Pyrography

Reading Hannah Weiner

I see words

6 x 6

something fun and special coming your way June 6. Stay tuned.

Hex Presse

the print companion to WOMB poetry!
























Look for our first chapbook -- Resurrection Party by Michalle Gould -- in August!

ghosts

awesome poem by Amy King up at Verse Daily today.

scissors (lips/legs/eyes)

night heron

who moves slow as a spun
spool, record-grove
needle stylus singing
through, red eye-
glass the compass
and the bone-body-needle
threading back
over gravel, plastics
to return not
out of love, but hunger

post bellum letters

Making the notes section for the bellumletters chap, I'm struck how it too is a poem. The juxtaposition of text, rather than the sort of layering text that linking constructs, is effective in a way that is at once more and less familiar. Like looking in glossary or appendix, but also disorienting. The mapping of virtual space that is this troubling information which is always under everything produced by an imperialistic, capitalist machine. A palimpsest or x-ray. And what to do? Perceive the limits of geography or feel the limits dissolved? Pretend to comprehend? Fight? Play dead? And there are so many bombs with names like "dumb" and "pineapple" -- and uranium and planes and tanks and people people people people people people. It is a lie to feel any war is far away. A weirdly loose knitting made by fake text and metal.

golden hour

I was going to post a video in which I read a poem, but this is so. much. better.

solve oil sieve

Materials as/for poems

letters, words, imprints, text, type, marks, ink, paper, language, utterance, signs, scissors, glue, paint, wasp's nests, glitter, pages, stamps, printers, pins, needles, ephemera (esp maps, children's books, nature guides, old science textbooks, women's mags from mid-century, sewing patters, diagrams of any sort, missalettes), pastels, plastic animals, bird song, chimes, twitter, honey, strings, clay, plaster, doll house furniture, leaves and flowers, sand, shells, bones, fabric, rocks and pebbles, yarn, spools of thread, markers, crayons, chalk, nuts and bolts, clock parts (gears and faces), animal prints, tire tracks, fishing lures, bells, architecture, whistles, darts and arrows, syringes, test tubes, microscopes and binoculars, looms, spindles, sewing machines, small engine parts, paper shredders, garden tools, compass, protractors, stencils, ashes, ice, snow, seeds, film, buttons, bobbins, dress forms, nets, foil, glass, books, plastic, board games, illuminations, puzzles, kaleidoscopes, funnels, vitamins, pills, make-up, pantyhose, magnets, targets, soap, windows, lanterns, colored pencils, bird cages, model airplanes, fossils, electricity, computers, typewriters, cameras, voice recorders, braille, fire/flames, sparks, ovens, utensils, tape, ribbons and adornments, light bulbs, bandages, video, html, clips, wires, telephones, morse code, suncatchers, sonar, uv light, water and hydroponics, salt, memory, medicine, the body, dreams, diaries, discs, rings, metals, zippers, faucets, notes, tones, glyphs, graphics, eyelets, nails, oil, carriages, wheels, irons, x-rays, mirrors...

passage 2

vivarium

citement

My friends Chris and Julia make beautiful things. Check out the chaps in progress for their new project, dos press. Also take a look at the minumentals (one is pictured above): tiny poem books/boxes. Lastly, their new poetry journal, Little Red Leaves (for which I'm a contributing editor), is now live.

makes me want to make (spring)

Linh Dinh is my new favorite poet. Lots of intriguing and inspiring stuff over at the flux I share.

post-bellumletters reading

I'm reading this. lots of great images.

vex and bury

Feminaissance and Wack

So I did get a little taste of Feminaissance on Saturday. It took us forever to leave the house so we only made the last panel, but it was a very interesting one. I wish that I had been less caffeine deprived...but this is what happens when you stay up until 4 am every night!

As I mentioned earlier, Eileen Myles is AMAZING. I'm still organizing my thoughts about the other presentations, but here are some of the notes I took during E.M.'s presentation from the "categories" panel:

- the world determines your gender before you do
- one can be caught in the midst of two [gendered] performances: one true and one false
- hormones are writing (!!!)
- gender is a public thought
- gender and "things." In inflected languages (i.e. Latin) nouns are given masculine or feminine endings. In English, some things are gendered. For example, ships are "she." Also discussed gender and hurricanes. After the panel I did some research. As it turns out, the gender of hurricanes alternates through the alphabet, which seems sort of conceptually elegant to me -- this idea of alternating gender as something controlled/contained by letters and "names." You can see this list of names here. Also, why don't we name earthquakes or volcanic eruptions? Does a hurricane seem somehow more "live"; or perhaps a storm seems more distinct from the planet itself?

We also made what felt like a very cursory tour of the WACK show, which is electric and dense and mesmerizing. The concentration of feminist art creates a very palpable sense of urgency and power. It also highlights a desire to "get out" of the museums, which is to say that it draws attention to/makes clear the limits of the museum. Forms are used and simultaneously undermined. Museum spaces are productive and necessary and often feel like sanctuaries, but the underlying imperative -- the quicksilver vein of the WACK show -- is that we must change the world outside the museum. This may seem like a banal point, but trust me -- it has a sharpened tip in the context of this exhibit.

Anyway, the MOCA is one of my favorite places in Los Angeles. Besides the WACK show, there are some very interesting pieces there. Among them are some texty pieces by Alexandra Grant, including a glinting silver wire mesh sphere which seemed like something out of one of my dreams. Another piece I *loved* was by chilean artist Livia Marin. This piece involved over 2k tubes of lipstick (!!!) aranged on a curved base; the tips of the lipstick were sculpted into all sort of shapes and reminded me of chess pieces in drag. Thrilling.

x-posted to WOMB and FluffyDollar$$$

need some cheering up?

May Day

There is this. Police firing rubber bullets at protesters? And the numbers -- can it really be true that only 25k showed up this year when last year there were more that 500k?

The bellumletters april project is done; it wasn't about "a poem a day" as much as it was about a daily act of protest. This is not enough. I'm going to keep thinking about different ways to make poems acts of protest. Also, I want to make different kinds of protests.

And this is what is killing the birds. Today I saw a dead seal on the beach.

Sometimes I dream that there are new letters in the alphabet -- that they are on a string. Sometimes I dream that I am not shy and not afraid to talk to people who I like and admire because they may not like me back. In real life I can pretend that I am not this way, but pretending makes me tired.

The garden is growing, which seems like magic to me.

There have to be better ways for people to be in groups.

I am beginning to dislike things that are precious, yet I continue to like things that are cute. Eileen Myles said the most genius things about pets and gender -- how pets/cute things create a sort of gender-neutral space.

Which reminds me, I an now a *huge* fan of Eileen Myles. Also, I am determined to meet K. Lorraine next time I'm south of SB.