Juliet Cook's Blog, page 107

Another NEW Review of A Red Witch, Every Which Way!

Another wonderful new review of "A Red Witch, Every Which Way" (the collaborative poetry book by j/j hastain & I , published this year by Hysterical Books), written by Stephanie Kaylor on Goodreads. (I'm not sure how I missed this, because it looked as if I had "liked" the review, but I don't remember reading it until today. Maybe I'm having a mental glitch, but in any case, here's the review):"One side a positive/ healing/fetish violence./One side a negative/stab wound/fantasy/reality./Never ending hemorrhaging hemisphere. Never/ending lavish/light."This collaborative book felt like a haunted house-- disturbing yet deliciously so, a journey one walks into and doesn't want to leave despite the grotesque nature of it all; the internal, the walls, the decay, the macabre and its traces. The interviews at the end were as rich as the poems, breaking down the barrier between process & product as swiftly as they did the same with the bodily & textual."https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31395925-a-red-witch-every-which-way
***The book reviewed is available via Amazon HERE - https://www.amazon.com/Red-Witch-Every-Which-Way/dp/0940821044/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483005994&sr=1-6The book reviewed is also available from Hysterical Books HERE - http://www.hystericalbooks.com/product-page/1a2d7e83-4bef-31d5-09e1-3326ee271c09And it is also available from the Blood Pudding Press shop HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/473901408/new-a-red-witch-every-which-way-2016?ref=shop_home_feat_1

A NEW Review of A Red Witch, Every Which Way!

I just got quite excited because I noticed this 5 star review of j/j hastain and I's collaborative poetry book, "A Red Witch, Every Which Way" which appeared via Amazon earlier this month!Meanwhile, I didn't know if anyone was even reading the book, so unexpectedly encountering a review that calls it Weirdly Beautiful (and mentions Frank Stanford!) feels pretty giddily great!Here's the review followed by the Amazon link. Thank you Wayne F. Burke!"A macabre work full of gory details and with a kind of surrealism that makes the reading of it a delightful adventure. "Pond scum will burst/out the eyes/once the eyes have been/revised into a film" (New Superhero), "...Box/elder stability/yearns for torn pages/in a series of open books" (Clawing At the Confessional), "Meniscus pirouettes/into maximus piranhas/chiming within/broken bones" (Conjured Talisman), "thinning/ossein to massage/scrim by which to scry/mutant shrapnel made" (Access Achieved Then Denied).Weirdly beautiful language usage, full of surprises, twists and turns, and wordplay: language adroitly used, as in "Paradoxical Flight": "when a road kill/cat/black/silk cradles a/hyper notch/broken down/purring/crotch panel/rotting neural/blotch/an aural/round path/so partial/pussy extract/carefully oozing/from new particles/networks/jet stream/proving/an either or/model..."Does it make sense to me? Hell, no. Does it matter? Again, no. As someone once said to the late Frank Sanford concerning his work, "I don't understand it, but I know what you mean."These examples I've used should not be construed as representative of a flighty or loose style of writing because this is a disciplined work of serious stature also with an underlying structural design (3 "Acts"). I gather the last part of this statement intuitively and cannot say I have the slightest idea what the structure consists of. And you know what? It does not matter. This is a book to read and reread. A phantasmagorical journey where "Horses run through hoarse/barns. Hemlines narrow their slits." A book that asks such deep questions as "How do we engrave an orifice?" and answers "Coagulate all the swag/down our throats and then/gag ourselves..." Readers--enjoy."https://www.amazon.com/Red-Witch-Every-Which-Way/dp/0940821044/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1483005994&sr=1-6
***The book can also be acquired via the Hysterical Books website HERE - http://www.hystericalbooks.com/product-page/1a2d7e83-4bef-31d5-09e1-3326ee271c09

And via my own Blood Pudding Press shop HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/473901408/new-a-red-witch-every-which-way-2016?ref=shop_home_feat_1

NEW in the #NotTrump Series of Yes, Poetry - "I'm Not Voting For Your Fake Dog Treats", a collaborative poem by j/j hastain & Juliet Cook

"Too many people use a word like wife
beater casually.Too many people bet money to watch
two dogs try to kill each other
and then toss the bloody ripped parts in the trash."
from "I'm Not Voting For Your Fake Dog Treats", a collaborative poem by j/j hastain & Juliet Cook, at Yes, Poetry's #NotTrump series.

Partake of more HERE - http://www.yespoetry.com/news/juliet-cook-j/j-hastain

Happy Horrific Holidays from Thirteen Myna Birds! (The last Myna Birds flock of 2016 is HERE!)

Happy Horrific Holidays from Thirteen Myna Birds!

Gifts of new poetry for you by Matthew Hall, Craig Firsdon, Timothy Thomas Cole, Mitch Grabois, Erin Renee Wahl, Jennifer MacBain-Stephens, J.C. Mari, John Grey, and Catfish McDaris (and one older poem still remaining by Howie Good).

"We eat flames and don’t rinse - the slightest interference could potentially destroy everything - lock up your daughters - carnage comes when the creeping crescent wanes - black and white butterfly - of a dead and forgotten poet - your shine smaller - red proves the prophecy - Money is that thing that makes me special - out the windows with laughter - The gut bucket fills up immediately - Mummies are dancers - Church spires pointing toward hell - a silence like all the mouths are sewn shut "

HERE - http://13myna.blogspot.com/

Contradictory Impressions

Do you ever wonder what impression your personality gives other people and why?Sometimes I feel like I give other people the wrong impression or at least an impression that differs from the way I feel inside my own head.Sometimes I'll get input about how other people perceive me and I'm not sure why they see me that way.I perceive myself as highly emotional and emotionally vulnerable (and sometimes when I get TOO emotional, I have to make myself tone down/zone out for a little while - and sometimes when I get really upset on a personal level, I might sound uncaring or pissed off for a little while, so I don't plunge down into extreme self-deprecation - and sometimes I can temporarily toughen myself up, but other times I act a little tougher than I feel), questioning, thinking, caring, creative, contradictory, openly expressive (and I think that sharing my thoughts and feelings is a positive thing), honest, easily overwhelmed, and sometimes hard to handle.But various other people (in different parts of my life - from the past to the present) seem to perceive me as easily controlled, overly woe is me, stuck up, someone who complains a lot, unappreciative, unaffectionate, angry, someone who lashes out at other individuals when I'm expressing a point of view that's different from theirs, overly overwhelming, and sometimes not worth handling.

NEW Review of Stick Up by Paul David Adkins (a poetry chapbook by my Blood Pudding Press)

Thank you to Galatea Resurrects and to M. Earl Smith for this new review of the Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook "Stick Up" by Paul David Adkins!"The presentation of Stick Up is done a great service by the gang over at Blood Pudding Press. They seem to have the art of the chapbook down to near-perfection: my review copy was printed on olive green paper, bound with a beautiful, ragged section of multi-colored yarn. There’s little thought to presenting this tale with a fancy font or colored lettering. The staff seems to understand that, with this particular cold tale, the starker, the better. If you’re a fan of realism, gritty poetry, storytelling through poetry, or the art of the chapbook, then this volume is most certainly one you should take a peek at. "
You can read more of the review here - https://galatearesurrection27.blogspot.com/2016/12/stick-up-by-paul-david-adkins.html
You can acquire your very own copy of "Stick Up" in the Blood Pudding Press shop here - https://www.etsy.com/listing/188110107/stick-up-by-paul-david-adkins-2014-blood?ref=shop_home_active_10

Holiday Gift Guide 2016: BOOKS!

Fiddle Is Flood by Lauren Gordon (a Blood Pudding Press contest winning poetry chapbook) is included in this Holiday Gift Guide 2016!
Thank you very much to Shannon Brugh.
 You can acquire your very own copy of "Fiddle Is Flood" (and/or other chapbooks and artsy offerings too) within the Blood Pudding Press shop HERE -  https://www.etsy.com/listing/227601065/new-fiddle-is-flood-by-lauren-gordon?ref=shop_home_active_1

Thirteen Myna Birds HORROR

Thirteen Myna Birds is still accepting submissions for our December flock.Although not aiming strictly for a specific theme, since I'm not a traditional fan of the holiday season, I'd like to fill December with some non-traditional HORROR (interpret that however you choose - political horror, mental horror, haunted horror, real-life horror, imaginary horror, etc...).You can see guidelines near the middle right of the Myna Birds page - but first, read the current poetry before the November flock goes away.http://13myna.blogspot.com/

A New Poetry Chapbook is coming soon from Blood Pudding Press - Cutting Eyes From Ghosts by Ariana D. Den Bleyker!

My Blood Pudding Press would like to excitedly announce that it will be ending its 2016 hiatus by publishing a new poetry chapbook in January 2017."Cutting Eyes From Ghosts" by Ariana D. Den Bleyker.More details will be shared near the beginning of January - and the chapbook is aiming to appear near the end of January.The Blood Pudding is delighted that Ariana D. Den Bleyker's poetry will soon be joining our scarred icing bags.

Happy December!

Happy December! Even for those of us who don't like December much (which includes me), the first day of this month is off to a wonderful start for me poetically speaking.I received an acceptance of a poem from Muse /A Journal!A podcast interview of me (about poetry and other stuff) is up at This Choice, HERE - https://renpowell.com/2016/12/01/this-choice-juliet-cook/! In the next few days, I plan to make a small announcement about Blood Pudding Press.