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.    

THE ALLEGREZZA GENEROSITY

Ever since Mark Young's fabulous The Allegrezza Ficcione (again--get this book: my prediction for the first 21st century literary classic), I chucklingly think of Bill Allegrezza's projects as "The Allegrezza something...", hence this post's title. Which is to say, I continue to be floored by Bill's immense expanse with his "The Daily Glance" project. And, recently, he mini-reviewed Aileen Ibardaloza's traje de boda. Bill's lovely glance at Aileen's is HERE.

POETS BEARING GIFTS!

the gaping wound
the bulwark of harlequins
undocumented consternation
--Ric Carfagna

What do Ric Carfagna, Peter Ganick and Jukka-Pekka Kervinen have in common? I would suggest, in part, a complicated, highly-sophisticated sense of musicality that enervates their poems in unique ways.

What else do they have in common? Why, that'd be innovative publishing venue Chalk Editions put out by also-brilliant-as-publishers Peter Ganick and Jukka-Pekka Kervinen! And which now has released

Symphony No. 1 (en entropic cubist dimensionality)
by Ric Carfagna

Here's another paradoxically-winsome excerpt from Ric's contemporaneizing the 20th century cubist experiment with poetry:

The view from cages
a lost wisdom
as unspeakable
as memory
collects on thresholds

Thank you, Ric Carfagna, for the lovely dedication ... to Moi, who's rather humbled by the honor though not made speechless by her love for preening.

And speaking of preening, Thank You, Bill Allegrezza for your take on moi thorns. I should say, though, that even before I saw Bill doing a "Daily Glance" at my book, I'd been following his Daily Glances -- one of the better blog projects currently out there. (He also does one on Jean's Prau--HERE.) It's not easy to do pithily articulate takes on poetry books, and Bill does it with grace, balance and intelligence--all the while making it all seem effortless.

Check 'em all out...!

ONE OF THE MOST GENEROUS POETRY PROJECTS

around is William Allegrezza's offer to GIVE "found object poems" -- the ones depicted on Jean's Okir are gaw-geous! I wrote about the ones Bill gave moi earlier HERE.

The underlying poetics are also interesting. If I recall correctly (and if I don't it'll still sound nifty), I think these object-poems are an extension of Bill's youthful desire to write poems all over the world. Love it -- I love ambition in poetry!

Now, have you checked THIS ONE out? Because Toi should...!

"FOUND POETRY"

is a curatorially convenient phrase but belaboring. It's like someone asking "Where is God" (assuming God can be located at a specific somewhere) when, for those who believe, it's already recognized that God is everywhere. So when someone talks about *found poetry*, there's a[n ancient] logic in it to which one draws attention to because the act of living has created an unnatural separation between everywhere and Poetry.

But it bears repeating at times, and it's the way one reminds that's judged by its aesthetic effectiveness. So I liked, as soon as I heard of it, Bill Allegrezza's project of drawing poems on found objects... and then volunteering to send it out to whoever is interested in receiving such. That's Poetry in action, a poetics of attention and engagement with everywhere. Like this piece(s) which arrived in yesterday's snailmail, and which I'm blessed now to have cheerfully lighting up Galatea's poetry bookshelves:



I actually got four of those red small wheels. Here's a sampling of text, with the caveat that I may not read the handwriting correctly (and it's a nice layer, too, that Bill's handwriting and choice of pens/ink shows up charmingly against the objects' wood and painted wood surfaces):

...gathered in piles
near road ends in
heat and anticipation
for what would be
a first love adventure
without the
ceremonial anxiety

These found objects certainly do not carry "ceremonial anxiety" about their transformed (re-discovered?) existence as poetic objects. They just ARE. Like Poetry, comfortable in their everywhere-ness.

Thank you, Bill!

"BEATITUDO. JOY COMES SLOWLY"

Yay. And thanks to stellar poet Simone Muench for choosing as Shark Forum's "Poem of the week" a poem from Bill Allegrezza's Fragile Replacements.

Check out the sample poem for yet another reason why you, Dear Peeps, should avail yourself of the SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER for Fragile Replacements (good only through August 31).

THIS IS A SPECIAL RELEASE!!

[Pls Feel Free to Forward]

MERITAGE PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

A Special Release Offer For:

FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS
Poems by William Allegrezza
ISBN-10: 0-9794119-0-4
ISBN-13: 978-0-9794119-0-8
Release date: Summer 2007
Distributors: Small Press Distribution, Amazon.com & www.MeritagePress.com
For more info: MeritagePress@aol.com

Meritage Press is delighted to announce the release of FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS, William Allegrezza's long-awaited poetry collection. FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS explores the way we live through language, experiencing births, deaths, and rebirths through it, but the book also examines how our language is filled, controlled, and crafted by our societies. Two long poems surround and provide context for reading shorter lyrics in the middle section.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
William Allegrezza teaches and writes from his base in Chicago. His poems, articles and reviews have been published in several countries including the U.S., Holland, the Czech Republic and Australia, as well as in several online journals. His chapbooks, e-books and books include Lingo, The Vicious Bunny Translations, Covering Over, Temporal Nomads, Ladders in July, Ishmael Among the Bushes, and In The Weaver's Valley. He is the editor of Moria Poetry , a journal dedicated to experimental poetry and poetics, and the editor-in-chief of Cracked Slab Books.

ADVANCE WORDS on FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS:
Allegrezza's poetic canvas-of-choice is the lyric, and his lyrical investigations frequently appear to evolve or grow. . . from an imagination fueled by found language fragments and theory-singed excesses. This particular poet's capacity to create resonant, "deep" images is extraordinary.
--Clayton Couch

There is something about the flow in Allegrezza's poems that I quite like, the way they simply move one step at a time down the page almost intuitively. Really, it's the leaps between lines that impress; almost ghazal-like down the page, jumping from line to line to line in seeming disconnect.
--rob mclennan

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SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER:
Meritage Press is pleased to offer a Release Special through August 31, 2007. For $13.00, you can obtain a copy of FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS—a reduced rate from the book's retail price of $16.00—plus free shipping/handling (an approximate $4.00 value) to U.S. addresses. Just send a $13.00 check made out to "Meritage Press" to:

Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Road
St. Helena, CA 94574

For international orders, please contact us through MeritagePress@aol.com


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ALSO FORTHCOMING IN 2007 FROM MERITAGE PRESS:

COMPLICATIONS by Garrett Caples

PRAU by Jean Vengua (Filamore Tabios, Sr. Poetry Memorial Prize)

And a new series of "Tiny Books" measuring 1 3/4 x 1 3/4" inaugurated by ALL ALONE AGAIN by Dan Waber, followed by STEPS: A NOTEBOOK by Tom Beckett.

Meritage Press is a multidisciplinary literary and arts published based in St. Helena and San Francisco, CA. Our website is at http://www.meritagepress.com

YOU GOTTA ANTICIPATE WILLIAM ALLEGREZZA!

Blogging in coffee break from proofing nearly 600 pages of manuscripts, of which only about one-third of the page count is mine (no doubt to your relief). Thankfully, the rest relate to the next two books to be published by Meritage Press. I've talked about Jean Vengua's forthcoming PRAU before. But I don't think I've yet mentioned that also forthcoming from moi press will be

FRAGILE REPLACEMENTS by William Allegrezza

Wooooooot!

Or, as Moi would put it: YADDA!

Here's one of the blurbs for Bill's book:

Allegrezza's poetic canvas-of-choice is the lyric, and his lyrical investigations frequently appear to evolve or grow. . . from an imagination fueled by found language fragments and theory-singed excesses. This particular poet's capacity to create resonant, "deep" images is extraordinary. -- Clayton Couch

This book will be available in late summer/Fall and be distributed by SPD and Amazon, among others. You teachers -- this is the Allegrezza book to assign for your poety/creative writing students (so what if I'm biased since I published it?) Anyway, await it with anticipation, Peeps. It's an Event.