Juliet Cook's Blog, page 142
July 24, 2013
I'm the little witch on the left side of the page, ...
I'm the little witch on the left side of the page, next to Margaret Bashaar and Crystal Hoffman.
they couldn't hear me unless I screamed
Awoke last morning after ongoing odd dreams and even though I wasn’t sure exactly how/why/if this derived from my dreams, I immediately felt the need to write down a note about how I dislike and get really stressed out by some of my family dynamics – not just my immediate family so much as extended family issues that strike me as less love-based and more judgment based, along the lines of telling other people what they should or shouldn’t do (and what they’re doing wrong and how they need to do this or else…).
It’s probably because I’ve felt such impressions throughout much of my life that I don’t usually like ANYONE (not even a good friend) phrasing things to me as if this is what I need to do unless I want something bad to happen. How does another individual know what I need to do? They don’t live inside my brain, do they? So how can they be experts on what does live in there? Shouldn’t they focus on what they need to do? They can offer me their thoughts/feelings/opinions (indeed I like that kind of in depth exchange), but I don’t think they should state their point of view as though if I don’t follow it, something bad or unhealthy is bound to befall me.
*
The dream recollections involve a seen in which I was driving with a group of family members and suddenly I knew that my dog was about to jump out the window on the other side. In the dream, my dog looked like a white cat. I kept saying stop the car, stop the car, stop the car, but nobody stopped. It wasn’t because they were purposely ignoring me, but they couldn’t hear me. They could only hear themselves. Until I screamed.
I screamed, “WE NEED TO STOP!’, which finally got them to stop, but by then my dog had jumped out the window. I told them where to drive back to, but couldn’t remember exactly, and we couldn’t find him. He was gone. I made myself wake up before I saw him dead on the road.
*
I often feel like I don’t matter much to anyone - and sometimes that makes it hard hanging out with people who feel like/act like they matter a great deal. People who even say things about themselves like, “I’m awesome”. I don’t relate to friends thinking/acting like they’re awesome, popular, very attractive, and so many people are attracted to them.
Aside from poetry readings and planned events, I’m not a fan when people think a space full of unknown other people (such as a restaurant or a bus ride) should hear their loud conversation, like it or not. What if someone is trying to think their own thoughts and you suddenly jump into the space and start forcing yours upon them? I don’t think that’s particularly creatively enlightening or positive or caring towards others; in fact I think it can be invasive and stress inducing. At least it is for me.
Why should I want my brain forced to hear someone else’s conversation rather than being able to focus on my own or hear/speak with the person I’m sitting next to, who I’m having trouble hearing/concentrating on because I’m being loudly intersected by someone else’s expression and I don’t want to talk that loud or have a performance style conversation?
I could be wrong; I’m no expert; but I don’t think being stressed to the point of a bad headache by that sort of thing is a result of my brain’s negativity. I think it’s more like that is not my style – and when surrounded by it in excess for an extended time period, it stresses me out. I don’t want to scream to be heard.
But then I have a dream where if I don’t scream, nobody can hear me.
*
“(I was never a cheerleader in real life. I was never popular in real life.What is real? Why am I sinking down under these misshapen rafters?)”
from my poem, “Vintage Pom Pom Underwater”, which you can read in its entirety here –http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/2009/02/giggle-or-gurgle-her-voice-sounds-like.html
It’s one of 11 poems I read this past Saturday, during a poetry reading at the East End Book Exchange in Pittsburgh, PA. The weekend included time with very creative friends (poetry reading time, interesting conversation time, and more), bands, The Oakmont Bakery, and the Polish Hill Arts Festival.
It’s probably because I’ve felt such impressions throughout much of my life that I don’t usually like ANYONE (not even a good friend) phrasing things to me as if this is what I need to do unless I want something bad to happen. How does another individual know what I need to do? They don’t live inside my brain, do they? So how can they be experts on what does live in there? Shouldn’t they focus on what they need to do? They can offer me their thoughts/feelings/opinions (indeed I like that kind of in depth exchange), but I don’t think they should state their point of view as though if I don’t follow it, something bad or unhealthy is bound to befall me.
*
The dream recollections involve a seen in which I was driving with a group of family members and suddenly I knew that my dog was about to jump out the window on the other side. In the dream, my dog looked like a white cat. I kept saying stop the car, stop the car, stop the car, but nobody stopped. It wasn’t because they were purposely ignoring me, but they couldn’t hear me. They could only hear themselves. Until I screamed.
I screamed, “WE NEED TO STOP!’, which finally got them to stop, but by then my dog had jumped out the window. I told them where to drive back to, but couldn’t remember exactly, and we couldn’t find him. He was gone. I made myself wake up before I saw him dead on the road.
*
I often feel like I don’t matter much to anyone - and sometimes that makes it hard hanging out with people who feel like/act like they matter a great deal. People who even say things about themselves like, “I’m awesome”. I don’t relate to friends thinking/acting like they’re awesome, popular, very attractive, and so many people are attracted to them.
Aside from poetry readings and planned events, I’m not a fan when people think a space full of unknown other people (such as a restaurant or a bus ride) should hear their loud conversation, like it or not. What if someone is trying to think their own thoughts and you suddenly jump into the space and start forcing yours upon them? I don’t think that’s particularly creatively enlightening or positive or caring towards others; in fact I think it can be invasive and stress inducing. At least it is for me.
Why should I want my brain forced to hear someone else’s conversation rather than being able to focus on my own or hear/speak with the person I’m sitting next to, who I’m having trouble hearing/concentrating on because I’m being loudly intersected by someone else’s expression and I don’t want to talk that loud or have a performance style conversation?
I could be wrong; I’m no expert; but I don’t think being stressed to the point of a bad headache by that sort of thing is a result of my brain’s negativity. I think it’s more like that is not my style – and when surrounded by it in excess for an extended time period, it stresses me out. I don’t want to scream to be heard.
But then I have a dream where if I don’t scream, nobody can hear me.
*
“(I was never a cheerleader in real life. I was never popular in real life.What is real? Why am I sinking down under these misshapen rafters?)”
from my poem, “Vintage Pom Pom Underwater”, which you can read in its entirety here –http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/2009/02/giggle-or-gurgle-her-voice-sounds-like.html
It’s one of 11 poems I read this past Saturday, during a poetry reading at the East End Book Exchange in Pittsburgh, PA. The weekend included time with very creative friends (poetry reading time, interesting conversation time, and more), bands, The Oakmont Bakery, and the Polish Hill Arts Festival.
July 18, 2013
small scales can still sail in their own way
do you ever feel small scale compared to what other people are doing/how other people are thinking/what other people are working on and experiencing? i do. i sometimes feel like i don't do enough compared to others; don't have enough new experiences compared to others; but some of those experiences there's no way i could even handle
for example, i could never be a doctor who performes surgery (but that's okay, because I never desired to be that - although I certainly appreciate the people who are great at that or i and lots of others wouldn't be alive)
for another example, i could never travel all over the united sates or travel other countries outside of the united states by myself for months (but that's something several friends of mine have done/are doing - and that's something part of me wishes i COULD do, but there's no way i could - and i'm not talking monetarily here; I'm talking about my mentality couldn't handle it on many different levels)
maybe some people might feel like they don't do enough compared to me
but then there's the fact that life should not be a comparison; it should be focused on everyone doing what's right/important/meaningful/significant for them; everyone choosing to arrange their lifetime and priorities as they choose
some people are primarily focused on kids/family, some people are primarily focused on art/reading/writing/publishing, some people are primarily focused on spirituality and growing in that realm...
some people are more physically active (including experiencing a lot of different locations), some people are more mentally active (there brain focusing on all sorts of things, even if they're mostly staying in one place physically), some people are neither, some people are both...
i'm definitely one of the more mentally active/brain focused persons (in both bad and good ways) - thoughts, feeling, words words words, writing writing writing my thoughts and feelings - and often that feels very important and significant to me - but on a larger scale, is that personal expression relatively meaningless and insignificant?
even if so; even if i am really small scale, is that a bad thing?
lots of people are small scale in their own way right?
*
small scale or not, i've had lots of different life experiences, even if they feel like an ongoing circle shape with ups & downs then another circle...
but sometimes i feel as if I'm darkly frothing rather than evolving..
but are dark froths a bad thing?
for example, i could never be a doctor who performes surgery (but that's okay, because I never desired to be that - although I certainly appreciate the people who are great at that or i and lots of others wouldn't be alive)
for another example, i could never travel all over the united sates or travel other countries outside of the united states by myself for months (but that's something several friends of mine have done/are doing - and that's something part of me wishes i COULD do, but there's no way i could - and i'm not talking monetarily here; I'm talking about my mentality couldn't handle it on many different levels)
maybe some people might feel like they don't do enough compared to me
but then there's the fact that life should not be a comparison; it should be focused on everyone doing what's right/important/meaningful/significant for them; everyone choosing to arrange their lifetime and priorities as they choose
some people are primarily focused on kids/family, some people are primarily focused on art/reading/writing/publishing, some people are primarily focused on spirituality and growing in that realm...
some people are more physically active (including experiencing a lot of different locations), some people are more mentally active (there brain focusing on all sorts of things, even if they're mostly staying in one place physically), some people are neither, some people are both...
i'm definitely one of the more mentally active/brain focused persons (in both bad and good ways) - thoughts, feeling, words words words, writing writing writing my thoughts and feelings - and often that feels very important and significant to me - but on a larger scale, is that personal expression relatively meaningless and insignificant?
even if so; even if i am really small scale, is that a bad thing?
lots of people are small scale in their own way right?
*
small scale or not, i've had lots of different life experiences, even if they feel like an ongoing circle shape with ups & downs then another circle...
but sometimes i feel as if I'm darkly frothing rather than evolving..
but are dark froths a bad thing?
July 16, 2013
NEW POETRY NEWS!
This coming Saturday, July 20, 7:00 PM at East End Book Exchange (in Pittsburgh, PA), I will be part of a Hyacinth Girl Press poetry reading – also featuring readings by Sally Rosen Kindred, Daniel M. Shapiro, and one or two others TBA.
*
Speaking of Hyacinth Girl Press (which published my poetry chapbook, Thirteen Designer Vaginas in 2011 – and yes I will be reading two or three Designer V’s during the poetry reading this weekend, noted above), it is now official (in a darkly delicious sort of way) that press has accepted another chapbook of mine for publication in their 4th year – MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM, a collection of collaboration by me and Robert Cole, coming your way in 2014!
I am very excited and delighted to be a part of this group of five women and three men, in Hyacinth Girl Press’s 4th year of publication:
Lisa Marie Basile - war/lock
Dan Nowak - the hows and whys of my failures
Caitlin Elizabeth Jans - Incident Reports
Amorak Huey - The Insomniac Circus
Risa Denenberg - blinded by clouds
Juliet Cook and Robert Cole - Mutant Neuron Codex Swarm
Laura Madeline Wiseman - His Late Wives
You can find out more about all of us at the Hyacinth Girl Press website here:
http://hyacinthgirlpress.com/news.html
*
Speaking of 2014 excitement, I don't usually like to focus on feeling overly excited about things way in advance, because then my excitement tends to lead towards unfocused freaked out nerve blobs, making it harder to concentrate on the here and now - BUT having said that, I will make a little exception for a few minutes here.
I'm pretty darn excited that 2014 will MY FIRST TIME EVER ATTENDING AWP AND HAVING A TABLE THERE - and sharing table space and poetry love with a number of other extra-special poetry women. My Blood Pudding Press with The Rooster Moans splitting table T3 – Hyacinth Girl Press with Menacing Hedge splitting table T4 – Dancing Girl Press with Misty Publications splitting table T5! YAY!
*
In other exciting news, my hair got dyed red today (an “INTENSE MEDIUM AUBURN” called “CHERRY CRUSH” – thanks Mom!).
(and i might like an alcoholic beverage called cherry crush)
(and I will save my one little sad spurt for the comments section)
*
Speaking of Hyacinth Girl Press (which published my poetry chapbook, Thirteen Designer Vaginas in 2011 – and yes I will be reading two or three Designer V’s during the poetry reading this weekend, noted above), it is now official (in a darkly delicious sort of way) that press has accepted another chapbook of mine for publication in their 4th year – MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM, a collection of collaboration by me and Robert Cole, coming your way in 2014!
I am very excited and delighted to be a part of this group of five women and three men, in Hyacinth Girl Press’s 4th year of publication:
Lisa Marie Basile - war/lock
Dan Nowak - the hows and whys of my failures
Caitlin Elizabeth Jans - Incident Reports
Amorak Huey - The Insomniac Circus
Risa Denenberg - blinded by clouds
Juliet Cook and Robert Cole - Mutant Neuron Codex Swarm
Laura Madeline Wiseman - His Late Wives
You can find out more about all of us at the Hyacinth Girl Press website here:
http://hyacinthgirlpress.com/news.html
*
Speaking of 2014 excitement, I don't usually like to focus on feeling overly excited about things way in advance, because then my excitement tends to lead towards unfocused freaked out nerve blobs, making it harder to concentrate on the here and now - BUT having said that, I will make a little exception for a few minutes here.
I'm pretty darn excited that 2014 will MY FIRST TIME EVER ATTENDING AWP AND HAVING A TABLE THERE - and sharing table space and poetry love with a number of other extra-special poetry women. My Blood Pudding Press with The Rooster Moans splitting table T3 – Hyacinth Girl Press with Menacing Hedge splitting table T4 – Dancing Girl Press with Misty Publications splitting table T5! YAY!
*
In other exciting news, my hair got dyed red today (an “INTENSE MEDIUM AUBURN” called “CHERRY CRUSH” – thanks Mom!).
(and i might like an alcoholic beverage called cherry crush)
(and I will save my one little sad spurt for the comments section)
July 12, 2013
My uncertainty will last forever
Other than the fact that I like poetry and art and expression, I can never seem to figure out/decide/stick with where my focus should be, even in those realms I like i.e. what should I do more of, what should I do less of, and why?
Often I think I should read and write more - and socialize less, but I’ll admit I sometimes feel jealous of writers who seem to have tons of writer/artist friends and lots of time to spend with them. How do they connect with so many people? How do they find enough time to write?
Despite having a decent amount of time to focus on whatever I choose to focus on by myself, I sometimes feel lonely, un-liked, un-likable.
Often I think that I should spend less time promoting my creative work – and maybe even less time submitting it. Then I think if I don’t submit it, get it published, and promote it, then hardly anybody is going to know about it and be able to read it. Then I think even if I do promote it, hardly anyone reads it. Maybe if I’m promoting myself a lot, people have a hard time focusing on what it is I’m promoting and thus pay less attention.
I don’t know. Maybe I should just sort of continue on with the way I tend to fluctuate between focusing on this more, that more, this more in mutant circles – but sometimes my head hurts and I’m not sure if I’m doing anything right, anything important, anything that matters to anyone – and I don’t know who to ask, except for myself, but even my own opinions fluctuate in those warped semi-circle shapes.
Maybe I need a doppelganger to talk to, share thoughts/feelings/opinions with, hang out with, do certain things for me, and do certain things with me. Unless that doppelganger was even more mutated than the current twisting me.
Often I think I should read and write more - and socialize less, but I’ll admit I sometimes feel jealous of writers who seem to have tons of writer/artist friends and lots of time to spend with them. How do they connect with so many people? How do they find enough time to write?
Despite having a decent amount of time to focus on whatever I choose to focus on by myself, I sometimes feel lonely, un-liked, un-likable.
Often I think that I should spend less time promoting my creative work – and maybe even less time submitting it. Then I think if I don’t submit it, get it published, and promote it, then hardly anybody is going to know about it and be able to read it. Then I think even if I do promote it, hardly anyone reads it. Maybe if I’m promoting myself a lot, people have a hard time focusing on what it is I’m promoting and thus pay less attention.
I don’t know. Maybe I should just sort of continue on with the way I tend to fluctuate between focusing on this more, that more, this more in mutant circles – but sometimes my head hurts and I’m not sure if I’m doing anything right, anything important, anything that matters to anyone – and I don’t know who to ask, except for myself, but even my own opinions fluctuate in those warped semi-circle shapes.
Maybe I need a doppelganger to talk to, share thoughts/feelings/opinions with, hang out with, do certain things for me, and do certain things with me. Unless that doppelganger was even more mutated than the current twisting me.
July 9, 2013
SCRATCH - An old poem/a new old story
(Started writing this blog post a handful of days ago; then my time/brain space got invaded by a wedding, a baby shower and other what not – including other oodles of reading/writing/poetry goodness. Finally getting around to finishing it, in one way or another – about how so-called vintage children’s books got me thinking, when does contemporary poetry suddenly turn into vintage!?! AAH.).
The hour is late, I should get to bed, but instead I am feeling compelled to express a few thoughts/feelings about how tonight my poetry made me feel old! Not because of its content or style (thank goodness), but because of the fast passage of time.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this. After all, I am 40 years old and I started writing a lot of poetry back when I was a teenager – and I started submitting it/having it accepted for publication when I was in college (getting my BFA in creative writing) – and I started writing/submitting/being published considerably more AND feeling more strongly and favorably about my writing style in my late 20s to mid 30s – so…this shouldn’t surprise me or make me feel weirdly old, but…
Last night, I was adding a few vintage children’s books to my Blood Pudding Press shop – more specifically, children’s fairy tale books published in 1978. That process got me thinking about fairy tales fused with poems. I was adding additions of "Beauty and the Beast" and "Cinderella" to my shop, thinking about how personally I’m more of a fan of gruesome and macabre fairy tale language (a la Grimm's), rather than how more traditional kid's books really tone down the words.
(Despite the toned down words, I’m still keeping a copy of Hansel and Gretel - because no matter how a children's book tries to tone that content down, it's still going to be delightfully creepy, on a variety of levels - PLUS the fact that when I was a little girl, my mom used to style my hair based on a Gretel illustration).
I got to thinking about how in recent years, I don't write poems inspired by fairy tales. I’ve written a few fairy tale themed poems in the far off past – but many years ago, I thought fairy tale inspired poem themes were becoming overdone – and for the most part, I’d rather work with my own themes, rather than creating variations on others’ themes.
I understand how parts of fairy tales can be creatively inspiring, though (for me, especially the violent bursts). In the far off past, pieces of my poems where semi-inspired by rumplestiltskin, rapunzel, and black birds in a pie. Thinking more about it, I realized that I HAVE used some fairy tale snippets recently – not any overall fairy tale theme, but fusion mix snips of georgy porgy pudding pie inserting himself plus my ongoing spurts of ashes to ashes (to ashes to ashes to ashes) in various amalgams.
Then I got to thinking about how an older poem of mine, possibly the first poem of mine that I continued to feel really strongly about many years later, SCRATCH, was inspired by various childhood issues, including burning my hand on an electric grill while walking around in circles reading 'Sleeping Beauty'.
I recently read SCRATCH (for the first time in years) at a poetry reading event this past March 2013 – and while thinking about it again, I decided to locate its print version, to take a peek at more details. Yes, I have my poems on my computer, but for many years now, whenever I finish a poem, I also print out a copy – and I have all these printed out copies of poems (hundreds upon hundreds open hundreds) stored in big envelope sections, where I handwrite notes as to where they’re submitted, rejected, accepted etc…
When I finally managed to locate the printed out copy of SCRATCH and then look at its handwritten notes, I found out that it was written in 1999!
I don’t remember all the details about how and when I revised the piece (how many times and how significantly etc…), but according to some of my handwritten notes jotted down on the printed out copy… An earlier version of the piece was read at Clintonville Community Co-Up and was read twice at Victorian’s Midnight Café (those notes made me remember my Open Mic reading phase in my mid 20s). It was submitted to and rejected by Spinning Jenny, Brownstone Review, Sonora Review, and Crab Creek Review (I’m not even sure if all those sources still exist anymore).Then it was revised. Then it was rejected by Indiana Review, Green Hills Lit, and Arsenic Lobster (a source I’ve now been published by several times). It was entered into a few contests/poetry prizes in 2000 (I had forgotten that I used to submit my poems to contests too).
Furthermore, I have quite a few submission sources written down and crossed off – and I’m not sure if that means I never heard back from those sources one way or the other or what (because if I had heard back with a rejection, then I think I would have written that in the rejection section). I have all this stuff crossed off – Sylvia (Dec.), Bathtub Gin (Jan. 2000), Great Midwestern Quarterly (June 2000), West Branch (May), Interbang (July)… There are a few other notes too that I don’t quite understand and I don’t want to spend too much time trying to analyze the details of notes I jotted years ago.
The overall detail that made me feel weirdly old was that it appears I initially finished writing and stared submitting the poem in December 1999 (and had it accepted by SKIDROW PENTHOUSE in which it was published in 2003, 10 years ago) - and so when I read it for the first time in years at a poetry reading event this past March, I knew it was an older poem, but I didn’t realize it was thirteen years old!
I’m sure I could go on (and on & on), but that’s enough of this semi-random rambling for now.
In other news, the vintage Cinderella book already sold from the Blood Pudding Press shop – but as of right now, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is still available there (https://www.etsy.com/listing/155869933/vintage-childrens-fairy-tale-book-beauty?) – and I’m hoping to find time to add more vintage kid’s books and other stuff soon.
The hour is late, I should get to bed, but instead I am feeling compelled to express a few thoughts/feelings about how tonight my poetry made me feel old! Not because of its content or style (thank goodness), but because of the fast passage of time.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this. After all, I am 40 years old and I started writing a lot of poetry back when I was a teenager – and I started submitting it/having it accepted for publication when I was in college (getting my BFA in creative writing) – and I started writing/submitting/being published considerably more AND feeling more strongly and favorably about my writing style in my late 20s to mid 30s – so…this shouldn’t surprise me or make me feel weirdly old, but…
Last night, I was adding a few vintage children’s books to my Blood Pudding Press shop – more specifically, children’s fairy tale books published in 1978. That process got me thinking about fairy tales fused with poems. I was adding additions of "Beauty and the Beast" and "Cinderella" to my shop, thinking about how personally I’m more of a fan of gruesome and macabre fairy tale language (a la Grimm's), rather than how more traditional kid's books really tone down the words.
(Despite the toned down words, I’m still keeping a copy of Hansel and Gretel - because no matter how a children's book tries to tone that content down, it's still going to be delightfully creepy, on a variety of levels - PLUS the fact that when I was a little girl, my mom used to style my hair based on a Gretel illustration).
I got to thinking about how in recent years, I don't write poems inspired by fairy tales. I’ve written a few fairy tale themed poems in the far off past – but many years ago, I thought fairy tale inspired poem themes were becoming overdone – and for the most part, I’d rather work with my own themes, rather than creating variations on others’ themes.
I understand how parts of fairy tales can be creatively inspiring, though (for me, especially the violent bursts). In the far off past, pieces of my poems where semi-inspired by rumplestiltskin, rapunzel, and black birds in a pie. Thinking more about it, I realized that I HAVE used some fairy tale snippets recently – not any overall fairy tale theme, but fusion mix snips of georgy porgy pudding pie inserting himself plus my ongoing spurts of ashes to ashes (to ashes to ashes to ashes) in various amalgams.
Then I got to thinking about how an older poem of mine, possibly the first poem of mine that I continued to feel really strongly about many years later, SCRATCH, was inspired by various childhood issues, including burning my hand on an electric grill while walking around in circles reading 'Sleeping Beauty'.
I recently read SCRATCH (for the first time in years) at a poetry reading event this past March 2013 – and while thinking about it again, I decided to locate its print version, to take a peek at more details. Yes, I have my poems on my computer, but for many years now, whenever I finish a poem, I also print out a copy – and I have all these printed out copies of poems (hundreds upon hundreds open hundreds) stored in big envelope sections, where I handwrite notes as to where they’re submitted, rejected, accepted etc…
When I finally managed to locate the printed out copy of SCRATCH and then look at its handwritten notes, I found out that it was written in 1999!
I don’t remember all the details about how and when I revised the piece (how many times and how significantly etc…), but according to some of my handwritten notes jotted down on the printed out copy… An earlier version of the piece was read at Clintonville Community Co-Up and was read twice at Victorian’s Midnight Café (those notes made me remember my Open Mic reading phase in my mid 20s). It was submitted to and rejected by Spinning Jenny, Brownstone Review, Sonora Review, and Crab Creek Review (I’m not even sure if all those sources still exist anymore).Then it was revised. Then it was rejected by Indiana Review, Green Hills Lit, and Arsenic Lobster (a source I’ve now been published by several times). It was entered into a few contests/poetry prizes in 2000 (I had forgotten that I used to submit my poems to contests too).
Furthermore, I have quite a few submission sources written down and crossed off – and I’m not sure if that means I never heard back from those sources one way or the other or what (because if I had heard back with a rejection, then I think I would have written that in the rejection section). I have all this stuff crossed off – Sylvia (Dec.), Bathtub Gin (Jan. 2000), Great Midwestern Quarterly (June 2000), West Branch (May), Interbang (July)… There are a few other notes too that I don’t quite understand and I don’t want to spend too much time trying to analyze the details of notes I jotted years ago.
The overall detail that made me feel weirdly old was that it appears I initially finished writing and stared submitting the poem in December 1999 (and had it accepted by SKIDROW PENTHOUSE in which it was published in 2003, 10 years ago) - and so when I read it for the first time in years at a poetry reading event this past March, I knew it was an older poem, but I didn’t realize it was thirteen years old!
I’m sure I could go on (and on & on), but that’s enough of this semi-random rambling for now.
In other news, the vintage Cinderella book already sold from the Blood Pudding Press shop – but as of right now, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is still available there (https://www.etsy.com/listing/155869933/vintage-childrens-fairy-tale-book-beauty?) – and I’m hoping to find time to add more vintage kid’s books and other stuff soon.
July 7, 2013
My first darkly delicious poetry publication of July - Menacing Hedge!
The new summer 2013 issue of Menacing Hedge offers surrealist poetry and fiction and interviews and more by oodles of interesting writers, including five collaborative poems by me and Robert Cole!
Oh how I adore being a part of the Menacing Hedge, where you can read the poetry and fiction while LISTENING TO THE WRITERS read them.
Read read read, listen listen listen - and then create some of your own poetry and art.
Here - http://menacinghedge.com/summer2013/index.php
(These five poems by Robert Cole and me are from our forthcoming collaborative poetry chapbook, MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM, to be published by Hyacinth Girl Press in 2014).
Oh how I adore being a part of the Menacing Hedge, where you can read the poetry and fiction while LISTENING TO THE WRITERS read them.
Read read read, listen listen listen - and then create some of your own poetry and art.
Here - http://menacinghedge.com/summer2013/index.php
(These five poems by Robert Cole and me are from our forthcoming collaborative poetry chapbook, MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM, to be published by Hyacinth Girl Press in 2014).
June 30, 2013
Last Day of June 2013 - small poetry oodles
Since today is the last day of June, I am (re)posting links to the places where some of my poems were published this month, in case anyone is interested in partaking of one or more.
~A collaborative poem by Robert Cole and me AND a poetry/art interview with me in Sein und Werden here - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/summer13/index.html
~One new poem by me AND two new collaborative poems by Robert Cole and me in Black Heart Magazine here - http://blackheartmagazine.com/2013/06/19/a-poem-by-juliet-cook-and-two-poems-by-juliet-cook-and-robert-cole/
~My poem “Mirror Test” in POETS/ARTISTS – The Social Portrait here -http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/587862
My poem "Vintage Pom Pom Underwater" in Counterexample Poetics here (atop two older poems of mine, published there a few years ago) -
http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/2009/02/giggle-or-gurgle-her-voice-sounds-like.html
More to come in July. :)
***
ALSO, related to poetry by others that I published -
~The June edition of Thirteen Myna Birds here - http://13myna.blogspot.com/
~A book review (by Lisa M. Cole) of Sister, Blood and Bone by Paula Cary (published by Blood Pudding Press 2013) here - http://moonglows-reviews.blogspot.com/2013/06/paula-carys-sister-blood-and-bone.html
~A book review (by Lisa M. Cole) of Poking through the Fabric of the Light that Formed Us: Songs and Stories to Read in the Mirror by Lora Bloom (published by Blood Pudding Press 2013) here - http://moonglows-reviews.blogspot.com/2013/06/lora-blooms-poking-through-fabric-of.html#comment-form
More to come in July :)
~A collaborative poem by Robert Cole and me AND a poetry/art interview with me in Sein und Werden here - http://www.kissthewitch.co.uk/seinundwerden/summer13/index.html
~One new poem by me AND two new collaborative poems by Robert Cole and me in Black Heart Magazine here - http://blackheartmagazine.com/2013/06/19/a-poem-by-juliet-cook-and-two-poems-by-juliet-cook-and-robert-cole/
~My poem “Mirror Test” in POETS/ARTISTS – The Social Portrait here -http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/587862
My poem "Vintage Pom Pom Underwater" in Counterexample Poetics here (atop two older poems of mine, published there a few years ago) -
http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/2009/02/giggle-or-gurgle-her-voice-sounds-like.html
More to come in July. :)
***
ALSO, related to poetry by others that I published -
~The June edition of Thirteen Myna Birds here - http://13myna.blogspot.com/
~A book review (by Lisa M. Cole) of Sister, Blood and Bone by Paula Cary (published by Blood Pudding Press 2013) here - http://moonglows-reviews.blogspot.com/2013/06/paula-carys-sister-blood-and-bone.html
~A book review (by Lisa M. Cole) of Poking through the Fabric of the Light that Formed Us: Songs and Stories to Read in the Mirror by Lora Bloom (published by Blood Pudding Press 2013) here - http://moonglows-reviews.blogspot.com/2013/06/lora-blooms-poking-through-fabric-of.html#comment-form
More to come in July :)
June 29, 2013
New Poem of Mine up at Counterexample Poetics
"A mummified octopus looks like a broken balloon
who suddenly turned old. Half the suckers
slashed by scissor blades. Black blood bath
filled my nosebleed dreams until my mouth dripped"
from my new poem "Vintage Pom Pom Underwater", which now appears in Counterexample Poetics here -
http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/2009/02/giggle-or-gurgle-her-voice-sounds-like.html
(interestingly/oddly, they placed my new poem right above two older poems of mine which they published a few years ago).
who suddenly turned old. Half the suckers
slashed by scissor blades. Black blood bath
filled my nosebleed dreams until my mouth dripped"
from my new poem "Vintage Pom Pom Underwater", which now appears in Counterexample Poetics here -
http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/2009/02/giggle-or-gurgle-her-voice-sounds-like.html
(interestingly/oddly, they placed my new poem right above two older poems of mine which they published a few years ago).
June 27, 2013
Strange New Carnival Morsels Now Frothing through Myna Birds Land
The carnival of love and life grows weirder and darker red and involves bites of candy at the NEW NEW NEW Thirteen Myna Birds update! - Michael Dwayne Smith, Jennifer MacBain-Stephens, Adam Fieled, Katharine Hepcat, Davide Nixon, John Grey, and Ani Myers-Campos are within the latest peculiar poetry parade, here here here -
http://13myna.blogspot.com/
Drawing together both heaven and hell – stitched them together hand in hand – pick at the flowers - petal to your knees – gargling songs of mud – tempting the scorpion – hard candy on the ground – wispy wings are in tatters from trying to lift her – minion of tarts - bleed out and be easier to throttle - if a man could mutate – the blood of their feasts...
http://13myna.blogspot.com/
Drawing together both heaven and hell – stitched them together hand in hand – pick at the flowers - petal to your knees – gargling songs of mud – tempting the scorpion – hard candy on the ground – wispy wings are in tatters from trying to lift her – minion of tarts - bleed out and be easier to throttle - if a man could mutate – the blood of their feasts...
