Very pleased to be back in Unlikely Stories today with three poems: “The Popcorn Saga,” “A Simple Shelter from the Gaze,” and “The Car Chase Comes Too Soon.” You can read them here.
poems
“A Bleeding Screen of Need” and two other poems published in Synchronized Chaos
Online poetry issue just released its first issue of 2020 on New Year’s Day, including a wide variety of work centered on the theme of “Co-evolution and Adaptation.” Three of my poems appear in this one: “A Bleeding Screen of Need,” “The Pieces Fail to Fit,” and “Salamander Tides.”
The editor wrote a nice introduction to the pieces, noting: “In Jeff Bagato’s poetry, speakers resist oblivion in various ways: creating digital identities, building objects as a distraction, even lashing together sticks to form a raft in a rushing current.” You can read the poems here.
Four Gonch poems published in X-Peri
X-Peri is an online blogozine for “high experimentalism,” which seems to mean really deep space language play judging by previous installments. I’m pleased to be part of it with the journal’s last post of the year, published yesterday, Dec 23. There are four poems written in “gonch” language, which means words composed from the letters of the phrase “all gonch”: “Chac Ghanagan Colhaggach Angacalla,” “Ocanongna,” “Anga Hagna Cagacna,” and “Nallanach Choc Hanol.” Plus one image from the Gonchlog made from letters drawn from some old issue of Rhapsody magazine. You can check it all out here.
“Contesting the Homeland” published in The Pedestal
Online literary magazine The Pedestal just released its Issue 85 today, marking the journal’s 19th anniversary. This one features a selection of poetry and book reviews. My poem “Contesting the Homeland” is included, part of my series dealing with lost civilizations, along with a sound file of my reading of the piece. You can check it out here.
Two text pieces and five visual poems published in Avant Appal(achia)
An online journal for experimental arts, Avant Appal(achia) just released Is(sue) #8 yesterday. It includes a video, poems, visual poetry, art and stories. I’m pleased to be included with two short text pieces from my series inspired by AI language invention, “Let’s Do This” and “Das Processor,” and five visual poems with asemic elements. You can check it all out on this page–until the next issue when everything will be replaced and a few pieces will be archived: https://www.avantappalachia.com/
“Hot Dogs Can’t Sing” published in Rat’s Ass Review
The Winter 2019 issue of Rat’s Ass Review was released today. Lots of great stuff in this issue. I’m pleased to be part of it with one poem called “Hot Dogs Can’t Sing.” Excerpt below. Check out the full issue here.
“Gravy Pills,” one other text, and five asemic vispo published in Otoliths 55
Just released, Otoliths #55, the Southern Autumn 2019 issue, is jam packed as usual with fine text, vispo and hybrid experiments from across the international literary avant garde. I’m pleased to be represented with two new texts, “Gravy Pills” and “Phantom Gold,” plus five new visual poems with asemic writing. You can view them here.
The texts continue experiments with AI language poems, this time using vocabulary drawn from the magical thinking of the average American. The vispo are a small selection from a kind of diary of a extraplanetary colony world.
“Corporeal Economics” published in Streetcake #64
An online literary magazine for experimental poetry, Streetcake just released its 64th issue today–the largest I’ve seen to date. This one includes my poem “Corporeal Economics.”
You can view the entire issue here.
Halloween humor: Cthulhu Limericks
Looking for some Halloween humor? Cthulhu Limericks is available on Amazon! This collection of 70+ rhymed verses based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos combines horror and humor in equal measure to demonstrate that man’s view of himself as the center of a known space-time continuum remains laughably out of scale with the reality that ancient forces control his world.
Best of Net Nomination for “Ouija Leans In”
I was pleasantly surprised to hear from Midnight Lane Boutique editor Johnny Longfellow yesterday, telling me he had nominated my poem “Ouija Leans In” for the Best of the Net Anthology 2019. He announced his nominations, which included pieces by Kimo Armitage and Joan Colby, on the journal’s website here.
Even more flattering was the thoughtful analysis he wrote of my work:
Despite its seemingly supernatural underpinnings, this poem speaks directly to the difficulties of not simply communicating with others, but of sometimes even finding the words to express a complete thought. Not simply a fine example of contemporary absurdism, this poem also illustrates the utility of using the so-called “pathetic fallacy” that many less daring writers would not even think to attempt. And, it does so with both sly humor and rich imagery.
Aside from making the piece sound smarter than it actually is, this note helped me understand how other people might read and understand one of my poems. It’s been over 30 years since I read nineteenth century art critic John Ruskin in grad school, so I had to google his term “pathetic fallacy” to find out it refers to the rather lazy poetic tendency to anthropomorphize inanimate objects, particularly in the work of Wordsworth, Keats and other Romantics. The sentimentality of a “chuckling brook” or a “jolly breeze” really rubbed Ruskin the wrong way. I wonder what he would have thought about using a Ouija board as a character in a poem?
Anyway, Johnny Longfellow published “Ouija Leans In,” along with two other poems featuring Ouija, in Midnight Lane Boutique on August 3, 2018. You can read them here.
jeff bagato 