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February 2012
70 posts
January 2012
98 posts
Poet's Sampler: Corina Copp
Corina Copp poems on Boston Review with an introduction by the lovely Dorothea Lasky. Get Ms. Copp’s chapbook, Pro Magenta, at Ugly Duckling Presse.
A Poem from Andrea Rexilius
From Fourth Residence, a section of her forthcoming book from Letter Machine Editions, Half of What We Carried Flew Away, featured on THERMOS.
Textile Series: Dan Thomas-Glass
Another little jewel from this series, Kate & Sonia by Dan Thomas-Glass.
Douglas Kearney at the Beloit Poetry Journal
Douglas Kearney has a new poem in the Spring 2012 issue, excerpt below:
Thank you But Don’t Buy My Babies Clothes with Monkeys on Them
Costco Pulls “Lil Monkey” Doll Off Shelves
—KTLA News headline
“It’s so unfortunate because now it’s portrayed as a purposeful act to be
disrespectful and that’s not true.”
watch the carriage turn to a monkey cage,
but for now, see the sugared ladies lean
in, the stroller’s mouth wide. they are greedy
for toes, for fingers, for lips plump before
those tiny, bright incisors. and why not?
these babies are almost people. ladies
with candy-addled handbags would give, give, give
but the pudgy arms stretch, reach. growing feet
claim earth. lips draw back at the wrong angles,
withholding the grins the ladies demand.
what must they turn into? when do purses,
aburst with strawberry and cherry sweets,
crawl into the ladies’ chests, their hearts pressed
up and out into their blenching throats?
Rebecca Wolff Interview
Rebecca Wolff is interviewed at The Review Review.
“Fence started in a particular moment, out of a need I saw at the time, and I feel as though it’s moved through that original motivation; its reason for being has evolved and its needs have changed. It’s confusing. At times I feel it achieved its original goal, and has now relaxed to the golden age, like a grandparent who can just enjoy their grandchildren. But at other times it feels clear that I may not even have understood what I was trying to do at the beginning. So there is a need for redefinition.
Because it is such a personal journal, it remains my vision, but having the poetry and fiction editors achieves the goal of not allowing Fence to ever be the product of one coherent editorial vision. Originally, the incoherence had a specific mission, wanting to work against rigidities I saw. Now the landscape has changed so much, but certain things still stay the same. There are social constructs that don’t allow for a lot of flux, and I do think Fence still works against that very actively, but at the same time I understand why people want to be a part of them. So I have complicated feelings about what Fence is doing right now. I’m about due for a re-upping of my mission statement.”
On National Poetry Series Winner Juliana Leslie
A look at NPS winner, Green Is for Word, and its author, Juliana Leslie, HERE.
Readings: New York, Philly, Flying Object, San Francisco
[Another quick note: if you’re involved in organizing readings, going on a big or small reading tour, anything like that, let us know at thevoltanews[at]gmail[dot]com. many thanks]
Kelly Writer’s House @ The Arts Cafe
January 31
6pm
Fanny Howe, Lisa Jarnot, Devin Johnston
Poetry Project @ St. Mark’s
February 1
8pm
City Lights Bookstore
February 2
7pm
LOOT IX @ Flying Object
February 5th
8pm
Reason to Visit Denver: Noah Saterstrom Exhibit at Counterpath
Raised in Mississippi and educated at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland, Noah Saterstrom works as a visual artist and independent curator. His paintings, drawings, and print installations have been shown nationally and internationally, most recently in Brooklyn, NY, New Orleans, LA and Glasgow, Scotland. He works with writers on text/image collaborations, and is the founder and curator of the on-line curatorial quarterly, Trickhouse. He currently lives in Tucson, Arizona.
New Poem by Matthew Zapruder
Over at the ol’ PEN Poetry Series
Great American summer lakes
right now I am flying above you
through a rare cloudless transparent sky
back to the city where it is always
cold even in summer
The round hole I press my face against
shows only a blue expanse
with white sails below
speckled exactly the way
the Aegean would have been
three thousand years ago
if one could have seen it from above
maybe riding in the dark claw
of a god who didn’t care
New Review of Ariana Reines's Mercury & New Video of Tsering Wangmo Dhompa
Arda Collins Interviewed at Bomblog
CBM: The components of your dinner are waiting for you downstairs.
AC: Components of anything are critical. Dinner is definitely not the point there; components are life’s basic pleasures. If you take a bunch of stuff, not at random, like you went towards four things, or twelve things, or one hundred things, they wouldn’t form a composition on their own. If you could make an arc out of them—actually it wouldn’t even be you imposing it—you could follow what they did. Like we’re doing this now. The components of today were partly the drive here and the way the road looked, the pale sunset and the dark tree. Those are the components of the dinner downstairs. This is the same thing as dinner.
Black Ocean Sale! New Titles No Shipping
In a sale to drown for (womp), Black Ocean is offering a combo deal of Butcher’s Tree and Zachary Schomburg’s Fjords for $20 till January 31st.
Have you seen this book?
Toshiya Kamei’s translation of Espido Freire’s Irlanda is brought to you by our dear friends at Fairy Tale Review Press.
Sawako Nakayasu Tells Us About Mouth: Eats Color
Read her conversation with Thomas Fink HERE about encompassing the work of modernist poet and translator Sagawa Chika.
Becca Jensen Wins Les Figues' First NOS Contest
“Les Figues Press is delighted to announce the winner of our first annual NOS* Book Contest, as selected by judge Sarah Shun-lien Bynum. The winner will receive $1000 and her manuscript will be published by Les Figues in Fall 2012.
*NOS (not otherwise specified)
2011 Les Figues NOS Book Contest Winner:
Among the Dead: Ah! and Afterward Yes! by Becca Jensen”
Full list of finalists here
Sommer Browning Answers Exactly 20 Questions
Beloved author of Either Way I’m Celebrating talks about comics, love, performance anxiety, and projects among other things HERE.
Schwabsky on Ashbery on Rimbaud
Why did the lifelong champion of “minor” and alternative poetries take part in canon-making? A question Schwabsky approaches at HYPERALLERGIC.
Barbara Guest's Typescript
“You should not wait for the walls / To speak. Go into the bathroom, / Turn on the faucett, and swim into the street.”
Read the rest HERE.
It's Starting To Snow
So it was nice to come across a recent video of Al Filreis teaching Stevens’ “The Snow Man.”
