Bare Root Review and zafusy

Issue #3 of Bare Root Review is now online with works by Ashley Boles, Joe Bryant, Nancy Cluts, Richard Fein, Cassie McCain, H.A. Wetzler, J.W. Young and yours truly — even though my poem title states I'm elsewhere.

Have also got a minimalist poem on zafusy. It's so tiny that it's been taken for missing.

Not sure if the editors send out rejection notes. I just got an acceptance e-mail yesterday saying that missing can now be found on Page Two.

      Submission date: 6 September 2006
      Reply date: 26 November 2006

The best evil laughter in the world:

I was reading Lemony Snicket's "The Grim Grotto" (Book the Eleventh) over the weekend when I doubled up in snickers and delight. Thought I'd share the culprit — which I've tagged as "Count Olaf's Patent-Pending Wicked Laughter: No Villain Can Live at Home Without It." Here are some selected wicked laughs:

      Count Olaf... opened his mouth and began his new villainous laugh, which included new wheezes, bonus snarls, and an assortment of strange syllables the Baudelaires had never heard.

      "Ha ha ha heepa-heepa ho!" he cried. "Tee hee tort tort tort! Hot cha ha ha! Sniggle hee! Ha, if I do say so myself!"

* * * * * * * * * *

      "I'm happier than a pig eating bacon!" Count Olaf cried. "I'm tickled pinker than a sunburned Caucasian! I'm higher in spirits than a brand-new graveyard! I'm so happy-go-lucky that lucky people are going to beat me with sticks out of pure, unbridled jealousy! Ha ha jicama!"

* * * * * * * * * *

      "Guard the orphans, Triangle Eyes," Count Olaf said. "Although I don't think you orphans really need to be guarded. After all, there's nowhere to go! Tee hee traction!"

      "Giggle giggle gaudy!" Carmelita cried, leading the way out of the Main Hall.

      "Ha ha hair trigger"" Esmé screamed, following her.

      "Tee hee tonsillectomy!" Count Olaf shrieked, walking behind his girlfriend.

Snicker snickersnee hee hee henchmen! Isn't that the most admirable piece of literature ever?

Poems in Blackmail Press

On kind invitation from the editor, I have seven poems in issue 17 of Blackmail Press. It's my first time in a New Zealand venue so I'm quite thrilled with this honor.

Also noticed that they published a tribute issue to Richard Zola, who passed away last year. First came across his poetry in 3rd Muse Journal way back in 2002 — love it so much that I translated some for the Niederngasse Italian. Here's a favorite poem from his website:

if you're watching you will know

a street at 4am
frost is phosphorous on trees
a broken bench
subways and suspended bridges
fading graffiti
offices empty of secretaries and complainants
a sloping car park
spaces marked in white
and an embroidered muslim hat
hanging from railings
all of this is open to the sky
and no hand soothes

Photography classes:

Sick of my despicably under-/over-exposed picture-taking abilities, I've decided to take some lessons (10) at the public uni. First one was last Tuesday night. Am planning to go shopping for an SLR camera over the weekend. Any suggestions for a beginner? I was looking at the Canon 350D yesterday when the husband sneaked up behind me and said, "Not that. Everyone I know says it sucks." Oh dear. What to get, what to get now?

flashquake and hanging objects

Am thrilled to learn that flashquake has accepted two rather oldish poems for their Winter issue.

      Submission date: 23 October 2006
      Reply date: 16 November 2006

Pianoforte, a poem on CFIDS, is from the defunct Lean Season manuscript while Why Do I Show My Body? dates way back to the 5x5 challenge at Blueline (we were asked to insert 5 adjectives, 5 place names, 5 numbers, 5 nouns and 5 verbs in a single poem). Sure brings back memories. Had the time of my life doing that mind-teaser. Moon Over Uluru Grill is another one from that challenge. It made me realize I've been doing these 30-day poem thingee — off-and-on — for nearly two years now. Yikes. No wonder I'm not hearing voices.

30:30 update:

Double yikes. Am more than halfway there — didn't even realize it. Have been sorely distracted by Lemony Snicket's books on the Baudelaire children. Am on Book the Eighth now — only five more to go. In the meantime, I've learned how to use such words/phrases like "superlative," "gargantuan" and "small potatoes" to my best advantage.

Poems list to date —

10. My Gorilla Costume Says Hello
11. Everyone Has a Right To a Gorilla Costume
12. His Creepy Gorilla Suit
13. Birdcage
14. I'm Only as Half-Drunk as You Think I Am
15. Treeless
16. I Don't Hear Voices (part 1)
17. I Don't Hear Voices (part 2)
18. Sonnenizio on a Line from Barber

There's a sonnenizio craze going on — started, as usual, by the dangerously contagious McClain. And had a bit of sticky obsession with gorilla suits there — nothing which a glass or two of wine couldn't shake off, of course.

Some funny links on aging:

• Groovin' Granny [a.k.a. Do your boobs hang low?]

• The Hang Low Song [a.k.a. Does it ALL hang low? ]

Hope everyone gets some kicks out of these! I just floored on the roll and laughed dyeing myself silly... or whatever.

Blog renovation & days of books

Yay! Have finally gotten this damn blog template to work with only a paltry knowledge of CSS scripts. Took me all day just to bend it to my will and —er— my diminished visual capacity. Discovered a whole sea of these cool buggers through a link at Rohith's blog. They're actually easy to use — I'm just a masochist who likes dabbling with alien languages. Check them out!

Chapbook acceptance:

Am thrilled to announce that Rubicon Press will be publishing my chapbook, 26 Secret Love Poems sometime in late spring 2007.

Think I already mentioned this small press to people but hesitated in sending anyone over since I still hadn't heard from them. Now that I have, if anyone is seeking a nice print publisher for their chapbook, this seems a wonderful venue. Very lovely, professional manners. The response time was rather long, but there was a birth in-between. Things might be faster now.

      Date mailed: 25 June 2006
      E-mailed reply: 11 November 2006

Anthology publication:

Wheeeeeeee!!! Just found out that Velvet Avalanche: a collection of erotic poetry (edited by Donna M. Hill) is hot off the press!

It is 232 pages and features 76 contributing poets, 3 contributing artists in total. If anyone is interested in ordering or looking over the cover page and contributors, please me know and I'll e-mail them over.

Included in the e-mail announcement was praise for its quality, its smooth spine, its whiteness of paper and even its perfect thickness. Which I guess shows what reading tons of erotic poems can do to the word preferences of an editor.

Recent publication:

My poems, Juice and Bathroom are now up in Clean Sheets. I don't even need to mention where I first drafted these.

Juked and Tiptonned

I'm delighted to discover that I'm sharing space with Sarah in juked. Hiya, girl!

Am also with a couple of 30:30 regulars, namely Charyl (hah! they're beginning to get her name wrong, too) and Sharon (dressed up as Ann), in the latest issue of Tipton Poetry Journal. A Driving Instructor's First Water Bottle is actually my first driving instructor poem — based on my previous student life.

And now that I've brought the attention to driving....
I'm rather peachy pleased to announce that last Monday I broke my speed record of 45 kph! I've gone on to a daring 60 kph and not once felt queasy.

The goal is to reach at least 80 kph so I can use the freeway without being a public nuisance.

30:30 update:

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack! Have gotten into the rhythm, too... I think. No longer banging my head on the keyboard or smashing my toes against table legs to get out the daily poem... not writing really well, but my mind's occupied with —er— other things. Like a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. Yummy. And listening, thanks to the Mat Hatter (a person who wears floor mats for a living), to Emily Haines's A Maid Needs a Maid... which I'm humming to myself as A Mate Needs a Mate or else A Maid Knits a Mate. With music, the possibilities are endless.

Poems list to date —

1. All Saints' Day (reverted to orig. title, Day of the Dead)
2. Celebrating the therapist
3. Sunday Morning Mass
4. structure: a study
5. Black Ink on White #5
6. Please Meet My Breasts
7. tiny, tiny foreign objects
8. Geography Lessons
9. I'm Not Supposed To Wear This Gorilla Costume

Thanks to Kevin Doran, I've discovered his blog — where he posts response times of hundreds of 'zines!!! Click here to view the looooooooong list. Thanks for the nod... and I'm nodding —well— more like kowtowing back. The list is impressive.

A note about duotrope's digest

Discovered duotrope's digest last night through Fringe Magazine. And OMG! Writers with a submission obsession like yours truly are going to think they've died and gone to heaven. Well, snap awake — because this is a real life market database that actually calculates the response times of each magazine based on submitted reports. They even have a "theme calendar" of submission calls. Wooohoooo! No more need to write them down on paper which I know I'll eventually lose. There is a god out there.

Recent publications:

• Issue 6 of Fringe Magazine is now up and I have three poems there: rest : stop, through blinds and That time my upper lip swelled up. Working with the amiable editors of this neat 'zine has also been an additional treat.

• Yay! The Alice issue of Wicked Alice is now online with tons of spanking-good poetry. The fact that I know (not in the biblical sense, McClain) quite a bunch of the people there — namely, Jessy, Sarah, the demented Michi, the missing blogger Miss K, Nannette, C.E. and Liz — makes me all chirpy and pink

About my perigee-art.com e-mail:

It's been dead for around a week now due to some upgrading going on at the Perigee website. Hopefully, the only people still sending me e-mail to that address are dirty spammers.