TO RELISH POETRY: A POETICS

I not only Relish...but, folks, I give you things to Relish, to wit these reminders:

NOTA BENE EISWEIN by Moi--Special Release Offer

NOVEL CHATELAINE by Moi -- My First Novel (grin)

HOUSECAT KUNG FU: STRAIGHT POEMS FOR WILD CHILDREN by Geoffrey Gatza--Special Release Offer

FOR FILIPINO POETS WORLDWIDE: EIGHTH ANNUAL (BELATED) HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST

And now, here's my update to my ongoing Relished W(h)ine List -- do check out the two books I blurb and which I exhort you to anticipate! And apologies, sigh, for my Gardening List...

CITY SLICKER'S "WINTER GARDEN" HARVEST (to date)
six clumps of bok choy

two (skinny) clumps of purple kale

one clump of Red Velvet lettuce

two clumps of either lettuce or kale (Mom sautees these "winter greens" in oyster sauce so it doesn't seem to matter that I can't identify them)

54 Meyer lemons


PUBLICATIONS
GUARDIANES DEL SECRETO / GUARDIANS OF THE SECRET, poems by Lila Zemborain, trans. by Rosa Alcala. In manuscript form and forthcoming from Noemi Press; here's moi (unedited) blurb:

Lila Zemborain's power subverts paper: her words turn pages into films of blurred or incomplete images. The references are specific (geezus: even "Danielle Steele"!), but what is happening remains stubbornly a question, defying the definitive answer except for what a reader is moved to speculate. The technique of reader involvement is not unique, but what's special about these poems is how they seduce you into wanting to connect with them, in part by opening up to allow the entry of some sort of fever. For it's within such a heightened space where focus begins and the relationship between reader and words can unfold. If lucidity is not possible without the inner gaze (e.g. "an ancestral space"), what Zemborain reminds is that intimacy is a prerequisite, in the way -- to paraphrase her -- a partly blind person can glean what is being seen by way of touch. There indeed are secrets within this book -- but their discovery requires more than reading. The reader must allow the secrets to "enter[...] another way" than "through the eyes." If you are lucky, you will read these poems and discover something about how you were made, as well as possibilities of what you may become. These poems' secrets are within you.

QUATERNITY, poetry-collaboration by Scott Glassman and Sheila Murphy. In manuscript form and forthcoming from Otoliths; here's moi (unedited) blurb:

In Quaternity, Scott E. Glassman and Sheila Murphy ask, "...and what divination will rhetorize the oppositorum / attract the needed nightshade / counter pull assume high produce / to be revered osteo"? Do you understand the question? Whether you reply Yes or No, the point is that the excerpt can be understood to be a question. How? Through the push and pull of its music. Quaternity asks the reader to trust in words -- the word itself and not what it supposedly signifies. For the word itself can be a musical note and it can suffice (more than suffice!) that certain combinations sing. The dictionary bows to Glassman and Murphy's seductive diction: "No curve to infinity can mimic bells."

PLAGIARISM / OUTSOURCE, poetry by Tan Lin

OBSOLETE--AN ALPHABET OF POEMS INSPIRED BY DEAD WORDS by Katie Haegele

THAT TINY INSANE VOLUPTUOUSNESS, poems by Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney

THE AMPUTEE'S GUIDE TO SEX, poems by Jillian Weise

SMUDGING, poems by Diane Wakoski

THE BUTCHER'S APRON, poems by Diane Wakoski

CORPORATE GEESE, poems by Christopher William Purdom

TO AFTER THAT (TOAF), explorations by Renee Gladman

NEWCOMER CAN'T SWIM, "textual world" by Renee Gladman

FAT CHILDREN RUINED MY LIFE, art monograph by Stella Lai

THE BACHELOR'S CAT: A LOVE STORY by L.F. Hoffman

DAY OF THE DEAD, novel by J.A. Jance

LONG TIME GONE, novel by J.A. Jance

BREACH OF DUTY, novel by J.A. Jance

THE DEBT COLLECTOR, novel by Lynn Hightower

DEAD AIM, novel by Iris Johansen

THE BABY GAME, novel by Randall Hicks


WINES
2001 Behrens & Hitchcock petite sirah Spring Mountain Road NV
2004 Dutch Henry chardonnay
200_ Dutch Henry pinot noir
1989 Val Sotillo Ribera del Duero Gran Reserva
2005 Aubert Sonoma chardonnay
Bollinger NV Champagne
1990 Chateauneuf des Papes Bousquet de Papes
1978 Diamond Creek Volcanic Hill
1990 Dominus
1990 Raymond Lafon