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.

G reading his wedding poem at Jill & Alvin's wedding

new fiction & berlin

I have three short fiction pieces from Bombyonder up at Hobart. You should read them.

My work these days walks the wire between poetry and fiction. So I'm happy to categorize it however an editor wants.

For the most part.

I think.

We just got back from Berlin last night. Had a great trip. Below is Gideon & me waiting to meet Bernie Geyer & family at the Natural History museum.

This is pretty much how we look these days.

G is a tall kid. And his orthodontia bills are going to break our bank.

worms & poems

I have two pieces from Bombyonder in the final Fringe Magazine. They had a good run and I'm honored to have work in the last issue.

Today my work from Bombyonder has been "made over" or "remixed" by Rauan Klassnik at HTMLGIANT.

Rauan was gentle. He only made me cry twice.

G dug up all the worms used in the photo shoot. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it was something he was truly thrilled to participate in.

And yes, I really put worms on my face. I tried to put one up my nose, but it wouldn't stay and I was impatient to get the worm off my face.

I have now have a collection of "rejects" from the photo shoot. Thank god for social media because what else would I do with them?

new work from Bombyonder

I have four new poems (?) from my novel (?) Bombyonder in Similar Peaks.

If you're interested in catching a glimpse of what I've been working on the past year and a half, there it is.

We're supposed to be getting two rounds of "serious" thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow afternoon, tomorrow being the most severe (and right during the time I pick up G from school). After the significant flooding we got two years ago (when I couldn't even make it to G's school and a tree fell on top off a school bus of special needs kids several yards feet away from the school), the derecho of last summer when several homes in our tree-filled neighborhood were damaged and Hurricane Sandy when a massive tree crushed our next-door neighbor's home (they just moved back last month after the repairs were finally finished) -- I don't mess around when we get these warnings. C is out-of-town this week, but don't worry, in case we lose power (we almost always do) 8 year-old G showed me how to use our portable generator so we don't lose all the food in our fridge and how to manually open the garage door. These days he's totally a grown-ass man. He's taller than my chin and has started calling me his "little girl" which he's not allowed to do until he is actually taller than me, which shouldn't be until about another two years, if I'm lucky. I could become his "little girl" as early as next year at the rate he's growing.

And that's what I get for mating with a giant.

Introducing Gilt Gilda

Been working with some folks on a fun, glossy magazine-type project on Pinterest called Gilt Gilda.

Gilt Gilda is an unruly hoard of cultural capital anxious to be squandered on something truly splendid. Pins by Reb Livingston, Rauan Klassnik, Rebecca Hazelton + guest curators: Jeannine Hall Gailey, Jennifer Barnes and many more to come.

So if you're on Pinterest, please follow us. And if you're not, maybe considering creating an account and following us.

Some of our boards:

Resurrection Request: Who and what we'd like to raise from the dead

Wrapper Gazing: What's on the outside

If I was Nic Cage's Mistress: Oh the things we'd do

A Taste of Rauan's Rabbits & Other Wildlife: From Rauan Klassnik's personal preserve

Reb's Cabinet of Curiosities: Pins from Reb Livingston's fabled vault of sorcery & whimsy

Rebecca's Garden of Questionable Delights: Rebecca Hazelton is bringing out the hoes

Jeannine Hall Gailey: Guest Board

Jennifer Barnes: Guest Board


And more to come, of course, there's always much much more.

And the Big Poetry Giveaway Winner is . . .

Rena Rossner

Congratulations Rena. Please email me your postal address (reb (at) rebaroni (dot) com).



Thank you to everyone who participated. Hope all your poetry dreams came true during National Poetry Month.

I had a wonderful NaPoWriMo -- thanks for asking!