FILM Haunted Landscapes MUSIC Zoe Z POETRY Clark, Devereux, Guarie, Lederer, Roylance, Townsend BOOG CITY PRINTED MATTER McCarthy, Steck A COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER FROM A GROUP OF ARTISTS AND WRITERS BASED IN AND AROUND NEW YORK CITY’S EAST VILLAGE ISSUE 87 FREE SMALL PRESS Fact-Simile

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Sun. Feb. 16-Mon. Feb. 17, 2014 Jonathan Allen art Allen Jonathan

SUNDAY, as fucking sweet as a naturalization ceremony Anthology; Forklift, Ohio; Painted Bride Quarterly; Post Road; Eric Seader 2:50 p.m. that ends in beautifully choreographed slaughter and Washington Square, among others. Her chapbook You http://theburntroses.wordpress.com/ FEBRUARY 16 Americans was published by Green Zone Editions. ‘We Will Mend: Youth Edmund Berrigan 12:40 p.m. 12:00 P.M., Free Edmund Berrigan is the author of Anselm Berrigan 1:30 p.m. Violence and the Healing Unnameable Books two books of poetry, Disarming http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Berrigan-Anselm.php Power of Music’ Matter (Owl Press) and Glad Stone Anselm Berrigan’s recent publications Eric Seader is a paralegal, singer- 600 Vanderbilt Ave. Children (farfalla press/McMillan & include Loading, a collaborative songwriter, and a progressive socio-political advocate living (bet. Prospect Place/St. Marks Avenue) Parrish), and a memoir, Can It! book with painter Jonathan Allen in New York City. He credits his parents with instilling (Letter Machine Editions). He is published by Brooklyn Arts Press, within him progressive values from an early age, and Prospect Heights, editor of The Selected Poems of Steve Carey (Sub Press), and Sure Shot, a pink chap from fueling his drive toward activism and advocacy. Brooklyn and co-editor, with Anselm Berrigan and Alice Notley, of The Overpass Books. Primitive State, a book-length poem, will be A singer-songwriter for over 18 years, Seader strives Directions: 2, 3 to Grand Army Plaza, Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan and The Selected Poems of published by Edge Books in 2014. to touch as many genres with his music as possible, and C to Clinton-Washington avenues, Q to 7th Avenue Ted Berrigan (both University of California Press). He is an has recently returned to his roots, writing songs with a editor for poetry magazines Brawling Pigeon and Vlak, and Joshua Garcia 1:40 p.m. message, as he did when he first began. Following the on the editorial board of Lungfull!. He records and performs http://joshuagarciamusic.tumblr.com/ tragic events in Newtown, Conn. in December 2012, he Zoe Z 12:00 p.m. music as I feel tractor. Greg Fuchs photo. Joshua Garcia is a folk singer- wrote a song to help him cope with the tragedy in hopes http://m.reverbnation.com/artist/zoezelkind songwriter based in Bedford-Stuyvesant, that it would help others heal as well. His friend, and now Zoe Z is a singer-songwriter Amelia Bentley 12:50 p.m. Brooklyn. writing partner, Rorie Kelly, took his lyrics and rewrote from Santa Monica, Calif. She http://www.speakwright.org/ the music, lending her vocal and instrumental talents to just Moved to New York City’s Amelia Bentley is composed of a the piece. The two formed the duo The Burnt Roses in Stuyvesant Town, where she has patina and erosion of texts, slowly late 2013 as they recorded their first single, “We Will been playing and writing. She pursuing the edge of the capability Mend.” The single was released to coincide with the first likes rhinos and recently built a psychedelic scorpion made Betsy Fagin 2:10 p.m. anniversary of the Sandy Hook tragedy, with 100% of the of language through formal strategies http://betsyfagin.com of melted crayons. of disruption and appropriation. If, as proceeds going to charity. They plan to write more songs Betsy Fagin is an activist, poet, in the future to spark debate, start necessary dialogues, Chris Hedges says, “We’ve been robbed of language by which and librarian who explores the Jamie Townsend 12:30 p.m. we can express the reality of what we’re undergoing,” then the and, most importantly, to bring healing to those who territory where art, information need it most. http://elderlymag.tumblr.com/ language out of which identity is composed ourselves must be access, and political engagement Jamie Townsend is the managing editor broken and re-combined to access possibilities of expression through direct action meet. She of Aufgabe, and Elderly, an emergent and recognition more accurate to reality. is the author of Poverty Rush (Three Sad Tigers), the science Magus Magnus 3:00 p.m. hub of ebullience and disgust. He is seemed so solid (dusie kollektiv), and For every solution there http://sharedimagining.blogspot.com/ author of STRAP/HALO (Portable Press Jessica Fiorini 1:05 p.m. is a problem (Open 24 Hours)., among others. drone: poetic @ Yo-Yo Labs), Matryoshka (LRL Textile Jessica Fiorini is the author monologue for Editions), and THE DOME (Ixnay Press), as well as the of three chapbooks Light forthcoming longplayer SHADE (Elis Press). Ethan Fugate 2:20 p.m. monotone Suite (Pudding House), Sea http://ignatzybanjo.tumblr.com/ Magus Magnus’ work sources Monster at Night (Goodbye Ethan Fugate is a poet and co-editor from Predator poetry and “the poetic” as Better Press), and Take it for the 6-issue run of the poetry a finger broken off sea star & custom Armani central to the extremes of interiority (thought, Personal (forthcoming from Lame House Press). Her poems journal POM2. He currently lives in suit shit & candy in the water your stare philosophy) and exteriority (performance, deed). have appeared in such publications as Lungfull!, Vlak and Charleston, SC. like a block of hash just sitting there impassively the Brooklyn Rail. She lives in Lefferts, Brooklyn with her Published books include The Re-echoes (Furniture Press), waiting it’s about a basic interrogation organic husband and his cat. Jennifer Arlia photo. Idylls for a Bare Stage (twentythreebooks), Heraclitean growth from the inside out forests of hydro Pride (Furniture Press), and Verb Sap (Narrow House). gen a blockbuster rom-com about the first Susana Gardner 2:35 p.m. Works in progress are a book on the ancient Roman Hummer starring Taylor Swift as the body Ali Power 1:15 p.m. http://www.archiveofthenow.org/authors/?i=29 emperor Heliogabalus and a conceptual writing/theater Ali Power is an editor at Rizzoli building politician you the misunderstood light Susana Gardner is the author of three full- piece utilizing various government docs on unmanned International Publications and teaches truck with Verhoeven directing the plot’s length poetry collections, CADDISH and Herso combat aerial vehicles, titled drone: poetic monologue literature at Pace University. Her poems last ditch attempt to haul that plastic island (both from Black Radish Books) and [Lapsed for monotone. out of the Pacific to actually compose something have appeared in Argos books’ Little Insel Weary] (The Tangent Press). Pattie McCarthy 3:15 p.m. http://www.apogeepress.com/books_marybones.html 4:10 p.m. Pattie McCarthy is the author of six books, the SMALL PRESS forthcoming nulls (Horse Less Press) and Quiet d.a. levy lives: celebrating renegade presses series Book (Apogee Press), as well as Marybones, Table Alphabetical of Hard Words, Verso, & bk of (h)rs Fact-Simile (all from Apogee). Recent/forthcoming chapbooks include scenes http://www.fact-simile.com Just the from the lives of my parents (Bloof Books), x y z && (Ahsahta Press), and fifteen genre scenes (eth press). She teaches at Temple University. Asher Varrone photo. Fact-Simile

Ben Roylance 3:30 p.m. co-eds., Jen Marie and Travis Macdonald http://jellyfishmagazine.org/9.0/benroylance.html Philadelphia’s Fact-Simile is a small independent publisher of mostly A Few Words with Ben Roylance spends time in two handmade books and book-objects. They strive to compose all of separate valleys on the east coast of their products from recycled and reclaimed materials and to help the United States of America. June/ further expand the physical definitions of literature. Fact-Simile is the Macdonalds July, 1947. June/July, 2012. His poems also an annual large-format (8.5” x 11”) literary journal. It is have appeared or are forthcoming in available free at the above url and in print while supplies last. places like Jellyfish, Noo Journal, notnostrums, and similar peaks. Their aesthetic is best described by the content featured in each His best work is always in the future, worry. of their past issues. from Postdromal Hymns Julia Bloch Evergrey snow mapped / quarterly onto the bankfront http://jacket2.org/” http://jacket2.org/ subevergreen edgeways flanging like winter. Dented and Julia Bloch grew up in Northern California and nonprominent / sky stubbed extremely on the poster rolled Sydney, Australia, and is the author of Letters up depicting you-guessed-it a glass of carbonated liquid to Kelly Clarkson (Sidebrow Books), a Lambda analysts. Weak grey scent of grey / calenture at man’s groin Literary Award Finalist. Recent poems and insulating an ephemeron for nothing but remonetized and translations have appeared in Fence, Manor damn hideless lightness. All stoned on wooing his distortion House Quarterly, and Sixth Finch. She lives in / petal falling from our reselected and special American Philadelphia, works as associate director of the Kelly Writers House, persimmon to the underswell of Atlantic asthmal plane. and is a coeditor of Jacket2. Evergrey snow mapped dented and nonprominent weak grey scent of grey Elizabeth Guthrie Co-editors Travis and JenMarie Macdonald flank Fact-Simile all stoned on wooing his distortion http://aplacesortof.blogspot.com/ Editions author Frank Sherlock at PRESS>PLAY, a small-press Elizabeth Guthrie is a poet and performer living in New York researching for a practice-based Ph.D. festival in Baltimore this past September. Chris McCreary photo Jenn McCreary 3:45 p.m. in text and performance at the University of East http://jennmccreary.wordpress.com London. She is a co-editor of Livestock Editions. Jenn McCreary’s new full-length collection, & BY CHRIS MCCREARY Her work has appeared in journals including Onedit, ince the press’s origins at Naropa University in 2006, Fact- now my feet are maps, is available from Dusie Requited, Bombay Gin, Pinstripe Fedora, Alba Londres, Open Letter, and Simile Editions co-editors JenMarie and Travis Macdonald have Press. Other works include The Dark Mouth S Fact-Simile. She has a pamphlet, X Portraits, out through Crater Press, a brought to life more than a dozen ingeniously designed books and of Living (Horse Less Press), :ab ovo: (Dusie chapbook, Yellow and Red, through Black Lodge Press, the collaborative “book-objects” ranging from Frank Sherlock’s Very Different Animals, an Press), and a doctrine of signatures (Singing chapbook with Andrew K. Peterson, Between Here and the Telescopes, accordion-fold chapbook with hand painted canvas covers, to MINImaxims, Horse Press). She lives in Philadelphia with her family, where she through Slumgullion Press and a book entitled, Portraits - Captions from one-line poems Richard Kostelanetz printed on scratch-off cards. In addition co-edits ixnay press with Chris McCreary. Colin M. Lenton photo. Contraband Books. She is poet in residence at the Centre for Creative to beginning work on next year’s installment of the Fact-Simile Trading Card Collaboration in London. She blogs at the above url. Series, which has published baseball-card style cards featuring 12 poets per Jackie Clark 4:00 p.m. year since 2010, this editorial duo has just launched the ninth issue of Fact- http://nohelpforthat.com/ Stan Mir Simile Magazine, their twice yearly poetry journal. Jackie Clark is the author of Aphoria http://chapterhousereadings.blogspot.com/ In this email interview with Boog City small press co-editor Chris McCreary, (Brooklyn Arts Press). She is the Stan Mir is the author of two chapbooks, Test JenMarie and Travis (answering under the collective name Fact-Simile) discuss series editor of Poets off Poetry Patterns and Flight Patterns, both published the press’s origins, future projects, and division of editorial labor. and Song of the Week for Coldfront by JR Vansant. His most recent full- length Boog City: Take us to the moment when Fact-Simile was founded. Magazine and is the recipient of a collection is The Lacustrine Suite (Pavement What made you both want to get involved in small-press publishing? 2012 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship in Saw, 2011). He lives in Philadelphia where he Was working on the press something you always conceived of Poetry. Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming co-organizes the Chapter & Verse reading series with Ryan Eckes. doing together? from Bone Bouquet, Denver Quarterly, and The Rumpus. Fact-Simile: There was really no one defining moment. Travis had published Ollie oxen / Allysa Oliver a few chapbooks by fellow Naropians with the Fact-Simile stamp between 2006 and 2007. JenMarie had a degree in magazine journalism and was The Poetry Field http://www.allysaoliver.com/ the editorial research assistant for Bombay Gin--we actually met at the release -- after Eileen Myles Ukulele and guitar playing singer songwriter with party for the winter issue in which JenMarie designed the cover and Travis a haunting voice and surreal lyrics will make you designed the insides. At this time, Travis had already planned on publishing The we as in all the people whose lives I imagine wanna howl at the moon as she gets tuned. a literary journal around a Jerome Rothenberg interview he had laying Like an underground electric fence around. JenMarie was one of the very first contributors to that issue and she Or an empty prairie where people gather helped finish and print it, making Fact-Simile 1.1 our first official Fact-Simile Like the leaves that get stuck in the gutter The field is luxurious ‘Working on the press has always The heat inside, often deadpan and didactic Brian Teare Not a hoping to find something http://www.brianteare.net been a large part of our relationship I am here, I could say A former NEA Fellow, Brian Teare is the recipient I am here and I am thinking of poetry fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, and one of the ways in which Sometimes I am sleeping the Headlands Center for the Arts, and the What metaphorical hovercrafts move toward American Antiquarian Society. He is the author of we’ve grown together. In fact, a Bringing us what? four books—The Room Where I Was Born, Sight Obviously the career field but who’s even left to think Map, the Lambda Award-winning Pleasure, and Companion Grasses. key part of our wedding ceremony about that He’s also published seven chapbooks, most recently Helplessness, [ I wash dishes and strengthen my character black sun crown ], and SORE EROS. An assistant professor at Temple was binding a book.’ I think about my boyfriend and wonder if we will really eat University, he lives in Philadelphia, where he makes books by hand toast together when we are old for his micropress, Albion Books. What that being old will feel like collaboration. Soon after that, we moved in together. Working on the press has always been a large part of our relationship and one of the ways in But this can be how it starts Kevin Varrone which we’ve grown together. In fact, a key part of our wedding ceremony Making what you will of your own corruptions http://boxscoreapp.com was binding a book. Humping toward a more moderate life because it is less of Kevin Varrone’s most recent project is box Coming from publishing backgrounds, both of us approached the act of a challenge for your integrity score: an autobiography, a free, interactive book-making as integral to that of writing. There were, and still are, so many Not for commodities but for biology poetry app for iPhone and iPad (available great writers living in the Front Range that we wanted to publish, so we began We all just die anyway at the app store or the above url). dreaming up new forms like the Apothecary series and the A Sh Anthology. The world bigger and our ideas in it smallerWhat to do His other publications include Eephus There was also this sense at Naropa--based in no small part on the rich when your you becomes someone else (Little Red Leaves Textile Series); Passyunk Lost and the philadelphia history/tradition ranging from letterpress to mimeo--that poets/writers can control the means of production and not have to rely on traditional mainstream Frank O’Hara already wrote a poem about not being a painter improvements (both Ugly Duckling Presse); id est (Instance Press); and publishing. We wanted to create opportunities for other writers and be active & Joan Didion says that the point is always to remember g-point Almanac: 6.21-9.21 (ixnay press). He teaches at Temple University what it is like to be you members in the greater community. It was and is still important to us to provide and lives outside Philadelphia. space for that lively and organic exchange of language and ideas.

2 BOOG CITY WWW.BOOGCITY.COM Dare I ask how close you come SUNDAY Kung Fu Crimewave and friends is: Gillian Devereux 1:15 p.m. to breaking even financially on your Luke Kelly: lead guitarist, trouble maker, champion of the http://www.gilliandevereux.com/index.html various publishing projects? FEBRUARY 16 proletariat Gillian Devereux received Almost, most of the time. Because we mostly Joanna Kelly: is nice. is in a band. use recycled and reclaimed materials, we her M.F.A. in poetry from 8:00 P.M. Neil Kelly: Huggabroomstik, Tunetown Philharmonic Old Dominion University and usually approach, or ever-so-slightly-exceed, Preston Spurlock: makes art, plays music, draws videos, a break-even point on our publishing projects. works as a professional writing $5 suggested Gilmore Boys, Huggabroomstik, Old Hat, Ladies of Old At least from a materials standpoint, which is consultant at Wheelock College to say we’re not exactly going to be paying Hat, Elastic No-No Band, Mango Glaze, Pie Face, Tunetown in Boston, where she also teaches academic writing and ourselves a salary any time soon. The printed Sidewalk Cafe Philharmonic, The Sewing Circle, The Johns. poetry. She is the author of Focus on Grammar (dancing copies of the magazine (paper and ink) and Casey Holford: Urban Barnyard, Gilmore Boys, Outlines. girl press) and They Used to Dance on Saturday Nights the trading cards (printing and mailing) are our 94 Avenue A. Loves Bananas. (Aforementioned Productions). Her poems have appeared in biggest recurring costs, but each individual (at East 6th Street) Matt Colbourn: Pizza Underground, married to Phoebe numerous journals, most recently N/A, Printer’s Devil Review, project carries its own set of material expenses. Kreutz and Sundog Lit. She can be found online at the above url, For One Hundred Colorado Places, we had The East Village Phoebe Kreutz: Writer/Director of: YOLO! Gilgamesh, Thanks, streaming pop music from the cloud. to purchase 100 windowed tin cases. For Directions: F/V to Second Ave., L to First Ave. The Dirty Hippie Jam Band Project. Urban Barnyard, Pizza Very Different Animals, we supplied the artist Underground, bought Matt Colbourn at a yard sale. Letter from the Future Nicole Donnelly with 100 tiny canvases and Julie Delano: GOLD, The Leader the paint required to make her stunning one-of- Katy Lederer 8:00 p.m. Re: Burial Practices Susan Hwang: Founder of the Bushwick Bookclub, Murderizer, a-kind covers. In cases such as those, we may http://katylederer.com/ My dearest, you must not fear death have to set the price of the books a little higher Katy Lederer is the author of the poetry GOLD, The Relastics, Debutante Hour. in any of its forms. The present is finite in order to make back our investment. collections Winter Sex and The Heaven- Leslie Graves: GOLD, They Would Be Happy People and leaves without warning. Today Sent Leaf, as well as the memoir Poker Hallie Kelly: Too cool for the internet. you walk through your city in cold I’m always interested in hearing how Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers. Poems, Julie La Mendola: Ching Ching, Nature Theater of autumn air; the sun overhead shines on co-editors split up tasks. How do you essays, and reviews have appeared in The Oklahoma glossy leaves: orange, red, yellow. decide who does what? Boston Review, The New York Times Book Review, and VOLT, Rebecca Satellite: A Deer A Horse They, too, are nearly dead. It happens We make a good team in that our strengths among others. A member of the advisory boards of The Millay this way each year. Death will endure complement one another, so it’s usually We now return you to your regularly scheduled evident who will do what. JenMarie starts Colony for the Arts and The Poetry Project, Lederer has been long into the future. You have little say the recipient of fellowships and awards from The MacDowell programming: every episode of The Twilight Zone playing in this matter. I encourage you to resist lots of projects, Travis makes sure they see simultaneously. completion. JenMarie worked as a bookmaker Colony, The New York Foundation for the Arts, and Yaddo. keeping relics. Memorials and monuments have always been vulnerable to attack. All of our projects Writing MONDAY, In ancient times, the dead were buried If you do it every day the world concatenates to meet with ritual extravagance: enveloped in salt, start with one of your needs. FEBRUARY 17 linen, oil, and perfume, entombed in ice, You must know the right people or no the write people. encased in glass, hidden inside pyramids us having a vision * 12:00 P.M., Free and catacombs, gifted with eternal forms In the charnel house of the place where I think Unnameable Books of nourishment, currency, companionship, for a text and I make bones. but even those buried together die alone. * 600 Vanderbilt Ave. In the future, you will not need a body Passing the days just like gallbladder stones (bet. Prospect Place/St. Marks Avenue) after death. You will need nothing at all. working through I am crying. the idea with * Prospect Heights, Allyson Paty 1:30 p.m. Losing weight and gaining weight. Allyson Paty’s poems can be found in Thinking about animals, the fact that people eat them. Brooklyn the other to help Directions: 2, 3 to Grand Army Plaza, Best New Poets 2012, Denver Quarterly, C to Clinton-Washington avenues, Q to 7th Avenue Gulf Coast, the PEN Poetry Series, Tin Ed Steck 8:10 p.m. House, and elsewhere. Her chapbook, develop that vision Ed Steck is a writer from Pittsburgh. The Further Away, was published by [sic] Press. A native Ugly Duckling Presse published his book, Sketchy Mile 12:00 p.m. New Yorker, she lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she into reality. The Garden: Synthetic Environment for Mike Shoykhet was born in is editor of Singing Saw Press. at a leather arts studio in Santa Fe, so she Analysis and Simulation, last year. the Moldavian Republic of the tends to design and plan book construction as former Soviet Union. He has well as perform any work requiring precision been playing music in and Mimi “Rooster” Oz 1:40 p.m. and detail, such as carving mountain ranges around New York City since http://www.mimioz.com into five-plus yards of accordion folded text. the late 1990s. He resides in New Jersey. Mimi Oz performing under the name Travis works at a marketing firm, so he handles Lunch Break Tantra 8:25 p.m. “Rooster,” is a Canadian singer-songwriter communications and manages mailings while Lunch Break Tantra is based out of Bushwick, Brooklyn. manning the printer and overseeing the actual a group of improvisers Peter Bogart Johnson 12:30 p.m. Oz spent many years hidden writing poetry, as well production of most projects. JenMarie is better out of the Upright Peter Bogart Johnson is the author as abstract painting. In 2009 she took a trip to Mexico at Dreamweaver and InDesign, so she updates Citizens Brigade of the chapbook Humble under City and returned turning her experiences into song ideas. the website and designs most of the books. Theatre in New York, a book of you (Butterlamb), and Working alongside Canadian producer/songwriter/funnyman Travis is better at Photoshop, so he designs all who create a fully his work has appeared in Anti-, Bob Wiseman, she structured and altered her ideas and came the trading cards. improvised show before Atlas Review, Coldfront, Realpoetik, Sink up with the material for her first record, Three Of Swords. While there is a more or less unspoken Review, and Sixth Finch, among others. He curates the Currently Oz is working on her second record, Men Who division of labor, it shifts on a project-by-project your eyes. You might not want to be friends with all of these characters in real life, but you’ll definitely enjoy Earshot reading series, and lives and works in Williamsburg, Never Loved Me, funded with the help of the Ontario Arts basis with Travis taking point on some designs Brooklyn. and JenMarie helping out on the production getting to see a glimpse into their world. Council and set to work with Canadian Producer Don Kerr. end of things as needed. All of our projects start with one of us having a vision for a text Boog’s Classic Album Live Series 8:50 p.m. Adam Tobin 12:40 p.m. Simone White 2:10 p.m. and working through the idea with the other to Adam Tobin owns and operates http://www.poetrysociety.org/psa/poetry/crossroads/new_ help develop that vision into reality. The Velvet Underground and Nico Unnameable Books. He occasionally writes american_poets/simone_white/ performed live by poems, which are published in places Are there any upcoming projects that Simone White is the author like EOAGH, Fence, 6x6, and The Weekly of Unrest (Ugly Duckling Presse, you’re particularly excited to mention Kung Fu Crimewave and friends Weakling, among others. A chapbook, here? Dossier Series), House Envy of All Lou Reed’s Any Group Can Claim Responsibility, is Yes! Given that we approach each text from of the World (Factory School), and Dolly (Q Ave Press, with final request available from Mondo Bummer Press. a completely different angle as far as form and was that the the paintings of Kim Thomas). Work has also appeared or is materials are concerned, and that we both have B r o o k l y n - forthcoming in Big Bell, The Baffler, The Brooklyn Rail, and day jobs and active writing practices, we tend based band Magus Magnus 12:50 p.m. Washington Square. She lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, to work on the slow side. Glacial really. That Kung Fu (see Sun. 3:00 p.m.) Brooklyn. Ted Roeder photo. being the case, there are currently two long overdue books that we’re planning on releasing C r i m e w av e in early 2014: Brian Foley’s Totem, which uses (http://www.kungfucrimewave.com) play his album Velvet Gracie Leavitt 1:05 p.m. Deborah Poe 2:20 p.m. recycled denim to reenact an old monastic Underground and Nico in it’s entirety. Lou said “I came http://www.upne.com/1937658168.html http://www.deborahpoe.com/ form called a girdle book, and Jane Wong’s up with the idea because the album cover features Gracie Leavitt is the author of Deborah Poe is the author of the Impossible Map, which integrates a sort of a banana, and Kung Fu Crimewave features a banana the collection Monkeys, Minor poetry collections the last will “pop up” form called the Turkish map fold. We playing bass” followed by death rattle. While some Planet, Average Star (Nightboat be stone, too and Elements (both also have one final year of poetry trading cards dispute this claim, Shia LeBouf supported the claim in Books) and the chapbook Stockport Flats), and Our Parenthetical planned for 2014. Beyond that, we’re looking sky writing. Regardless of the hype surrounding this Gap Gardening (These Signals Ontology (CustomWords), as well as a novella forward to opening up our submission manager groundbreaking performance, The band will be joined by Press). Her poems have appeared in journals such as in verse, Hélène (Furniture Press). She has again and seeing what new possibilities are out Julie Delano, Susan Hwang and Leslie Graves of GOLD there for the making. Conjunctions, Lana Turner, and 6x6, and her interviews of published several chapbooks, most recently Keep (above/ground (http://vimeo.com/43841048), Hallie Kelly, Phoebe Kreutz Chris McCreary’s most recent collection contemporary artists can be found in Flaunt Magazine. She press), and also co-edited Between Worlds: An Anthology of (http://www.phoebekreutz.com), Julie LaMendola of Ching is the chapbook Elseworlds (Cy Gist Press). has also contributed to the multidisciplinary publication Contemporary Fiction and Criticism (Peter Lang). Poe is an Ching (http://chingchongsong.bandcamp.com), Casey Holford He co-edits ixnay press in Philadelphia. Intercourse and serves as a co-curator of the Triptych assistant professor of English at Pace University, Pleasantville, (http://www.Caseyholford.com), and Rebecca Satellite of A (http://www.ixnaypress.com) Reading Series. Previous collaborations include the original where she teaches writing and literature and directs Deer A Horse (http://www.adeerahorse.bandcamp.com). play PITCH, which debuted at La Mama E.T.C. Willis Ryder the Handmade/Homemade Exhibit and Vox Creative Arts Arnold photo. Series. Karl Bode photo.

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http://m.reverbnation.com/artist/ zoezelkind Zoe Z: Singing the Landscape Bios That Time Forgets

J.J. Hayes comes from Staten Island. medium of exchange by writing and performing It is real and its description requires poetry and Sometimes he is a poet, sometimes he’s BY J.J. HAYES songs with vague words. These are words not song and all the tools thereof. Neither is this t seems to me that the a singer, and sometimes he writes about meant to refer to any existing reality, but rather landscape tamed, and neither do you know life of man on earth is music and the world. to a vague perception of reality we form by whither lead the paths that intersect your own. like the swift flight of a ‘I internalizing vague words and images. The Much of what makes up mega popular music single sparrow through the Zoe Z is a singer-songwriter from Santa Bubble, as you know, will be complete when banqueting hall where you Monica, Calif. She just moved to New every single word of every single Wikipedia are sitting at dinner on a winter’s day with your Zoe Z’s music and York City’s Stuyvesant Town, where she article is hyperlinked to another Wikipedia captains and counselors. In the midst there is a has been playing and writing. She likes article. comforting fire to warm the hall. Outside, the lyrics are pristine rhinos and recently built a psychedelic There is nothing inherently wrong in storms of winter rain and snow are raging. This scorpion made of melted crayons. participating in a discussion about topics set by sparrow flies swiftly in through one window of to the point of other people. It gets a little problematic when the hall and out through another. While he is your whole life circles around only discussing inside, the bird is safe from the winter storms, innocence. the topics set by other people. Even rebelling but, after a few moments of comfort, he vanishes against something means you have allowed is not interested in describing for us this interior from sight into the wintry world from which he someone else to set the agenda. And then, reality in any objectively accurate detail, lest we came. So man appears on earth for a little of course, you fall in with a group of people and our wallets wander away on new paths. while, but of what went before this life, or what who are rebelling against the same something Analogy: I have often posited that the follows, we know nothing.” —Venerable Bede and you start to talk like them without actually problem with angry young man music, metal, Zoe Z, the Z is for Zelkind, hails from Santa investigating whether the words used in the punk, and the like is that it gives voice to the Monica, Calif. She came to us just in time for rebellion are actually pointing to anything in the anger of people, who are angry about things real world. “One that people should be angry about. We allowed side’s commitment in some twisted version of the Amish Rumspringa will always to burn ourselves out in the expression of our arrest you,” a anger, so that we can calm down, rejoin the line from Zoe system we left and eventually participate in the Z’s “Drowning very evils that angered us. We then “realize” Words,” is true that these perceptions of ours were “just” the on a number of simplistic views of youth, that the world is much levels. more complicated, that the “truth isn’t black and This is why white, but rather shades of gray” or some other good artists are meme that comforts us is the bubble we have important. The chosen. purveyors of But what if our initial perceptions were right? the vague song What if we actually engaged that at a point in our allow the words lives, when we were relatively unalbatrossed, we to do the thinking sensed and our parents sensed and their parents and divert us sensed something actually wrong with the whole into perceiving set up we were being presented with. If the world according to seemed like an adult that seemed creepy and our received uncomfortable, and was asking us to do things vocabulary rather than describing what is that seemed creepy and uncomfortable, why the Polar Vortex. I am hoping that she doesn't really going on. They delude us into thinking have we so easily buried the memories of those hold the choices of the early European settlers the Bubble accurately accounts for our feelings feelings? Isn’t the existence of that perception of this region against us, and stays with us a rather than pointing us to a real world. worth investigation? Of course what happens spell. People like Zoe Z fuck that whole is that in the intervening time our memories of The weekend's occasional snow outside comfortable project up. How do I explain this? the perceptions are dulled, and, by the time we my window was a fine video track to the six How do I explain my feeling that songs like reflect on them, we are not reflecting on actual or seven songs of Zoe Z, which I was able to Zoe Z’s which are simple, which are delicate, first-hand descriptions of what happened. We locate on the internet, some might say were a which are pretty, which are are well written lack explorers who are both close enough to the fine soundtrack to the day. Maybe that's too with a constant recurrence of the interesting particular interior landscape, talented enough to anthropocentric a vision of the world. Maybe turn of phrase, actually threaten the established render it in its proper full spectrum colors, and not it's a symptom of some as yet undiagnosed order? merely complaining about being stuck there. sickness, that we think of reality using images Zoe Z’s songs are written in the most Punk, rap, and metal are often merely the of the mechanized creations of humans. But dangerous of genres for a songwriter. You fall scream in reaction to a fearful landscape. Zoe Z maybe something else brought these songs and off to one side and you are going to come off therefore goes them one better. The protagonists this snow briefly together in my consciousness. I like some self pitying narcissist, reading from of her songs are incapable of ing, whether for mean, the snowfall ended but I keep going back you journals at an open mike and calling it fear of losing the last few people who might like to the songs. I keep going back to the songs, poetry. You fall of the other side and you are them, or some other reason. They, therefore, do but I felt I needed to mention the snowfall. The 'scream’ in ‘Change’ is not even a scream, it is a tightly controlled melodic wail, the tightness of which communicates a fear that it actually is as great as the pain, and the pain of that fear as well. Large centralized concerns, led perhaps just swimming in the same waters with lame top- not lash out at the pain, they actually describe by captains and counselors, accumulate 40 country singers who consider songwriting the pain. It is a pain born of the deep felt need large amounts of a legislated and commonly to be nothing but the next clever hook. Zoe for others, be it parent, boyfriend, girlfriend, accepted medium of exchange. I am not Z walks the songwriting tightrope, the tension or group. Yeah it’s a schoolgirl crush, yeah I saying it is intentional, but there appears to be of which I think may actually reveal something was just a shy geek in high school, yeah we all a way to accumulate units of this legislated and of worth about the real world. Leonard Cohen go through that. Yeah who would want to go commonly accepted medium of exchange, by said songwriting or poetry described an interior through that again. having many people discuss in vague words, landscape. The landscape is not a purely But what does it mean that we had to go people who themselves have received via these subjective invention by virtue of being interior. through it in the first place? What is it pointing to? large centralized concerns many units of said

4 BOOG CITY WWW.BOOGCITY.COM Angel Nafis 2:35 p.m. his poems, fiction, and criticism have appeared or are Press). Her writing has appeared in American Letters & Press, forthcoming 2014). Her second collection, Backfire, is due http://angelnafis.tumblr.com/ forthcoming in Coldfront, Everyday Genius, Lyre Lyre, Paper Commentary, Blackbird, Colorado Review, Indiana Review, out from Coconut Books later this year. A graduate of the M.F.A. Program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, she also Angel Nafis is an Ann Arbor, Mich. Darts, Publishers Weekly, The Brooklyn Review, The Faster NANO Fiction, New American Writing, Seattle Review, Times, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. In October of 2012, the Verse, and in two anthologies: The Arcadia Project: holds degrees in literary translation and library science. She native and Cave Canem Fellow. Her lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. work has appeared in Decibels, FOUND New School published Pop :: Song, the 2011 winner of its North American Postmodern Pastoral (Ahsahta Press) Magazine’s Requiem for a Paper Poetry Chapbook Competition. He co-curates the Mental and Lost and Found: Stories from New York (Mr. Beller’s Bag, Mosaic Magazine, MUZZLE Magazine, Marginalia Poetry Reading Series, blogs about unimportant Neighborhood Books). She teaches creative writing at Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein 3:35 p.m. The Bear River Review, The Rattling Wall, and Union Station things at the above url, and lends bass guitar and “ugly” Western Connecticut State University. http://soundlitmag.com/ Magazine. In 2011 she represented the LouderArts poetry vocals to Americana-punk band Galapagos Now! Poet and classically trained soprano, project at the Women of the World Poetry Slam and the Eric Conroe 3:15 p.m. Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein is the Resistant is Futile Wears an Ill-fitting National Poetry Slam. She is an Urban Word NYC Mentor http://www.culturebot.org/ founding editor of Sound, a literary Crown and the founder, curator, and host of the quarterly G Eric Conroe is wrapping up an M.F.A. at magazine on contemporary musico- reenlight Bookstore Poetry Salon reading series. She is As vegetarian against your plant species’ Brooklyn College, where he received the poetics, and a staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine the author of BlackGirl Mansion (Red Beard Press/New Logic. As vegetarian Himan Brown award for poetry. He’s the where she writes on contemporary dance, literature, and School Poetics) She lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. In the most tenuous of circumstances, asst. curator for KGB Poetry, and co-founder society. Her chapbook Quiet was selected by Matthea Shira Erlichman photo. Insistent is Futile. Sub-Heading: and -curator of the COPULA Poetry Series. As a dancer, he’s Harvey as The New School’s 2012 Chapbook Contest 14 planets in the solar system performed with Dean Moss and others, working in residence winner for poetry. This October her libretto will be Danniel Schoonebeek 2:45 p.m. will boldly explain your tentacled desires. at The Kitchen, The Korean Arts Festival, and Yale. His recent featured in the premier of composer Jonathan Dawe’s “You cannot hesitant that crunch” choreography and/or poetry’s been performed at Bennington fractal operatic retelling of Tamburlaine. http://theamericanreader.com/author/danniel-schoonebeek/ Was only vaguely acknowledged by parenting. Danniel Schoonebeek’s first book of College, CAGE Gallery, Danspace Project, Kunsthalle Galapagos, The Marfa Theater, The 92nd Street Y, and The Poetry Niina Pollari 3:45 p.m. poems, American Barricade, will be We will feed your brightest Project. Poems have appeared recently in Bright Bright Shit, http://heartbarf.tumblr.com/ published by YesYes Books this year. in Valhalla. Your King shall lose happy Coffee Area, and Your First Time. He writes about dance and Niina Pollari is a poet and translator. A chapbook, Family Album, is out to make your antiquated. performance for Culturebot. Dan Allegretto photo. She’s the author of two chapbooks, Book now from Poor Claudia. His work Your pendulum is the Emperor. Four (Hyacinth Girl Press) and Fabulous has appeared or is forthcoming We must bite back. Essential (Birds of Lace). Last year in BOMB, Boston Review, Denver We must bite back. Emily Toder 3:25 p.m. Quarterly, Fence, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, jubilat, Emily Toder is the author of Science Action Books put out her translation Poetry, Tin House, and elsewhere. He writes a column on poetry (Coconut Books) and the chapbooks of Tytti Heikkinen’s The Warmth of the Taxidermied for The American Reader, hosts the Hatchet Job reading series Jasmine Dreame Wagner 3:05 p.m. Brushes With (Tarpaulin Sky), I Hear a Animal. She coordinates the yearly Popsickle Festival in in Brooklyn, and edits the PEN Poetry Series. http://www.songsaboutghosts.com/ Boat (Duets), and No Land (Brave Men Brooklyn. Zane Van Dusen photo. Jasmine Dreame Wagner is the Mark Gurarie 2:55 p.m. author of Rings http://bubblegumandpoppers.wordpress.com/ (Kelsey Street Mark Gurarie, originally of Press), Rewilding Cleveland, has been a Brooklyn (Ahsahta Press), resident since 2005. A graduate of and Listening for The New School’s M.F.A. program, Earthquakes (Caketrain Journal and All the cool kids

I have never thought about that particular question until hearing Zoe Z. Because I have been taught to dismiss the whole experience as a phase, which may be safely disregarded once having escaped it. That dismissal is made all the easier by Advertise in the paucity of persons being able to use language and melody to capture a close- up of the experience, without putting one off by the ubiquitous self pity factor. Even Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen” can’t quite escape that. Not so Zoe Z. I have yet to hear a maudlin word or phrase in Zoe Z’s songs. Her music and lyrics are pristine to the point of innocence. It’s that pristine quality that makes the result so achingly sharp. It does not let you off the hook, it does not allow you to round up the usual suspects on which pin the reasons for your baseless dismissal of what she is reporting. One example: In “Change” the singer alleges that her scream is not so quiet, but the resulting scream (whose melody just stays with me) is not the easily ignored explosion of rage filled chaos that lets us all get it out so we can be better employees down the road. It goes deeper than even Munch’s “Scream,” which, after all, is just the depiction of someone confronted with [fill in your own description of the modern condition]. The “scream” in “Change” is not even a scream, it is a tightly controlled melodic wail, the tightness of which communicates a fear that it actually is as great as the pain, and the pain of that fear as well. It comes from nowhere, hints at being endless, fades out and starts again. It is like the single sparrow of the Venerable Bede. It’s describing something I think. I may have to leave my interest in the conversations of the captains and counselors, go to the window and look. Maybe it is the night out there, but maybe there is a beautiful snow covered landscape, hinting at another beauty which may yet be revealed. Thus I point you to Zoe Z.

Congratulations to new Philadelphia Poet Laureate BOOG CITY Frank Sherlock [email protected] 212-842-BOOG (2664)

BOOG CITY 5 WWW.BOOGCITY.COM Links PRINTED MATTER http://allisoncobb.net/ Against Silence: Bios

Allison Cobb is the author of Born2 Pattie McCarthy’s Nulls (Chax Press) about her hometown of Los Alamos, N.M., and Green-Wood (Fac- thought. This work generates its own codes to tory School) about a famous 19th cen- BY ALLISON COBB shelter the world of the child, thrust under the Nulls tury cemetery in Brooklyn. The New York gaze of medical authority. It is the parent who Pattie McCarthy Times called Green-Wood “a gorgeous, submits the child to this gaze—and to the gaze Horse Less Press subtle, idiosyncratic gem.” of the reader—but with a sense of profound ambiguity. The poems resist and protest this attie McCarthy’s Nulls is a book about authority, which threatens to erase mother and passing codes—genetic codes, language child, reduced to subjects of study, a “mother- codes, behavior codes—an undertaking P infant dyad.” The situation gives rise to guilt and laden with risk. In an instant, the transmission anxiety; the mother’s trauma leaps forth as the could falter—a skipped letter, an altered protein, language breaks apart: a repetitive circling of hands in the air. Such slippages open the chance for weather spontaneous generation, the creation of something new, something wondrous. In this book, though,

that possibility slams up against the reality that the book the mother reads as her child, along with unusual is as often shunned as revered. Survival contained (for her) in the word others, undergoes OT. (The acronym itself, never requires one to pass, to slide inside the straitjacket was: “we / eat / her” spelled out in the book, is a kind of code for of the accepted, the customary, the normal. The those in the know, a shibboleth.) Many of the work in this book stands as protest and rejection texts concern autism, or they are literature and of this reality. The poems insist on the complex poetry. Language from the texts intertwines with human lives that underlie fear-charged diagnoses— the speaker’s thoughts and her interactions with prodigy, freak, monster. the other mothers and the therapists. The book begins with origins, a mother and the very private meanings father. The short poems in this section elaborate an exchange of messages in repeated variations—a The word ‘poem’ stands in udder-mudder shaved head with a letter marked on the skull for the child ... the poem, that and the hair grown back over, a mysterious trip to nursing oddity, strange knot of sound a dentist, a speaking to air. Communication fails, mother or it succeeds and bears news that is painful— and thought. blanks and misses, disaster. Here also appears “mother” or “murder” the need to account for oneself, one’s history, The sense of alienation is palpable, in the language required by authority, and the along with rage, and a bit of despair. But The title of the book, Nulls, transmits in a impossibility of that, so many names unknown, a single word the tension between protection and compassion is here too, for the children and “here” that can never be recovered on a form: threat (mother or murder) that drives the book. the mothers in this plight, and it seems exactly “here, fill in your father’s date of death here.” The word has two related meanings. The first is right that the book ends not with autism nor The opening section, “scenes from the lives the one McCarthy provides in the notes to the with children, but with childbirth. The final of my parents,” introduces the tension that runs book—a null is a meaningless character, used poem is a gorgeous song of sympathy for through this book—code is protector and threat. in cryptography to fool the decoder and make women giving birth and the physical suffering The lovers exchange coded messages to shield the text more difficult to decipher. The second they endure, so silenced in our culture. “Tell me, tell me, tell me” says the poem, and in If ‘a poem including a brief history of autism’ is the book’s the end it is compassion for the others, but also for the self, that breaks the code and emotional crescendo, the final section, ‘Domestic Cryptography overrides fear and guilt and trauma. Survey II,’ is its most fully realized work. The poems in this I heard McCarthy read these poems at The section are personal and lyrical. They combine McCarthy’s Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church and felt totally bowled over, tears in my eyes. I felt the same daunting intelligence with a forthright accounting of her pain way reading them on paper. These poems are and confusion as a mother. brave, and smart, and beautiful. But they are also more than that. They are a record of the struggle their private connection, but the exchanges are meaning of null, not cited by McCarthy but to find a way to live. In sharing that, they show us risky and fragile—formed of mixed languages and suggested throughout, is zero, a void, or blank. a way to live also. stolen or indecipherable texts. At the same time, Against this threat of erasure is “a poem codes imposed from outside—a telegram, rules including a brief history of autism.” It is dedicated In Occupy Wall Street: What for giving birth, bills that can’t be paid—come in to “the man who asked, if it has always existed, to disrupt and ultimately silence intimate speech. Just Happened?, Kimberly where were all the autistic children in history?” “Domestic Cryptography Survey I” uses the McCarthy takes this as a challenge. The and Ian Wilder cover the form of repeated questions to uncover something poem recovers instances of children described wrong, to expose and diagnose. The poems torque fun, the controversy, and the as “changelings” or displaying “deranged” and complicate the language of interrogation to meaning of Occupy. The behavior and the violence they suffered. The reveal its essential violence. Every question is a poem builds and builds as it lays out its case— eBook is like a joyride trap, any response damns the speaker: children fettered, banished, vocal cords cut— through these last three from the 11th century to the present. McCarthy it’s like asking: would you rather be shot resists sensationalizing or sentimentalizing. She years of Occupy, including wearing a kevlar vest, or not shot at all? lets the acts speak for themselves, holding the original reporting, essays, would you rather be a devouring den mirror of barbarity up to us, and, like a lawyer, mother or a refrigerator mother? would photos, reviews, poetry, she rests her case, concluding “dear sir, there you rather be a refrigerator mother or they were.” It’s devastating. video links, and even a comic a motherfucker? who says that wolves If “a poem including a brief history of autism” are bad mothers? UNAUTHORIZED strip. Occupy Wall Street: is the book’s emotional crescendo, the final COPYING IS ILLEGAL What Just Happened? is section, “Domestic Cryptography Survey II,” is its most fully realized work. The poems in this available at your favorite Interjected lines of text in all caps echo section are personal and lyrical. They combine official forms and suggest the faceless presence eBook store, including in McCarthy’s daunting intelligence with a of authority, the keepers of standards of speech forthright accounting of her pain and confusion formats that can be read and behavior. as a mother. on anyone’s computer or In this interrogation, the word poem stands Each poem is set in the occupational therapy in for the child as the subject of questioning, the smartphone. (OT) waiting room, and each title includes the poem, that oddity, strange knot of sound and

6 BOOG CITY WWW.BOOGCITY.COM WWW.BOOGCITY.COM BOOG CITY 7 PRINTED MATTER Links Welcome to the Jungle http://www.sarawintz.com Bios

Ed Steck’s Garden’s in Bloom Sara Wintz was born in 1985 in Los Angeles. Her poems have appeared friend” so that it wanders in and out of the Already marveling at Steck’s well-selected in print-magazines such as Try! and BY SARA WINTZ manuscript like memory. The environment vocabulary, culled from surveillance documents, 6×6, online at Ceptuetics (with Kareem The Garden: Synthetic of The Garden is so devoid of trustworthy we are then thrown into a state of hypervigilance Estefan), and on stage at Issue Project

A ndrew Kenower photo Environment for Analysis organic substances (read: sympathetic wondering what will next take place in The Room, The Bowery Poetry Club, and and Simulation human characters) that it becomes gradually Garden and when. The title of the book itself, The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church. Ed Steck recognizable as something distant from our The Garden …, even plays with our expectations She is the author of Walking Across a Ugly Duckling Presse everyday world. (I think ...) of a garden suitable for Adam and Eve. And yet, Field We Are Focused on at This Time One might assume that, in this kind of textual maybe this is a landscape for Adam and Eve, or, Now (forthcoming from Ugly Duckling ave you read Ed Steck’s debut full- representation of a particular species Presse) and a contributing editor of length manuscript, The Garden: an environment, of Adam and Emergency Index: UDP’s new, annual, Synthetic Environment for Analysis and To write The Garden, Steck dove H readers may Eve that we are performance art sourcebook. She lives Simulation? If you haven’t yet, pick it up! You become bored. into technical military intelligence texts, unfamiliar with as in Oakland, Calif. won’t regret it, though you may become haunted ( “ N o t h i n g salvaged thousands of glorious verbal of yet. Throughout, by it. The Garden, brought into this world happens!”) But gems, then sculpted the treasure chest of The Garden is told by Ugly Duckling Presse, is part dream/part Steck masterfully textual material into a hypnotic, brilliant in Ed Steck’s matter- trance/part nightmare. To write The Garden, directs readers’ representation of a dreamy garden, a of-fact, all-knowing Steck dove into technical military intelligence attention from one tone. texts, salvaged thousands of glorious verbal hologram, a ‘synthetic environment,’ an item that appears Where does gems, then sculpted the treasure chest of textual isolated spot where readers experience in The Garden, a a book like this, a material into a hypnotic, brilliant representation sensations of doom, love, fate, and horror. motorcycle, to two 104-page written of a dreamy garden, a hologram, a “synthetic people sitting on representation of a environment,” an isolated spot where readers the porch. Both nouns are loaded with a sense synthetic garden, even come from? Ed Steck experience sensations of doom, love, fate, and of emotional anticipation. As a result, Steck was born and raised in the town of Irwin, Pa., a horror. successfully steers the manuscript’s structure small factory and mining town with a population Within The Garden, Steck invokes love away from the predictably constructed, discrete of around 5,000. The house where he grew up and fate through his placement of organically prose poem to, instead, an active landscape is situated on top of a mine. (Steck attributes his rendered symbols, such as a strawberry. He that is unpredictable and that, as a result, we asthma and other difficulties breathing, to the invokes nostalgia, by repeating the line “Old distrust and follow, loyal air quality of the environment.) He spent a large to the narrative, fearful of portion of his time as a teenager going to punk Already marveling at Steck’s well- what’s already around shows and exploring computers. He also read the corner, that we do not a lot of Sci-Fi. selected vocabulary, culled from know. Take, for example, In 2011, during his last summer of graduate these lines in the section school, while completing this manuscript, Steck surveillance documents, we are then titled “The Garden:” went for a walk late at night on campus at Bard College and the following morning found thrown into a state of hyper vigilance A theater of warfare is a tick bite. Where, in previous semesters, outside of the garden; he had spent considerable amounts of time wondering what will next take place absent in actuality, factual exhibiting behavior akin to many of New in virtuality, and discursive York state’s wild animals—he was forced to in modality... A deformation after the appearance of a Lyme disease- in The Garden, and when. of landscape objects: one induced “bullseye”—to stay inside. (In the back plane exists exclusively of The Garden Steck thanks, along with several as the objects populating people and instructors who were especially this singularity stretch, formative, the antibiotics that he was prescribed duplicate, and mirror that summer for Lyme disease.) previous chronological Being outside is hard. In New York state incarnations; the objects there are ticks, in Pennsylvania there’s the air, exists as a perpetual in California there are surveillance drones. memorial-- a depiction Even in Berkeley’s famed rose garden, there of its past before its are nosey onlookers, who listen in and offer present is compromised. unsolicited advice. There is a kind of risk, Two individuals being out of doors. As much as there is risk in operate biologically being a loner, a biker, an outsider. For some, and technically in looking at the world from outside is scary, connectedness on a risky. The Garden is scary, but it’s the kind of singular landscape. risk-taking I like to see.

BOOG CITY HI LIBRARIANS, I s s u e 8 7 editor/publisher David A. Kirschenbaum [email protected] a r t e d i t o r Jonathan Allen [email protected] f i l m e d i t o r Joel Schlemowitz COMPLETE [email protected] m u s i c e d i t o r J . J . H a y e s [email protected] poetry editor B u c k D o w n s [email protected] small press editors C h r i s and Jenn McCreary [email protected] c o u n s e l Ian S. Wilder c o u n s e l @boogcity.com BOOG CITY SETS Paper is copyright B o o g C i t y , all rights revert t o contributors upon publication. B o o g C i t y is published eight times annually . Boog always reads work for B o o g C i t y or other consideration. (Email [email protected] or applicable editor a n d p u t B o o g C i t y s u b i n subject line.) FOR SALE Letters to the editor should go to [email protected]. BOOG CITY 330 W. 28th St., Suite 6H, N.Y., N.Y. 10001-4754 212-842-BOOG (2664) [email protected] / 212-842-BOOG (2664) http://www.boogcity.com • @ b o o g c i t y

6 BOOG CITY WWW.BOOGCITY.COM WWW.BOOGCITY.COM OCTOBER 2003BOOG BOOG CITY CITY 7 FILM Haunted Landscapes Poetic and Experimental Cinema Screenings B Y J O E L We hear precepts and suggestions, “Syllables at an unexpected connectedness between emerge from disaster. The mirrors turned inside disparate combinations. In fact, it’s quite gratifying The simultaneity of spo- SCHLEMOWITZ out. Some jobs are always in demand. Visually to not have the associations between word and Connectivity Through sonic thought. Secret collusion between what image not be too literal, making it a thick stew ken text and filmic image Cinema presents you meant and what you ended up saying.” of sights and sounds, the divided concentration do something to the view- Stephanie Gray, and “Suspension of disbelief to the sound of bringing emphasis to the poetry of the films, and Another Experiment by breaking waves. When you go to Manhattan, the filmic quality of the strings of unreeling words. ing and listening, a height- Women Film Festival there is an air of selling out. I called that one in.” A At 6:00 p.m. on March 5, at Anthology Film ening of attentiveness, the he work of super-8 filmmaker and poet, fleeting quotation from E.B. White’s Here is New Archives (2nd Avenue and East 2nd Street, in the process of adding the two Stephanie Gray inaugurates the new film York is paired with detailed advice on how to East Village), the ongoing Another Experiment Tseries “Connectivity Through Cinema,” get a dryer in a busy laundromat. Observations, by Women Film Festival, under the aegis of experiences together and joining the flock of alternative film venues in New reminiscences, guidance, all intermix, as does New Filmmakers, presents a group screening arriving at an unexpected York. “What You Thought You Knew / What You the form of address, sometimes directed to you, of short experimental films by women artists. The Knew You Thought” will take place at 7:00 p.m. in the second person, but frequently pivoting program includes a diversity of work—animation, connectedness between on Feb. 17, at Center for Performance Research, between “I, you, he, she, they, us.” “We knew filmic image-poetry, recounted dreams, a portrait disparate combinations (361 Manhattan Ave., in Greenpoint, Brooklyn). what you were all about. Keep it alive by not of the Gowanus environs, a bricolage of Organized by the creators of the Mono messing it up too much. I don’t believe you forensic ephemera. But the coalescing of these of exquisite dread encountered in the forensic No Aware film events, the series is described didn’t see it coming. I don’t see what you’re divergent works has made for an unexpectedly miscellany of documents, recordings, and other as presenting “the work of artists, filmmakers saying. He was last seen wearing a smirk.” coherent and satisfying program. It’s part of fragments relating to a woman’s disappearance. and curators who are traveling or presenting The old adage of the parts being greater the mystery of film programming. The works in Melt in the Shade by Kyoungjiu Kim also special interactive programs in-person. ... engages the viewer through an invocation of black- to engage the community by showing work and-white images, in positive and negative film, of with a focus on post-screening discussion.” the bare branches of a the forest in wintertime. The films will be projected super-8 film The film is described as “a visual metaphor of and paired with live reading of poetry by the the filmmaker’s journey to understand her roots filmmaker; making it, indeed, a screening that is after experience of cultural dislocation.” Its use very much intended to be experienced in person; of external topology to evoke a psychological the films physically unreeling in the projector, state feels akin to the landscapes of German and the words of a live reading harmonizing Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich. The and contrasting with the image on the screen. bleak sounds of the cold, forest air, bring a sense We witness, in the first film of the program of tension, with the signs of life in the form of a few Seeing Thru Buffalo(s), the camera at street cries of distant birds. The film’s spare soundscape level looking up at the facades of decaying contributes greatly to its sense of beguiling unease. buildings, the patina of the weathered surfaces, Laura Heit’s animated piece, The Deep Dark, the old signs, “Meats and Poultry,” “Optometrist,” also makes use of the sounds of the forest as a “Furrier,” in vintage typeface and flaking paint. traveler treks through the nocturnal woods. And On the top of a building, a goddess-like yet the primary curatorial link between the works statue of a woman and a glint of sunlight from is the haunted and ghostly aspects of the films, the some reflective surface, its intense brightness relation to the wooded landscape is secondary. splaying across the surface of the film’s Lori Felker’s The Broken News Series - Part emulsion. What is it, reflecting the sunlight with ‘Melt in the Shade’ by Kyoungjiu Kim. 1: Disaster gives us a monologue, delivered such intensity? A window? A metal rain gutter? in the guise of a newscaster addressing the The light reflected from a cluster of deflated, than the sum of the whole, doesn’t quite explain a group should support one another, not be camera. And yet the verbal picture painted mylar balloons tangled in the bare, thin, branches what is most compelling about the juxtaposition too much of a random hodgepodge, and not within the spoken words is almost a film within of a tree, carries this visual theme into another of of film and poetry, for the text itself stands on its be so similar as to be redundant. Is there is an a film, a private landscape viewed inside our Gray’s films. The camera, in its upward tilt, moves, own, spilling out in fragmentary observations, like ideal place on the continuum of divergency mind as we watch the other film on screen, sometimes with great tentativeness, a movement the experience of bits and pieces of overheard and thematic consistency? Perhaps this is the constructed from the verbal narrative. Margaret of searching and seeking. The film Balloons Tied conversation. And many of the images, the hand- Goldilocks theory of film programming? Striking Rorison portrays the Gowanus Haze in the (up) Your Sky, coming in the center of the program processed, solarized, black-and-white images the right balance between the works in a cinematic grayness of black-and-white emulsion, of short works, is hand-processed black-and-white of sunlight hitting the lens and silhouetted figures program, neither too similar nor too disparate. the images seemingly desaturated of color by the super-8 film, the texture of the hand-processed in a doorway, for instance, also require nothing Too haphazard a program isn’t hard to very atmosphere of cement dust and airy effusions images, its splotches, watermarks, drips, and more. But the simultaneity of spoken text and filmic imagine, but what makes a short film program too from the polluted waters of the canal itself. solarization merging with the texture of the world image do something to the viewing and listening, thematically consistent? I recall a group screening The festival director and programmer, Lili before the lens—the dark, haunted glow of solarized a heightening of attentiveness, the process of a little while ago where all the films were linked White, explains that the connective link between emulsion within the brightest parts of the image. adding the two experiences together and arriving by the use of images of water reflections, of the works is a sense of “otherness,” but the term the texture of waves and ripples on the surface is used in a completely different way from the of water, and even the films that didn’t have academic usage of “the other,” as the opposite such images directly contained some water-like end of a polarity of “us” and “them,” the other “flow” to the unfurling of light on the screen. tribe in a tribal view of the world. Otherness, The next film began, and water imagery in this case, is used to describe the intangible reappeared, and, as this happened, there was quality of possessing something extra, something the feeling of being a bit damp and soggy more, something else occurring below the surface from all the wetness washing up on screen. The of the images, in the work she had selected. programmer was clearly well-intentioned, and all White likens the aggregate effect of the of the films were exceptionally good in themselves. screening of works by women artists to the But the thematic consistency of the curatorial difference in how a conversation within a approach took away from each individual film’s group of women is different from a group impact. They all began to seem redundant of one of women and men. But this might also another, whereas if each had been shown on its be said of the experience of attending a own, the effect would have been more satisfying. screening; to see work with others is to And yet, there seems to be just enough linkage experience it differently, the energy of the between the works in Another Experiment by audience is present, and both of these events Women to have them speak to one another without are worth the experience of this energy. seeming to parrot from each other. In Missing Joel Schlemowitz is a Brooklyn-based filmmaker Green by Joey Huertas aka Jane Public, we witness who makes short cine-poems and experimental grainy footage of a young woman walking along documentaries. His most recent project, “78rpm,” the horizon of a hill, and hear messages left on an is scheduled to be completed in early 2014. He answering machine. The work is less a mystery has taught filmmaking at The New School for the story than it is an envelopment in the atmosphere Jessy Randall past 15 years. (http://www.joelschlemowitz.com/)

8 BOOGBOOG CITYCITY OCTOBER 2003 WWW.BOOGCITY.COM WWW.BOOGCITY.COM BOOG CITY 9 ART Link http://www.jiajiazhang.com/

Bio

Jiajia Zhang is a New York-based Jiajia Zhang artist born in China. Her solo exhibi- tions include Six Sunsets, One Horizon, Amalfi, Italy; and Tour du Jour (351 Lower East Side days of filth and wisdom), Fragmen- tal Museum, New York City. Group exhibitions include Catch of the Year, Dienstgebäude Art Space, Zurich, Swit- zerland; Strike Anywhere, exhibition at International Center of Photography, New York City; and Touche à Tout, Bol- lag Space, Basel, Switzerland. Zhang received an M.F.A. in architecture from ETHZ in Zurich and a diploma from the International Center of Photography in New York City. Artist Statement

My work includes photography, sculptures, drawings, notes, and room installations which depart from obser- vations of daily life, the city, and its residue. Color schemes, textures, and shapes in photographs and objects form loose connections without build- ing a closed narrative. Found ephem- eral phenomena are presented next to constructed realities. As much as walking, looking, making associa- tions, and taking notes are important for my experience of the world and become sources for my work, I am taking into consideration that viewers themselves move within and without.

(clockwise from top) Distant Relatives #2, 2011; Distant Relatives #1, 2011; Distant Relatives #3, 2011. All are C-Prints.

8 BOOG CITY WWW.BOOGCITY.COM WWW.BOOGCITY.COM OCTOBER 2003BOOG BOOG CITY CITY 9 Links PRINTED MATTER

http://ignatzybanjo.tumblr.com/ Jen Coleman is Bios Singing in a Strange Land Ethan Fugate is a poet and was co- editor for the six-issue run of the poetry and god is not not a word and god is not journal POM2. He currently lives in BY ETHAN FUGATE not a non-word Psalms for Dogs and Sorcerers Charleston, SC. and not not a verb and god is Jen Coleman not not an utterance not not the answer. Trembling Pillow Press God. y copy of Jen Coleman’s Psalms for Dogs and Sorcerers (Trembling It ends where it began but charged with Pillow Press) is dog-eared and M alchemical ambiguity. The idea of God is coffee-stained. I have bent the spine and filled as fragile as the “doomed” balloon dog in the pages with annotative graffiti. Here. “1st “Theory of an Afterlife.” It maintains its shape appearance of bees.” There. “attn turns from solely on the pressure of air pressing outward of particles so small they are a code what is inhuman in humans to the human in all. against the inner surface. Both the balloon dog so small they are encoded in the cells Inhuman.” And then. “it’s a dirty pantomime of and idea of God vulnerable to the least sharp of the homunculi that are making history boiled down to two crabs getting busy object in the world. what we are becoming, the most insidious in the surf.” Elsewhere. “Linnean? Darwinian? Though humans act as the main agents in collapse, Newtonian? Colemanian?” As well as. “I have most of these poems, more often than not a the cellular collapse, seen the anemone and it is us.” And others. This mélange of animals appear as proxy and the collapse at the collection is filled with poems that hijack your instruction. They occupy the world that exists tiniest stub of being attention, demanding response. parallel to our myopic one, unseen but for those smaller than an eye, smaller than a cell, Divided into eight sections, Psalms for Dogs with eyes and will to see. Sorcerers. The dog smaller than a hair on the cell, and Sorcerers announces, shofar-like, the may hear the song of the East this complicated combination lock, River “with its wharf rats/ laughing this is where the collapse begins. ultrasonic chirps/ full of hope” Juxtaposition and accretion of meaning The collapse, as I am guessing, is the dominate the poetic strategy in this book. It naturally, but the scientist uses equipment to capture the song theoretical collapse of the oceanic food chain is a strategy meant to remind us that here in and the poet pulls an image of the caused by hubris and greed—specifically due this sub-lunar world all is not what it seems. happy chorus out of thin air. to the use of a chemical dispersant used after Language, like elements that make up multi- Ultimately, the best part an oil spill. The idea is that the dispersant may of our species is the ability to adversely affect those creatures at the very cellular organisms, is fragile and subject to bottom of the food chain, creating a chain breakdown, reorganization, or complete attune ourselves to that which is not readily perceived, an ability reaction collapse up to and including us land misunderstanding. that helps us create a space for lubbers depending on the seas for sustenance. problem solving. This attenuation It’s a dire scenario and one that highlights a is the heart of the two poems possible answer to the central question of the beginning of this third millennium, the theatrical “Doctrine of the Rude Dream” and “Yellow book about existence. backdrop of which is painted to look like this: Tower Crane.” These two poems concern Bee crisis, Iraq-war crisis, September 11, 2001 themselves with alternate perception and Then they do collapse there in the column crisis, Inequality crisis, Environmental crisis. In the turning away from immediate concerns toward of water, forefront, however, is the voice. Evolving from a holistic view of the whole canvas. Heavily the water column so deep and unseen by the personae ventriloquism in “Apostrophe & coded, the whole canvas in “Doctrine” is the the creatures Soliloquy” to the prophetic certainty in the final body as natural world. “Yellow Tower Crane” up there on land that so depend on the little section “Space and Ocean,” Coleman’s voice experiments with perception, telling the same fish displays range recalling, at turns, other magi- story seven different ways, a poetic game of being little zombie apocalypse fish but no scientists like Lisa Jarnot, Gertrude Stein, Gerard telephone. bit of feed Manley Hopkins, and Theodore Roethke. But what happens when we don’t attune, for a bigger fish on which to feed, on which Behind the changes in tone and style of the when we don’t create a multi-perspective space the world book is the love of language, the necessary fuel by listening to the song of the world around us? feeds, on which the people with the space for each spell that, despite any “crisis” in the What happens is hinted at in an earlier poem in between background, is immutable and affirming. the volume “Brother Island.” The poem matter- them see one another but not as a whole Juxtaposition and accretion of meaning of-factly states but as parts and that is the problem dominate the poetic strategy in this book. It is a with the collapse. strategy meant to remind us that here in this sub- It’s normal when groups of people die. lunar world all is not what it seems. Language, It is usual, in a year, for many to die In the end there are a multitude of collapses like elements that make up multi-cellular and become an impressive number. It’s contributing and enabling the specific one in organisms, is fragile and subject to breakdown, expected. the poem. Apathy and entropy conspire to reorganization, or complete misunderstanding. dim our vision of ourselves in the world and Certain poems within the eponymously The poem references circus tent accidents, how we connect with one another. “Collapse” titled section of the book “Psalms for Dogs mass killings by armed boy scouts, cruise ship stands as the clearest warning against not and Sorcerers” employ a rhetorical enveloping accidents—items one is likely to see in the being able to see. architecture, elegantly ending where they newspaper on any given day. But the poem The rest of Psalms for Dogs and Sorcerers is began, but charged with new meaning (or isn’t about disaster tourism. It seems to hint at a lesson and guide for seeing and hearing. I find sorcery) mimicking the structure of the Biblical likely scenario where such random events will it one of the most important and beautiful books psalm. Perhaps the best example is the playful pale in scale to a looming disaster. The poem I’ve read in a long time. “Via Not Non-Affirmativa.” It begins doesn’t tell us what this disaster might be, but one can guess: disease, starvation, war, or all The poem references circus God is a god. God of the above. tent accidents, mass killings is not a god. God is In “Collapse,” the final poem of the book, not a non-god, a not-god, by armed boy scouts, cruise Coleman is ready to give us a probable not not a non-god god. scenario. Again, the poem begins matter-of- ship accidents—items one is God is not non-one. factly, “Here’s the way it is going to be.” likely to see in the newspaper and continues for a number of stanzas in a on any given day. But the The tiniest of collapses, perpetual loop of debate over existence. Not poem isn’t about disaster the collapse mostly dissolved only the existence of a supreme being, but of the collapse smaller than an eyeball, tourism. It seems to hint at existence itself. In a way, this poem asks the smaller than a light, a speck of light on a central question of this book, about existence, a likely scenario where such speck of life, our place, and influence (for better or mostly random events will pale in this is the collapse dispersed, worse) in it. The poem ends the dispersed that is the collapse scale to a looming disaster. the collapse that comes from the dispersal God is not non-impossible

10 BOOGBOOG CITYCITY OCTOBER 2003 WWW.BOOGCITY.COM SMALL PRESS Links

http://pisor-industries.org/ Transmissions from The Institute http://allisoncobb.net/ http://www.tremblingpillowpress.com/ C.E. Putnam Brings Home His Back Catalog psalms-for-dogs-and-sorcerers/ http://susanlanders.tumblr.com/ Yes, these titles would fall under that In fact, we danced until the desert was BY CHRIS MCCREARY “heading.” I’ve always made my own books: purple again, .I.S.O.R., the Putnam Institute for http://collectivetask.com/ usually micro-edition pamphlets for giving until the sky was almost to the lake’s Space Opera Research, is the away / trading / selling at readings and edge� singular vision of C.E. Putnam. P performances. So I felt that doing these Through book publications, audio downloads, books was an extension of that activity. I until we he had mastered the study of Bios patents for astonishing inventions, and more, used createspace, amazon.com’s Print On clouds� P.I.S.O.R. and its accompanying website allow Demand publishing service (it is the same one Allison Cobb is the author of Born Two Putnam to broadcast his work to the world, that BlazeVox used/uses). I could do all of and could give weight to each� (Chax Press) and Green-Wood (Factory even from his remote outpost in Singapore. the layout work in Singapore and just upload School), which the New York Times called Via email, Boog City discussed with Putnam pdfs / order printed proofs. I could ship books a “gorgeous, subtle, idiosyncratic gem.” his decision to release six volumes of his own wherever. I’m really proud of all the books and work via P.I.S.O.R. in 2012 as well as his future ‘Indeed, the Institute like that people can get them in a more final, Jen Coleman lives in Portland, OR. plans for book publishing and a return to U.S. durable form. I’m returning to the U.S. in the has been a lifetime in the She is author of Psalms for Dogs and soil in 2014. fall, and one of the things I’m looking forward Sorcerers (Trembling Pillow Press). In addition, five of Putnam’s collaborators to is to do some readings to spread the books making.’ and co-conspirators from his time immersed in around. Ethan Fugate see p. 10. the Washington, D.C. poetry community take on –C.E. Putnam the task of reviewing or otherwise engaging the Do you plan to publish “The Bunny Sue Landers is writing a mash-up of work in his back catalog. Manuscript” via P.I.S.O.R. Publications as could recognize them as hidden causes� Ben Franklin, Gertrude Stein, and the well? Are there any other titles that you’re history of one Philadelphia neighborhood Boog City: On its “About” page, the interested in publishing via P.I.S.O.R.? of trouble or inconvenience called Franklinstein. P.I.S.O.R. website offers an overview of “The Bunny Manuscript” is still very much the “visual and sonic stimulus” to which a work in progress. It truly is a book project, He calls out, please Chris McCreary see p. 3. the institute is devoted, but I’d love for as there are maps, diagrams, photos, and readers here to get a good sense of what illustrations. I had a proof made of the working harken to my song Carol Mirakove has served as the Putnam Institute is drafts of Books I-IV from poetry editor and politics co-editor of up to. Is the line on createspace so I would for what a lovely picture this is: Boog City. the website about the have something nice to read a poem that must describe something that Institute being founded from, and to get a physical really happened. in 1968 a bit facetious, sense of the project. or is the idea that this Visualizing the physical Which is why has truly been a lifetime book is an important part of in the making? my writing/editing process. I MILTON HAS BEEN TOTALLY BLIND CEP: Indeed, the Institute guess the default plan would SINCE 1652 has been a lifetime in the be to do it via P.I.S.O.R. making. P.I.S.O.R. is a kind Publications as once the And of pen name / alter-ego illustrations are added (but it is not only that). The the multi-volume set will I LIVE IN A HOTEL AND FREQUENTLY thing about the Institute is probably be around 800+ HAVE MY MEALS SENT UP that the Institute is a private pages (might be difficult but organization. You know not impossible, I suppose, But, seriously, who you are. Over the years to find the right publisher). P.I.S.O.R. has sponsored I am very much interested you should a number of public and in doing other titles via know by now that words are not proof, private events, done some P.I.S.O.R. once I get situated but vision publishing. It has been on back the the states and have a sabbatical in Singapore for the past few a chance to participate in writing communities years and is looking forward to returning its and culture in the U.S. voiced fragments tossed back headquarters to the U.S. in the fall of 2014. A series of parent aides (videos, mind shapes, Papier-Mache Taj Mahal You need to start reading this book, his first, audio) and a series of children’s books (robots review by Sue Landers which you should have been doing from the will be featured) are in the works. In his Papier-Mache Taj Mahal, very beginning. C.E. Putnam sends us a message You mention that P.I.S.O.R. has been from the past, a present to foretell XX Elegies on hiatus—how did you come to release our future. review by Ethan Fugate six of your own books simultaneously via The collaboration of the P.I.S.O.R. in 2012? what you see in his picture century—of four centuries When I landed in Singapore in in the fall of is your own eye, really—XX Elegies, by poets 2010, I was faced with a big stretch of time in John Donne and C.E. a strange new country. I had six unpublished/ as if looking through a keyhole� Putnam is the second book in an astonishing mostly finished manuscripts spanning 1994- set of six books published in 2012 by P.I.S.O.R 2003 and I thought it would be a good use you might spot yourself changing clothes, Publications. XX Elegies reprints the 1631 of my time to finish/publish these books before edition of Donne’s Elegies and places it (as I resumed work on another project. After or a mirror in which� Book Two) next to Putnam’s Elegies (Book querying a number of publishers, it was clear it One), written in 1997. would take a long time to find a place for all of you could leave your face, The front cover of the book is a kind the books. So, I decided to put them out myself of diptych that portrays Donne and Putnam via P.I.S.O.R. Publications. Since the books a message for another to find. in matching Elizabethan ruff and geometric came out, I’ve been back at work on “The beards. If the cover of XX Elegies is any Bunny Manuscript” along with some photo / It is this desire to sing, to transmit, to make indication (and it is), then readers should digital image work. contact that resounds throughout his first book. expect a cracked mirror marriage/mirage, He takes us sigodlin juxtapositions, and two trains merrily If P.I.S.O.R. is an extension of you, and lovingly rumbling towards and away from then I reckon the P.I.S.O.R. Publications up to the STARLIGHT ROOM� one another. It should be noted: the visual release of these titles falls under the resemblance between the two is more than heading of “self publishing.” Do you feel to dance to George Liberace’s wonderful passing. like there is still any sort of stigma left music. In a letter at the beginning of Book One, when it comes to self publishing, and, if so ... do you care? Please see MCCREARY page 12

WWW.BOOGCITY.COM OCTOBER 2003BOOG BOOG CITY CITY 11 undergoes a magnetic polarity reversal every man, loops move through new world.” But I say that all six books in C.E. MCCREARY from page 11 11 years. The end of each of these 11-year their uniforms, a floor above, Putnam’s back catalog are written for anyone Putnam writes across the centuries to Donne cycles are marked by increased auroral activity smoking a cigarette, and I can who wants to truly hear our world. about a kind of spirit possession that soon after (which is lovely) and increased interference see right into the man, the one takes place upon reading his elegies. with some earthly and orbital electronic systems on top of the other man, Maniac Box: (which is anxiety inducing). It seem fitting to because he is a telephone Twenty-Seven Film But your book soon took hold, and I found have re-read XX Elegies this past December, and the other man is a lamp. Treatments that the deeper I went into the language, during which time the magnetic polarity of Review by Carol Mirakove the reading, the more the language the sun completely reversed. XX Elegies is What I learned from this book, what I still became me. It was as if your poems took constantly reversing expectations and notions. learn from C.E.’s work: This is not it, the drone I feel free on physical form, a Golem text brought The two books speak to one another from world and all its consequent violence. We to obscene life by the simple act of my can imagine something else; we can remake “go world go!” reading it. What I learned from this the logics of our so-called reality, no matter how total. C.E. never stops doing that in his in a Maniac Box of betweens Putnam describes a frenzied period of book, what I still learn from work, cutting spaces for a different kind of life, productivity inspired by this Golem text and a C.E.’s work: This is not it, filled with jouissance—painful and raw and “you set the scene | a citizenry never process of “writing through” Donne’s “fabulously the drone world and all its pleasurable—right down to the last blob of could” strange and disturbed poem series of sex and consequent violence. We can living light. death, longing and loss” to create his very own & its intoxicating soundtrack Elegies. imagine something else; we Transmissions from the Institute The language of Putnam’s Elegies delivers can remake the logics of our Review by Jen Coleman “Buon giorno, this is your Donovan” on this promise. Part homophonic translation so-called reality, no matter Here’s what C.E. Putnam and part inverse experiment against meter, knows: we live in a crazy world everything happened & can the elegies of Book One dervish down the how total. –Allison Cobb of unending mechanized war, page, an antiphon to Donne’s chunky meter of sex and death, suffering and “I feel closest to you when no one can see and rhyme. opposite poles; sometimes shouting, sometimes wonder, where all things commonplace are what I’m doing” A reader is tempted to read this book en whispering. Sometimes the two even shake strange and terrifying, and all things terrifying face. When the two Elegies are side by side hands when they encounter one another when and awe-inspiring are commonplace. This explode & collide, you begin to spot the similarities and tease out they migrate from pole to pole. Thanks to knowledge is manifest across his multimedia, how the original work informs the latter. For Chris Putnam, the “two texts can eternally exist multivalent work. “hello dummy | hi how are you?” example: together: tombstone and shadow.” But what does existence itself have to say about it all? What if existence, as “unstuck concatenate For this to th’ comfort of my Dear I vow, Spaces Where Spaces Are from time” as the 90-year-old half-blind ex- My Deeds shall still be what my words Review by Allison Cobb photographer in the laundry room, were given “become the chair” are now; C.E. Putnam wrote the a single nearly audible voice? What if a The Poles shall move to teach me ere I poems in this book when living system were contrived to amplify that voice and whether or not the backstory is true start; on Wayne Street in Arlington, encourage it? That’s the what-if premise that And when I change my Love, I’ll change Va. We moved in too, up the frames the 99 Transmissions from the Institute. “repopulate that heap o’ heartache” my heart; crooked stairs in the white house that might In a prologue C.E. Putman offers a very Nay, if I wax but cold in my desire, once have been fancy, a mansion. Not far from cogent, if fantastical, story of how he came with frames of our still lives Think, heaven hath motion lost, and the the White House, the Real One where—what— across echoes of transmissions from a distant world fire: things happened, unreal things that people source; transmissions that cannot be heard “Too much public ‘om‘” Much more I could, but many words have believed in, Monica Lewinsky, Kenneth Starr. so much as “listened through.” There can be made We fell out of stars into this, the fucked no transcript of the sounds of existence itself. & beyond the permitted, that, oft, suspected which men would world, world of work, after three years of The best we can do is respond: to insist that perswade; poetry school, where we read poetry and utterance begets utterance, and to generate “how to overcome your human skin” Take therefore all in this: I love so true, wrote poetry and talked about poetry, and no response as a gesture toward communication As I will never look for less in you. one breathed a word about actually how to affirming the very existence of existence. real, live. We learned that, as C.E. Putnam notes in And so C.E. Putnam generates the 99 which appears at the end of Donne’s “Elegy the preface, from the poets in D.C., from that response-transmissions that make up the “spellbound by a Swedish psychologist / XII: His Parting From Her” becomes community: how to live, and how to write, how book (actually, only 87: 12 were “lost in and her Theremin” to make (it, art, a life) while work made the a flood”). The transmissions remind us how The trees persuade the suspect bodies go away in zip portions. absolutely fantastic and unlikely it is that we all in concert in us to listen to the fire The poems in this book are a record of communicate with words and depend upon it. symphony a vulgar purgatory that, full of windows, and bodies, and sex. Each transmission, neat rectangles of varying “NO WAR [then louder] NO WAR!” chirping frogs mating Full of ghosts, and war, and work, the sounds length, give us a series of phrases about the tree squirrels sensitive of glaciers crushed against our windows. We size of a single breath, punctuated by number in Maniac Box we hold in our hands to our subtle rocking learned to cut back, cut spaces. For poetry. For markers. The delicious phrases are strangely I change when the poles sex, calling in sick, cutting through the ghosts familiar. From Transmission 13 (Listen...A Bird... “the world wiped clean so as to shine” move by slight degrees and violence and lie-wars of that world to Draw): to be comfortable reach through the windows of our bodies back by the strange genius of C.E. Putnam with my reflection to life. As the war on war on wore on. (13:83) wing bones indeed (13:5) she in hut-sized cabbages. The world at that time seemed full of knew each one “half man half / origami” spaces, blanks, a sense of disappearing into (13:29) and managed to finish the circles at the beginning of Putnam’s “Elegy XII: His the depersonalized world of office drone work, around the I am excited Parting From Her.” This organizing principal a nothingness papered over by news stories, little clouds (13:81) two hundred rocks appears to be consistent throughout Putnam’s scandal, distant wars we felt both horrified side by side Elegies. Each one of his poems “begins” where by and numb to, the body itself erased by (13:96) and it took even more acorns Donne’s poems end. the rising logic of internet ones and zeroes, a (13:31) to tell En face is, however, only one way to read kind of constant, empty reflection of emptiness that Jeanne D’Arc was an opium-eater this extraordinary book. Putnam’s Elegies stand reflected back. (13:5) in that song... alone. Thematically similar to Donne’s series, Putnam’s Elegies are a surreal study of “sex THE 15,000 DAY FORECAST I can’t resist reading for an intact syntax. and death, longing and loss” that bleed a Looking out the window Does Jeanne D’Arc know something about language that is, ultimately, entirely Putnam’s. at a window. The window wing bones, after finishing her circles around His Elegies owes its existence to Donne’s, and is lighted. In the window the little clouds? Are the 200 rocks actually yet the alchemy is such that the transformation there is a lamp, there is clouds, or acorns? Was Jeanne D’Arc stoned is complete. a telephone across the street ... in that song? Perhaps. That is the first time I saw you But more likely, each lyric breath is, finally, the shadow I write beneath me, work shoes independent of the others. There is no meaning come with me environ the night under your desk. in sentences here. There is only a glimpse at I must go to them and you the absurdity, pain, love, longing, incongruity must see the darkness What I love about this book: the poems and passion of the human endeavor of trying in the trees these last in it represent a massive refusal of all this, the to communicate using language. words for you logic of privileged life in late capital. They insist I love the final gesture of including an index. this morning on the seductive specificity of the absurd. THE It is so desperately hopeful, as if providing a a final throat song 15,000 DAY FORECAST continues guide to the occurrence of words could give now all of my own them the elusive meaning we crave. It’s its own (Elegy VII, pt. IX) There is work of art. also some dirt and a man C.E. Putnam dedicates Transmissions from The star at the center of our solar system standing on top of another the Institute to “anyone who wants to hear a

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