Ida Clara Deorsam Rose, 1907-2007

I Declare a Rose

Mamaw's answer to everything was

dope and salve, such remnants of the thicket

as primeval alligators and orchids.

So what's moss for which masses?

For whose holly with ducklings?

A gar jaw? A trailer hitch?

That damn boat ramp.

Mamaw caught the dishwater

to rinse the okra patch. Her knotty

cypress knees kneading troweled

soil. Her handkerchief so Boraxed,

so lavendered. Her hymn ever-

so baptized, so spring-fed.

Sleep Mamaw. We're singing now.

Your bread bags are folded

in every kitchen drawer.



Originally appeared in MiPoesias

Update, ish

F Fresh news at the DIY blog E

Been very behind over there.

This partial update includes new reviews of chaps from Kitchen Press, Effing, Hot Whiskey, Noemi, and others, plus a new release announcements by shadowbox press. Go clicky.

More, oh so much more, to come.

What the flyer doesn't specify: Atlanta, GA; AWP; ass-kicking

[expired]

New(s)

I went for a long walk in my new neighborhood yesterday, snapping photos, only to discover that I had no CF card in my Rebel. Dang. So I can't show you.

But I discovered some grave markers so old they are just sort of smoothly rippled instead of engraved they're so worn, angled like crooked teeth in a mouth of snow.

& a seen-better-days luncheonette that's been operating since at least 1909, with a band of regulars who argue and drink coffee all day. Every day. For as long as anyone can remember.

& an unused rail station that's been restored, just in case, or to receive some new office or business. The ticket windows are beautiful.

& learned the name of the color of our house (one of the five mandated within the confines of the historical district): Federalist Blue.

& rebuffed a mattress salesman who oozed approximately two lies per minute. (Wow. Really. Who is that clueless?)

& learned never to drive into Queens on a Friday before a long weekend. (Um, really, I should have already known better. But I forgot about the holiday (since I'm not off) & had to pick up some recovered chairs. Worth it. They're sooooo like-new.)

& discovered a sculpture park, a German-Czech restaurant, live jazz, live blues, a hillybilly bar (self-described) with karaoke, several lovely new county roads, & a barbecued rib joint. Haven't tried any of them yet, except the roads.

+++

Unrelated: my sister sold some drama books to Aragorn this morning.

Aw shucks

Ian on some poems in Dusie.

Allen in Galatea Resurrects on Down Spooky. (Again! Eileen is so indulgent!)

There's also another review of Down Spooky by Tom Fink in the new Verse. (Print only.)

Thanks, guys.

(Speaking of DS, the most reliable & surely the quickest way to get the book is via the PayPal button to your right. Those come direct from me (& often with surprise extras). Unless you are near one of the bookstores listed here.)

FUND RAISER FOR FRANK SHERLOCK tomorrow at the Poetry Project

I can't go, but you should go. More info here.

Saturday, February 17, 3:00-4:00 pm
The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church
131 East 10th Street (at Second Avenue)
New York City 10003

Trains: 6, F, N, R, and L.
info@poetryproject.com

$20 suggested donation (please give what you can)

Performers include Anselm Berrigan, Eddie Berrigan, John Coletti,
Cori Copp, Marcella Durand, Greg Fuchs, Brenda Iijima,
Mark Lamoureux & Carol Mirakove

testing

i sent a post via email earlier and it got ghosted

wherefore are thou, oh surely brilliant?

i kept no copy

i don't even have the satisfaction of deletion

it's a cruel, cruel internet

stuck in a tube

DC & Baltimore, get ready to rhumba

This weekend is gonna boss a nova & spontaneously create several new black holes in parallel universes, such as the one where POETRY READINGS ARE NOT BORING.

SATURDAY: An Evening of Flarf

i.e. reading series presents
The Flarf Collective
Sat. Feb. 17th- 7 pm til? @!
Dionysus Restaurant & Lounge
8 E. Preston Street, Baltimore, MD
410-244-1020


SUNDAY: An Afternoon of Flarf

IN Y O U R E A R R E A D I N G S E R I E S
@ District of Columbia Arts Center
2438 18th Street NW, Washington DC
Sun. Feb. 18th, 3 - 6 pm

Performers will include:

Katie Degentesh, author of The Anger Scale
Drew Gardner, author of Petroleum Hat & Sugar Pill
Benjamin Friedlander, author of A Knot is Not a Tangle & Simulcast
Nada Gordon, auhor of V. Imp & Foriegnn Bodie
Rodney Koeneke, author of Musee Mechanique & Rouge State
Michael Magee, author of Mainstream & My Angie Dickinson
Sharon Mesmer, author of In Ordinary Time & The Empty Quarter
Mel Nichols, author of Day Poems
Rod Smith, author of Music or Honesty & The Good House
Gary Sullivan, author of How to Proceed in the Arts & Elsewhere

+ Film by Brandon Downing, author of Dark Brandon

Incredibly (really, I can't believe it) lucky

& grateful to the same extent

New at this whole country-living thing

I'm pretty sure the traffic cam being frozen over is a bad sign?

Reading report from Cambridge

Jack does a much better job than I coulda, especially now, and flatters besides. BONUS.

(Thank you, Jack.)

Snow day

Or, rather, a Wintry Mix day.

Slush

Ice

Sleet

Yeah

Schools closed

Sections of highway closed

Local streets unplowed (though they have been salted, but since it's still coming down, no helpy)

An interview w/ a salt truck driver in Philly (we're not so far, really, and get Philly news as local) giving his advice on "how to drive in these conditions": Don't. Stay home. Get some soup, and some movies.

Under this poem is another poem

That'd be "Under This Umbrella Is Another Umbrella," I believe.

I'm going to have to learn to do this version aloud.

(Thanks, to Eiríkur.)

What we learned on our trip to Cambridge

1. Yonkers is not in New York City, nor is it on the appropriate side of the Hudson River. Twice.

2. Women cannot drive. It's a mystery that they are able to make their own hotel reservations, or handle the money/have credit in their own names to pay for them. Nor can they intuit that the directions given on the hotel's website do *not* actually lead to the hotel. (Who do these bitches think they are?!) Also, they shouldn't curse so much. It's unladylike.

3. White people are like erasure. And also like Erasure.

4. Three burgers in one weekend is not too many.

5. Jiggling a comically oversized bottle of English beer between one's boobs for approximately 4 seconds brings it to optimum temp, for increased flavor. (& better tips.)

6. Made-for-teevee movies should all have opening scenes written by Dan Bouchard.

7. Bukowski most likely did not write on an Olivetti Valentine, but I could be wrong. However, I am too uninterested to look it up.

8. It's true: diapers do save time.

I barely remember the actual reading. I wasn't intoxicated. I was just road-weary and nervous. But Chris has some pics at the So and So site.

Tonight, in Cambridge

Saturday, February 10 at 8:00 PM in Cambridge, MA

Shanna Compton, Katie Degentesh, Jen Tynes, & Sampson Starkweather
read at the So and So Series
Hosted by Chris Tonelli

Lily Pad
Inman Square
1353 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA

Note: The Lily Pad has completed its renovations, so the venue
will not be changing to Porter's Square Books.

Sure. I'll try that.

I joined the health club in my new town (which is ridiculously cheap, like cheaper by far for both of us to join than for one of just us to join in NYC, which we never did do, not being millionaires. The new gym is a very comfortable unskeevy women-friendly place but serious without being like Lucille's Curves, and the music is much less obnoxious. There is no disco ball or supplement bar. There are some very fit elderlies (70+), which pleased me greatly to see. Anyway, in the country being healthy costs far less. Good.)

So, I was fully assessed this morning.
My results were actually a little better than I figured.
(Double entendre there, intended.)

At the end of my session, I received a report that included a list of things to work on.

One was: Reduce sense of struggle.

Frank Sherlock now tax deductible!

From Conrad at PhillySound blog (just in case you're not looking):

UPDATE on the Frank Sherlock EMERGENCY FUND

Thanks to the generosity of Juliana Spahr you can now send checks for the Frank Sherlock EMERGENCY FUND which will be tax deductible!

'A 'A ARTS
c/o J. Spahr
5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94613

CHECKS SHOULD BE MADE OUT TO "'A 'A ARTS"
and these checks will be tax deductible.
PLEASE MAKE A NOTE THAT YOUR CHECK IS FOR FRANK SHERLOCK.
Thanks so much! Your donations are very much appreciated!

from the Friends of Frank Sherlock

Happy birthday, honey

Hmm

Cute (scroll down) vs. Hot

Which is not to say the cute poem isn't, uh, cute. But remarkably similar, down to the spelling of the key word. And the hot ass bird even transmogrifies into "Robin."

For Frank

Wow, stunned: I had no idea until a second ago Frank Sherlock's been in the hospital. He's one of the peeps with whom I'm writing a round of collaborative poems at the moment and this news somehow hadn't even reached that email list! Here's hoping/wishing/praying he recovers well and soon, and more from CAConrad on how to help, since Frank doesn't currently have health insurance.

Please post, forward, etc.

Is this something that Poets In Need org could help with? (UPDATE: Michael Rothenberg says they are responding, that org. & Conrad says other agencies/orgs have been contacted too. Benefits are in the works as well.)

The kind of care Frank needs (and has already received) is VERY expensive, so it's likely going to be a whopper of a bill. (Who cares right now about the bill, until Frank is 100%, but eventually it will have to be paid I guess, and also, obviously, he cannot go to work like a fully functioning uninsured citizen of the richest country in the universe.)

The best site for updates will be the PhillySound blog here. I neglected to link to that earlier in a rush and some shock, my sorries.)
__________

Frank Sherlock EMERGENCY FUND!

Our good friend Frank Sherlock was rushed to the hospital January 22nd with a sudden
and mysterious illness which turned out to be a serious case of meningitis. He needed
emergency surgery, and also suffered a heart attack and kidney failure as a result
of symptoms related to the illness.

The timing could not be worse as this attack of meningitis happened during the two
month window in which Frank is without health insurance.

His friends have come together to help raise money at this critical time. We are
reaching out to other friends and the poetry community on Frank's behalf. Please
consider sending donations for his hospital bills, physical therapy, as well as
his very expensive medications and other needs.

If you can make a donation by check or money order at this time please send it to
Frank's longtime friend Matthew McGoldrick.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please make check or money order out to Matthew McGoldrick, and
send to his address:

1504 Morris St.
Philadelphia PA 19145

We will be having a benefit show in Philadelphia in the very near future. If you
would like to be notified of that event please e-mail CAConrad13@aol.com for the
details. Frank's poetry page can be found here.

THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT, AND PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD,
from the Friends of Frank Sherlock

It's just that there are so many new things

& also it's 9 degrees.

9.

That's a number I don't like to see on a thermometer.

__

I started reading The Triggering Town on the train yesterday. One more essay to go.

I know what Hugo means about landscape. Coming across a pleasing arrangement of (usually for me) openness feels (in the body) the same way that a-poem-is-coming feels.

__

Here's a window.

How much the Adams Book Company deserves your scorn.

So, in Brooklyn, there's this guy named Adam. He's a very nice guy. I've met him twice.

He opened a bookstore in my (until recently) neighborhood. It's a great store. I bought about a dozen things there.

He has been cease-and-desisted by these asshats.

So he's changed the bookstore name to Unnameable Books, which is clever. But his own name is still Adam. His own name is beyond their reach.

A cursory peek at their website easily shows the two businesses have zero overlap. There is nothing for the ABC to get all proprietary about. Adam's one-room used & new bookstore in Brooklyn in no way impinges on their textbook territory. The name of the company is not so unique. If they tried to take Adam to court they'd be told they have no case.

This kind of shit really pisses me off. It's one of the uglier symptoms of American Capitalism. It's gross.

Anyway, you can write to the Adams Book Company to tell them how ridiculous they are here: csdept@adamsbook.com.

And hey, I know some of you are teachers of K-12, and some of you work for publishers which supply ABC--maybe find another outlet, eh? And some of you also write for publications like Library Journal, Chronicle of Higher Education, or say, Publishers Weekly, right? Well, hint hint.

UPDATE: I wrote them a letter. I don't care if it doesn't help. Here's the contact info. Give 'em some hell, if you've got it to spare.

Phone Number: (800) 221-0909
Fax Number:(888) 229-2650

customerservice@adamsbook.com
Orders@adamsbook.com
Sales@adamsbook.com
Returns@adamsbook.com
billing@adamsbook.com

And, hey, if you feel like going in person, here's a physical address:

Adams Book Company, Inc.
Order Department
537 Sackett Street
Brooklyn, NY 11217

Walking distance from (the real) Adam's Books too.

Bye, Molly.

Molly Ivins, humorist, author, speech writer, all-around kickass lady: 1944-2007.

I don't know the credit for this wonderful portrait, and the text is kind of light here. It's a quotation: "The best way to get the sons of bitches is to make people laugh at them."

Yep.

Danielle tells Kate all about it