#susan slaviero

[thin-cities]

You will never quite believe you are the monster, even when they find you sleeping in a nest of newspaper with a fresh heart in your pocket. No. Not even then.

Susan Slaviero, “The Monster: Classifications and Explanations”

[themarbleroom-blog]

Reader Profile: Susan Slaviero

Susan Slaviero ' s full length poetry collection, CYBORGIA, is available from Mayapple Press. Recent chapbooks include Selections from the Murder Book (Treelight Books) and A Wicked Apple (Hyacinth Girl Press). Her work has appeared in Story Magazine, South Dakota Review, The 2014 Pushcart Prize Anthology, and elsewhere.

We’re so excited to have Susan reading for us at the May 16th Marble Room (that’s number XVII if you’re keeping count)! 7pm at Uncharted Books. Check out this excerpt from her poem, “Coyote,” friends.  

Excerpt from “Coyote” 

This might have something to do with predation, a paper cocoon

in a dead girl's mouth, a bloody arrow drawn on an oak leaf.

Nothing is so slick as the red marrow from a femur, the red skirt

draped over a thigh. Call her a striptease, a hotel keychain, a pool

of wet painted under the body.

[treelightbooks]

We have a Pushcart poem. Pushcart has a Tree Light poem. Susan has a Pushcart poem and a Tree Light poem and is or isn't The Monster but definitely has a chapbook that is worth 8 bones.

You can purchase Susan's chapbook, complete with her guide to The Monster pictured above, here. You can purchase the 2014 Pushcart Prize anthology here.

[looklookhere]

Never too old to put good news on the fridge, y'all.

[ghostoceanmagazine]

News from the Ocean

Susan Slaviero's poem "The Monster: Classifications and Explanations" from GO 8/9 will be reprinted in Pushcart Prize XXXVIII: Best of the Small Presses. That's a win for Susan, Ghost Ocean, and Tree Light Books, who published the poem in Selections From the Murder Book, which you can purchase here.

GO 11 contributor Russ Woods wants you to know that "Our hearts are eighteen hungry wolves / that are okay with saying things about 'our hearts.'"

GO 8/9 contributor Christopher Prewitt has new poems at In Other Words: Mérida.

Tree Light Books author Tony Mancus must look horribly American.

  [image credit]

[treelightbooks]

Our friends at the Roosevelt University MFA table served as our AWP ambassadors, selling Tree Light Books titles and spreading the good word about Ghost Ocean Magazine to lost souls.

Many thanks to all who purchased our books and we can't wait to see you next year in Seattle. Until then, you can purchase our books here.

[fade-journal]

Nov2012: Review: Selections from the Murder Book - Susan Slaviero (Tree Light Books)

The cover of Susan Slaviero's Selections from the Murder Book, a diagram of the human body being peeled of its skin,is a good representation of the poems within: biological, dissecting. Naturally the book has the meta-topic of murder and within this are familiar themes associated with the subject. We experience secrecy in `True Crime’, where `you imagine / a jar of unmentionable things buried behind the wall’; murder scenes from `Yurei’ where `This rock is dripping red / into the garden & you imagine something / skinless reclining on a mat’ and the thoughts of the murderous in `Madame Popova’s Confession’.

Given the nature of the subject it could seem easy for the poet to slip into cliché but thankfully this is far from the case; indeed Slaviero delights in clichés of the genre and manipulates them and writes delightfully about the subject.

The poems have lines that stop the reader, shock and drama in their core. Lines like “You question his capacity for evil when you kiss his bleeding zipper” (from `Endgame or When You Love the Villain') and `She knows your heart is as violent as a Queen’s opinion’ (from `With a Conscience’) contribute to the cinematic feel that the poet is trying to achieve.

The book is in two parts, one titled Murderous / Murderess the second The Hungry Ghost. Much of the first part resembles a (very rich and poetic) manual on how to write murder scenarios. `Advanced Horror Writing’ tells us `If this were a real horror movie the opening scene would / be skin-shallow, crow-mouthed’; `Endgame...’ deals with the creation of a villain.

The form is similarly constant, written mostly in something that is, or looks like, prose; pleasingly there's still a commitment to poetry. The lines `You are holding the rifle key, the map of his electric capillaries’ (from `Endgame...’) and `The brush will be freckled with burgundy’ (from `The Monster’) respectively show an awareness of music and sensory image. Another thing to note about the first section is the sense of awareness and humour. Particularly enjoyable is the climax to `Endgame...': `This must end  / badly or at least be ambiguous. Expect the requisite sequel’ and`You will know you are the monster if you begin to make your own monsters' (from `The Monster'). 

The second half, given the context of the first is surprising. We see a more conventional use of form and with it a prominence of the narrative “I”. The use of un-rhymed couplets in `Why Everyone Can’t See Ghosts’ is impressive and the imagery retains the intensity built in the first section, such as in the title poem:

Each dirty garage a refrain

that rings like penny razors,

a polished molar on a string.

There's also a distinct change of tone. Whereas the first seemed light the second is of a different hue. There's many aspects of darkness covered. ‘Coyote’ for example fizzes with fatal desire, `Nothing is so slick as the red marrow from a femur, the red skirt / draped over a thigh’. We also get a sense of finality, apocalypse from `Epilogue':

Look, look

away from the shimmering

wormhole, the universe flattened

into an icy sea

Slaviero has an acute awareness of how form and content complement one another, using poetic technique in prose parts and actual form. I was impressed at the separate takes of horror and murder; it seems like the first section is meant to read like chapters from a literal murder book, advice on how to create or kill characters; the second part is the arguable counterpoint to this, with the poems appearing more like poems and dealing with the characters set up in the first part. The mix of form in particular is impressive and seems seamless. Selections from the Murder Book is a fascinating journey and an inventive take on aspects of horror as a concept.

[bibliomancyoracle]

But I remember skin and strawberries, the need for bandages, the scent of laundry soap and baking powder on Saturdays. I’m not saying that’s useful. I’m only saying you weren’t as methodical as you believe.

  *

  from "Consider the Dangers of Reconstructing Your Wife As a Cyborg" by Susan Slaviero