August 31, 2006

Have managed to give away about 35% of my books (see Aug 27). Curious as to who ended up with the Political Writings of Saint Augustine. Will make a more concerted effort next week.

August 31, 2006

Take a peek at what Mr. Lusk is planning over at the Sculpture Center.

August 29, 2006

August 29, 2006

August 27, 2006

Strange dream that me and C-Town (the one in the hat) were running around town (generic town, no specific locality) having a high time driving an old Duesenberg putting the kibosh on things. Bar too dead? KIBOSH! Poetry reading too long or boring? KIBOSH! Stranger looking longingly at girl across the diner? KIBOSH!

Then woke up 4 am feeling all empowered , and listened to NPR in bed for three hours. It was around that time, I decided I need to give away about 70% of the books I own, as I've read and won't reread them, and someone else might like to read them too.

August 16, 2006

老鼠死在了我的捕兽机。

August 16, 2006

THIS SUNDAY
August 20
at 21 GRAND
416 Twenty-fifth Street
(corner Broadway)
Oakland, California
7 pm | $4 sugg.

YURI HOSPODAR was born in southeast Pennsylvania. He fled as early as he could to Boston, and continued fleeing to such places as San Luis Obispo County (gods' country), San Francisco, Prague, back to SF, back to Boston, and then to San Francisco yet again. Australia is quite possibly next on the list as his partner is a MARSUPIAL. His writing has been published in a small book entitled "To You In Your Closets" (ca. 1990), as well as some delightful anthologies and a magazine here and there, and has not been published in many, many other places.

ERIKA STAITI grew up on Long Island and then spent four years in Binghamton NY. Then she drove to the Pacific Northwest to work and live somewhere nice. Last year she moved to Oakland to do MFA things at Mills College. When she visits New York she likes to advocate for the Bay Area. Someday she may go back or maybe she'll just stay here.

The films of SARAH ENID films were once called "neo-Edwardian" but now seem bound for science fiction/fantasy, where the emotional stakes are higher. With recent showings at SF Cinematheque and the Silver Lake Film Festival, her films are also in heavy rotation at Edinburgh Castle. Sarah Enid grew up in Fresno County.

August 14, 2006

Odia Ofeimun, A Feast of Return: Under African Skies (Lagos, Nigeria: Hornbill House, 2000). viii, 66 pages.

The two poems presented in this volume were both written to be accompanied by musicians and a dance troupe. The company performs many of the traditional dances from the different regions and cultures of Africa (“from the Cape to the lakes / the FoutaDjallon to the Nile” [1]), while the voices of the continent narrate their communal joys and woes.

“Under African Skies” carefully moves from character to character to unfold a complicated history of exile and migration, and a search for a collective identity in the wake of mass displacement: “I have danced / to different drums in my time / even drums that put a tail / between my legs / my heart in my mouth” (11). From the drunkard’s accusatory clarity (‘it is your history that is drunk. Not I” [18]), to the lament of the effects of colonization (“And we, who feel the tongues of other people / burning the roofs of our mouths” [22]), Ofeimun paints an uneasy picture of war and loss that can only be remedied by a coming together of the many peoples affected by them: “wherever we stand we say No / to the voices drubbing the colours / in which the stars must speak / to us and to our future” (24).

“A Feast of Return” revisits many of the themes developed in “Under African Skies” and places them in a specific South African context. With descriptions of the Slum Clearance Act which displaced many poor Blacks as told by a poor Black (49) to the Police Chief’s reasonings for imprisoning Winnie Mandela’s bedspread for having the colors of Black African unity in it (55), Ofeimun does justice to the complicated psychology of a country torn by apartheid. We watch tribes such as the Manthatisi turn their victimhood into a love of violence : “I shall go on fighting! I am beginning to love it” (41). The Drunkard returns to denounce the hypocrisy of colonizers: “Like the whitemen of the Book / who ask our people to turn the other cheek … those who go hunting for slaves everywhere / while talking of the brotherhood of all men” (46). And in the end a “roundtable” is envisioned as a means to bring all the disparate factions and parties to the same table under a rubric of equality as decribed by the Priestess: “But we do not want to live by vengeance, do we? / We want liberation as a roundtable / where the wrongs done shall be righted” (57).

Odia Ofeimun delivers an hommage to Africa’s heritage of exile and displacement and celebrates “a return” in which the many cultures and peoples and Africa will be able to live together without the presence of animosity, cultural vendettas and war.

Hornbill House
20 Sanya Olu Street
Oregun, Ikeja
Lagos, Nigeria

August 14, 2006

Check out Daphne Gottlieb's National Poetry Slam report and the comments here.

August 14, 2006

John Sakkis, Coast (Dusie, 2006). 20 pages. Free here.

August 5, 2006

Check out Mazen Kerbaj's blog from Beirut. There's a call to help bypass censorship in the Middle East as well as some nice visual work towards the bottom.

August 5, 2006

Metrotimes (July 26-August 1): Summer Lit 2006 issue.

Every summer in the Detroit area, the local free weekly holds its anuual writing contest. This year's winners reflect a lot of the tensions (economic, ethnic...) in and around the Detroit area.

Larry M. Webb from Dearborn won the grand prize for fiction with "Some Tomatoes Please." The story follows a working class Joe (Gabriel actually) to the store. Gabriel's got a kid, a pregnant wife and is looking at being downsized. All of this plays through his thoughts as he witnesses a foiled shoplifting heist, making him wonder how far he'd go if he had to.

Tom Schusterbauer won the grand prize for poetry with "My Father's Song," a narrativish poem (all the poems were heavy on the narrative, but then again the judge--Peter Markus-- is primarily a short fiction writer) about the narrator's traveling salesman father:

Monday through Friday,
he was the salesman.
A 1954 two-door Ford,
robin's egg blue,
stuffed high and forlorn
with sample cases
and cardboard-leather satchels (ll. 1-7).

Matt Sadler's third place poem, "Bubble Wrap and Packing Foam," has a good use of rhetorical questions that act to bookend the piece:

And what did you learn about life? Do you wealk across the cold
--rail bridge [no line break]
toward home, kicking stones through the vertigininuos slats
lit by the subtle grace of inspiration? Did you pay your respects?
Your insurance bills? Say yes to yourself even once? (ll. 9-12)

Not being of or even around the Detroit scene, it's hard to tell how much the works presented are a bellwhether of the Detroit scene or an indicator of the judges' tastes, or both. At any rate, it's a window into what's going on at the local level around here.

August 4, 2006

Shin Yu Pai's graphic here (August 3) is very disconcerting.

August 2, 2006

Just got word that a video that Kristin Miltner & I made in 2001 will be shown at the Pulsar exhibition in Caracas, Venzuela. This event is organized by the French Embassy, the Goethe Institut, the Embassy of Spain and the British Council. Finally, a little good news.

August 1, 2006

Sundress Announces "Best of the Net" Contest Calling all Internet-only journals! Sundress Publications is putting together a yearly anthology of the "Best of the Net". This project will work to promote the diverse and growing collection of voices that are choosing to publish their work online, a venue that still sees little respect from such yearly anthologies as the Pushcart and "Best American" series. This collection will hopefully help to bring more respect to a innovative and continually expanding medium. Submissions from editors will be open from July 1, 2006 to August 31st, 2006. Winners will be announced in December. The anthology will be released online on January 1, 2007.

July 31, 2006

So it's a 100 degrees in the Detroit area and moms has me mow the lawn. It's kind of nice in a god-I'm-dehydrating-rapidly sort of way. As I'm mowing with a machine double the size & weight of my folk's old mower, I'm remembering the Rule of Saint Benedict and Benedict's call for physical labor. There just might be something to it. I'm also remembering the fact that the last time I mowed anything was while on an archaeological dig in Rozet, France.