S. Scott Whitaker's Blog, page 7
March 14, 2016
Alpine Strangers debut "Surrender" a poem from All My Rowdy Friends from #PunksWritePoemsPress
Back when I was an undergrad at Emerson College in Boston, writers, artists, freaks, hipsters, and the like would gather regularly for writing circles, impromptu readings, and workshops. Collaborations would happen, or not, and generally plenty of wine and wassail was had by all. Books were discussed, and lit theories were spouted, sprouted, and planted.
It was blast collaborating with like minded folks. Clinton had won the White House, and grunge was our music. It was most excellent to relive some of those glory days again, some decades (yeah, decades...) later.
Cody and Nate, back when they were getting their podcast started, recorded one of my World War II poems for their station, "Dinner at Henri's" They did a much more capable job than I could, as long time radio and production wizards, and it was cool to bring them (old and) new work to put to sound.
Alpine Strangers will be posting new readings of All My Rowdy Friends. The first one is "Surrender" and you can hear it here.
The book, produced over at PunksWritePoems Press, is available here for purchase.
All My Rowdy Friends is composed of poems about addicts, alcoholics, criminals, and derelicts. Friends also explores gender dysphoria through the Tiresias stories. The poems are both personal and personal myth all at once, and Friends is as much about telling stories as it is anything else. "All My Rowdy Friends is sex appeal met with man’s uncertainty; dark with an edgy bite to it. Love painted stark, pain written thick; a beautiful photograph. There’s a grit to the sex that makes it squirm. Poetry that includes visits to childhood, to mind altering states and beyond, and a cast of characters that will slice your fingers if you press the page too hard."---Jax Miller, best selling author of Freedom's Child
March 6, 2016
All My Rowdy Friends will be available March 10 @PunksWritePoems Press and at Amazon #smallpress #poetry
On March 10th PunksWritePoems Press will release All My Rowdy Friends, my newest chapbook of poetry. PWP, a new small press, is located in Chesterfield, VA, a sprawling suburban county where I spent my adolescence after moving from rural towns like Farmville, and Franktown, VA. Like going from 0 to 60, moving to the burbs, in terms of social activities, pretty people, and culture. If it wasn’t for close circles of friends, and working for Sam Goody/Musicland I would have lost my mind (or perhaps because of said friends and Musicland that I lost my mind, in the good way, of course. Cue evil laughter). Jason Bates and company are doing a heckuva job over there, at PWP, eschewing the inclusive academic publishing model in favor of a Democratic one (as in all inclusive--like Whitman meant “Democratic” to mean). Thus the name of the press. Punk, in its inception, was about doing it yourself. Everyone was welcome to get involved. No experience necessary.
What’s special about this book, this project, is that Alpine Strangers, two of my friends from Emerson, (btw...some of the drafts of the poems in Friends are that old. Which of course means that I am old, for which I am grateful) recorded “covers” of many of the poems. The Alpine Strangers are Nate McFadden and Cody Grimm, and between them they have decades worth of experience spinning records, recording skits, curating sounds, sound effects, and aural pleasures. Click on any of the links to find their podcasts, recordings, and musings. I recorded a bit for Nate in the Emerson days for his radio show, and Alpine Strangers took one of my World War Two French Resistance poems and kicked it out here. My second best art has always been theatre, and like my previous chapbooks, many of these poems are dramatic monologues, perfect for Alpine Strangers. I can't say enough about their efforts, especially Nate McFadden, kicking it like a storytelling master. I'll be posting more information about those tracks as they are uploaded. You'll also hear yours truly read a few as well. Poetry is meant to be heard. It's not just for the page.
This book would not be possible without friends, people who have supported me inside and outside the rooms of poetry, family, friends, fellow artists and former students. Friends is both very personal and very abstract for me. The subject matter is often dark: addiction, gender dysphoria, self destruction, despair, but there’s also hope, acceptance, love, and recovery for these folks, and for all of us.
To continue with the music analogy Friends could be described as this: take a bit of the Velvet Underground, a bit of Jane’s Addiction, add some southern funk, and a whole lot of geek nerdery... and there you have it.
All My Rowdy Friends will be available March 10 at PunksWritePoems Press, and at Amazon.
Two of my older chapbooks, which are both out of print, The Barleyhouse Letters, and the award winning Field Recordings, are available as ebooks on Amazon. You can peruse my fiction there too, Seven Days on the Mountain--a YA “chase” adventure novel, and two chapbooks of linked dystopian science fiction: Toxic Tourism, stories and poems about the wastelands, and Stream, stories about a future city ever connected and deprivatized.
January 26, 2016
@PunksWritePoems Press to publish All My #RowdyFriends. #Poetry about prison, addiction, recovery, gender identity disorder, family, & the dark imagination
Coming soon, my fourth chapbook of poems from the small press PunksWritePoems (sic). Edgier material dealing with prison, addiction, recovery, gender identity disorder, family, and the darker side of the imagination. These poems include modernized myths of Tiresias, and homages to Kurt Cobain, Batman, and Han Solo.
Nate McFadden of Alpine Strangers, is busy recording some versions of the poems. Look for audio versions of some of the poems later this winter.
January 22, 2016
New #poetry up at #TheMagnoliaReview "To Gut Bacteria" #smallpress
Early drafts of "To Gut Bacteria" originated in my second 30/30 fundraising poem-a-thon for literary arts programs in Charlottesville, VA & the subsidiary programs & publications of Tupelo Press. You can download it here.
January 10, 2016
December 30, 2015
#TheForceAwakens revisited. Addressing #plotholes #popculturecommentary
Ivan, my youngest son, and I went back to Star Wars for viewing three. We would not be seeing this film again if it were not playing in our small town theater, which just recently completed a digital conversion. It's literally a mile and a half away. The prices are reasonable, ditto on the concessions. Normally we have to drive 60+ miles to see a film when it opens. Not this time.
My inner kid went nuts. And so did my actual kids. We've enjoyed the discussion, the buzz, the music, and the experience.
There are plot holes in the film, but most of the hullabaloo is forgivable. Seth Abrams, over at the Huff Post does a nice job fanning/ranting about it here. And many of his points, are valid, particularly number two, but most of his beef is with the thin narrative JJ Abrams laid out for the audience. What people forget about Star Wars is that it works better without all the details filled in. In the Star Wars universe the details usually equate to bad pacing, bad dialogue, and bad acting. It's a war movie. The audience doesn't need the details. And Abrams lets the visuals do the talking. Rey's the best character yet, and she doesn't say much until the nervous Finn shows up. JJ knows the most emotive characters speak the least (I'm looking in your direction Chewbacca, R2D2, BB-8). Ditto on keeping Mark Hamill quiet at the end. I shudder to think how the prequels would have handled a similar moment. Shudder.
In ten seconds JJ Abrams obliterates the prequels when the First Order destroy an entire system of planets with Death Star 3.0. The bad guys finally built a weapon for at least they got their money's worth. And thankfully, we can all leave the prequels behind for good. No Republic fleet, no Republic.
Does JJ recycle what worked from the last six films? Yes. Dogfights, snappy dialogue, in-jokes, and plenty of lightsaber moxie. In many regards the Force Awakens is a reboot, and a sequel all at the same time.
Anakin, pictured above, almost made the cut as a ghost. He would have been a shape-shifting ghost somewhere in the yarn. Side note: Obi-Wan and Yoda speak in Rey's dream. Yoda can be heard in the beginning of it saying something mystic, and both Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor speak at the end. Sir Alec says "Rey," and McGregor says "You've taken your first steps."
But I digress, How Star Wars has always addressed it's Deus Ex Machina plots is via the force. The supernatural force that runs through the universe. It's no different from say, Beowulf, which repeats it plot devices back to back to back. The audience sees the window of action. The fates are in motion. Strap in. It's the force! Whether that means Han Solo coincidentally runs into the Millennium Falcon seconds upon its leaving Jakku, or that scrappy Rey is so damn good at everything. It's the force. Abrams even jokes at the idea when the worst stormtrooper in history, Finn, turns to Solo and Chewbacca and says, "We'll use the force," And Solo snaps back, "That's not how it works!"
Apparently it is.
December 27, 2015
Two new #poems in #smallpress journals this month
Paper Nautilus published one of the Tiresias poems, "In the Small House at the Edge of the Field." The fine experimental folks at Coe Review published "The Girl Notebooks." Both poems are from a series of poems dealing with Tiresias, identity, and gender dysphoria. The Coe Review published one of my most bizarre poems, "Diagram of a Walking Poem" back in 2005.
More poems out this year. Look for announcements later this month.
All of the ebooks on Amazon will be updated with new sections, or new selections as I continue to play around with electronic publishing.
December 19, 2015
#Review #StarWarsTheForceAwakens hits the right notes. Homage to #ForceTenFromNavarone #nonspoilercommentary
JJ Abrams The Force Awakens hits the high notes. It begins aloft and never really falters. Some critics are calling BS on the nostalgia trip and the Starkiller remix plot. The homages extend not only to Star Wars A New Hope, and the original trilogy, but I could also not help recalling Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Force Ten From Navarone-- a great WWII dirty dozen style adventure featuring a young shiny Harrison Ford as the American Col. Barnsby. Aesthetically these films share paired down plots, archetypes, and storm troopers of either the Galactic of Nazi variety. That's Abrams shooting a movie that is as good as what we remembered our favorite movies to be. It's magic. Don't be a hater. He's a stylist, one groomed on the Goonies, Indiana Jones, Superman, and Jaws. Grand summer cinema.
In many ways the film celebrates Harrison Ford's legacy as a big screen action hero. He gets to do everything here, and with charm.
Abrams film is a marriage of old school craft and new school tech. There's real dialogue for a change, but the action is what characterizes these people. There isn't much room for backstory. It's very much like A New Hope in that regard. We know nothing of these people. And that's great.
The Greek plot tropes work well with Star Wars material. The grandeur of a decaying democracy and the terrifying beauty of a rising power; Oedipal and Electra themes anchoring the characters. Already the new trilogy is better than the prequels, but that is setting the bar low. Note: Each of the first movies in the respective trilogies mirror each other in terms of thematic content. The new heroes and villains are intense and likable/hatable. Rey and Finn are cinema gold--"Gold Jerry, gold!"
Side: The prequels plodding plots (say it...say it), the wooden acting from half of the cast--the "important" half of the cast, mind you (Christensen, Portman... I'm looking in your direction.) and the horrid dialogue took the air of the films. There are parts that I cannot watch. In the prequels defense, some of the action scenes were exceptional. Ewan and Samuel L kicked it. The Williams score surprised and thrilled.
What Abrams celebrates is cinema. The buzz. The freshness and surprise that a big screen experience brings. It feels like youth. It feels good. I saw it Friday with my boys, eleven and eight. The eight year old has a birthday this weekend. He wants to see it again. And so do I.
October 18, 2015
My #postapocalyptic #action #fiction anthologized in #HorrifiedPress ' Sweat, Steel, and Cruise Control. Mad Max with boats.'Nuff said.
My marshpunk post apocalyptic action tale, "How the Dun-in Man got his name" is out in the new anthology from Horrified Press, Sweat Steel and Cruise Control. The story is basically Mad Max in skiffs and flooded buildings. In post apocalyptic Boston, the Dun-in Man, an outlay scout fights for his life with the marshpunks of the Boston city reefs.
Part of a sci-fi/eco world of stories I am currently working on...The Dun-in Man is a mute, and this is an origin story, as the title suggests.
October 12, 2015
"Terry At The River" and "Shopping in Late Autumn At Hospice Thrift Shop" up on @RedPaintHill
Up on Red Paint Hill. "Terry At the River" is about the seer Tiresias, and "Shopping in Late Autumn At The Hospice Thrift Shop" is about a store in Berlin I visited once after judging a Poetry Out Loud competition.
