Juliet Cook's Blog, page 113
June 10, 2016
The NEW June flock of Thirteen Myna Birds has arrived!
Yes the June installation of Thirteen Myna Birds has now arrived and it is brimming with a delightful and hideous assortment of life and death and human and non-human creations by Victor Clevenger - Sarah Frances Moran - Martin Willitts Jr. - John Allen - Robert Beveridge - Lorraine Cipriano - Thomas Zimmerman - and Jen Stein taking it all the way down to the squeamishly creepy bottom of the pack. :)"The room filled with ashes and haze - frayed feathers and faith - I dance and the moon is transfixed - until the mirror no longer showed my reflection - My sticky insides rooted - Spongy trees droop - The joy of the seasons rot - Dreams are part soiled paper and cracked egg shells - discovering not a blue but a fluorescent yellow ocean - on fire with waking dreams of life and drowning in our teeming cells - his cheeks dusking dead plums - I have lost my taste for all but this dust"Dive in if you dare, HERE - http://13myna.blogspot.com/
June 3, 2016
The NEW Uppagus Issue #18 has arrived!
Happy to have a collaborative poem by j/j hastain & I, inside the new Uppagus Issue #18 - alongside oodles of other good stuff, HERE - https://uppagus.com/
June 1, 2016
Some of My Thoughts on Starting a Press
Happy June! I recently spent quite a bit of time participating in answering some press related questions for a forthcoming Sundress Roundtable, in which different editors of different presses offer their feedback and points of view. I will share the Sundress Roundtable when it is published, but for now, I am sharing my own answers to the questions.
(Again, these are just my own individual answers. Other editor/poet people might have very different sorts of answers.)
~Juliet Cook/Blood Pudding Press
***
Why did you found your press?
I started my Blood Pudding Press close to ten years ago now, so it's hard for me to remember the exact details of how I felt at that time, but I know it involved a strong and genuine passion for poetry and a realization that it was mostly poets who published other poets. I had been a big fan of 'zines in my late teens through mid twenties, then indie literary magazines in my twenties all the way until now. When I was in my early 30s, I became a big fan of frequent blogging for several years. My blog site was Xanga and my blogger name was candydishdoom. I met a few creative writers there (some of whom I've remained connected with ever since), right around the time when they were initially starting their own online literary magazines and/or small presses. For example, Rachel Kendall, who started Sein und Werden not long after we met and has kept it going for years now and Kristy Bowen, who started Dancing Girl Press around that time. I loved how small indie poetry presses seemed like unique artsy poetic variations of 'zines and I loved the individualism of our Xanga blog style communication and I loved poetry and poetry chapbooks.
I think I'd had a little back burner of an inkling to start my own itty bitty press for a year or two before I actually did it, but I felt overly nervous that I'd somehow screw it up. But in late 2006, I had this sudden spurt of finishing a small series of Twin Peaks inspired poems that had been sitting unfinished in the back of a folder for about 10 years, and I felt really strongly about the poems, and thought they worked best together instead of individually, and so I decided that would be a great time to start my own small press and publish my own chapbook first, because if I had trouble with formatting, design, or anything else, I wouldn't be affecting another poet with my fledgling difficulties. Kristy Bowen gladly shared information with me about how she formatted her Dancing Girl Press chapbooks, I followed her formatting tips, I designed my own cover art, and I took it from there. After I got more comfortable with formatting and design, I shifted away from publishing myself with my own press and started publishing multiwriter collections and individual chapbooks by others.
For years, I felt so passionately excited about choosing chapbooks, designing chapbooks, and uniquely hand-crafting chapbooks. I loved being a part of the poetry community who was not only focused on myself, but also helped support others too.
What were some of the early pitfalls you found?
I honestly don't remember many EARLY pitfalls, aside from my initial nervousness. I remember feeling extremely drawn to, excited and passionate about what I was doing for quite a few years.
Reading the responses above mine, about money and time, I agree, BUT I don't remember those being major concerns of mine when I first started my press. As far as funding, I don't expect nor do I want anyone else to help fund my press (other than buying the created chapbooks). I am an ANTI-fan of how much crowdfunding has grown in recent years. As far as time, that can certainly be a challenge, but I’ve tried my best not to take on more than I can reasonably handle.
For me personally, the pitfalls came later, when I started to feel as if my press was inundating so much of my time and creative energy, that I didn't have enough time to read things not related to the press, to write and revise my own poetry, to submit my own poetry and so forth. I think I have a high drive but a moderate to slow process of accomplishing certain kinds of things. I'm not a good multitasker; I'm a one focus at a time sort of person; and for various reasons, it seemed to be getting harder for me to split my focus in all the directions I wanted to and it got to the point where I sometimes started to feel bothered by my own brains slow pace. Over the years, I've heard quite a few small press editors/writers express that their press started to take precedence over their own writing - and that's fine, if you WANT that to happen - but ultimately, I DIDN'T want anything to take precedence over my own writing, at least not on a long term, ongoing basis.
Some other pitfalls that came later for me were partly generated by social media and/or my own brain’s interpretation of certain aspects of social media. Social media, especially facebook, is so up-to-the-minute that it can rather easily cause you to feel like if you're offline for a few days, then you're not going to stay up to date and you're not going to stay on top of things that are going on in poetry land. Plus sometimes on social media, certain poets or presses suddenly seem to get lambasted by a whole group of others and if you were offline for a few days, you don't even know what generated the lambasting when you get back online, and even if some of the lambasting was deserved, it seems to quickly reach the point of fast-paced attack mode, like people are flinging an arsenal of pies at other people's faces and the pies have weapons loaded inside and people seem to launch too quickly into taking the side of this weapon-loaded pie or that weapon-loaded piece.
Another social media related pitfall for me is that I feel like I see other small presses talking about their big influxes of chapbook sales and then I start wondering why is my press barely selling enough chapbooks to break even when other small presses sound like they're selling more than double the amount I'm selling and so what am I doing wrong etc...
When I started to question my own way of doing things, that's when I also started to reconsider my press - because I don't want poetry to feel like some sort of competitive popularity contest, yet part of my mind felt as if it was starting to warp itself into that way of thinking.
Like one part of my mind couldn't care less how I compare to others; but the other part of my mind was some mutant cheerleader doing little splits and wondering why this press's splits and this press's splits appeared to be spreading much further than mine, even though I didn’t necessarily want mine to spread that much further.
How much marketing is a new indie press expected to do for its authors?
I think this is variable and largely depends on the press. The size of the press, the money of the press, the number of editors of the press, the time constraints of the press, the location of the press, the brainwaves of the press and what those waves are aiming to do.
My press doesn't do a great deal of in person promoting, overall. I've been to AWP a few times, but certainly can't afford that conference regularly. I've been to smaller more local conferences and events in my general area. But I'm limited because of location, my brain flukes, and other reasons.
I do promote new chapbooks quite a bit online (via facebook, twitter, my personal blog, my Blood Pudding Press blog, and my website), I do have an online shop offering my Blood Pudding Press chapbooks (https://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddin...), and I do send out quite a few review copies of each chapbook. I appreciate it when the authors help to market and promote their work too.
One positive thing about social media for presses is that's it's a widely available promotional tool.
One not so positive thing is it can shift your attention all over the place, looking at a little bit of this and a little bit of that and wondering how in the world you're doing to find time to focus on everything that interests you.
With everything that's going on in social media, all at the same time, even though its posts can direct attention towards your press, they don't necessarily increase the sales of your press. Just because people like a bunch of things on social media doesn't mean they're going to buy all those things they like.
What are some of the differences between online chapbooks and print chapbooks? What are the benefits of each?
I personally prefer print chapbooks, visually and on a sensory level. I think they look and feel more unique and extra-special and one-of-a-kind and you can touch them and smell them and flip through their pages at your own pace.
I'm a big fan of online literary magazines, but when it comes to chapbooks, I definitely tend to be more positively drawn to print.
However, online chapbooks are more easily and widely accessible and thus could have a significantly wider potential audience.
What tips do you have on designing the layout of an issue or book?
I don't have the best tips to offer. I'm a one-woman old school designer, who uses Microsoft Word to design my chapbook's innards AND covers and I'm not good at explaining how I do it, I just do it how I do it.
How do you determine fair pricing for cover art?
I highly value visual art, but I can't afford to pay an artist 100 bucks to design a cover for me, or even 50 bucks. In my own experience, some visual artists value poetry just as much as some poets value visual art, and they're excited enough about having their art appear on the forum of a poetry chapbook and being credited in the book and receiving a free copy of the book that they don't necessarily require monetary payment. I've paid some artists a small amount (in addition to crediting them and giving them a copy of the book) to create a new piece of art specifically for a cover. I've also purchased an existing piece of art from an artist in appreciation for being given permission to use that existing piece of art on the cover of a book. I've also used parts of some of my own visual art creations as cover art for some Blood Pudding Press chapbooks.
What would you say writers expect from the editors of a new press?
I think that depends on the writer and the press. For me as a writer, I'm fairly open, but I would like a press to offer me a tentative time frame of WHEN the book will be published (and offer me updates if that time frame changes), a reasonable amount of free copies of the book with additional copies at a discount rate, and a reasonable amount of help promoting the book. Since that's what I desire as a writer, that's what I aim for as an editor too.
What's the most rewarding aspect of beginning a new press?
Feeling like you're being a personal part of the poetry community. Feeling like you're creating what is meaningful to you and making a small but powerful difference to a few others.
Spending some personal time and energy and creative attention and genuine care focusing on other poets you appreciate and admire and helping their voices be heard.
Receiving meaningful tidbits of positive feedback and support directed at your press's chapbook's innards as well as their design.
Having a few people who seem to actually care about and appreciate what you do and genuinely enjoy it.
Being your true creative self and helping to share a few other true creative selves.
(Again, these are just my own individual answers. Other editor/poet people might have very different sorts of answers.)
~Juliet Cook/Blood Pudding Press
***
Why did you found your press?
I started my Blood Pudding Press close to ten years ago now, so it's hard for me to remember the exact details of how I felt at that time, but I know it involved a strong and genuine passion for poetry and a realization that it was mostly poets who published other poets. I had been a big fan of 'zines in my late teens through mid twenties, then indie literary magazines in my twenties all the way until now. When I was in my early 30s, I became a big fan of frequent blogging for several years. My blog site was Xanga and my blogger name was candydishdoom. I met a few creative writers there (some of whom I've remained connected with ever since), right around the time when they were initially starting their own online literary magazines and/or small presses. For example, Rachel Kendall, who started Sein und Werden not long after we met and has kept it going for years now and Kristy Bowen, who started Dancing Girl Press around that time. I loved how small indie poetry presses seemed like unique artsy poetic variations of 'zines and I loved the individualism of our Xanga blog style communication and I loved poetry and poetry chapbooks.
I think I'd had a little back burner of an inkling to start my own itty bitty press for a year or two before I actually did it, but I felt overly nervous that I'd somehow screw it up. But in late 2006, I had this sudden spurt of finishing a small series of Twin Peaks inspired poems that had been sitting unfinished in the back of a folder for about 10 years, and I felt really strongly about the poems, and thought they worked best together instead of individually, and so I decided that would be a great time to start my own small press and publish my own chapbook first, because if I had trouble with formatting, design, or anything else, I wouldn't be affecting another poet with my fledgling difficulties. Kristy Bowen gladly shared information with me about how she formatted her Dancing Girl Press chapbooks, I followed her formatting tips, I designed my own cover art, and I took it from there. After I got more comfortable with formatting and design, I shifted away from publishing myself with my own press and started publishing multiwriter collections and individual chapbooks by others.
For years, I felt so passionately excited about choosing chapbooks, designing chapbooks, and uniquely hand-crafting chapbooks. I loved being a part of the poetry community who was not only focused on myself, but also helped support others too.
What were some of the early pitfalls you found?
I honestly don't remember many EARLY pitfalls, aside from my initial nervousness. I remember feeling extremely drawn to, excited and passionate about what I was doing for quite a few years.
Reading the responses above mine, about money and time, I agree, BUT I don't remember those being major concerns of mine when I first started my press. As far as funding, I don't expect nor do I want anyone else to help fund my press (other than buying the created chapbooks). I am an ANTI-fan of how much crowdfunding has grown in recent years. As far as time, that can certainly be a challenge, but I’ve tried my best not to take on more than I can reasonably handle.
For me personally, the pitfalls came later, when I started to feel as if my press was inundating so much of my time and creative energy, that I didn't have enough time to read things not related to the press, to write and revise my own poetry, to submit my own poetry and so forth. I think I have a high drive but a moderate to slow process of accomplishing certain kinds of things. I'm not a good multitasker; I'm a one focus at a time sort of person; and for various reasons, it seemed to be getting harder for me to split my focus in all the directions I wanted to and it got to the point where I sometimes started to feel bothered by my own brains slow pace. Over the years, I've heard quite a few small press editors/writers express that their press started to take precedence over their own writing - and that's fine, if you WANT that to happen - but ultimately, I DIDN'T want anything to take precedence over my own writing, at least not on a long term, ongoing basis.
Some other pitfalls that came later for me were partly generated by social media and/or my own brain’s interpretation of certain aspects of social media. Social media, especially facebook, is so up-to-the-minute that it can rather easily cause you to feel like if you're offline for a few days, then you're not going to stay up to date and you're not going to stay on top of things that are going on in poetry land. Plus sometimes on social media, certain poets or presses suddenly seem to get lambasted by a whole group of others and if you were offline for a few days, you don't even know what generated the lambasting when you get back online, and even if some of the lambasting was deserved, it seems to quickly reach the point of fast-paced attack mode, like people are flinging an arsenal of pies at other people's faces and the pies have weapons loaded inside and people seem to launch too quickly into taking the side of this weapon-loaded pie or that weapon-loaded piece.
Another social media related pitfall for me is that I feel like I see other small presses talking about their big influxes of chapbook sales and then I start wondering why is my press barely selling enough chapbooks to break even when other small presses sound like they're selling more than double the amount I'm selling and so what am I doing wrong etc...
When I started to question my own way of doing things, that's when I also started to reconsider my press - because I don't want poetry to feel like some sort of competitive popularity contest, yet part of my mind felt as if it was starting to warp itself into that way of thinking.
Like one part of my mind couldn't care less how I compare to others; but the other part of my mind was some mutant cheerleader doing little splits and wondering why this press's splits and this press's splits appeared to be spreading much further than mine, even though I didn’t necessarily want mine to spread that much further.
How much marketing is a new indie press expected to do for its authors?
I think this is variable and largely depends on the press. The size of the press, the money of the press, the number of editors of the press, the time constraints of the press, the location of the press, the brainwaves of the press and what those waves are aiming to do.
My press doesn't do a great deal of in person promoting, overall. I've been to AWP a few times, but certainly can't afford that conference regularly. I've been to smaller more local conferences and events in my general area. But I'm limited because of location, my brain flukes, and other reasons.
I do promote new chapbooks quite a bit online (via facebook, twitter, my personal blog, my Blood Pudding Press blog, and my website), I do have an online shop offering my Blood Pudding Press chapbooks (https://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddin...), and I do send out quite a few review copies of each chapbook. I appreciate it when the authors help to market and promote their work too.
One positive thing about social media for presses is that's it's a widely available promotional tool.
One not so positive thing is it can shift your attention all over the place, looking at a little bit of this and a little bit of that and wondering how in the world you're doing to find time to focus on everything that interests you.
With everything that's going on in social media, all at the same time, even though its posts can direct attention towards your press, they don't necessarily increase the sales of your press. Just because people like a bunch of things on social media doesn't mean they're going to buy all those things they like.
What are some of the differences between online chapbooks and print chapbooks? What are the benefits of each?
I personally prefer print chapbooks, visually and on a sensory level. I think they look and feel more unique and extra-special and one-of-a-kind and you can touch them and smell them and flip through their pages at your own pace.
I'm a big fan of online literary magazines, but when it comes to chapbooks, I definitely tend to be more positively drawn to print.
However, online chapbooks are more easily and widely accessible and thus could have a significantly wider potential audience.
What tips do you have on designing the layout of an issue or book?
I don't have the best tips to offer. I'm a one-woman old school designer, who uses Microsoft Word to design my chapbook's innards AND covers and I'm not good at explaining how I do it, I just do it how I do it.
How do you determine fair pricing for cover art?
I highly value visual art, but I can't afford to pay an artist 100 bucks to design a cover for me, or even 50 bucks. In my own experience, some visual artists value poetry just as much as some poets value visual art, and they're excited enough about having their art appear on the forum of a poetry chapbook and being credited in the book and receiving a free copy of the book that they don't necessarily require monetary payment. I've paid some artists a small amount (in addition to crediting them and giving them a copy of the book) to create a new piece of art specifically for a cover. I've also purchased an existing piece of art from an artist in appreciation for being given permission to use that existing piece of art on the cover of a book. I've also used parts of some of my own visual art creations as cover art for some Blood Pudding Press chapbooks.
What would you say writers expect from the editors of a new press?
I think that depends on the writer and the press. For me as a writer, I'm fairly open, but I would like a press to offer me a tentative time frame of WHEN the book will be published (and offer me updates if that time frame changes), a reasonable amount of free copies of the book with additional copies at a discount rate, and a reasonable amount of help promoting the book. Since that's what I desire as a writer, that's what I aim for as an editor too.
What's the most rewarding aspect of beginning a new press?
Feeling like you're being a personal part of the poetry community. Feeling like you're creating what is meaningful to you and making a small but powerful difference to a few others.
Spending some personal time and energy and creative attention and genuine care focusing on other poets you appreciate and admire and helping their voices be heard.
Receiving meaningful tidbits of positive feedback and support directed at your press's chapbook's innards as well as their design.
Having a few people who seem to actually care about and appreciate what you do and genuinely enjoy it.
Being your true creative self and helping to share a few other true creative selves.
May 27, 2016
New Review of Bone of My Bone by Nicole Rollender
This chapbook strips flesh down to bone and contrasts the classic quandary between mind and body as they form a collective “Primal Fear”, “… God, if it’s you who destroys / if it’s you who spits out ghosts / … then I swaddle you, Lord … / Even if my mouth fills with one hundred severed tongues” (Vespers).
-from a new review of the Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Bone of My Bone" by Nicole Rollender-thank you kindly to Nathan Hassall and The Luxembourg Review-read more of the review HERE - https://theluxembourgreview.org/2016/05/26/bone-of-my-bone-a-review/-procure your very own copy of Bone of My Bone from the Blood Pudding Press shop HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/244912275/new-bone-of-my-bone-by-nicole-rollender?ref=shop_home_feat_1
-from a new review of the Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Bone of My Bone" by Nicole Rollender-thank you kindly to Nathan Hassall and The Luxembourg Review-read more of the review HERE - https://theluxembourgreview.org/2016/05/26/bone-of-my-bone-a-review/-procure your very own copy of Bone of My Bone from the Blood Pudding Press shop HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/244912275/new-bone-of-my-bone-by-nicole-rollender?ref=shop_home_feat_1
May 18, 2016
The NEW issue of Pith has arrived (and includes a collaborative poem by me and j/j hastain)!
Inside my heart a spasm
that points to a black hole
from the poem "Grave Contortionism" by j/j hastain and Juliet Cook, appearing within the new issue of Pith, surrounded by lots of other poems!HERE - http://www.pithjournal.com/project/issue-4/
that points to a black hole
from the poem "Grave Contortionism" by j/j hastain and Juliet Cook, appearing within the new issue of Pith, surrounded by lots of other poems!HERE - http://www.pithjournal.com/project/issue-4/
May 15, 2016
The New May flock of Thirteen Myna Birds has arrived!
The new Thirteen Myna Birds flock has arrived, filled with bodies broken, brains broken, hearts broken, unsettling memories, and ongoing violent twists and turns of love and life and loss.
Among this new flock are poems by Eileen Murphy, Alisa Velaj, Tom Montag, Mitchell Krockmalnick Grabois, Lorraine Cipriano, and Sanjeev Sethi.
"A rabbit’s body: broken - something mechanical hums and works - bloody rosewood shaped in his shop - an empty amber-colored field - a blood-soaked young lady fresh from a haunted house - A piece of steel pierced her vagina - memorabilia makes me aware of the gap - chewed over their core - I miss remembering what love was like..."
HERE - http://13myna.blogspot.com/
Among this new flock are poems by Eileen Murphy, Alisa Velaj, Tom Montag, Mitchell Krockmalnick Grabois, Lorraine Cipriano, and Sanjeev Sethi.
"A rabbit’s body: broken - something mechanical hums and works - bloody rosewood shaped in his shop - an empty amber-colored field - a blood-soaked young lady fresh from a haunted house - A piece of steel pierced her vagina - memorabilia makes me aware of the gap - chewed over their core - I miss remembering what love was like..."
HERE - http://13myna.blogspot.com/
May 6, 2016
Two upcoming poetry readings!
Ohio Poetry friends (and maybe even a few of you from outside of this state - and maybe even one or two of you from a whole different planet), I'm hoping/looking forward to seeing/hearing some of you at one or both of these two poetry events the next two Saturdays.Saturday May 7 at 3 PM at The Barking Spider Tavern (Cleveland Ohio) is the Hessler Street Fair Poetry Contest and the book release of the Hessler Street Fair Anthology (edited by John Burroughs/Crisis Chronicles Press). Anyone who recently had a poem accepted by the Hessler Street Fair Anthology can read that poem during the reading competition.*Saturday May 14 from 1 PM to 9:30 PM is the poetry part of a two day weekend art festival called CAT FEST 2016 at the Delightful Art With Dee Gallery (Toledo Ohio). The poetry part was organized by Drew Coomer and involves 27 different poets reading for about 15 minutes each. I'm reading at 5 PM and looking forward to hearing a lot of the other readers too.*For addresses and other details (for example, CAT FEST has lots of other art and band stuff included Saturday AND Sunday), I'm linking to the events below, via their Facebook event pages.~The Hessler Street Fair Poetry Contest - https://www.facebook.com/events/1501271523514033/
~The CAT FEST 2016 - https://www.facebook.com/events/1591505701169075/
~The CAT FEST 2016 - https://www.facebook.com/events/1591505701169075/
May 3, 2016
HAPPY MAY! New Issue of Hermeneutic Chaos, including my "Freshly Cast Doll Heads Wait To Dry"!
Wrapped in plastic
pillow bag, black fur drowning
under white snow fall.
I think my next pet will be a doll
who won't die if her head snaps.
Who won't painfully convulse.
A few lines from my poem "Freshly Cast Doll Heads Wait To Dry", which appears within the NEW May Issue of Hermeneutic Chaos, alongside oodles of other Poetry, Fiction, and Book Reviews!
HERE - http://www.hermeneuticchaosjournal.com/may-2016.html
pillow bag, black fur drowning
under white snow fall.
I think my next pet will be a doll
who won't die if her head snaps.
Who won't painfully convulse.
A few lines from my poem "Freshly Cast Doll Heads Wait To Dry", which appears within the NEW May Issue of Hermeneutic Chaos, alongside oodles of other Poetry, Fiction, and Book Reviews!
HERE - http://www.hermeneuticchaosjournal.com/may-2016.html
April 26, 2016
New Review of My Red Demolition
Empty Sink Publishing (The magazine for intellectual deviants) has republished a review by A.J. Huffman of Juliet Cook's poetry chapbook RED DEMOLITION (Shirt Pocket Press 2014).
The idea of fear takes a different turn in the later poems. The speaker, while still disjointed and thrashing about in a bloody miasma of poisonous memories, seems to take on a more clinical calm, begins to dissect the mess she has become. “It starts with a multi-colored glitter dress lifted up high/to show thighs wrapped with garter belts made out of garter/snakes.” This opening image from “Love Can Be a Chokecherry” sets the perfect, if overtly biblical, stage for the subtle undercurrent of fear that echoes through the remainder of this collection: that she let this happen. The fear of responsibility is palpable: “She knows another nightmare is coming.”
Read the rest HERE - http://emptysinkpublishing.com/book-reviews/book-review-red-demolition-by-juliet-cook/
Acquire the chapbook from Shirt Pocket Press HERE - https://shirtpocketpress.wordpress.com/catalog/
Acquire the chapbook from the Blood Pudding Press shop HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/201202952/red-demolition-by-juliet-cook-2014?ref=shop_home_listings
The idea of fear takes a different turn in the later poems. The speaker, while still disjointed and thrashing about in a bloody miasma of poisonous memories, seems to take on a more clinical calm, begins to dissect the mess she has become. “It starts with a multi-colored glitter dress lifted up high/to show thighs wrapped with garter belts made out of garter/snakes.” This opening image from “Love Can Be a Chokecherry” sets the perfect, if overtly biblical, stage for the subtle undercurrent of fear that echoes through the remainder of this collection: that she let this happen. The fear of responsibility is palpable: “She knows another nightmare is coming.”
Read the rest HERE - http://emptysinkpublishing.com/book-reviews/book-review-red-demolition-by-juliet-cook/
Acquire the chapbook from Shirt Pocket Press HERE - https://shirtpocketpress.wordpress.com/catalog/
Acquire the chapbook from the Blood Pudding Press shop HERE - https://www.etsy.com/listing/201202952/red-demolition-by-juliet-cook-2014?ref=shop_home_listings
April 21, 2016
When Doves Cry
I didn't realize I linked to something that was 1 out of 100+ videos. I only meant to link to "When Doves Cry".A friend's dad died last week - I took a quick peek online today before heading to visit my grandma and saw that Prince had died - at my grandma's house, there often seems to be obituary talk and death talk (and today's obituaries included a friend of my grandma's, a woman my parents had gone to high school with, and my friend's dad, ranging in age from 60's to late 80's - and a comment was made about how if you make it past your 60's, you'll probably live pretty long - and then you think of people you've encountered in their 80s with dementia who seem like they don't even enjoy life and don't even really want to be alive any longer) - and then you're hearing about your grandpa who passed away two years ago - and then you're thinking about how you only have one grandparent left and your dad only has one sibling left and has lived to be older than every single member of his immediate family and he's only in his mid-60s.After leaving your grandma's house, you stop at Dunkin' Donuts for a coffee and their TV is showing news footage about Prince, who was only 57 and was still touring and performing and now he is suddenly dead.When you get home, you try to decide what Prince song to post on your facebook page and you choose one of your favorites from the Purple Rain album, because you loved the whole album when it came out and still really like it, but you accidentally post a link to 100+ different videos and feel annoyed at yourself.Right after you post it, while you're listening to the song, you get a casual email and feel angry about death death death death quickly preceded by another casual email.I'm not sure why all my I's are you's. Maybe that's annoying too. I'm not you. You're not me. You probably wouldn't want to be.I am still missing my dog (who died less than 3 months ago) and I tend to feel silly mentioning my dog in conjunction with human death, but frankly I could relate to my dog better than I can relate to a lot of humans and whenever another human death happens, I think of my dog - and I think of how I don't have a will - and I think of how all my silly artsy stuff will probably just be pitched after I die - and three minutes later, people will be quickly typing more casual emails.
