Prefab Eulogies Available Now

My book of improvisational poems/inter-poetic conversations, Prefab Eulogies Volume 1: Nothings Houses, is now available for purchase. These are some of my earliest poems, some written as early as between 2003-4, with yet several others written as late as this winter. 

You can go here, to the BlazeVox website and order directly, or you can order the book thru Amazon or SPD, both of which are linked on the BlazeVox Prefab Eulogies web page.  

Also on that page you can listen to a live recording of some of "Nothings Houses," a polyvocal work for multiple media (live voice, tape, typewriter, yellow stickies, and large film screen). A short excerpt of this multimedia work is in the new book as transliterated material.  Check out the recording here. 

Other more dubious poems, telephone calls, ritualistic behaviors transcribed, songs sent to senators/congress-people, drawings of the inside of various body parts, and some essay, follows.

This is a transitional book in many ways--though coming out now, much of it is earlier than the poetry I've published in more recent chapbooks.  Hence, the book reflects (if anything) a transition from installation and performing arts into the questions of contemporary poetry, with which I'd been engaged for those years, but which I'd only written about--until falling ill, which really meant, for me, being unable to move in ways that I'd been used to in performance and in daily life.  Of course I'm still undergoing that transformation, so this is no huge proclamation on my part, but something I've been reflecting on since last week when I got the proof in the mail.

Anyway, enjoy.

A huge thank you to poet & editor of BlazeVox [books] Goeffrey Gatza, as well as to Linh Dinh, Amy King, Jules Boykoff, Catherine Taylor, and everyone else who either edited, commented on, or otherwise helped get Prefab Eulogies out the door.  

And please help spread the word that Prefab Eulogies is now out!

Thanks,

Solidaridad,

David

Books, Books, Books, ON

Just got the proof book of Prefab Eulogies from Geoffrey at BlazeVox. So, it should be out in the next couple weeks. He did a great job cleaning up my designs inside and outside the book, and leaving alone the images I wanted to look amateurish, as if goofed up by a corporation that sells poetry advice.  It's nice to hold a book in your hands after reading it over and over in pdf form, INDD, etc.  This is true for me regardless of whether it's by "me" or by the authors for whom I've done editorial work.  Each time I hold the book-object I do re-assess my notion that the book can be dispensed with a great deal of the time, that I don't mind the physical book becoming less of a commercially viable commodity and more of a niche market art object.  Yet I still dislike it when someone says: "there's just something about holding a book...." There is also nothing quite like the feel of making your own cheese.  One can go on like this, make a nostalgia list, and it really means very little outside the given fetish.  The difference is in who owns what: the book is part of a dying corporate empire, and so gaining control of its construction is a reclamation of one's work, hence one's work becomes one's passion, as in Geoffrey's case.  Holding a book has nothing to do with regaining control of a dying corporate empire.  Usually it's an act of complicity with keeping it on life support.  Not so in poetry almost always, of course, and so as per my sacrificial trees post, I do not feel anything but pleasure holding the thing and staving off macular degeneration.  

Speaking of editing.  I did some copy for an essay by Amy King awhile back, not knowing what King was going to do with this essay she read at the AMAZING Belladonna Conference on Feminism, Activism, & Poetry (thinking, that is, it was going to end up used for teaching purposes, etc, very mysterious to me at the time as I think I was very busy doing a lot of nothing).  And then, er, bam: it's published in Free Verse and everyone can read it.  Which I would suggest, as I think it's a clear, hopeful essay, or, perhaps more precisely, a poetics of King's What Else in a larger (more encompassing) Queer Poetics. 

Other books received, which I will get to asap, as I'm excited to dig in and dig out of:

--Robert Mittenthal & Nico Vassilakis, Irrational Dude (I read part of this as they were working on it and it was/is gorgeous) (Tir Aux Pigeons, 2009)

--Nico Vassilakis, Text Loses Time (ManyPenny Press, 2007)

The latter work by Nico (who came down with Robert to hear Chris Mann perform for our PRESS series) I'd wanted to pick up for awhile now, as there's been quite a lot of buzz about this big multi-genre book.

Also of note, next week ON: A journal of Contemporary Practice (ON2) will be officially launched at a release party Feb 10.  Please go if in the area.  From Michael Cross:

Dear Friends: Please join us this Wednesday, Feb. 10th for the release party for ON: Contemporary Practice 2 at Moe's Books. My co-editor, Kyle Schlesinger, will be in town to help introduce our stellar cast of guests (reading poetry and critical statements), including Brandon Brown, David Brazil, Dan-Thomas Glass, Alli Warren, Suzanne Stein, Laura Moriarty, Taylor Brady, Jocelyn Saidenberg, and Robin Tremblay-McGaw. Festivities begin at 7:30 pm, and we are sure to hit the bars for family time afterwards. Hope to see you there! Michael 

Sacrificial Trees

                                             full book cover proof, Prefab Eulogies Vol 1: Nothings Houses (BlazeVox, forth. 2010)

Several projects are coming to a close, and as I now settle into teaching after a semester off, some trees are going to be sacrificed.  I'm not sorry given the tiny number of poetry / poetics books that are sold.  For instance, I expect to sell only about a million copies of Occultations, an artist book (designed by Jill Stengel & Mark Lamoureux) from Black Radish Books (Collective) that I've now got a release date for: April 1, & available thru SPD a couple weeks later, mid-April.  And given what Neo-Liberals have done to save the economy, I suspect I'll only manage to sell six hundred thousand copies of Prefab Eulogies Volume 1: Nothings Houses (BlazeVox).

I'm happy to find out from Geoffrey Gatza at BlazeVox that the final proof is now off to the printers, which should make the book available for purchase very soon; early Spring I'd imagine, at latest.  I'm really happy with what Geoffrey did in helping design the cover--taking my crap collages and making them legible.  So, my sincerest gratitude to Geoffrey.  

And my sincerest gratitude to Linh Dinh, Amy King, Jules Boykoff, and Catherine Taylor for writing too kind blurbs for the back of the book & website.

I just found out as well that Lourdes Vazquez found a home for an essay I wrote on her work a couple years ago, now part of a book I'm slowly working on--Necrophiliology: Aesthetic Practice During the Bush Regime.  She submitted it to and got it placed in the Brazilian journal of literature Sibila, edited by Charles Bernstein and poet Regis Bonvicino (English/Portuguese/Spanish).  That's cool: I've never had to do so little (nothing) to share my work with you.

Here is the English version.

Finally, a sincere thanks to Carlos Soto-Roman (post below), for formatting and re-formatting--basically spending too much time--my poems for Elective Affinities.  I've been working my way thru the pieces.  Really digging on Frank Sherlock's long poem at moment.

Finally finally, it's been a long haul, waiting on various pieces to arrive, making sure our chapbooks are able to come out with and soon after, but the new issue of Wheelhouse is nearly ready to be uploaded by designer-editor, Eden Schulz.  Excited for this issue and for the chapbooks, work from Uche Nduka, Stan Apps, & contributions to the journal from an amazing group of folks.  

Last, finally.  The new ON: A Journal of Contemporary Practice is coming out!  I'll post on this again when it is published.  Editors Michael Cross, Thom Donovan, and Kyle Schelsinger put out an amazing constellation of critical writings on contemporary poetries in the first issue. I've read some of the work from the new issue, and I'm certainly going to be ordering a couple copies asap.  Of course, they're beautiful art objects as well, with Cross (Atticus/Finch) and Schlesinger (Cuneiform) some of the finest book artist around.

Stain Reading featuring Yours Truly - See You There

What a lineup.  I'm a little demured.  As a long time fan of Adam, Nada, Scott, Chris, and Julian, I can say with confidence that this will be another wonderful Stain of Poetry reading--even with me in the lineup.

Please support your fellow poets and drop by.  A huge thanks to Amy King and Ana Bozicevic for the invite.

Please, if you come, be prepared to participate.  I'll need at least 2 volunteers who can project.   

Saturday, August 1st @ 7 p.m. 

~ Julian Brolaski, Adam Fieled, Nada Gordon, Scott Hightower, Chris Stackhouse & David Wolach ~

Goodbye Blue Monday
(go through cafe room
to back garden stage)
1087 Broadway
(corner of Dodworth St)
Brooklyn, NY 11221-3013
(718) 453-6343

J M Z trains to Myrtle Ave
or J train to Kosciusko St.

~

Julian T. Brolaski is the author of the chapbooks Hellish Death Monsters (Spooky Press,  2001), Letters to Hank Williams (True West Press, 2003), The Daily Usonian(Atticus/Finch, 2004) and Madame Bovary’s Diary (Cy Press, 2005) (under the name Tanya Brolaski), Buck in a Corridor (flynpyntar, 2008) and the blog herm of warsaw.  Xir first book gowanus atropolis is forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse. Brolaski lives in Brooklyn where xe writes poetry, serves as a Litmus Press editor, plays country music inThe Low & the Lonesome, and curates th’every-other-monthly freakshow Mongrel Vaudeville.

~

Adam Fieled is a poet, musician, and critic based in Philadelphia. He has released several books and chapbooks, maintains two blogs,and is finishing his PhD at Temple University, where he teaches.

~

Nada Gordon is the author of four poetry books: Folly, V. Imp, Are Not Our Lowing Heifers Sleeker than Night-Swollen Mushrooms?, and foriegnn bodie – and, with Gary Sullivan, an e-pistolary techno-romantic non-fiction novel, Swoon. She practices poetry as deep entertainment and is a proud member of the Flarf Collective. Visit her blog athttp://ululate.blogspot.com.

~

Scott Hightower’s third collection, “Part of the Bargain,” received the 2004 Hayden Carruth Award. His translations from Spanish have garnered him a Willis Barnstone Translation Prize. He is a contributing editor to “The Journal.”  His reviews frequently appear in “Coldfront Magazine” and “Boxcar Poetry Review.”   A native of central Texas, he lives with one foot in New York City, one in Texas, and one in Madrid, Spain. He teaches at NYU, and has taught poetry, non-fiction writing, and translation at Drew, F.I.T., Fordham, and Poets House.

~

Christopher Stackhouse is the author of poetry collected in the chapbook Slip (Corollary Press, 2005); co-author of Seismosis (1913 Press, 2006), a dialogic collaboration featuring Stackhouse’s drawings and text by writer/professor John Keene (Northwestern University), with essays from poet Ed Roberson and poet/critic Geoffrey Jacques. He holds has MFA in Writing/Interdisciplinary Studies from Bard College; is a Cave Canem Writers Fellow; and is a 2005 Fellow in Poetry, New York Foundation for the Arts. His recent essays have been published in the literary journal American Poet, and the anthology A Best of Fence: The First Nine Years. He will be a guest faculty member in the Naropa University Summer Writing Program 2009, at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics in Boulder, Colorado. He organizes Readings at Max Protetch Gallery in New York City with poet/assistant gallery director Stuart Krimko. Currently completing a manuscript of poetry, while also doing research for the development of a non-fiction book on poetics, Stackhouse lives and works in Brooklyn New York.

~

David Wolach is professor of writing, poetics, & philosophy at The Evergreen State in Olympia, Washington, and visiting poet in Bard College’s Workshop in Language & Thinking.  Author of Fractions of M, The Transcendental Insect Reader, Acts of Art/Works of Violence, and the forthcoming Scripto Erratum (sound/text compositions, scored with composer Arun Chandra & video artist Tasha Glen), David’s work has appeared this year or is forthcoming from Bird Dog, CRIT, Night Train, Diode, The Concelebratory Shoehorn Review, Venereal Kittens, [...]: An Anthology of New American Writing, AB OVO, and Ignavia Press: Journal of Transgressive Queer Writing.  Much of his work is multi-media and performative, and has been featured at venues such as Buffalo Poetics Series 2009, The American Cybernetics Conference 2009, and Bard’s Visiting Poets Series.  David is also editor of Wheelhouse Magazine & Press and curator of PRESS: A Cross-Cultural Literary Conference.

~

Hosted by Amy King and Ana Božičević

http://stainofpoetry.wordpress.com/

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=103132898882

"David Wolach" Does Not Deserve This Poem, Whoever (S)He Is(n't)

POST-SCRIPT RE OTHERNESS:

Setting: EVERGREEN CLASSROOM

ME: "blah blah, otherness, blah blah..."

STUDENT: "try being a transgendered asian american in the northwestern woods and i'll show you otherness."

FIN

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

Upon returning from more healthcareful fun, I found in my inbox waiting for me a poem by Amy King, dedicated to me, which (my addition) is to say, us. This is neither the time nor place (do they exist here?) to perform an exegesis on Amy's poem. Rather, I was really touched, and the poem itself is beautiful - jagged, open lines that subtly torque the personal pronoun and gender such that the reader/writer/worker comes out, in such a careful (and politically fist pumping) way as (in trying to find the right way to describe it) this poetic acknowledgment of a "familiar other." From "What Is Is Not There":

I will fall for one woman
when his heart’s got the right circuits on board.
I till the fields till then.

For all the talk and writing and etc regarding torquing pronouns and obliteration (attempted) of the myth of the stability of selfhood, the tyranny of the subject treated as objective in poetry since god knows when, I think one only begins to find that this talk, so many books dedicated to voice, etc., are hitting on something not just politically important (libertarianism be damned!) but phenomenologically true when something happens such that the reading of it is supplemented by the getting it. Lately I've been discussing my illness with Amy, and Amy has been so deeply supportive and present as a human being that I've begun to come out of my shell regarding being sick. More importantly, I think it takes something - maybe not getting sick and having the body rebel on you, but maybe something strikingly mundane, like a simple thought fart about one's sense of self or lack thereof, to feel the otherness of oneself, thus helping one to acknowledge the importance of that otherness on another. Amy King's poetry does so many wonderful things, but what I often find most striking beyond the sheer [new] music is how her work plays with these multiplicities as up against normative notions of identification and nomination - the dangers of "the fit."

Just the thing I needed after a bad week. And who says people can't form connections online? Oh, I do. But you can certainly make those connections stronger via simple acts of human recognition. Human: there's a category I think I'll keep, self-identify with, at least for awhile.