THE ALLEGREZZA MULTIPLES

First, there was WILLIAM ALLEGREZZA by William Allegrezza.

Then came the high of THE ALLEGREZZA FICCIONE by Mark Young.

Then came the mischief of THE ALLEGREZZA BENCH by Eileen Tabios.

Wonder how Bill shall next multiply. Meanwhile, I tell ya: I just LIVE to amuse moiself.    

QUIET HERE, BUT

am being quite raucous over HERE WHERE I SIT, with the latest being avatar-ish on Joanne Kyger!

THE LOVELY YELLOW FIELD

a literary/arts journal out of Buffalo, N.Y., just gave THE AWAKENING a mini-review in its issue #7.  Thank you Edric Mesmer.  It's brief enough so I'll replicate in full here:

THE AWAKENING
Review By Edric Mesmer

Four meditations: spoofing on and getting off the modernist obsession with erotic contagion; dispatches from 9/11 for the poem that refuses to be written; the kaleidoscopic universality of pain as it dejectedly finds representation; a consideration of artwork by Filipino-American artist jenifer k. wofford. All these seeding our inheritances. The syphilitic metonym for a sexually-driven modernism is mirthful in its moves between hard-line phallocentrism and a lyrically-loaded vocab: “When I wish to soar from / the surface of words, I do not think of ‘Ezra Pound,’ // ‘penis,’ or ‘anus.’ I think of azure, kimono, aprocito, / adobe, Angkor Wat, magenta, anvil, silver moth …” From here there is a concentrated shift from the literarily investigative to the poetry of witness. Emails from September 2001 (incidentally, the author’s birthday) cohere in an antipoetic missive of community, synthesizing pathos. Ultimately, the collection must look at that which does not easily bear witness, as the many atrocities of modern poverty configure a media that cannot be or will not be televised. The poem becomes that televisionary channel-surfing: “… American press don’t buy these kinds of pictures. / Other countries do.’)” bleeds stringently back into triadic line. “Who determines what / leaves us / speechless? // Who—there is / a Who!— / determines // what’s allowed?”

Hope that tickles your interest into checking out moi book!  It's asleep until a reader wakes it!

TWENTY BOOKS SO FAR IN 2013!

Oh, Hello. I wanted to say that in addition to THE AWAKENING which was my first book release in 2013, I’ve created another 19 books. Sip: coffee: Nicaraguan blend: Yum. So, you can peruse a list of some of the 19 books over HERE. After said perusal, she says in the most friendly of tones, you might even want to read them by clicking on their rather fetching links. Sip. Yum. I hope you relish some of them.


And speaking of relishes (what a segue! You go, girl!), here’s the latest update of my Recently Relished W(h)ine List below. As ever, please note that in the Publications section, if you see an asterisk before the title, that means a review copy is available for Galatea Resurrects! More info on that HERE.



PUBLICATIONS
HOWL AND OTHER POEMS by Allen Ginsberg (City Lights’ Pocket Poets edition. AWESOME. Thanks Jim!)

* ELEGIES FOR MICHAEL GIZZI, poems by William Corbett with drawings by Natalia Afentoulidou (marvelous homage—wonderful, light-touched poems. And happy to be introduced to the drawings of Natalia Afentoulidou. A Delight-ful-filled publication)

IDIOT’S DELIGHT, poems by Robert Hunter (a pleasing—not to be confused with pleasant—surprise)

RENEGADE // HEART, poems by Lisa M. Cole (effective enough to inspire a review for next issue of Galatea Resurrects)

POISONOUS BEAUTY SKULL LOLLIPOP, poems by Juliet Cook (very polished. One of my favorites among her numerous chaps, thus inspiring me to create a mini-book version!)

THE GRAPEVINE, poems by Richard Lopez (fabulous!)

* ROUGE, poems by Kimberly Lyons (light delicately lined out)

HANDBOOK FOR WITHDRAWAL, poems by Erin Virgil (interesting premise wonderfully drawn out)

THE FIRST STONE GIRL, visual poetry by Ed Baker (click on link for moi fulsome review)

THE CHAIRMAN SPEAKS, poems by Tom Beckett (click on link for moi fulsome review)

LIVING IS NO LAUGHING MATTER, poems by John Bloomberg-Rissman  (click on link for moi fulsome review)

* THE LOVING DETAIL OF THE LIVING & THE DEAD, poems by Eleni Sikelianos (an engagement over HERE)

GALLOWGLASS, poems by Susan Tichy

BLOOD SISTER, I AM TO THESE FIELDS: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Linda Hussa

NONE, poems by George Albon

THROAT FLY: SIX SONNETS by John M. Bennett

DAMP SHORTS, poems by John M. Bennett

STRAUS KEEPSAKE by Karl Straus

PERIOD PIECE, poems by Benjamin Friedlander

THE LAST WORD, photograph-poem by jim mccrary (click on link for moi fulsome review)

JAPAN TALES, visual art narrative in fabrics by Alice Brody (click on link for moi fulsome review)

500 CHAIRS: CELEBRATING TRADITIONAL & INNOVATIVE DESIGN, curated by Craig Nutt

THE BOOKSHOP, novel by Penelope Fitzgerald

THE SURVIVOR, novel by Gregg Hurwitz

POLITICAL SUICIDE, novel by Michael Palmer

LOVE BLOOMS IN WINTER: THE DAKOTA DIARIES, novel by Lori Copeland


WINES
2008 Rombauer merlot Carneros
2006 Pirathon shiraz Barossa Valley
2009 Chateau Lilian Ladouys St. Estephe
Restaurant House Plonk La Terre Chardonnay
2011 Herencia Altes Terra Alta

SOME GOOD ART

and good art information -- remember "Action Painting" by Himself? -- over HERE today.

And do keep those "Books on Chairs" coming!  THANK YOU!

VALENTINE = MINI CHAIR!

My son just made me the absolutely best Valentine's Day present this Mom can receive -- a miniature chair!  You must check out the loving details over where I'm sitting with it!  Meanwhile, here's a photo, coming as it did with my favorite flowers:

You are INVITED to put a book on it!

Here's a photo; one of them is my loving son:

WAKE UP WITH WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS!

“The Erotic Life of Art: A Séance with William Carlos Williams,” is perhaps my favorite work I’ve ever read by this author.
--Joey Madia, Literary Aficionado

Really?  All those poems--24 poetry collections!--and long-time reader (and thank you for being a "long-time reader"!) Joey Madia thinks the first poem in THE AWAKENING may be his favorite?  That's something (and similarly expressed by other reviewers, to date).  Glad I rescued that poem from the depths of the trash bin where it once laid in darkness forgotten by its author Moi...

Go HERE for entire review, which also posits I'm hanging out in the frontier ... (no wonder I like love stories of settling the U.S. Western Frontier way back when...)

SIT WITH MOI: A MINI-ERUPTION!

I began Sit With Moi about two months ago when I was bored during insomnia (boredom and insomnia is not a good combination).  I created its blog, but didn't really know where the project was to go -- and that's why I threw it open to the public as I knew that in that public interaction, something I could not plan and anticipate would flower.  What flowered was/is:

BOOKS ON CHAIRS!

I began Sit With Moi with seven chairs and seven books.  Today, we have 45 chairs and 35 books.  That's a fairly fast pace of growth!  Can it continue?  If it does, I have hopes of future exhibits and a coffee-table type book from the blog content!

YOU ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE with a mini-book. You can interpret "book" any way you wish... heck, mccrary just folded a photograph!

You can even send mini-chairs; you can interpret "chair" any way you wish, too (have you seen my toilet paper roll stools and binder clip chaise lounge?)  And, at the moment, I'm preparing an email to New York-based quilter Alice Brody who's agreed to create some throws for some of the chairs -- what did I say? Everyone loves miniatures!

I hope to see you ... there.  Sit for a while...!

Yes, you can send more than one book or item.
Any questions?  Talk to Moi at GalateaTen@aol.com

KEEP 'EM COMING!!

I love it!  Love these tiny books and one chair (!) coming in from the e-world.  In the last couple of days, I had packets from Maryland, Colorado ... and Budapest!!!!  I am writing posts as fast as I can over WHERE I SIT!  Today, I had to write two posts as the backlog is growing!

This is all good!  You all continue to be invited to "Books on Chairs" and how about a still life for you -- a picture from moi lunch today!

A miniature chair from a girl named "Story," spinach salad w/ fresh tomatoes and bacon bits, tiny poetry book, letter from a poet, a mini book-in-progress, and a Diet Coke!  What's not to like?!

These books, btw, are OOAK (as we say in the e-world) or 1/1 editions.  Thank you, Poets, for trusting me with these treasures!  Moi will give them all a good home.

MOI WROTE ANOTHER UNREADABLE BOOK

which you can see over WHERE I SIT.  Quite unreadable--indeed, you can't even open it:

What a shame: to read this book is to discover the Secret to Happiness!

MEME

Thanks to Karen An-hwei Lee for inviting me to participate in the Next Big Thing, a meme I'd not known was a meme when Moi was asked. (Thanks as well to wonderful poet Marthe Reed for asking.) Karen is the author of several poetry books, about which more info can be found HERE.


*Ten Interview Questions for the Next Big Thing*

What is your working title of your book?
I have three manuscripts-in-progress. The one I’ll focus on, as it’s possible it’ll be the first to be published, has a working title of Reproductions of the Empty. (Don’t know if the title will stick.)


Where did the idea come from for the book?
It’s a poetry collection of verse. The text come out of lines from prose poems published in my first U.S.-published poetry book, Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole. You can see the relationship between the two titles. I was thinking, with the second collection, of the idea of chiseling sculptures out of blocks of stone—I thought of “chiseling” verses out of the prose blocks in the first book, which is a collection of prose poems.


What genre does your book fall under?
Poetry. But that’s not saying much in terms of categorization. If I designed, say, a miniature chair, I’d consider that poetry.


Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Whoever would pass the auditions/screen tests, which would include but not be limited to reading the poems out loud.


What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
“______________________—Fill in the blank.”


Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
How interesting that you give just two choices…


How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
For this, I consider the concept its first draft. It took about 14 years to conceive it.


What other books would you compare this story (sic) to within your genre?
Not applicable.  Or, "Genesis" from The Holy Bible.


Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Moi. With a huge dose of laziness desire for the Seventh Day of Rest…


What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
If it’s published when I think it’ll be published, it’ll be my 25th poetry collection. Actually, that’s boring. Try this: It’s either what would have been written by the violinist while Rome burned, or what Rimbaud might have considered if he hadn’t decided to traffic in guns.



WHO I INVITED (supposed to invite at least five and I did, but only one confirmed participation):

John Bloomberg-Rissman  (which incorporates Ivy Alvarez's Meme...)

ANOTHER REASON TO LOVE DA VINCI

And I'm grateful, too, to Grady Harp for his review of THE AWAKENING!  Posted at Amazon.com where he's a Hall of Famer reviewer and Goodreads apparently (can't access the latter). 

While Grady mentions other threads on the book, he also (like all reviewers so far) found the first poem, "THE EROTIC LIFE OFART: A SEANCE WITH WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS," to be his favorite.  I am guessing that poem's gonna have long legs despite being a long poem and despite its difficult birth.  As regards the former, isn't it more difficult for long poems to be widely read?  Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I'm thinking (due to Twitter like attention spans et al) ... which, undoubtedly, [she mutters] is why I went into the long poem route ...

Anyway, Grady Harp's review (with oh yes a purchase opportunity) over HERE.  His excerpting what my poem had to say about Da Vinci-- "Is this not why Da Vinci dissected criminals who died with hard-ons/ to demonstrate that erections were caused by blood/ suffusing an organ, rather than the common belief/ of his time that the penis is inflated by the retention/of wind?'..." -- apparently threw one of his readers into a snarky snit ... which only makes me laugh of course ...

POETRY -- IT EXPANDS VISION

which I've always said and which I'm pitching now as I introduce you to my latest furniture design, "Eileen's Chaise Lounge."

Or, I may just be losing it ...

A REVIEW TO WAKE UP TO!

I am very grateful for this review by Tom Beckett of my recent book, THE AWAKENING. The review is HERE, but here's an excerpt which focuses on the book's first poem:

“The Erotic Life of Art: A Séance With William Carlos Williams” is a marvelous meditation on art, artists and sex. Its cast of characters is large and its range of reference is wide. Van Gogh, Gauguin, Michelangelo, Pope Julius II, Da Vinci, Cellini, Dr. Williams, Titian, Jose Garcia Villa, Rembrandt, Li-Young Lee, Goya, Rodin, Delacroix, Jackson Pollock, Rimbaud, Wayne Thiebaud, Renoir, Seurat, Madeleine Knobloch (Seurat’s mistress who was anonymous until after his death), Tabios’ husband, Degas, Ezra Pound, Gainsborough, John Ruskin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Modigliani, Eluard, Duchamp, the Baroness, Dali, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and others constellate in its pages.

“The Erotic Life of Art” is a long associative poem of quick shifts, but there is nothing gratuitous about it. It’s incisive, sometimes humorous, and it bristles with energy and intelligence.

Thank you, Tom.  It's interesting that Thomas Fink also focuses on that poem in his blurb.  But I'm grateful for their focus because this poem made me sweat in its making (and spent an entire residency at MacDowell focused only on it).  I gave up on this poem more than once and actually lost it for several years.  Then I stumbled across a print-out of it, and decided to retype it (which irritated me) because it was the only long poem I had that I could think to submit to Octopus Magazine's Long Poem Issue (thank you editors Zachary Schomburg and Mathias Svalina for accepting!)

Anyway, that poem's sure come a long way since I "performed" it at MacDowell by, at one point, flinging colorful bits of paper up over the heads of the audience.  I had envisioned those colored papers to float up and down gracefully over the heads of the attending poets and artists.  Instead, the bits went up at the ceiling like mini-rockets and plummetted down  hard on the audience's heads like, uh, downed mini-rockets.  I couldn't find origami paper at the local store and I guess the papers I used were too hard. [Picture Moi rubbing my head here...]

So I thank Tom and Tom for their attention.

GROWING AND HARVESTING FROM THE GARDEN OF CHAIRS...TO EXPAND THE ART OF THE MINI-BOOK

Ach: how I love to watch my, correction: YOUR garden grow! Here's a LINK (ignore its date: I artificially date it into SitWithMoi's Arcbives) to show how the mini-chair collection has grown: in less than two months, from 7 to 37 chairs. Why? So that you, moi dears, may have chairs upon which to "shelve" your mini-books!

It's been great fun for Moi to participate as it has exercised, thus, expanded vision. Like, my latest "edited" mini-book, supposedly by my brother.

Through SitWithMoi, I've discovered a desire to expand the scope of the "mini-book" which often (tho not always) has been one of copying its larger avatars. Tsk! Let's expand that imagination!

A mini-book, certainly when viewed from a poet's eye, surely proposes its own Art. (Moi examples HERE, and more are coming as they're too much fun to make!) Poetry--it's not one of just repetition, but also expansion.

Enjoy!