Author: playhaus2015

Flashback: One poem in Shattered Wig Review

img_1954That time I (finally) got a poem published in Baltimore’s Shattered Wig Review, a journal based out of Normal’s Bookstore (at the time), landing in Issue #17. “Folie a Deux” was one of my best pieces, IMHO. The whole issue is over the top with collages, pieces by Blaster Al Ackerman (fiction and art, plus photos of the man himself!), Batworth, Mok Hosfeld, John Bennett, and editor Rupert Wondolowski, as well as “Pretty Beaver” cartoons by my friends Mary Knott and Beppi, among lots of other wild stuff. No date on the rag, but this was definitely circa 1996.

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“The Queen’s Needle” published in Otoliths: text, vispo, and video

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The new issue of Otoliths, number 47, was released this morning. Another amazing issue filled with visual and textual poetry of all types. It also includes a set of materials from me: a textual poem “The Queen’s Needle” plus a new video using a section of that piece, and seven stills from the video. You can view it all here .

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“First Day On” and two other poems published in Chiron Review

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The Summer 2017 issue of Chiron Review is finally out (#108), with a load of tough, straight-talking poetry from writers like Gerald Locklin, Lyn Lifshin, and Marge Piercy among a huge assortment of other folks. I’m pleased to say that three of my poems made it into this issue: “First Day On,” “Hit the Shoes,” and “Tonight’s Window.”

This is a print-only issue, so interested parties will need to purchase one from the Chiron Review website.

“Hit the Shoes” is particularly notable for me, as it loosely transcribes one of my Dad’s rants in a New Jersey hotel room after helping my sister and her now ex-husband move out of their apartment. Naturally, I didn’t attempt to record this blast until later, but I think I captured the essence.

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“Temples of Tulum” published in Streetcake

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An online magazine for “innovative, experimental, and visual writing,” Streetcake just released it’s latest installment. Issue 54 is a quick read with many interesting pieces. It also includes my poem “Temples of Tulum.” This is another piece in my Civilization’s Lost series, inspired by lost civilizations around the world and examining the fragility of languages, cultures and nations. You can read it here.

Flashback: Golden Poet Award 1991

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I found this “beautiful certificate” in a folder filled with miscellaneous literary correspondence. World of Poetry ran many contests, and anyone who entered would get one of these mass printed forms. I’m not sure it inspired me to “new poetical heights,” but I did write a subversively sentimental poem for one of their contests.

Back in the 90’s, it seemed rather amusing to send stuff to them. Once I got an Honorary Mention Award, but haven’t found that yet. The company made money by compiling huge books filled with sentimental poetry and selling them to the Golden Poets who “contributed.” I could have ordered the “brass and walnut Golden Poet Plaque” mentioned below, but I never did that either. So I have nothing to “celebrate my greatness.”

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Judging by a quick Internet search, World of Poetry no longer exists. That would seem to leave a huge vacancy for an organization to boost poetic egos while fleecing them of their money. I wonder what happened to Edde-Lou Cole and her poetry mission?

Amazon sale on Savage Night and Other Stories

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Goofing around on Amazon today, I noticed they are offering copies of my book Savage Night and Other Stories for only $4.41. That’s a huge discount on the $19.99 list price! What a great opportunity to grab a copy if you’re interested. Check it out here.

This book collects a bunch of my early experimental science fiction stories alongside my early science fiction novel Savage Night, which uses the Ancient Egyptian myth of crossing the Land of the Dead to describe a journey into the self. Thematically, everything here seems to follow the classic sex or death duality, often at the same time.

Not sure how many they have at this price. I would buy them all, but I still have a couple big boxes of them from the last time I saw the price drop. After my royalty payment, I got copies for a buck each.

Although the back cover synopsis is available on the listing, here it is anyway:

Two books in one this collection includes a short novel Savage Night and a group of stories exploring similar themes of death control self actualization and the conflict between the socialized self and the True or inner self. In Savage Night, Jean Savage is a crew member on an industrial ship forced to land on a desolate planet so its parent corporation can form an alliance with the ultimate enforcers of control the serpent headed demons of the Duat, a nocturnal underworld the Ancient Egyptians visualized in their funereal text The Book of Coming into Day. Not content to own the bodies of its employees, the RA corporation wants to exploit their souls as well In the Duat there are no enemies of RA. Not anymore. Fighting a guerilla war using sex magic rituals and protective spells, Jean struggles against the corporation and its demon allies to keep her true self alive until the dawn that brings escape. But her biggest challenge is finding her own soul her True Self ,which has been lost in layers of social psychological and corporate control.

“Other Stories” features two early Jean Savage texts exploring similar themes in different contexts where she is a juvenile delinquent struggling against the hostile influences of family and society. There are also stories involving killer clowns spreading a bizarre sex virus, pirates seeking immortality in deep space, a trio of eco terrorist mermaids, and the gingerbread man as a computer hacker. Using black humor, social satire, violent eroticism, science fiction motifs, and experimental narrative structures, these compelling yarns perform themselves in the cinema of the mind s eye.

“Dance with the Last Angel” published by In Between Hangovers

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One more poem in venerable underground poetry blog In Between Hangovers, part of their daily dose of outsider scribbling. This time “Dance with the Last Angel” makes its first appearance in print. You can read it here. While you’re there, check out the work of Tristram, Catlin and Babbs, also appearing today.