Unexpected engagements. Misleading social markers. When they coincide, they crack the solidity of my own taken-for-granted assumptions. They raise questions and contain the potential to move me, transport me, to shift my perceptions.
My story entitled ‘Impromptu’ details such an encounter. It happened in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Here’s an excerpt:
It was one of those clear March days when dozens of crows line the branches above the stop and defecate on unsuspecting folk waiting for the southbound #3 — a typical 2pm in Vancouver at the corner of Hastings and Main.
The full story appears in Real Time—the nonfiction pages of Australia’s Pure Slush literary magazine. Here’s the direct link:
with the re-publication of a poem in the new Reprint Poetry–a journal with a mission to “provide an additional home to previously published poems that deserve to be read again.”
The poem was originally published in BluePrintReview alongside a photo byClaire Ibarra. I blogged about the original publication here. So good to see this poem with two homes–both an urban oasis and country villa, so to speak.
There’s an interesting mystery with Reprint Poetry—the make-up of the editorial team. It’s a long shot, and for whatever reason, I’m
guessing those involved are from Vagabondage Press. Fawn Neun, perhaps? Read the rest of this entry »
a sunny august moment unfolded like this, if I recall it correctly …
~
head, spinning fast spinning right up down left i’m
meandering home from the station, ideas and fantasies dreams and ambitions of elsewhere of there of
away far away, other lands other times other spaces back then wonder when but not now and not here and not present old breath vision time and sensation
away, until
2 blinks they open, my eyes so wide open i see that it’s me
in my fresh in my nation my city
so fragrant this moment
Just yesterday, my collaborative poem with Steve Wing was published in BluePrintReview. The piece is called Impermissible Occlusion. My blog post about it is here.
Then, just an hour ago, Steve and I exchanged thoughts about our collaboration over email.
Just moments after emailing Steve, I opened today’s issue of The #poems Daily. Much to my surprise–and delight–I discovered that ‘Impermissible Occlusion’ is included in the #poetry section (about half way down).
East Coast Yoga, USA + West Coast Hot Springs, Canada = Bi-Coastal North American Poem
To unlock the mathematical equation above, click this.
Here are the editor’s recollections on why she published ‘process notes’ in this issue:
Curiosity. It’s the first time that a whole issue of BluePrintReview is focusing on collaborations, and also is open re: format. It’s in some ways the counterpart to the usual issues. I just looked for the original call:
“The next issue of BluePrintReview is dedicated to collaborative works and has different guidelines: usually, the text + image on each page is coming from different submissions. For this issue, they come from one submission – with the submission itself coming from more than 1 person: please submit collaborative works that are combinations of text+image, and if you want, add a note on the process.”
The issue itself was partly inspired by the collaborations in the previous issues (listed at the bottom of the “Re: Synergy” page ) With each of those, I wondered how it had come together. What had been the starting point – an image? A line? How had it all come together?” So I added the invite to send notes.
– Dorothee Lang
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The entire issue is filled with synergy: collaborative words and images from a global cast of creators. In each case, process notes are included alongside the publication. Click on the names of individual contributors for their work(s) in collaboration:
I’m pleased to report that my videopoem ‘the lake’ made the rounds…
It first appeared in ‘Referential’–a magazine that publishes referential literary and visual art. I submitted the piece, referring to the words ‘the lake’ that appear in a poem by Teresa Stores:
After the initial publication I discovered–by accident–that ‘the lake’ was featured in the media section of ‘The #poems Daily’. I’d mentioned the initial publication on Twitter and ‘The #poems Daily’ picked it up:
It wasn’t long before I stumbled across another republication of ‘the lake’. This time, in ‘Moving Poems’–a video poetry anthology that features “the best video poetry on the web”. Needless to say, it’s a thrill to have my work featured alongside the likes of Cecilia Chapman and Alastair Cook:
It’s a three-part repetitive poem with introduction and title–four tweets total. The image above depicts how it looked as it was published in stages on Twitter. Here’s how it looks on the publication website, all parts put together:
A special thank-you to unFold’s Brooklyn-based editor Rose Auslander for seeing the potential of my work. I’d submitted the poem as a singular tweet, including three alternative layouts for her perusal. She suggested including all of the layouts, and connecting them for a multi-tweet tale. I hadn’t considered that possibility, but am delighted she saw the larger picture.
Well, not exactly. A vowel is only a vowel when it’s recognized as one,
and a vowel in the word ‘gyógyfürdő’, I’ve discovered, isn’t recognized as one in all places.
Below, the back-story, told backwards:
A steamy experience in Hungary is featured as ‘Monday’s Poem’ at Leaf Press:
The photo that appears with my words is the only one I took at the spa–the only snapshot the attendant permitted.
This bath is my favorite in Budapest–a city touted as ‘spa capital of the world’.
~
The process that accompanied publication included a linguistic snag:
The original submission was called ‘rudas gyógyfürdő, budapest’. The Hungarian word ‘gyógyfürdő’ translates into English as ‘medicinal bath’. This word–gyógyfürdő–is the one that caused the glitch.
Late Sunday evening, the night before publication, I opened an email from Leaf Press publisher Ursula Vaira:
I am working on the poem now, and am stuck on the last o in gyógyfürdő … my software (Dreamweaver) simply has no character for that. Even when I go to a website and copy the word and paste it directly in, it still turns up as a question mark.
It’s interesting that Dreamweaver understands the vowels ó and ü, but not ő.
Makes me wonder what other languages feature the first two vowels, but not the last…
This blog post is included in Edition #4 of the BluePrint blog carnival >Language>Place.
It is hosted by UK-based editor, translator, and university administrator Jean Morris.
The direct link to the carnival is here.
Now, the anthology is also available as an e-book, here, here, and here.
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Are you an indie publisher? Want to learn the art of converting
“a highly formatted literary book from print to .epub to .mobi in one smooth workflow”?
A year ago, the Winter 2009 issue of The Battered Suitcase was published online. In it, a story I wrote calledThe Secret (he thinks) He Keeps. Today, I saw the issue available as an eBook ‘Kindle Edition’ at amazon.com
J.S. Graustein (California) and Rose Auslander (New York) .
Here’s what they say about the collection:
Written on four continents and read on six, the works in this anthology celebrate the birth of a new literary form: the tweet. Ironically, the 140-character limit of the Twitter platform has inspired new and veteran writers alike to stretch traditional boundaries. Some experiment with abbreviated poetic forms. Others create back-story through innuendo. All make every word—every character—count. This collection introduces 43 of these pioneers who venture out each day onto text’s narrow windowsill.
~
Geographically dispersed writers featured in the anthology include:
A fresh word/image combo is live in ‘just a moment’–BluePrintReview’s companion blog that publishes ‘moments’ of various kinds on a rolling basis between regular issues.
I took the photo poolside, penned those words, while keeping the company of
health tourists in Hévíz as I contemplated the meaning of life and gained perspective on
time and age.
~
Previous works that have appeared in ‘just a moment’ include olympic (dis)comfort zoneand East Vancouver Detours. While you’re there, consider scrolling through the archive of literary news and slices of life expressed through words and images by a variety of international contributors.
I consider the shapes of actions and thoughts–how particular formations are often assigned either positive or negative value; how they are associated with either progress or regression; how the meaning of things–shapes included–are situated within cultural and historical contexts.
I focus my musings on squares and circles–linearity and circularity, respectively. I carve my thoughts into a micro-text–List(less). It appears in unFold–a California-based Twitter-zine edited by Rose Auslander and published by Folded Word Press. The zine features “poems/stanza’s in 140 characters or less”.
Not long ago, I wrote about the human practice of assigning homo-sapiens the names of non-human animals.
Now, in a ‘stone’ called ‘Catch & Release’, I offer a cross-species sporting reference to a mate-selection ritual used by some individuals. The 22 words–in all their glory–appear in the U.K.-based web-zineA Handful of Stones. According to editor Fiona Robyn, a small stone is a very short piece of writing that precisely captures a fully-engaged moment.
To read ‘Catch & Release’,
click the fish below:
A note about the image: I captured it while staring through water, looking down at a pond, standing on the bridge behind Festetics Castle in Keszthely, Hungary–the place where ‘Catch & Release’ was conceived.
And a question:
Do you use non-human animal references to describe assorted human activities and practices?
I draft a poem in Hungary. Polish it in Canada. It’s accepted for publication in an international journal based in Germany. It appears alongside a photo by Claire Ibarra who splits time between the USA and Peru.
Now, the poem and the photo it’s coupled with are digitally available around the world.
I find contradictions between morality and ethics interesting–those disconnections that sometimes exist between a person’s notions of right and wrong (or good and bad) and their daily practice of living. Another curiosity is the extent to which people shift their morality retrospectively in light of their behavior and decisions. I find these topics even more compelling when the forces of consumer culture are factored in.
I explore these curiosities in a Twitter length story–140 characters or less. It appears in PicFic–a California-based picofiction online magazine.
When it comes to new publications, I typically write a few words in my blog — provide context; give the back story. Most recently, I did so here, where I detail how strangers in an airport terminal inspired ‘Flight 493’. Another example is here, where I explain how ‘(Re)Vision’ connects to a 70′s TV character and my childhood obsession with Jan Brady.
‘Drain’ is my third micro-story as PicFic’sFeatured Contributor for July 2010. In terms of context, details, and back story — this one is different; I don’t offer any. Have a look. I’m sure you’ll understand …
It occurred to me at Vancouver International Airport, while waiting for a Lufthansa flight to Budapest via Frankfurt:
Language is music — especially when I don’t understand it.
My question shifts from:
“What are they saying?”
to
“What image am I left with?”
Sitting there, surrounded by linguistic diversity, I pulled out my notebook and wrote my impressions. I honed and revised them while flying to Europe over the Canadian High Arctic, Greenland and Norway.
.
Now, those words appear in PicFic—an online Twitter Fiction journal.
It’s my second piece as PicFic’s featured contributor.
It’s both an honor and thrill to be the invited PicFic Featured Contributor for July.
This means that four of my Twitter-length fictions will appear in PicFic this month, and also on the journal’s Twitter-feed — one per week.
The first in the series is entitled (Re)Vision. The direct link is → here.
Now that’s it’s published, I have a confession:
While (Re)Vision is certainly a story, it’s a bit of a stretch to call it fiction.
Why, you might ask?
Well, the source of (Re)Vision goes back to my childhood, my days in grade school, the era of 70’s television. And when it comes to 70’s TV, it’s no secret that ‘The Brady Bunch’ was IT for me. I blogged about it recently here.
Of all the Brady characters, Jan was my idol — something about her pensive look, her emotions, blonde hair, the braces, her glasses. Jan was cool. No doubt about it. I wanted to be her, so I did what I could:
pensive, emotional → no problem hair → used a product called ‘Sun In’ to lighten my locks braces → got them in high school; late, but better than never glasses → this one took work …
Blinked my eyes incessantly. Closed them hard. Told my parents I couldn’t see. They took me to the ophthalmologist. He tested my eyes, and like clockwork, the plan worked…or so I thought. He said I needed glasses to solve the vision problem. But the blinking issue — a sign of allergies, he said — called for another course of action. He instructed my parents to:
Get. Rid. Of. Our. Dog.
That’s right.
When I confessed to my parents that all was a lie, that I could see very well, that I voluntarily forced the hard blinking, that I loved my dog…they didn’t believe me one bit.
So, I got the wire-rimmed glasses I wanted so badly but didn’t need. And our beloved dog, Scrubby, left our family–went off to a farm for good. We never held him again in our arms–all because of me (and Jan, of course).
I’ve written about secrets, and taken photos of paradox.
The challenge?
To combine these phenomena in a micro-story of 50 words exactly — no more, no less.
Not long ago, I observed a secret paradox close to home – it concerns business, humans, nonhuman animals, and eating habits.
The story appears in the weekly New Jersey-based e-zine 50 to 1. Editor, Glen Binger, “posts only 50 word stories and first line inspirational sentences that are meant to get the reader hooked ...”
Title: “should be no longer than 36 characters, including spaces (because 6×6=36)”
Response Time: “all submissions will receive a response within six days”
Clearly, Robert McEvily — “creator and editor of the NY Times recommended writing site Six Sentences” — likes the number six. Figured it might be fun to embrace his challenge of 6′s, so I did. In six short sentences I explore the complexities of money and work.
I have visions of geographically dispersed families with members scattered around the globe, doing whatever they can to make it home for the holidays to spend time with relatives and friends.
I see travelers arriving on the doorsteps of (grand)parents and siblings. They bring mountains of gifts (or none at all), too much luggage, and odd habits not apparent during long-distance telephone calls. For several days–weeks even–they pile on top of one another in thetiniest of urban condominiumsandcompact homes.
Anticipating such an event, a friend of mine writes in a greeting card, overwhelmed: “We’re staying put for Christmas but everyone is coming here. Aaahhhh! Help!” Read the rest of this entry »
The Battered Suitcaseis the flagship publication of Vagabondage Press. The magazine’s mission — to ”examines life in all its lovely ambiguity, grittiness, glory and despair. Chief Editor Fawn Neun and the editorial team express a particular interest in “the question of what it means to be human, the exploration of relationships as a means for transformation and the complexity of the human psyche.”
It’s a thrill to have a super-short fiction of mine appear in this issue:
