Intermittent rain

Intermittent rain much of today, which has been nice because we needed it. Early this afternoon Randy hollered from the back yard Your tomato's fallen over! and I hurried out to help him set it back up. It's actually three tomato plants (Sweet 100) in a great big plastic tub planter, big and rangy and absolutely loaded with clusters of mostly-still-green fruit. We started out with one steel wire tomato cage, then wired a second on atop the first; now we're using cotton twine to secure the various errant limbs. It's loaded. It's top-heavy. It's seven feet tall and shows no sign of stopping. It sucks up all the moisture in the soil and must be watered each day. A strong gust of wind knocked it over. I braced the bottom with two heavy bricks, but I'm thinking now that maybe the bricks should go in the planter, not against it.

* * *
Three days to go: submissions for the Keystone Chapbook Prize must be postmarked (or received via e-mail) by July 15, and they're coming in steadily. Thanks to everyone who's helped to spread the word, or bought a chapbook, or sent well-wishes. Our wee press is having a good year. Next week, I hope to post the cover image for our second title, Deborah Burnham's Still--the final proofs were mailed out on Friday, so I'm just waiting for the go-ahead--and our publication date is set for August 15th . . . I just heard from Robin Becker that she's ready to announce the winning manuscripts in that competition (I don't know yet, but I'll post the news on the 7KP blog as soon as I've been in touch with the authors) . . . Also, we're planning to announce our first fiction title this fall, hopefully in September, if all goes well: more on that in--well, in September, I guess. Do check out the Seven Kitchens blog for all the offical newsy updates.

* * *
Special thanks to Louis McKee, who's been kind enough to let me pick his brain about some publishing questions, and who graciously sent me some chapbooks, including an early one by Harry Humes, and a beautiful hand-letterpressed broadside, No War by Stephen Berg, produced by Banshee Press.

* * *
Heading off to Cincinnati at the end of the month to hang at the family homestead (thanks again, Sis, for the plane tix). Then it's all about gearing up to teach: classes start the last week of August. I'll be ready, but I'm sooo glad I have a month to prepare.

Oh, oh! And Eduardo rolls into town in late August. He'll be living at the Poet's Cottage. We'll dish. We'll put some chapbooks together. We'll maybe get back to writing some collaborative poems. Looking forward to it!

Time flies--

--when you've stacked up so many summer projects, yet I somehow managed to get into a nice groove today and worked on several--five or six?--revisions of poem drafts. All had earlier versions--some pretty rough--but I've been thinking about them, or checking in on them (You still okay back there? In that little-used corner of my brain? Need anything?) or maybe neither, just letting them be, letting them chill out while I stayed busy with other stuff. Anyway. Finally heading up to bed after putting 31 pages of poems together. I'll print them out tomorrow, cut a few, move the rest around, cut some more. Goal? To have a new chapbook manuscript, one I feel solid about.

We'll see.

Lots happening over at Seven Kitchens. Stay tuned . . .

CFS: Imagination & Place Anthology

passing along another call for submissions:

The Imagination & Place Press seeks poetry, fiction, essays, and images for the first book in a new series to be published annually. This first book will be titled, "Imagination & Place: An Anthology". We encourage writers and artists to think, feel, dream, and imagine place in complex and innovative ways. Submit no more than five poems, fiction and essays of no more than 7000 words, and images in JPG format to laciandpress@sunflower.com.

Include a cover letter with a brief biography. If submitting hard copy manuscripts or images, mail to Imagination & Place Press, Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire, Lawrence KS 66044; enclose a cover letter with a brief biography and a self-addressed, stamped envelope for reply; no more than ten images, if sent in an envelope. No manuscripts or images will be returned without proper postage and packaging materials. No previously published works are acceptable, although we will take simultaneous submissions with the clear understanding that if work sent to us is accepted elsewhere, we will be notified immediately. Deadline: August 1, 2008.

CFS: New journal: Collective Fallout

passing this along:

Call for submissions: Collective Fallout: A literary magazine of queer genre fiction & poetry.

Collective Fallout is a literary magazine dedicated to queer-themed sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and mystery fiction and poetry. It will be a print journal published 2 or 3 times a year. The Collective Fallout blog is where readers will find reviews, interviews, and other editorial content, and is where readers are encouraged to comment on and reply to the forthcoming print journal.

We welcome submissions for our premier issue.

~Submit content for the print magazine electronically to collectivefallout at gmail dot com.
~Please attach files in DOC, RTF, or PDF formats.
~Short Story submissions must be queer-related, and fall into one or more of the the science fiction, fantasy, horror, or mystery genres. Stories may not be longer than 10,000 words.
~Poetry submissions must be queer-related, both form and free verse, and of a surreal, metaphysical, or similar nature. Up to 5 poems per submission, no more than 450 total lines.
~Simultaneous submissions accepted.
~Collective Fallout will print one full-color image per issue as its cover. Digital image submissions should be submitted via email as an attachment with a minimum 300dpi resolution.
~Contributors will receive one contributor copy of the magazine.
~Collective Fallout acquires and retains First North American Serial Rights.

New (old) quilt (layout)

Here's another quilt I'm working on: this is a classic nine-patch, made with a wide assortment of antique fabric scraps--double pinks, indigo blues, chrome yellows, cheddar orange, grey "mourning" prints, various shirtings--I'll take some close-up photos once the whole thing is actually constructed. Right now, I've only finished the nine-patch blocks and have them arranged (and rearranged) on my flannel wall. I'm pretty satisfied with the current layout. Next step: cutting and adding the setting blocks (in between the colorful ones) and deciding what kind of border(s) to add. I'm piecing this one by hand, and each of the squares in the nine-patch blocks come out to just under an inch across. It's great fun to play with all these wonderful old fabric scraps (many are at least 100 years old) and to try to construct a quilt in much the same way that it might have been done a century ago.

Good poem

Click here to read Bruce Bond's "Horn" in Linebreak.

CFS: AIDS Project Los Angeles Anthology

Call for Submissions: APLA Writing Project 2009 / Co-editors: Tisa Bryant and Ernest Hardy.

Our world is at a crossroads. We daily witness economic meltdowns and uncertain job markets, boiling religious fundamentalism, issues of immigration as borders melt or collapse, age-old and brand new manifestations of racism, and the exploding spread of AIDS in communities of color. But we’re also at a crossroads of enormous possibility, resistance and revolution. It’s an opportunity to create new definitions and terms of success, of blackness and gayness / queerness / same gender lovingness. It’s a crucial moment for reexamining our visions and expectations of self and community.

At this crossroads, we are collaborating with AIDS Project Los Angeles to publish the fourth in their series of book-length collections of writing and images that grapple with the questions of what it means to be, know and love gay men of African descent in the 21st century. Where have we been? Where are we going? What’s on the horizon?

We want to share your responses to these questions with the world. We seek poetry, short stories, essays, articles, excerpts from novels / plays / screenplays, dreams, journal entries, photo essays, blog posts, collages, manifestoes, or email exchanges that imaginatively contextualize black gay men’s lives in connection with your own. Give us some sharp focus portraits, lingering close ups, long-range views, backwards glances of who you’re looking at, where you’re coming from , and what matters most in the worlds you make and imagine.
We especially seek works that explode conventions around racial, sexual, religious or regional identities, that challenge, provoke, are brave and unexpected. All submissions will be seriously considered, from straightforward and linear stories of lived experiences, political activism, and cultural criticism, to experimental pieces that toy with language and cross boundaries of genre and form. What we want, what we need, and what we believe in is your unfiltered but masterfully rendered truth.

Text entries: 1,200 words maximum. Poems must be two (2) pages or less.

Graphic art: B&W, hi-res 300 DPI, TIFF file format. Color art that can be published in B&W will also be considered.

Deadline for submissions – July 30, 2008

Text must be emailed as a very clean (proofread) attachment from a word-processing application, formatted as intended for publication, and must include, your name, title of work, type of work (essay, article, poem, visual art, etc.), length (word count), email address; and a 50-word bio and photograph of writer/artist.

The subject line should read, Book Submission (genre), e.g., “Book Submission (Fiction)”

PAYMENT: $100 for your submission and 10 copies of the book.

Address all correspondence, including queries to, tiscern@gmail. com

Press release

For Immediate Release: AIDS Project Los Angeles Releases third in series of publications focused on Black Gay Men and HIV/AIDS

Los Angeles, Calif., June 24, 2008 – AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) today announced the publication of To Be Left with the Body, the latest in a series of publications created by and for black gay and bisexual men to explore the impact of HIV/AIDS on their lives. Co-edited by Cheryl Clarke and Steven G. Fullwood, the collection features contributions from 16 writers and poets, and a series of photographs by New York artist Artis Q. "AIDS Project Los Angeles is committed to a robust and relevant conversation with black gay men about HIV risk," said APLA Director of Health and Wellness Programs Vallerie D. Wagner, who wrote the book's foreword. "We have a responsibility to take action, stand firm and stem the tide of this pandemic."Gathered into four sections, the essays, poems and stories of To Be Left with the Body pose provocative questions ("Who is the HIV/AIDS virus pushing us to become?") and offer accounts of "bodies . . . at war with themselves; bodies aging, being positive, holding illiness; and seeking and finding their grace." Throughout the book, Artis Q.'s series of seven photographs, "Me and My Shadow," shows well-known New York City landmarks layered with an ever-present black male silhouette. As Ms. Wagner writes in her foreward, To Be Left with the Body aims to expose the "hidden face of AIDS" and begin to conquer the "silence, stigma and denial" that have become the "inevitable result" of the spread of HIV into communities of color. A 2005 study in five major U.S. cities found that 46 percent of black men who have sex with men (MSM) in the study were infected with HIV, compared with 21 percent of white MSM and 17 percent of Latino MSM. Since that time, APLA has engaged a wide network of writers and artists to help drive conversations about HIV/AIDS among gay men of color through cultural production. To Be Left with the Body follows APLA publications Think Again (2003) and If We Have to Take Tomorrow (2006).

To place orders for the book, please contact Patrick Hebert at 213.201.1537. To download a copy, visit http://www.apla. org/publications /publications. html.

Title: To Be Left with the Body
Date: June 2008
Editors: Cheryl Clarke and Steven G. Fullwood
Contributors: Samiya Bashir, Raymond Berry, Cheryl Boyce-Taylor, Ramsey Brisueno, Jewelle Gomez, francine harris, A. Naomi Jackson, Ana-Maurine Lara, Dante Michaeux, Conrad Pegues, Kevin Simmonds, Pamela Sneed, Terence Taylor, Marvin K. White, james witherspoon, avery r. young.
Publisher: AIDS Project Los Angeles
Graphic Design: Patrick "Pato" Hebert
Images: Artis Q and Steven G. Fullwood
Pages: 84

AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA), one of the largest non-profit AIDS service organizations in the United States, provides bilingual direct services, prevention education and leadership on HIV/AIDS-related policy and legislation. Marking 25 years of service in 2008, APLA is a community-based, volunteer-supported organization with local, national and global reach. For more information, visit www.apla.org.

One-day deadline

The postmark deadline for the 7th annual Oscar Wilde Award is tomorrow, June 27th.

Full details from the publisher:

The 7th Annual Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award

Deadline: June 27, 2008 (postmarked) Our dates never change. If the date falls on a Sunday, then Monday becomes the default postmarked date.

Focus: This award will be given to the best previously unpublished original poem written in English (of any length, in any style, typed, double spaced on one side only), which best relates gay / lesbian / bisexual / transgender life by a poet who is 18 or older.

Submittal: Entrants are asked to submit their poems in the following manner: (1) without any kind of identification, with the exception of the title, and (2) with a separate cover page with the following information: name, address (street, city, and state with zip code), telephone number, email address, if available, and the title of the poem submitted. (3) A short bio should also be included. Poems will not be returned, so poets should keep copies of their poems. A short bio may also be included.

Reading Fee: Poets must submit a reading fee of $5.00 (USD) for each individual poem submitted, regardless of the length. Checks or money orders drawn on American banks, routed through a USA address, such as Bank of America, should be made payable to Gival Press, LLC. Overseas money orders are not acceptable. Mail to: Robert L. Giron, Editor; Gival Press Oscar Wilde Award; Gival Press, LLC; P.O. Box 3812; Arlington, VA 22203.

Notification of the Winner: Include a self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) for notification of the winner or visit our website (http://www. givalpress. com), where the winner and finalists will be announced. The winner is usually announced on or before September 1.

Prize: The winner will receive $100.00 (USD), and the poem, along with information about the poet, will be published on the website of Gival Press (http://www. givalpress. com). The winner will be asked to sign a release form for payment. In addition, Gival Press hopes to publish an anthology of the winners of this award along with the best poems submitted to the contest over a period of several years.

Judging: Poems will be judged anonymously by the previous winner of the award. The decision made by the judge will be final.

Discount Offered to Entrants: Anyone who has entered a Gival Press contest may purchase any books published or distributed by Gival Press at a 20% discount off the retail price, with free shipment. Credit cards are preferred. Kindly either call us (703.351.0079 - leave a message if we can't answer when you call and we will call you back) or send us an email with your phone number and we will call you, as we only accept the credit card information by phone.

"After the River Crests"

I've admired Taylor Graham's poems for several years--she publishes widely--and was happy to buy a copy of her 2005 chapbook, Under the Shuttle, Awake, from Dancing Girl Press.

Nice sepia-tone cover photo byAlaina Burri-Stone; adequate construction (crooked stapling, pages not trimmed) (sorry, but these things matter); pretty good poems. Here are three:

AFTER THE RIVER CRESTS

The ones who drowned no longer believe
in luck, the random confluence of details
whereby small, intricately-shaped parts
not intended for each other suddenly fit
together and function. They know
everything is intended: the singing of whisks
and the snick-snick of bolts, the shush
of broomstraws, slip of reels, ratcheting
of gears. They’ve learned how everything
draws to this organ-swell, the everlasting
gravity of water. Their eyes have gone
moist as if with joy as, one by one, they
jump to the hooks, amazed as fish.

PHOSPHORUS

Bad dreams pasted the moon upside-down
on the inside of the window.
A sliver moon sharply cut from black and gray
shines above the ancient suck of waves
along the beach, expanses of sand
that once covered dead horses washed up
and left eroding in their natural furrows
as the surf keeps wasting it away.
How terrible the horses with their long necks
pointing out to sea, their snakes of necks not moving.

How can anyone speak of going out
for dinner? Some pricy place
where palm trees hold up the ceiling
and the servers are greasy with prawns.
A tongue is nothing but living muscle
for all its taste of salt.
Here’s this dark box
full of possible pictures. Outside,
the deep sea strikes its light.

WRONG NUMBER

Who are you
anyway? he wants to know.

Never answer in your own voice.

The yellow rose unpetals
in its vase.
The table reflects your own
face in its polish. It admits
nothing of itself except
plain wood-grain.
So much is moving underneath
a dinner plate—

in all the world
so many hungers.

Let him talk.

"After the Long Party"

This week's* featured chapbook is a collaboration between Stephen Dunn and Lawrence Raab: Winter at the Caspian Sea was published around 1998 by the now-defunct Palanquin Press, and it's a pleasant read. Dunn & Raab explain their collaborative process--a sort of modified "exquisite corpse" with a few other parameters thrown in--in the introduction, and confess that their wives, as first readers, were usually dead-on accurate about which prized lines belonged to which writer. I've read much more of Dunn's work (most of it, going way back to Full of Lust and Good Usage--still a great title!--in the mid-80s) than Raab's (though I still feel more drawn to his early work--The Collector of Cold Weather, for example--than the last two books), but found it was easy enough to forego the game of who said what? as I read through the poems, enjoying instead their sometimes surprisingly recursive qualities (surprising because, for me, one of the joys of writing collaboratively is--well--the surprise, the unexpected territory into which the poems sometimes leap--or fall).

The book is handsomely produced on heavy papers with nice cardstock covers. It's saddle-stapled, alas, but I was lucky enough to get a copy signed by both authors. Mine is #88 of 300.

Incidentally, I tried a couple years ago to reach someone at the press when they were still housed at Aiken (USC); I wanted to teach John Repp's Things Work Out along with several other chaps in my poetry class. I left messages by phone and e-mail but never heard from anyone; I heard just today from someone that the press relocated but went under after that. A shame. Maybe somewhere out there is a box with a few extant copies? Why don't a few independent presses step forward and take on the service (because it is, after all, purely that) of distributing these (presumably) remaining copies, or at least piggybacking a small press's backlist onto their catalog or web site? I don't know all that much about such things, but it seems to me that this could be done.

Anyway. Here's a poem from Winter at the Caspian Sea:

After the Long Party

Silence once again was looking to conceal itself
as if there weren’t enough of it to last until morning.
I looked up at the stars, their vague invitations,
and you came out to join me, your words tremulous,
hanging in the stilled air. Then neither of us spoke.
I felt something was burning up all over the world,
reducing itself to ash. Maybe it was language itself,
its misuse, its tendency to adhere itself to power.
You said you didn’t want to be like some circus elephant
made to stand tiptoe among the din of children.
Yes, I agreed, better to throw a tantrum and destroy
the big tent, trample a few of our tormentors.
Things would really get quiet then, I said,
everything so fragile, suddenly small, and desperate.

* - After trying to keep up with my "Friday chap" and then failing even faster with a "weekend chap," I'll do my best to feature a chapbook once a week. Somewhere in the week. Or weekend. Or even Fridays. But don't hold me to it.

New Quilt Top

I had a lot of fun piecing this one by hand: it measures 15 inches square and the little blocks are less than an inch square. All antique fabrics. I'm selling it on eBay, but if it doesn't go, I'll be delighted to keep it and quilt it myself.

Birthday Bro

I meant to post this yesterday in honor of my big brother's birthday (we won't mention the year): look at him, all sass and motion, just waiting for a baby brother to torment--err, to mentor.

And yes, I just noticed that those words are syllabic opposites of each other. Interesting.

Happy birthday, bro.

Trailside

Last weekend, we took our annual orchid-spotting hike (can't tell you where, sorry) and were happy to see that the small colony of ladyslippers is healthy: the number of flowering plants has probably doubled in the past five years, and we couldn't even count the new, smaller plants. Very nice. Here (below) is a close-up:
At the sunny end of the trail, I was disappointed to see that all the raspberries had been mowed down--a 20-foot swathe of bare ground remained, with tractor treads still marking the soil. Though new berry canes were springing up all over, it'll be a few years before they come close to reclaiming their territory (if they're left alone). It was nice, though, to see a few wild blueberries flowering (below):
We're having a cold snap tonight, after a week of awesome weather. I photographed the irises late this afternoon, after the rain had let up, and will try to post a photo tomorrow.

Stuff

My sincere thanks go out to everyone who helped to spread the word about the Robin Becker Chapbook Prize. The (presumably) last manuscripts came in today by mail with 5/15 postmarks--it's possible, I guess, that something from oh, I don't know, Alaska might trickle in tomorrow, but the response has been great: 62 manuscripts came in (63, actually, but one was withdrawn, having been accepted elsewhere) (congrats again).

* * *

We're having a cool, damp spring. The laundry room windowsills are jammed with seedlings that I'm reluctant to set out--morning glories, thunbergia vines, hot peppers--because I'm afraid they'll languish in the cold. I haven't even started basil seeds. At this point, I'm just going to buy some plants once we're into consistently warm weather.
* * *
Congrats to Steve Fellner and Daniel Hall, cowinners of the Thom Gunn Award in Poetry for Blind Date with Cavafy (Marsh Hawk Press) and Under Sleep (Chicago), and to Joan Larkin, who won the Audre Lorde Award for My Body (Hanging Loose).

[photo: "Lamp blossom," 5/11/08]

"Three or Four Shades of Blues"

I feel so lucky to own a signed copy of this chapbook. It's a wonderful read, and one of the best chaps published by State Street Press (in 1992!). Here's a sample poem:

Three or Four Shades of Blues

These days in Europe no one is safe.
The terrorist who works at the newsstand
will tell you his country’s government
is like a jazz band that improvises badly
and too often. His accomplice will say
the Prado museum is not a good shelter:
if someone walks in with a saxophone full
of explosives, Guernica will burn again.
He has figured out what it will take
to blow up the canvas, to bring down
every building in Madrid. The streets
will swallow you like night rain.
These days the European rain falls
through the roofs of the jazz clubs,
but no one seems to notice: no one leaves
before the last note of Cryin’ Blues is
dead and the last wine glass is broken.
Then they all go out for walks, thinking
that the streets are only streets. They
pass the museum and make plans to go in
someday. A woman says she’s well acquainted
with an architect who assures her that
those walls will outlive every jazz musician
in the continent. One of them overhears
this and says he’s not convinced.
He wants to hock his five trombones and
move to Mexico before the next night rain.

garden pics

The sweet woodruff is in full bloom.
Rau rom--a.k.a. "Vietnamese coriander"--a great substitute.
Tricolor sage.
White violet.
Lily of the valley. Incredible scent. You'd never expect it to contain fatal poison, muahahaha.

garden pics [2]

Columbine.
Sempervivum ("hens & chicks").
I can't remember the name of this ground cover.
Dwarf iris.
More iris.

Now reading for the 2008 Keystone Chap

The submission period is now open for the 2008 Keystone Chapbook Award (follow link for complete guidelines). This year's judge is G. C. Waldrep!

** ** **
I'm off to Lycoming for Baccalaureate, and then back up to campus tomorrow for graduation. Oh, we like sheep. . .

"hiding the blind spot"

BLIND SPOT

Two days, the eye in the horse's head worked
but with a granular vision. A warning nicker, a turn,

she would knock her cheekbone into the stall door,
bursting the barely mended eye of orbit waters,

half-full, half-empty sight. That flood
on top of which many Edens had floated--

like the tree of radish-small apples, like the grass--
had sprung from the deep channels of the brain

and meandering up would pool in the blank socket
to come into light through the luminous, black pupil.

When there's nothing to do but start over, she
curves ingeniously toward the view, sidling

into the world's crabbed dogs and snapping flags,
hiding the blind spot: what isn't, what can't be.

: Beth Thomas, in Seneca Review (fall 2005)