Stephanie Barber in Artforum

Artforum has a write-up of Stephanie Barber's work:

THOUGH EXTREMELY VARIED, the films of Stephanie Barber engage universal themes—time, death, memory, forgetting, frustration. Barber’s films also consider the impossibility of directly engaging these same themes in a media-saturated culture in which our deepest emotional reserves have been tapped by marketing and advertising.

Even in her films with characters, she avoids facial expressions, bodily gestures, the intonation of a human voice, and the graphic expressivity of handwriting. In a way, Barber is a modernist artist fashioning, from the detritus of mass culture, appealing and opaque documents that speak to our emotional lives in a mechanized, distant, even cold manner.

[Read more.]

Barber's book and DVD, these here separated, is available now for pre-order, for $14.

A Couple Reviews

That prolific reader and writer named Ethel Rohan reviewed Mairéad Byrne's book, The Best of (What's Left of) Heaven, for Hobart. Go Read It with a pint of Guinness. The review says, "You should read this collection in its entirety. Then reread it." It also says,

I saw so much of myself, of my Irishness, in these poems and white spaces. While there are few surface references to Ireland, she permeates everything. I recognized the Irish obsession with the weather and place, with routine and everydayness. I saw how we use humor as salve, deflector, and to save our sanity. I also witnessed our psychic scars from colonization, brutality, and patriarchy. Our great joy and searing sadness. Strength. Courage. Imagination. Uniqueness.

I heard our gift of the gab and our stubborn silence. Above all, I heard echoes of the great Irish writers that have gone before us and that remain among us.

Meanwhile, I wrote about Maribor, a great book by Demosthenes Agrafiotis (and translated by John Sakkis and his Uncle Angelos) over at htmlgiant.

Andy Devine's WORDS via David McClendon at EWN (also, Matt Bell Week)

Today at the Emerging Writers Network, Dan Wickett talks with David McClendon about Andy Devine.  McClendon edits Unsaid, which is devoted to publishing really good, really fresh writing in a thick journal. Its publication is always an event, so it is rewarding to hear him praise Words, saying the book is like Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons. McLendon read Words straight through and describes a unique experience with the book, saying, "One enters a place from inside language that is both incantatory and oddly pragmatic. The repetitions found in Devine’s fictions build and grow over his pages and are pushed onward by a series of thoughtful cadences that strengthen both the magic and meaning of each sound." McClendon's explication of the book is remarkably kind and helpful in its clear description of what Andy Devine does, and how. Check it out, and check out Words, too.

In other nice attention news, Matt Bell's project at Everyday Genius has been written up at MediaBistro and Bud Parr's "Age of Sand." Read Matt's story in its current incarnation here at Everyday Genius, and click here tonight at 9 to watch Michael Kimball work on what Matt's got going so far. Here's the rest of the schedule:

Tuesday, 9pm EST: Michael Kimball works the story.
Wednesday, 1pm EST: Lily Hoang works the story.
Thursday, 9am - 9pm EST: The story is open to all comers. Get into the ether and enact your will.
Friday: Matt makes his final changes and completes the story.

Reviews and Stuff

me and joe

I feel like I'm late to the party, but I'm bringing good news.

1. Justin Sirois's book, MLKNG SCKLS, was gloriously reviewed in New Pages. John Madera, the reviewer and musician and editor of Big Other, says: "Sirois’s prose glistens with precision."

2. At BMore Art, which is like a premier Baltimore institution for finding out what's what in Baltimore art, Megan Lavelle has written an astoundingly good meditation on Easter Rabbit.

Joe and Joe (photos by Megan Lavelle)

3. Matt Jasper's long poem, "The Tip of the Iceberg," was released this week.

4. For the second time since I started doing Publishing Genius stuff, a literary agent contacted me to get in touch with a writer I'd published. That was yesterday.

5. Tomorrow night is the release party for Easter Rabbit.
It's at Hexagon (1825 N Charles) at 7:30. It's free and BYOB.

A Jello Horse Review in The Believer

Jim Ruland wrote an open letter to Matthew Simmons, which you can read in full at The Believer. It's a funny read that begins, "I am writing today to ask you a question about your book, which I read with great pleasure: what is it?" I also laughed at this line that addresses the second-person perspective: "When you say “you,” you mean “me” (meaning you), right?"

Ruland also points to "a fascinating problem for a protagonist: it’s his story, but the story doesn’t belong to him, and who hasn’t been there?"

A Jello Horse is available here, for $10 and shipping daily.

Reviews

Matt Debenedictis reviewed Before I Moved to Nevada (by Jamie Iredell) at The Chapbook Review.

Claudia Smith reviewed Light Boxes (by Jane Shones) at Gently Read Literature. LB is back on the bestseller list at the Small Press Exchange. I'm actually getting low on copies of this book. Get one quick.

If anyone would like a review copy of MLKNG SCKLS, let me know.

I'm feeling slightly better about moving forward. For a while I got sick and then I got mayonaised.

Review of Light Boxes at The Urban Elitist

David Nygren wrote a really honest and thought-provoking review of Light Boxes. And also, it's nice:

By the time I arrived at page 168, if there had been more, I would have kept reading. What can I say? Might just have to read it again.

Thanks to Shane McJones for the picture.

UPDATE: Here's another nice review from PANK. It says, "This book is masterful."

Light Boxes review

Josh Potter's review of Light Boxes in Albany's alt-weekly is, I think, the fullest summary of the book. With linear thought, Potter manages to coherently encapsulate all the angles of Shane Jones's multiplicitous novel. When the lit students starting writing their exegesis on Light Boxes, I'm sure that this review will be an valuable resource.

Light Boxes review in Baltimore City Paper

(I just lifted this method of posting about a review from Justin Sirois.)

Bret McCabe wrote a nice review of Light Boxes in this week's Baltimore City Paper. Among other things, he says, "Light Boxes becomes less a literary puzzle and more a disarmingly moving story. Key to that effect is Jones' audacious sincerity: His story is intimate and his style almost narrative sotto voce."

Weekly Review Roundup

{[(Some of these reviews are more than a week old, but since it's the first Weekly Review Roundup I wanted to post everything I can remember and start fresh next week.)]}

<-Also, no negative reviews yet.->

The first one is from JA Tyler and Mud Luscious from back in January, and it says, "Shane Jones’ debut novel is a rattling, vigorous, absolute must read." Wow!

Claudia Smith said, "There is an archaic sense of loneliness, and deep sympathy for humanity, in Jones' words. Striking, visceral, atmospheric, and absorbing." Then she did a small interview with Shane.

Here is a great interview by the amazing Rauan Klassnik. I had the pleasure of meeting him at AWP and it really was a pleasure and I'm not just saying it was because his reading of the book rules so much.

Says Dispatches from Utopia, "There is no posturing here, no self-conscious forcing of the work. What unfolds in these pages is Shane Jones’ singular voice, the world as only he can show it to us, and it is a beautiful thing."

Have you heard about Michael Kimball writing life stories on postcards? Here's Shane's. Michael also mentioned on his blog that he likes the interview Sam Pink did with Shane at TPC.

Darby Larson says, "Light Boxes has a happy, dreamy vein."

Alan Rossi said, "The author's imaginative world is so complete unto itself that it feels nice to live inside that world for a short time."

At internettle soup, Adam Coates wrote a review poem about it:

Light boxes seems to inhabit a world between possibilities
it seems both natural and not
i felt invited to read more than ordered or compelled
it makes a good memory

And today Ken Baumann compared Light Boxes to Jesus: "I feel it's hard today to find a work of art that is earnest, that is compassionate . . . I was startled by Shane Jones's novel because it is so painfully both; it bleeds itself, and bleeds for others."

Two Reviews and a reminder

Dispatches from Utopia (great name) wrote a really nice review of Light Boxes, saying, "What on the surface appears to be a spare, well-written surrealist dreamscape of a novel by the end reveals itself to be an achingly honest expression of love and our feeble attempts to express all we contain." There's also an interview of Shane there.

And here is a short and sweet review of Dave NeSmith's El Greed. I'm going to be putting out a PDF Chapbook of new work by Dave, once I get the image resolution right.

Finally, don't forget to enter the contest, if you haven't already. It ends tonight. And will result in a lot of books being given away.

Welp.

It's not typical of me, but I really like this poem at failbetter by Dana Guthrie Martin. In particular I like the last stanza's repetition. It's a great poem, and reading Yusuf Komunyakaa this week I was forgetting there could be great poetry, poetry to care about and invest in. Nothing against YK or whatever, but I dislike the poems in his new book Warhorses (well, "Grenade" is pretty good). Maybe I can be taught to like them. But in this Dana Guthrie Martin poem we are given reflections on death (oh so blah when handled with serious reflection) and aging in a practically cavalier way (and it includes flowers!), but one that adds up and culminates with a lot of care. Care in Heidegger's garden. Ethics are here, and so is the desire to hock a wad of spit out at the last line's "blasted gardenias" and death.

Blake Butler pointed out this Nathan Neely poem at elimae that I like, too. It's a risky proposition, doing poems out of recipes, but Neely pulls it off. I like that the title refers to a "Christmas meeting" as opposed to "party." I read another poem with a recipe form really recently but it wasn't as good. Where did I read it?

Oh, there haven't been a lot of submissions for the guess the number or the poetry contest in which people can win a crap ton of books. First prize for the number guessing contest (including Blake Butler's EVER and Shane and Rupert's PGP books) has been won, but there is still plenty more, including Mary Miller's Big World from Hobart, which will go to the best poem. So get on that peoples.

I just completed a poem about Bas Jan Ader called "Two Poems, Neither About Bas Jan Ader." I'm not sure, people, I'm just not sure. Bas Jan Ader was a conceptual artist who played with gravity a lot and died when he tried to sail across the Atlantic. Here's a sample from the poem:

One day instead of pants she wore bikini bottoms
Her legs are smooth and nice but I didn’t love her basically
She will not talk to me and I will not force her to
But I am apologizing to her in a poem which means what it means qua meaning ipso facto doom
I’m carrying such a heavy Chris Burden
One time I was described as "an extreme individual"

. . . so, you know, whatever. I actually like the poem a lot but I like everything right after it's done. That's why I went in search of other poems and found that Dana Guthrie Martin one.

Hiin Enkelte means, roughly, "that one" in Danish and can be transliterated as "authentic individual" or perhaps Dasein, though I'm not sure that's helpful.

Chris Higgs wrote about Light Boxes and sent his thoughts to Shane Jones, who posted them onto his blog. The thoughts are great thoughts. Chris reads and writes so thoughtfully. He got hung up on a detail that might be seen as extraneous to the story, but something that I think is required to "properly understand" (ha, well, actually no, not "properly" and not "understand") what is happening in the book. Chris came to this conclusion too. The things that are written on page 98 are less important than the fact that they are written.

I like Chris Higgs a lot. He seems to consume books and art in general not with any careerist or even supportiveness intentions, but out of a sincere interest. I have been buying a lot of books because I like the people who are doing them, that is, I like what they are doing, but then the book goes into my pile and I am not sad that I cannot be reading it right then at that second. I would say that is a good percentage of the books I have been buying. I do look forward to reading each of them, but I don't have any plan to do it soonish. Last night I unwrapped my new Johannas Goransson A New Quarantine Will Take My Place and my new Valzhyna Mort Factory of Tears (well, this one wasn't bought just to support Copper Canyon) and I immediately wondered how much I could sell them for once I don't care about this stuff anymore.

I'm just saying this in case someone else has ever thought this way and didn't want to say it. We can have solidarity. We can be pessimistic together and admire the brainy optimism of Chris Higgs.

Sometimes I read Lee Child thriller novels and get angry at things that distract me from them. Like if I'm on a camping trip with my family and I just want to read this stupid novel but my brother is like "hey let's go kayaking" I'll be like "shut up." I never feel that way about poetry.

Except maybe for the poetry of Mairead Byrne and Matt Cook.

I feel that way about the blogging of Sean Lovelace, too, but that's different.

At my job I submit "requisitions" for purchase orders that go through our internal system of tubes and sprockets up to the high floors where millionaires look them over and decide whether to approve the requisition or not. I have to attach all sorts of documents to them, like service agreements and proposals and business justifications. Every time I do it I wonder if maybe I should stick a poem in there too, something short and moving. I know these millionaires aren't blogging all day so maybe they could use a distraction. The thing is, though, that I don't think they would care and why should they? Things are never good enough to capture the attention of people who don't already care.

Creating something that surprises people with the realization that something else matters that they didn't know about is my objective correlative.

Two Books I'm Gargling

8% left to read till Tree of Smoke is done. I didn't know anything about this novel when I started. I didn't know it was a war novel about Vietnam. It's good. It's really good. It's hard to read books that are this good. It's discouraging, y'know? To write a book this good, you can't just mess around. Denis Johnson doesn't really mess around. However, I often get the sense while reading this book: who cares. This book is not as tight as a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. I only have 8% left to read and there are major characters that I still don't even, like, get. So everyone who was hopeless and went to Vietnam either died or got out and was hopeless. Sometimes I did not like Skip Sands and sometimes I liked him a lot. Sometimes I rolled my eyes and wondered what Johnson was shooting for with Colonel FX Sands, and sometimes I wanted to leave my bathtub for adventure when I thought about how tough and cool and drinkery the Colonel was.


Stacy Szymaszek's book of poetry, Emptied of All Ships, I have to read some more. I have to read it 8% more, about, even though I read it all. It's awesome. It's really cool. In the elevator this morning I thought of some of the words that are in it. The words come in short bursts, three or four lines at a time, one or two words per line. Sometimes there are more lines in one verse but there aren't normally more than one or two words per line. It's interesting what things these words do. Interesting to me. I imagine other people read them differently, but to me there is often some sort of syllogism that develops:
tree
an oar
origin
So. And it's heavy what happens with my eyes. Like when I was reading Ashbery this week, I was like, OH WOW NO MORE NO MORE PLEASE STOP JOHN and I forgot what the beginning of a line was by the time I got to the end of the line. But reading Emptied of All Ships I kept intentionally slowing down my eyes, trying to vacuum up all the shredded meaning for assimilation. I could have read the entire book in an hour, but I didn't let myself I read slo
w
e
r.

These Here Separated -- Amazon Review

I'm grateful to Michael Benko for posting his thoughts on Stephanie Barber's book/DVD at Amazon. He says, "Together the book and the films give you more of an experience than you're used to with poetry or films." That's awesome. That's the ticket.

Reviews: Mairead Byrne and John Guzlowski

Check it:
Byrne (improved)
Guzlowski

Eisley at HM

(Phew! I’m glad to escape the paparazzo stuff of that last paragraph with my typing fingers intact. I’m sure the marriages of rock stars is infinitely interesting, but it doesn’t really seem like our business, huh? Sure, Sherri wasn’t at all hesitant to discuss her relationship with Chad – she pointed out that around Tyler, her hometown of 17 years, she can move incognito, while Chad gets recognized often – but, I make it a point of pride that HM readers are typically more interested in the music than the buzz.)

Complete article here.

Review: Autobiomythography & Gallery, Joe Millar

JMWW has released their summer edition. You can read my review of Joe Millar's first book of poems here.

Review: Talk Poetry, Maíread Byrne

Hey, you know what's interesting? Everything. Not just sex, like I thought, and having lots of money, but EVERYTHING is interesting if you put it in the right way. Even just like where you park your car can be interesting. At least if you've got smarts that soar like Mairéad Byrne's:

[read on]

Review: Falling Off My Bike

The incident in question is falling off my bike, not the bike, but the falling off. That ought to be clear. Certainly it was see-through to the high school attenders who stood by bent-kneed and achuckle. They knew, happily, that what was at stake had rather nothing to do with a bike, but wholly with a falling off.

Which itself (falling off) isn’t accurate. ## One, the reviewer, me, could say rather (rather!), one could say a sort of leaping was involved. A sort of projected reaching. This sort of sort of way of talking### ------It was falling off, we can settle it imperfectly, it wasn’t falling off exactly but that’ll do if falling off equals launching up and over then finally down, then finally across, then finally stopped.

All of that. All that is in question. How was it####? Go

(end here -Mayhem)