Outsider Writers has just received word that Todd Moore passed away yesterday, March 12, 2010. Todd was a friend of ours. He helped judge our poetry chap competition a couple of years ago. He was a great poet and a great guy. We will bring you more details as they become available.

From the Dzanc site:

The DZANC DAY workshops serve not only to expand Dzanc’s effort to bring inexpensive, face-to-face workshops to a wider audience, but, as noted, also to help us generate income that will allow Dzanc to continue that effort in our other charitable arenas – awarding the annual Dzanc Prize, running Dzanc Writer in Residence Programs in schools across the country, and more.

I turned to watch the scene like everybody else, only I wasn’t laughing. I summoned the courage to scowl and shake my head as I turned and walked faster toward my bus. All the while, hearing Janet peck at you, “October, why don’t you talk? Why don’t you say something? Can you talk? Say something!”

Your jack-o-lantern face was mostly eyes. Your mouth was just a thin, thin line as she taunted you, poked you, pushed you. You stumbled and corrected yourself, adjusting your backpack straps as you moved in an unsteady line forward. You kept your gaze moving forward, never looking back at her.

I used to wonder what happened to your mouth, did you once have lips? Did they curl and atrophy from lack of use? Remember when I sat across from you at lunch? I asked you if you would mind me sitting there and you only stared at me. What intense eyes you have, October. I wonder what you’ve imagined behind there? Do you think of cruel things you’d like to say? Were you trying to penetrate my skin? What did you see inside of here, October? Was it all hair-strangled bones and bits of teeth? Was I all chewed up inside?

That poem you wouldn’t read in English class, the one that Mz. Hobletzel read aloud for you, it was so beautiful. That is how I knew you think of things in that empty head of yours. I knew exactly what you meant in that poem when you said you didn’t know the girl in the mirror. How I wish we could have been friends, October. I would have liked to meet your parents. Who names a girl October? What does it mean to them? Is it all burnt orange and chocolate? They must have known you were born in the fall of your life, with only winter to look forward to. Does your jaw unhinge when you get home? I can imagine you animated and normal somewhere else. Does poetry pour out of you when you sit under the October moon, knowing it’s your very own?

I’m sorry, October, for the way life is, the way people are, that cruelty is sharpened and practiced on the young. You had to keep your mouth shut all through middle school, carrying on like a real girl. Really you were just a marionette, weren’t you? You got tangled up in the strings, those wild, intense eyes burning out faster than oxygen. Your painted-on skin stretching over that pumpkin head didn’t take long to crumple and peel. Inside the marks of candle burns that had scorched your flesh made an ashy kind of calligraphy. Poetry in every language was burned deep into you. But you didn’t last.

I wonder what it sounded like when your head came to rest on that brittle bed of ascetic leaves? Your empty eye sockets facing up at the networks of anorexic winter branches. It wasn’t a hollow thump. When I hear it in my dreams it’s a two-ton artillery drop from five thousand feet. The kind of sound that people feel for miles. Deep down in the cradle of their spines, it jolts and vibrates the sacrum, the cocyx. It’s the kind of sound that earthworms implode under, six feet deep.

+++

Jessica L J Smith
Aspiring human, loyal writer, adequate aspirer.

Here sits the conjuror
Of worlds
On faded lawn chairs,
Bereft of his galaxy.
Drops of liquor and coffee
Blend and form a cascade
Which fall from the wizard’s eyes;
These are the Summoner’s tears.
They taste of talent
And potential
Washed away
By addiction’s course.
They reek of the rotting
Genius, ironically consumed
By the same powerful entity
He summoned from the outworlds.
But they also glisten with divine
Shinning, reflecting the supreme
God that resides within
The imagination of all Summoners.

MAD WORLD

All around me are familiar faces:
Dead friends, lost family;
Swirling about in a misty ash-gray
Tornado.
Their expressionless faces
Form like objects in
Clouds.
The rabbit follows
High pressure masses;
The turtle moves along
The lows.
They race around
The circumference –
A frantic dash around
This mad world.
When they meet
The storms collide;
Lightning sprinkles,
Thunder whispers,
Winds trot
Along mountains of man,
Casually kicking down
Houses, like a child
Laying waste to a
Lego city.

FROZEN BEACH

Crystalline sands
absorb the rainwater.
Old Man Winter approaches
by the East,
freezing the rainwater into
ice.
The sands of time
clump
around the ice of its
transgressions; or
are they the rewards of
a lust for the
love of the lust?

All poems by A. Jarrell Hayes and appear in the collection Heart and Soul of a Thinker available on Amazon.com and on the poet’s website www.ajhayes.com.

Click pic to learn more about Hosho

For All These Wretched, Beautiful, & Insignificant Things So Uselessly & Carelessly Destroyed…By Hosho McCreesh

Copyright 2008, Sunnyoutside Press

Hosho McCreesh is mad at us. Because we’re dummies. Because we’re big, dumb animals. And we’re missing out on the simple things. The good things. The beautiful things. Because we’re living our lives poorly. We’re being selfish and destructive. Maybe because we think we have no other choice.

I read this book just before I went to sleep, and I was pleasantly wowed. The language is clean, clear, and brilliant. It’s a quick read, with poem titles nearly as long as the poems themselves. There is a sadness and disappointment that runs throughout, but I often found myself jolted by the beauty in which this very sadness and disappointment is detailed.

From the title poem,

“meanwhile a flock of sparrows
banks hard into a bright headwind;
driven heavenward, they flash into silhouette
across the belly glow hum
of the cold, doomed morning sun—

so much,
simply lost
on
us.”

It’s no small feat to craft pensive poetry that is both widely accessible and enjoyable, but that’s exactly what Hosho McCreesh has accomplished here with seeming ease.

This collection is a sharp wake-up call, a welcome alarm clock. It isn’t necessarily new, it was first published in 2008 and may very well have been reviewed here in the past, but I feel it deserves our attention which, as Hosho might be quick to point out, has a tendency to wander much of the time, and not always to the best of places.

*Learn more about Hosho HERE.

*Visit sunnyoutside press HERE.

*Purchase the book HERE.

A time for waiting,a hibernation
Before we follow through on dreams
Careful planning,with determination
Putting away halfed baked schemes

No day or night is ever wasted
Patience builds slowly day by day
The fruit of forbearance is soon tasted
Sweet as honey where we lay

Suddenly we are engaged in life
Our souls’desire reaches out
And wraps its lasso around the moment
Discarding all our useless doubts

Erotic Fantasy On A City Bus

Vacous eyes staring across the way
Becoming lost in my fantasies and lust
Dreaming up scenarios to escape the day
Escaping boredom on this city bus
I focus on him slithering in his chair
Feeling a desire and longing to touch
Avoiding his glance,he is unaware
of how I desire him,so very much
Suddenly,the bus comes to a halt.
Seemingly occupied,I miss my street
I sprint to the exit,It’s all my fault.
Glad to be away from all the heat.

Color of The Earth

Beautiful color of the Earth,that I do love.
You strike my senses and fill my soul with glee.
Your vibrant hues fill the lovely sky above,
And bring out the autumn color of the trees.

Your pumpkin hues and copper shades fill the fields.
Deserts bright and Midwest skies stun our sight.
With glorius light that brightens and yields.
You warm me with your healing touch so bright.

Yet your fire destroys man and beast around,
But also warms all living things on earth.
Of molten lava,clay and rock on solid ground,
You amaze all with your miraculous birth.

Of vibrant fruits the earth does yield to all,
Is a tangy bright citrus  shaped like a ball.

Spring Laying In Wait

Beneath the barren white covered Grass
Lies new seeds awaiting an entrance en masse
Beneath the white covered barren trees
Lay new spring flowers eager to please
The silence of winter skies,soon gives way
To familiar chirping of birds who will stay
And fill us with song to brighten our day
Ordinary people will walk with such ease
As snow is replaced by a warmer breeze
Coats will be shed for sweaters that flow
As children run through the streets below
We’ll open our windows to breath the air
To feel the spring breeze though our hair.

From Sorrow to Acceptance

On sorrows’wings I journeyed to a land where I had never been.

Each loss was undiscovered country,landscapes I had never seen,mountains I had never climbed. I had taken a journey past familiar landmarks I missed, and memories that were past.I had buried the familiar stories and neglected the happiness,which lay buried deep beneath the earth,only now and then pushing to the surface. I drank from bitter springs and sat among the weeds,neglecting to seperate them from the flowers.

Beheld only the sunsetting but forgot the beauty in each new day. When I had shed enough tears,I remembered the laughter echoing in the valley and heard the birds chirping a new song. I saw the sun reflecting on the water.

and instead of weeds,I saw flowers. Where there were empty patches of dirt,I saw seedlings and the possibility of new beginnings.

Frances is a middle aged poet who has written mostly about loss and renewal. Her professional background is in Social Work. Visit her She Writes page.

Looks like Anne Rice is going to be putting one out, one of these “video book” things.  Here’s what she had to say about it:

“Vook represents a very exciting combination of new technological elements that I think is long overdo in publishing…”

Long overdue?  Really?  This seems something like attaching a steering wheel to a horse’s neck and claiming it’s an improvement because it’s more like a car.

Are we really at this place right now?  How did simply absorbing oneself in a text become not enough?  If this is how we “get folks to read” I think I’ll pick up a different obsession.  Like whac-a-mole tournaments or something.

Submit a crime story up to 5K words, written by a New England author OR with a New England Setting. Deadline: April 30th. Prizes: $100; publication in anthology; admission to Crime Bake conference. Details HERE.

Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest

Submit one unpublished or published humorous poem of any length in English. Deadline: April 1st. Prizes: $1,500/$800/$400/$75 and publication on WinningWriters.com. More info HERE.

A single knock brings with it the sounding of a deliverer’s song. No more than a few seconds pass since it was pressed yet the doorbell still rings. A muted, delayed ting, an amplified echo merely augments the tension and anticipation of what may have arrived with today’s mail. The residue from natural degradation by way of tropical weather conditions and debris contribute to the sticking doorbell. A parcel no larger than a brick but nowhere near as heavy rests on top of today’s stack lying at the floor of the front door waiting for resident’s attention. Today – right now – resembles a noteworthy occasion for the resident, equal in importance to anything before. Heart skipped a beat as the doorbell sang its embroidered single-pitch song. With an opening of a door there it was, carrier expectantly missing. No use in waiting for an answer unless special handling is paid for, tracked, expedited, specially cared for; of no concern, anyone can swipe the package once left at one’s door. But not this one. Been anxiously waiting; nine months, two days, eighteen minutes, forty seven seconds to the day. Standing just to the right of the door, just out of sight as the carrier left what was in store. Ready for use. Ready for the embrace – leisurely, savor every moment.

allow human thought or the cerebral formation of concepts, observations, and manipulation of method based on personal motive, to reach a position of higher as if it were an element one could control

It is assured to be worth the price of admission and well worth the anticipation. From a reputable source, the contents therein remain a mystery but according to testimony, critical acclaim, it provides enough assurance, advice for the binding of its tangible papers. It is a major chord in the minor-chord driven banal ballad that assumingly summarizes the total essence of the resident’s being. Figuratively if one were to define life, a very plausible abstraction, it would be a chapter comprised of little action and lots of introspection; the chapter would fail to work in any novel – misshapen, able to fit no whole – only a conceptual form deemed pensive and delicate. Spend most of these days, which inadvertently string together with no clarification of each other, in the sunlight hanging by the hammock or sitting by the municipal swimming pool, waiting. Planning, when ready. Ask for a whisper of truth, nothing too cryptic, and one would rather be bombarded with scorching sunlight and the laughter, chatter, and rare but recurring ridicule of area residents than having to hear nothing, the dreaded silence, or to suit something, someone’s dreary expectations. Of note – the pool is not too far from here. It is deep enough. Circles the expanse of the chlorine-treated pool, and sits alongside the pool in one of its surrogate ornamentations, a wooden beach recliner weathered from warmth and rainfall. Who knows how many times the wood has swelled but the cracks in the chair could answer the same sort of question as the rings of a tree can specify how old it happens to be, how long has it been exactly; how much longer does one have to bear? The package is opened, a pamphlet positioned to be seen first warns, read this first. Held carefully in the fold of a forearm and bicep to prevent fingerprint smudging and fading from the salt from one’s sweat, sits back and gazes out at the empty expanse of the poolside – soon it will be flush with activity, verve, laughter, the frenzied splashing of divers and casual bathers, all seeking to waste some time; trading it in for trivial thrill. Looks at the pamphlet, seemingly taking time inspecting its cover, then typeface, then the photographs supplied, all images of individuals wearing smiles so wide it invokes the opposite, the saddened, effect, items of enactment rather than authenticity. Looks back up and watches as a young woman sits across on the opposite side of the pool. A masculine ray of hope at the beginnings of an idea, intentions sprout and then shattered by the sighting of two children that follow the woman with towels and pool toys. Could have been the perfect accomplice, an audience of one — upon this and that which slips into the conscious stream, one remains suspended, dearly contemplating very little, observing the whole lot.

So arise, and then

grass really isn’t green on the other side, the demands of lawn care, convenience of not working, funding from unconventional sources, what those might be, contemporary thoughts, very contemporary, pleasant, wonderful thoughts, what is expect of someone deemed “desirable,” young single mothers, flowers but what other kinds besides roses, tulips, but they don’t really live longer than a week

Glance back down at the pamphlet, the package now placed on the ground near the chair, and runs a hand over its laminated surface. The sensation faint yet pleasing validate the package as worth the price, protector of all the proper answers, the answers the resident most certainly needs. Puts the pamphlet down and then picks it up once again and looks at the fold of the pamphlet, its would-be spine, inspecting the typeface used for each contributor’s name and the variation of the same typeface used for the pamphlet’s title. Puts the pamphlet back down. Stares but does not glare. Really, looks just ahead, unnoticed go the various enthusiastic visages of residents swimming laps, bridging social gaps. So arise, and then

the middle child, meaning of little spaces and edges, vision and when classification is a social necessity, moving and what it means, ideologies still worth supporting, wear and tear the more you care for something, proper diet and how expensive it is to eat right, the promiscuity of fast food franchises, how “fast” fast food really is, how much it costs to buy into a fast food franchise, how much cash left to buy fast food, taste of food, why the absence of an appetite

Looks back down at the pamphlet abruptly and flips to the first page which begins with, ‘once upon a time’ no story, no matter how grand, matters if but the remainder of the sentence thereafter goes unread; looks up from the pamphlet. So arise, and then

grey, a color or just a shade, getting paid to empty peoples’  junk mail, reading in the dark, reading and blindness, cleanliness of water, the taste of tap water, the taste of bottled water, the taste of artificially flavored water, if keeping change is even worth it, where the nearest currency conversion service is located, paper versus word processors, going out, where to go, if it matters, why people need to dance, point of night clubs, how many people actually get picked up at clubs, opening a club, a good name for a club, thought of a gay club, fear of being gay, the existence of a sexual orientation test and the sudden need to take one

Looks back down, reads the first sentence again, and flips on through, skimming the pages, then flips back to the front, reading the indispensable blurbs, consumer testimonies. Bringing the pamphlet up close, begins to flip through the pages as fast as a fruitless fan. Unsatisfied, or perhaps discouraged, puts the pamphlet down and stares straight ahead. So arise, and then

the possibility of still getting married, keeping or throwing away receipts, the need for privacy curtains in restaurant tables and booths, cabin fever, if one can afford to eat tonight, how to act around people, missing people, forgetting peoples’ names all too, distinction between a .44 and .45, working a night shift, window shopping, where oneshould go when it’s summer, taking up smoking, possibility of college credit for internet jargon, what and where to go to “not waste” time, wasting time and how to make up for lost time, what to do, if anyone knows how to do it, and how to do it without knowing, or of it being unpleasant

Shift in the seat and flip open the pamphlet to one of its back pages to where a finger was tucked and reads, ‘The – ‘ looks back up and… so arise, and then

how to tell a girl roach from a guy roach, the state of snuff film, bedbugs really exist, when to know a hot dog is cooked, standing in line only to forget what for, selling plasma for extra cash, selling sperm for extra cash, status as a father by-proxy, how to tell real breasts from fake ones by sight only, what it means to be jovial, what other people are doing right now, value of a life and if it is being rightly upheld

Yawn, crack knuckles, flips to the last page and reads the last sentence, ‘Soon you will understand that –‘ and then flips back to the first page with the clear intention to begin reading. So arise, and then

where parents went, what to wear to hide the beginnings of a gut, the name of the person that inspired “that” idea, worms and how many times they can be cut into pieces and still live, how to know when a new chapter of life has begun, first childhood memory, any memory from childhood, what it was like during childhood, what happened to childhood, what happened to the child within

Looks down at the first page and looks up, hears someone shout not too far away, definitely feminine, and puts the book down and straightens up from a slouching position but doesn’t move. So arises one, and then

why desperate “screams” and “shouts” are rarely heard only read about long after the fact

Holds the pamphlet tightly. Been waiting for months, the answers within will solve it all. Been primed for months but will get to it in a minute. Start, in just a minute. Just one minute.

First let arise, and

MICHAEL J SEIDLINGER
Chasing the radiant display of the written word, said to be an eccentric, sensory voice, I am but a voice seeking semblance through the power of structure and line as idea investment. Writing not only for meaning but as a means of breathing, seeking form in that which nearly has none – the cursory heartbeat and hyper-sensitive search of the poioumena; protraction of the production as temporal distortion before semblance; worrying in the withering corner compulsively crafting the fabulation of abstract and concrete form – both: the duality of structural literary form; walking the expanse just shy of piercing the noosphere – that, of which, all output builds until proper enough for pronouncement. The power of fiction, form and structure as radiant display.

Send him something, send him anything. If he finds it equally interesting, he just might send you something back. fieldsandfractures@gmail.com


Anyway, I think that I want to respond to Karl Wenclas’s comments on my last blog post. I’m doing this in a separate post because I want to address the idea of publicity, antics, literary activism and such and why it’s probably been so difficult for us. To do that, I had to further think about exactly what OW is and what it isn’t, and what I came up with was something that I didn’t quite expect, something that both furthered my understanding of the thing, while also alienating myself from it even more.

First, I think pretty much the only thing about the name that’s a little misleading is the “Collective” part. More accurately, the word should probably be “Collection” or “Alliance” or something like that. Because the thing is actually a bunch of individual projects linked, to more or less degrees, by the “Outsider” concept. All of the parts interact with each other and none of them are really totally independent of the others, but they could just as easily work out on their own. So, here are the parts, as I see them:

1. The webpage–obviously the place to start, since it’s the “hub” for everything else. It connects the other parts, through links at the top of the page and elsewhere. The webpage has a staff with a sort of hierarchy, but it’s pretty fluid and nothing formal has been agreed to.  But it’s definitely there, evidenced by the fact that not everyone can post here and we’re a little selective as far the who is able to.

2. The Press(es)–There are actually two separate OW publishing “houses” and two different people run it. Caleb J. Ross runs the chapbook series and Brian Fugett, of Zygote in my Coffee e-zine, has an OW imprint.  OW members supply the content, though.  This has been done through a contest and a call for submissions.  But once Brian has the material, he prints and sells it on his own, with publicity help from some of us OW folk.

3.  The Ning community page–Some people post on the main site but don’t post on the community site at all.  Others have different relationships with the community site.  If anything, this is the “collective” part, since it’s almost totally unmoderated (only obvious spam gets deleted).  Anyone can post or discuss stuff on the community site.  Over the year or so that we’ve had this version of the community page, it’s taken on its own separate dynamic, distinct from the website.  We still get a lot of writers for the website from the community site, but the thing has its own free-flowing structure with its own regulars.  This is probably the clearest case of a part being connected to the whole by means of identification with a concept.

4. Last Sunday, Last Rites/OW Readings–Occasionally, OW has a special one-off reading.  The first was in Chicago a couple of years ago, organized by David Blaine and myself (although I wasn’t able to attend).  The second one was organized by Caleb J. Ross and it’s going to take place in Denver on April 9th, during the AWP Conference.  There’s also the Last Sunday, Last Rites reading series in Baltimore that Nik Korpon and I run.  It shares a link to OW because of overlapping membership, though it would be impossible to say that OW, as a whole, runs the thing.  First, because we don’t only feature Outsiders (a couple of major-press folk have read with us) and because our focus is on the local scene which, again, shares some overlap with OW, but is also a larger thing in itself, of which the Last Rites reading series is only a small (but, we hope, vital) part.

You can probably see how I had both a greater understanding of what OW is, as well as understanding it even less, after I broke it down into parts like this.  Now, I want to address Karl’s points, keeping the above in mind:

When I’ve engaged in literary activism, it’s been to advance more than one objective at once– which is the great thing about it.

I think I know what he’s talking about here, though maybe not totally.  Karl’s literary activism has always been class conscious.  Most of the writers in the ULA were either working class, like myself, or wrote about working class issues.  Karl’s protests always created class dialogue.  It was a sort of a back-door method of politics, where your talk about literature is a springboard for conversation about society as a whole.

I think that OW does many things at once but doesn’t have an “objective,” at least not in the way Karl was talking about.  Now, this might or might not be a bad thing, depending on your point of view.  Is the fact that there’s no OW “endgame” a weakness or a strength or does it not mean anything at all?  These questions aren’t rhetorical.  I genuinely want to know.

As far as the class thing goes, it doesn’t seem like something that OW, as a whole, can get engaged in.  We have people from all sorts of class backgrounds, all sorts of educational backgrounds, with all sorts of political leanings.  It would be nearly impossible to get everyone engaged in anything like this.  However, there’s probably room for this kind of activism, as a separate group linked to the whole, that people could opt in or out of.  It might be a bit difficult to organize, but I’m sure there would be people who would be game for something like that.

2.) At the same time, activism can be amazingly effective in getting the word about outcast writers and their work. For those without credentials, degrees, connections, or resources, it’s often the only way to get the word out. It’s a way to level that unfair playing field. There’s nothing wrong with getting publicity! The name authors have million-dollar publicity departments and publicity agents doing it for them. Are we supposed to NOT compete?
For every activist who ever lived, from Jesus through Mao, I’m sure there were plenty of status quo aristocrat types disdaining the noise as “sour grapes.” Reaction to action is expected.

I agree with this, though Jesus and Mao in the same sentence makes me feel a bit “icky.”  Nevertheless, I don’t see a loose umbrella organization like this being able to support something like this activist approach as a whole, since no one person can really claim to represent the views of the group, diverse as they are. And I can’t see something like this working unless it’s working as its own thing, connected to the larger concept.  It’s like when politicians say, “The American People are against this legislation.”  It’s always true and it’s always false because there are some people who would agree with the law, others who don’t, others who like parts of the law but disagree with another part, and still others who want to stick their fingers up their ass while watching TV.  It’s like what Gessen was writing in his article.  As soon as you try to define what “underground” is, you realize that you’re only defining part of it, since it’s such a huge concept.  The thing to do is concentrate on the specific part of the underground that you’re interested in, rather than wondering how to advance the thing as a whole.

I’ve been an outsider just about all my life. It hasn’t really been by choice– there’s no choice but to embrace the concept, which I’ve done, and turn that outsider status into an asset.

I think that if there’s one thing everyone in all of the various parts of OW agrees with, it’s that we embrace our “outsider status.”  Those who don’t, don’t stay involved with any of the projects for very long.  People who are about building maybe some underground cred before trying to move on up (to the East Side, to a deelux apartment in the skyhihihi…) are easy to spot, anyway.  They’re not talking about the latest book by Blake Butler or Tim Hall.  They talk about mainstream stuff almost exclusively.  I think that everyone here, though they have different ambitions for their own writing, absolutely LOVES indie/underground/outsider/small press lit.  Some people like small communities of peers who have a great appreciation for what they do and want to remain in a small community.  That’s totally fine.  Others could go either way, and others definitely want more exposure than they can get in small, intimate communities.  Of those people, most want to go the “traditional” route, whatever that is, or whatever it’s becoming.  Others, and I believe it’s probably a very small percentage, just as the ULA represented a very small percentage of the underground, would be up for literary activism as a way of getting their names and their writing into the minds of a larger reading public. Karl often (condescendingly, I think) calls writers who are just interested in doing their thing in the small press “hobbyists,” which I think often implies that they don’t take their work seriously. Which is totally not true. Either way, approaching the idea of publicity for a group like this, one has to consider that there are writers across the spectrum of outsiderness or whatnot around here. And that, I think, is what makes it so difficult to launch any sort of cohesive publicity “campaign.” It seems like, for good or ill, OW is the kind of thing that can only expand like the Blob (the Blog Blob?), simply because it’s the nature of the beast we’ve all (inadvertently?) helped to create.

OK.

Cue outro…..