Latest publications:
Today, In Between Hangovers published “Up Off the Crapper.” You can read it here. The journal will be releasing a batch of my poems throughout the summer.
One more visual poem in the H& vispo blog appeared yesterday, June 19. This one’s called “Civilization’s Lost–6” and you an check it out here. This piece is another still from a video you can see on the Bionic Eyes YouTube channel.
In yet another blatant attempt to generate sales for my book Cthulhu Limericks, I created this promotional video, now live on the Bionic Eyes YouTube channel. You can check out the book in eBook and old school paperback formats through Amazon, Lulu, and other retailers.
The video has a rudimentary “plot” in which a reader picks up the book, and while reading a sample limerick is transported to a glitched out, eldritch world where Cthulhu darts forward to capture his prey!
That time Buck Downs published two of my poems in his DC poetry journal Open 24 Hours #10, back in 1994. According to a note I found with copies of the mag, Buck saw me reading at an open mic night at the old 15 Minutes nightclub in DC. Liking what he heard, he requested some pieces, and of those, he took “Best Left to Herself” and “The Odor of Business is Business.”
DC is not an easy town for artists to gain traction in, and Buck has long been an inspiration to me because he never gives up. Although he stopped editing O24H a long time ago, he’s still very active in the DC poetry scene with his poetry postcard mailings, running a poetry reading series, and publishing books. I always run into him in the oddest places around town–random coffee shops, Second Story Books, Bridge Street Books, DC Zine Fair–and often when I’m putting up street art! When I organized the free-improvisation ensemble Croniamantal, he served as the first bard, reading poetry to a backdrop of experimental electronics. But that’s another post!
Three poems appeared today in Summer edition of Indiana Voice Journal, Issue #35: “Caged Blue,” “The Fox is Now Gone,” and “Maximum Beat.” You can read them here.
New publications this week:
Hudson Valley literary journal RiverRiver broke out a shiny new web design for their Spring 2017 issue, which includes my poem “Modern (American) Lifeline.” You can read it here.
One “Civilization’s Lost” film still in H&, a journal of experimental visual poetry. You can check it out here. This is another excerpt from some glitch video work.
One text poem in Black Poppy Review. You can read “The Lock of Victorian Hair” here.
In Between Hangovers accepted a batch of work to be published over the next couple months. “Vegetarian Is the Night” was released on Thursday, May 26. You can read it here.
On May 16, Futures Trading, issue 5.1 was released into cyberspace containing one of my poems, “Excuse from Another Dimension.” You can find it by scrolling to the bottom of the page in the issue, or by going to the Scribd page here.
Lots of other interesting experimental work in this issue, as well, so check it out!
That time two of my poems appeared in GYST #3, from 1992: “In America” and “Sentimental Grunge.” GYST (an acronym for “Get Your Shit Together”) was a digest sized, DC based literary magazine edited by Art Schuhart, Zach Barocas, and Edgar Silex. Art ran an open mic poetry series at the 15 Minutes nightclub in the early 90’s, which I attended pretty regularly. To be honest, I don’t remember these poems at all!
I recently discovered that my article on rubber band balls can be found on the Utne Reader website. You can read “Rubber Band Balls: The Ultimate Collector’s Item” here.
The article was first published under the title “The Joy of Rubber Balling” in my music fanzine Mole, issue #12, back in May 1999. It describes my obsession with creating and maintaining a rubber band ball. On the next page, I interviewed my friend David Craig about his own experiences creating a rubber band ball (see below). As with a lot of things, he got in on the trend first. The “director’s cut” version appears on my website here.
Needless to say, I was rather shocked when Utne Reader picked the article up for reprinting, which they did under the title “Bandarama” (Utne Reader #101, Sept-Oct 2000). Especially nice: getting paid for the piece. In some way, a paycheck helped justify all the wasted time putting together a fanzine. Not to mention the time wasted assembling a giant rubber band ball. (Coincidentally, I found the images of the Utne cover and my article in an Ebay listing; strange that “Bandarama” was one of the sample pages!)
One of the major differences between the two printings was the title, and the omission of my subtitle. The more professional rag seemed not to like the vague innuendo contained in my version. It’s funny that for their website, they changed the title again.
Yes, you do see Vanilla Ice’s name in the lower left corner of the Mole cover. I interviewed him about an outsider art site in Homestead, Florida, called the Coral Castle. It featured in a promotional photo his record company provided with his comeback CD. Turns out, he was quite an authority on the place. But that’s another post.
I still have that rubber band ball today, although I’m not as diligent about maintaining it. It’s gotten pretty furry with neglect, so I’ve been doing some serious re-surfacing with fresh rubber. It could still use a lot more bands. At this point the ball weighs 7 lbs 11 oz.
A few more poems appearing in digital print:
Poetry blog Experiential-Experimental Literature (aka Ex-Ex-Lit) posted “Trapped by the Pyramid” on May 8. You can read it here.
Online journal Sick Lit–tag line “Bringing the real. Keeping the weird.”–posted four poems on May 5: “Research on the Line,” “Hidden Curriculum,” “At a traffic light, looked up,” and “If the world can get me to sleep.” You can read them here.
Just catching up on some publications after a trip to the Southern California desert: Joshua Tree, Slab City, Salvation Mountain, Mount San Jacinto, the Cabazon Dinosaurs, and the Palm Springs Tonga Hut.
Over the break, three different journals included my work on May 1:
A big group of multi-media material appeared in Otoliths #45, including a textual poem, a video poem, and six stills from the video. “The Earth Remains Flat” is one of the pieces I’ve been working on lately with the theme of “Civilization’s Lost.” I used a section of the text as an overlay in a video poem of the same name, and then pulled stills from the video. Some of the images dig into asemic territory. You can view it all here.
“The Haunting” appeared in Black Poppy Review. You can read it here.
“One for the Road” appeared in In Between Hangovers. You can read it here.
jeff bagato 