effing blog

Creeley poems at 12th Street Books

If you are in the Austin area please come to 12th Street Books Friday around 6:30 pm to hear and read some of Robert Creeley's poems aloud.  Bring your favorite Creeley poems, prose, interviews, anecdotes, etc. 

BYOB.  Maybe afterwards we can get a scotch n beer down the street at Opal Divine's.

12th Street Books is located at 827 W. 12th Street is Austin.

ROBERT CREELEY 1926 - 2005

too heavy a load

* Corrections have been made to this since it was first posted...

It's not easy coming off a 4-day weekend.  Cry for me.

I haven't been so bloggy of late but I'll give the jist of what's been going on.   I have nothing better to do at the day job...

In a big push to clear my work space of current projects I've been binding books like a mofo and getting all the effing publications trimmed and boxed, etc.   Joe Massey's Eureka Slough, whose covers are back from the printer but are still a bit wet, will be bound and trimmed before week's end and it's a beaut.

While I bound other chaps and took care of that business I watched a good portion of the Dead Like Me season 1 dvd set and where as I find it okay and mildly entertaining, it drags a bit and becomes predictable.  I've had to take a break from season 4 of OZ only because my preferred video stores (meaning the ones where I owe the least money) have been plum out of all things OZ.  And I've yet to see the Carnivale season 1 dvds on any shelf - they are always checked out when I go for them.  Since I don't have cable I am content to wait a year or so between seasonal dvd releases, but once they are out I like to plow through them in a viewing marathon.  How's that for a mixed metaphor.

I've also been reading the poetry of Joel Oppenheimer, someone I'd never read before.  I do like a lot of it a good deal.  I'll post some poems I like in the next few days.  Also been reading Snows Gone By by Jim Koller, whose reading here with Stefan Hyner has left the phrase "too heavy a load" looping in my head now for weeks.  Ask my friends.  They're sick of hearing me say it (complete with gruff man-voice) I am sure.

In other news, Karly, my beauty queen, has been in LA this past week filming season 1 of a hip new crafting show that she is co-hosting with others from the Austin Craft Mafia (the show will air I believe in the winter of 05 on the DIY Network).  She'll be gone another month or so and it is the longest we've been apart since she moved to Austin a few years ago.  I'm taking it like a man though, meaning I am watching way too many movies, eating ice cream by the pint, and enjoying maybe more scotch than usual.   Floyd the wondercat is keeping his cool gaze on me though.  I'm looked after.

Miss you K of my heart!  I'm only kind of a mess when you are not around.

One po blog I've been sticking close to is Geof Huth's.  Fascinating writing on visual poetry and a lot of visual poetry of his and others as well as links to visual poetry publications.  I learn something each time I visit.

I received last week from David Meiklejohn the latest installment of the Awesome Aughty Three subscription.  AA3 is an obscure collective made up I believe of three people:  writer/videographer David Meiklejohn, vis artist Hannah Barnes (check effing mag #2), and writer/editor/founder of Found Magazine, Davy Rothbart.  I could be wrong about the make up but that seems correct.   [Yes, I am wrong.  AA3 is David and Hannah alone, though they have done a project or two with Davy Rothbart.  "Aughty Three" is reference to the year the 12 issue project began.]  It is one of the most rewarding subscriptions I've ever received - one month it could be printed matter, one month a set of videos or a CD of music, or maybe a set of photographs, or a calendar,or or or.  One never knows.  This particular installment was a CD of 5 or 6 quicktime videos made mostly by David and they are wonderful, absotively.  One video was shot in New York's Central Park during the Gates exhibition and each time I've watched the video I've choked up, I get moved.  Beautiful.  I won't articulate it, but it is how film should be, period.  I think AA3 may be for an exclusive mailing list only but if I catch wind that it is open to the public i will post the info here.   [They are nearly done with the cycle of the 12 issues.  I will attempt a retrospective of the entire project once the subscription ends after a few more installments.]

the videos in this installment:

1) a travelogue-ish montage of a Found Magazine book tour, set to music by The Books.

2) a clever vid shot in reverse of a man with apples (yours truly did the camera work for it when David was still living in Austin) set to music by Spoon.

3) another clever vid called Roommates in which the styles of two roommates mesh in a moment of connectivity regarding a Disney video.   Most amazing because David plays both characters which are often in the same frame, requiring some technically intelligent composite shooting and seamless editing.  Also, David managed to sync hip hop music to the mouth and body movements of a big stuffed dancing bear.  Commendable.

4) Austin, snow falling, one sad man plays in it.  Beautifully lit.  Sad and sweet.

5) Long shots of various views of the Gates exhibition, blurred.  Composite layers, semi-translucent bodies in motion.  Always one or two stationary participants somewhere in the frame. Looked like a Jonas Mekas film diary.  Music from Rachel's Music for Egon Schiele.  Will tear your heart out.

Feeling anxiety over reading poems to a creative writing class at UT next week.  The reading part is fine, it's that I am providing several poems to the class in advance to look over and drum up questions for which bothers me (but in a good way of course, it's been a while since I've had to think of my own work in a critical manner).  If there are students as thorny and stubborn as I was I am sure I'll be put through the thresher.  It should be fun!  I need to bone up on my po talk, maybe pull the Princeton Book of Poetic Terms off the shelf.

Did I mention I did laundry?

You aren't talking much, is your lunch okay?  Is there something on my face?  Something horrible happening behind me?

I'll go on.  I paid off yet another credit card.  Turning my attention and money now to another debt and there are plenty.  By 2016 I should be able to get off the grid entirely.  You can find me in a forest then eating mammals, wildflowers, and tubers.  I'll live in a hut made of chapbooks and poetry zines.

ARTIFICIAL LURE by CLAYTON COUCH

from Effing Press:

Artificial Lure, 7x8, 44 pages, saddle-stitched, w/ baby blue endpapers, cover and interior illustations by Janice Bostok.    $5.00.

* * *

Very happy to announce the publication of this chapbook of poems by Clayton Couch.  The poems are clever, inquisitive and peppered with a nervous humor that has you smiling whilst looking over your shoulder for who may be watching you.  Clayton has a mind that sees in the dark and which is restless and in tune to the tones and frequencies (and language) of mistrust in our present oil/war/christian-politico culture.

From the book:

Artificial Lure

hands emptier rooms conversational yesterday attention get
parents know surface lures small mouth into hooked chase
fling fishing pole out same location same distance time again
pass over lightning distance behind trees fireworks rumble
onward no blank looks begin with recipe for comfort and heal
address format heart's lost word is tossed glass recycle night
zombie limp through night streets burning how drunken lost
gas stations go up in robber baron flames stores sell for free
political commune send another presidential candidate social
butterfly flaps its wings and giant octopus washes ashore
another sol solar system seventy some light years far away
books of a whole other order and yet the oceans remain old

Its Discontents

Paradise is in trouble again. I said it.
Don't wait for the effigy fed with fork
and spoon to turn against you one night,
when it has had enough of TV dinners, boy.
Medieval doctors, walking putrid cobblestones,
lean noses on humourous odours and diagnose
the wicked, birdlike and beaky, joking it up.
You're not kidding. Civilization's sister
is a rat or cockroach; you believe in good
behaviour. I was, as you said from the bottom
of your holey heart, indisposed. Would you
have it any other way? Believe me, when barter
breaks down, everything abstract in market-
place clowns around awhile, ripping that torn
and besotted tax umbrella out of your hands.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To order, simply click the BUY NOW button in the right column.  Or, send cash or check to:

Scott Pierce
703 W. 11th Street #2
Austin, TX 78701

Jesus Christ!

Justin Ulmer as JC.  Wow.  And you know he's method acting!

"Jesus about to do that thing in Scanners" "Jesus in Prell commercial with arthritic hand" "Jesus in Battleship Potemkin"

nothin' but blue skies

Oi, it is Friday again so lift your skirts.  It is good.  Not a cloud in the sky and it's gonna be 75 degrees today.  Bust out your short pants. 

Sampled Big Foot Ale by Sierra Nevada last night and I ache today and am blinded by the light (sans the "revved up like a duece", I hate that fucking song) and I'm a bit floaty.  It's a ripe time to ask me for money or something, my auto-pilot knows no negative discourse, we are yes men at the copy machine and at the phones and by the coffee maker.  My fellow employees! 

Spoke on the phone with Joe Massey last night.  His Philly accent threw me off in the best of ways.  Makes me wonder how apparent my own southern accent is.  I do say y'all and howdy.  I know I got some twang to my linga.

Let's examine that:  twang to my linga. 

No let's not.  For the hangover giggles in there and the brain is too slow (floaty!).

For those in Austin, I do hope to see you at Philip Trussell's show this evening.   I will be there most of the night as I and another are acting as the bidding agents (there must be another name for that).  So come on and bring me a beer.

I wrapped up watching the first season of Deadwood on dvd this week.  I love it.  The gritty yet oddly formal language is written so well.  The sneaky greasy hotel clerk / mayor says the best stuff.  The Sweringen (?) character too. 

"That's a nice piece of strange".

You all are a nice piece of strange I say. 

Hey, also!  Check in this weekend or early next week for some effing announcements.  Chapbooks are about to fly through the air.

I have Shakakan's "I Feel for You" rolling through my head like a freight train.  Some curse it is too.   Now it is the "hokey pokey" song.  Fuck, I must be in a roller rink flash back.  Time for double skate!

Juicy

John Latta has some great words for Hoa's chap Red Juice at his blog Hotel Point.   

And so does Joe Massey at his Bacon Bargain!.

coma butt

Bit of a chill rolled through town despite the budding trees and flowers.  I'd like to hold onto winter a while longer.   I'd like some more night.  And for the river to remain dark beneath its silver skin.

SXSW is upon us and the industry people, punks, and (m)emo throngs are ready to pig out on the recipe of noise.  How many smart ass logo tees will we count this year?  what new poses with cup o beer in hand?   The sensitive thrift armies are jumping off their mopeds and outta their Jettas and are ready to look bored and undersexed. 

my involvement with the festival is less and less every year.  Last year I wandered by day, sampled free shows and keg beer sponsored by the magazines, and accompanied K as she shot pictures for her yet-to-be-realized photo zine Veggies, an Austin version of the Tokyo-based fashion mag Fruits.  In my drunken bliss (for day drinking in the right light indeed produces at least some bliss) I envisioned a photo zine of my own, a zine that highlighted those special oddball burnout bastards this city crawls with this time of year.  And I would name the zine COMA BUTT.  And this could still happen.

I'm bored with pop music and the scene but will I'm sure make it out for at least one evening.  I'll walk down the hill on a break from book binding and envelope stuffing and I'll find a beer and a Nordic avant garde noise group or some such accident and try to feel it like I used to feel it.  Maybe find a poem in there too.

Or not.  I'm cool with staying at bay.  COMA BUTT is apparent to anyone willing to plug their ears for a second and look around at the industry at play. Be one or buy one! 

(Justin, there is your Barfly quote and I don't owe you anything.)

Philip Trussell and Michael Schliefke

Michael Schliefke, a terrific painter in Austin, has put up a new page for Philip Trussell at his site, schliefkevision.

Philip Trussell, 2004 (in front of painted works by RJ Oehler)

Philip's upcoming show is definitely something to look forward to.  He only shows his work once a year and you never know what you're going to see.  As he is my neighbor, friend, and teacher I often get to see his work so I know what to expect him to show, but even seeing him every day I do not see all of the work he completes (I'm pretty sure he continues to work while he sleeps).   It is my hope to produce a book of Philip's photomontages w/ adjoining text within a year.  (For as even he would say of himself, he is a poet's painter, not a painter's painter.  And if you ever want to talk Dorn, Duncan, Olson, Williams, or Pound, etc. you best be prepared for a long night.)  Also an interesting note, Philip's mentor was Harvey Brown, publisher of Frontier Press, and poetry patron extraordinaire.   

Michael Schliefke, 2005

Philip has remarked several times that Mike is one of the few serious young painters in Austin that he admires and anyone who knows Philip and his critique of the art scene in Austin must realize what high praise this is.  I really dig Mike's work as well and I admire his tenacity to rough it as a painter and to avoid day jobs, of which I am jealous.  He is currently a studio resident at Bolm Studios on the east side and often opens up his studio for talks and presentations.  Though I don't yet own any of Mike's work, I have high hopes! 

Untitled, Philip Trussell

Nation Builders, Michael Schliefke

from Kent Johnson

As a supporter of most things Kent Johnson as well as the publisher of his forthcoming book Lyric Poetry After Auschwitz, I present to you his open letter to Campus Watch:

Dear Campus Watch,

I have recently read the diatribe on the poet and activist Ammiel
Alcalay, published in the American Thinker on March 4.

I am not writing this letter to argue politics with you, for that would
be silly, wouldn't it? I am writing, rather, to ask that you add me to
the list of American poets you are putting under surveillance. Allow me
to briefly list some of my credentials, as I think you will agree I
deserve to be given a file in the archives of your organization.

I was one of the poets published in Sam Hammill's Poets Against the War
anthology. My poem, which was widely distributed before its anthology
publication, including by the openly Marxist journal Monthly Review, is
titled Baghdad, and it is loosely based on the children's book Goodnight
Moon.

Days went by... Then, the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib prison
happened, and I published a poem titled "Lyric Poetry After Auschwitz,
Or: Get the Hood Back On." This poem may be of particular interest to
you, since (in addition to the fact that it is accompanied by
photographs and the music of Dean Martin) Ammiel Alcalay himself saw fit
to send it abroad for possible translation into Arabic. I don't know if
it has been translated yet, but the English version is available here,
where it has received thousands of visits since its appearance :
http://www.blazevox.org/kent.htm

Further, this poem is now the title poem of a collection of mine that
is soon to appear. This book will contain numerous pieces by me (not
everyone would judge it poetry!), all of which have some relation to the
war in Iraq. The cover of this book will be, I think, somewhat original:
The infamous shot of the American soldier holding the leash which is
clipped to the neck of the prone prisoner shall be surrounded by
pictures of daffodils among which shall be little Cupids shooting their
arrows inward, toward the picture.

But the most important thing I wanted to say about the forthcoming book
is this: I intend to announce in the book that all author royalties from
the sale of the collection are to be donated to Campus Watch. I wish to
do this (and I hope you will accept the gesture) because I strongly
believe your proto-fascist activities are an excellent stimulant to the
defense of American values, like civil liberties and other stuff.

Also, I should tell you that I correspond with Joseph Safdie, one of
the "leftist" poets mentioned in the American Thinker article! He and I
almost co-edited a book of recipes and favorite dinner anecdotes by
poets. Alas, this book idea fell through, though I now can't quite
remember why. But someone else should certainly do it, as it is a
wonderful idea. Oh, and I should also say that in the 1980's I worked as
a literacy teacher in Nicaragua on two different occasions. This was
when the Sandinista's were in power. Though I'm more or less a social
democrat now, I was *really* radical back then. From our village, we
could hear the Contra mortars going off almost every night. Some of my
friends died. Then I came back and founded the Milwaukee Central America
Solidarity chapter, which went on to do all sorts of protest activities.
One event we organized was called "Who's Watching You in 1984?" and
hundreds of people attended, including numerous FBI agents. Not to get
too sentimental, but it was at this event that I met my future wife.

So, these would be some reasons you might wish to accept my request to
be inducted into your files. I will be sure to send you a copy of the
forthcoming book, which, again, shall go to support the activities of
your organization.

Sincerely,

Kent Johnson