AUTOEROTIC ELEGIES

Clockwise Cat

2012-01-27T22:05:00.002+01:00

Only just over one month late I note that there is a new Clockwise Kitty. Here are three by me.
I am exceedingly old and reaction times are somewhat impaired. Hence my tardiness.

more about funerals

2012-01-27T21:55:00.001+01:00

Links to reviews and such up at epic rites website. Get the book, I looked through it just now and wasn't particularly ashamed of it, it's OK. It's at both SPD and Amazon, but best to buy at SPD since Amazon is a monstrous multinational corporation and, as such, part of the enemy.

What's inside a funeral?

2012-01-26T18:49:00.001+01:00

Apart from a tasty sexy corpse?
At epic rites bookstore you can get a look at five poems and other things from my third full length. It's linked direct here by clicking on this link.
I really think you should buy this, it will guarantee the ladies a cellulite free life until their own funeral and the gentlemen at least three extra inches, at least as reliably as all the other promises of such on the internet.

laughing at funerals

2012-01-26T18:13:00.003+01:00

Here is the link to laughing at funerals at Amazon. It's my third full length and it's from epic rites press, who have a very excellent catalog that you might want to check out. Unless you prefer to be some sort of bizarre dinosaur.

On another note, I removed compiz-fusion and all its related packages from my two Gentoo installs in a fit of pique provoked by the hard-masking of said packages. I can say that kwin in kde 4.7.4 actually kicks ass, the cube working better than with compiz (Nvidia drivers).

Interview at Mad Rush

2012-01-17T10:34:00.003+01:00

Short interview, little room to lie, so I tell the truth at Mad Rush.

Bone Orchard Poetry

2012-01-17T10:08:00.004+01:00

Thanks greatly to Mick Mc Aloran for posting the six things at the link at Bone Orchard Poetry. It will be a great new zine I am sure, dripping with positive vibes:)

meat songs

2011-12-28T21:23:00.001+01:00

A new UK print zine which will be great I am sure, being under the editorial hand of David Mac and called meat songs, has just been kind enough to accept three by me for an upcoming issue. They are mostly about zombies, these three. Which means that two of them are. Not sure about a website, but here is the facebook group.

Mad Rush

2011-12-25T13:25:00.003+01:00

A new print zine called Mad Rush, edited by Craig Sernotti, is coming. One by me in first issue. Bound to be a great zine.

Rain Dogs

2011-12-16T18:04:00.000+01:00

Pleased to have had a poem accepted by a print zine in the UK, Rain Dogs, who will be worth checking out I do believe.

Ten Pages Press Reader Vol 3

2011-12-10T04:06:00.002+01:00

As I said earlier a couple by me are in this. It's now live an everyone owes huge thanks to Craig Sernotti for doing this series. Here it is.

Mung Being 41

2011-12-05T22:36:00.001+01:00

There is a new MungBeing up. Issue 41, themed transitions. Poems by me, which I sort of assume are death-themed, at this link.

Craig Podmore - The Symmetries Of Pain

2011-12-04T22:31:00.002+01:00

Here is a short review of Craig Podmore's new novella The Symmetries of Pain

This novella is raw. Raw like the products of a war. It is about the process of becoming less than human, in the sense of inhumane. The distortion of sexuality and emotion by being a soldier, a person paid by the state to kill and not to feel.

Though the fact that the protagonist is a soldier is not the crux. It could be anybody, any body that takes the state seriously or is seriously taken by the state.

This is perhaps not exactly the pornography of violence, though the subject is violent pornography. The penis a gun and the gun a pen is, Freud everywhere but no cigars in sight. Sometimes a gun is just a gun, but not here, nor in modern warfare. The protagonist's acquaintance Anton is a connoisseur of cruelty who speaks of the symmetries of pain. He is defeated however as the novella build to a crescendo where “true love” seemingly triumphs as Anton is killed by Cinnamon, the protagonist's woman.

Though the book seems to hold out “hope” in the idea that humans can know a genuine love, it is most effective and speaks most naturally up to that point, where it lists the high points of our depravities. Eating, fucking and killing all being basically the same thing, the same function.

“There are words scribed onto the walls in both shit and blood:‘This profane is my wisdom, this vice is my suffering but it is this suffering that I enjoy fucking…’”

Podmore convincingly depicts life as a form of sexual cannibalism. And because the depiction is convincing the question of right or wrong becomes suspect. Does it even make sense to say: “We are all evil.”?Whether or not liberation through love is just wishful thinking, this novella is immensely enjoyable. Do get it. It is here.

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-symmetries-of-pain/17985447

Mung Being

2011-11-30T09:35:00.002+01:00

Another issue of Mung Being will be coming soon, it will be themed "transitions" and will have poems by me in it, five of them as usual. It's a great zine and though I have been somewhat remiss in submitting of late I don't intend to miss submitting there, a hugely cool place excellently edited by Mark Givens.

Here is a page linking my stuff there over the last few centuries since the death of that strange category the creature "man".

Ten Pages Press

2011-11-18T15:07:00.002+01:00

As previously said, there is a little chapbook by me from Ten Pages Press. There will be a couple of unrelated poems forthcoming in the readers that Ten pages press are doing, I think issue three. Here they are.

PS The new interface here sucks ass big-time.

Mung Being 40

2011-10-02T11:29:00.002+02:00

Happy to say that it's that time again and the new Mung Being is fresh from the virtual press. It's number 40 and has 4 by me.

Gutter Eloquence

2011-09-16T06:37:00.002+02:00

Gutter Eloquence is one of the coolest zines, and issue seventeen is out, with two by me in it starting here.

Lots of great work in it, including poems by Puma Perl, another excellent production by editor Jack T. Marlowe.

Zero Division by JM Gant

2011-09-06T15:31:00.001+02:00

I have been lazy of late, but here is a review of Joseph Gant's Zero Division at Clockwise Cat.

A book i can recommend.

Lady Jane's Miscellany

2011-08-10T19:42:00.000+02:00

Delighted to say that a poem by me will be in the third issue of Lady Jane's Miscellany, a print journal by the fine San Francisco Bay Press. The second issue is out now, and seems excellent, why not get one?

Jack Henry - gets you crunked

2011-08-01T14:53:00.001+02:00

I just have to note that Crunked by Jack Henry, in the editing of which I helped, is now on sale at Small Press Distribution, and I can promise you that it kicks all sorts of ass - so buy one, or more, today.

Clockwise Cat 21

2011-08-01T14:46:00.001+02:00

Pleased to see Clockwise Cat 21 is up. There are three poems by me there, a review by me of Gillian Prew's latest chapbook and an incestuous counter-review of yours truly by Prew. Buy them both, I say.

Gutter Eloquence 17

2011-07-31T09:32:00.002+02:00

Between the 1st and 5th of August issue 17 of Gutter Eloquence hits the web with two poems by me among many other goodies. This is a sure sign, of course, that I have started submitting again, as the poetry "scene" on Facebook grows more and more moribund.

GEM is one of the best of publications for contemporary poetry, so check it out now.

Sugar Mule

2011-06-19T12:33:00.003+02:00

Young Gillian Prew, my favorite poet, is guest editing Sugar Mule, due soon.

Eight by me apparently coming there. I am not submitting a lot, if at all, nowadays, so that got rid of a few unpublished poems, so it was gratifying to be asked.

EDIT: Prew tells me that this is due March 2012, which is not "soon," at least if one is young.

It is Midsummer eve here. Why is it not raining yet? They promised rain. I want rain.

Poetry Super Highway

2011-06-19T02:00:00.003+02:00

Hugely pleased that, starting tomorrow, I am featured as week's person on Poetry Super Highway. Very chuffed indeed, and great thanks go to Rick Lupert.

EDIT: The thing is posted now, here.

Mung Being 38

2011-06-06T13:31:00.002+02:00

Delighted to say that the 38th issue of Mung Being is now posted with my work here. It's time and age themed and the issue is well worth reading.

Petrichor Machine

2011-05-26T19:02:00.003+02:00

Pleased to receive a copy of Petrichor Machine issue 1 today. There's one by me in it and a lot of other poems by some great writers. Get it at their website.

of zines and hard disks

2011-05-21T13:10:00.002+02:00

Pleased this week to have received two different mags in the post.

First came Perhaps I Am Wrong About The World (something I have never been) with a really awesome issue crammed full of great poetry etc.

Then I received Bacopa, the annual publication of The Writers Alliance of Gainsville with a very professional and well put together volume. Bacopa, by the way, is the water hyssop, which is a plant.

On another note. Hitachi's current hard disks suck monkey balls. Seagate Barracuda, however, are marvelous disks. Sometimes I open the computer just to pat them and tell them how much I love them. I have three Seagates and one old Hitachi, from when Hitachi were good. Actually I have a fourth 2TB Barracuda but haven't bothered to put it in the box yet.

And if you're stupid enough to buy Western Digital disks, then I'm ashamed that you are reading this blog.

Mung Being 38

2011-05-17T21:42:00.002+02:00

Mung Being 38 is going to be themed "time and age." Now I have lived a long time and am thus very old, so I shall be in that one too. Here is some info and stuff by me in their present issue, which came out many eons ago, on a planet far, far away.

Amazon dogs

2011-05-14T21:16:00.002+02:00

Well, my new chapbook is now on sale at Amazon, which is cool.

Even cooler is that bredbandsbolaget.se in Sweden kick ass as an ISP, and have the most pleasant and competent support, EASILY. So I now have ADSL here and, thanks to the b43 module and a borrowed and antique Belkin Broadcom PCI card, I have wireless working. Strictly I shouldn't need the firmware separately since I have the 37 kernel, but I still use an old kde-3.5.10 install, since I prefer a Gentoo that I know won't mess around, so it was easier like this.

A note to others on the Internets. There are no bad wireless cards, they all work. What there is, though, is plenty of retards saying "this doesn't work" instead of "I can't make this work."

Hanging Johnny

2011-05-09T19:26:00.003+02:00

Today received a copy of Hanging Johnny 2 from Skrev Press - it's been produced and designed really well, and it can be ordered here. It's a great magazine from a great press.

Clockwise Cat

2011-04-30T19:44:00.002+02:00

There is a new Clockwise Cat up. Yay! Three by me at the link plus a review of Gillian Prew's new book by yours truly and an untrue review of yours truly's new by Gillian Prew (no relation).

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Literary Underground Wiki

2011-04-29T15:31:00.003+02:00

Being without monitor just now, I was reduced to googling me on my android and came across this, largely correct but a little out of date.

Fun to read, for me at least.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.8

Jack Henry reviews me

2011-04-22T09:09:00.002+02:00

Delighted to see this posted by Jack Henry on facebook

Review: Puppies and Monks and Medieval Memories, by David McLean

A few months ago I promised David McLean I would review his latest work, puppies and monks and medieval memories, now out on Heavy Hands Ink and available at Lulu.

The print edition costs $10 plus some freight and download is free. As a side-note you might wonder why it’s free. Fuck if I know, but you should pay for this because it is an amazing volume of work, one that should be held close and near-at-hand.

Okay. So I make this promise and I read it. Not once, but three times. And then life interfered. Time passes. Things happen. But I returned to the work. Take careful note, dear reader: I returned to the work.

David McLean has never bored me in any way. His poetry is filled with vivid images, amazing song and voices, and thoughts few of us dare to approach.

some children
some children injure themselves
with knives and burning
cigarettes, playing
games with death.
most children injure themselves
by erecting a normative self
in the sexless flesh,
so much worse than death -
wounds in the meat are best

Unsettling images can be integral to McLean’s work, both real and imagined. Often images inform his work more so than wordplay. Straight forward language is just part of the effect; the subtlety comes in the vision; and the power comes from the combination.

a zombie sits

a zombie sits dead between us on the sofa,
between each instant. at one point
i shot him in the head with memories,
and his jaw hangs even deader
than the rest of him, deadest maybe
because of this – dead
as a telephone and twice
as hopeless;
i hope he records what we say to him,
some place where he displaces
anxiety in me. he is all my dead
forever, and hangs hopeless
his lovely eternity. profane
decay, baby, this zombie, he
sits dead between us on the sofa –
i hope he remembers me,
our arrogant eternity

Another strength McLean shows is brevity. He can show more in fewer words than any poet I know. Even his longer pieces are brief. There is a constant sense that they could go on and on, without losing any power, but the skill as that he forces the reader to go on. It is up to the reader to finish the poem, McLean merely suggests a beginning.

In the end McLean is one of the greats of our generation. He is fearless, brash, a little arrogant and timeless. I have said this before about David McLean’s poetry, and I will say it again: If you are not reading his work, what’s your fucking problem?

OVS

2011-04-22T08:45:00.001+02:00

Pleased to say that the new Organs of Vision & Speech is out. Details of contributing poets here, including me, it seems to be a huge issue.

laughing at funerals

2011-04-18T20:03:00.001+02:00

Now, if you want to buy laughing at funerals, you can order from Amazon through Epic Rites Press' storefront. Reviews to the right, go for it.

Lit Up

2011-04-16T23:11:00.003+02:00

Pleased to say that Lit Up Magazine have just accepted a poem by me, presumably coming soon. Been there before, as you can see from the links to various zines, but not for quite a while. Actually the one that they have already about Butters is one of my favorites by me.

EDIT: And here it is, posted.

Sein und Werden

2011-04-09T23:00:00.002+02:00

Another marvelous issue of the wonderful zine Sein und Werden is up. There's a poem there by me and it's here. Fine work there in general as usual, so check the whole thing out.

another echap

2011-04-03T11:23:00.004+02:00

There's a new publication edited by the indefatigable Craig Sernotti. It's Ten Pages Press, which, as the name implies, produces 10 pp ebooks in various formats. He has just posted all the damaged gods, ten pages by me. There are many other things up there too, including dreaming knives and nightmares by Puma Perl, evidence pie by Misti Rainwater-Lites, along with work by David E Oprava, by the hugely prolific Lyn Lyfshin, and by many other of the great modern underground, and not so underground, poets and writers.

Mine is ten very new poems, all free to read, and you can download and read any of the others, they're free too. Like the Internet should be, free.

Mung Being 37

2011-04-03T11:14:00.002+02:00

Mung Being is one of the absolutely best zines and there's a new issue, issue #37, out and this has five poems by me here. It's family themed this time.

The Single Hound

2011-04-01T18:09:00.002+02:00

The Single Hound - which is the name of an Emily Dickinson poem, as you will probably know - is a very good literary journal who are kind enough to feature three by me in their international section.

Great news and a much-needed consolation, since Moxie is in full estrus and Lucas is behaving like a total dildo, and it's my birthday too. Being so international, I feel like chasing him with an ax the way the famous "Swedish" guy on the Muppets used to chase the chicken, but I won't.

Download my new chapbook for free if you like, but obviously it's even cooler if you order it in a paper copy for ten bucks here.

Some day soon the canine reproductive cycle will let me sleep again. And soon the ice will be gone so we can use the boat again, but there's still around a foot of the stuff on Mälaren to wet my feet every time I cross it.

Heroin Love Songs

2011-03-25T21:26:00.001+01:00

Delighted to have five up at Heroin Love Songs. It's a wonderful zine and here are the poems.

Gillian Prew - Disconnections

2011-03-24T19:39:00.002+01:00

Disconnections
chapbook by Gillian Prew
erbacce press

This new chapbook by Gillian Prew is outrageously good. Prew takes the most depressing of subject matter and puts her life in it by writing a new angel into the darkness and mourning. The series is disconnectedness, the lack of connection. The problem of modern man is an ontological sense of missing autochthonousness and belonging deeper than the trivial Sartrean Lack.

Flat, lungless: all is image,
else it is forgotten

like most memories, and remembrance
mostly a betrayal anyway.

sets the pace for a collection that explores the pointless splashes of existence we drop into the darkness

The lifted moment of the indelible; the mortal tattoo
that visits the eyes and the foul shine of yesterday’s stars.

Meaning rests a fathom below the surface, and I flotsam
on strange days breathing like the leaf on a small flower.

All without point or meaning in the fundamental sense of purpose, meaning just the pointless dance of the arbitrary spread of the seed, dull dissemination that leads nowhere.

The book ends fittingly, with as touch almost of female vanity as the last drop in the bucket of nothingness, and yet a consolation

DISCONNECTED #32

I like my skin - its mild caramel in winter;
a summer tint that resists a cold mistake.
It speaks with the tongue of the wilderness
and does not hide from the ruins. The alarm
is that there will be too much to hate: a time
when my eyes might collapse like new mourners
at the first realisation of the graveside.

This is the positive message dropped at the end, the body has good bits, and the writer too does not need to hide from the fragments Prew is shoring here against her ruins (being thoroughly modern I am referring to Natalie Merchant here, not any dead poet).

The book is a series of poems that runs through images of the dust and decay waiting us to wind up here, the bone we should not disdain, the depressing affection for decay and death. Life sucks and there's nothing wrong with it, says Prew. I agree. But the message isn't much when it comes to poems, the words are what counts. As I have said before, and as I shall say again, even to the point of frankly nagging, Prew is the best living poet. Get the book here.

another book update

2011-03-23T15:26:00.002+01:00

Another update on books: as I have repeatedly rambled on about, Heavy Hands Ink have published a chapbook by me, puppies and monks and medieval memories on the 11th March this year. This is available as a free download as well as a paper book from Lulu by the simple expedient of clicking on this sentence. There are a couple of really generous reviews already, and both of these are linked over to the right. I'm pretty pleased by this book, and hope you buy the thing, but if you are poor then by all means grab the free version and don't bother to use money that you might need for nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, drugs and whatever else people like to buy.

According to some people, probably the best book available by me is Cadaver's dance. It's available at Amazon and there is a review up at Amazon by Barbara Moore, also a review by Rachel Kendall at Sein und Werden here. Most who have read more than one of the books available prefer this one.

There's also pushing lemmings at Erbacce, full length number two and also pretty good. See the reviews linked to the right. Nobody, as far as I know, considers this the best of mine, not even me. Maybe nobody read it yet. You can be the first!

The third one is laughing at funerals which is available from epic rites press. There will be a new distributor for that soon but now it's $20 including postage to the USA and Canada, $25.50 to Europe. There are also reviews of that linked to the right; it's pretty good too and some people think that this is the best available of my books.

There are other chapbooks linked to the right as well. It looks like the Pinhead-inspired chapbook Hellbound is still available at epic rites too. Go for it.

Review by Dom Gabrielli

2011-03-21T19:36:00.002+01:00

Hugely pleased by the below, a review I just received from the talented Dom Gabrielli. Check out his site here and buy some of his work too.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here or reading Puppies and Monks and Medieval Memories by David McLean

'Hope is a knave befools us evermore,
Which till I lost no happiness was mine.'

(Pascal translated by Beckett)

David McLean's Puppies and Monks and Medieval Memories is another beautifully obscene and intricately chiseled slab of virtual stone hurled with insouciance and sweet maliciousness into the stain-glass windows of political quietude and collective hope. A strange verse, granted, but one whose potent iconoclastic matter melds into delightful cadence, whose lilting mellowness is the sucker punch, contradicting the poison in his message, flawing the best of us with carcinogenic energy.

The McLean machine runs in a world of icy isolation, with a scenery of snowy lakes and boats and puppies. A slightly chill assemblage where words flow unencumbered. Here in frozen time, the poet meditates with a smile as long as a nearby fjord, as he sprinkles venomous drops of intelligence on the roots of arborescent ridiculousness. 'There is so much to defile under this pasty sun.'

what the old thief and killer knew,
rolling his stone through empty eternities,
was that he was actually living a very short life,
and nothing mattered much, not really,
so he didn’t care for anything,
didn’t ask for forgiveness,
for this was always meaningless,
where there can never be a sin
or a wrong, nothing to regret
where every pretended obligation
is forgotten
and nonsense.

he was part of me, basically, like everything
i see, like the starry night sky,
like the whole of reality.
he knew that, too, and he knew
nothing lasts. he knew this all stops forever
and that he was radically nothing, like all of us.
for that makes it so much better –
we are total losers, and soon dead
our nothingness shall be forever.
we are frauds like life the psychotic
murderer, pretending everything,
being nothing, that’s why he loved it -

(what Sisyphus understood)

Bernardo Soares, a lonely heteronym of the giant Pessoa, claimed that certain sunsets moved him more than the deaths of children. It's that messed up of course, and children sadly injure themselves with hope and other dangerous blades. Evolution is a long haul to the present asylum. Here, the close to 'nothing relevant:'

there was a fish once that crawled out

from sea to sand, he was the one
that invented madmen,
he it was who filled this populous hell
with all of us devils.

we walk here in shirts as if night were
here, as if everything were already forgiven;
as if history had returned, and we were free
of guilt, timeless medieval children

The sun shone far too much in 2010 to hide the glare of the human psychosis which nothing can save, certainly not expletives, 'fuck it' being 'just another two words'. Destinies however have lessons to impart. We have already met Sisyphus, now it is 1934 and here's Genet in Andalusia. The French poet misfit's determination for revenge finds himself a slightly reluctant admirer:

i might have wanted to be Genet in Andalusia
in 1934, though i never saw love like a spun ray
of light fall between two friends, just the utility
they raped from each other, like the gross black

prick with which Genet consoled his self,
his dusty identity shrugged over his humble
struggling shoulders like an old man’s gray coat.
i might have dreamed as he, though men are nothing

to me; the tattered flags he draped over them
are clumsy as the abandoned bodies of children
no souls lived in. but i admire his decisiveness –
the choice to isolate his ancient heart in young

nothing, to drag that despite over him, cozy
as a cloak. and love them as revenge
forever. his vision of corruption he swam in
as a chosen lake of conspicuous innocence

and deviance. and the old hags wagging fingers,
he loved them and would have dribbled
his spit as absolution over his sluttish
mother. all the pussy he never pounded,

though passion was possibly more violent
in the arms of some more ambitious
murderer. i can almost remember the beaches
and the long dead sailors, misery in their

fingers. they must have sung once, i suppose,
and between people all he could see was love;
for decay smells sweeter in the next grave:
and the dusty young man, unwholesome

under the wholesome Spanish hills –
his legacy remains

(Genet in Andalusia)

A marvelous poem, as many are in this volume. Precarious sense, on the edge, but never falling, staggering, almost toppling, but ultimately staying on the surface, crystal layers of Swedish ice. The inherent multiplicity of this style resists interpretation. Deleuze praised the aphoristic style for this very reason, because it needed to be experimented, that it needed, following Nietzsche 'rumination. McLean's is aphoristic poetry. The reader needs to chew the cud. Just as the writer needs to write like grass.

In McLean's anti-psychology, our composite, necessarily plural identities are colonised by zombies and mutants and maniacs, perhaps because death lives within us and we in turn try to hide ourselves within death. Reason we know dreams up monsters and McLean is ready to pounce on the frailties and crazy delusions of rationality. Identity thus charted is a strange geometrical mess, where death somehow precedes a history which 'tends to come to an inconclusive end.' Humans deny this somewhat awkward state of affairs and in despair turn to chainsaws for solace. But zombies aren't all bad, wound up as they are in schizophrenic affects, for identity itself in its so-called normal manifestations is pretty horrid.

a zombie sits dead between us on the sofa,
between each instant. at one point
i shot him in the head with memories,
and his jaw hangs even deader
than the rest of him, deadest maybe
because of this – dead
as a telephone and twice
as hopeless;

i hope he records what we say to him,
some place where he displaces
anxiety in me. he is all my dead
forever, and hangs hopeless
his lovely eternity. profane
decay, baby, this zombie, he
sits dead between us on the sofa –

i hope he remembers me,
our arrogant eternity

(a zombie sits)

Interesting to compare Auden's Lullaby with McLean's pastiche lullaby. Here are the two first verses head to head:

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

(Lullaby) Auden

come rest your fleshless head, my death,
immortal on my cancerous arm.
life and living beseech clothed bone, homeless
in a minute's meat, but our grave shall prove
Cadaver's truth, through every coldest eternity,
blood be but memory in me. so in my loveless
zombie clutch, let your stinking carcass lie,
till no undeath shall rape us awake
to some terrible telos in resurrected life.

(lullaby) for Auden

Our atrocious and hilarious times have no time for tidy lines and capitals and whilst Auden's Lullaby is already deconstructing the classical 'amour a deux' in favour of a love beyond the couple, McLean wreaks any hope of love without serious lashes of irony and caustic humour. Beckett's malicious translation of Pascal wisely reminds us that hope has a lot to answer for and that Dante's paradise is no better than hell and that happiness strangely, simply, comes once hope in its illusory sexy corpse is abandoned forever. Abandon hope and undeath can be fun, particularly wandering through the history of thought with some playful puppies and a copy of Puppies and Monks and Medieval Memories but don't download it, buy it. Everyone needs a pet zombie in their caravan.

Dom Gabrielli, 19 March 2011

Review by Gillian Prew

2011-03-19T16:47:00.003+01:00

Hugely delighted that Gillian Prew, one of the absolutely best poets herself, has been kind enough to review my new chapbook puppies & monks & medieval memories. Her review is at her blog at this link.

The chapbook is available here.

Symmetry Pebbles

2011-03-17T14:07:00.002+01:00

There's an excellent new zine called Symmetry Pebbles. One by me will be up there tomorrow. Check them out.

EDIT: posted now, it being tomorrow today.

Clockwise Cat

2011-03-15T20:58:00.002+01:00

It being spring soon, the spring issue of Clockwise Cat is due soon, this will include reviews by me and some poems by me. It's one of the few zines to which I often submit. Check out me in the pussy here.

Gillian Prew - In the Broken Things

2011-03-15T17:45:00.003+01:00

Here comes a review of Gillian's forthcoming chapbook from Virgogray Press. It totally kicks ass.

Gillian Prew
in the broken things
Virgogray Press
chapbook review

The years are collecting themselves into a lifetime.
How they misbehave. But they have learned
enough, and that is probably love.
(abstract 15, p 41)

These last lines in the book in many ways summarize a large thread in Gillian Prew's work. She is probably the foremost female poet (or poet tout court) currently active, in the sense of being the best, the most verbally agile, articulate and quietly spectacular. Her work recently - apart from summarizing responses to loss, ageing, the general disgraceful temporal process to which desiring bodies are subjected, the loss of desire and eternally temporary presence of absence – has seemed to point at a reconciliation with all the nasty existentialia that define our vile predicament.

The lines just before these explain her advantage over anybody who does not put poetry first:

Inside, my incoherencies choose poetry over analysis
translating the confused to the written, and each word
sodden with willingness, the need

to make contact with another surface.
(loc. cit.)

Prew uses, she tells us, poetry to do what Derrida tells us that poetry does or should or can do, in the two Istrice articles, to present nostalgia for wholeness and presence and completion in an understandable form, to express our longing for the fragments of our (probably confabulated) memory that fall away into the void of uninteresting history without actually resorting to the drooling idiocies of the lyrically religious. Whether or not I am making Derrida essentialize here, when Gillian Prew makes a reality of a feeling or a moment she makes poetry in the sense that Larkin or Plath do. It is a glorious proof that the lyrical impulse is not dependent upon the bad faith and cowardice that talks of religion or of the slipshod spiritual.

The book concludes with fifteen “abstracts”. These are what one gathers from the name.

The philosophers have answers
but no Answer.

The poets have only poems
and questions

...and sometimes that is enough.
(abstract 10, p 36)

In a sense Prew's opinion expressed here is defensible, if disingenuous. There is no Answer because life is not posing a question, it is just “given” - the questions of poets are generally the dull maintenance work of the idle stream of Gerede. I think it was Quine, swinging wildly from the continent to Anglo-Saxon intellectual climes, who tells us that asking for the meaning of life implies that you really haven't understood what life is.

But she knows this better than anyone:

Read books is all I can say: it curtails the anguish
or at least makes it seem familiar.

I will mention love here. It does not make one ounce
of difference in the end, but it exists in the desert, in
the wing, in the written word, in the broken things.
(abstract 3, p 27)

It's as though she is adopting the coziness of poetry and literature as a relinquishing of stringency, although her voice is not cozy, does not reconcile in any light or easy way. The abstracts carry this sense of a lack of obvious palliative, but even more so the first series that opens the book, the dream poems.

These range from dreams of the natural and a “dream caused by the adjacency of love,” ending

Love is not dead horses. Love is
the moment of waking
and not quite knowing.

Love is the death of surety.
(p 15)

to a more typical collection of dreams built around themes of death, cessation, mortality.

There is a broken story in this land.
It is called History. It is written
that the birds have ragged beaks
because a smooth edge is impossible

that they fly to mock the sorry men
of the plains who pray for wings, who
exist in the shadow of gravity
moored by inherited ideology.
(dream caused by the homogeny of states. p. 7)

Prew is “swollen by the need to speak” because even the most beautiful aesthetics still makes the landscape pretty fucking desolate, because there is this flicker of life a while and the honest conviction in every rational mind that that's all there is to it. Science and empirical history is a great inductive list of everything with the obvious and surely correct concealed premise “and that's all there is.” But it needs capturing, it needs loving. And a poetry with its religious roots ripped out is perfect for doing that. Sadly, nowadays, most writers aren't doing that. But Gillian Prew is, along with a very few others, and she does it so well that she fills the intellectual gap very adequately.

I’m piling on summer in thick layers of heat
a yellow chrysalis on the edge of a cliff

my mother is a clatter in a metal box

& there is no one else. there is no one
to unfurl my wings, colour them
into flight. I feel
they are too thin to accommodate the air
too fragile for movement. too dull
for magic
(dream caused by being a child, p4)

Nobody does it better. This book is absolutely first rate, and I can totally recommend it to anybody who isn't dead inside yet.

Why vandalism?

2011-03-15T13:46:00.001+01:00

I have no idea why i missed this, but there are two poems by me in the 2010 version of Why vandalism, there two start here. It's another great zine making a comeback, so check them out and submit if you have some poems for them.

Journal of Heroin Love Songs

2011-03-15T00:24:00.002+01:00

This is a reminder that Jack Henry's marvelous Journal of Heroin Love Songs is revitalized and running again, and that guidelines are posted here. Do submit to HLS so there will be some company for the five poems by me coming in the next issue. Apart from me I'm pretty sure that the great Puma Perl will be there, and probably Jack under an unimaginative pseudonym.

Don't forget to get Jack's book crunked in May 2011. And it's always possible to get yourself a copy of Puma Perl's Knuckle Tattoos, which you can get now at the Amazon link or at Erbacce.

I reviewed Puma somewhere before and I've read both hers and crunked to unofficially edit and nicen up the spelling etc. These are both marvelous books. Buying these is almost as morally praiseworthy as buying mine.

Whistling Fire

2011-03-12T00:12:00.002+01:00

As promised a couple of things up at Whistling Fire courtesy of their current guest editor, the great Jack Henry.

new chapbook released

2011-03-11T17:38:00.005+01:00

OK, the new chapbook at 46 pp from Heavy Hands Ink is on sale for $10 at Lulu. It will also be available as a free download later today. Get one.

Some reviews are coming soon and I shall post them, or links to them, at this blog as they arrive.

new chapbook

2011-03-09T20:22:00.002+01:00

It will be out Friday, here's a sample poem.

Pink-Eye Lemonade

2011-03-09T10:39:00.001+01:00

Pleased to say that work by me will be in the summer issue of Pink-Eye Lemonade. It's a great zine that you can read at the link. Check them out.

Puppies & Monks & Medieval Memories

2011-03-05T19:08:00.003+01:00

Is a pretty damn stupid book title, but what are you going to do. I can't think of good titles. It's prepared now and I just saw the pdf, which looks awesome and is at a lean 46 pages good to go.

It's coming from Heavy Hands Ink on 11th March.

There's also an interview just posted here.

Whistling Fire

2011-02-28T22:01:00.003+01:00

Happy that two will be out on March 8th in Whistling Fire, which is being perversely guest-edited for that issue by degeneracy's leading bard, Mr. Jack Henry.

Check them out now, and, of course, then

The The

2011-02-28T12:15:00.002+01:00

Glad to say that Craig Sernotti decided to reopen The The. Now one by me is posted there, and it's a great zine, so keep on submitting there, people

Sein und Werden

2011-02-22T13:18:00.001+01:00

Pleased to have one coming in the web issue of Sein und Werden, probably this April. Sure it will be a great issue as always.

OVS

2011-02-20T07:54:00.001+01:00

Delighted to say that two by me are coming in OVS (Organs Of Vision & Speech) Magazine. Check them out.

Gospels of Blood, Psalms of Despair

2011-02-09T17:41:00.004+01:00

There's a new anthology out by Sex & Murder Publishing including the best of their eponymous zine's first year. There is much great work by many great writers in the book Gospels of Blood, Psalms of Despair. There are also two poems by me in it, including one about my favorite serial killer (Edmund Kemper, obviously. Sorry, Myra.)

Mung Being XXXVI

2011-02-06T12:03:00.003+01:00

Delighted to see that issue 36 of the wonderful Mung Being is out. It's wildlife themed and includes five by me, the links to my work in all the issues I am in being here.

Flutter Poetry Journal

2011-01-30T23:07:00.002+01:00

Flutter Poetry Journal is back and I'm delighted to say that one by me, written today in fact, will be in the February issue, so thanks, Sandy Benitez, for a swift response.

EDIT: Its February now, at least here, and the poem is at this link.

Clockwise Cat XX

2011-01-29T20:15:00.002+01:00

The twentieth issue of Clockwise Cat is up at the usual place. Among many delicacies are three poems by me, and there's a great line up in general, as usual. Check it out if you please.

Nothign NoOne Nowhere

2011-01-23T23:22:00.002+01:00

Pleased to say, five days late, that this 1st issue is out, 18th Jan that is, with poems by me in it. Details here at Virgogray Press' blog for the zine. It's in chapbook format, get it.

Write From Wrong

2011-01-21T10:08:00.001+01:00

As promised work in Write From Wrong. Two by me and many other great works up there at this link.

Bat Terrier

2011-01-21T10:05:00.003+01:00

Poem up at Bat Terrier as promised. Here it is, a great zine and even a link about where I live, which is very industrious of them.

Sein und Werden

2011-01-19T13:18:00.002+01:00

Issue 7.1 of the zine Sein und Werden is out, there's a poem by me here, and the zine also contains great work by many others, including Craig Podmore and Mick Mc Aloran.

Precious Metals

2011-01-17T13:56:00.001+01:00

Hugely pleased to have been both accepted and posted by Precious Metals while I slept today. The poems are linked here.

Bat Terrier

2011-01-14T23:43:00.001+01:00

Gratifying to receive a hugely swift response from Bat Terrier, who specialize in short poems, 99 words or below. It's coming up very soon apparently, also very gratifying.

Outburst

2011-01-14T19:16:00.002+01:00

One by me, sadly with name wrong over the poem, right in the bio though, is in Outburst, more specifically Outburst Magazine number five, a free .pdf and a great issue.

Write From Wrong

2011-01-14T17:32:00.002+01:00

Delighted to have two coming in Write From Wrong. It's an online zine staffed by people from Loyola University, Maryland. Great new zine.

Nothing No One Nowhere

2011-01-14T05:10:00.002+01:00

The excellent Virgogray Press have a new print publication called Nothing No One Nowhere, three by me in number one, the lineup of which is at the second link. Get a copy.

Beside The Point

2011-01-06T22:23:00.002+01:00

Delighted that Beside The Point, the excellent online publication from Camosun University, BC, will have me as one of the featured poets in their next edition in February 2011. Check out their great October issue at the link.

Eunoia Review

2011-01-01T17:39:00.001+01:00

As I said earlier Eunoia Review accepted one by me, now it's the new year I see it was up on xmas eve. It's here.

Theory Train

2011-01-01T17:37:00.003+01:00

As previously noted, Theory Train have one by me in their first issue, buy it here.

Quantum Poetry Magazine

2011-01-01T16:33:00.002+01:00

Pleased to say the promised poem is now up. Here.

Blue Lake Review

2011-01-01T16:28:00.001+01:00

Pleased to see the new issue of Blue Lake Review. There's a poem by me there called the earth stands.

Bacopa Literary Review

2011-01-01T12:28:00.002+01:00

Hugely delighted, chuffed in fact, to have a poem accepted for Bacopa Literary Review's 2011 issue. Enormously gratifying to be included there. It can be ordered later at the same link, it's a 125 page magazine.

Gutter Eloquence

2011-01-01T12:21:00.002+01:00

There's a new issue of Gutter Eloquence up, a poem by me is here. As I said before, it's a great zine, it is one of the handful of absolutely reliably good ones, always lots of great work by great people in it.

The Writing Disorder

2010-12-31T22:09:00.001+01:00

Very pleased to have five up at The Writing Disorder. It's a first rate zine and the poems are at this link.

Why vandalism?

2010-12-31T10:53:00.003+01:00

One of the great zines is Why vandalism?, and two by me are coming from them. I have a free echap book with them by the way, it will soon be redone to match their fine new format, and it's free to read here.

One of the two poems will also be featured in my next print chapbook, that's coming in March from Heavy Hands Ink.

Quantum Poetry Magazine

2010-12-31T02:19:00.002+01:00

An excellent new zine is Quantum Poetry Magazine, I am gratified to say that they will be running one by me in a couple of weeks.

The Fine Line

2010-12-28T00:42:00.001+01:00

Very pleased to have work in the Fine Line issue two, it can be read online or downloaded as pdf here. The poem in question is on page 71.

Rufous Salon

2010-12-17T17:58:00.002+01:00

As promised one up at Rufous Salon, it's a great zine too. Check the rest out at as well.

New chapbook

2010-12-17T01:18:00.002+01:00

Pleased to say that in March there will at last be a new chapbook by me, one that I am a bit pleased by already, and it is coming from Heavy Hands, announcement here. Maxwell Baumbach is editing it, and "heavy hands" is a boxing term referring to illegitimate use of Maxwell's silver hammer. Before mine in March the first will be from Kevin Keaton, one you will also want to own, read, recommend and so forth.

Mine is hot, when you read it you will start jacking it like a maniac. Seriously.

Liquid Gold

2010-12-14T13:41:00.001+01:00

A poem by me is in the Gold Dust "best of" anthology, Liquid Gold, which is on sale here. Get it or be boring.

Perhaps I Am Wrong About The World

2010-12-12T16:37:00.001+01:00

Twice a year Perhaps I Am Wrong About The World produce a chapbook full of poems and whatnot. I am delighted to have they threw tragedy by me in the next one.

Gloom Cupboard

2010-12-10T18:57:00.002+01:00

Forgot to mention earlier, but I am very pleased to say that Joseph M. Gant was kind enough to nominate me for a Pushcart prize over at Gloom Cupboard. A great honor.

Been featured by them before, here, with an interview, very out of date, and a few poems; also quite a few poems there at various times, and the nominated one, for Larkin, is here.

Mung Being 35

2010-12-05T21:54:00.002+01:00

There's a new issue, number 35, of the great Mung Being up. As always, it's packed with great art, poetry and literature, etc. Here's a link to five poems by me there, at the link you will also see further links to poems in previous issues. A great zine, a "must read."

The Rufous Salon

2010-12-03T16:54:00.003+01:00

Happy to have a poem coming up soon in The Rufous Salon, 16th December to be precise. It's a zine which already has excellent work up, so check it out.

Real Stories Gallery

2010-12-02T21:23:00.002+01:00

Real Stories Gallery is a hugely praiseworthy site, dedicated to enhancing AIDS awareness and reminding us, especially, of the victims of virgin rape in Africa and other victims. The many people, old and young, whose lives have been devastated by this illness, not just the odd junkie but a lot of very innocent people, both gay and straight.

Three more poems by me are up there, anyway, and I hope they help in some way.

Halfway Down The Stairs

2010-12-01T15:48:00.003+01:00

Pleased to see that Halfway Down The Stairs, a truly excellent publication, have chosen one of mine as a favorite. The poem is here, and their other great choices here.

The Second Hump

2010-12-01T15:40:00.002+01:00

Occasionally I have had things at The Camel Saloon, and now Russel Streur has started a Second Hump offshoot of the camel to make the postings more permanent, mine here.

However, the links I have posted to the right all seem to still apply at The Camel Saloon.

Epiphany Magazine

2010-12-01T13:28:00.002+01:00

As promised three poems by me are up in the wonderful Epiphany Magazine, they have a great issue too, so check it out.

Widowmoon Press

2010-11-27T01:02:00.001+01:00

As promised, two up at the new Widowmoon Press, the link to the poetry here. Check it out.

Blue Lake Review

2010-11-24T18:18:00.001+01:00

Enormously pleased to have a poem coming in the January issue of Blue Lake Review, a great place, check it out now.

Theory Train

2010-11-24T09:06:00.001+01:00

A new zine called Theory Train will have a poem by me in their first issue. Looking forward to it.

Scars 2011 Wall Calender

2010-11-23T21:33:00.001+01:00

Pleased to announce that a poem by me is in the 2011 Scars Publications Wall Calender, for April, and that this calender is available here, where you can read the poem online too.

Mung Being 35

2010-11-21T11:09:00.003+01:00

Delighted to say that five by me will be in the next issue, 35, of Mung Being. Truly one of the best zines out there, as I said before.

Can also say that a chapbook by me will be appearing in March 2011, no details at present, not even a title finalized, but one of some name is coming.

Motley Press Ezine

2010-11-18T19:09:00.002+01:00

Pleased to have one by me coming in the November issue of Motley Press Ezine. Great place to be.

The Writing Disorder

2010-11-18T17:59:00.002+01:00

Happy to say that five by me and a hugely beautiful photo of myself and a young black and tan lady, me with loose tooth, the puppy with a UTI, will be appearing in The Writing Disorder's winter issue.

Marvelous zine. She is eating vitamin C on veterinary advice. I am doing absolutely nothing about the tooth, being a natural-born Cletus.