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10/27/2006

ebay, poem, tears of joy

there is one day left to bid on the multifunctional literary portrait book by ellen kennedy and i

here is a poem
i don't live in new york city anymore, rather a square-shaped room in rural pennsylvania with no kitchen

alone in my room, i just drank an energy drink

i am alone in the universe

laying on my bed

typing on the computer like an obese jobless bitch; i feel your head and face

in the private area behind my face; does that mean we're together?

i hear quiet cymbal crashes, and the computer screen looks severely self-conscious

and unable deal with the implications of its own existence, but i'll ignore that for now

my feeling is that i miss you

because you are good, but that is just how i feel right now

later i might hear myself screaming in agony, but i'll ignore that for now

also, but what should i do? we are like a sad, intelligent bear

laying on its back in a cornfield

staring at the tip of a cornstalk,

as seen from a helicopter by a three-year old girl with down syndrome

we are like the least-favorite toy of the baby ugly fish

who is calmed to sleep each night by the quiet sounds of shipwrecks far in the distance
here is an insect
it just learned that it is a finalist in the american poetry review book contest

10/26/2006

three new magazines

i'm starting two new online magazines

plindleldybloz magazine

jobless bitch magazine


gene morgan will design

gene morgan is starting a new online magazine as well

beast assault magazine

luna negra is out soon

luna negra is edited by steve schirra

click here for the cover, here for the authors

they are publishing a poem of mine, a story of mine i think, and the story mistake which you can read here
in the history of that story, that i can remember right now, the only people who have ever said anything to me about it without provocation or mutual editing of stories are noah cicero and steve schirra; that is that story's complete influence in the global situation; i'm very proud

i don't encourage anyone to order the magazine and i don't discourage anyone to order the magazine; you can look at the web site without wasting precious resources though like wood, paper, or oil (to ship the copies), so maybe that is encouraged; to me the same applies for my poetry book or any other books, starting today

an essay on writing

I'm going to write an essay on writing.

Part One: REVIEWS.

I feel completely unable (or unwilling) to be affected by reviews. For a few reasons.

(1) Because a person who would write a review already has a worldview that is distorted, or 'narrowed' (not all-encompassing). Distorted because they view art in terms of 'good' 'bad' 'important' etc. Which is distorting because art (to most people) encompasses everything, and everything has no rules, worldview, or philosophy. Therefore when I see a review and let it affect me (whether the person says the writing is 'good' or 'bad') it is like going to a calculator that is broken and gives wrong answers and using those answers to do concrete things in real life with.

(2) Increasingly I feel that writing has only two, or maybe three, uses that aren't anti-itself, distorting, or unbased in reality. One reason is to write alone, and read it alone, in order to dispel irrational angers or anxieties, to console oneself from death or depression, or to allow oneself to see a situation objectively and therefore become a 'better' person. Another reason is to do those three things to people you are in contact with every day and/or in a relationship with. The third reason is for money. Reviews do not affect the first two things. They affect 'money' I guess, but 'money' cannot console (in a long-term way; though life is short-term, so maybe money can solve all problems) against death, depression, or dispel irrational angers, anxieties, etc. so it comes as a secondary thing; and so you can't change the reviews without compromising the first two reasons.

Here are the other reasons that people say writing is 'good'; and why they don't make sense to me.

So I can achieve immortality.
(This is immoral, it doesn't even take into account the pain and suffering of others; also it has no basis in reality and you can only want this if you haven't thought very hard objectively at any time in your life.)
So I can be a great writer.
('Great' has meaning only in your own head. When you live your life with goals that have meaning only in your own head you are denying that other people exist, feel pain, or suffer.)
So I can achieve my dreams.
(Really, you have no dreams. Your dreams are there because in 2nd grade they talked about astronauts and heroes and things like that. 'Dreams' is a word that means 'distorted version of reality.' So that sentence is 'So I can achieve my distorted version of reality.' This is bad. To live morally a person should base their life off reality, not base reality off their life. 'Reality' meaning either from all perspectives equally or from no perspective, meaning with no preconceptions or all preconceptions equally. I can use the word 'should' in that sentence because I said 'To live morally,' and earlier I defined 'morally.')
So I can console others.
(This is a very complicated thing to accomplish. To publish a book you need to use a lot of energy. Books need to be printed. Books need to be shipped. Ink, etc. Corporations will profit from this. The environment will suffer, etc. No one knows if consoling one human for whatever amount of time is morally equal to or greater than killing one tree or bird. This, like the word 'great,' is something able to gain meaning only in one's own head. Therefore if you think you are consoling people (net consolation) with your writing you are like the person who wants to be a 'great' writer. Your actions show that only you exist, that pain and suffering does not exist for others, etc. And after you solve that problem, if it's possible, you then need to take into account animals, plants, computers, artificial intelligence, etc.)
Okay, those were the few reasons. Two reasons.

Part Two: STRIPPERS

Strippers consume very little resources to do what they do.

They use only what they concretely own. Their own body and face. If 'ownership' means that it exists inside your own skin, that only you can feel if things are happening 'within' it, and that other people cannot 'know' it.

Ownership in literature is very strange to me. In the current moment, in the universe, if you take a photo of it, or a recording of the atoms in it, you will see many humans and many books and many poems. You cannot point at a person in this 'photo' or 'recording' of the moment and point at a poem and concretely link the two. You cannot 'tell' who 'created' what. There is nothing that links the poem and the brain.

Why is there ownership? So the 'identity' can assert itself, so that a person's consciousness can justify itself. I don't know what that means. I'm just going to type some more sentences. So that corporations can make money even off non-concrete things.

Strippers. Strippers don't use up resources. They can explain what they are doing. They are relieving pain and suffering concretely, without taking 'false' 'ownership' of anything. I don't know. Strippers are better than writers, is what I'm saying. They don't distort reality, they are able to justifiably think in terms of 'good' 'bad' or 'better,' they are able to explain themselves, they do not want to acheive 'immortality' with what they do, etc.

This essay is fucked. Just read what I already typed and don't think about it then go away. Don't argue with me. I admit most of this was wrong. It was a waste of my time and yours if you read it. Just go away quietly and go to sleep. Thank you. Good night.

10/23/2006

victory in japan

you are a little bit happier than i am (click for blurbs) can be bought from action books

it is cheaper to buy it now from action books than later from other places and other places won't have it until november something

megacash

also let me announce that six gallery press will publish two novels in the future

one called hikikomori by ellen kennedy and tao lin; one called hamster by noah cicero and tao lin

literary portrait necklace handbag carrying case book

click here to bid on or look at this hybrid, multifunctional book by ellen kennedy and tao lin

there are forty portraits of the following twenty people
Steve Schirra
Abraham Morales
Karen Ashburner
Kristen Iskandrian
Mary Robison
Matthew Rohrer
Joshua Beckman
Mike Young
Clayton Banes
Sean Kilpatrick
Fran
Bryan Coffelt
Philip Roth
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Condoleeza Rice
Jean Rhys
Ben Lerner
Gene Morgan
Dennis Diclaudio
Stijn Bolle
click here for a review by gene morgan of the previous literary portrait book by ellen kennedy and tao lin

an interview with noah cicero

*photo copyright ellen kennedy all rights reserved 2006 ass hi books corporation
me: why didn't you eat the eggroll?

Noah: i don't like eggrolls
they have seaweed in them

10/20/2006

mipoesias

10/18/2006

giant poem

giant poem, one of twenty-four

an interesting group of small children
becomes exponentially less interesting
until finally they approach to solicit my poetry
a brief description of homeless people in manhattan
includes the rhetorical question ‘can we stop at jamba juice?’
enthusiasm over ‘the perfect manatee’ increases in january and february
i first noticed this on a tuesday
written on a billboard above east houston street
look! a perfect diagram of my contorted face!
















































two of twenty-four

a massive amount of confusion arrived in my brain
like an obese man exiting taco bell with a twinkle of ingenuity
in both his eyes at the same time
so maybe i am the problem and you are OK
i first noticed this phenomenon on the discovery channel
look at that obese tree!
a diagram of my thought patterns
indicated too many massively constructed thoughts about ‘perfect love’
so i hit my head against a hard surface
after placing a pillow on it
for safety
the next time i see you we will both be morbidly obese













































three of twenty-four

an enormous animal floats ass-first through the universe
i first noticed taco bell in both my eyes at the same time
i’ve constructed this massive thing that probably doesn’t make sense
but appeals overwhelmingly to our melodramatic sensibilities concerning ‘how to live’
a homeless man lays frozen in his giant coat and no one cries for him
so at midnight he rises to solicit my poetry
like the interesting woman who kneels nightly to touch the frozen, contorted face
of ‘the perfect obese man’ i sometimes have an overwhelming urge to confide in you
that i fear i have been exhibiting psychopathic behavior that is possibly ruining both our lives
















































four of twenty-four

i watched you from ‘the perfect distance’ before approaching ass-first
to solicit your poetry
at taco bell you are OK
the future: a collection of things that will happen to us
us: me and you
masturbation: me and you
you: hi
innate in all taco bell patrons is the possibility of phenomenon poetry
i first noticed this overwhelming need to confide massive confusion
in that obese tree!
early in the morning
the sun’s light reveals that a homeless man has murdered an obese man
in the distance my doppelganger emerges with both eyes frozen
his approach exhibits that he has just watched five hours of the discovery channel
i think he is coming to solicit my poetry










































five of twenty-four

arrival into my world of obsessive behavior, nightly despair, and massively constructed rules
will increase those three things i just listed
extreme emotions appeal to my ‘severely disillusioned worldview’
gollum from lord of the rings is OK
i’m not concentrating
rather the contortions on my face indicate massive confusion
i am crying a little
who made me cry?!
‘from a distance no one knows anything
until finally they realize they are wrong and approach
to close the distance
and solicit the poetry’
is a sentence that appeals to severely disillusioned sensibilities












































six of twenty-four

‘ruining both our lives’ is an accomplishment that puts a twinkle in my eye
using expensive, gold-inlaid tweezers
a loose rendering of my thought patterns into easily communicable ideas
almost always includes the sentiment ‘i am writing some of the best poetry of my life’
a pale sheet of sarcasm covers that tree
a pale sheet of sarcasm covers that car
my eyes continuously shoot pale sheets of sarcasm at twice the speed of light
so what i actually see is ‘something you will have to ask a professor of particle physics to find out’
i once asked a professor of particle physics to diagram my massive confusion
he showed me his literary magazine
but did not solicit my poetry














































seven of twenty-four

where on the internet is the poetry that will console me?
does ‘an enormous animal
floats ass-first through the universe’ really console me?
the question of ‘how to live’ reverberated throughout taco bell
until finally the obese man cried onto his quesadilla
and a second obese man called the first obese man a ‘pussy’
in his obese head
while concurrently dismissing the thought as obese
the story of obesity begins with one mother’s undying love
and ends in deus ex machina
massive confusion caused me to type lines 5-10 of this page
broadband internet connects me to over six-hundred-thousand poems
my internal monologue is five pages long, then someone else starts talking,
then a morbidly obese man screams in agony
for personal reasons unrelated to being an enormous human being










































eight of twenty-four

‘the perfect manatee’ is innate
all instances of sad crying are actually carefully rendered
exhibitions of 'sad crying'
the seven deadly sins are essential for maintaining an interesting internal monologue
this is the essence of lemon
this is a vial of lemon oil
i've distilled your novel, short-story, or poem
into its embarrassing, aromatic essence
using a coffee bean grinder and a coffee machine
‘in the distance a sarcastic man walks around
i don’t know if he’s sarcastic or not
i don’t know anything about him
i don’t know anything’
is a melodramatic pattern of thought











































nine of twenty-four

the mental space i occupy is tiny
the abstract space i occupy is tiny
how can i express this?!
i’m launching a new literary magazine
of poetry, prose, and poetics into outer space
early in the morning in february
it was very cold
with both my eyes closed
i walked slowly toward the quesadilla
and stepped on it















































ten of twenty-four

the urge to make this poem longer is uncontrollable
the urge to make this poem longer ‘because i named it giant poem’
overwhelms me
by existing as a possibility
and now i will add fifteen more pages
i appease all abstraction-powered, irrational urges
another poem in this book is called ‘eleven page poem’
so this one should be much longer
the despair i feel when considering exactly how long a ‘giant poem’ should be
is real, especially at night
i mentioned my nightly despair earlier
each day offers new possibilities for tighter, more modern, and more colloquial poetry
if this poem doesn't fill the enormous void at the center of my being that's OK
i'm been alone in a room for over forty hours, the computer screen is glowing











































eleven of twenty-four

i am hit in the face by a bottle of shampoo
at the speed of light
which perhaps just means that i saw an image of a shampoo bottle
i am repressing the urge to headbutt the computer screen
between five and ten times a day
i'm learning to control my anger
by crushing it with a different species of anger
i imported from the plains of new zealand
an obese copy-editor rises too early in the morning
and runs into the darkness
into a deadly spiked wall
he didn’t know a spiked wall was there
the sun’s light does not reveal the obese man’s multiply-impaled corpse
the entire view is blocked by a new, immense jamba juice location
i stand in the shadows
then close the distance
and order the protein berry blast








































twelve of twenty-four

for personal reasons i ordered the meat smoothie
a brochure in my back pocket contained diagrams
of how meat was now grown
in giant acculturated meat piles
inside secret underground airport hangars
because of personal reasons i stared at my meat smoothie for five hours
then sprinted to the hudson river
and poured my meat smoothie on a manatee’s face
the manatee attacked me briefly, for personal reasons,
then receded into the shampoo-colored distance
an obese hamster attacked me from above
i punched it at a downward angle
into a half-open plastic bag
which tumbled into an open manhole
mike tyson, evander holyfield, and evander holyfield’s son approached to solicit my poetry
for deeply personal reasons i behaved as if evander holyfield was ruining his son's life









































thirteen of twenty-four

notice how my forehead approaches your forehead at a high speed
notice the contortions on my face
hear and feel the impact of my forehead against your forehead
in 1952 a DSM copy-editor removed ‘headbutting’
from the entry for ‘psychopathic behavior’
thereafter the headbutt has thrived
across all social, political, and elementary school gym classes
today the headbutt is a sign of friendship, stable mental activity, and inner calm
‘the perfect literary magazine’ solicits mike tyson every third tuesday
‘the perfect headbutt’ kills both participants and impresses even the severely disillusioned
the phrase ‘giant poem’ reverberates through my head with the austerity of ancient ruins,
the off-centered beauty of repressed veganism, and the lord of the rings trilogy
i forgot what this poem was about












































fourteen of twenty-four

'a small rabbit’s tight ass trembles
against a lightly-packed snow
until finally two gloved hands enter from above
to hold the ass firmly, warmly, and nonsexually'
is the newest addition to your internal monologue
'richard' is the newest addition to our gym class
once while answering emails
a giant hand slowly entered my peripheral vision
it was evander holyfield’s son’s hand
so everything was going to be OK
'“at 4 a.m. the world is quiet and dark”
is an implicit description of your foot in a sock’
sounds a little profound
so i put quotation marks around it











































fifteen of twenty-four

rhetoric comes at me from above
but i’m too depressed to process it
so i absorb it through my scalp as sunlight
the despair i feel when contemplating 'what is ownership'
is antidisestablishmentarianist
the giant fist of my head is impressive
when viewed without preconceptions
from a distance of less than five inches
through high-powered binoculars
an example of ernest hemingway
is the doctorate candidate devoted to gaining, articulating, and disseminating
complete insight into those poems that cause you to stand up
and go do nice things for people
and tell people that you love them











































sixteen of twenty-four

at jamba juice i accidentally headbutted someone else’s wheatgrass
so hard that no one noticed
except mike tyson
who politely averted his eyes
a fear of mike tyson
is an irrational fear
my rhetoric is supported by first-person anecdotes
your rhetoric is supported by rudy guiliani
my rudy guiliani enjoys smiling widely at homeless people
with an otherwise neutral facial expression
your rudy guiliani hears clicking noises in his head
then makes clicking noises with his lips
even after repeatedly being advised and agreeing
not to do that anymore











































seventeen of twenty-four

it is time to write about happiness
a few declarative sentences about immense happiness
a few sentences about rudy guiliani’s harmonious joy
when people are asked for the longest word they know
they often say antidisestablishmentarianism
at jamba juice last wednesday an elderly hamster
pawed an opening in wheatgrass
and pushed its soft head through
i petted it
then closed the distance
and destroyed it with five rapid, short-range headbutts
‘notice how i instill fear and anxiety into your mother
by staring at her with psychotically wide eyes
and speaking in a psychotic monotone
and twitching my face psychotically while being spoken to
and ass raping you with my hand in her presence’
is a quote from the lord of the rings trilogy
one of the elves said it







































eighteen of twenty-four

‘i break my lines in
the same way i break my bananas
in half
when i only need half
a banana
for my smoothie and
want to save the other
half for later, motherfucker’
is the kind of thing an ugly fish would write
fear of ugly fish is ‘the perfect fear’
one time i used an ugly fish in my smoothie
before i pushed the button for ‘liquify’
the ugly fish swam through the soy milk
and hit its face against a frozen grape











































nineteen of twenty-four

mike tyson’s four-million dollar swimming pool
is home to over two dozen species of ugly fish
evander holyfield’s son is ‘the perfect son’
‘don’t worry
this poem is OK
you are not wasting your time
rudy guiliani’s eleven advisers are wasting their time
people who eat their food instead of drinking it are wasting their time
you are not wasting your time’
is a melodramatic declaration
‘“‘all declarations are melodramatic’
is melodramatic”
is a sentence that means “all things are melodramatic”’
is a sentence that inspires the masses
to stand up and go do nice things for people
in order to get something nice in return
today a copy-editor will be headbutted to death
by a giant, screaming head
today a giant, screaming head will learn the true meaning of life
today is the greatest day of your life
rudy guiliani's story is the story of a vegan poet crushed by circumstance
into the position of new york city mayor



































twenty of twenty-four

a brief headbutt interrupts your monologue
you have been speaking for too long without letting the other person speak
i have been accumulating small anecdotal evidences that you are a bad person
that if expressed singularly works as evidence that i am a bad person
but when expressed together in monologue,
in ‘the perfect monologue,’ about two weeks later
makes you tremble with the realization that you are a terrible person
but also makes you cry tears of joy at the possibility of change
on a sunday afternoon in a florida harbor
an ugly fish pushes off a mossy rock
and glides toward a manatee
through clear, warm water
with particles in it
visible from the sunlight
and lands on the manatee
and hugs the manatee’s backside
this is a severely depressed ugly fish who believes its mood is circumstantial
manatees have been known to travel as far north as cape cod, according to wikipedia
i forgot to sell the rights to my first poetry book on ebay
there is no such thing as a severely disillusioned racist





































twenty-one of twenty-four

the rhetoric of this book can only be conveyed with this book
which perhaps just means that this book exists
i once let a reviewer into my home
i led him down
into my basement
by holding both his hands
and walking backwards down the steps
while facing him with a wide smile
and an otherwise neutral facial expression
what happened next was shocking
you won’t believe what happened next
one can only claim ownership of that which exists within one's own skin case?
and then only that which the brain can directly move the atoms of?
from one's own perspective the brain seems to own itself
we observe the brain from an abstract distance
we observe each other from a concrete distance
the brain observes nothing from no distance
therefore everything is going to be OK







































twenty-two of twenty-four

80% of asians within a thirty-foot radius
were affected physically and 70% died
in their sleep that night
four survivors felt compelled to start a non-profit organization
but lost interest completely when they had to fill out a form
this has happened to all of us at least once
which makes it OK
which makes anything OK
i'm alone, you're alone, and we miss each other
when i'm alone despair and inner calm at the same time
makes my eyes rounder and more kitten-like
two perfect circles form on my face—*CUTE*













































twenty-three of twenty-four

my rhetoric is essential to our well-being, according to me
my rhetoric is one of the eight essential amino acids
a pale sheet of my poetry covers your face after laser eye surgery
my poetry is disseminated under the pretense of eyesight correction
my poetry is instantly alone on the computer screen
the brain behind my eyes is alone
the eyes are each alone and miss each other
the head in front of my computer screen is alone
when my head touches your head
it is two alone things touching
by describing this i become 'an observer of two alone things touching'
'observers of two alone things touching' instantly yearn for what they are looking at
and often feel a brief, tingly, inconsolable, and cinematic sense of loneliness
before receding completely into their own shit ass fuck bitch ass motherfucker?!











































twenty-four of twenty-four, completion

your face hits my face at the speed of light
rather your face leaves at the speed of light
and hits my face halfway between my face and your face
rather the atoms of your face reflect photons into my eyes
next mike tyson inspects each photon for defects
finally mike tyson walk-runs from the inspection area to his second job,
at the back of the eye, where he fans the photons into my brain
by spinning both his arms in front
like an obliviously out-of-control child, the essence of which we all envy and yearn for
fast forward ten years and we see mike tyson sipping a smoothie with a twisty straw
we sold him this straw in 1998
you are removed from the world
and then i am removed from the world


















10/17/2006

story on juked

click here for the story

here is an ellen kennedy drawing of a panda screaming in agony
the panda had checked its email and gotten a rejection letter from elimae

10/15/2006

bear parade published part one of a novel

a book review by gene morgan

portraits

by ellen kennedy and tao lin


quite a few portraits in this book. forty. very long for a collection of both established and non-established writers, people both ellen and tao know or know about. i don't own any other portrait books.

some of the drawings are a little garish for pen drawings on graphing-ruled cards. i don't know what i mean by garish. something about the layout and colors of brian beatty, to be even more vague.

XXX SPOILER ALERT XXX

johannes goransson is a soccer ball. john updike is a princess. i am a 6'2" bear holding an ax, even though i am 6'5" and human without an ax. this can only mean everyone is something they are or are not, if you feel like thinking critically.

i'm pretty sure nick antosca doesn't carry around a chainsaw, and justin taylor does not have pizza for hands.

XXX END OF SPOILER ALERT XXX

this book is a great gift for anyone wanting to know how ellen kennedy and tao lin view people that are in some way connected to ellen kennedy and tao lin. people who know ellen kennedy or tao lin or any combination of the two should own this book. people who know ned vizzini should own this book.


portraits by ellen kennedy and tao lin
ass hi books, september 2006
$13.50 on ebay

10/12/2006

if you preordered you are a little bit happier than i am i just mailed it to you unless i don't have your address in which case i emailed you; and if you live in belgium i will mail tomorrow

anyone else who wants the book, the book doesn't officially come out until november 1st and i have no more copies; on november 1st you can order the book from action books, the publisher

10/11/2006

michael earl craig; two poems, one interview, six photos

poem one, from CAN YOU RELAX IN MY HOUSE
IN PATIENT SPADEFOOT TORPOR,
PERHAPS LISTENING


he waits, for he is a spadefoot. And as surely as men
ride in the beds of pickups holding shovels, sometimes
squinting, so too does the spadefoot. He is surrounded.
An ant crawls across a dog biscuit. Nobody seems to ever tire
of this. Then everyone gets tired at once, and night is quiet.

It is now that the spadefoot works his little leg.
In time a hallway is made, and a woman,
and we see the remains of a muffin left out on a plate
by the window, which somehow holds for me all of Evening.

Rain falls on the world, and into the cracks, and into a teacup
someone left on a fencepost. Each drop comes tapping the garden.
A mudslide occurs and the spadefoot is swept away.

poem two, from YES, MASTER
AUTOBIOGRAPHY

You could say I rode a tall horse.
You could say I rode a long black horse.
In reality I'd never even touched a horse.
I drove by them all the time.
Horses loose in pastures;
horses tied to fences, to trees;
horses hobbled;
horses running wild along the ditches;
and then th ones that simply stood in the rain,
that baked in the sun,
that dreamt with their heads down.
As I shot past in my car it was all I could manage
to even glance at a horse.
However, I do remember noticing
this one horse, a grey horse;
he was young and was kept apart from other horses.
He was always pacing and stomping
and throwing his head and whinnying,
and basically always on the brink
of exploding chest-first through the fence
to get over to the other horses.
For horses are herd animals.
Horses need other horses.
Horses easily die of loneliness.
This young grey horse seemed to be doing this.
He was a colt when I first saw him,
and about thirty-two when I finally pulled over and parked my car.
I left the engine running and got out
and strode through the tall grass
to get to the barbed-wire fence where he stood.
He was quite old, sway-backed, bad teeth.
His eyes were sunk in his head. He no longer
moved about, but just stood there in place
and sort of bobbed his head
in a kind of left-to-right figure eight.
It was all he was capable of--I could see this
as I approached him in his pasture.
All the other horses were in a distant pasture.
They looked like specks of black rice
on the yellow hillside. I reached the fence.
I was finally standing not three feet from this horse.
I reached over the top strand of wire.
As I lowered my hand
the horse looked at me serenely
as if he'd known me all his life.
I patted his head.
I am one of the world's largest assholes.

interview
You are a farrier. "One who shoes horses." But you never explicitly write about shoeing horses, I don't think. Is shoeing horses a passion for you? Or do you do it for the money? Can you write a five word, two line poem about being a farrier?
Go look at the poem called I RATTLED OFF TO WORK TODAY in new book. That may not be “me,” but that’s how time usually moves for me (and that is definitely my pickup).

Yes, shoeing is a passion. It's very challenging and rewarding work. I have to run a business, be good with people, be good with horses, understand equine anatomy, and work well with my hands. Most of the tools used daily are tools that have been in use for hundreds of years. In many ways it’s very primitive. I’m like a caveman, really—stooped over, smeared with horseshit and urine, blowing farmer snots next to the customer’s Navigator, just looking for my next Ibuprofen.

But what exactly is the caveman up to? Well, to summarize: I'm carefully trimming and sculpting the horse’s foot with nippers and a rasp while holding it between my knees (not kidding). Then I look at it carefully, take a few measurements, and go to the anvil to shape an inanimate object (horseshoe) to fit this horse's foot. I use a forge so the metal is extremely hot and has to be handled with tongs. After a few trips, making sure the shoe fits, I quench it in water and take a small hammer named Rick and nail it (shoe) onto the horse's foot while he/she stands there on 3 legs, quietly or not.

But yes, I also do it for the money. There is no money in poetry.

Brief poem you asked for: Fondling my clinch / block, wondering.
When something funny happens or when you have an interesting or funny thought, in your head, during the daytime, away from poetry-writing-time, do you immediately think of how to somehow get that into a poem or somehow write a poem about it; or do you only think back on those things during your poetry-writing-time, if you have such a thing (poetry-writing-time)?
I don't take many notes during the day. If I do have notes written down somewhere (napkin, notebook, etc.) I might later collect 7 or 8 of them (note fragments) on a sheet of paper. Then I start writing and using these images or quotes or whatever. I don't try too hard to know where I'm going. I push everything around until something interests me, adding and adding and adding of course. And quite often I end up cutting many of the things from the list that I initially found so interesting... they just don't fit in the poem anymore.
You have manatees, cows, horses, sheep, and mules in your poetry. You have no hamsters, ocean sunfish, moose, dolphins, or bears. How do you choose your animals? The animals you use are all funny and interesting in their own ways but these are general ways and to me can be said of many animals; but to me the animals I listed are uniquely funny and interesting and in more specific ways; for example an ocean sunfish's head is its body more than any other animal's head is its
body. But this may just be focusing on surface things, rather than psychology, or whatever. How do you choose your animals? Over time have you changed in which animals you enjoy writing about more?
Sounds like you should write a poem about the ocean sunfish.
Okay.

Brief poem about ocean sunfish: Its face / is its ass.
See, I knew you could do it.
I can do it. Can you do it?
No. That was my original point.
How do you choose your animals?
Well, some are chosen simply because I'm around them all the time: dogs, flies, horses, mules, beetles, cows, etc. Others are chosen because I, for some reason, am interested in them--perhaps I've read about the spadefoot toad, or seen some program about sea horses. And then, while writing, a mood or direction surfaces and suddenly I find myself working this animal or insect into the poem.

We spend so much time taking orders from humans, obeying laws written by them, etc., and then giving commands of our own to other humans via phone, fax, mail, email; and meanwhile the plant, animal and insect world surrounds us at all times. We seldom ask a pill bug, Why? And we may need help feeling a donkey's pain.

Now, you could easily argue that it's not fair (or even intelligent) to project all our human traits/psychoses onto the animal world. I like that stance very much also.
I didn’t know the spadefoot in that poem was a toad. I thought it was just a human with something like clubfoot. What about projecting human traits/psychoses onto inanimate objects or abstractions? Are you interested in that?
I am interested in that. This is a little different, but did you see the film Chungking Express by Wong Kar-wai, where the guy’s girlfriend (airline stewardess) leaves him and he spends a lot of time talking to his soap, his towel, a stuffed animal, and I think something from his refrigerator? I loved that. I could hear his voice for weeks in my head, and I would think of him with his things--his soap, his towel. Anyway, I think that a person’s relationships with their things can be very rewarding. I know a lady whose dolls mean more to her than her husband and who am I to say she’s wrong? So yes, projecting human traits/psychoses onto inanimate objects or abstractions seems fine if not appropriate to me. It’s probably not “projecting.”
But about inanimate objects. I used to arrange my stuffed animals so that parts of them wouldn’t be exposed, and if one leg was bent wrongly I would fix it. Today I don’t do that anymore. Really it is just relieving my own bad feelings of not wanting the stuffed animal to be uncomfortable, which is not something a stuffed animal can be. It is in my head only. So my time is better spent doing nice things to things that have actual feelings. So it is bad in that way. Or not ‘bad,’ but selfish. What do you think?
Yes, it is bad. Bad and selfish.
If say a 'goth' band like Marilyn Manson is trying to achieve, with their songs, making you back into a fourteen-year old depressed, suicidal teenager the extreme, or perfection, of which would be to actually transform you into a fourteen-year old depressed, suicidal teenager, what are you trying for with your poems, and what would be the extreme, or perfection, of it? What effect are you trying to create in the reader? Or rather what effect are you trying to create in yourself with your poems when you write them and then read them to see if you have written a poem you like?
I don't know if I am trying to "create an effect in the reader." I think, like most writers, I am, at least initially, writing to entertain myself. If I get bored with what I'm writing I either stop or force a change in direction. Usually the latter. I don't normally totally abandon a poem/draft. I like to think I can fix anything.
You have a few instances in your poems where natural catastrophes (mudslide, meteor storm) destroy single human beings. The way you write it is very calm and I feel not painful destruction but just very quiet and good. Are you consoled against death when you end a poem with a meteor storm hitting a man and obliterating the man? If not,what are you consoled against? Have you ever tried to console against death using poetry? Cite examples.
"Consoled against death." That's interesting. I don't know if that's what I'm up to or not. I do like the powerful feeling I get when I destroy a man or toad with a quick line in a poem.
What if you had a moose destroy a toad in a poem. Would you still feel as powerful? Or would you feel as if the moose in your poem had taken some of your power?
Yeah. Yeah definitely, he would have taken some of my power.
In your poetry sometimes decades pass in a very calm and confused way using very few words, mostly without adjectives or adverbs. Does this console against depression? That actually if you live thirty-years it is just a very calm and vague and confused thing (thirty-years) in the memory? If not, what effect does it have on you when you read your own poem about a horse who is seen by a man as in despair of dying of loneliness as a young baby horse and who thirty years later as an old horse is talked about again by the same man and pet by the man for the first time though he has, the reader assumes, looked at the horse each day for thirty years and seen the horse's loneliness and despair?
"Consoled against depression." That's interesting. I don't know if that's what I'm up to or not. I do know that I like the powerful feeling I get when I can move a man's (or horse's) life story along swiftly without getting too bogged down in taxes (or oats). In poems--all writing, I guess--there is so much that needs to be left out. This is the number one task at hand. I do think that that horse standing alone, growing neurotic (AUTOBIOGRAPHY), is sad. It makes me want to punch someone.
If every object, abstraction, and sentient thing--speakers, pencils, God, the idea of hierarchies, me, Bono, yourself, etc.--in the universe lined up for you to punch in the face after thinking about the lonely horse, who would you punch?
You mean who would I punch first?
Would you punch Bono first? What if his glasses broke and made your fist bleed? Or maybe they would break toward his face and blind him?
Uh, I hadn’t really thought about any of that. I guess it’s more a figure of speech--“it makes me want to punch someone.”

photo one, just cinch block
photo two, cinch block with jerky
photo three, holding cinch block--wondering
photo four, t-bone's tongue is his calling card
photo five, t-bone's tongue is dirty
photo six, what does t-bone's ear feel like

10/5/2006

ellen kennedy, nick antosca, dennis loy johnson, giant flying squirrel

here is ellen kennedy's photoshop depiction of the very retarded giant moth
here is ellen kennedy's microsoft paint depiction of salman rushdie and a giant squid
nick antosca posted the cover for his novel FIRES

i like the cover; i want it for all my books, no matter what i write

the cover is the kind of cover that would be very good with any book

imagine that cover with a book called YOU ARE A LITTLE BIT HAPPIER THAN I AM
dennis loy johnson spent time with me on the phone editing my novel EEEEE EEE EEEE

it was good to discuss hamsters, headbutting, and moose with dennis loy johnson

here is a giant flying squirrel
this giant flying squirrel has an MFA in poetry from brown university

its favorite poets include mary oliver and alice notley

it has been published in the beloit poetry journal, the wisconsin review, and juked