Juliet Cook's Blog, page 137
February 7, 2014
Middle-aged Dream
Part of last night’s dream:
Just as I am walking into a large public restroom, holding my small dog on a leash, a skinny, middle-aged woman is stepping out of one of the restroom’s stalls, nude, with her pubic hair removed.
‘Can anybody help me?’ she asks in an annoyed tone of voice, as though she already knows that nobody is going to. She was asking for help getting back on her wheelchair. Everyone just ignores her and she says in an even more annoyed sounding voice, ‘Fine, I’ll call someone’.
That’s when I respond (because I don’t want to be another one of the people who just ignores something they don’t want to deal with or are not sure how to deal with), ‘I could try to help you. The only reason I didn’t answer right away is because I have my dog and…’.
Meanwhile, everyone else is just washing their hands and ignoring the situation.
***
When my alarm clock woke me from the dream before I could try helping:
As usual when I wake from an unusual dream, I start wondering what it was ABOUT.
How does a woman step out of a restroom stall, standing by herself, but need help getting back on her wheelchair? I didn’t ask myself that in the dream – in the dream it was more like if she asked for help, she needed help – why question why? Of course, in real life, people (including me) question things a lot, sometimes to avoid diving in. In real life, I don’t automatically help someone, unless I feel like they really need it – but how do I know?
Why was the woman nude – and why, after I woke from the dream, did I start wondering if that woman was some representation of ME – a skinny, middle-aged woman who sometimes wishes people would pay more attention to me than they do – but why should they? Maybe I’m an unattractive middle-aged weirdo that’s hard to identify/identify with. Granted, my character in the dream was walking my little dog and wearing a short skirt that many women my age probably wouldn’t wear.
Granted, in real life, I’m pretty skinny and like being skinny and I don’t think I look old, but maybe I do. Maybe I look considerably older than I feel. Maybe I look more akin to the annoyed, middle-aged woman who stepped out of the toilet stall nude, but there was nothing attractive about her nudity; it was just odd and disconcerting. Her face looked old. Her body was skinny and looked like it was in good shape, but even though she didn’t look unhealthy, she somehow looked too skinny. And even though I remember seeing her shaved crotch, I don’t remember seeing any breasts. What’s that all about?
I’ve been having breast issues lately i.e. I wish I had some; not someone else’s, but I wish mine were a little more substantial instead of borderline nonexistent. Maybe borderline nonexistent is an overstatement. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m akin to a middle-aged, annoyed, annoying, somewhat disturbing person that’s the opposite of appealing when I get naked (physically OR expressively) and most people would rather just ignore it.
Accept for the younger version of myself that will TRY to help the annoying, unattractive, uncomfortable, nude older version of myself onto her seemingly unnecessary wheelchair.
?
Just as I am walking into a large public restroom, holding my small dog on a leash, a skinny, middle-aged woman is stepping out of one of the restroom’s stalls, nude, with her pubic hair removed.
‘Can anybody help me?’ she asks in an annoyed tone of voice, as though she already knows that nobody is going to. She was asking for help getting back on her wheelchair. Everyone just ignores her and she says in an even more annoyed sounding voice, ‘Fine, I’ll call someone’.
That’s when I respond (because I don’t want to be another one of the people who just ignores something they don’t want to deal with or are not sure how to deal with), ‘I could try to help you. The only reason I didn’t answer right away is because I have my dog and…’.
Meanwhile, everyone else is just washing their hands and ignoring the situation.
***
When my alarm clock woke me from the dream before I could try helping:
As usual when I wake from an unusual dream, I start wondering what it was ABOUT.
How does a woman step out of a restroom stall, standing by herself, but need help getting back on her wheelchair? I didn’t ask myself that in the dream – in the dream it was more like if she asked for help, she needed help – why question why? Of course, in real life, people (including me) question things a lot, sometimes to avoid diving in. In real life, I don’t automatically help someone, unless I feel like they really need it – but how do I know?
Why was the woman nude – and why, after I woke from the dream, did I start wondering if that woman was some representation of ME – a skinny, middle-aged woman who sometimes wishes people would pay more attention to me than they do – but why should they? Maybe I’m an unattractive middle-aged weirdo that’s hard to identify/identify with. Granted, my character in the dream was walking my little dog and wearing a short skirt that many women my age probably wouldn’t wear.
Granted, in real life, I’m pretty skinny and like being skinny and I don’t think I look old, but maybe I do. Maybe I look considerably older than I feel. Maybe I look more akin to the annoyed, middle-aged woman who stepped out of the toilet stall nude, but there was nothing attractive about her nudity; it was just odd and disconcerting. Her face looked old. Her body was skinny and looked like it was in good shape, but even though she didn’t look unhealthy, she somehow looked too skinny. And even though I remember seeing her shaved crotch, I don’t remember seeing any breasts. What’s that all about?
I’ve been having breast issues lately i.e. I wish I had some; not someone else’s, but I wish mine were a little more substantial instead of borderline nonexistent. Maybe borderline nonexistent is an overstatement. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe I’m akin to a middle-aged, annoyed, annoying, somewhat disturbing person that’s the opposite of appealing when I get naked (physically OR expressively) and most people would rather just ignore it.
Accept for the younger version of myself that will TRY to help the annoying, unattractive, uncomfortable, nude older version of myself onto her seemingly unnecessary wheelchair.
?
February 5, 2014
New in the Mojave River Review
NEW in Mojave River!The inaugural issue of Mojave River Review is 200+ pages, including two poems by me - "Wax Fangs" and "How Extraordinary Sea Creatures Are Born".
Dive in here -
http://issuu.com/mojaverivermedia/docs/mrr-iss1vol1-draft20/1
Dive in here -
http://issuu.com/mojaverivermedia/docs/mrr-iss1vol1-draft20/1
February 2, 2014
New Thirteen Myna Birds offering one teaser piece from each of the three recent Blood Pudding Press contest winners AND offerings from the three finalists!
The newly updated Thirteen Myna Birds is here - an extra-special addition, offering a sneak peak poem from each of the three recent winners of the Blood Pudding Press chapbook contest (Susan Yount, Paul David Adkins, and Alessandra Bava) AND a variety of poems from each of the three finalists (Donavon Davidson, Kelly Andrews, and Jay Sizemore).
“when I buried the litter of Flemish Giants - fragments of skin stuffed - dusty corners made of shadows, webs, and a few bitten fingernails - two hostages, clerks the age of her kids - & a sliver of her bottom lip - gray dust worked into the crevices”
Dive in here - http://13myna.blogspot.com/
February 1, 2014
New Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook - House on Fire by Susan Yount
House on Fire by Susan Yount is the first contest winning Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook of 2014!
Cover Art by Lois Wills
Hand bound with artsy yarn, either fuzzy brown or multicolored.
Available with light tan or light mauve colored covers.
18 poems by Susan Yount, offering well-crafted crude, disturbing, upsetting, traumatic, perverted, squeamish, sad, tough, gross chicken clucking imbalance, sick eggs, farmerette abuse, real life horror.
Buy the book here - http://www.etsy.com/listing/177825996/new-house-on-fire-by-susan-yount-2014?ref=shop_home_active_1
"...I had to stand on a bucket
to reach the latches. It was so cold. The babies were
already the size of giant snowballs. Ricocheting off the walls,
the door, the box, the floor. With the doe, the hutch
was too small. Huddled together, they could keep warm.
The next morning. When I opened the door. Red snow..."
from the poem "Flemish Giants"
Cover Art by Lois Wills
Hand bound with artsy yarn, either fuzzy brown or multicolored.
Available with light tan or light mauve colored covers.
18 poems by Susan Yount, offering well-crafted crude, disturbing, upsetting, traumatic, perverted, squeamish, sad, tough, gross chicken clucking imbalance, sick eggs, farmerette abuse, real life horror.
Buy the book here - http://www.etsy.com/listing/177825996/new-house-on-fire-by-susan-yount-2014?ref=shop_home_active_1
"...I had to stand on a bucket
to reach the latches. It was so cold. The babies were
already the size of giant snowballs. Ricocheting off the walls,
the door, the box, the floor. With the doe, the hutch
was too small. Huddled together, they could keep warm.
The next morning. When I opened the door. Red snow..."
from the poem "Flemish Giants"
January 13, 2014
NEW Review of the Blood Pudding Press chapbook Sister, Blood and Bone by Paula Cary
The 2013 Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, "Sister, Blood and Bone" by Paula Cary has received an utterly awesome review by Eileen Tabios at the new Galatea Resurrects, here - http://galatearesurrection21.blogspot.com/2014/01/sister-blood-and-bone-by-paula-cary.html
Read the review and then consider buying a copy of the chapbook in the Blood Pudding Press shop here - https://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress?section_id=14819899&ref=shopsection_leftnav_1
***
"Oh I really really like Paula Cary’s chap, Sister, Blood and Bone! Its poems contain the paradox of garnets—stones for, say, jewelry but ever evoking blood. Jewels that should be pretty but end up with other significances besides decorativeness."
"I also love how some poems, while loving, are not sentimental. That’s a good enough combo, except that Cary ups the juice to actually end up in nothing less than rapture!"
"And I love how other poems make my bones wince (yes, bones, not merely flesh as the effect goes deep)—except that I’m wincing with delight. It’s that paradoxical effect—you know, you’re thinking: that’s a tad perverse and yet being highly amused."
"I am attracted to these poems for their beauty and charm, notwithstanding—or maybe, in addition to—their rather eerie facets."
Read the review and then consider buying a copy of the chapbook in the Blood Pudding Press shop here - https://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress?section_id=14819899&ref=shopsection_leftnav_1
***
"Oh I really really like Paula Cary’s chap, Sister, Blood and Bone! Its poems contain the paradox of garnets—stones for, say, jewelry but ever evoking blood. Jewels that should be pretty but end up with other significances besides decorativeness."
"I also love how some poems, while loving, are not sentimental. That’s a good enough combo, except that Cary ups the juice to actually end up in nothing less than rapture!"
"And I love how other poems make my bones wince (yes, bones, not merely flesh as the effect goes deep)—except that I’m wincing with delight. It’s that paradoxical effect—you know, you’re thinking: that’s a tad perverse and yet being highly amused."
"I am attracted to these poems for their beauty and charm, notwithstanding—or maybe, in addition to—their rather eerie facets."
January 11, 2014
Blood Pudding Press 2014 Poetry Chapbook Contest Results!
Four Semi-Finalists (in no particular order):
~wingless, scorched and beautiful/Allie Marini Batts
~Old Mother Witch Woman: Nursery Rhymes/Jessy Randall
~Interior Ransack/Martha Deborah Hall
~Love like Jack/Pattie Flint
*
Three Finalists (in no particular order):
~There’s No Place Like Hell/Jay Sizemore
~The Last Place on Earth/Donavon Davidson
~Red Moon/Kelly Andrews
*
The Three Winners (in the order I plan to publish them):
~House on Fire/Susan Yount
~Stick Up/Paul David Adkins
~They Talk About Death/Alessandra Bava
***
Big congratulations to all of you!
My tentative time frames for publishing the three winning chapbooks are as follows:
Susan Yount’s House on Fire in early February
Paul David Adkin’s Stick Up in late March or April
Alessandra Bava’s They Talk About Death in June, July, or August
I will be in touch with each of you closer to that time to discuss more details – so that means I will be in touch with Susan Yount fairly soon.
Best, Juliet Cook, Blood Pudding Press
***
To partake of previously published chapbooks by Blood Pudding Press, take a look at the Blood Pudding Press shop here - http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress
~wingless, scorched and beautiful/Allie Marini Batts
~Old Mother Witch Woman: Nursery Rhymes/Jessy Randall
~Interior Ransack/Martha Deborah Hall
~Love like Jack/Pattie Flint
*
Three Finalists (in no particular order):
~There’s No Place Like Hell/Jay Sizemore
~The Last Place on Earth/Donavon Davidson
~Red Moon/Kelly Andrews
*
The Three Winners (in the order I plan to publish them):
~House on Fire/Susan Yount
~Stick Up/Paul David Adkins
~They Talk About Death/Alessandra Bava
***
Big congratulations to all of you!
My tentative time frames for publishing the three winning chapbooks are as follows:
Susan Yount’s House on Fire in early February
Paul David Adkin’s Stick Up in late March or April
Alessandra Bava’s They Talk About Death in June, July, or August
I will be in touch with each of you closer to that time to discuss more details – so that means I will be in touch with Susan Yount fairly soon.
Best, Juliet Cook, Blood Pudding Press
***
To partake of previously published chapbooks by Blood Pudding Press, take a look at the Blood Pudding Press shop here - http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress
A NEW poem of mine is up in LUSTRE
"Now you’re just a hole filled with nothing except your own contorted head."
from a NEW poem by me, "Insecticide Dye Job" which now appears on the new LUSTRE, along with other new work by Cassandra Dallett and four men, here - http://lustremagazine.co/
"They poison you and then pull themselves out. You rip out more and more of your own debris and flush it partway down and then pull it back out of the clogged drain and try to decide what the hell to name it."
from a NEW poem by me, "Insecticide Dye Job" which now appears on the new LUSTRE, along with other new work by Cassandra Dallett and four men, here - http://lustremagazine.co/
"They poison you and then pull themselves out. You rip out more and more of your own debris and flush it partway down and then pull it back out of the clogged drain and try to decide what the hell to name it."
January 10, 2014
Thirteen Myna Birds is brimming with dying deer, dark birds, and other twisted creatures
Newly updated Thirteen Myna Birds flock, offering even more hideously awesome innards than usual - this time it includes a flock of SEVENTEEN!
"To give oneself up one must have a self - from the belly feathers - vocal chords, bleating - eating all in its path - patches of mud or pale disintegration - mangled bird in his hands - dread is a skull - pumping your chest - the blood boiling fever - Skin sloughs off - It smothers the airy colors - but I know how to rise - Gleaming spider webs of poison filled spit"
Seven poems by Jennifer MacBain-Stephens (from her chapbook "EveryHerDies", forthcoming from Emerge Literary Journal Publications) and poems by Kathleen Kirk, Jason Fisk, Annette Marie Hyder, Bekah Steimel, and John Grey!
http://13myna.blogspot.com/
"To give oneself up one must have a self - from the belly feathers - vocal chords, bleating - eating all in its path - patches of mud or pale disintegration - mangled bird in his hands - dread is a skull - pumping your chest - the blood boiling fever - Skin sloughs off - It smothers the airy colors - but I know how to rise - Gleaming spider webs of poison filled spit"
Seven poems by Jennifer MacBain-Stephens (from her chapbook "EveryHerDies", forthcoming from Emerge Literary Journal Publications) and poems by Kathleen Kirk, Jason Fisk, Annette Marie Hyder, Bekah Steimel, and John Grey!
http://13myna.blogspot.com/
January 6, 2014
little cold spell
suddenly feeling rather tired and glum. I think a bird somehow broke a leg or a wing or is dying from the cold outside of my house, because last time I opened my front door to take my dog outside for a few minutes, as soon as we stepped out, a bird flung itself up from the ground and started partly flying around the porch, repeatedly hitting its head. I quickly moved my dog back inside and closed the door, because the bird had no sense of direction and I certainly didn't need it to accidentally bang/fly itself into my house because then what? it clearly wasn't flying right, so now I'm imagining it freezing to death outside. i've heard other odd little banging sounds outside my house today; maybe it was the dying bird. maybe i'm just feeling cold and tired and small as if sometimes my well-meaning and time-consuming projects don't mean very much. and/or maybe I'm suddenly feeling overly bummed by the cold dying bird even though it doesn't ultimately mean very much. and/or maybe I'm just feeling tired but as if I didn't get enough done today and so going to bed already would seem dull and like i'm suddenly broken and who cares?
January 2, 2014
New Year New Spectrum
Do you ever miss the part of life where you feel as if you still have all kinds of different and interesting new things to find out and new relationship experiences awaiting you and other new adventures? I do. I sometimes get into these modes where I feel like the more life goes on and the older I get, the more ridiculous and relatively meaningless everything seems, at least on any broad scale.
But then I think it's a matter of mentally convincing myself that I DO still have all kinds of unknown potential horizons in my future. Even if most of them are small scale, that doesn't make them uninteresting on a small, exciting personal level.
I don't particularly relate to the people who think that life experience and the maturity it endows upon you equates to knowledge and power and success. Heck, I'm not even a fan of maturity. What is the point of maturity? What does maturity even mean? I'm more a fan of ongoing excitement (whether it's mature or immature) and oddity.
I'm not one of those 'knowledge equals power' persons. I'm more of an excited by small delights type of person. Especially if the delights are unexpected and/or odd and/or artsy and/or sexy and/or more than one of those things plus cause me to feel young and new, instead of old, blah, and been there/done that.
Yes ongoing life experience gives you more knowledge, but it doesn't necessarily make you wiser. In fact, it makes some people seem kind of boring in a been there/done that/stuck in one place and wanting to stay positioned in that one place forever and thus way too toned down for ongoing excitement. I know some people like being relaxed and toned down into one place/position. I'd rather be revved up and find out about a new place/position. Maybe that's because I feel like I don't fit in to any one normal, easy, basic position.
Why don't more people want to change their positions and re-position their placements? Why do some people seem to think that if you still want to try new things and have new experiences once you've reached a certain age, that's kind of immature? It's not. Maybe it means you still have interest and passion and desire for excited spells and don't want to dull yourself down and conform into standardized parameters.
Maybe life on a large scale is relatively meaningless and ridiculous - but you can still create your own small scales and misshapen little color hues if you want to. You can experience your own spectrum of meaningless ridiculousness and hopefully every once in a while, one of those hues will feel meaningful and unique and new.
But then I think it's a matter of mentally convincing myself that I DO still have all kinds of unknown potential horizons in my future. Even if most of them are small scale, that doesn't make them uninteresting on a small, exciting personal level.
I don't particularly relate to the people who think that life experience and the maturity it endows upon you equates to knowledge and power and success. Heck, I'm not even a fan of maturity. What is the point of maturity? What does maturity even mean? I'm more a fan of ongoing excitement (whether it's mature or immature) and oddity.
I'm not one of those 'knowledge equals power' persons. I'm more of an excited by small delights type of person. Especially if the delights are unexpected and/or odd and/or artsy and/or sexy and/or more than one of those things plus cause me to feel young and new, instead of old, blah, and been there/done that.
Yes ongoing life experience gives you more knowledge, but it doesn't necessarily make you wiser. In fact, it makes some people seem kind of boring in a been there/done that/stuck in one place and wanting to stay positioned in that one place forever and thus way too toned down for ongoing excitement. I know some people like being relaxed and toned down into one place/position. I'd rather be revved up and find out about a new place/position. Maybe that's because I feel like I don't fit in to any one normal, easy, basic position.
Why don't more people want to change their positions and re-position their placements? Why do some people seem to think that if you still want to try new things and have new experiences once you've reached a certain age, that's kind of immature? It's not. Maybe it means you still have interest and passion and desire for excited spells and don't want to dull yourself down and conform into standardized parameters.
Maybe life on a large scale is relatively meaningless and ridiculous - but you can still create your own small scales and misshapen little color hues if you want to. You can experience your own spectrum of meaningless ridiculousness and hopefully every once in a while, one of those hues will feel meaningful and unique and new.
