve
the enigma of the intrusion


*


my skin is light
the 2 sexes
obscure the surface of water

; I draw near to the one who fades gradually from the screen
he makes me nervous, tense, the impregnable point of view that
defies all mirages
; I inhale his lips and mine go up in smoke
I look at the skin on his stomach, the back: a tough armature
; the screen detaches, the reptile insect crosses the membrane
(I wonder if he can bear my density)


*

“you explore your body”
as we allow oneself the right to think
they felt the immense loss of time at each border
but more than a heavy silhouette, the voice curbed all her decisions
to live here or elsewhere on the outskirts of a city in the space of a construction site
along the trajectory or under a clement sky

-Translated from the French by Elena Rivera

Standard Schaefer (USA) 1971

Standard Schaefer (USA)
1971

Standard Schaefer was born in Houston, Texas in 1971. His father was an office furniture/equipment salesman and eventually became a fanchisee for an office supply manufacturer. His mother was a teacher, translator, and a secretary for a Chilean based pipeline manufacturer.

     In 1992, after working for the Public Broadcast Systems, Schaefer moved to Los Angeles to attend Occidental College. There he encountered the poet Martha Ronk, and studied poetry and fiction with Dennis Phillips and Douglas Messerli. He graduated Magna Cum Laude, with a B.A. in English and Comparative Literature in 1995. In 1997 he took a Master of Professional Writing degree from the University of Southern California. In 1998 he worked temporarily as an editorial assistant for Filmmaker Magazine, and throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s he worked for various small businesses from wine importers to dog grooming. In 2001 he developed his own marketing and ad copy business, Schaefer Enterprises, concentrating on food distribution and real estate development. More recently, he joined the staff of Just Dissent, an organization that protects civil liberties. He also teaches at Otis College of Art.

     In 1997 he began, with Evan Calbi, an important Los Angeles literary magazine, Rhizome, which lasted for four issues through 2000. Like many other Angeleno publications, it combined a wide range of American poetry with the work of international figures and contained extensive reviews. With the closure of that magazine, he worked as co-editor, with Paul Vangelisti, for Ribot: A Journal of the Arts. He also edited Vangelisti’s selected poem for Agincourt in 2001. He is currently the non-fiction editor of the Otis College of Art & Design journal, The New Review of Literature.

     In 1999 his book of poetry, Nova, was selected as a winner of the National Poetry Series and was published by Sun & Moon Press in 2001. His second book, Water & Power, appeared in 2005. His poems, fiction and essays have appeared in numerous magazines.

     He currently lives with his wife in Portland, Oregon.

BOOKS OF POETRY

Nova (Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 2001); Water & Power (New York: Agincourt Press, 2005)

To read poems by this author, click below:

http://www.greeninteger.com/pdfs/Standard_Schaefer.pdf

Joanna Klink (USA) 1969

Joanna Klink (USA)
1969

Joanna Klink was born in 1969 in Iowa City, Iowa, where she grew up. She attended Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota and later earned a Ph.D in Humanities from the Johns Hopkins University and an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Iowa.

     Her first book, They Are Sleeping, won the Contemporary Poetry Series through the University of Georgia Press and was published in December 2000. Her second book of poems, Circadian, takes as its guiding vision circadian clocks, the internal time clocks of organisms that regulate rhythms of sleeping and waking. Affected by the presence and withdrawal of light, these clocks influence, among other things, the opening and closing of flowers, the speed at which the heart pumps blood, and the migratory patterns of birds.

     Klink is also writing a book length lyric meditation titled Strangeness. A hybrid of forms—prose poem, essay, and biography—Strangeness is at once an introduction to the life and poetry of Paul Celan; an extended reflection on Celan's search for a reader; an exploration of the strangeness of poetry in general; and a defense of the obscure or difficult poem in an age in which more straightforward poems tend to be popular.

     A recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award in 2003, Klink taught in the M.F.A. program at the University of Montana and now teaches at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas.

BOOKS OF POETRY

They Are Sleeping (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000); Circadian (New York: Penguin Books, 2007); Raptus (New York: Penguin Books, 2010); Excerpts from a Secret Prophecy (New York, Penguin Books, 2015); The Nightfields (New York: Penguin Books, 2020)

╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006

Into the Kitchen a Light

Into the kitchen a light
rays down quiet. A private
sense of absence in my everyday
patterns—of disservice, breath,
or words pulled into my ribs
prying apart my errors from
the hopes that made them—
and outside the window coated
in soot from winds that come
all winter, some process has
ceased—although birds
drop and lift off the roof,
aerial sweeps, or just bursts of
feather, wings, claws, and the leap
of heart I would have,
should I be so brightly altered
with the chances of life,
a reparation I feel gathering
in my lungs, zero in the pitch,
scarlet wing, most unnatural
sound held in the dim
threshold of my throat—
or am I less than I was—
and fear I can't distinguish
the delicate blue current inside
the light from the pain in my voice
or the early morning fog laid over
the grass from the voice
that underlies everything


____
Reprinted from Crowd, V, nos 1-2 (2005). Copyright ©2005 by Joanna Klink.

George Stanley (USA / Canada) 1934

George Stanley (USA/Canada)
1934

Born and raised in San Francisco, George Stanley was part of the 1960s poetry scene often described as the San Francisco Renaissance, which included figures such as Robert Duncan, Robin Blaser, and Jack Spicer, the latter of whom Stanley was a close friend.

                                            

     He moved to Vancouver, Canada in the 1970s, becoming associated with New Star Books and the underground newspaper, The Grape. Over the past several years he has continued to be involved in Canadian politics, unions and alternative media, and was a long time educator in Terrace, British Columbia.

     Stanley has described his own influences: “I was influenced by Spicer's poetry, by (Robert) Creeley and I was influenced by (Louis) Zukofsky and all of these I think were not particularly good influences on me; they sort of narrowed my poetry down, made it more tight….” My real influences, summarizes Stanley were early T. S. Eliot, Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, and Robert Lowell.

BOOKS OF POETRY

The Love Root (San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1958); Tete Rouge/Pony Express Riders (San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1963); Flowers (San Francisco: White Rabbit Press, 1965); Beyond Love (San Francisco: Dariel Press, 1968); The Stick: Poems, 1969-73 (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1974); You: Poems, 1957-67 (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1974); Opening Day: New and Selected Poems (Lantzville, British Columbia, Canada: Oolichan Books, 1983); Temporarily (Prince George, British Columbia: Tatlou/Gorse, 1986); Gentle Northern Summer (Vancouver: New Star Books, 1995); At Andy’s (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2000); A Tall, Serious Girl: Selected Poems, 1957-2000, ed. by Kevin Davies and Larry Fagin (Jamestown, Rhode Island: Qua Books, 2003); Seniors (Vancouver: Nomados, 2006); Vancouver: A Poems (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2008); After Desire (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2013); North of California St.: Selected Poems (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2014); West Broadway (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2018)

╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006

Common Areas

The common areas are where we meet
but don’t meet.

Somewhere I read, or was told,
I should smile.

An error here
might reflect on my right to be here.

*

We meet here, on our way
from the inside to the outside
the outside to the inside,
in this place that is neither in nor out,
this common place given for us to use,
coming in or going out.

When my fellow tenant and I are both going out,
we are each going into the world,
into our secret lives.


When we are both coming in that is worse,
we each know the other is going to his apartment,
where he has grave duties to perform.

When one is going out and the other in,
there is a sense of irrelevancy;
this non-meeting might as well take place
outside, on the street.

*

There are halls and walls
and carpeting.

And the doors that swim by
the eyes.

I recognize the old man
(the other old man).
He gives me a friendly greeting
but a little too quickly.

I give a friendly greeting
too quickly too.

I recognize the couples.

Yearly, they melt
into other couples.

I recognize the burly man in a gray t-shirt
with a big open face
who says hello.

I say hello.

to make an error here –
not to say hello, not to smile –
might lead the other tenant to think
you longed for his annihilation –

to be the only one –
to not have to hide
behind the smile.

*

There is a stairwell that goes down
past the lobby
to the garage.

There is an elevator that goes down
past the lobby
to the garage.

I have a parking space
but no car.

*

There is a lobby with mirrors & tile floors
& mailboxes.

There is a door that leads to the street.

When I walk through that door,
the common areas continue.

Corridors
unmarked in air.

Walkers east,
walkers west.

I know this man coming towards me
(with the glasses & ball cap).

There’s no reason I should dislike him
just because I’ve seen him
so many places
so many times.

It’s like he was another tenant

but a tenant of what?

*

Would heaven be
total anonymity?


____
Reprinted from The Poker, no. 7 (2005). Copyright ©2005 by George Stanley.

"The Reluctant Surrealist" | review-essay by Douglas Messerli (on Guy R. Beining's The Silence of My Room) [link]

Review essay on Guy R. Beining's The Silence of My Room by Douglas Messerli: "The Reluctant Surrealist," in Hyperallergic   

Go here: https://hyperallergic.com/421174/guy_r_beining_the-silence-of-my-room-chintamani-books/

Guy R. Beining (b. England / USA) 1938

Guy R. Beining (b. England/USA)
1938

Born Guy Robin Nicholas Beining on September 26, 1938 in London to an aristocratic mother from Russia and a middle class Norwegian father, Beining arrived in New York City in spring of 1940. Throughout his youth he lived mainly in Connecticut.

     From 1951-1954 he suffered bouts with rheumatic fever, which caused him to have to take school courses later from the University of Indiana (1955-57). He attended the University of Florida between 1958-1960, enjoying classes with Barry Spacks and novelist Andrew Lytle.

 

    After leaving the Army in 1963, Beining settled in New York City, where he remained until 2000, with a few escapes to New England. A 1965 novel, rejected by Athenaeum Press, drove him to write poetry. He first chapbook was printed in 1976, followed a year later by City Shingles, published by Sun & Moon Press as a chapbook.

     In September 1978 he began his longest series of poems, Stoma (Selected Poems 1985-1989), published in 1990, and Stoma of 1994.

     In 1995 two more poetry collections appeared, Carved Erosion and Axiom of a Torn Pulley (appearing in a limited edition of just 30 copies). He also had two prose poem chapbooks published, Too Far to Hear (Part 1) (1994) and Two Far to Hear (Part II) in 1997.

     His most recent publications have leaned toward the visual, although, he observes, "after a five-artery by-pass, I have written a substantial number of poetry books, which are now making the rounds."

BOOKS OF POETRY

Razor with No Obligation (Michigan: Arbitrary Closet Press, 1976); City Shingles (College Park, Maryland: Sun & Moon Press, 1977); The Ogden Diary (Newburyport, Massachusetts: Zahir Press, 1979); Backroads & Artism (La Jolla, California: Moonlight Publications, 1979); Ice Rescue Station (New York: Gegenschein Press, 1980); A New Boundary & Other Pieces (Wisconsin: Woodrose Editions, 1980); Waiting for the Soothsayer (East Lansing, Michigan: Ghost Dance Press, 1982); The Raw-Robed Few (Long Beach, California: Applezaba Press, 1982); Stoma 1322. Haiku Pieces (Toronto: Curved H&Z Press, 1984); Stoma: All Points & Notions (New York: Red Ozier Press, 1984); Stoma (East Lansing, Michigan: Ghost Dance Press, 1989); Collectables (Toronto: The Horse Press, 1990); No Subject but a Matter (Toronto: Pangen Subway Ritual, 1991); Upper & Lower Translation of Beige Copy Text (Toronto: Nietzsche's Brolly, 1991); 100 Haiku Selected from a Decade (Houston: O!!Zone Press, 1993); Damn the Evening Garden (Toronto: The Berkeley Horse Press, 1994); Too Far to Hear (Buffalo, New York: Leave Books, 1994); Stoma (Huntington, West Virginia: Aegina Press, 1994); Curved Erosion (Seattle: Elbow Press, 1995); Axiom of a Torn Pulley (Elmwood, Connecticut: Poets & Poets Press, 1995); Too Far to Hear II (Morris, Minnesota: Standing Stone Press, 1997); Beige Copy II & III (Toronto: Nietzsche's Brolly, 1997); Inrue (2008); Word Pig 1-34 (2010); Out of the Wood into the Sun (Stockholm: Kamini Press, 2011); nozzle 1-36 (Rockford, Michigan: Presa:S: Press, 2011); The Silence of My Room (Chintamani Press, 2018)


╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006

seerstuckher

scene I

on a beach, one branch
level with eyes, holds a
copper bird that chirps into
grease of afternoon.
the owner of the eyes
is chewing on a string
that comes from a ball
of yarn that is placed
a picture book away.

scene II

light bows from corners, cracks,
& holes in curtains.
the common ground of this metaphor
has scratched away all distance.
floss mixes with dust & balls up.
the book on war has been erased
once again during this feverish silence.

_____
Reprinted from The New Review of Literature, III, no. 1 (October 2005), Copyright ©2005 by Guy R. Beining.

Maruyama Kaoru (Japan) 1899-1974

Maruyama Kaoru (Japan)
1899-1974

Maruyama Kaoru is read little today in Japan or abroad, in part because of Japanese readers' dismissal of him as an "intellectual" poet and because much of his work has been unfairly labeled as "sea-poetry." Maruyama did attempt to check lyricism and sentimentality in his work, and due to his life-long fascination with the sea, he wrote a great many poems about the ocean and voyages; but his work overall is quite varied and the controlled surface of his works often are belied by highly emotional content.

     Born into a family of a high ranking bureaucrats, Maruyama spent much of his early years adapting to new surroundings, as his father was transferred numerous times to different locations. In the tightly-knit social structures of Japan, such displacement obviously had its effects; throughout his life Maruyama felt separated and apart from the Tokyo-centered poetry circles.

     Living in the port of Yokohama in 1911, he was taken on class trip to see the ships in the harbor. The blue eyes of the Scandinavian sailors amazed the young boy, and from that incident, Maruyama dates his fascination with the sea. Despite strong opposition from his family, he sat for the entrance examination to the Merchant Marine Academy. Failing the examination, he enrolled in Tokyo preparatory school in order to retake the tests the following year. In 1918 he passed the exam and entered the Academy.

     However, at the academy his dreams of becoming a ship captain were dashed as he discovered his fear of heights; the intense physical activity of the Academy, moreover, caused his legs to swell, and he received a medical release. Under his mother's guidance, he took the examination of the Third Higher School in Kyoto, where he entered in 1921 in French literature. By the time he entered Tokyo University in 1926, he had already determined to become a poet. Influenced by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde and others, including the Japanese master Hagiwara Sakutarō, Maruyama determined to use his education as literary stimulus rather than as a goal towards a bachelor's degree.

     During this period he met Takai Miyoko, with whom he fell in love and married in 1928. Upon their marriage he rented a luxurious residence in Tokyo and later invited his mother to move in with them. He also dropped out of the university to concentrate on writing.

     The collapse of the Japanese economy in 1930, meant difficult times for the family. Forced to move again and again, Maruyama found it difficult to concentrate on writing. But in 1931, his wife found a job in downtown Tokyo with sufficient pay to support his concentration on his art. His first collection, Ho—Ranpu—Kamome (Sail—Lamp—Gull) appeared in 1932. Soon after, he joined with other poets in publishing Shiki (Four Seasons), which involved him, for the first time, in the Tokyo poetry circles, and helped in the development of his poetic aesthetic. In particular, the theory of his fellow university student and poet Hori Tatsuo (1904-1953) and the writings of Rainier Maria Rilke highly influenced him in his attempt to balance objective observation and intellectual truths of the mind.

      In 1935 he published two books, Tsuru no Sōshiki (Funeral of the Crane) and Yōnen (Infancy). The second book won the Bungei Hanron poetry prize, which brought much needed money and request for new manuscripts.

      The following year, however, tragedy struck as his sister-in-law, with whom had developed a close friendship, died of consumption. His fourth collection of poetry, Ichinichishū (A Single Day) contains a section devoted to her memory.

     An invitation to write on midshipmen's experiences at sea, finally realized Maruyama's boyhood dream in 1941. Those experiences were collected in poetry in 1943 in Tenshō naru Tokoro (Hear the Ship's Bell).

     The Japanese war effort disrupted Maruyama's activities in the year's following, and in 1945 he and his family escaped into the "snow country" of the north, where he remained until 1948, when moved to his wife's home city of Toyohashi at the age of fifty. There he settled into a lectureship on modern Japanese poetry and began to write the books of his last years: Seishun Fuzai (1952, Lost Youth), Tsuresarareta Umi (1962, The Hostage Sea), Tsuki Waturu (1972, Moon Passage), and Ari no iru Kao (1973, Face with Ants). He died of cerebral thrombosis at the age of 75 in October 1974.

BOOKS OF POETRY

Ho—Ranpu—Kanome (Daiichi Shobō, 1932); Tsuru no Sōshiki (Daiichi Shobō, 1935); Yōnen (Shiki Sha, 1935); Ichinichishū (Hangasō, 1936); Busshō Shishū (Kawade Shobō, 1941); Namida shita Kami (Usui Shobō, 1942); Tenshō naru Tokoro (Ooka Sha, 1943); Tsuyoi Nippon (Kokumin Tosho Kankōkai, 1944) [author refused to acknowlege this work]; Kitaguni (Usui Shobō, 1946); Senkyō (Sapporo Seiji Sha, 1948); Aoi Kokuban (Nyûfurendo Sha, 1948); Hana no Shin (Sōgen Sha, 1948); Seishun Fuzai (Sōgen Sha, 1952); Tsuresarareta Umi (Chōryū Sha, 1962); Tsuki Wataru (Chōryū Sha, 1972); Ari no iru Kao (Chūō Kōron Sha, 1973); Maruyama Kaoru Zenshū (Kadokawa Shoten, 1976-77).

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS:

Self-Righting Lamp: Selected Poems, translated by Robert Epp (Rochester, Michigan: Katydid Books, 1990); The Far-Off Self: The Collected Poems of Maruyama Kaoru (Yakusha, 1992)


Into Clouds on the Hill

I pet my dog
neck to back
back to tail

Ears lie flat
Coat glistening
belly bent in a bow

Ah my petting hand wind in motion
the dog's tance bending into my strokes
the dog's dashing through its stance

I unleash him into clouds on the hill
The dog bounds off full speed
like a flung stone you can't call back


—Translated from the Japanese by Robert Epp


(from Busshō Shishū, 1941)



Into the Future

The father said:
Look! at this picture
at the sleigh dashing swiftly on
at the wolf pack in pursuit
see the reinsman frantically whipping the reindeer
see the traveler taking steady aim with a rifle
from behind the luggage
now a scarlet flash from the muzzle

The son said:
One wolf's downed right?
Oh another sprang at the sleigh
but tumbled over backward covered with blood
It's night the endless steppes buried in snow
Can the traveler hold out?
How far has the sleigh to go?

The father said:
The sleigh flies like this till dawn
slaying yesterday's regrets one by one
dashing like Time into tomorrow
Soon beyond the path that sun will climb
streets of the future will glimmer into view
Look!
Sky on the hill already turning white


—Translated from the Japanese by Robert Epp


(from Namida shita Kami, 1942)



A Poet's Words

The late Nakahara Chûya said
"You find no mermaids in the sea
In the sea
are only waves"

These words from some strange reason
remain vivid in my mind
If I chant them three times
mermaid faces peer out from between the sounds
If I mutter these words to myself
as I think back on a past cruise through southern seas
countless merman arms and tails appear and disappear
into sea's high blue swells

Or if I think dreamily of these words
when standing on a rock shore under overcast skies
splashes of foam that dash against crags
sound like mermaid's singing

The late Nakahura Chûya's legacy to me:
The word wave has become mermaid
The word mermaid
has become wave

—Translated from the Japanese by Robert Epp


(from Tenshō naru Tokoro, 1943)


Carossa and Rilke

In his Romanian Diary
Carossa wrote as follows
about a young girl suffering from consumption
in the aftermath of war's destruction
"The scant oxygen in her entire body seemed
concentrated in those hugely opened eyes"
If at that moment
he had inadvertently approached her with the flame of love
her eyes would have burnt away in an instant
and she would have gone to heaven

They say Rilke's eyes were always limpidly blue
profoundly absorbing imagery
without harboring even a hint of a shadow
What if we had sailed a boat on a lake of that hue?
Dread would quickly have driven us insane

—Translated from the Japanese by Robert Epp


(from Hana no Shin, 1948)


News from the Cape

Over the last two or three days here
the sea has been intensely transparent
the sky pure blue

Turning up my heels
each day I dive
deep into the sea and
marvelous! marvelous!
before I know it I'm in the sky
Through my diving goggles
I can see the sun between a cleft in the rocks

Holding my spear high
I rush toward the light
Then somewhere
a harp starts singing serenely
and a file of fish circles the sky
as in an ancient Egyptian mural

Reaching out gingerly
I pry off sea mussels and abalone
from behind the sun


—Translated from the Japanese by Robert Epp


(from Seishun Fuzai, 1952)



A Crane

A crane soars
over the blue sea

like a sooted and shabby umbrella
singing sadly

That bubble reputation
so long enjoyed
turns to shadow slips away
mirrored black
on crases in the brine.

—Translated from the Japanese by Robert Epp


(from Maruyama Kaoru Zenshū, written 1955)



The Tree in Me

I don't know when it began but a tree has taken root in me
It grows through my growth
Spreading branches from my growing limbs
its leaves thicken into shapes of grief

I no longer go out
I no longer speak to anyone
not to Mother not even to friends...
I'm becoming the tree in me
No no I've already become that tree

I stand quietly far beyond the fields
Whenever I greet morning sun
whenever I look off after clouds fired by sunset
my silence glitters
my solarity self sings

—Translated from the Japanese by Robert Epp


(from Maruyama Kaoru Zenshū, written 1956)



Illusion in the Reef

The chalk coral grove
comes floating transparently to the surface
like a sunken image
deep within a poem
A single baby shark undulates
through coral tips sunlight streaming everywhere
No that's a boot
an airman's book already beginning to dissolve
like a shadow like kelp

—Translated from the Japanese by Robert Epp


(from Tsuresarareta Umi, 1962)


Minato Ward, Nagoya (Memo on the Isé Bay Typhoon)

Mackerel bob up from the kitchen
enter the alleyways through a window and revived
swim down the street between slanting utility poles
heading vigorously for the estuary for the sea
Deep under riled-up eddying waters
women
children
old people
who had instantly exchanged their souls with the fish
surface here and there and towed off on rafts
pass again today
under twilight eaves holding their breath
Tomorrow creamation under sunny skies


—Translated from the Japanese by Robert Epp


(from Ari no iru Kao, 1973)



Face with Ants

Ants crawl over eyelids
Then that nearby hollow suddenly gathers shadows
as though engraved

Ants lick the inner corners of the eyes
From there they go straight down the cheek
—and as I watch that nearby hollow
deepends as though scooped out

Ants circle that mole by the mouth
Then they scurry into breathless nostrils
They won't show themselves again
They may never reappear

Oh the shame of staring so
Oh the shame of being so stared at


—Translated from the Japanese by Robert Epp


(from Ari no iru Kao, 1973)


PERMISSIONS

"Into the Clouds on the Hill," "Into the Future," "A Poet's Words," "Carossa and Rilke," "News from the Cape," "A Crane," :The Tree in Me," "Minato Ward, Nagoya," "Illusion in the Reef," and "Face with Ants"
Reprinted from Self-Righting Lamp: Selected Poems, trans. by Robert Epp (Rochester, Michigan: Katydid Books, 1990. Copyright ©1990 by Katydid Books; English Language translation copyright ©1990 by Robert Epp. Reprinted by permission of Katydid Books.

Rod Smith (USA) 1962

Rod Smith (USA)
1962

Rod Smith was born in Gallipolis, Ohio in 1962 and grew up in Northern Virginia where he attended Stonewall Jackson High School. His first publication of poetry was a Ferlinghetti imitation which ap-peared in the Baltimore Sun in 1982. In the early 1980s Smith was a rural carrier for the US Postal Service in the vicinity of the Manassas Battlefield, during which time he studied Pound, Stein, Williams, Ashbery, O'Hara, Oppen, and others.

     He began the journal Aerial with Wayne Kline in 1984 and published the first Edge Book in 1989. He moved to the District of Columbia in 1987 and became part of the DC poetry community which included the writers Tina Darragh, Lynne Dreyer, P. Inman, Doug Lang, Douglas Messerli, Joan Retallack, Phyllis Rosenzweig, and others. This group expanded over the years to include such writers as Leslie Bumstead, Jean Donnelly, Buck Downs, Heather Fuller, Mark McMorris, Carol Mirakove, Tom Orange, and Mark Wallace.

     He met John Cage in Rockville, Maryland in 1987 and saw him regularly, playing chess (usually losing), in Washington and New York until Cage's death in 1992. Aerial published a selection of Cage's writing in 1991.

     The playful title of Smith's first book, In Memory of My Theories, published by O Books in 1996, unequivocally locates his work in the New American and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry traditions. Additional full-length collections, Protective Immediacy and Music or Honesty were published by Roof in 1999 and 2003. A long poem, The Good House, was published by Spectacular Books in 2000. A selection of poems entitled Poèmes de l'araignée was published in France in 2002 by Un bureau sur l'atlantique.

     Smith managed the independent bookstore Bridge Street Books in DC, and his now teaches Cultural Studies at Towson University. Smith edited, with Kaplan Harris and Peter Baker, The Selected Letters of Robert Creeley for The University of California Press.

BOOKS OF POETRY

The Boy Poems (Washington, D.C.: Buck Downs Books, 1994); A Grammar Manikan [Object 5, featuring Rod Smith] (New York: Object, 1995); In Memory of My Theories (Oakland, California: O Books, 1996); The Lack (love poems, targets, flags...) (Elmwood, Connecticut: Abacus, 1997); Protective Immediacy (New York: Roof, 1999); The New Mannerist Tricycle [with Lisa Jarnot and Bill Luoma] (Philadelphia: Beautiful Simmer, 2000); The Good House (New York: Spectacular Books, 2001); Poèmes de l'araignée (Bordeaux, France: Un bureau sur l'atlantique, 2003); Music or Honesty (New York: Roof Books, 2003); Fear the Sky (Narrow House, 2005); Deed (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2007); "Touche" (Wave Books, 2015)

╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006


from “Protective Immediacy”


But, Dr Williams
they die miserably,
anyway


& the light goes on on the
kneeling Ave Maria no sun
shining - come -
looking wood
hold off
so that we could meet
in my bag -
close I felt
it was content
even though I still didn't
history - you can read it -
you can snow -
Bernadette cupped it in her hands
a hole filled with cured place
because & in response
I read the manuscript
thinking about the fog
glass shook &
tell everything afraid beside the fruit
form
of a cross town bus
to happen to
police we have strange stolen
love at the moment
to you w/ a poem some said nothing
was trembling
is like a popsicle
you can read drinking itself
to see it script
with no sharp edges
the last part always
falls off
on the damp pavement behind us
burning
the creative process
on yr clothes


Reprinted from Cartograffiti, no. 1 (2005). Copyright ©2005 by Rod Smith.

give them retro cheese

Slave I,

of Kelly’s opinion, boxed modernist

6 bath valved cup dust/mist respirator via

the sons of gods gone down

on--

Fortunes have sunk thee,

most psychedelic, most

laughably overdubbed keepsake

wilted in Halifax

o Halifax!

-- invariant Arg residue devolving --

We shun thy moot attempting, break

out fussin’ like craigslist newbies--

Latex, disposable, glove,

For see there the naked jonesing

of war floweres, fixt ramparts

& wolverine sexlings--our whistled

lain poetics there splain

Their &/or our ice-cherry brains

peeled like justice, like Captain Black,

rhapsodic isabooties in the playset

isle, O dissonant world!

(so) plunging & (so) pointy ~

Is Harvey Keitel longer than a piece of string cheese?

I read David Fricke's Rolling Stone piece about

Ben Franklin lying in bed naked with an electrified kite string tied to his

Harvey Keitel. What seemed like a deal at $19.95, suddenly no longer does.

My dad liked to tell the old joke about the piece of string who kept getting

a tough-guy lieutenant History Channel condoms.

If only we could objectively measure the precise amount of cheese.

If only Steve Buscemi and a handful of other great actors barbecued together.



GENESIS

As anyone who has flown out of a cloud knows,

you are always on the other side of the equation.

For example, If you go poop as soon

as you feel the urge then usually it isn't as stinky.

It's customer service. Say you've come to a company

With questions only to be told by some sterile voice

To press this or click that until you arrive full circle

To your starting place with no help at all, and you still

Have to poop. Then you simply _must_ remember that

Whoever sheds the blood of a human,

By a human shall that person’s blood be shed;

For in his own image

God made mankind. When he was on hold.

When he had to poop.

WASHINGTON, DC IS GREAT!
for Ara Shirinyan

Washington, DC is a city that routinely appears in the news week after week.

The westernmost point of the Great Inverted Pentagram

of Washington DC is George Washington Circle Park.

My family and I recently visited your amazing city for the first time,

and may I say it was a great experience.

DC is a great city full of history and culture

that becomes home to a large number of UVA alumni.

If you are looking for great cheap eats, then Washington DC is a great

place to be.

Bike tours are a great way to explore D.C. There

are also many pharmacy jobs in Washington, DC.

We've got great tickets to all kinds of musicals and plays this year.

Visit the neighborhood surrounding Georgetown University for great

shopping from designer boutiques.

I love Washington, DC and it thrills me that this type of Washington,

DC is available.

GREAT NEWS FROM WASHINGTON DC!

A great nation deserves the truth.

Washington DC is a wonderful place to be in the Summer and you can find

an enormous amount of great deals throughout the city.

It's almost worth not getting blind drunk on Friday nights so you can be

up early enough to hit the Arlington Farmer's Market on Saturday.

My son and I had never been to Washington DC. We took your tour

this past weekend and it was a great!

Once upon a time in Washington, DC, there gathered over two hundred

Aggies, desperate for some good food.

Washington, DC is a great furnished place with lots of malls.

Washington DC. WOW!

Very well done, I can see you had a fantastic trip in America!

It was on Rachel Ray $40 a Day show.

Great Washington D.C. restaurants, great shopping and a contemporary

mix of American people can be found strolling the city streets of an area.

You Can Even Take a Woman to on a Date in Washington DC.

Another great new option that Dish TV Washington Navy Yard Washington

DC provides for its subscribers is portable programming through its

new PocketDish.

DC is great and way too much to see there for just one.

The home page of James Trotta's site for vacation/trip itineraries features some

great ideas for a trip to Washington DC. Uncork the Wine, Uncork the

Flavor, Uncork the Fun.

Great Wraps & Cheesesteaks, Union Station, Washington, DC - poor

customer service experience.

Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia: Great Destinations.

Basic

Operations - 100 words

come, get, give, go, keep, let, make, put, seem, take, be, do, have,

say, see, send, may, will, about, across, after, against, among, at,

before, between, by, down, from, in, off, on, over, through, to,

under, up, with, as, for, of, till, than, a, the, all, any, every, no,

other, some, such, that, this, I, he, you, who, and, because, but, or,

if, though, while, how, when, where, why, again, ever, far, forward,

here, near, now, out, still, then, there, together, well, almost,

enough, even, little, much, not, only, quite, so, very, tomorrow,

yesterday, north, south, east, west, please, yes.

Things - 400 general words

A-F

account, act, addition, adjustment, advertisement, agreement, air,

amount, amusement, animal, answer, apparatus, approval, argument, art,

attack, attempt, attention, attraction, authority, back, balance,

base, behaviour, belief, birth, bit, bite, blood, blow, body, brass,

bread, breath, brother, building, burn, burst, business, butter,

canvas, care, cause, chalk, chance, change, cloth, coal, colour,

comfort, committee, company, comparison, competition, condition,

connection, control, cook, copper, copy, cork, cotton, cough, country,

cover, crack, credit, crime, crush, cry, current, curve, damage,

danger, daughter, day, death, debt, decision, degree, design, desire,

destruction, detail, development, digestion, direction, discovery,

discussion, disease, disgust, distance, distribution, division, doubt,

drink, driving, dust, earth, edge, education, effect, end, error,

event, example, exchange, existence, expansion, experience, expert,

fact, fall, family, father, fear, feeling, fiction, field, fight,

fire, flame, flight, flower, fold, food, force, form, friend, front,

fruit

G-O

glass, gold, government, grain, grass, grip, group, growth, guide,

harbour, harmony, hate, hearing, heat, help, history, hole, hope,

hour, humour, ice, idea, impulse, increase, industry, ink, insect,

instrument, insurance, interest, invention, iron, jelly, join,

journey, judge, jump, kick, kiss, knowledge, land, language, laugh,

law, lead, learning, leather, letter, level, lift, light, limit,

linen, liquid, list, look, loss, love, machine, man, manager, mark,

market, mass, meal, measure, meat, meeting, memory, metal, middle,

milk, mind, mine, minute, mist, money, month, morning, mother, motion,

mountain, move, music, name, nation, need, news, night, noise, note,

number, observation, offer, oil, operation, opinion, order,

organization, ornament, owner

P-Z

page, pain, paint, paper, part, paste, payment, peace, person, place,

plant, play, pleasure, point, poison, polish, porter, position,

powder, power, price, print, process, produce, profit, property,

prose, protest, pull, punishment, purpose, push, quality, question,

rain, range, rate, ray, reaction, reading, reason, record, regret,

relation, religion, representative, request, respect, rest, reward,

rhythm, rice, river, road, roll, room, rub, rule, run, salt, sand,

scale, science, sea, seat, secretary, selection, self, sense, servant,

sex, shade, shake, shame, shock, side, sign, silk, silver, sister,

size, sky, sleep, slip, slope, smash, smell, smile, smoke, sneeze,

snow, soap, society, son, song, sort, sound, soup, space, stage,

start, statement, steam, steel, step, stitch, stone, stop, story,

stretch, structure, substance, sugar, suggestion, summer, support,

surprise, swim, system, talk, taste, tax, teaching, tendency, test,

theory, thing, thought, thunder, time, tin, top, touch, trade,

transport, trick, trouble, turn, twist, unit, use, value, verse,

vessel, view, voice, walk, war, wash, waste, water, wave, wax, way,

weather, week, weight, wind, wine, winter, woman, wood, wool, word,

work, wound, writing, year.

Things - 200 picturable words

angle, ant, apple, arch, arm, army, baby, bag, ball, band, basin,

basket, bath, bed, bee, bell, berry, bird, blade, board, boat, bone,

book, boot, bottle, box, boy, brain, brake, branch, brick, bridge,

brush, bucket, bulb, button, cake, camera, card, cart, carriage, cat,

chain, cheese, chest, chin, church, circle, clock, cloud, coat,

collar, comb, cord, cow, cup, curtain, cushion, dog, door, drain,

drawer, dress, drop, ear, egg, engine, eye, face, farm, feather,

finger, fish, flag, floor, fly, foot, fork, fowl, frame, garden, girl,

glove, goat, gun, hair, hammer, hand, hat, head, heart, hook, horn,

horse, hospital, house, island, jewel, kettle, key, knee, knife, knot,

leaf, leg, library, line, lip, lock, map, match, monkey, moon, mouth,

muscle, nail, neck, needle, nerve, net, nose, nut, office, orange,

oven, parcel, pen, pencil, picture, pig, pin, pipe, plane, plate,

plough, pocket, pot, potato, prison, pump, rail, rat, receipt, ring,

rod, roof, root, sail, school, scissors, screw, seed, sheep, shelf,

ship, shirt, shoe, skin, skirt, snake, sock, spade, sponge, spoon,

spring, square, stamp, star, station, stem, stick, stocking, stomach,

store, street, sun, table, tail, thread, throat, thumb, ticket, toe,

tongue, tooth, town, train, tray, tree, trousers, umbrella, wall,

watch, wheel, whip, whistle, window, wing, wire, worm.

Qualities - 100 descriptive words

able, acid, angry, automatic, beautiful, black, boiling, bright,

broken, brown, cheap, chemical, chief, clean, clear, common, complex,

conscious, cut, deep, dependent, early, elastic, electric, equal, fat,

fertile, first, fixed, flat, free, frequent, full, general, good,

great, grey, hanging, happy, hard, healthy, high, hollow, important,

kind, like, living, long, male, married, material, medical, military,

natural, necessary, new, normal, open, parallel, past, physical,

political, poor, possible, present, private, probable, quick, quiet,

ready, red, regular, responsible, right, round, same, second,

separate, serious, sharp, smooth, sticky, stiff, straight, strong,

sudden, sweet, tall, thick, tight, tired, true, violent, waiting,

warm, wet, wide, wise, yellow, young.

Qualities - 50 opposites

awake, bad, bent, bitter, blue, certain, cold, complete, cruel, dark,

dead, dear, delicate, different, dirty, dry, false, feeble, female,

foolish, future, green, ill, last, late, left, loose, loud, low,

mixed, narrow, old, opposite, public, rough, sad, safe, secret, short,

shut, simple, slow, small, soft, solid, special, strange, thin, white,

wrong.

Jennifer Moxley (USA) 1964

Jennifer Moxley (USA)
1964

Jennifer Moxley was born in San Diego, California in 1964. At 18 she worked as an au pair in France for a year, after which she returned to California and studied for three years at the University of California, San Diego. In 1989 she moved with scholar and critic Steve Evans to Providence, Rhode Island, where she eventually completely her B.A. at the University of Rhode Island and then went on to earn an M.F.A. from Brown University in 1994. From 1992-1995 she edited The Impercipient, a stapled magazine dedicated to publishing the work of her contemporaries. Following this venture she co-edited, with Steve Evans, The Impercipient Lecture Series, a monthly poetics pamphlet.

    She is the author of Often Capital, The Sense Record and Other Poems, Imagination Verses, as well as several chapbooks, including Enlightenment Evidence, which was translated into French as Evidence des Lumières at the Fondation Royaumont in 1998. Her translation of the French poet Jacqueline Risset’s 1976 book The Translation Begins was published by Burning Deck in 1996. In addition to French, her poetry has been translated into Norwegian, Swedish, Farsi, and Czech. Her poem “Behind the Orbits” was chosen by Robert Creeley for inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2002. She has been the poetry editor for The Baffler magazine since 1997 and a contributing editor of The Poker magazine since 2003. Presently she lives in Orono, Maine and teaches at the University of Maine.

     More recently, Moxley has published three works of prose: The Middle Room (2007), There Are Things We Live Among: Essays on the Object World (2012), and For the Good of All, Do Not Destory the Birds: Essays (2021).

BOOKS OF POETRY

Imagination Verses (New York: Tender Buttons, 1996 / Cambridge, England: Salt, 2003); The Sense Record and Other Poems (Washington, DC: Edge, 2002 / Cambridge, England: Salt, 2003); Often Capital (St. Louis: Flood, 2005); The Line (Sausalito, California: Post-Apollo, 2007); Clampdown (Chicago: Flood, 2009); Foyer States (Iowa City: Catenary, 2013); The Open Secret (Chicago: Flood Editions, 2014); Druthers (Chicago: Flood Editions, 2018)

╬Winner of the PIP Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative Poetry in English
2005-2006

The Line

True faith does not need the state to enforce it. It makes neither hope, nor a shroud. We will walk out of the visible and accept the darkness. We will find the line. It extends backwards thousands of years and forward even further. The utterance cup, the gentle metric, old words new mind lost time and loves. You sensed it all along, but the knowledge was hopelessly muddled by the inherent drive to author new life. Now cut the spittle line spun into reason and enter the grave alone.

Or write. Find time in words. Replace yourself cell by letter, let being be the alphabetic equation, immortality stay the name.


PERMISSIONS
_____
Reprinted from Jacket no. 27 (April 2005). Copyright ©2005 by Jennifer Moxley