BOOKS+~~~///READ+++++++++++++++ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + + + + + +Diary of My Corpse at Various Stages by Robin Lee Jordan (Self-published chapbook) Powerhouse of the Buffalo poetry scene, someone making community with a collectivist attitude, Jordan’s work should be better known. This is exhibit one—mix of poems and high-resolution full-color reproductions of collages printed mindful of page and spread composition, letterpressed mixed-media cover, sown binding—the chapbook itself a heady combination of venerable techniques and new print capacities. Even as they exclude biographical detail, the poems themselves feel vulnerable and strange and menacing: “I’ll report my own failings. / You’ll swim into the whole boring // story—full of children with / pale blue blood chirruping / for attention. Step into / my accidental deep end, / you giggling cunts. / You are not mind, thank god, // and this place keeps happening.”~~~~~w/Lost and found and then and now and other collective artmaking rituals & sometimes we drink tea and write together and honestly just hang out – published by Robin Jordan, this chap documents the process and outcomes of a series of collaborative writing events Jordan hosted. Appreciating the work, of course, but also how the chap documents through notes and photographs its process. So it’s foregrounding the relations of production that went into these poems and the dates, times, and people involved. I’d like more of this kind of documentation of the social grounds on which art is made. Anyway, hooray for Robin Lee Jordan. Her work may not be loved in the pages of literary magazines, but it is loved by people. Which is better. + + + + + + + + // ? ? ? / / / / + + + + + + + (( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolaño (New Directions, 2010). A WW-I gassed mesmerist losing his grip trying to solve the case of a poet with a fatal case of the hiccups in a Paris about to fall under the sway of a fascist collaborationist regime. A novella – the first longer Bolaño work I’ve read. It’s absurd, melancholy, and inimitably strange. Where else would you get a pair of twins whose passion is building aquarium-bottom miniature train disasters who earnestly believe what they are doing will become a cultural phenomenon? What I mean, is that this Bolaño narrative, too, includes deranged poets. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +++++++++++++++++++++++++ + + + + + + + + + + + “Catch and Release” by Amy X. Wang (Joyland, April 29, 2024) Well, this vicious little story pops a wheelie on the Epstein-y zeitgeist with its deprofessionalizing academics setting up interactive theaters of lust and cruelty for a titanically wealthy and perverse ruling class. The pacing is brisk and the writing terse and colorful, delivering up grim twists. Still trying to figure out whether or not it’s trading a little too heavily in shock but, damn the way it dialectically stages individual psychopathy, power, and the way capitalism structures relationships is pretty spectacular. And sticky. C recommended this story because she’s still thinking about it, and so am I. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + <<<>>>>>><<<. “Cleveland::The Rectal Eye Visions” by d.a. levy (reprinted on receipt tape by betweenthehighway press n.d.) “& the parades of parades of death / whisper in the marching marching / of the 4^th Reich America / UBER ALLES” “HEADLINE: NIAGARA FALLS BEATNIK POETS TRY TO BRING LOST LOVE TO HONEYMOONERS . POLICE ARE ROUNDING THEM UP & X-RAYING THEM TO DEATH” “& it is killing you faster than shooting / methedrine crystals on the beaches of lake erie.” Sometimes I forget how funny levy could be. Like teaching a class on telepathy and never showing up to teach. Thx, Alex. = + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = -= + = – stanzas for four hands: an ophanim by dominick knowles & mathilda cullen (woe eroa 2021) Fierce, funny, staggering—the bleeding edge of militant poetry: “it will be a pleasure to watch them, / still begging for prize money, / fry to char in solar wind.”