Juliet Cook's Blog, page 22
June 7, 2022
May 29, 2022
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May 27, 2022
The NEW May 2022 flock of Thirteen Myna Birds is HERE !
The NEW May 2022 flock of Thirteen Myna Birds has arrived! Filled with poetry and art by Abigail Denton, Darryl Shupe, Sandra Feen, Linda Umans, Janet Kinaird Parker, Ken Poyner, Marc Vincenz, Joseph Cooper, and Paul Ilechko!
"There is a tree in my backyard from which pus-filled boils hang - At night I hear creaks coming from my dresser - Torpor trapped beneath fish scales - In the middle of a cloud of expectations - the perfect synthetic Mate - I thought I could escape him but he was everywhere - there was always something unpleasant in the weeds - the racing of rabbits racing through my mind - the antichrist to her cheer section - if I can push myself through the undying light of every morning and the corrosive darkness of every night, then I can be here and do this - make a wish for yourself that she'll morph into instant dead dandelion - Rain connecting endings that nobody likes - nobody told me I would miss it so much - My eyes dominated by the vain desire to be young - the sound a grapefruit makes when pried apart - the objects so alive were still so far removed - but now spits out the seeds and core - dust is mostly made from skin cells..."
Dive in here - https://13myna.blogspot.com/
Facial Landscape by Sandra FeenMay 26, 2022
May 23, 2022
New! The Book of Korinethians, a strange new anthology that includes one of my poems!
Delighted to be included! (The Book of Korinethians is a print anthology zine of art, poetry, flash fiction and essay about the filmography of Harmony Korine. Diana Hurlburt and Kristin Garth are the co-editors. You can find out a bit more and acquire a copy for yourself, HERE - https://kristingarth.com/pink-plastic-house-a-tiny-journal/pink-plastic-press/the-book-of-korinethians/)
April 14, 2022
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April 12, 2022
New! Centipede Cha-Cha including 5 collaborative poems by me and Darryl Shupe!
This shows the front cover next to the back cover - and then one of Darryl Shupe and my collaborative poems next to the front cover.
Inside the journal is 5 of our Nasty Fair(y) Tails, as well as all the other poetry named on the back cover.
Very excited to be included inside this new journal and thank you to Warren Dean Fulton!
(Also, Darryl Shupe and I will soon have a whole chapbook of our poems published by my Blood Pudding Press!)
An Extra Special Poetry Month Acceptance of a new chapbook manuscript, Your Mouth is Moving Backwards!
This manuscript has been floating around and looking for a home for a little over a year (I think I started submitting different versions of the manuscript in February 2011 and from then to now, it's received about 10 rejections) and now its home has been found and its tentative publication date is October 2023.
That may sound like a while away, but time speed races fast and plus October is my favorite month. Just don't ask me how old I'll be in October 2023, because in my mind, that's one down side to the speed racing of time.
But one upside is that this new chapbook of mine will be newly brought to life by a fabulous independent press!
The 20+ poems in this chapbook collection are filled with internal and external violence and abuse, chaotic horror and entrapment, humans trapped behind walls or in beds, dolls thrown down the stairs and hiding in partially contained places, dolls pretending to be humans, humans pretending to be dolls, real humans fused together with evil. A lot of the inspiration for many of the poems at least partly derives from Twin Peaks. 15 poems in the collection have the title "FLESH WORLD", which comes from the name of a magazine in Twin Peaks. But there are other titles too and other inspirations and insinuations too.
I'm very happy that this manuscript found a fabulous home and also that it found its home during poetry month!
And also too, another wonderful side note is that this will be the second poetry chapbook manuscript of mine that Ethel Zine & Micro-Press has accepted and published! They published my chapbook, "The Rabbits With Red Eyes" in March 2020, which can still be purchased in their shop at a price cut of only $4 (and which might soon be available as a free online PDF file too)! https://www.ethelzine.com/the-rabbits-with-red-eyes
They also have tons of other fabulous poetry chapbooks available, so I recommend checking them out and buying a handful of chapbooks! https://www.ethelzine.com/chapbooks-minibooks
March 31, 2022
I'm not always aiming for positive emotions...
Sometimes it's hard to explain why I am drawn towards certain kinds of creative writing, visual art, and photographic art that others might view or interpret as gross, gory, unsettling, disturbing, or even offensive, because there are various different reasons, sometimes fused together and somewhat different depending on the piece of art.
One of those reasons is that earlier on in my life, I feel like I experienced quite a few examples of people choosing to hide (or avoid knowledge or awareness of) parts of reality that they found disturbing. I understand not revealing certain disturbing aspects of reality to little kids (but also some little kids don't even have the privilege of being able to avoid certain disturbing aspects of reality), but I also think that some adults would rather act like disturbing aspects of reality don't really exist forever. On one hand, that's an individual choice, but on the other hand it's a choice that not everyone has the privilege to make if they're surrounded by a different part of reality.
With my own poetry/art OR poetry/art by others that I choose to share, I'm not purposely aiming to shock or offend, but I'm also not aiming to keep it calm or pretty or avoid the unpleasant or bothersome. There are a variety of different kinds of poetry/art I'm drawn to in some ways, but among those, I've always been drawn towards some dark, unsettling, and disturbing. Why? I don't know exactly or maybe that's because there's a variety of different reasons, depending on the art and other factors. Sometimes because it stimulates my brain and catalyzes creative impulses. Sometimes because it has a strong affect on my emotions (and I'm not always aiming for positive emotions). Sometimes because I'd rather feel angry than sad. Sometimes because I'd rather be made aware of/attempt to confront something disturbing or disgusting than stay unaware of it, hidden from it, or choose to just ignore it. Which is not to say I never ignore things. Sometimes I do.
I would never personally kill an animal, but I've taken photos of dead birds and dead baby bird fetuses before, not because I thought it was shocking or titillating but partly because it's a small but unsettling part of reality that many people would rather just walk past and ignore. Also because I'm so disturbed by death or by life just visually disappearing.
Some years ago when I had my dog put to sleep (which in my opinion is a pretty disturbing phrase and a very difficult experience) and then brought his dead body back to my house, I was drawn to take a few photos of him, because that was the last time I was going to see his body. I had loved my dog and I had taken tons of photos of him when he was alive. But I only snapped one really quick one after he was dead, because my parents were over and that might have freaked them out and seemed ridiculously weird to them. They liked my dog too, but everyone processes and handles these things somewhat differently. I guess I'm drawn to someone incorporate death into art, since I'm so into art, and if something still exists in art then it doesn't seem entirely dead?
I'm much more disturbed by the idea of death/non-existence and the uncaringness of death itself and by people just tossing dead animals in a big trash heap like they're garbage than I am of people photographing that unsettling part of reality and presenting it in order to provoke thoughts and feelings (which is part of what I think art does).
With this interconnected small series of poems I'm currently in the process of working on, one of them is trying to express a difference between fantasy horror films and documentation of real life violence, in terms of some people implying it's not a good idea to watch too many horror films but also implying that we should try to ignore many aspects of real life violence. I'm having a hard time with the poem for some reason. Who knows? Maybe semi-sorting through these thoughts of mine here and then copying and pasting them next to my poem-in-progress might help me finish it soon. Or maybe not.
