alternating current

single ply and soaked through reviewed in Heeltap

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:31:00 +0000

single ply and soaked through by Leah Angstman was reviewed by Richard D. Houff for Small Press Review, but did not make it to print before SPR editor Len Fulton's unfortunate passing. The review was instead printed in the Heeltap Book Reviews Supplement #15:

Review:
single ply and soaked through, poems by Leah Angstman
Alternating Current, PO Box 183, Palo Alto, California 94302
alt.current@gmail.com

Here we have another excellent example of fine poems, each one, a panel falling into the next panel: poem for poem they belong to each other. It’s rare when I find a book that flows thematic without changing course.

In this outing, we journey both coasts without forgetting all those little stopovers in between. All the elements are here, and we feel them right up to the end poem—which is the strongest piece in this collection: sometimes gwen stacy just has to die. This book goes to the winner’s circle!

Rock 'n Roll Jizz reviewed in Heeltap

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:21:00 +0000

Rock ‘n Roll Jizz by Doug Draime was reviewed by Richard D. Houff for Small Press Review, but did not make it to print before SPR editor Len Fulton's unfortunate passing. The review was instead printed in the Heeltap Book Reviews Supplement #15:

Review:

Rock ‘n Roll Jizz, poems by Doug Draime

Alternating Current, PO Box 183, Palo Alto, California 94302
alt.current@gmail.com

Doug Draime’s poems hit me like a ton of bricks. The terrain he covers is a familiar ride for me as well. Brilliantly written, the poems go together hand-in-hand like a fine memoir. From the opening “Molly’s Place,” where the juke throbs Muddy Waters and Wolf for the whores and johns. And under a big tree there are two teenage boys soaking it all in—leaning toward life; experiencing death. This one poem sets the pace for what’s to come.

This work lives and breathes through the fifties and sixties. And if you look real close, you will find comparisons to the present. Each and every generation has something to offer. Don’t let this wonderful book slip through your fingers.

Making Love To The Rain reviewed in Heeltap

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:05:00 +0000

Making Love To The Rain by Catfish McDaris was reviewed by Richard D. Houff for Small Press Review, but did not make it to print before SPR editor Len Fulton's unfortunate passing. The review was instead printed in the Heeltap Book Reviews Supplement #15:

Review:

Making Love To The Rain, poems and prose by Catfish McDaris
Alternating Current, PO Box 183, Palo Alto, California 94302
alt.current@gmail.com

There are very few poets who can turn a smile into a wicked grin these days. Of course, I’m speaking entirely in defense of yours truly. The last decade has brought on a new world sense of apathy and disillusionment. Musicians play the clubs to the sound of one hand clapping, and the poets read in empty rooms from their unpawnable chapbooks—yes, I’ve painted a pretty grim picture, and at the same time, left out more than you, the reader, can imagine. It would take a book to cover all the negatives.

Catfish McDaris has struggled with all of the above like the rest of us survivors. If it’s a question of who throws in the towel, and who opts to continue, you won’t be disappointed, because McDaris is a true fighter.

And in this new collection, he won’t let you down; an excellent mix of the work we’ve come to know over the years. There are too many highlights, but I’d have to say, the prose piece: The Nineteenth is a killer! Highly recommended.

The Bloodhound Works Serb translation reviewed on Urbana riječ

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:12:00 +0000

The Serb printed translation of The Bloodhound Works by David Stone (printed and translated by Ivan Glišić) was reviewed on a Serb literary website, Urbana riječ. The review appears below in untranslated form, followed by (probably a rough) translation form.

Review:
DAVID STOUN / KRVOŽEĐE (ODABRANE PESME) / M.O.D. - Šabac / 2011.

Iz recenzije:

David Stoun zvuke i slike surove i opore, metalno gorke, Svakodnevnice, urezane u našu svest i podsvest, pretvara, poput alhemičara, u reč i njome ih prenosi na papir, kao svojevrsno, grafičko, upozorenje na krvožeđe u nama. Samim tim, njegovi zapisi nalik su na kinesko i japansko slikovno pismo, ali i na pisma mnogih drevnih, iščezlih, naroda, i vapaj su za zgaslom poetikom suživota Čoveka i Prirode.
Dejvid Stoun/DAVID STONE, rođen je 1949., godine u Čikagu. Diplomirao je filozofiju, a studirao je na De Pol/De Paul Univerzitetu u Tel Avivu i na Univerzitetu u Ilinoisu. Živi i radi u Baltimoru, kako često kaže – sa cimerom, to jest duhom Edgar Alana Poa. Uređuje i objavljuje jedan od najpoznatijih i najuticajnijih svetskih fanzina za andergraund i eksperimentalnu umetnost Gavran/The Blackbrd. Dejvid Stoun je napisao 17 knjiga poezije, 3 novele, i jedan pozorišni komad.
Ovo je prvi prijevod njegovih pjesama s engleskog jezika.

Nabavljivo na: ivangl@sbb.rs

Iz zbirke:

PRO
CEDURA

Zločini
Uzgajani
I odgajani kroz
Kamen temeljce
Putarina
Odapinju u naplatnim
Rampama

Neki se spašavaju
kroz led
Ledeni
& ako je za
Utehu

Zalogaj mandragole

Nacirkan
Krvlju zemlje

& neuspelo
Izrežirano suđenje
Sa vrhovima igala
U obliku čiodnih sisa
& podvizi
steroidnih mišica

Rough English translation:

DAVID STONE / KRVOŽEĐE (Selected POEMS) / MOD - Sabac / 2011.

From the review:

David Stone's sounds and images are cruel and harsh, metallic bitter, life, engraved in our consciousness and subconscious, turns, like the alchemists, in a word, and it transmits them to the paper as a sort of graphic, warning krvožeđe in us. Therefore, his records are like Chinese and Japanese symbolic language, but also to the letters of many ancient, vanished peoples, and the cry for zgaslom poetics coexistence of man and nature.
David Stone, born in 1949, in Chicago. He graduated in philosophy, and studied at De Paul University, in Tel Aviv, and the University of Illinois. Lives and works in Baltimore, as has often said - with roommates, it is the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe. Edited and published by one of the world's most famous and influential fanzine for underground and experimental art, Raven / The Blackbird. David Stone has written 17 books of poetry, three novels, and a theater piece. This is the first translation of his poems from the English language.

Obtainable at: ivangl@sbb.rs [Only the Serb translation in print; for original English translation, see Propaganda Press]

From the Collection:

THE PROCEDURE

The victims
were herded
through memorial bricks,
collapsed in tolls

some escaped
through the ice
& crawled to solace,

bit mandrake,

drank
the blood
of the earth

& failed
the censorship trial
w/tit
anium pins
& steroid
muscle feats.

Search tag: The Bloodhound Works by David Stone

The Hogbutcher Poems reviewed by Mike Begnal

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 01:50:00 +0000

Mike Begnal reviewed The Hogbutcher Poems by David Stone:

Review:
Following on from David Stone’s previous chapbook The Bloodhound Works of last fall, Propaganda Press/Alternating Current has released his newest installment, The Hogbutcher Poems. Though Stone is based in Baltimore, both of these collections are set in Chicago where he has spent time, and the title of this latest must certainly be in part a reference to Chicago poet Carl Sandburg, who famously described the city as “Hog Butcher for the World.”

That said, the term “Hogbutcher” here can have other resonances. Where Stone’s previous chapbook dealt with our present economic upheaval, this new one seems to focus on the environment, the food industry, and our alienation from the processes by which we glean our own sustenance, all of it poisoned and redolent of death. In one poem,

The
incandescent DEAD
[...]
[...] splash
& crispen
on the oily griddle.

In another, the water supply is full of sulphur, benzene, radioactive waste. In “In Hogbutcher City,”

Odors
of death
[...]
[...] prepare carcasses
with seasonings
for family picnics
[...]

“Production Scheduling” is perhaps a comment on the factory farming system — baby piglets are slaughtered according to a production model, and,

[...]
Wait, one is alive
and blinking.
OK, I can fix that
with my tire iron.

Stone’s vision is often violent and apocalyptic, but it is little details such as these that make us see the connection between the horror and our daily lives. These are not poems for the faint-hearted, but both subject and form (often clipped, prose-like, philosophical iterations of ideas and images) force us to reexamine contemporary society and the wider world in which we live. Stone’s work is highly recommended.

Black-Listed Thoughts reviewed by Wolfgang Carstens of Epic Rites Press

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sat, 07 May 2011 04:35:00 +0000

Wolfgang Carstens, editor at Epic Rites Press and author of Crudely Mistaken For Life, reviewed Black-Listed Thoughts by Mike Meraz and included a charming little picture that we thought quite suited the chap.

Review:
Black-Listed Thoughts by Mike Meraz is reminiscent of two of my favorite authors: La Rochefoucauld and Nietzsche. Like these two masters of maxims and arrows, Mike Meraz is an expert marksman -- each well-placed arrow splitting the one previous. This small black book which contains roughly forty epigrams is not something to be read and then forgotten, but words and ideas to be mulled over, tested, and put into practice. Here is a book upon which to rebuild yourself.

Review also featured by Mike Meraz here.

Management Gold Not Me reviewed on Clockwise Cat

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sat, 07 May 2011 04:09:00 +0000

Management Gold Not Me by K. M. Dersley was reviewed by J. S. Watts on Clockwise Cat:

Review:
Management Gold Not Me, the latest chapbook from the Suffolk poet K. M. Dersley, is quoted as being a booklet that “takes no prisoners.” I would suggest that it does take prisoners, but is then happy to expose them to all the tricks listed in the CIA Bumper Annual of Water Boarding and Other Fun Techniques. I mean that in a positive way, unless, of course, you happen to be on the receiving end of the sarcasm, jibes, and wit that flow through this small publication.

K. M. Dersley is without fear and enthusiastically takes on all comers in the form of management think and speak, poetry small presses, the world of work, and his own misspent youth.

In the poem "Going His Own Gait," one butt of the joke is the world of management “blue sky thinking” with its courses which,

we hear
had people climbing trees. literally.

they scratched themselves like monkeys
to please a supervisor.

Elsewhere, in poems such as “That Baffling Repute,” “Did They Actually Pay Any Rent?”, and “The Importance of Ronald Garvey,” poetry itself takes a bit of a pasting with references to poems that,

are daunting.

they rumble on
as if he’s got some obscure
grudge against the world
(though it’s hard
to say what they are really
about at all).

Poetry magazine editors, though hopefully only specific ones, also come in for some flack on the grounds that they,

have long been perpetrating the atrocities
of a number of boring twats
without much encouragement.

The Derz, as K. M. Dersley is sometimes known, is in full spate in this brief, but bitter, selection of poems. Just keep your fingers crossed that you’re never on the receiving end.

Management Gold Not Me by K. M. Dersley is published by Propaganda Press.

Thank you card from art award recipient

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:46:00 +0000

We got a nice thank you card from Lyda Whipple, one of the recipients of our children's art awards at the Ingham County Fair Art Show in Mason, Michigan, presented through the Mason Art Guild. Mason is the hometown of the Alternating Current Arts Co-op's owner, so it is our goal to enrich the art scene and education of children and young adults in the spot of our own humble beginnings. Congratulations, Lyda!

Thank you card from art award recipient

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:42:00 +0000

We got a nice thank you card from Anna Bowling, one of the recipients of our children's art awards at the Ingham County Fair Art Show in Mason, Michigan, presented through the Mason Art Guild. Mason is the hometown of the Alternating Current Arts Co-op's owner, so it is our goal to enrich the art scene and education of children and young adults in the spot of our own humble beginnings. Just think what could be accomplished if we all concentrated on nurturing art in our own hometowns! Our hometowns would rock, all across the world! Congratulations, Anna!

Thank you card from art award recipient

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:39:00 +0000

We got a nice thank you card from Brittney Funk, one of the recipients of our children's art awards at the Ingham County Fair Art Show in Mason, Michigan, presented through the Mason Art Guild. Mason is the hometown of the Alternating Current Arts Co-op's owner, so it is our goal to enrich the art scene and education of children and young adults in the spot of our own humble beginnings. Congratulations, Brittney!

Thank you card from art award recipient

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 18:32:00 +0000

We got a nice thank you card from David Smithern, one of the recipients of our children's art awards at the Ingham County Fair Art Show in Mason, Michigan, presented through the Mason Art Guild. Mason is the hometown of the Alternating Current Arts Co-op's owner, so it is our goal to enrich the art scene and education of children and young adults in the spot of our own humble beginnings. If each person nurtured young art and talent right in his or her own hometown, then the joy of art would be spread across the whole world without much effort. It's something to think about. ;) Congratulations, David!

MAKING LOVE TO THE RAIN reviewed at Dye Hard Press

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:01:00 +0000

Dye Hard Press reviewed Making Love To The Rain by Catfish McDaris.

Review:

Making Love To The Rain is the 20th chapbook by US poet Catfish McDaris, and published by Alternating Current imprint, Propaganda Press. A small format collection of poetry and prose, McDaris's work is reminiscent of Charles Bukowski but more sensitive and surreal.

One of the poems is:

Miracles Never Cease

I was reading this book
about a man in Russia
who wrote stories and poems

The KGB came and knocked
him around but didn't kill
him they sent him

To Siberia and stole his
bag containing six onions
then my doorbell rang

There was my aunt
bringing me six onions
and a bottle of vodka.

Making Love to the Rain can be ordered from Alternating Current.

MAKING LOVE TO THE RAIN mentioned on Infective Ink

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 01:41:00 +0000

Infective Ink featured a poem, "New York City Digestion Blues," and a blurb about the chapbook Making Love To The Rain by Catfish McDaris.

Blurb:

Catfish McDaris has been getting published widely for 20 years. He's a journeyman bricklayer and retired postal worker. His [best-selling] chapbook is Prying, with Jack Micheline and Charles Bukowski. His 20th chapbook: Making Love To The Rain is now available. Catfish McDaris can also be found at CatfishGringoRiver.blogspot.com.

Aleathia Drehmer interviewed about YOU FIND ME EVERYWHERE

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 20:05:00 +0000

Poet Hound reviewed You Find Me Everywhere by Aleathia Drehmer and conducted an interview with the author about the chapbook.

Interview:

Aleathia Drehmer’s latest collection of poems, You Find Me Everywhere, was published by Alternating Current’s Propaganda Press in October, 2010. Inside[,] the poems are filled with moments of everyday life that take on new meanings and connections to the past and the future. From revelations to sentimental moments[,] I found myself nodding in agreement with someone whose words and ideas sound so familiar that you wonder if Aleathia Drehmer lives next door. Ms. Drehmer has published two other collections of poems through Kendra Steiner Editions and a shared collection with Dan Provost by Rank Stranger Press. You may also recognize her as the creator and editor of Durable Goods[,] which has been featured on Poet Hound before[,] and she is also the editor of the book The Beards from Tainted Coffee Press. After reading her collection [of] poems in You Find Me Everywhere[,] I decided I needed to seek her out and ask her about her collection[,] and she graciously accepted:

[PH:] Your collection’s title leads me to wonder who finds you everywhere[;] would you mind expanding on how you came up with the title You Find Me Everywhere?

[AD:] The title was taken from a poem that has the same name that appears inside the collection. The poem “You Find Me Everywhere” came from the realization that my interconnectivity with nature was something deeply ingrained in my person, not something I could remove very easily. This connection is more of a spiritual one, rather than the idea that I am a nature buff. When I go outside, I feel my surroundings. I feel a part of them[,] and in this connection with elements such as wind and water… you could essentially find me carried everywhere. I had seen the cover photo by Amanda Oaks on a women’s literary site called Hem, which I am a part of. I loved the idea of the pins all crowded together marking all the places one could be found. I think the collection encompasses how all over the place I can be. The title was never meant in an egotistical way. It was meant to say, if you need me, you can find me everywhere you look.

[PH:] Also, your collection is divided into sections titled Love, Observations, Medicine, and Ends. Were these shorter collections you had started and put together[,] or do they have more rhyme and reason[,] as I assume they do since the entire collection flows nicely together?

[AD:] When I was asked to do this collection[,] it took me completely by surprise because it came shortly after the publication of A Quiet Learning Curve from Rank Stranger Press. I never expect to get asked to publish my work and was honored that [leah angstman] wanted me to put together something. The works were divided into sections because I thought there needed to be a small pause between them… a single word to set the mind to frame up what the reader was about to take in. The section “Love” isn’t filled with mushy love poems. I often don’t think of love that way, but I hope it shows all the small and silent ways a person can love and be loved. “Observations” comes from watching how people interact with each other and how I fold myself into that mixture. It is about awareness to the human condition that so many of us ignore because it isn’t flashy. I have spent my entire life in quiet observation. “Medicine” was meant to be a play on the idea that “laughter is the best medicine[,]” and the poems included in it were all written with playful feeling for me[,] which wasn’t something I had ever entertained before. I had the misconception that poetry always had to be serious to be taken serious. Life teaches you otherwise. Lastly, “Ends” is simply about the ending of things. My grandmother had died the year before[,] and I didn’t get to say goodbye before she left this earth and several of the poems are for her. We have to recognize the ends of things as the beginnings of something else. It is what keeps us going.

[PH:] There are many poems that tugged at my elbow that I’d like to ask for more details about. The first poem is “Off Guard.” A sock falls out of a dryer and sticks to you[,] which makes your heart race in search of the mystery man it may belong to[,] but the search comes up fruitless. It reminds me of my college days in Laundromats between boyfriends. I’ll feature the poem with the questions: How did you come up with this poem? Who is the mystery man you seek?

Off Guard

His sock falls out of the dryer
and my heart beats quicker.
I think, has it been that long
since I have seen something
of a man’s mixed in with colorful
panties and tiny kid shirts?

It tricks me into thinking
he is here, somewhere
in the next room with book
cradled in hand, succumbed
to short story classics—lulled
by the quiet filtering through the windows.

I catch glimpses of him,
now and then, when the light
moves across the ceiling, or the room
is persecuted with stillness.
And then he flees as quickly
as he arrived, and leaves me
standing in front of an open machine,
heat clinging to the hem of my skirt
with one sock against my chest.

[AD:] The sock fell out of the dryer at my own home while I was doing laundry. My boyfriend, Dan Provost, lives in Massachusetts[,] and we have been maintaining a [long-distance] relationship for some time. One of his socks got mixed into our laundry without me realizing it. He had left that morning to go home[,] and it was when our relationship was just getting started after both of our endings to other [long-term] cohabitations. I had lived without a man in the house for several years[,] so his man-sock was like this strange reminder that he had been here and that he was gone and that it wasn’t all a dream. At that time, I never thought I would miss a man in that way[,] and it took me off guard.

[PH]: “He wanted a love poem” is a title that so many poets can relate to. Before I began to read it[,] I imagined all the men I dated who hoped I’d write a love poem or all the people who asked for my help writing a love poem for their own lover. The poem itself sounds, to me, that whatever poem was written or spoken cannot be undone and that the man who received it could never appreciate it[,] even if he had wanted to because of who he is as a person. With the poem[,] I ask: Is this poem inspired by a true story in your life[,] and what details can you provide about this poem’s origins?

He wanted a love poem

you can never undo that imprint
i lifted from the fibers of your
mind, those intricate wires
nestled in your nerve centers
whose electricity never failed
to defibrillate me whenever
you came close.

i wanted to whisper these things
behind your ear, let them grow
there like untended wildflowers
but i knew you would weed
them out in disbelief—your heart

empty like this watering can.

[AD:] “He wanted a love poem” came about after the writer Jesse Bradley sent me a new poem he was working on[,] and he wanted my opinion. I had never met this writer personally, but I had read his work before and published some of his fiction on my online fiction website, In Between Altered States. In the poem[,] he mentioned that universal idea that his ex-girlfriend never wrote him a love poem[,] and he was questioning the validity of love because she didn’t write him something. This was an off the cuff poem for me. It was a reaction to what he had written and the sentiment in this poem has no real personal connection to him. I love these sorts of poems because it allows me to step outside myself and pretend. This always elevates the work, because it allows me to dig into layers of myself I had not mined before. When writing it[,] I imagined I was a woman whispering this poem into a man’s ear[,] and because he had waited so long to hear it, he didn’t recognize what it was when he had it, thus leaving him empty still.

[PH:] “It takes a village” is a poem many women can relate to, even if they don’t have children. A group of women chat at a playground as their kids play together[,] and this particular group of women are learning each other’s names for the first time[,] despite the mentioned year spent together. You note that the gestures made are the same ones that your mothers and grandmothers have made and that you carry on the tradition, hence the title of “It takes a village.” What inspired this poem that so many of us can picture and relate to so clearly? Why are the three women unlikely to chat together? I love the line “this social mountain”[;] could you expand on what you mean by that line? Is this “social mountain” related to why it took so long to ask each other’s names as adults chatting on the playground? The ending lines are wonderful, too, about generations of women holding down the corner of their [neighborhoods] while [they] have dreams of spreading their wings to fly—can you expand on that as well?

It takes a village

We hold down the corner
on the divergence of our block,
three unlikely women together
in the stages of morning before we
are truly ready for the world.

There is a triangulating of bodies
and speech, naming each other
for the first time, though
we have spoken every day for a year
standing in morning suns,
our children running circles
about us creating their own connections
and carving a path around
this social mountain.

When they have gone, we become
an ecosystem of experience,
fleshing out common ground
in the bustle of moving cars and
noisy lawnmowers drowning
parts of our voices;

we gesticulate the rest of our words
as we have seen our mothers
and grandmothers do in the years
before, when we never thought
we would be that old; when we climbed our
own mountains and ran circles,
when they too had dreams
of leaving and spreading wings
standing on the corners
they held down.

[AD:] When my daughter was just starting kindergarten, we moved into an apartment community that had many types of ethnic folks living here. There were people from Africa, China, India, Russia, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Mexico. I chose this neighborhood because of this diversity. I wanted my daughter to grow up not really recognizing the color of skin as something that separates but as something that connects you to places you have never been before. Every morning that year of school[,] I walked my daughter to the bus stop where I met these other two mothers. There were always the usual good mornings and talks about the weather or projects at school. It was all very nice and pleasant. One day after we had them all on the bus, we had stopped at the corner where we usually went our separate ways to our apartments and began talking. I can’t even remember the conversation, but I remember that sense of feeling connected to women as a gender, because that was something I had struggled with most of my life. I was usually “one of the guys” in my social circles.

I was naïve then that we could be women who were unlikely to talk to each other. One was a Latin woman from California, the other an older woman from NYC and then there was me, the token country white woman. What I learned from that day was that our geography doesn’t change the basic needs we have as women and as humans… to have connection and acceptance and friendship.

The “social mountain,” for me, is this looming interaction of people for which I often feel awkward participating in. As humans we are always making connections and jockeying for position[,] even if we don’t realize it. We observe those around us to learn social customs and language and how we should act. We do this instinctively. I have always been one [who] was tempted to do whatever would make me accepted[,] rather than doing what made me an individual. In my life, I have always been attracted to people, especially women [who] have the ability to do this. These women weren’t social conformers[,] and they had these great ideas and interesting complex lives that I wouldn’t have known about had I not stood there on the corner participating in “social mountain” experiences.

As for the ending and holding down the corner, it is a tribute to what our mothers and grandmothers gave up in raising us. Did they give up dreams? What would they have done if they didn’t have the burden of raising us? Would they have gone on to be famous or discover something that could save the world? I think in this world and in the writing world, mothers are not appreciated for what they do. It is the hardest job in the world to steer another human being in the right direction and provide for them moral stepping stones and social stepping stones so that they can go into society prepared to think and be open and understand the things happening to them. Mothers juggle their lives to make everyone happy and to provide opportunity. That line in the poem encompassed this idea for me.

[PH:] I love poems about books[,] and this one is titled “Nightwatchmen[,]” which I find fascinating. The idea that books watch over us at night is something I’d never thought of. In this poem you ask the old, familiar book spines “Who wants to take me somewhere?” and note that they are the ones who see you as you truly are day in and day out. How did this poem come about and what about books in general speaks to you in this way?

Nightwatchmen

I stand blank-faced, excited inside
asking all the books in my house
“Who wants to take me somewhere?”

I ask them, and not those books
alphabetized and homogenized—
ones who claim their powers
in neon signs and bright covers,

but the ones in my home
sitting on dusty shelves;
the ones who watch me
cry into the pillow at night;
the ones who see me laugh
out the window; the ones
who watch me touch myself;
who see my flaws and still stay

waiting and patient
and quietly, alone.

[AD:] My bedroom is filled with bookcases and many sorts of books. I was particularly melancholy this day and feeling lonely. I sat up in my bed and looked around the room at all the art from friends and books of poetry and novels and pictures of loved ones and realized that in each of those items there was a memory; in each of those books an adventure I had not gone on yet. When I read a book[,] I become one of its unseen characters. I cry and laugh out loud. I feel connected to these fictional people that touch my heart and there is a small, quick grief process at the end of a book for me. These books watch out for my soul. Each book calls to me when [its] certain experience is needed in my life. I don’t read them for pure entertainment, I read them to figure out something about myself[,] even if it is challenging and hard to digest. I rarely read a book twice because there are too many books in the world to read. Having said that, I do have authors that I visit often like Willa Cather, John Steinbeck, and Wallace Stegner. I am a prairie girl at heart.

[PH:] In your poem “Hurricanes of Snow[,]” we look at a funeral home with you in two perspectives: [the] one from your childhood in which it held no more significance than just another building to run around and the one as an adult in which you stand outside as a result of a death of someone you loved. The juxtaposition is familiar yet striking, there are many times childhood and adulthood perspectives clash within the same person[,] and could you expand on how this one came to inspire this poem? May I ask who it is [who] passed away, especially important since you mention that it cuts into your daughter’s eighth birthday and your grandmother’s house from childhood? How did it affect the rest of your family that day[,] and how did that shape your poem as well?

Hurricanes of Snow

I stood outside the door
of the funeral home
watching the winds
carry loose snow across
the back lot like an icy
hurricane no one took
notice of as it twisted
and cut into the beginning
of winter, into my daughter’s
eighth birthday.

When I look closer through
my frozen stalled breath
I realized that, as children,
we would cut through this lot
from my grandmother’s house.

In the summer, we would run
through the maze of underbrush,
stop to pick blackberries and tiger
lilies, hope beyond hope we didn’t
misstep and end up in the swamp
full of skunk cabbage and green
slime; we carefully triangulated
the stones we’d use to cross
the crick if it were low enough.

It was always cooler there next
to the high concrete wall and we
could smell the donuts frying
next to the funeral home and
never thought it was a scary place
because of it.

But now it is different after seeing
her lie in an open casket for two hours,
waiting for her to say my name
and slap my arm and laugh. This place
is cold and circular and filled with
darkened hearts and though I’ll
never cross that crick again, it somehow
changes the thrill of adventure.

[AD:] My father’s mother died a few days before my daughter’s eighth birthday and her funeral was on my daughter’s birthday. I had to miss her special day to bury my grandmother in Connecticut.

The strange thing about this poem is that most of the memory is relative to a grandmother who is still alive. My mother’s mother lived in that place behind the funeral home that I speak of and those memories of her place embody the essence of childhood for me. In the last 5 years or so[,] she had moved from that place to another across town. That had been my “home” for my entire life[,] no matter where I lived. Her moving was a little bit of a death for me. It broke off a piece of my heart. Standing at the side door of the funeral home for my other grandmother’s wake, I was able to merge these two losses and somehow also bond them with the good memories.

I saw my father at the funeral and our relationship has always been very distant and awkward for which neither of us know why. His mother was the rock of their family while also being the biggest party animal. She was a force to be reckoned with and survived a very hard life. To the end of her life[,] she lived it as she wanted to and that is admirable to all of us in the family. I was not as close with her as my other cousins were[,] and my violently sad reaction to her death surprised me. It filled me with regret about how much time I had wasted and how little connection I had with my father’s family. Her death has built more conversations with my family that weren’t there years ago.

[PH:] Are there any other collections you are working on? Are there any poems or collections coming out in the future we can look for? Thanks so much for consenting to the interview[,] and please keep us informed of upcoming projects or any blogs or [websites] we may visit to read more [of] your work and [to] learn more about you.

[AD:] I am not specifically working on a collection for anyone, though the phases of writing I go through tend to make themselves into collections. I seem to be amassing a group of sestinas as well as a massive group of ekphrastic poetry. I have been writing collaborative poems with my very good friend[,] Brad Burjan[,] that I hope might find a home someday. I don’t write in terms of making books. My poems are my memories of every adventure I have and of the things that move me. I write them down for a time when my memory has gone so I will not forget where I came from[,] no matter how painful or beautiful it might have been.

Thank you so much for inviting me to do this interview. It always takes me by surprise when such things happen. Right now, I am preparing to table at the Buffalo Small Press Book Fair in March[,] with the lovely Lynn Alexander from Full of Crow. I am a regular participant in Alternating Current’s Abandoned Blogs project and find myself helping out folks here and there when they need it. This last year or so has been about trying to build a community in the small press and emphasizing that helping each other succeed benefits us all. I am going to be doing some readings in Cleveland this summer[,] as I make my way on an art museum tour from upstate New York to Chicago and back.

My previously published poetry and fiction can be found at www.myabdication.blogspot.com and my online fiction website In Between Altered States can be found at www.inbetweenalteredstates.wordpress.com.

Thank you so much for having me and asking such great questions. Be well.

Aleathia

[PH:] If you enjoyed the sample of poems and the interview as much as I have, you may pick up a copy of You Find Me Everywhere by Aleathia Drehmer for $5.00 (+ $2 US or $3 Out-of-US shipping and handling) at Alternating Current’s Propaganda Press at:

http://alt-current.com/pp/pp_item.html#you_find_me_everywhere

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

SINGLE PLY AND SOAKED THROUGH mentioned on nibble

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 04:50:00 +0000

nibble mentioned their review of single ply and soaked through by leah angstman again, in case you missed it. Now that's exposure!

SINGLE PLY AND SOAKED THROUGH reviewed on nibble

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 03:27:00 +0000

single ply and soaked through by leah angstman was reviewed on nibble.

Review:

new poems from captain america:

We were thrilled to finally get our hands on the latest book of poetry from leah angstman, single ply and soaked through. After reading the book straight through the moment it fell from the package, we flipped back and forth rereading our favorites and only looked away long enough to jot down a few short notes. These notes turned into a review of sorts[,] which we tidied up and now present to you.

The first thing that strikes the reader, and angstman’s poetry often strikes, is the economy of language. She never wastes a word, nor does she use even a single unnecessary syllable. This is evidenced throughout her poetry, and particularly in these lines from found your eye:

crouched on the
toilet looking at
my bare toes i
see your eye

angstman also has the skill, and the penchant, for crafting poetry that covers unexpected topics and utilizes unexpected words and phrases, as this from after the blizzard:

thin mustache penciled on
a snowburned face
catches a web of snot
holding it there

We love that she has no use (or need) for capital letters or any sort of punctuation. It simply isn’t necessary. There is a stark cleanliness to the layout of her poems on the page that is mirrored in their brilliant content. Like a cloudless frozen winter day, these poems reveal everything in stark beauty, as in these lines from sometimes gwen stacy just has to die:

the story goes something like

a young girl gets raped by her uncle

angstman is ever brilliant. We’ve never read a book of hers that wasn’t worth ten times the cover price, with each poem shooting dead into the bullseye. single ply and soaked through exhibits her vast talent at its most polished yet. We strongly recommend it to anyone who loves power-packed poetry that is primed to detonate.

UNDER A BRIDGE reviewed on Cornerstone Works

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 02:41:00 +0000

Poet Hound's review of Under a Bridge by Stephanie Hiteshew was featured on Cornerstone Works.

UNDER A BRIDGE reviewed on Poet Hound

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 02:21:00 +0000

Under a Bridge by Stephanie Hiteshew was reviewed on Poet Hound.

Review:

Stephanie Hiteshew has been published by Bone World Publishing, has had poems appear in Poiesis, Beatlick News, The Aurorean, Brevities, and many others. She currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland[,] and her latest collection from Alternating Current’s Propaganda Press is titled Under a Bridge. The poems are unapologetically raw in their portrayal of homelessness, loss, drugs, and mental illness. I am happy to share the ones that stuck inside my mind long after I set the chapbook down:

Claim

Siren wails
come closer to the city
than cleanliness.
Under a bridge,
pin-eyed,
you narrowly smile.
I hold your hand
coated in bruises,
breathing in a fog
you’d see
over a pier at night.
I sigh and say prayers.
The truth
I can’t turn towards
(or away.)
I leave you
under blankets.
Soul free
to lay its claim.

This poem makes me wonder if the poet is holding the hand of someone dying, especially with the ending lines “Soul free/to lay its claim.” What kind of claim[,] I wonder? Claim to life or death?

Fence

The fence wasn’t built
to keep you safe
but to keep us safe.
Us: the streakers,
manics, schizophrenics.
You: the closed-door
drunks, tax-evaders,
and cheaters.
Main difference:
we were caught.
Besides, we learned
long ago
how to climb that fence.

This poem hits home for me as I used to visit and advocate for residents in certain mental health facilities. There were often times I realized how thin the line really was when it came to [whom] would be living inside such a place and living outside such a place in “normal life.” I think the lines “Main difference:/we were caught” hits the nail on the head as to where that line is drawn.

Doorstep

The empty pull
of disappointment,
children’s balloon popped,
farewell to kite escaping.

How lost in the well
or random traffic accident
has left me at the doorstep,
hesitating.

I like this poem because many of us can relate to such a moment. We arrive at a door that causes us to pause in dread for any number of reasons that are unpleasant. I wonder what the poet’s reasons are for hesitating at this particular doorstep?

If you enjoyed this sample of poems from Ms. Hiteshew’s collection, Under a Bridge, you may purchase a copy for $5.00 (add $2 for US shipping and handling or $3 for outside-of-US shipping and handling) by visiting this link below:

http://alt-current.com/pp/pp_item.html#under_a_bridge

BREACH BIRTH discussed on John F. Buckley's blog

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 23:24:00 +0000

Breach Birth by John F. Buckley has been discussed on his blog. The author talks about the meaning behind the poems and the chapbook in an intimate, personal way.

Post:

Breach Birth is my chapbook of twenty-five poems, coming later this year from Propaganda Press. The title is supposed to be a bit of a pun — “breach” and “breech birth.”

This collection marks my return to writing after an eighteen-year hiatus as an ex-short-story writer, getting sucked into my new role as a poet after my previous self-image ruptured (the breach) — after job security faded, after discovering I’m effectively sterile, after being diagnosed with and treated for bipolar disorder — reborn as [a] verbal artist in the same awkward fashion that marked my initial entry into this world. (I really was a breech birth.) These poems chart my early growth as I rediscover my artistic voice, giving birth to creative works even as I confront my biological infertility, and obliquely reflect upon the choices I have made during decades of hypomania and depression. Moving forward[,] though sometimes facing [backward], I’ve invested this collection with the energy of dreams refracted, redirected but no longer deferred.

All that being said, I do try to keep my themes below the surface. I don’t mistake my poems for confessions. No piece has been titled anything like “The Babyless Part-Time Worker” or “Ode to Abilify.” True, the last and longest poem, “Fatherhood,” concerns childlessness, but it’s much more directly an offbeat narrative about a slightly sociopathic alchemist’s experiments. “Flicker, Thud” conveys a little weariness and pessimism, but it’s really my attempt to channel T. S. Eliot. And while “Apotheosis” does delve into the creative process, what’s being created there is a giant ball of poo. (Poo, I say!) I write about hellish lunches with those time-share-selling touts who lurk in Las Vegas casinos. I write about time travel and Richard Brautigan in an alternate universe. I write about Facebook chatting and drinking 7&7s and floating tortoise piñatas. I write about all sorts of stuff in all sorts of ways.

The book itself? I just looked over the proof this weekend. (My editor/publisher leah angstman, by the way, did a great job of reviewing my language, providing suggestions, and formatting the whole she-bang. Thanks, leah!) As a chapbook, Breach Birth is adorably, affordably pocket-sized, saddle-stitched (AKA stapled), with a nice cardstock cover, and with a cool full-color illustration on the front cover and a few bonus photographs of odd things scattered here and there. I’m very pleased to join the long line of excellent creative works offered by Propaganda Press.

I think that wraps up my spiel for now. I’ll certainly let you know when Breach Birth finally hits the shelves and the online catalogs. Stay posted!

BREACH BIRTH contents listed on John F. Buckley's blog

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 23:14:00 +0000

The contents to Breach Birth by John F. Buckley have been listed on his blog, with links to various publication outlets where you can read samples.

Propaganda Press mentioned in John F. Buckley's publication list

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 23:08:00 +0000

Propaganda Press was mentioned in John F. Buckley's publication list on his blog.

BREACH BIRTH mentioned in John F. Buckley's blog bio

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 22:07:00 +0000

Breach Birth by John F. Buckley was mentioned in his blog bio.

ROCK 'N ROLL JIZZ reviewed by Aleathia Drehmer

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 05:52:00 +0000

Aleathia Drehmer, of Durable Goods and In Between Altered States, reviewed Rock 'n Roll Jizz by Doug Draime on her Facebook page. Thanks for the exposure! [Link may lead to a private page.]

---

Review:

Rock ‘n Roll Jizz

By Doug Draime

Propaganda Press, 2010-2011

$6.00

alt-current.com

Doug Draime has been around for years. He is what we might call a small press old-timer, and his work has always stood on its own two feet. Doug’s latest collection of poems, entitled Rock ‘n Roll Jizz, from Propaganda Press has its own sexy pair of legs. His title gives you some insight in to what you are going to dive into… music, sex, drugs… the whole rock ‘n roll ideal, but it isn’t the only thing you will find.

Doug starts off the collection with the strangely touching “Molly’s Place” that sets the tone of how music infuses in our lives and cements our memories into melodies and bass lines of the music of our generation. This poem plants the seed of how important music is to the writer and how it will always be so. Sprinkled through the collection are other childhood memories, such as “On Elvis Presley’s Birthday” and “After Buddy & Richie Died Flaming Down From The Sky Yeah, The Big Bopper Too.”

There are poems filled with young, sexual urgency like “1959” and

“Down In The Swallow”:

[...]
your shiny dark eyes, in the
swallow, as huge black birds
were flying in
haphazard patterns,
above your flinging black hair.
[...]

Doug touches on his admiration for James Dean and steers you through his drunken bar fighting days full of haymakers and fists of fury. You travel from Indiana to L.A. and up to Oregon, where he leads you through some softer reflections of his youth. The poem “6 Sketches of L.A.” is a great set of shorts that is worth thumbing through. He even has an interesting tribute to the families of Viet Nam Vets called “We Are The Sons and Daughters and Brothers and Sisters (to all those who came home from Viet Nam)” that struck pretty close to my heart, being a daughter of such a man.

Out of this entire collection though, my two favorite poems (besides “Molly’s Place”) had to do with interpretations of dreams he has had. “Warped American Dream” is worth buying the collection alone:

[...]

I was surrounded
by bigots
and the ignorant,
even those my
age whose
spirits and
possibilities
had been
blotted or
wiped out
somehow[...]

And “Dream” tells it like it is when the work twists your brains up:

[...]

Some of them brought ancient
typewriters and their mangy publishers;
others had entourages of one-eyed

Rimbauds and really foul-looking
women carrying sawed-off shotguns
[...]

All in all this is a great collection of work from Doug Draime that maybe dates him with his recollection of music and actors, but we all have our youth soundtracks, and I can bet money his soundtrack has way more street cred than mine. Doug Draime deals up poetry from the gut with no tricks. Line up the shots on the bar, it’s time for Rock ‘n Roll Jizz.

End of review

---

ROCK 'N ROLL JIZZ blurb from Misti Rainwater-Lites

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:38:00 +0000

Author and publisher at eBuLLieNCe Press, Misti Rainwater-Lites, had this to say about Rock 'n Roll Jizz by Doug Draime:

Rock 'n Roll Jizz is a hot Saturday night in a dive bar with the jukebox blasting Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, and Elvis Presley. The air crackles with sex, and the beer flows like the Brazos. This is Americana at its finest.

UNDER THE EL REVIEWED BY MIKE BEGNAL

noreply@blogger.com (open your mind.) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:11:00 +0000

Author Mike Begnal reviewed under the el by David Stone:

Review:
In my view, David Stone is one of our most original experimental poets, though he is not sung in the halls of academe or in the HTML code of poetry blogs as often as he should be. That situation will change eventually, I think, as time goes on and Stone’s small press collections, chapbooks, and pamphlets get collected into more readily available volumes.

One of these chapbooks, though, quite available now, is Stone’s latest, under the el, published by Alternating Current/Propaganda Press. It includes the long poem “under the el,” set in Chicago where familiar Stonean elements congregate:

[...]
& on the asphalt
a turkey vulture dines.
[...]

Shorter poems return to the setting of Baltimore, that apocalyptic city where Stone now lives:

“The Subway Glance”

another murderous day
in this sad city
where teachers
are raped by students
& more beatings on the buses
& on subways

This is a poet who takes up death, history, war, and urban America unflinchingly, but whose language is therefore a little weird — stripped down to short declaratory sentences, as if desperately clinging to some sense of basic grammatical order. Unlike some experimentalists, whose language often reflects the disorder they find (by all means a valid and often beautiful response), philosopher Stone seeks beautiful logic in the illogical, if only in a ritual sense (as in “YK,” his Yom Kippur poem). There is always a subject and a verb, often an object, though each might not be the expected.

A poem that succinctly illustrates what Stone does is “The Fire Engine”:

The fire engine
skidded through
the intersection
& crushed
a compact car.

Earth whisked
wizardous rants.

Breathers reiterated
the aroma of death.

The cell counters
apologized
in Socrates’ tank.

Order under the el through [the above link], or through the mail for $5 (plus $2 U.S. shipping; $3 out-of-U.S. shipping) via cash, check, or money order made out to [Angstman Arts, and mailed to Alternating Current, P.O. Box 183, Palo Alto CA 94302, U.S.A.].