&

All hail The Mighty Cotter!

Gracie Photography

My little sister is a mighty fine photographer down in Texas!

AuPoWriMo #3

Now And Then A Miracle

In the strangest places,
we begin sentences with
nouns, verbs, prepositions --
words; eternity is a place,
but it isn't necessarily
where YOU'LL be placed.

But every now and then,
a miracle: corks keep
fine wine fresh for a while,
and when a cork bangs
out of a bottle, it isn't a death
but a pop,

and the nature
of this room, this poem
is prepositional; I can
sit next to a sound,
and my life will be
fresh next lifetime.

AuPoWriMo etceterizes!

The Big Robot Mechanical

Some people (people
like Ann) know fear
comes from the birds
you CAN'T see, not
the mocking birds
outside your window
committing vice after vice
of verse.

Ann crowed with fear
and pride and prayer
when she killed the crow;
her lifelong fear of birds
cowered in the corner
of her momentary mind.

The big robot mechanical bird
rusts and baits his abbreviated breath
and wonders how long he can wait
for the plump crow to land
in his hungry beak, and wonders
how long his love can shine
with a green patina while he waits
for Ann to love him.

Another Cosmic Rodeo

We are strapping on our helmets for another cosmic rodeo ride at Pete's Candy Store as CA Conrad and I read poetry with an assortment of Canadian Folk Rockers.


PETE'S CANDY STORE in Brooklyn 8/26, 8pm

Saturday, August 26th @ Pete's Candy Store709 Lorimer St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 11211http://petescandystore.com

Uncle LD Beghtol
So L'il
CAConrad
I Feel Tractor
Shafer Hall

Uncle LD Beghtol is the leader of orchpop collective Flare, one half of the willfully obscurebicoastal experimental duo, Moth Wranglers, and approximately one third of The ThreeTerrors (with Stephin Merritt and Dudley Klute). (He can also be seen singing in Magnetic Fields from time to time, appearing quite a bit on '69 Love Songs').His latest album, LD & The New Criticism recently came out on Darla."Beghtol bends his baroque goth-pop westward in the new band's autotelicdebut, Tragic Realism is a gory, uke-joint country (think Haggard ca. '68 viaLovecraft and horror flix), backwoods folk-gospel raveup sure to bring a Zoloft smile to your face, and often." -- VILLAGE VOICE. File under: Experimental Countrypolitan Deathpop. Please see: http://www.myspace.com/thenewcriticismand: http://thenewcriticism.com

So L'il is Frances Sorensen & Ben Malkin, all harmonies, go-go percussion,waves wash over you melodic juno, rhythmic wings of strummed gibson, at times swing,at times drone, shine-a-light-on simple ambient pop with the cracked eye lyrics of cut-up inside (light shining through the cracks of somewhere behind). In the last four years So L'il has released a 6-song self-titled EP, one split 7-inchwith the band Timesbold (both on Neko Records), the full-length 'Revolution Thumpin', and their most recent full-length, 'Dear Kathy,' both on GoodbyeBetter. They are currently at work on a new EP. "If you think electronic music has gone too far back and needs to move forwarda decade, So L'il are your new heroes." - Mundane Sounds Please see: http://solil.net and: http://www.myspace.com/solil

CAConrad's childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. He escaped to Philadelphia the first chance he got, where he lives and writes today with the PhillySound poets. He coedits FREQUENCYAudio Journal with Magdalena Zurawski, and edits the 9for9 project. Soft Skull Pressis publishing his first book of poems titled Deviant Propulsion, available in Fallof 2005. His book The Frank Poems is forthcoming from The Jargon Society. He is the author of several chapbooks, including (end-begin w/chants), a collaborationwith Frank Sherlock. Please see: http://caconrad.blogspot.com/

I Feel Tractor. Eddie Berrigan is a New York poet and musician who performs under the name of I Feel Tractor. His songs are playful retakes of traditional folk and country genres& their subtle, funny lyrics and far-flung imagery create unusual landscapes of both physical and emotional territory. The author of the poetry collection Disarming Matter (1999, Owl Press) and several chapbooks, Eddie as I Feel Tractor released a self-titled 7-inch last year (Loudmouth Collective) and just last month released it's first full-length recording, 'Once I Had An Earthquake', on Goodbye Better. Please see: http://www.myspace.com/ifeeltractor
http://goodbyebetter.com for more info.

Shafer Hall used to wear a red glitter crash helmet with a bootleg Playboy bunny logo stickered on the side. Now the bones in his head have hardened into a skull. Please see: http://www.shafervineyards.com/store.html

Watch out world!

Sam Amadon and other fine folks will be immortalized in the Octopus Magazine chapbook issue.

August is National Poetry Month!

How The Troll Measures Time
compliments Lindsay Anderberg

I have a tent made out of placenta.
I call it my "platenta,"
and when my lazy third eye
feels like wandering
around this storm,
I can crawl inside
and take the ride
less taken, the one
where the shiny waxy liquid
candy spreads thinly
across my head
and hardens to a neat
red mold of my brain.

Whatever you call it --
call it "sunset," call it
"cotton," call it "feeling
the muscles in your ankles
before they're warm,"
it'll make perfect sense;
it'll be one more afternoon.

I've got a new pair of glasses.

Big Names on Big Game

Hey Folks,

A small but well-designed collection of poems I wrote with my friend Maureen Thorson is available now at Big Game Books.

The collection is called "Villanelles are Retarded." It is our homage to poetry's most ridiculous form.

It is available on this site: http://www.reenhead.com/biggame/biggame.html. The "Buy Now" button is just below the second cover photo.

Love,
Shay