THE HAY(NA)KU INFILTRATES THE MILITARY

I've finally managed to organize the manuscript for THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU PROJECT, curated by Ivy Alvarez, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Ernesto Priego and Moi. I continue to be amazed at the hay(na)ku's popularity: about 90 poets and artists will be represented in the print anthology which will be published in 2010 by Meritage Press. Woot!

But right now I'm chortling over how, okay, possibly eight of these 90 authors/artists may not be poets or artists per se. I do know they're editors -- one of the chained hay(na)ku collaborations was put together on the spur of the moment during an editorial staff get-together at Global Security & Engineering Solutions, A Division of L-3 Communications. Yep, that be a military contractor, y'all -- they specialize in, ahem, "...Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance". Well, monitor this: poetry has infiltrated them!

Moreover, their collaboration was actually published in their newsletter this July! How kewl is that?! Said newsletter mentions the anthology, Meritage Press, and describes the "21st century Filipino word-count form of poetry" called the hay(na)ku. I love it -- widening poetry's audience!

Meanwhile, yes, do look out for next year's THE CHAINED HAY(NA)KU PROJECT anthology! It promises to be yet another unique offering from Moi's "small but mighty press" (thank you for the blurb, Kevin Killian!) Meanwhile, let's all try for this:

MAKE POETRY, NOT WAR!

World, I'll trade you poetry books for guns anytime you wanna lay 'em down! I'm a farmer after all; I can use some new ploughshares.