Juliet Cook's Blog, page 144

Your choice of TWO 2013 Blood Pudding Press Poetry Chapbooks

Choose two of the three Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbooks published this 2013 for a substantially reduced price.

The NEWEST offering as of May 2013 – Sister, Blood and Bone by Paula Cary

And the two contest winning Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbooks - Renegade//Heart by Lisa M. Cole (January 2013) AND Poking through the Fabric of the Light that Formed Us by Lora Bloom (February 2013).

All of these three poetry chapbooks cost $7.00 individually; with this listing, you will pay $10.00 for TWO of them, saving $4.00

https://www.etsy.com/listing/151139145/set-of-two-your-choice-of-two-2013?

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NEW – Sister, Blood and Bone by Paula Cary

"body silver shimmering"

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RENEGADE//HEART by Lisa M. Cole

“sleep with all the dolls/ /unhook your rotary phone and watch/ /the broken chandelier as it swings like a marionette” 

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Poking through the Fabric of the Light that Formed Us: Songs and Stories to Read in the Mirror by Lora Bloom

“from the towering window, crashing rain sang a fall midnight call, thunder
echoed against the walls of the sky I closed my eyes writhing under cold lens
like a microscope creature death pangs under eye of cold light”

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Find out more about each of these chapbooks by perusing their individual item listings.

They are indeed available separately, but buy two and acquire double the succulent poetry for a special rate.

MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM

I'm making a small excited announcement that my collaborative creepy young yumhead poet creature Robert Cole and my collaborative poetry chapbook - MUTANT NEURON CODEX SWARM - was accepted for publication by Hyacinth Girl Press, to be published next year! 

Talk about awesomely exciting poetry news! I sure love Hyacinth Girl Press, which published my Thirteen Designer Vaginas in 2011 - and I sure love the ooozylicious hideous poetry stuff that's been spewing out of Robert and me.

Hyacinth Girl Press will make a more official announcement after they choose all the new chapbooks they're going to publish next - but as of right now, they are still accepting and reading chapbook manuscript submissions, throughout the month of May. 

Sister, Blood and Bone by Paula Cary - NEW from Blood Pudding Press

The NEW Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook, Sister, Blood and Bone by Paula Cary is now available –
https://www.etsy.com/listing/150775648/sister-blood-and-bone-by-paula-cary-new?ref=shop_home_active*
Blood Pudding Press is very pleased to announce its third new poetry chapbook of 2013, “Sister, Blood and Bone” by Paula Cary, with cover art created from the doll photo, “Steampunk Dia De Los Muertos Doll 353” by Michael Brown/ UC Studios.
Paula Cary’s ten poems within this swimming diving and skull collecting offering were inspired by her sister Lisa Cary, her muse. The poems offer small bursts of life and death and blood based connections.  Blood and bones collected from under water and saved for memories and keep sake and art sake.

Each chapbook is hand-bound with colorful threads pricked in.  If you would like a specific color cover, feel free to specify when you purchase – either light gray with circles OR medium gray OR variations of tan (or Blood Pudding Press will choose for you and surprise you.)  Also if you would like a certain color of binding thread, feel free to specify that – either soft/light/dark blue water OR multicolored bright blue/green OR multicolored bright RAINBOW flying mermaid legs.
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“You are bloodless whiteFrom the frigid depthsYour lips a literal blueThey match your eyesAnd I think of sugar skullsDressed in colored frosting”
(from Paula Cary’s poem “After the Dive in Troy Springs”)

the chapbook interview: Juliet Cook on the chapbook as ephemera, accolades, and, the flock and fold of popularity

A new poetry reading/writing/chapbook publishing related interview with me, conducted by Laura Madeline Wiseman and published today (May 2):

http://www.lauramadelinewiseman.com/blog/2013/05/02/the-chapbook-interview-juliet-cook-on-the-chapbook-as-ephemera-accolades-and-the-flock-and-fold-of-popularity/

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Also, in case you happen to subscribe to Gently Read Lit, you can read a new review of my latest poetry chapbook, POISONOUS BEAUTYSKULL LOLLIPOP (Grey Book Press, 2013), written by Lisa M. Cole, here:

http://gentlyread.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/gently-read-literature-2013-spring-issue/

Poetry Month/New Myna Birds Flock

Poems by AM Ringwalt, Suzanne Savickas, Robert Cole, Ben Rasnic, Rachel Mallino, Hugo Esteban Rodriguez Castañeda, Bonnie MacAllister, and Paul David Adkins are now up and writhing around in the latest Myna Birds flock, in the midst of poetry month! 
toe tips before the floor boards – don’t believe in circles – zigzag from comfort to discomfort – cave in or release - the insects feast – cryptic markings – mascara flakes detach – dead amid the shards – into the scissors holes - a pink house with palm growing
Here is the link - http://13myna.blogspot.com/
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Also my small indie print press, Blood Pudding Press, is offering 25% off everything in the shop for poetry month - so there's one more week to take advantage of that, here - https://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress

Convoluted Streamer

I don't define myself by who I'm with. I define myself through my own personal expression, (especially poetry and other thinking/feeling/creative writing) and my own thoughts and feelings and style.

Although it sometimes bums me out a bit if my thoughts/feelings/style don't seem to appeal to many people, that doesn't mean I'm going to change them.

I have no intention of or desire to act fake or tone the real me down to fit into some main stream.

I'm not sure where MY stream is going though.

In recent years my own thoughts and feeling and REMEMBERING is often a convoluted, mixed up mess.

One of my issues in recent years is I don't seem to know what I WANT so how should I know what best to focus on? Either everything matters too much or nothing matters all that much at all. I'm in between, but I don't know exactly what I'm in between. Maybe nothing.

Maybe I'm just going to be in between my own something/nothing realm for the rest of my life.

I tend to be a pretty productive, focused person - so not knowing what I should focus on/ what I WANT to focus on, who I even ultimately AM or desire to be is...less than stellar.

Even as I'm writing this, I wonder why am I writing this? What's the point? What's the point of anything? Does this even make any sense? What are points and sense? Maybe I should dive into painting a nonsensical pretty mess.

I know I am and want to be truly expressive. So if my expression is sometimes pretty, sometimes ugly, sometimes sexy, sometimes horrific, sometimes a messy fusion mix with discolored grit flung in the midst, then maybe that's my stream.

Condom Dream (should I open the jar and pull some out?)

Me and a woman I went to high school with walked to the door of a store to buy condoms.  Two men were with us too, but they weren’t our significant others or sex partners, just casual male friends standing behind us and despite their presence, we were in charge of our own condom choosing and buying.
The other woman knew what she was doing, had obviously interacted with the costumer service man before and even had a semi-secret code word related to her condom purchase.  As for me, this was my first time buying condoms – and since I wasn’t buying them with a particular partner in mind (because I didn’t have a partner), I had no idea what brand or variety to choose.  I was asked what size I wanted and how should I know?  I was asked if I wanted any special features and I didn’t know that either.
Since I wasn’t buying condoms with a particular cock in mind, I said standard size.  The other woman had spoken softly, and when she told him what she wanted, he was standing right in front of her; but when I was asked what I wanted, he was standing across the room next to the various condom accoutrements and so I had to loudly announce (almost yell) my uncertain answer in front of the whole store.
Then I got brought a huge jar-sized contraption (about triple the size of a mayo jar), with hundreds of condoms inside, all of them unpackaged and tiny. Less than half the size of an un-blown up balloon.  I wasn’t sure if I was handed this large jar with tiny condoms because he thought I wanted to buy the whole jar or if I was supposed to take off the lid and pull out the amount I actually wanted.
The woman next to me knew what she wanted and quickly got what she always got.
The two men behind us just stood there saying nothing and waiting for me to be done.
I’m not an easily embarrassed person; sex talk doesn’t bother me.  But I am a very uncertain person and I felt uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed about myself for not having a helpful partner (or any partner for that matter), not knowing what to do or choose when handed a huge container full of tiny condoms, and feeling like a clueless condom gimp.
A clueless sex, love, relationship gimp.
An odd little dream based on my current uncertainty about all those things.

Happy April!

I’m aiming towards oodles of poetry love and treats this poetry month.
An updated Thirteen Myna Birds will be glimmering its multicolored wings soon (and as of right now is still seeking lots more poems to add to its flock, so feel free to submit some of yours for consideration)!
AND
A new Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook is hoping to be published sometime during this poetry month – Sister, Blood, and Bone by Paula Cary!
Speaking of Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbooks, if you haven’t yet, do feel free to investigate the two recently published contest winning poetry chapbooks – RENEGADE//HEART by Lisa M. Cole and Poking through the Fabric of the Light that Formed Us: Songs and Stories to Read in the Mirror by Lora Bloom, which are available for perusal and purchase in the Blood Pudding Press etsy shop individually and as part of a lower priced two-some here - https://www.etsy.com/listing/126759449/set-of-two-get-both-new-2013-contest?
Furthermore, throughout the entire month of April, you may use coupon code APRILPOEMLOVE with any purchase you make from the Blood Pudding Press shop and receive 25% off!
Also in honor of poetry month, below are links to older articles of mine focused on Sylvia Plath:
Sylvia Plath’s ‘The Applicant’ - http://voices.yahoo.com/sylvia-plaths-applicant-2883613.html?cat=41
Sylvia Plath’s ‘An Appearance’ - http://voices.yahoo.com/sylvia-plaths-appearance-3448716.html?cat=7

My kind of creative Easter post

I was talking with my friend Margaret this past weekend (near the end of a fabulous poetry extravaganza of a weekend) about how as a child who was raised Catholic and attended CCD in a small building adjacent to the church with an itty bitty religious library in the midst of that space, I once stole a book about saints and brought it home and read and re-read the stories about how different female saints were tortured to death.
Dare I say that I sort of got off on reading about how repeated torture was what turned you into a saint?  Of course I’ll say it; heck it fits its way into quite a few poems of mine, especially older work, frothing and hissing like serpentine snake girls wanting to bite back against misgivings that were forcefully infiltrated upon me by parts of being raised Catholic.  Me and my dominant submissive blood baths of gross mean poetry fused with gory torture scenes. 
Now that I’ve grown beyond my anti-Catholic/Catholic based S/M experimentation fusion mix days AND my strongly atheist viewpoints and towards more open, agnostic/poetic perspectives, I no longer feel such a need to lash out at Catholicism as I did in some of my older poems (anyone who has read my HORRIFIC CONFECTION book can partake of what I’m referring to in a poem like ‘The Angel of Death’ – try being enmeshed in traditional Catholicism and thus being given the impression that sexual desires are supposed to be kept private and sex should only be used in accordance with love and baby making and then who are you supposed to talk to about it when you decide to get an abortion?  You have oodles of poetry to talk it out upon).
These days, I’m certainly not anti-Catholic or anti any kind of religious or spiritual beliefs or lifestyle choices, with one primary exception.  I’m anti those who try to force their beliefs upon others, as if their way of life is the only right way - as though anything in this world has some easy sort of right & wrong or black & white.  Nothing does. There are so many different beautiful colors and interesting amalgamations and worthwhile hybrid hues.
For years, when I was younger, I had a lot of spewing and then revising it into poetry, in order to step away from feeling judged and express MYSELF.  Expressing myself is still very important to me, but these days I don’t feel as compelled to spew my point of view against certain old-school religious viewpoints. 
But due to my conversation with Margaret, I did feel compelled to pull forth an older poem of mine that includes a few snippets based on/inspired by that stolen female saint torture book. By the way, Saint Lucy is still one of my favorite saints, with her ripped out eyes (“In medieval accounts, Saint Lucy's eyes are gouged out prior to her execution. In art, her eyes sometimes appear on a tray that she is holding"). Unfortunately, I forget the names and details of most of the saints, but here are a few lines from ‘sensationalia’.
“i stole that sanguine candy-striped textfrom the church libraryslid under my little girl dress.easter egg cover and bloody inside.sensationalistic technicolor vibeof martyrs so hot they boiled alive.molten lead cauldrons. plucked-outsaint eyes in sharp-edged silver vessels.flailing limbs fettered to mean, frothy steeds.petit fours. pieces of naked ladies.the gawkers, the voyeurs, the close readers offine print inside eviscerated innards”

mini-blurt

This is not a positive or negative comment (in fact, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it), but it just crossed my mind that much of my older poetry used to be in the style of unique, quirky, sometimes grotesque, sometimes horrific story poems - whereas much of my more recent poetry is in the vein of minimalistic, semi-abstract expressionism