Juliet Cook's Blog, page 148

Dear Anonymous,

I’m not really sure why I’m investing some of my time/thought/energy/effort into commenting upon this, since you are apparently just an anonymous fuckwad. I guess it’s mainly because I don’t understand the point/power/pleasure of anonymity.  What's the pointed pleasure of posting a rude random little comment under one of my blog posts? What the heck is the point of an ‘Anonymous’ person typing me a random blurb informing me that my art sucks and I should stick to writing?
Since you’re ‘Anonymous’ and I don’t know who you are, why should I CARE about your perspective on art?  As far as sticking to my writing, have you even read any of that?  Are you a writer? Are you an artist? I do have interest about other peoples’ perspectives on art and poetry if  they are artists or writers; if I am somewhat familiar with their tastes and style; if I like their art or writing and/or if I even KNOW the person. But you’re just an ‘Anonymous’ person who for some reason felt the need to inform me, “Those look terrible. Stick to writing” and “Your art still sucks”.  Gee, thanks a bundle for the impressive critique via anonymous feedback in the form of a random negative meaningless blurt.  Do you get off on randomly making fun of people? If so, get your vibe out and at least make fun of me more creatively and artistically.
To me, an anonymous negative blurb is akin to randomly making fun of someone you don’t even know as opposed to actually openly expressing your thoughts/feelings/perspectives in any valid or valuable way. It’s not even personal expression so much as a pointless barb in a general direction.  I have enough true feelings of pointlessness in my life.  I don’t need pointless anonymous uncreative darts added to the mix.
Of course my little creations are not going to appeal to everyone. The two pieces upon the blog post you commented below are not my idea of powerful art so much as semi-artsy fun little Halloween-y treats that some people might find amusingly enjoyable.  I like them; I took the time to paint them; I have one hanging on my fridge.  I’m certainly not forcing anything into anonymous mouths. Even when it comes to more imperative art and writing, not everything is going to suit everyone’s style – and I’m not aiming for mainstream mass appeal – and I sure as heck don’t care whether or not I appeal to anonymous blog commenting dipshits.
We all have our blurbs and blurts and jealous-streaked brambles. I sure do. But at least I attempt to express mine instead of anonymously blurting and carelessly spitting them out via random streaks behind people’s backs.
Making a generic little comment supposedly related to art or writing does not seem to mesh forth from true creative flow.  If you have input about and/or issues with my art or personal expression (or anything else about me) that you really feel the need to express, then why don’t you specify it and express yourself? I guess it’s not a valid issue so much as a generic little pinch.  I don’t like generic random pinches, so even an anonymous mean streak creep is receiving multiple paragraphs from me in return.

New POST-STROKE Interview

A new interview about my POST-STROKE poetry chapbook is now up at Poet Hound:
http://www.poethound.blogspot.com/2012/09/an-interview-with-juliet-cooks-post.html

"I still feel lobbing and tentacular and unglued and steamy and unfurling!"

Blood Pudding Press Poetry Treats & Halloween Offerings

Added a couple new Halloween-esque hand-painted zombie magnets to the Blood Pudding Press etsy shop, with even more peculiar doodads to come soon!
The Halloween section of the shop also offers a hand-painted mini zombie gnome and darkly delicious poetry chapbooks, including the limited edition CARNIVORACIOUS collaborative chapbook by Suzanne Grazyna & Juliet Cook. 
CARNIVORACIOUS was originally published as a limited edition in 2008 - and its limited number of copies quickly sold out. Now as a special Halloween Treat, the chapbook is being made available again for a limited time - only until Halloween 2012!

Also stay tuned for an interview with me, about my 2011 poetry chapbook, POST-STROKE, scheduled to appear upon the Poet Hound blog later today.
***
For now, here's the Halloween Treats section of the BPP shop: 
  http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress?section_id=12101200

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“My dreams of a fever-heaving language, of vowels splitting o-pen like egg cases trembling with beads. Distended tongues,flared operculums, the secret enzyme strip tease.”
Juliet Cook/CARNIVORACIOUS


“What doesn't kill us makes us stranger. Cracked hatched and eyelashless.”
Suzanne Grazyna/CARNIVORACIOUS

WITCH BURNER

Why do I seem to have quite a few friends who sometimes respond to my emails/sometimes don’t (& who knows when or why) – sometimes speak of/ask me to be involved in projects that never end up materializing – sometimes talk about other plans with me that never materialize – etc…?  It bugs me. Why bother making plans/planning ahead/preparing in advance if those plans might not happen at all anyway?
I’m tired of repeatedly asking questions (and often not even being answered or being put on hold) - trying to stay on top of/figure out what’s going on when it might just be some ‘go with the flow’ crap that sinks me to the bottom of the list - and going with a flow that causes me to feel like an unimportant back burner.
Maybe that’s the gist of what bothers me. More and more, I feel like a last minute MAYBE. I feel unimportant.  I feel like I’m not particularly important to anyone anymore.  Maybe I’m not very special or very valuable or very fun anymore – and that’s why I’m feeling like a back burner more & more.  Soon back burner will become broken down burner will become stupid fucking burden.
I am fine with expecting the unexpected CREATIVELY.  I am fine with occasional changes of plans and changes of pace.  But when I’m starting to feel as if the majority of my real life plans are ebbing rather than flowing, then the word ‘go with the flow’ (which I’ve never really liked) starts to seem even worse.
Maybe I should just give up on advance planning attempts, since they so often don’t materialize lately. Maybe I should give up on friendship. Maybe I should give up on long term ANYTHING. Maybe I should just get used to being a back burner – and turn myself into some sort of witchy back burner.  Some type of poisonous witch brooming burnt cunt cake.

MIXED FEELING MESS (some thoughts that emerged during a recent poetry interview)

I was recently working on answering a series of interview questions related to my POST-STROKE poetry chapbook (Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 5, 2011). That chapbook was the first new poetry collection to be written and created by me after my stroke, which happened early in 2010.  I had a tough time dealing with questions about it at this point in time, and so I needed to write some of my challenging thoughts/feelings out of my system before focusing on the specific interview points of view.  I will share those thoughts/feelings here on my blog – and then later, when the interview is posted on the Poet Hound blog, I will link to that.

Within the last few years, I have been a mixed feeling mess, about myself and others and life in general.  It’s hard for me to figure out and decide what I ought to be focusing on (aside from my poetry and art stuff) – and it’s hard for me to believe that anyone will be deeply interested in and able to tolerate me, except in small, short term doses. From family members to friends and even to significant others, I feel as if I’m not right for anyone anymore. I feel as if some people seem to think that I’ve focused on my health issue too much; whereas other people seem to think I don’t focus on it enough and should be more diligently making ongoing efforts at increased possible recovery.  For example, my ex-husband was tired of hearing about it after just a couple months – but then the next man I became seriously involved with after my divorce seemed to think I didn’t pay enough attention to my health, as if I should be primarily focused on that for as long as it took, even if it took the rest of my remaining existence.
I want others to allow me to make my own choices and to like me for WHO I AM. 
Not for whom I used to be – and not for whom they think I should try to be, by spending the majority of my time and energy and effort on repeatedly having my brain tested and scanned and researched and possibly improved upon in the midst of never ending medical stress.
Well anyone ever again appreciate and love me for WHO I AM RIGHT NOW?
(It hurts me thinking that the answer is probably know – that I’m not a very likable person – that I’m not good enough or fun enough or otherwise appealing enough anymore.)
On the poetry side of the spectrum, I am well aware of and understand that there are all different kinds of poetry out here – that some people will accept your style and some people will reject your style – that nobody’s creative work is going to be everyone else’s style. Personally, I’ve never aimed for main stream appeal or bill fitting poetry or vanilla snack pack pudding poetry (thus, why my press is named Blood Pudding Press). 
Despite being well aware of different styles and different tastes (and not caring whether I fit into them all), I got a bit bummed recently, in regards to a note I received from a press I had sent a query too, about whether they might be interested in partaking of my full-length poetry manuscript. My query had included a brief note letting them know how the title of my manuscript derived from my stroke – and then I also sent them three sample poems. 
They wrote back informing me that they thought the subject matter of my collection was too specific and might not warrant mass appeal, however they wished me health.  Well, of the three sample poems I had sent them, only one of those had been written after my stroke. It’s not like all of my poems focus on the subject matter of health or brain disabilities – and it’s not like my poetic subject matter has an obvious approach anyway.  My poetic content and style has never been very clear cut content wise.  If because of that, it doesn’t mesh well with their press’s style, then fine.  But don’t assume that the bulk of my poetic content and style is related to my stroke, just because I had a stroke and revealed that part of my book’s title derived from that. 
After reading that editorial response, I felt as if maybe I should change my manuscript’s title and remove every tidbit of my health background from my credits section - because when it comes to my poetry, I don’t wish to give the impression of being predominantly health-focused – because I’m not.  I want to be creatively poetry-focused – because I am.

However, I also don’t want to downright ignore or avoid significant parts of my life, as if they never really happened or barely exist within my brain - or not focus on them at all within my creative realm.  Thus, I honestly have found my health issue rather tricky in real life AND in my poetry life. My health issue did not largely change my poetry reading and writing style (except for slowing them down) – but my poetic content is mentally/emotionally based and the health issue certainly had an impact on those parts of me.
I’m pleased that I am still able to creatively express my thoughts/feelings/emotions/ideas through odd oodles of non-mainstream poetry. If I wanted to be a different kind of writer who was predominantly focused on my health issue, then perhaps I’d move away from poetry and try to focus on writing a real life story about my issues.  But guess what? That’s not what I want to focus on right now.
Still though, along such lines, when an interview I’m participating in is focused on my stroke, I do find myself wondering if most poets might not even be interested in reading this, because they’ll think its focus will be more about health than about art – and thus it will be rather boring and something that they’re just not particularly interested in.

Blood Pudding Press is accepting submissions for its second poetry chapbook contest!

Chapbook manuscript submissions for this contest will be accepted from September 3, 2012 – October 15, 2012 – with winners to be announced within late October or early November (ideally, winners shall be announced circa Halloween).
Three semi-finalists and two winners will be chosen and announced. Each of the two winners will have their chapbook published and will receive 13 free copies of their chapbook.

Of the two winning chapbooks chosen, one will be published in late 2012 (most likely mid-December) and one will be published in early 2013(January or February).
There is a $5.00 entry fee per manuscript for entering this contest; these entry fees will be used to purchase supplies for publishing and designing the winning chapbooks. The fee is payable to the editor’s Paypal account at Julietcoo@gmail.com(although this is by far the preferred form of payment, if you do not know how to pay this way or if you would like to make an alternative payment arrangement, you may contact the editor via that email address).
After paying your entry fee, please email your collection of poems to Julietcoo@gmail.com. Please write BPP Chapbook Contest – (your name) in the subject line.  Include your manuscript title, your name, your contact data, and a brief bio in the body of your email – and then your manuscript itself can either be included in the body or attached as a Microsoft Word Doc or Docx.
Blood Pudding Press will consider poetry chapbook collections of 10-25 poems (approximately 15-30 pages). Some of the poems may be previously published, but the collection as a whole should not have been published elsewhere before.  I will consider individual chapbooks AND collaborative chapbooks by 2 different writers.  See the Blood Pudding Press online shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPressand the Blood Pudding Press blog at http://bloodyooze.blogspot.com/for more information about the press’s sensibilities and design style. 
A bit more Blood Pudding press information can be perused below.
If you have any particular questions or concerns, please feel free to ask or let me know.
Best, Juliet Cook, Blood Pudding Press
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Blood Pudding Press enjoys offerings that ooze like creamy innards of questionable dessert products and discolored flesh. Visible nipples. Sharp things, shiny things, furry things, fun things, and unapologetic things.  Railroad track debris and purring pussies. Messy, but not uncooked. Strangely-baked, sexy, queasy, volatile.Icing bags, scars, deep sea creatures, love, lust, longing, burlesque, grotesque, flirty and at least a little bit improper...


The two winning chapbooks created as a result of the first Blood Pudding Press contest were ‘At the night, the dead’ by Lisa Ciccarello and ‘The Spare Room’ by Dana Guthrie Martin (the three runner ups were Nicole Steinberg, Donald Dunbar, and John Rocco). 
Other poets published by Blood Pudding Press have included Kyle Simonsen, Letizia Merello, Christine Hamm, Kristy Bowen, Kenneth Pobo, Michalle Gould, Misti Rainwater-Lites, Adam Fieled , Brooklyn Copeland, Gina Abelkop, Jenny Sadre-Orafai, Melissa Culbertson, Nathan Logan, Nicole Cartwright Denison, Peg Duthie, Susan Slaviero,  Rebecca Loudon, Daniela Olszewska, Rachel Kendall, J.R. Pearson, Jayne Pupek, Melissa Severin, Donora Hillard, Sean Kilpatrick, Derek Motion, T.A. Noonan, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Matina Stamatakis and many more. 
The two most recently published Blood Pudding Press chapbooks were ‘Letters From Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel’ by Margaret Bashaar and the collective chapbook, ‘Fainting Couch Idioglossia’, offering individual and collaborative poems by Margaret Bashaar, Kelly Boyker, Daniel M. Shapiro, Jessy Randall, Suzanne Grazyna, Kathy Burkett, Douglas Burkett, PoetJoe H. Gallagher, Juliet Cook, and Michael Smith.

HALLOWEEN TREATS

Created a Halloween Treat section within the Blood Pudding Press etsy shop today (and hopefully will be adding a few more items to its mix from time to time these next few months). 
So far it offers peculiarly haunted poetry chapbooks, its last remaining bunch of gross Garbage Pail Kids, and a smal hand painted Zombie Gnome blood bath of horror. Investigate the matter here -

http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress?section_id=12101200

Nobody likes me; everybody hates me; I’m going to go eat worms

Well I feel very embarrassed and upset about how I acted at a restaurant yesterday evening (and I feel like now I can’t go back to that restaurant anymore, since I probably sounded like a loud, disrespectful creep to my parents, the waiter, and some of the restaurant clientele - because when I was sitting outside on the bench afterwards, waiting for my parents to come out, an older couple came out and glared at me).
I got annoyed by my mom mentioning the doctor who prescribed my seizure pill, in relation to some remark I made about wanting another drink (I was drinking a martini that did not seem very strong; I think I made some comment about it not having much affect on me; and then my mom made some comment about how according to the doctor, I had to keep my drinking to a minimum )– and instead of feeling a bit annoyed but just ignoring her comment, it pissed me off and I overreacted.
Part of the reason I overreacted, is because she has made that kind of comment multiple times – and I don’t really understand why, since I HAVE substantially decreased my alcohol content in recent years – and why do I have to hear another comment about that when out to eat and having one drink?
(Also, as far as I'm concerned, all that doctor knows about me is my height, weight, and some of the details of my recent medical history - nothing good or positive or personal - he doesn't know or care about me personally, so why would I want to repeatedly hear his perspective on anything about me – especially when I’m out to eat, having one drink – and am suddenly caused to feel like I’m doing something wrong for even THINKING about another drink.)
However, I think the MAIN reason I overreacted was due to hearing about the doctor who prescribed my seizure pill during a time when I had awful PMS. I sure chose the wrong time to go out to eat (or do much of anything, I guess) and probably had more of an annoying hard time hearing anything about my pill, because I am currently having one of my ABOLUTELY AWFUL pill-exemplified PMS modes. I feel like a worthless human being, much worse than I used to be, with almost no good traits remaining within me.
I feel like I basically hate myself and am a stress causing un-fun burden to others.
I feel like most people in my age group do things to help their parents; instead my parents have to help me due to my unfortunate disabilities.
I also feel it is unlikely I will ever have another romantic partner, because what kind of normal human being would desire a non-driving, non-working, disabled middle-aged loony bin of a bitch brimming with freak outs and negativity? Probably nobody.
***
Usually my seizure pill is no huge deal – after having a couple months during which it made me feel low energy and drained, my body managed to get used to it and I started feeling more like myself again.
The main exception/bad side effect it does still have though, is that it sometimes seems to triple my PMS. Instead of just feeling overly sad during my PMS, with this pill, I feel worthless, and like WHY AM I EVEN ALIVE? I hate myself and feel like a total loser.

I know this doesn't really make good sense, but sometimes when I feel this way, it actually crossed my mind that I would RATHER be having a seizure than feeling like THIS.
There's really nothing much I can do about it I guess (unless I really do want to be more prone to seizures) – since it’s basically just a matter of dealing with it several days a month OR switching to another pill and finding out what crappy/low energy/personality changing side effects THAT one might have - and since this one is now at the point of just having that one crappy side effect, I guess I'll stick to this one - but as someone who has negative, self-deprecating tendencies anyway, I sure don’t enjoy these times during which those tendencies exemplify - and I hate myself and feel like there is absolutely nothing good about me- and like I am basically a worthless burden.
It doesn’t really help much when other people suggest what I should try (even if they mean well; such suggestions cause me to feel even more as if nobody will ever really like me the way I AM) - and it doesn’t help at ALL when someone ELSE informs me that something I’m (over)reacting to is no big deal or that my thoughts are SILLY.  I’ve gotten recent suggestions that I am overreacting and being silly from both a friend and now my mom  - and I guess they’re right, since I’ve now ruined a restaurant that I liked, due to one of my overreactions – and I might be ruining friendships too, because who would want to frequently put up with this kind of shit?
***
I ended up having a small Panic Attack late last night. Lately, I am having one of those weird phases, during which all kinds of stuff from my past is popping out of my head seemingly randomly – not in terms of words, but in terms of random yet strong imagery.
Last night, a while after I had laid down in bed, it was just pop pop pop pop pop pop – one image after the other, for no apparent reason – no matter how much I closed my eyes, placed the pillow on top of my head, and tried to control my thinking, all this visual imagery just kept popping around in my brain – most of it stuff from way back in college, but really visually specific.
I don’t remember the specific image that made this happen, but at about 3:30 A.M., I suddenly quickly sat up and opened my eyes, feeling panic. My body felt weird and I felt worried I might be on the brink of having another stroke or another seizure. I can’t really explain exactly how I felt, but it wasn’t good. I felt scared and as if I did not know what to so. I briefly got up and turned a light on. The extremely fast pace at which images from the past kept randomly popping out of my brain, caused it to cross my mind that maybe I was on the brink of dying and that’s why my brain was rapidly popping out past image after past image.
My left arms and leg were tingling and my head was racing and I couldn’t control it. Even the inside of my ears felt weird; not painful, but like they were tingling or buzzing or something.
Fortunately, it didn’t last very long this time – maybe half an hour or so.  But it sure wasn’t fun and I didn’t know what to do. Call my parents at 3:30 A.M.? Wake them up and tell them what? That I felt weird and didn’t know how to explain it, but was scared?
It’s times like those, I don’t like being by myself at night.
And it’s times like the last few days, I don’t really like being myself period.

Thirteen Myna Birds is new again! - with Love & Lust & Horror & Surgical Instrumentation

Thirteen Myna Birds is actually 15 Myna Birds this time!
Paige Theriot at the top AND the bottom - and in the midst, a coagulating conglomeration of  Sean McPherson, Adam Fieled, Michael Lee Johnson, Misti Rainwater-Lites, Valerie Loveland, Jeff Brandt, & Laura Zeng.
Here's a small fusion mix created with words/lines from the current innards:
"dense vacuum - quiet earnestness - green tinted glass - heart lightning flashed - body's corners - beneath your nails - jumps into ether - dolls melting - whiskey yell - bandages curve into waists and hips - pincurls undulating - a tray of surgical instruments - radiating skull - venomous heel spurts - cradling the underpinnings"
 Here's the bloggy style link -  http://13myna.blogspot.com/

forgot this semi-new painting of mine's title (would look at the back, but I gave it away)