The Mountains

Well, as you may have seen, The Newer Metaphysicals has been slightly silenced these past few weeks by the silence of this valley which surrounds me here, situated among the eclectic mergings of pines and eucalypts that run the mountains of Australia's east coast. My only time in the country where I was born is always spent here, with the city a few hours train-ride away, and though such stays always center me this landscape also seems sometimes to stifle words. But it stifles a very particular type of word: the prolix, the chatty, the discursive blog-post, wrapping all, as it does, in its laconic glaze of blue and birds.

In any case, I will be back in Paris on September 12th, blogging furiously and with some new readings for The Continental Review. But I wanted to check in to note the (as always) glorious appearance of the new Galatea Resurrects, now in its holy 7th incarnation. Eileen has, as always, outdone herself.

I was lucky enough to review for this issue three intriguing new collections:

GUESTS OF SPACE by ANSELM HOLLO

FOLLY by NADA GORDON

POEM FOR THE END OF TIME AND OTHER POEMS by NOELLE KOCOT

Do have a read, and tell me what you think! There will be so much happening in September. I can't wait, and yet will force myself, for another week at least, to relax.

everything condensed makes more exponentially

it is this which makes the valley in its darkness imagine itself. glass has replaced walls with walls made of glass (or the ontology of an object replaces the object’s own assertion “I am here”). transparency is thus seen as the glaze which perception gives to avoid boredom (its own, en occurrence). peace in the mind is not the same as peace in the world. still though the valley extends, and what is beautiful, becoming adjectival, may be applied to a house. or more foreign thoughts more awake in travel. equatorial hot, cactus garden in the airport at singapore, fat unshaven men smoke ash onto thorns. learning to like Nabokov is not the same as liking Bellow instantly. running every day into the heat tempered by the wind, up the hills and down the hills and up towards the town. when the cars pass they pass me and themselves. notes are not fragmentary because influenced by the postmodern reappraisal of the fragment. if one could love in fragments then that would change the emotional notion of assemblage. drawings download into what shaded beauty is, and remembers, and discussions of “appropriateness”, before the imminence of insertion, dissolve (don’t matter) disperse. “prettiness”, in a poetic context, desires reappraisal. coffee is beautiful. the hand glossing the delicate gauze of the space of tender breath where brushing the thigh it rises to assume its gentle clasp and takes to the hips like a knowing grip more gentle than any firmness could ever be. and then in this feathering on the known and darkest skin the hand knows what its desire makes and also what it masks: a difference of one letter. though i said i wouldn’t, i went (to the city and sat by the evening river). threat of rain in the fig trees. the new gallery has honey yellow-panes to glow. cars go by (and “bye”) with white for towards and red for away. fiction makes up for all the things you can’t do. missing a thing is like missing the air around it: what touches it. love can also be followed by the term “etcetera”. space discovered under the dress, shimmering in jade greenness of rocks, Prometheus bound up again and nakedness the reverse (of this), though the lips will never descend onto the awaited sensation which is just an approximation (as emotion dreams to be). and so what the sun leaves when it retires from the valley is like what my mind leaves when it retires from sleep.

I just missed my plane . . . I can't believe it. I thought this only happened in romantic comedies. How dumb. At least Meg Ryan didn't come running into the airport.

Poetics Of Improvisation 101: Three Takes

Fiera Lingue

Do check out the interesting discussion with Stan Apps and Ben Friedlander over in the comments box of Kasey Mohammad's Lime Tree.

Also, the wondrous Anny Ballardini has given me a page at her extraordinary Poets' Corner of Fiera Lingue.

Such a beautiful day here, my last in Paris for a month. I leave for the highlands of the east Australian coast tomorrow, and plan on reading novels for four weeks. In the suitcase: Nabokov's Lolita, Perec's La Vie Mode d'Emploi, and some Primo Levi.

And I just reupholstered an armchair. It's easy. I didn't know you could just do that.

Goodbye, my city! Until September.

Cole Swensen In The Continental Review

The Continental Review's first feature interview has just been posted.

TCR met with Cole Swensen in the beautiful July-coloured light of Cole's Parisian apartment. Listen to Cole, in her interview with poet Jennifer K. Dick, talk about her poetry, the state of American and Continental poetics, image, text, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetry, Charles Olson vs. Susan Howe, and more.

My First Chapbook

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Those of you who read CS Perez's popular blog may have noticed the most recent line-up for the new Achiote Press series. From Craig:

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"Since our Spring issues sold out in 3 weeks, many people were upset at me for not printing more, especially since the chaps sold out before i sent out a mass email announcing their release. So this time around, i am offering folks a chance to reserve a copy. If you want to reserve a copy, all you have to do is email me and let me know. This is not a commitment to purchase, but only guarantees availability if you decide to actually purchase a copy when they are ready(if you change your mind, no worries).

So for $12 dollars, you get 2 chaps. the ACHIOTE SEEDS chapbook, which features about 10 pages from 4 writers. The writers for our summer issue are: ALFRED ARTEAGA MARINA GARCIA-VASQUEZ OSCAR BERMEO DOLORES DORANTES translated by JEN HOFER.

Okay okay stop drooling. we couldn't be more excited by this lineup.

Our single-author chapbook is Novaless I-XXVI by NICHOLAS MANNING.

Check out some samples here

Not sure if the full-length MS has been picked up by anyone yet, but if you are a publisher, you need to take a close look at Nicholas's work...There's no one out there writing poetry like this."

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I can't express how happy and excited and grateful I am for this. I've been going through the manuscript proofs today, and this last month has involved a good degree of fine-tuning, with some minute changes and modifications to the included poems and their ordering, to make sure they are as tuned to me as I think I can make them.

For someone whose work, in book-form at least, has up until now been met with not a little mild bafflement from a few publishing houses-- (my favourite response to date from one New York publisher [the editor will for the moment remain nameless] being: "Please resend as PDF: asterisks indicate formatting error") --this is all the more important to me. Craig and others' faith and enthusiasm for this writing (to mention just a few: Mark Young, Tom Beckett, Susana Gardner, Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Ian Seed etc.) is what's allowed it to come to some sort of fruition.

So, thank you to all. The books are slated, if I understand correctly, for a late August release. Achiote's policy of coupling two books together is really the most wonderful approach, helping both with aesthetic cross-pollination and dynamic distribution (Monsieur Perez seems to be, moreover, one of the most extraordinarily interconnected poets of the poetosphere). To have a little book next to someone I admire as much as Arteaga, not to mention the other wonderful writers of this series, is like fantasy.

Of course, I encourage everyone to reserve copies! There will also be a number of review copies available, so anyone interested in giving an account of Novaless is very much encouraged to get in touch either with info{at}achiotepress{dot}com or Nicholas{dot}Manning{at}ens{dot}fr

Until then, I'll wait till summer's end to hold my diminutive baby.

Joshua Clover In The Continental Review!

July was a good month for The Continental Review, and August promises to be even better. As, hot on the heels of K. Silem Mohammad’s first jubilatory video appearance, it’s the one we’ve all been waiting for, as we now descend into Paris’ past in a change of pace and mood: namely, Joshua Clover, replete with Gregorian chant, reading among the gravestones at the cemetery Père Lachaise.

(Just for those who’ve asked: we didn’t actually get “thrown out” by the security for breaking champagne over Apollinaire, more matter-of-factly escorted. This happened shortly after the first warning, which you can glimpse at the end of the vid. We felt we were performing a gesture of profound respect to the great and grand Count Kostrowitzy, but apparently all’s good for gallic controversy).

Please do also consider contributing to the continuing discussion below on poetry and healing, which continues with beautiful contributions by Nick, Nada, and Suzanne.