Juliet Cook's Blog, page 146

“Naming mounds in order to find ways to sustain them” (new mini poetry chapbook review)

One reader’s view of “performing Chod until post-natural indigenes” by j/j hastain
(Grey Book Press 2012)
This small, well-designed poetry chapbook, published by Grey Book Press, includes poetic content by j/j hastain, featuring unique portals of experimental mind/body fusion.
The word Chod as part of this chapbook’s title did not draw me in with extreme interest, because content wise, I’m not particularly interested in the transcendental, spiritual realm when it comes to poetry. Chod is a sort of spiritual practice known as “cutting through the ego”, but as is the case with much of the poetry I’ve read by hastain, the cuts seem largely body based and sexual – indicating that the mind from which such content derives might also be body based and sexual.
In this case, instead of being body based and sexual in a standard sort of way, the approach is more experimental and could be perceived as a sort of bodily transitioning.  
As noted in one poem –
“I have always pictured heavenly masses as porous darknesses. As relieffrom traditional light.”
As noted in another poem –
“Power exchange is what makes me into a sexuality. So never just one
preferred ignition. The bird wings are not attached to birds’ bodies”
This performing collection focuses on different sorts of bodily based approaches, but despite that, isn’t power exchange still sort of a sexual cliché, even if the power exchange is experimented with?  Maybe/maybe not. 
Even when experimenting with power exchange, why must the primary device to experiment with be body parts?  For example, the repeated use of words like “erotica” and “genitals” and “Genital charts” does not bother me as much if I perceive it as someone creating their own genitalia.  However it is pictured or perceived though, there is still a focus on body- based endeavors, genitals, and orgasms throughout this chapbook – and some will be interested in this approach and some will not.
For me personally, the collection is uniquely well written, but too bodily/sexually based to appeal to me on a multi-faceted mind-based level. I am not a non-sexual individual or a person who is unwilling to experiment in that realm, but even if genitals and other body parts and positions can be uniquely created and/or transformed by personal choice, that still does not cause my mind to compare genitals to cosmic forces – and sometimes I think that is how this collection is perceiving and attempting to explain sex, as some sort of self-created heaven.  I know some people do perceive body part pleasures and their reactions to be a heavenly cosmic force, but I seek more emotional alignment with the physical.
Similarly, much as the word Chod as part of the book’s title did not powerfully engage me , and there was too much of a genital influx for my liking, there were also times when part of a section would really appeal to me, but then be overtaken by the body base.  Even the very first line in the chapbook, “ I wanted to create a psychic halo” quite appeals  to and interests me, until the next half of the sentence, “from the pineal gland”, followed by pineal gland repeated five more times on that page, near “intimacies”, “erotic”, and “orgasms”.
Even though that approach does not suit my style, I imagine it might very deeply appeal to some.
Perhaps some of those who can relate to these lines -
“If, as a child, you were only able to read bible stories, your body becomes amotile, mythical location that always hurts. There is nothing that will relieve that
but devotion to divergent
formulae”
Maybe hastain is attempting to deviate and diverge away from standard sexual scriptures, standard genital behavior, and other standard expectations in that realm and create a whole new portal or devotional force field – for those who diverge from the norm, choose to create their own bodies, and desire to continually focus upon and experiment with those bodies.
~Juliet Cook~

Xmas/Artmas

Envy Inducing Stocking Stuffers for the Special Lady in Your Life:

http://voices.yahoo.com/envyinducing-stocking-stuffers-4609725.html?cat=46

Five Delightful Nontraditional Xmas Celebration Ideas:

http://voices.yahoo.com/five-delightful-nontraditional-xmas-4668423.html?cat=74

"muck and seaweed - shimmering beneath the surface"

The new Thirteen Myna Birds is up, offering new poetic pieces from Donavon Davidson, Cher Bibler, Emily Strauss, and featuring six poems by Amber Bromer with her bagpipe stomach and rainbow colored firecracker blood.
Fingers are fluttering spiders - through a knothole  - muck and seaweed - shimmering beneath the surface - severed hands that left a small offering - box where the flaps don’t quite come together - a howling wind - flesh or the stone inside?
http://13myna.blogspot.com/

Cyber Monday Sales

In addition to their being LESS THAN A WEEK LEFT to snag your own (or a poetry loving gift recipients) copy of 'The Spare Room' poetry chapbook by Dana Guthrie Martin (see more details in the post below this one)... 
The Blood Pudding Press shop has also cut its pricing for a few items, as a special limited time Cyber Monday sale, lasting until circa midnight Monday. 
Below is a photo of one of the wine glasses, whose price has gone from $35 down to $25.  View more via the Blood Pudding Press shop at -
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress

ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT!

Only one week left to purchase the temporarily re-available poetry chapbook, 'The Spare Room' by Dana Guthrie Martin!

It will be available in the Blood Pudding Press shop until midnight December 1st and then no longer available in print.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/115556827/limited-edition-poetry-chapbook-the

When you find out that someone from your past died

What are you supposed to do and how are you supposed to act when you find out that someone you knew and really liked many years ago has died?
I FEEL sad, but I don’t know what to do. Scott Gallaway was a college friend; we were in the same BFA Creative Writing program in the mid 1990s; and I just found out via facebook that he died a few days ago of cancer. He was only 39.
I've not seen him in recent years (other than on his facebook page), but I had a small bit of contact with him online. Less than two years ago, in July 2011, I found out about his cancer, and mailed him some poetry chapbooks and we shared just a few emails - but that's it. He crossed my mind numerous times, including these last few years, hoping he was feeling/getting better.
A number of people were posting photos on his page; most of them from many years ago; and I thought about maybe adding one there; but it sort of bothers me a bit how when someone dies, they suddenly appear to be receiving more attention than they did when they were alive.  (If you’re going to be really terribly hurt and sad and sorry when someone dies, then maybe you should try to pay more attention to them now while you still can.)
I know that doesn’t mean people were not paying any attention to him when he was still alive; I know the sudden rush of correspondence and photos are related to remembering and honoring – and that often in life, people's thoughts, feelings, attentiveness, and attentions are kept inside their heads - and they tend to open some of that up and share it more in the midst of tough times, such as when someone dies but is still so deeply remembered and missed.
It's terribly sad when someone my age dies. 
(A contemporary poet, whose creative work I have not read in recent years either.)
***
The past. He's in the front middle.

Blood Pudding Press Poetry Chapbook Contest Results! – Three Semi-Finalists and Two Winners Announced!

This was a tough, challenging choice for Blood Pudding Press to make, as the contest entries were filled with so many interesting, well-written, diverse offerings, brimming with oodles of their own unique talent and flare.
Ultimately, the two chosen to be published by Blood Pudding Press were the two I decided were the best fit for my press, content-wise and stylistically and emotionally.
They offer utterly unique, emotionally raw, gut wrenching, powerful pussy-centric poetry that doesn’t fit into the mainstream – that doesn’t come across as academic OR as ‘outsider writer’; that comes across as its own oozing entity.
The three semi-finalists -
1. Paula Cary – Sister, Blood and Bone
2.  Allie Marini Batts – Wake Up, Breathe, Keep Breathing 
3. Paul David Adkins– Pharmacology
***
The TWO WINNERS, who will have their chapbooks published by Blood Pudding Press -
- Lisa M. Cole - Renegade//Heart  
- Lora Bloom - Poking through The Fabric of the Light that Formed Us: Songs and Stories to Read in the Mirror
Big congratulations to those two winners, whose chapbooks are unique and powerful and amazing and Blood Pudding Press is honored to be publishing them soon.
***
More details will be announced when the winning chapbooks are formatted and created and brought to life!

Relationship Shape Shifters

I don’t have any particular sexual fetishes (although researching fetishes and hearing about other people’s and even experiencing other people’s sometimes turns me on), but if I did have a small fetish, I think it might be sharing lots of details about me to lots of different people.  Too much information sharing, by some people’s standards.
I’m not talking about details like bank account, phone number sort of stuff.
I’m talking about personal brain wave details related to my true thoughts and feelings and artistic passions and forces and sources and leanings.
Of course there are exceptions. For example, I don’t think people should be frequently forcefully blurting themselves out in other people’s faces or spaces.  But within their own space, I think people should often feel free to express themselves as frequently and as openly as they choose.
And on a semi-related note, why should a strong, deep, in-depth romantic relationship be kept a secret?
Maybe some people have fetishist slants towards the gleeful joy of secrecy.
Not me.  For the most part I don’t desire to be kept a secret .  It  makes me feel like I’m hidden in a back room, waiting for him to be in the right mood for me.  Or like I’m frequently put on hold and sometimes I barely even exist inside his brain.  Or like I’m not powerful or important enough to be anything ongoing.
If he acts like I’m incredibly special and meaningful, but only does so in front of me and keeps it secret in front of others, how is that supposed to make me feel?
(Like a strange underwater pearl?  Like a broken treasure lifted up and soon to be thrown back down?)
It makes me feel like he might be interested in/communicating with quite a few DIFFERENT women, so he doesn’t want to make any ONE of those women openly public. To me, that’s okay as long as he’s straightforwardly honest about it – and isn’t secretly acting as if each ONE is his favorite, when he actually has several different favorites. 
If he says he doesn’t know what to tell me, does that mean he doesn’t relate to honest, open, ongoing communication anymore?
Obviously every two people have some similar interests and some differences (and it’s a matter of how those outweigh each other). In any case, I think it’s important to be yourself and express yourself your way. I mean what the heck is the point of diving yourself in with a partner if you faked it at the beginning? Unless it’s your latest sexual experiment – or unless you feel like staying committed to fakery all your life. 
If you exaggerate what you are/are not interested in, depending on the interests of your latest partner, what the heck is that all about?  For example, she’s not a religious type; she might have her own spiritual leanings, but they’re not related to standard church and god stuff – so you’re not a traditionally religious person either; in fact you’ll downright make fun of overly religious types.  Until your next partner is god-loving and suddenly you love god too.  Either that or you’re a sudden shape shifter.
You've suddenly shifted towards the next partners leanings and are no wearing a fake cross necklace.  
What happens when that cross breaks?

broken god temp rises... (temp blog posting new poem)

so-called validity

everyone’s focus is different; you chooseto focus on being broken (to use that as your excusewhen something doesn’t work for youor when you don’t work for someone else)
so broken so broken so broken soyou won’t keep trying; you’ll back off;you’ll temporarily hide yourself (you’ll validate that as trying to heal yourself),then you’ll suddenly launch yourself into
someone else to temp focus upon; broken god temp rises
everyone chooses how to refine/define themselves and others.  i don’t think you’re broken.i think you have a twisted wing span.nobody else can hold you long enough to glue you back together, because you don’t want them too.
you don’t want to be glued to anyone place.you want to twitch, crack away,not let anyone else stick to the wayyou tension thread your own skinthen call its damage broken
as though something else dive-bombed you with needles

Mid-Life Crisis Bad Dream?

It was me and him and another woman.  I didn’t know her very well and my mind and heart got really bad vibes from her (including the vibe that she’d fake it and lie to get what she wanted; personality traits that I pretty much despise), but what could I do?  I sure wouldn’t choose to hang out with her one on one, but he apparently liked hanging out with the both of us, and I really liked him (probably way too much), so I went along with it.
It reached a point at which I was supposed to guess the other woman’s age.  He & I were of similar ages (38/40), so I assumed she was too, but I’m not good at guessing age based on looks.  She looked young; she looked attractive; I figured she might be a little younger than him & me; maybe 35-ish; so I decided to guess a few years younger, just in case. I guessed 33.
She spurted out a playful sounding laugh and at first I thought it was based on her feeling delighted that I thought she looked younger than she actually was. I was wrong. 
I’m 23, she said in an annoyed voice.
Then I was annoyed at him for being so into a woman who was way more than ten years younger than both of us. Really!?!  I blurted out, in semi-disbelief. Next thing I knew they were both glaring at me.  A 38 year old man who I thought had felt very strongly about me personally – and a 23 year old woman I couldn’t relate to at all, but whom he also seemed to feel strongly about. I did not understand their connection and so I sort of freaked out, thinking he would try to work me out of my freak out and tell her to tone down her rude laughter.  “Should I just leave?” I asked.  “Do you want it to be you and the 23 year old?”  I was sure he’d say know and try to calm me down. Instead he looked at me with an unsmiling expression and glared out, ‘Yeah’.  A feeling of semi-devastated disbelief came over me then.
Me: Really?!?
Him: Yeah.
Me: Are you serious?!?
Him: YEAH!
Her: You heard him.  Get the hell out of here.
Rude, mean, gleeful smile.
 ***
Not a fun dream at all, since it involved real people and felt realistic - and even though the ending really surprised me, that surprise ending felt unfortunately realistic too.
When a relationship oriented ending surprises you.
When a man you thought felt truly strongly about you suddenly changes his mind - and then chooses to replace you with a woman way younger than either of you – a woman from whom you can clearly sense the vibe of fake chick who will say and do what she thinks he wants to hear, in order to take him away from you and he can’t sense her fakery.
When a bad dream combines age and relationship issues and causes you to make up feeling as if your looks and your personality and your life experience has no appeal and doesn’t really matter.
When you’ve become easy to replace with an uncaring mean chick almost 20 years younger than you.
When a pretty mean chick who laughs in your face when you lose is the one he chooses.