Thursday, October 31, 2013

fiction & minecraft

I have 9 flash fiction pieces from Bombyonder in the new Map Literary. 

No titties, but maybe you'll like them anyway? 

But seriously, "A Good Titty is Hard to Find" is getting a lot of attention.

I write and write and write years of torment and it's deafening crickets. I write "titty" "titty" "titty" and suddenly I'm universal.

The world wants what the world wants.

G is obsessed with Minecraft. This Halloween he was Minecraft Universe. None of the olds knew what he was, but the kids, they knew.



Monday, October 28, 2013

Poem-A-Day




Every seven years or so I write a poem that people want to read. It must be about that time again because Rauan Klassnik has selected my poem "A Good Titty Is Hard To Find" for his Poem-A-Day series. Now for those of you reading at work, I should warn you that this poem uses the word "titty" in case that kind of language is deemed inappropriate at your place of employment. I don't want anyone getting in any trouble over one good titty poem.


Saturday, October 5, 2013

The Bibliomancy Oracle's Government Shutdown Prophecies

The Bibliomancy Oracle currently offers over 1800 potential prophecies. Last night I asked a series of questions regarding the government shutdown. I asked each question once and included below the first answer given:



How will the shutdown play out for the Tea Party?

Fail. Now—
there’s a beautiful name for a girl.

*

from “The Dutiful Sister Ever Failing” by Kirsten Kaschock


How will the shutdown play out for the Republicans in general?

The sleeper in our bed isn’t us
but a projection, a template to dream on.

*

from “HAMARTIA” by Alexis Orgera


How will the shutdown play out for the Democrats?

I suspect you enjoy your crank letters to advice columnists. Still, you’re not doing anything wrong, so please don’t give it up yet. Regret is the cancer of life.

*

from “Looking For a Few Miles of Adventure with Dear Abby” by T.A. Noonan


How will the shutdown play out for President Obama?

That was before there was no way to get to
The other side without going the long way around,

*

from “Was” by Dara Wier

How will the shutdown play out for House Speaker Boehner?

When you listen to Leonard Cohen to cheer up,
you know it’s pretty bad.

*

from “You Know It’s Pretty Bad” by Gary Charles Wilkens


How will the shutdown play out for the furloughed government workers?

Brand new weather is never in question

No need to remove the you, just enjoin foreign tongues

Add another row of chairs

Welcome the aquarium above your head

*

from “Fixing” by Jackie Clark

How will the shutdown play out for American citizens?

You can feel good about half of everything & the half that seems to be missing Just feel for it

*

from “You Can Feel Good About” by Frank Sherlock

How will the shutdown play out for the rest of the world?

It wouldn’t have mattered if you danced
all night, let your breasts
shimmy out of the slim top

*

from “STACCATO” by Marvin Shackelford


* * *

Well, there you have it. So says the Bibliomancy Oracle!

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

bombyonder and beyond

Selections from my novel, Bombyonder, were recently published in Redux (an earlier version of this piece appeared in the print publication Eleven Eleven) and the Prose Poem issue (guest edited by Abigail Beckel) of Beltway Poetry Quarterly. In this Beltway issue there's also work by Paulette Beete, Nancy Naomi Carlson, Grace Cavalieri, Gail Braune Comorat, J.K. Daniels, Christina Daub, Barbara Westwood Diehl, Danielle Evennou, David Gewanter, Barbara Goldberg, Michael Gushue, Daniel Gutstein, Donald Illich, Danuta Kosk-Kosicka, Caryn Lazzuri,Flavian Mark Lupinetti, Tony Mancus, David McAleavey, Chloe Yelena Miller, E. Ethelbert Miller, Lalita Noronha, A.K. Padovich, Elizabeth Poliner, Elisavietta Ritchie, Jane Satterfield, Diamond J. Sharp, Eleanor Bevil Tipton, Jessie van Eerden, Stacia Cyrene Yearwood.

I'm nearing the point where I need to decide how I'm going to release Bombyonder as a whole into the world. There are a handful of presses I have in mind to approach. Still researching others that I think would be open to this strange book. I'm also considering putting it out myself. Pros and cons to both options. I'm calling Bombyonder a "novel" and it mostly is, although I've been publishing pieces from it as "poetry," "prose," "fiction," "hybrid" or whatever the editor wants to call it. I used to care a lot more about how my work was labelled than I do now. If you have any suggestions for presses or you are an publisher interested in seeing the manuscript, let me know.

Here's a brief synopsis:

After agreeing to her father’s request to slit his throat so his much anticipated legacy can begin, the unnamed protagonist swallows his invention, a “kind” bomb in pill form. This triggers a psychic shattering of sorts which begins with her barfing up a dead bird that she is compelled to rebirth/replace/bury (she’s not sure) by embarking on a fragmented psychic excavation where she commits an additional murder of her husband Um, meets a parrot-faced cat girl and a boy on a donkey and then creates a new lover by decoupaging her husband’s corpse with denim and other household craft items.

Throughout the novel the protagonist struggles to recognize both the roots of her malaise and why she repeatedly searches for solutions/escape through her bizarre partnerships with men. She muddles through with help from her friend, Lily, a straight-texter who lives in a box inside a box and by mysterious, anonymous notes written to her by the Carries, her long gone female ancestors and the example of Medusa, her role model. When the protagonist finally acknowledges that romantic partnerships are not the way to improve on her situation, she connects with her unconceived brother, Rauan, who never existed (due to a genetic condition affecting all the women on her mother’s side that doesn’t allow male zygotes to develop in their wombs). Rauan desperately wants to connected with their abusive mother, the Worm Queen, while the protagonist makes plans to smother her to death with a pillow. Friction develops between the siblings who clearly desire different outcomes and as Rauan tries to overcome his non-conception to become a tangible, corporeal being.

Eventually the protagonist alone must face her worm-filled mother, avenge Rauan’s non-conception, figure out how to birth her vomit bird and through personal historical revisionism create a new life for herself and those she brings with her.

* * *

You know, your typical realist fare.