The Adirondack Review

Check out the new issue of The Adirondack Review.

Decode

[We] can decode how people feel about our work after a reading:

1. “I loved your reading”–a nice general way of saying nothing. This could mean you read well and they didn’t appreciate your work, a nice gracious comment.

2. “I love your work! I’m a huge fan!”–These phrases are the ultimate compliment, especially if the person comes up to you with an earmarked book.

3. “Nice job” or “Good job”–This means the person is gracious but doesn’t really care for your work that much.

4. “It’s nice to meet you” and they turn around drink their beer or just stand there staring at you–this means they don’t like you or your poems and they got credit for going to the reading.

 

from Victoria Chang’s blog.

Babyfucker

‘Babyfucker is far more disturbing than the title suggests. The book, written by a Swiss author, spawned a controversy in Germany in 1991. It begins unabashedly with the sentence “I fuck babies,” which the narrator declares to be his sentence. It is the reader’s sentence, too.

From Dennis Cooper’s blog.

Bolaño Inc.

Roberto Bolaño is being sold in the U.S. as the next Gabriel García Márquez, a darker, wilder, decidedly un-magical paragon of Latin American literature. But his former friend and fellow novelist, Horacio Castellanos Moya, isn’t buying it.

from Guernica

Going Public

GOING PUBLIC: we are celebrating a decade of poetics at Edge Hill with a series of open meetings. Everybody invited. They begin with Scott Thurston, who is a former research student, and continue with current members of the research group. All will be reading some poems and talking about how they were written. All meetings are in E 21 in the Education Block, 6.30-8.30.



8th October 2009:

Scott Thurston will discuss his book Internal Rhyme to be published next year by Shearsman.


15th October 2009:

Cliff Yates: ”Flying’ and the gap between intention and outcome in the act of writing”

Andrew Taylor: “The Poetics of Absence – part two’: a continuation and reflection upon the work in Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh”

29th October 2009: 

Dee Mc Mahon: “Stories of the Line – Provocation, Process and Product”


Robert Sheppard: “Fictional Poems and Fictional Poetics: the double oeuvre of René Van Valckenborch”

5th November 2009: 

Daniele Pantano: “Living in Translation: A Discussion of Exile, Translingualism, and Writing Your Way Home”

Michael Egan: poetics, tba.

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within

Trailer for the film William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, a feature-length independent documentary by Chicago Director Yony Leyser, in collaboration with BulletProof Film, Inc.

The film features never before seen footage of William S. Burroughs, as well as exclusive interviews with his closest friends and colleagues including John Waters, Genesis P-Orridge, Laurie Anderson, Peter Weller, David Cronenberg, Iggy Pop, Gus Van Sant, Sonic Youth, Anne Waldman, George Condo, Hal Willner, James Grauerholz, Amiri Baraka, Jello Biafra, V. Vale, David Ohle, Wayne Propst, Dr. William Ayers, Diane DiPrima, Donovan, Dean Ripa (the world’s largest poisonous snake collector), and many others, with narration by actor Peter Weller, and soundtrack by Sonic Youth.

The film investigates the life of legendary beat author and American icon, William S. Burroughs. Born the heir of the Burroughs adding machine estate, he struggled throughout his life with addiction, control systems and self. He was forced to deal with the tragedy of killing his wife and the repercussions of neglecting his son. His novel, Naked Lunch, was one of the last books to be banned by the U.S. government. Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer testified on behalf of the book. The courts eventually overturned their decision in 1966, ruling that the book had important social value. It remains one of the most recognized literary works of the 20th century.

William Burroughs was one of the first to cross the dangerous boundaries of queer and drug culture in the 1950s, and write about his experiences. Eventually he was hailed the godfather of the beat generation and influenced artists for generations to come. However, his friends were left wondering, did William ever find happiness? This extremely personal documentary breaks the surface of the troubled and brilliant world of one of the greatest authors of all time.

William S. Burroughs: A Man Within is the first and only posthumous documentary about this legendary figure.

Black Market Review–New Call for Submissions

The Black Market Review, Edge Hill University’s international literary e-journal, invites submissions of poetry (3-5 poems), fiction, creative nonfiction and essays (up to 6000 words), art, photography, translations and book reviews for its second issue. Our reading period is September 1 to December 1. Unsolicited work outside those dates will not be read.

Please email submissions and a brief bio to blackmarketreview@googlemail.com

Or hard copies to

The Black Market Review

c/o Daniele Pantano

Department of English

Edge Hill University

St Helens Road

Ormskirk, Lancashire, L39 4QP

United Kingdom

No previously published work. Simultaneous submissions are accepted as long as 
we are notified of acceptance elsewhere.

For more information, please visit www.blackmarketreview.com.

What If You Pull a Literary Hoax and Nobody Notices?

Perpetrators of literary hoaxes often like to be discovered, if only for recognition of their cleverness. But for someone or someones at the literary-studies journal Modernism/Modernity, that gratification has been a while coming.

From The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Letters from Erin Belieu and Cate Marvin

Dear Friends,

A few days ago, Cate Marvin sent out an open letter to a group of women writers detailing her concerns about certain aspects of the AWP conference and asking if other women felt the same way. She then suggested the brilliant notion of a women’s writing conference and wondered who would be interested in such a thing. The letter has since gone out to hundreds, has been posted in many places, and the response has been absolutely tremendous. This leads us to believe that our moment is definitely NOW (pun intended). Cate has asked me to be one of the co-directors of this potential conference and she and I have spent the last several days working on a model for such a thing and beginning the organizing process. We have quickly moved away from an initially (and understandably) reactive pose to envisioning just how positive and constructive this is going to be. We believe AWP serves a good and important purpose, but we intend to serve another.

I’ll include her original email at the bottom of this post. If you find that you’re interested in the ideas she lays out here, I’d ask that you reply to this and join our Facebook group. We are actively seeking every kind of support for this venture–people to help organize by region, to spread the word to other women writers, to potentially volunteer their time on site when this thing comes together. We’re also looking for people who have backgrounds in grant writing, accounting, arts administration, fund raising, web and graphic design, database management and non-profit law to possibly volunteer a little time to help us get this off the ground. If you are one with these skills and are willing, or know someone who might be, please let us know asap.

Ideally we would like to have a number of university sponsorships to help support the costs of such an undertaking. We hope that some of you who are interested would be in the position to approach your schools about sponsorship when the time comes. I don’t think this will be a hard sell to most places and we are quickly putting together a heavy hitting board of directors that has the star power to attract universities and colleges. And my thought is, hey, all they can say is no. No harm, no foul there. Participating schools would be advertised in every conference promotion, program, t-shirt, foam finger, beach towel and coffee mug. Even small sums would be incredibly helpful. You can tell them a little money will could get them in cheaply on the ground floor of something that’s going to be big!

Obviously you would need details of our organization and funding structure (we’ll be applying for non profit status just as soon as possible), so be in touch for more information on this if you decide that you can speak with your school about sponsorship. Of course private donations will also be gratefully excepted. We don’t discriminate against the financially-abled!

Finally, we’re very interested in making sure ALL women of every race, creed, socioeconomic situation, sexual orientation and physical ability are included in this invitation. Oh, and we need more fiction and non-fiction writers. Cate and I know a lot of poets, but could use some help reaching women in other genres. Please feel free to pass along this email to anyone you think would like to know. Cate’s letter follows…

Remember, it takes a nation of millions to hold us back. Imagine what will happen when we come together…

Yours,

Erin Belieu, Associate Professor
Director of the Creative Writing Program
English Department
Florida State University
ebelieu@fsu.edu

———-

Dear Friend,

I just experienced a moment of vicious self-mockery, in which I imagined myself in the same pose of concentration over the laundry I had spread over my bed as the narrator of Tillie Olsen’s legendary piece in which a mother’s considers the circumstances of her gender as manifested in her daughter’s (lack of) self-confidence . . . I was dwelling on a thought not entirely different. You see, I had an AWP panel proposal rejected today. Big deal, right?Everyone has their proposals rejected. Yet, this rejection really nagged at me. I
proposed on a topic concerning the narrow field (sarcasm intended) of contemporary American women’s poetry . . . I’ve had a lot of panels
accepted over the years. Last year, one on Wallace Stevens. The year before that on the elegy; before that, the crafting of an anthology. Then transgression in poetry. Ahah! This was the first panel I ever proposed that concerned women’s work exclusively.

It was an excellent proposal. Because it was interesting. I just honestly can’t see HOW it could be turned down. Here it is:

Title:

Arsenic Icing: Sentiment as Threat in Contemporary American Women’s Poetry

Description:

Six contemporary female American poets explore how sentimentality is
deployed in twenty-first century women’s poetry, with regard to both
content and rhetoric, as a means to counter traditional assumptions
regarding female desire and identity. What personal and political
alchemies occur when the affectionate address verges on acerbic? What
transformations are sought when a female speaker, once familiar as
mother, daughter, sister, wife, or lover, employs sentiment to reveal
herself as Other?

Rationale:

The first female American poets to be respected for their intellect, Marianne Moore and her protégé, Elizabeth Bishop, were careful not to express an excess of sentiment; poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath would make a stark departure from this mode by channeling emotional extremity. It is now important to explore how twenty-first century American women poets understand and reinvent these opposing traditions in their work.

By the way: I had a stellar group of panelists (VARIED and FAMOUS) lined up for this.

*

As I stood rolling my socks into balls and shoving folded shirts into drawers (warning: dangerously clumsy use of heavily figurative language in use: the women are the clothes, get it?? Being shoved into drawers, i.e. repressed!), I considered how another panel proposal I was on was accepted. It concerns the uses of criticism, harkening back to the New Critics, Eliot in particular. Nothing WRONG with that . . . but hasn’t it been done?

And I thought, too, of how often I see more men’s names in prominent
magazines than women’s, how I see men getting prizes more often than women, how even though female students would love to read newer work by female writers, they are rarely taught the work of women– except
for the usual suspects.

And I thought about how a male poet friend of mine discouraged me from
getting involved with editing a book of feminist poets/poems from the past two decades because it would be “dangerous” and “divisive.”

And I thought about how one male poet friend of mine only refers to Ellen Bryant Voight and Louise Gluck when he speaks of female poets. Not that I don’t love these two poets– but I am sure these two women would be none too happy that they are the sole representatives of where women’s poetry has arrived (and, practically, to this male-poet’s mind, where it comes from).

I am, in short, irritated, and it’s not just because I’m on the rag.

Here’s the thing: why can’t we have an organization of female writers (poets and fiction writers) that has a conference every year? Where we writers of women’s lit can get together and talk about issues that affect our work as women? An organization that would be very open aesthetically, one that would really be a forum for discussion along any lines of the female writer’s experience? An opportunity for women writers to be exposed to everything (or almost everything) that’s going on in our country with regard to women’s literature?

Like AWP, it could be an organization for writers, not scholars. And in that way different from some organizations that no doubt already exist.

Perhaps this organization could also produce a literary journal to present women’s writing (prose) on what it means to be a woman writer in our time? An overview of some of the presentations from the conference itself?

Perhaps we could have a retreat at which established female authors MENTOR younger women writers? (Like Cave Canem does for younger African American poets.)

We’d have to start out small, and we’d necessarily become big (there are lots of women writers!). We’d need grants and the help of our affiliate universities. We’d have to be national, with representatives from all over the country. And our organization would have to be DISTINCTLY different than those of the past that have the lingering smell of post-feminism and the eighties hanging over them.

We need not even announce ourselves as a feminist project. The very definition of feminism in women’s work could be discussed at our conference. (By a panel, naturally.)

Eventually, we might think of creating a press or an imprint of female writers.

But, first things first . . . are any of you as “concerned” as I am? I really do think we need unity as females more now than we have for some time.

You are welcome to tell me I’m crazy. Or offer ideas. Am I crazy? Am I?????

Your friend,

Cate

–
Cate Marvin, Associate Professor
Department of English
College of Staten Island, CUNY
www.catemarvin.com

America the Great . . . Police State

For those of us who had hoped that the Obama administration would present us with a rebirth of the old republic that was so rudely erased a few years ago by that team of judicial wreckers, Bush and Gonzales, which led, in turn, to a recent incident in Cambridge, Mass. that inspired a degree of alarm in many Americans. But what was most alarming was the plain fact that neither the president nor a “stupid” local policeman seemed to understand the rules of behavior in a new America, where we find ourselves marooned as well as guarded (is that the verb?) by armed police who have been instructed that they are indeed, once armed, the law and may not be criticized verbally or in any other way and are certainly not subject to any restrictions as to whom they arrest or otherwise torment.

Gore Vidal on truthdig

Declan Spring on Alvin Levin

In the early nineties, I met John Ashbery at a poetry reading at The New School. I was just out of college and remember somewhat nervously introducing myself, telling him I’d begun working as an editorial assistant at New Directions. He looked me over and proceeded to ask me if I’d ever read Alvin Levin, whose “unfinished novel,” Love Is Like Park Avenue, he’d read in the 1943 New Directions annual.

From The Front Table

Salt August Summer Sizzler

From Salt:

The JustOneBook campaign continues with a further sensational August deal.

In order to keep Salt on track through the wet British summer, we’re offering you another special deal throughout August. All Salt books are available from us at 33% discount yet again. That’s a third off all Salt titles, and free shipping on orders with a cover price of over £30 or $30. Offer ends 31 August 2009.

Simply enter the coupon code HU693FB2 when in the store to benefit.

As before, all we ask is two things—

1. Buy one book. Or perhaps another one … go on.
2. Pass it on. Share this offer with everyone who loves gorgeous books and likes a bargain (whilst saving independent literature).

http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.saltpublishing.com

Happy shopping!

Love from Salt

One Fast Move or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur

The Turing Test Wins the 2009 Edge Hill Short Story Prize

Cult science fiction writer Chris Beckett has won this year’s Edge Hill Short Story Prize – the UK’s only award for a short story collection by a single author.  The judges chose his book The Turing Test, with its tales of robots, alien planets, genetic manipulation and virtual reality over collections by Anne Enright, Shena Mackay, Ali Smith and Gerard Donovan.

Chris was presented with the £5,000 prize and a specially commissioned painting by Liverpool artist, Pete Clarke, at a ceremony held by Edge Hill University on Saturday evening, 4 July, at the Bluecoat centre in Liverpool. He was also awarded the £1,000 Readers’ Prize.  Anne Enright won the second prize, worth £1,000, for her collection Yesterday’s Weather published by Vintage.

This year’s judges were James Walton, journalist and chair of BBC Radio 4’s The Write Stuff; author and 2008 winner Claire Keegan and Mark Flinn, Pro-Vice Chancellor of Edge Hill University.

James Walton commented:

‘I suspect Chris Beckett winning the Edge Hill Prize will be seen as a surprise in the world of books. In fact, though, it was also a bit of surprise to the judges, none of whom knew they were science fiction fans beforehand. Yet, once the judging process started, it soon became clear that The Turing Test was the book that we’d all been impressed by, and enjoyed, the most – and one by one we admitted it.

This was a very strong shortlist, including one Booker Prize winner in Anne Enright, and two authors who’ve been Booker shortlisted in Ali Smith and Shena Mackay. Even so, it was Beckett who seemed to us to have written the most imaginative and endlessly inventive stories, fizzing with ideas and complete with strong characters and big contemporary themes. We also appreciated the sheer zest of his story-telling and the obvious pleasure he had taken in creating his fiction.’

The Edge Hill Short Story Prize was launched by the university three years ago and is co-sponsored by Blackwell bookshop.

Ailsa Cox, Reader in Creative Writing and English commented:

‘This is a double for Chris Beckett.  He not only wins the first prize but also the Readers’ Prize, voted for by local reading groups and MA Creative Writing Students.  They also responded strongly to the powerful Irish voices in Gerard Donovan’s work.  Once again the prize celebrates the enormous appeal and vitality of the short story, whether it’s the black humour of Anne Enright’s Yesterday’s Weather or the postmodern playfulness in Ali Smith’s The First Person.  So far as I’m concerned, each of these collections is a winner and I’m glad that I wasn’t the one who had to choose between them.’

The phrase ‘The Turing Test’ refers to a proposal made by Alan Turing in 1950 as a way of dealing with the question of whether machines can think.

About the winners:

THE TURING TEST

Fourteen stories featuring, among other things, robots, alien planets, genetic manipulation and virtual reality, but which focus on individuals rather than technology, and deal with love and loneliness, authenticity and illusion, and what it really means to be human.  Chris Beckett’s first story was published in Interzone in 1990, and his stories have since appeared in Britain, the US and Russia.  His novel The Holy Machine was published in 2004 by Wildside Press, and his second novel, Marcher by Leisure Books in 2008.  He lives in Cambridge with his wife and three children and lectures in social work. www.elasticpress.com

‘A committed, serious writer of science fiction – subtle and adventurous in equal measure… he should already be on the radar of anyone who professes concern for science fiction as a literary form.’

Alastair Reynolds, author of the Revelation Space series

‘Aficionados of the genre will know Beckett for his intellectually rigorous and entertaining short fiction, and this outstanding collection should bring him to the attention of a wider audience.  His preoccupation is with identity and self-perception… He’s good at delineating the psychology of the outsider, and brilliant at depicting artificial intelligence and humanity’s relation to it.’

Eric Brown, The Guardian

Poetenladen

I’m now featured at the famous Poetenladen. The profile includes several poems in English as well as German translations by Jürgen Brôcan. Poetenladen also lists a few other English-language poets: Billy Collins, Timothy Donnelly, Robin Fulton, Barbara Guest, David Lerner, Sarah Manguso, Jeffrey McDaniel, Les Murray, and Charles Wright. Enjoy!

Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry

Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry
ISSN 1758-2733 (Print)

With the first issue to be published in September 2009, we are pleased to
announce that you can now subscribe to the Journal of British and Irish
Innovative Poetry online at http://www.gylphi.co.uk/poetry.

We are offering individual and institutional subscriptions, and details of
the upcoming contents are online. If you are affiliated with an institution
please recommend the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry to your
library by forwarding this email to them.

Ordering before September will ensure that your journals are sent directly
to you at the time of publication.

Finally, thank you for your interest in Gylphi and we hope that you read and
enjoy this journal.


With very best wishes,


Gylphi Limited
PO Box 993, Canterbury CT1 9EP, UK
01227 807997, editor@gylphi.co.uk 
website: http://www.gylphi.co.uk

Recent Films #1

Terminator Salvation (McG, 2009) **1/2

The Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky, 2008) ***1/2

Man on Wire (James Marsh, 2008) ***

W. (Oliver Stone, 2008) **1/2

Semi-Pro (Kent Alterman, 2008) *

The Reader (Stephen Daldry, 2008) ***1/2

Choke (Clark Gregg, 2008) **

Milk (Gus Van Sant, 2008) ****

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (Alex Gibney, 2008) ***

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Christian Mungiu, 2007) ****

The Visitor (Thomas McCarthy, 2007) ***

V. R. “Bunny” Lang

Patrick Durgin is looking for the copyright holders to the work of V.R. “Bunny” Lang:

I am seeking contact information for whomever may be involved with the literary estate of V. R. “Bunny” Lang, founding member of the Cambridge Poets Theater in the 50s, friend and inspiration to Frank O’Hara, among others. On behalf of the press Kenning Editions, I seek to acquire permission to reprint a work by Lang in a major forthcoming anthology of Poets Theater. Her husband Bradley Phillips controlled the estate until his death. It is known that he has a sister, Sarah Phillips, who may still live in the Boston area. Lang biographer Alison Lurie suggested that Sarah was a Radcliffe graduate, but the name is not on file with the Alumni Association at Harvard. Although Lurie has given the reprint her blessing, she does not in fact control the estate. Lang’s papers, donated by Lurie, are held by the Harvard Libraries’ American Theater Collection, though the library has no leads in this matter. It seems that only the Phillips family would now know who does. Any information you can provide in this regard would be greatly appreciated. Please back channel kenningeditions@gmail.com and/or spread the word.

Patrick F. Durgin
2457 N. Fairfield Avenue
2nd Floor
Chicago, IL 60647
773-227-0536

Show or Tell

Creative-writing programs are designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem.

 

From The New Yorker

Saving Salt

Saving Salt Publishing: Just One Book

As many of you will know, Jen and I have been struggling to keep Salt moving since June last year when the economic downturn began to affect our press. Our three year funding ends this year: we’ve £4,000 due from Arts Council England in a final payment, but cannot apply through Grants for the Arts for further funding for Salt’s operations. Spring sales were down nearly 80% on the previous year, and despite April’s much improved trading, the past twelve months has left us with a budget deficit of over £55,000. It’s proving to be a very big hole and we’re having to take some drastic measures to save our business. 

Here’s how you can help us to save Salt and all our work with hundreds of authors around the world.

JUST ONE BOOK

1. Please buy just one book, right now. We don’t mind from where, you can buy it from us or from Amazon, your local shop or megastore, online or offline. If you buy just one book now, you’ll help to save Salt. Timing is absolutely everything here. We need cash now to stay afloat. If you love literature, help keep it alive. All it takes is just one book sale. Go to our online store and help us keep going.

UK and International
http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/index.php

USA
http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop-us/index.php

2. Share this note on your Facebook or MySpace profile. Tell your friends. If we can spread the word about our cash crisis, we can hopefully find more sales and save our literary publishing. Remember it’s just one book, that’s all it takes to save us. Please do it now.

With my best wishes to everyone
Chris Hamilton-Emery
Director
Salt Publishing
http://www.saltpublishing.com