Ron Dakron

Merry Xmas, poets! Here's a rimer for ya.

2011-12-01T14:40:00.000-08:00

Tricky (Julia's Anniversary Poem)

2011-04-18T00:52:00.001-07:00

you use fake plastic vomit as a valentine card
you greet stupid devils with a hand buzzer how-do
you once tricked night with a moon whoopee cushion
it vowed to get even
with rain and bums and insomniac crows
you apologized drooling from novelty teeth
you’re the banana peel my heart pratfalls on
giggling and squealing
you offer it gum
eeek don’t chew it it’s Red Pepper Hot
you offer it fly ice cubes and a rubber wishbone
not even worried
as night sprinkles comets like gold itching powder

That ancestral glance

2010-11-22T00:21:00.000-08:00

Today I mused on my artist grandpa, Martin. He ignored his sweat-class job and painted sparkling landscapes till fate pulled her usual Hello Cancer tricks. But that’s neither here nor gone; what I most remember is a look. At age six I snuck in his bedroom, picked up his concertina and worked out some melodies. Something in my tyke tunes made him peek in, slit his eyes and smile lightly. With that one glance I was admitted into a cunning wolf pack dressed in vellum shirts and sharkskin night. Later I turned teen and got bongos, rubies, vodka lofts and gored euphoria-—what doubtless sparked me on was that appraising head tilt, that grin lit with cigar glow that gave me the blessing. Smile on, dead trickster, smile fucking on.

Jodi and Jenn are miffed

2010-08-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

I’ve been much amused by a “controversy” on HuffPo’s Books tab (http://huff.to/aBXRkC). Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner whine about getting rich from Chick-lit tripe—but they’re not respected! Wah! Maybe because they're both hacks who jackhammer books out of cliché-infested wood. Neither remotely rises to Allen Ginsberg’s Howl lines about his Beat brethren:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness,
starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection
to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,

Starry dynamo in the machinery of night! Writing and sex demand beaucoup passion—and when you fuck for cash it ain’t love.

Eeek--it is Gojira!

2010-05-10T10:33:00.001-07:00

Here's a lit test me and some pals came up with over the weekend. You're reading a novel/story/poem, people kiss or start their car--when suddenly--Godzilla invades! Maybe he pops out of a soup can the heroine was opening. Maybe he sizzles a Gen X party to an ironic crisp. Does the story get massively better when this B-flick beast howls onstage? Then the text um, kinda sucked on its own.

Samurai Poet Rules (go forth, grasshopper)

2009-11-11T20:40:00.000-08:00

1. Write like you’ll live forever — fear is a bad editor.
2. Write like you’ll croak today — death is the best editor.
3. Pick one — fame or delight.
4. The archer knows the target. The poet knows the wastebasket.
5. Cunning and excess are your friends.
6. TV and liquor are your enemies.
7. Everything eternal happens in a spare room at 3 a.m.
8. You’re done when the crows sing.

Nope to ebooks

2009-10-20T16:02:00.000-07:00

I tried out the Sony ebook reader - one of the better readers out there - and returned it. The concept will eventually win - even now you can store 400 books on one reader - but the grey-on-grey e-ink screen ain't quite there yet. Once they go black on white I'll try again; for now, it's still Gutenberg paper for me.

The kids like Mantids

2009-08-02T16:02:00.000-07:00

410media.com gives it an honest review.

NEA for Piracy

2009-06-29T09:13:00.000-07:00

Writers and pirates don't get to bitch about a lack of appreciation. Crank up your parrot and board that ship!

SFSite.com's John Enzinas reviews Mantids

2009-04-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

"The real star of the book is not the narrator but the writing. Dakron is a poet and his skill with words makes this book shine. He pulls all of your senses in while describing a world awash with giant, man-crazy, killer mutant bugs who think like the humans they once were. How can you not respect that level of skill?.... Read this book for the prose .... It's worth it."

Read the full review here.

Mantids is ForeWord Magazine 2008 Book of the Year Finalist

2009-03-20T22:49:00.000-07:00

ForeWord Magazine named Mantids a 2008 Book of the Year Finalist in the Fiction - Science Fiction category.

Mahalo!

2009-03-05T22:01:00.000-08:00

As they say in the land of Kona coffee--thanks to everyone who made "Mantids" happen, especially the fruitalicious Julia, Jerry and Jean Gold of Black Heron Press, major patron jimgermanbar, the Elliott Bay Book Co., Portland's Wordstock festival, and the online bloggers who kept my Google stats happening.

2009-03-05T21:57:00.007-08:00

2009-03-05T21:57:00.005-08:00

2009-03-05T21:57:00.003-08:00

2009-03-05T21:57:00.001-08:00

2009-03-05T21:56:00.003-08:00

2009-03-05T21:56:00.001-08:00

Bookfetish Reviews Mantids Twice

2009-03-03T16:12:00.000-08:00

Bookfetish.org gives Mantids 2-1/2 stars--and reviews it twice:

"I am making a second attempt to review this title; I apparently had not imbibed enough coffee the first time around . . . . I still don’t know what to think of Mantids and it still is sort of funny and annoying . . . . I think it's because any kind of strange a guy can get is good strange, even if it’s literally strange."

MBR Goes Buggy Re "Mantids"

2009-02-10T12:08:00.000-08:00

The Midwest Book Review gave Mantids these kudos: "Making no acclaims to being highbrow, Dakron draws from many sources in order to provide his readers with a side-splitting adventure that'll give anyone the much needed laugh they deserve in life. "Mantids" is a must for humor readers seeking something with a twist." Library Bookwatch, MBR, Volume 4, No. 2, February 2009

BBQ

2009-02-09T00:12:00.000-08:00

I think of you like BBQ
with sky for sauce and clouds for buns
and as I snarfle through this feast
I pick your kisses from my teeth

January 22 Elliott Bay Books Reading

2009-01-12T14:24:00.000-08:00

I'll be reading from "Mantids," "Hammers" and the rest of the Dakron canon on Thursday, January 22 at 7:30 p.m., Elliott Bay Books, 101 South Main Street, Seattle.

A Terrible Boredom Is Born

2008-12-03T12:25:00.000-08:00

Last night I was musing on my lack of interest in reading. Is it laziness? Alzheimer’s? Poverty? None of the above—it’s boredom! You gotta wade through beaucoup stinky prose swamps to get to the few tropic islands of lush text. Which is why I abandoned my latest read, Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball. In fairness to Eddie, he took on a heavy task—racism, slavery and their horrid legacy. But his prose stunk up the joint. After trudging through 100 pages or so, I decided to apply the Dakron Test: blindly riffle the tome, point and quote a few sentences. Here’s what I poked at on page 128:

“Michael was twenty-one, handsome, polite, tall, and mild-mannered. His eyes, like those of his mother, were clear and white. But while Carolyn Goodson's eyes were vulnerable, Michael's eyes showed determination. When he directed his eyes, it was as though Michael held out two white lights, unblinking, focused, adamant.”

So how is this prose bad? Mwah ha ha—in so many ways. Not even delving into our interviewer’s strangely erotic undertone, the basic flaws are 1) substituting the subjective for the factual, 2) using the wrong terms and 3) sloppy metaphors.

Let’s start with no. 1, declarative substitution. The first sentence starts out factual—Michael is 21. But he only seems handsome, polite, etc. Fussy? Nuh uh—all flaws flow from this first error. Bringing us to no. 2, wrong terms. “Goodson’s eyes were vulnerable…” No doubt! Mine hurt too when you poke them. Eyes can dilate or go cloudy—the rest is expression conveyed by facial muscles. But let’s accept switching the trope eyes for facial subtleties, and move on to no. 3—whoa! These anthropomorphic eyeballs are Disney worthy. They strike bullfighter poses (“show determination”), are from zombie statues (“white…unblinking”) or cavefish (“clear”) and prance around under glaucomaic klieg lights while being “directed” by some Speilberg in a floppy beret. Mr. Ball is interviewing a family of zombie actor cavefish statue eyeballs. Let’s edit him:

“Michael was 21 and seemed one polite hunk. His gaze held mine in hot stasis. He talked smack with his shy mom, his eyes flashing like razors at a Delta blues fest.”

Just as creepy sexy—but it don’t bore you.

Wordstock

2008-11-10T13:07:00.000-08:00

We (me and poet Julia Hunt) did the Wordstock Literary Festival this weekend in Portland - a good venue to meet fans and friends. I spent most of my time at the Black Heron Press table hanging with Jerry and Jean Gold. I read from Mantids on a Sunday panel with Sci Fi author David Farland. There were fewer presses attending than last year; natch we all hope this is not an evil trend.

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The Fright Site review of "Mantids"

2008-11-05T12:35:00.000-08:00

Adam Groves, The Fright Site, 11/05/08, http://www.fright.com/edge/mantids.htm gives Mantids a thumbs-up review. Some excerpts:

"[Ron Dakron's work] is among the very small cadre of experimental fiction whose substance actually matches its style...[Mantids] is lively and funny, with a spot-on portrayal of the Pacific Northwest punk subculture amid all the insanity--and really: perverted sex, punk rock, Viagra, mutant insects, cannibalism, perpetual erections...what more could you possibly want?"