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RK: One of the criticisms that I’ve seen on Twitter is that you’re just holding up examples of “bad” poetry by well-known poets (well-known at least in the Indie Poetry Community–Schomburg, Laskey, Limon, Abramson, etc)– ie, you say stuff’s bad but you don’t say why. you don’t offer any real thought or critique. how about, then, taking one of the examples you’ve posted and breaking its “badness” down for us ???

WNP: Well, the short and simple answer to the “no critique” approach that we’ve taken is that Twitter doesn’t allow for much wiggle room. We often find ourselves struggling to fit the quoted poem excerpt with a link (or the name of the poet/journal) in 140 characters. And considering that this was a spontaneous venture, we haven’t yet looked into moving the format to a website platform, though that is an option.

The reason why we tend to poke at “established” writers is because they have more than likely accomplished some very special things, whether that means publishing a (or many) high-quality book(s), attending/graduating from prestigious writing programs, publishing in impressive journals/magazines, etc. And we believe, in the instances we’re pointing out, that they are not working to their full potential, which we think is unfortunate. Also, we think they can probably take a punch from some anonymous Twitter profile. Their careers will not suffer because we took a screenshot of their latest poem in X journal.

#worst new poets

Bio: Montana Ray is a feminist writer, translator, and mom to Amadeus who is five. In 2015, Argos Books will publish the first full-length collection of her concrete poetry, (guns & butter).

#montana ray #Sunday service

MY NOTES

1. I was listening to Merle Haggard’s “Going Where the Lonely Go” and for some reason I started crying. Juliet started laughing and then she started filming me crying.

2. I kept doing this weird thing where I would see a mountain and say, “There’s a mountain.” Or I would look out on the desert and say, “Yep, that’s the desert.” It was like I’d reached pure enlightenment.

3. Juliet and I played this game where we asked one another questions about the past. I found out she threw up on her desk when she moved to California in the third grade because she was nervous. I told her about a fight I got in with my ex-girlfriend Kim where she started walking away from me. She was like 50 yards away, but I decided to throw my keys at her. I have no idea why. I missed Kim completely with my keys and then I couldn’t find them. I probably spent three hours looking for them.

4. I kept thinking about Lawrence of Arabia where someone asked Lawrence why he liked the desert. He said this.

Lawrence: I like the desert because it’s clean.

5. Juliet said something about the singer from Thin Lizzy being from England. I told her he wasn’t from England. He was from Ireland. She said, “Same thing… English, Irelish, Scottlish.”

#HTMLGIANT #Scott McClanahan #juliet escoria

#sunday service #brendan flaherty

6. After realizing that Seidlinger was using the five stages of grief as a plot device, I immediately thought of a Robot Chicken skit where a giraffe gets stuck in a sand pit.

7. The Fun We’ve Had is an extreme form of marital counseling.

#michael j. seidlinger #book reviews #trevor sensor #Lazy Fascist Press #the fun we've had

breakingwhalenews

Hi, I’m hosting Everyday Genius this month and I’m only publishing people I’ve never met. I’m also gonna post about it everywhere because that’s what I do man.

First up is Gale Marie Thompson.

htmlgiant

Oh wow.

Hustle, David Tomas Martinez’s debut book of poetry, is a cry from the street written with developed-over-time, intelligent style with pace the and moxie of a tom cat. The opening poem, placed even before the table of contents and dedication, “On Palomar Mountain” establishes a theme that will carry its way throughout this four part collection of poems as it begins, “The dark peoples things//for keys, coins, pencils / and pens our pockets grieve.” Those three things their pockets lack are the book’s foundation. Keys, coins, pencils and pens tell a story with nothing but “a lighter for a flashlight” that is begging to be told. It is the story of the bold but shed in a sensitive light as the poem ends with a “walk into the side of a Sunday night.”

#David Tomas Martinez #sarabande

As a law student, I feel that the most important demographic that this book should reach is law students—but for various reasons, it will never reach them.

When reading Guantanamo, I thought back to my Constitutional Law class and our discussions of the constitutional rights of foreign nationals. We learned about the debate through the lens of Guantanamo, specifically Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT), which was challenged on constitutional grounds. As the introduction of this book informs, prisoners in the U.S. are guaranteedhabeus corpus relief from unlawful detention. Such relief is generally called for when there is no knowledge of charges by or evidence against the detained person.

#Guantanamo #Frank Smith #les figues press

Last year Publishing Genius didn’t even have an open period, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t accept books from submissions. It’s just that I was still working through 2012′s manuscripts. There were about 400 that year, and it took me too long to figure out my responsibility to each one. It’s really hard to honor every book, and I think I was intimidated by the force of dreams coming at me like a big, wet wave. I know the excitement of finishing a writing project—big or small—and the intense hope that comes with sending it off.

#adam robinson #publishing genius #inside baseball

I. mouth mouth mouth some words onto righthere rises eyed from under full lift my arms hold (this weight of you)

Alexis Pope, "(soured)" (Leveler)

II. I heard the mothers call me trash. Beyond me lay some other me: a supine body in the summer heat.

Caylin Capra-Thomas, "The Mine Fire Speaks" (Boiler)

III. My greatest flaw is that I've granted my future-self permission to question myself at any time. Michelle Dove, from "Alt Vices" (ILK) IV. Jon tells me about a girl who wants to put her hair inside his belly button. It’s a thing

Rob MacDonald, "Fetal Position" (interrupture)

V. I want to teach this song to the children we won’t make.

Ruth Awad, "Shame, Abridged" (Diode)

#roundup

I talk to you on the phone you tell me I’m a great

writer

and everytime I read you in print you’re putting me down.

What is it with you?

the knifer

I presume you are either Steve Richmond or Harold Norse.

I’ll have to presume it’s you, Steven.

there is nothing wrong with your writing—Or Norse’s.

it’s when you guys get outside your writing that you

often get depraved and nonsensical. I don’t want to

say it, but I will, and check it out if you please.

I asked Martin sometime back to print both you and

Norse feeling that you both deserved it. I have backed

both your and N’s writing—in forwards (forewords) to

your books and even by word of mouth over a bottle of

beer. and I don’t do it out of good feelings or comradie,

I do it because I believe in the artistry of your work.

then Norse attacks me in print (indirectly), asserting

that I have come between him and Sparrow, ruined his

chances when I have done just the opposite. I am not

out to get anybody; you guys are ridiculous. stick to

the facts. and on those 300 poems you showed me that

night, babe, since you hardharp it so much—most of them

did happen to be bad. all right, I’ve written some bad

ones too, plenty of them. we run into slumps of spirit

and life…now, do you understand? I say you’re

a very fine writer but you’re too jumpy about movements

in the fog. relax. I defended your work against a

certain guy you know quite well who said you couldn’t

write. (over)

HE CAME BY A WEEK AGO

I told him that I thought you were one of the most

powerful and original writers alive. I don’t want

to tell you these things but you fore ce me to. now

if you’ll get your head on straight and get into

doing the WORK you’re capable of instead of imagining

I wish your beath death, then we’ll both feel one hell

of a lot better.

I hope you’re getting some good ass and some love

and that the lines are falling into place. I’ve come

off a couple bad days drinking but am back to getting

all things now. stay with it. Some day it will come to

you it has now. you don’t know it. get your teeth

into the typewriter ribbon.

Sure,

BUK

p.s. I’ve moved. you ever got any need to phone, o.k., it’s 661-7754.

#Charles Bukowski #Steve Richmond #Harold Norse

Hetherington respects her characters with an unassuming commitment to unironic truthfulness, showing great proficiency for writing in different voices that speak through a variety of media, woven together with beauty and coherence. The inclusions of technology lack clumsiness or forced cleverness; it’s an organic outgrowth of her characters’ natural assertions or understandings of identity. If there ever is a “Great American Novel” (a probably stupid concept) this is how it should look—but of course it’s Canadian.

#Joe Hogle #Victoria Hetherington #i have to tell you #0s&1s #book reviews

"I feel like I know all of Escoria’s characters. I empathize with them. I care about them. I want to fuck up all the shit that made them miserable because, to me, they deserve better."

#book reviews #juliet escoria #civil coping mechanisms #black cloud

1. Early on I sent out a lot of bullshit. I mean I would send out almost anything that seemed done, whether I loved it or not. Later on I began to realize that not only did I rarely receive acceptances for things that I hadn’t put the work on in, I also realized that boy does it suck when you accidentally get something published that you don’t even like.

2. There is a mental diminishing return to publishing. The more you do it the more the feeling is diluted. Thus, there is no rush. It seems really urgent and then it seems less urgent. Being diligent to the point of nearly psycho produces results in that the practice of writing makes you get better and better, but you should never feel shitty for a rejection. It is just another chance to improve. Take that chance.

3. My major practice was once I felt a piece was done I’d send it to like 10 places. After I got over sending out just anything I would write a piece and revise it over and over from beginning to end until I could get through without wanting to change anything. Then I’d send a block of them out. When I got one back, even if it was just a form rejection I would then reread the piece to see “what was wrong with it.” Often this resulted in finding more I wanted to change, on my own terms, partly from getting older, partly from new doubt maybe. Then I’d send some more out, refilling the gap. In this way, by the time a piece would get taken (if it did), the new version would be imminently better than it had ever been. Thus rejection spawned improvement. But some writing is from a very specific mental time period and changing can make it worse. Be honest with yourself, and with your art. Maybe consider: would I be moved or interested in reading this if I wasn’t the one who wrote it? Maybe it is just for you.

4. Often editors who reject you are doing you a favor. Either the piece isn’t great and needs work (thus saving you face of looking back later like whyyyyy did I publish this) or taking a strong piece and making it stronger because of force of will. Yeah sure some editors just are pussies but so what. The work is never necessarily done.

5. Some pieces are you learning. Some never get it right. Don’t publish your homework. “Burnsong” was the first story I ever finished and was like Yes I did something really strong here. Now I know it sucks, and trying for so long to get it published and being rejected over and over was way more of an accomplishment for myself than having it in a damn magazine.

#htmlgiant #blake butler #writing advice #hitz

"I love baseball history, and in truth I find it a lot more interesting than the contemporary sport. I find it difficult to care who wins or loses, and also I don’t have cable TV or any capacity to watch TV unless I’m at a friend’s house or in a public space with a TV. Maybe I care less because the Royals have been bad for so long, and because I lived a few blocks from Wrigley Field for several years. If winning was the only point I’d have gone insane long ago. Or maybe I did go insane, and that’s how I wrote this book. Though if I was truly insane I don’t think I’d have been able to organize my thinking effectively or attend to aesthetics or write a useful cover letter."

#Josh Ostergaard #adam robinson #author interviews #The Devil’s Snake Curve #coffee house press

How do you write a thrilling and entrancing Alt Lit novel?

Start with a chorus of disembodied voices telling us that “the waves are helloes; the incoming storm the sincerest goodbye. Like every single one of us, they are holding on. We held on until we could no longer hide. No one can hide out at sea.”

#michael j. seidlinger #michael seidlinger #the fun we've had #Lazy Fascist Press #book reviews

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