February 11th | A Poetry Reading for Peace

647 | Josef Nguyen

718 | MK Chavez | Fixed

718 | MK Chavez | Proof

According to her website, MK Chavez writes and performs poetry about, among other things, the beauty that can be found in ugliness. I can appreciate the sentiment and was struck by the perfect death mask her pictures captured of a mouse -- bartholomew. He is the subject of the poem Hancock, Upstate New York (PFA #718) The two images below were layered to create the cover.

695, 696 | Hosho McCreesh

698, 708 | Meredith Schmadel

The Secret Cup

Chip Spann enters, the vanguard, just ahead of Dennis Hock who is parking his own car just out in front of the bookstore. They've been working on making Dennis' new book, the first title from the Sutter Writers in 2007. Just 10 made--so far--and I'm flattered deeper, fuller than I can express that they think to come here first, the glue still setting on the spines. The Secret Cup: Poems of Grief and Healing.

I always like to approach a book from any direction but the front. I find this poem first:

January 6, 1956
by Dennis Hock

Mourners can't look at the children.
Most stare down at the ground,
a few gaze up at the headless vapor trail
of a jet climbing into the sun.

Nana pinches Hail Marys between her thumb and forefinger,
the sorrowful mysteries bloom like black roses on her silent lips
as the priest mumbles Latin against the hard morning air.

she is in that box --
they say she is looking down from heaven
but it took six men to carry it here --
she is in that box

Somewhere a plum wash of dawn sky
spreads over a dark plane of water.
But here it is all earth.

And then the spadeful.

And then the words are over, and the mourners
return to their cars, putting on dark glasses against
the sharp glint of windshields, and chrome bumpers.

As the father guides his four children from the grave
they feel their bodies pulling up
like birds backing higher into the sky,
their wings flapping away from the casket

buffed and silver
and gleaming like a huge bullet
embedded in the dark green turf.

Guerilla Poetics

A unique effort is underway to get the underground poetry word out. Guerilla Poetics. Find. Join. Help.

568, 579 | Amanda Earl

569, 578 | Jesse Ferguson

709, 710 | Amanda Oaks

663 , 664 | William J. Hughes

List | ten things over coffee

Ten things I learned or discussed during coffee today with Jonathan and Becca:

1. Zines. A zine about lists...
2. Chapbooks -- presentation & production.
3. The April 2007 Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco.
4. Good to have True Love back in the neighborhood.
5. Cosmo Garvin has left the News & Review.
6. There is life after State Net.
7. Sketch comedy.
8. The Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
9. A J. Kiefer essay will appear in the forthcoming Sierra Club's A Leaky Tent is a Piece of Paradise.
10. A lament for the passing of J. Greenberg's Kabinet Film Screenings.