best read in days: ca conrad and alice notley

eta: this

more about the hoax

okay, not so simple.

lonely girl and the war of the worlds broadcast (which actually was not a hoax, or not intended to be anyway) -- both "worked" because of the way they used new media.

sometimes hoaxes do not "undo" but rather create a climate of fear. "what if I do something and someone mocks it." sincerity is always risky. the hoax inherently protects the provocateur because they're "in." sometimes the hoax is annoying and boring. sometimes it is mean and dangerous.

the hoax is a form.

hoax

sometimes, I like a hoax.

I like the letter "x."

I started watching lonely girl after it was revealed to be a hoax, and sometimes I am dissappointed about that.

I am always in an audience.

I like the fantasy. but it is different from comedy. it's comedy if the audience knows about the hoax (ie borat).

Also, I think it is good to remember that it is okay to be had, because we are being had all the time.

no, this is not what I mean. I mean the "had-ness" is a construction; hoaxes actually deconstruct. the hoax becomes radical in its transparency.

california thunder

I haven't heard thunder since we got here. january is the rainy season. it's what makes the vernal pools. today it rains and rains and i like it. my plants are green. i worry about k, who is out in the rain, and how he will get home. i worry about the cormorants. my favorite one died. he was young. it was sudden.

when i was in tenth grade i felt an earthquake. it was in south carolina. my parents were out of town. i was in their bed, half sleeping, when i heard and felt a rumble. i came downstairs and asked my sister did you hear that. no. no. later i found out that there had been an earthquake in charleston.

i am glad that i am not in tenth grade anymore.

it rained and now all the frogs are singing

i used to write in notebooks

only half is visible

the way a mountain
and the ocean
look similar

blue, breaking

my face is
no face

what dissapears
in the mirror there

my hand on wood -- bureau, brush
handle, spoon

when you asked me
if the water was always so blue
you heart
beating was your mouth
moving

the double-crested's singing happens
in gestures, backwards
zig-zagged shadow the flickering
script, amissed blinking

shutters on bone-flutters
a slough through, thickets
where the tubes entered
and carried you away

footnotes

I really like this. I've been noticing lots of footnotes in poetry lately. I think this is cool.

I like the sort of "running under" text.

yeah. that's all.

summer shih tzu

can u tell how much I <3 her?

much coolness over @ Dusie

Dusie 5 is live.

Here is one of my poems from the issue:

FLINTHEART, PLANCHETTE

Dirty dove, I loved you even
when you ate the heart
of a deer — sliver of dark
meat quivering on your tongue-tip, heart-
ache wrought from the tip
of your knife. The most tender flesh.
That which you taste
only just after it dies. Barely dead
it bled to death still beating
in your hands. Beheld:
the doe and her fawn, the black
hooves knocking the blue glass
of the ice, the thicket
lined with the fur
of a hare, the circle of chalk
where she stood just before
she fell. Arrowhead — heart-shaped
bird — feathers flared
at your tail — that which guides
you. One heart always seeking
a place to dive — always seeking
another with its same beat.
For a moment we moved
in the same breast —
tongue-tooth to tongue-heart —
heart mouth to mouth
with all our jagged red teeth.

Thanks, Susana!

s_lie d

applause no more
than the need to migrate

standing, sitting
because no decide

could manage, could
sensing

the way sandpaper
on skin makes static

consolidated ___ (debt?)
(a pile of lives?)

looking away there
is the door

flesh on barbed wire
a handless gesture

where one sphere
slides through another

silvered circles glinting
like another world is possible

sugar

it was winter, or we
imagined it was. water
made of ice, lit leaves
and salt smell, dirt.
incisors shaped
slowly by frail
spines, commas
held and bowed
the way we bring
two bones together.
Vane and afterfeather
stroking gold, unwired
hutches -- a history
of emptied ribs, cotton
spun to white ecstasy.

this is what you've been waiting for

soon it will be too late

womb as a title for a publication, updated

Some people seem to think that "womb" is a pretty provocative/controversial title for a publication. I'd like to unpack why that is. But first I'd just like to say this:

-I like the word "womb," it's etymology, and the letters w-o-m-b and their suggested visual echoes: b-o-m-b (a buzzing or booming sound), c-o-m-b (a toothed object), t-o-m-b (to swell). I have always liked the "om" combination. I also have an intense fondness for words containing "ov." And I like almost all the words used to describe female and flower anatomy. They are tasty, tangy words. I also like the word "speculum." And "hem." And "hone." And "bone." And "elixir." But I digress.

- wombs -- the body parts -- are not required for publication in WOMB.

- WOMB publishes the work of people who SELF-identify as women.

- WOMB publishes the work of multiple genders.

- WOMB is feminist.

- WOMB is for everybody.

I think one of the reasons some people are put off by the name has to do with the body, and the way certain parts/areas of the body can become sites of political discourse and how this is enacted through language. The idea of the anatomical womb and it's function as a reproductive organ is frequently used as way for others to claim possession of/power over women's bodies. In case it isn't obvious, I think this is really gross.

I think another reason why some people are made uncomfortable by the name has to do with the way WOMB seems more sincere than say, words like "pussy" or "cunt." "Pussy" and "cunt" seem more ironic and distanced...and in some ways, this irony/distance is what makes many people, especially men, more comfortable. In case it isn't obvious, I think it is okay to make people feel uncomfortable. Especially if the discomfort reveals some sort of occult privilege.

It also seems that some people make the assumption that the title WOMB is meant to be a sort of synecdoche. That the journal is a sort of "all wombs on deck" call to poets. Or else that the title is meant to glorify fecundity/fertility. Both of these assumptions tend toward an interpretation of the title as a means of being divisive. Additionally, these assumptions also align with a tendency to value women because they possess wombs, or -- even worse -- to value the womb more than the woman. In case it isn't obvious, I think these tendencies are really, really gross. It is, in fact, a desire to squash those tendencies that compel me to use words like "womb" and "ovary" and "fallopian tubes."

I know that not everyone will like the title/name of every publication. And I know language will always be the site of conflict. I like poetry because it is a radical use of language. And yes, I do think "WOMB" is a radical name for a publication.

Colloquially, it is not unusual to hear someone say that so-and-so has "balls." It also isn't unusual for people to call things "seminal," or to call a person "cocky," or to say that someone got "shafted" or is a "tool." And did you know that the word "pencil" comes from the diminutive for penis? Yes, next time you use a pencil you can think "little penis." Or "tail," which is where the word for penis comes from.

The word womb comes from the word for belly.

And check this:

MATRIX:

1373, from O.Fr. matrice, from L. matrix (gen. matricis) "pregnant animal," in L.L. "womb," also "source, origin," from mater (gen. matris) "mother." Sense of "place or medium where something is developed" is first recorded 1555; sense of "embedding or enclosing mass" first recorded 1641. Logical sense of "array of possible combinations of truth-values" is attested from 1914.

More here.

Other things: Womb Chair from Design Within Reach & knit a womb. Also this.

WOMB POETRY Volume One is live. Check it out!

~*~Womb Poetry Vol.1 : Hives & Covens~*~

Volume One
dedicated in memory to kari edwards

* t h r u m *

: kari edwards : Eileen Tabios : Barbara Jane Reyes : Elizabeth Treadwell : Ann Bogle : : Alison Cimino :Susan B.A. Somers-Willett : Amy King : Kristy Bowen : Julie Choffel : : J.B. Rowell : Ebony Golden : Jenna Cardinale : Juliet Cook : Susan Morrison-Kilfoyle : : Holaday Mason : Toti O'Brien : Jessica Schneider : Karen McBurney : Sunnylyn Thibodeaux : : Sarah Mangold : Meagan Evans : Jennifer Bartlett : Marcia Arrieta : Michele Miller : : Priscilla Atkins : Anne Elezebeth Pluto : Marie Buck : Michalle Gould : Anne Heide : : Susan Meyers : Melissa Eleftherion : Susan Settlemyre Williams : J. Elizabeth Clark :

* s p a r k l e *

: Danielle Pafunda : Kathryn Miller : Julia Drescher : k. lorraine graham : Karen McBurney : : Michelle Caplan : Marcia Arrieta : Ashley Smith : Annette Sugden : Christine Bruness :

* c h i m e *


: a chapbook by Julia Drescher :

classwork

i ate a stone. the winter
began while the worms
were still in bloom. I
entered a hat and tried
to mock the feathers
that sprang up around
the eclipsing orb where
two beaks forged a filament;
wire waist where the fins
twinned themselves, mirror
over pond over machines
planted to waste hours.
a disk sunk in pink folds --
the hurting window
where roofs unwrite
and mending curtains bow.

dusking

I wanted to sing
to the bird but
I didn't know how

eye to screen, wire
mesh-through
which to see

suspended, she
seemed to mind
the tapped wing

the black band
twinned where the foot
fans as if

injury were a child, a fine

the language I should learn is not composed of words

I love:
wikipedia and the internet in general
animals
the ocean
poetry
letters and glyphs
coffee
champagne
scissors and the sound they make
feeling optimistic

+people people people
____________________

i wanted to feed the ducks today but suddenly i was afraid to walk the little asphalt path to the lake by myself. i've been saving stale bread for weeks.

thinking about the absence -- a pole
without eyes or hair but teeth
and hands --

what would you wring? a halo
or a hole where shallows swill
the bream and the shimmer
we dreamed oozing ...

notes: danger, mistake, optimism

this is unfinished for now

accidence

blindness without wisdom. I wished
for fountains which covered my feet.
no mist, only the sounds of tunneling --
the push-through feeding the funnel.

All week the watered
originals wilted
their flesh. I removed
some skin, by accident.

un easting

[the underside/ when]

I do not know how to begin

the worm, or the heal

the ridged grove where your wing slid

[ I am not open enough ]

I want to open my mouth, but you --

--it's not a thing helped when wind
without a shell
hollows out your heart-bone, rib of when

there was a net;

see -- on the horizon there --
a cleavage like a fin fluttering the shallow

eyes of pale yellow that do not blink

overwintering

new year

the things I thought I knew
snapped open like the firelight
held by the fly, the bliss comet
milling the open black
where one swallow unzips
snowlight, scissor sparks
and the incisors of the blue
fish that swim-flick their way
to dusk, the dart-in where
my heart blooms, again
and again, and the unknowing
spread like ink in the bed.

I wrap you in my hair and our
breath records the shell-shocked
silence flecked with feathers, our fur
returned to flesh --

Womb Poetry Volume 1: Hives & Covens

goes live January 15!