Bud Smith's Blog: Bud Smith , page 24
January 19, 2014
I would rather not sleep
Reblogged from Facts About Neuroplasticity:
It’s too hot and my head isn’t ready
for medication and bed. I am
a brilliance. I want to be
for ever/yone and I will be so swirly
you will think of me like leaves
in Fall that left home
but tried to come back. I just
want to hold on for a little bit.
That was two hours ago, but I have to…
My favorite modern poet; are you following? Please do ...
Two New Poems Running At The Blue Hour
A couple of my poems are live on the site, The Blue Hour. I’m a fan of their place, and am happy to see the poems Left Handed Scissors, and The White Light Bridge being featured there. You can read them here
Thanks for beauty.
January 15, 2014
Book Review Tollbooth Bud Smith Piscataway House Publications 2013
Reblogged from Your Own Back Yard ~ Writing and Art ~ Michael Gillan Maxwell:
Book Review
Tollbooth
Bud Smith
Piscataway House Publications 2013
Bud Smith’s 2013 release Tollbooth is one of the most entertaining, refreshing and compelling novels I’ve read in a long time. The protagonist, Jimmy Saare is a toll collector on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. It opens with Jimmy saving the lives of a mother and daughter by pulling them to safety from the flaming wreckage of their vehicle after a horrific accident.
Thank you for the write up! Appreciate it!
Book Release Party Coming This Saturday!
Reblogged from PHP and The Idiom Magazine's Blog:
This Saturday at Revolutionary Lounge and Cafe Piscataway House Publications is releasing its latest duel book "Death Loves a Drinking Game" by Andrew 'Ink' Feindt and "Before I Die I Want to Swim With Sharks" by Keith Baird. We're so excited to finally get this out to the world.....there's gonna be good music and words by the poets and a haiku death match at the end!
I'll be here. Come on ova!
Concert/Blurbs/Reviews
Concert
Went and saw Neutral Milk Hotel last night in Jersey City, Nj at the same old Lowe’s movie theatre where my wife and I got married in May, 2013. The show was great, Jeff Magnum sang all of Aeroplane Over the Sea. There was singing saws, moog synths, horns galore and plenty of sweater wearing freaks in the audience. I didn’t even have a beer, that’s how in awe I was of the whole thing. I was sober like a 17 year old (but even then I was drunk at shows!) I always wanted to see Neutral Milk Hotel play live. I’m really surprised that it happened, especially in such an intimate venue. Got them crossed off the list, now looking forward to the next show we have tickets for, Arcade Fire in Brooklyn in August. (I need to see some shows before then obviously)
Blurbs for ‘Everything Neon’
Other news: got some great blurbs for my collection of poetry Everything Neon (release date Feb. 20th or thereabouts). Everything Neon is a full length, 170 pages, writing which mostly focuses on my 8 years living in NYC and spending time with my wife Spout. The poems were written between 2012-2013, and it’s my hope that the collection is enjoyable for fans of poetry and for peeps that aren’t sure if they like it at all, yet.
Two quick testimonials:
Here’s one from Writer’s Digest editor, James Duncan
“Reading Bud Smith’s poetry is like waking up is someone else’s apartment and walking room to room picking up the alien items so strange and yet so universal, a nectarine like every other you’ve eaten except this one is tied to someone else’s life, someone else’s story, and the stories roll on, page after page of his book, item after item, picking them up, listening, setting them down, intimacy and commonality. Bud’s poems are little blueprints for surviving life’s epiphanies and doldrums, and his stories are your stories told in ways that you’ve never imagines to tell them and yet they become clear as consciousness as his words scroll across the page—yes, yes, this is how it all happens…”
– James Duncan, editor at Writer’s Digest, author of the book The Cards We Keep
And another one from one of the baddest assed poets around these days, Kevin Ridgeway, author of All the Rage
“Bud Smith writes poems that punch you in the face, make you laugh out loud, fall in love and break your heart all at the same time. This collections paints a vivid picture of life in Washington Heights, NYC that is electrifying and triumphant. It is an amazing achievement. It reminds me of the rock concept albums of the 1960s and 1970s in its mastery. Most of all, Bud Smith’s voice as a writer always comes off like he is the most sincere man in the room. And you want him, and his words, in your corner.”
–Kevin Ridgeway, author of All the Rage (Electric Windmill Press)
Really looking forward to share the book with y’all soon. I just got an invite to do some readings at AWP in Seattle, Feb. 28th-March 3rd. And I’ll be doing a bunch of readings in NJ and NYC, including one this weekend in Toms River. I have a proof copy of the book already and am trying out poems on peeps in the audience to see how the poems work in a live setting. So yeah, that shit it fun.
Tollbooth Review
Real happy/humbled to see another write up on my novel tollbooth …
The write up was from an editor at the magazine JMWW named Micheal Gilan Maxwell, a great artist, writer and musician. He said:
“Bud Smith’s 2013 release Tollbooth is one of the most entertaining, refreshing and compelling novels I’ve read in a long time. The protagonist, Jimmy Saare is a toll collector on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. It opens with Jimmy saving the lives of a mother and daughter by pulling them to safety from the flaming wreckage of their vehicle after a horrific accident. It’s Jimmy’s second day on the job. Although this is a real event in the life of Jimmy Saare, toll collector, it’s also an important piece of metaphorical foreshadowing.
The story takes off from there like a bull exploding out of the chute at a rodeo, twisting, turning, bucking wildly and it doesn’t stop until it’s over. Tollbooth takes the reader on a wild ride through the interior psychological landscape of Jimmy, his hallucinatory break with reality, a marriage in the midst of crashing and burning, an impossible obsession with a nineteen year old sales clerk and his involvement with a bizarre cult and the exterior physical landscape of the Garden State Parkway, coastal New Jersey, strip malls, Iceland, and a commercial fishing trawler all the way to the gates of Hell and back again on an unexpected path to redemption.”
You can read the whole review here
The book seems to keep having a life, carrying on and on. I’m thrilled to see that. It sucks when a book comes out and no one wants to read it. Truth be told, I just talked to the publisher of the book and they said that there are 8 more review copies available. So, I’m looking around to see who would like to read the book with the intention of writing a review for a magazine/newspaper, or amazon & Goodreads. Contact me if you’re interested.
Thanks for readings and all that. Hope your week is going good. I need some coffee.
January 12, 2014
Sunday morning
So far today:
1. sitting at my desk listening to a Harry Nilsson record.
2. plugged in a digital antenna in the living room. We have 55 channels of garbage TV instead of zero, for free.
3. green tea with ginger in a coffee cup that says, ‘Rae!’
4. looking at coin that I’ll flip; heads: up the hill for eggs, tails: down the hill for eggs.
5. patiently waiting for books to fill the PO box in the gold foyer
6. looking out the window at packs of bicyclists zooming down the street, considering buying more produce, to throw at them.
7. there’s a small hole in the armpit of a black sweater I was going to wear for the rest of my life, what now?
8. throwing away scraps of paper with notes for projects that were finished between 2008 and yesterday.
9. praying that the ink cartridge I got will be the correct one
10. admiring the book Cat’s Cradle, that’s just sitting here, sitting.
January 8, 2014
A Nest of Activity (whatever)
Lots of activities going on, and I don’t just mean all the ‘freezing to death on the sidewalk in -10 windchill. Damn.
Like this:
Had a couple reviews published recently of my book Tollbooth. Here’s the JMWW link and here’s the Metazen link
I’m collecting submissions for a new anthology called ‘Too Much: an anthology about Excess’. You outta send Unknown Press something for consideration. Plenty of details here
I’ve got a book of poems coming out real soon called Everything Neon. The poems are mostly about living in NYC (been here 8+ years) and also about me and my wife. When a book is about to come out, I tend to go a little overboard with sending it around to get blurbs. One of my favorite writers, Misti Rainwater-Lites posted this poem, as a response to the collection of poems I sent her. It’s a great poem, check it out here
On Tuesdays I do an interview show live over the internets. It’s called the Unknown Show and usually I interview artists/writers/musicians. Last night’s show featured an interview at an art gallery where the peeps discussed ‘art as void of nothingness’ and ‘publishing as art’. Cool stuff. Also talked to a writer who got scammed out of ALL the money in his bank account. Listen in here
>
January 7, 2014
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS, UNKNOWN PRESS ANTHOLOGY: ‘TOO MUCH’ about Excess
Unknown Press is putting together a new anthology,
print and ebook.
Send creative non-fiction, fiction, poetry, flash, interviews to:
toomuchsubmissions@gmail.com
We’re looking for writing that finds it’s own way in under 5000 words. Creative non-fiction is preferred, ie. true stories that happened to you. But, we’re open to other forms. Try us.
Send as many submissions as you’d like, just keep it under 5000 words. For example, an essay at 2500 and a short story at 2000 words is perfectly fine. Wanna send 4 pieces of flash at 500 words a piece? Feel free. Please attach the sub. to the email as a word doc.
Theme:
The topic ‘Too Much’: humorous, strange, bizarre, touching, poignant. We’re looking for stories, essays, poems that touch on the most extreme experience you’ve had with drugs, alcohol, sex, any and all addictions to things considered good or known to be bad, whether that’s the internet, video games, a job, a relationship, a personal goal, even writing itself. Bring the weird. Bring the surprising and enlightening. Bring the falling over and seeing stars.
Too Much will be edited by Chuck Howe and Bud Smith for Unknown Press. Submissions are open from 1/5/13 until 3/1/13, pub. date is estimated around July 4th, 2014.
Payment will include one contributor copy of the paperback book, mailed to you. One free ebook version of the anthology. A discount code will be given to all contributors so they can purchase copies for themselves ‘at cost’.
Art direction and layout will be held in conjunction with the Uno Kudo crew, lead by its art director Erin McParland. So, this will surely be a beautiful book. A POD book, but done right. See examples of our other anthology ‘First Time’ to get a feel for our aesthetic and overall presentation.
Thank you for your time and energy. Muchas gracias.
January 4, 2014
Ten albums that stuck with me
1. a doorbell that played Beethoven, once
2. eggs and hot sauce.
3. My neighbor who takes my mail for me, like a saint.
4. Bourbon and lemon
5. Street lights we broke out with a football
6. Photos of punk girls with pink hair at the opera.
7. Things painted white.
8. Paperback books surviving fires.
9. Poems read in a shaky voice under a blue light.
10. Waiting out a thunderstorm under any random over hang.
January 1, 2014
Tollbooth named ‘best book of 2013′ at the site Drunk Monkeys
What a way to start the new year. I’m humbled to say, that the website Drunk Monkeys, has named Tollbooth its top book for 2013! It’s an honor. Shout goes to Mark Brunetti, Keith Baird and everybody else who helped make the book a god damn book (and it’s still going …)
Here’s a link, check it out to see what they had to say. Click here
2013 was a great year for me. I got married, learned a ton about writing and editing, did pretty good with my live radio interview show, and made a lot of new friends along the way. Thanks for taking the ride with me on this site. And thanks for reading.
If you’re looking for something new to read, give Tollbooth a try. click here, who knows, it might treat you well.
Bud Smith
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