PLURAL-IZATIONS

‘Twas a recent pleasure to read Christopher Stackhouse’s manuscript, PLURAL, forthcoming soon from Counterpath Press. He asked Moi for a blurb, and here’s the unedited one I came up with:

These poems break down because they seek to extend poetic expanse. And they want to expand the poem because they want to mirror a very "multiple" world, much of which the poet did not create but wants to acknowledge. They acknowledge by eliciting a new "trace" of activities which exist outside of authorial determination. The activities referenced encompass paintings, literature, conversations -- but they're all just part of what's being acknowledged through exploration: humanity. That's how a short poem entitled "Short" can come to move seamlessly from being short 75 cents to gazing at computer porn, from standing in a Korean deli to seeing the image of a white ass imprinted on one's inner eyelids. In other poems relying more on fragments, the fragments cease being parts to become parts-of. Despite fragments, breaks, and ruptures, the achievement of these poems is that their totality mirrors humanity as inherently unified. We are all parts of.
--Eileen R. Tabios

And here’s another update of my Recently Relished W(h)ine List below. Forgive some of the crap in there—during my recent travel, I ran out of books and had to read through a particular bookshelf where Harlequin romances were ever present; my problem is I'd rather read anything than not be reading. Anyway, in the Publications section, note that if you see an asterisk before the title, that means a review copy is available for Galatea Resurrects! More info on that HERE.


SUMMER CITY SLICKER HARVEST
5 strawberries
3 sprigs of mint
24 yellow squash
11 eggplant
8 zucchini
3 bell peppers
0 plums for the season—zero, because the birds et ‘em all!


PUBLICATIONS
PLURAL, poems by Christopher Stackhouse (see above blurb)

RE VEILED (A TAPADAS TALE), poems by Jim McCrary (luminous)

* ROUGH, AND SAVAGE, poems by Sun Yung Shin

* CHELTENHAM, poems by Adam Fieled (music dynamited)

* FOR THE CITY THAT NEARLY BROKE ME, poems by Barbara Jane Reyes (ya know: I think someone should review—compare—this book with Maged Zaher’s below)

* THE REVOLUTION HAPPENED AND YOU DIDN'T CALL ME by Maged Zaher (ya know: I think someone should review—compare—this book with Barbara Jane Reyes’ chap above)

TURTLE ISLAND, poems with prose by Gary Snyder

YELLOW FIELD 6, poetry and arts journal curated by Edric Mesmer (stand-out in indie publishing)

HOUSE ORGAN No. 79, literary journal edited by Kenneth Warren (ditto: another stand-out in indie publishing)

QUARRTSILUNI: MUTATING THE SIGNATURE, edited by Dave Bonta and Beth Adams (ditto twice: another stand-out in indie publishing)

THE WRITER ON HER WORK, VOLUME 1, (essays by Anne Tyler, Joan Didion, Mary Gordon, Nancy Milford, Honor Moore, Michele Murray, Margaret Walker, Susan Griffin, Alice Walker, Ingrid Bengis, Toni Cade Bambara, Erica Jong, Maxine Hong Kingston, Janet Burroway, Muriel Rukeyser and Gail Godwin) Edited by Janet Sternburg

CRAZY BRAVE, memoir by Joy Harjo (a poet’s memoir indeed)

JOURNAL OF A SOLITUDE by May Sarton (another re-read as it never fails to satisfy)

INVISIBLE WRITER: A BIOGRAPHY OF JOYCE CAROL OATES by Greg Johnson

THE THIRD CHAPTER: PASSION, RISK AND ADVENTURE IN THE 25 YEARS AFTER 50, psychology/journalism by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

JESSICA Z, novel by Shawn Klomparens

JURY OF ONE, novel by David Elllis

SLASH AND BURN, novel by Matt Hilton

SOFT FOCUS, novel by Jayne Ann Krentz

LONGING UNVEILED, novel by Meredith Kingston

HEIRLOOM, novel by Candace Camp

HRH, novel by Danielle Steel

PURSUIT, novel by Thomas Perry

WINES
La Terre Chardonnay
2011 Maysie Rose of Sangiovese, Mendocino