Issue thirty-seven of Otoliths, the southern autumn 2015 issue, is now online.

I finished an interview this afternoon with a poet I'm very fond of.  It will be appearing, barring a disaster, in the soon  forthcoming issue of Galatea Resurrects. I should probably make a smiley face here but it goes against my Protestant background.  Ha!

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I'm listening to Howlin' Wolf playing acoustic guitar and moaning in a way that entirely moves me.

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Writing is a funny life path.  Agonies and ecstasies for sure.  I struggle to think.

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Musically I  think too much. Which has probably derailed my nascent guitar career.  Not that I'm not still trying, but...

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This random memory from high school days.  I played a tough guy in a play.  My character's name was Moose.  During a rehearsal the drama teacher told me that I was the most genteel thug he'd ever seen!

NOTE ON SPICER

Poetic thought
is fundamentally erotic.

One can't
unhear the dick
in dictation.

Last year I was at a concert (Robert Cray) and signed up to receive periodic emails from the Northeast Ohio Blues Association (NEOBA). This morning I received one of those emails and it led to a great discovery: The Sound of Blue.

The Sound of Blue is a shop devoted to the Blues.  It sells CDs, records, tapes, videos, etc. It's been in business for 18 years, but I only learned of its existence today.  The store's mailing address is Kent, Ohio but it's actually located in the neighboring town of Brimfield.

I know Kent very well but know Brimfield very little.  It's mostly a place I drive through.  I'll be returning often now.  The Sound of Blue is a gem.

I spent over an hour this morning talking to the proprietor, Joe Vassel.  I also spent all the cash in my wallet on 2 CDs ( a Robert Lockwood, Jr. live recording and a Junior Wells compilation which features Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Otis Spann on it).*

It was enjoyable talking with Mr. Vassel.  I can't wait to repeat the experience.  He tickled me when he said that the building we stood talking in was originally a parsonage.  I laughed and he said "Yeah, the devil's music in God's house."







*Only cash and checks are accepted.  No credit cards.  When I return it will be with checkbook in hand.

Sublimateriality

Their voices
and bodies
become confused.

Is that
a "you fill
in the blank"
or is it
a penis?

Is that
a vagina
or a whatnot?

Who said
my ass?

Who whispered
your breasts?

Whose words
were expelled
from whose mouth?

Earlier today I placed the solar powered hula dancer my brother John sent me on the sill of the kitchen window.  It took in some rays and started to sway.  I studied it and realized--I know that face.  It kind of resembles photos I've seen of the young Eileen Tabios!  And it's shaking its money maker in my house.

Cool!

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Jill Alexander Essbaum's debut novel, Hausfrau (Random House, 2015), is getting a lot of buzz.  And it deserves it.  The book's sort of an Anna Karenina/Madame Bovary hybrid set in the present time.  It's beautifully written and very affecting.  Recommended.

 My contention is that this is  a book which could only have been written by a poet.  And JAE is a fine one.

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I was sorry to learn that visual poet Bob Grumman died recently.  Here's a link to an interview Geof Huth did with Bob at my E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S site in 2006.

One of the books I've been reading lately is Anne Carson's The Albertine Workout (New Directions, 2014), a brilliant essay in numbered segments on Proust's Albertine.  This little nugget has been reverberating in my brain pan all day:

"Adjectives are the handles of Being.  Nouns name the world, adjectives let you get hold of the name and keep it from flying all over your mind like a pre-Socratic explanation of the cosmos."
                                                                ( appendix 15)

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Tomorrow it will be two weeks since I sent Appearances out for consideration.  Am anxious for feedback.  Will not be at ease until I get a sense of whether or not the thing will find a home.

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Have started collaborating on a play with Thomas Fink.  It's early days but we seem off to a good beginning.


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