Word For/Word #8

Edited by Jonathan Minton

Features Sandy Florian, Paul McCormick, and Zachary Schomburg, among dozens of others.

This one's a stunner. Do not miss Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino's "Logoclasody"

Mark Nowak
¡Workers of the Word, Unite and Fight!

New from Calamari Press

LAND OF THE SNOW MEN
by George Belden

Manuscript Recovered and Edited by Norman Lock
Illustrations Restored by Derek White

86 pages
ISBN 0-9770723-1-2
$10

From Diagram 5.4:

"Norman Lock discovered Belden and his remarkable journal by accident. He had been for some years in Africa, writing a novel, A History of the Imagination. The strain of living in a country as alien as Africa, with little money and little hope of finding a publisher, caused him to have a nervous breakdown. A friend in Mombassa contacted his wife, who arranged for his return and commitment to a private sanitarium in Vermont's Green Mountains. During the final weeks of Lock's recuperation, the institution's chief of staff asked if he would sort through boxes of old files in the sanitarium's basement to determine whether or not any should be kept. In one of those boxes, Lock found Land of the Snow Men."

From the Editor's Foreword of Land of the Snow Men:

"Little is known about George Belden. One thing is certain, however; he was not in Antarctica at the time of Scott’s 1910-12 expedition to the Pole, but the year after the disaster. His name does not appear on the list of passengers and crew aboard Terra Nova, nor is it mentioned by Scott in his journal or in any other known to have been kept by a member of the tragic enterprise. Belden’s own journal, purporting to be that of a witness to the misadventure, is clearly an invention—one which became increasingly whimsical and hallucinatory. His extraordinary account of having been with Scott, Wilson, and Bowers when they perished on the Barrier Ice and his fantastic depiction of the trolley-car hearse, which transported Scott up into Mt. Terror, must be understood as an attempt by Belden to forge a modern myth of the hero."

Excerpted Stories and sketches from Land of the Snow Men have appeared in: Anemone Sidecar (forthcoming); Café Irreal; elimae; SleepingFish; Word For/Word (field notes); DIAGRAM; and The Literary Review (vol. 48, no. 1).

* read it? send us a review

Practice, Restraint

Laura Sims' collection Practice, Restraint, Winner of the 2005 Alberta Prize, is available from Fence Books .

* read it? send us a review

August 16th—

Aimee Bender's new collection of stories, Willful Creatures.

*read a review of Willful Creatures here

Edited by Derek White

Features new work by Michael Boyko, Chad Davidson, Rebecca Gopoian, Norman Lock, Cheryl Pallant, Christian Peet, Selah Saterstrom, and Steve Timm.

Also in this issue: Petra Backonja, James Wagner, Amy White, David-Baptiste Chirot, Mike Topp, Peter Conners, Eileen Tabios, John Poch, Daryl Scroggins, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Noah Saterstrom, Chris Fritton, Kristin Prevallet, Michael Peters, Geof Huth, Sheila E. Murphy, James Grinwis, Claudio Parentela, Henry Mescaline / Henri d'Mescan, Amy Pence, Michael Kimball, Kevin Sampsell, Davis Schneiderman, Jessica Fanzo, George Sich, Joshua Cohen, Chris Casamassima, Sean Mclain Brown, mIEKAL aND, Stephen Hopkins, Kevin White. Includes a special selection of Mexican Visual poetry including Juan Diaz Infante, Federico Martinez, Damian Walsdorf, Katnira Bello, and Victor Sulser, with an introduction by Brian Whitener.

Calamari Press
128 pages, perfect-bound.
ISBN 0-9770723-0-4
11$

* read it? send us a review

Jeff Encke, Amy KIng, and Jonah Winter are among the readers at our picks for the best new reading series in NYC (along with our reading series, of course): the Burning Chair Readings and the Brooklyn New Poets Readings, curated by Matt Henriksen, of TYPO.

Burning Chair Readings - 8 PM at the Cloister Cafe, 238 East 9th Street

August 28, Jonah Winter & Max Winter; September 25, Anne Boyer, Ange Mlinko, & Valzhyna Mort; October 6, Kent Johnson & David Shapiro; October 30, Lisa Jarnot & Tony Tost; November 6, Action Books w/ Lara Glenum, Johannes Göransson, & Arielle Greenberg; November 20, Jeff Encke & Aaron McCollough; December 18, Sheila Squillante & Rachel Zucker.

Brooklyn New Poets Readings - 7:30 PM at The Fall Cafe, 307 Smith Street

August 12, Amy King & Justin Marks; September 16, Andrew Mister & Gabriella Torres; September 23, Anne Boyer & John Latta; October 14, Carla Conforto & Jeffery Morgan; November 18, Andrea Baker & Charles Valle.

Heidi Lynn Staples and Jonah Winter are among the poets (including D.A. Powell, Matthew Rohrer, Matthew Zapruder, Andrea Baker, and others) introducing Octopus#6, the "New Poets Issue."

According to editor Zachary Schomburg, the new poets are "16 promising young hot shot poets in the very earliest stages of their long careers--for some of these 16, this is their first publication": Heather Christle, Alessandro Niero, Bill Cassidy, Betsy Wheeler, Joe Fletcher, Andrew McCarron, Brian Howe, Geoffrey Babbitt, Jill Beauchesne, Brian Dewan, Ethan Bull, Farah Marklevits, Danny Khalastchi, Randall Williams, Caryl Pagel, and Michael Quattrone.

The inaugural issue of Coconut features new work from Amy King and a host of others, including Alice Notley, David Trinidad, Danielle Pafunda, Ssawako Nakayasu, Wang Ping, Katy Lederer, Jon Leon, Amy Gerstler, Aaron McCollough, Ssueyeun Juliette Lee, Frank Menchaca, Shanna Compton, Ken Rumble, Lisa Lubasch, Bruce Covey, Laurel Snyder, and Alex Lemon.

The new MiPO (Volume 19, Issue #3), guest edited by Gabriel Gudding, features TSky contributors Jenny Boully, Josh Corey, Amy KIng, and Heidi Lynn Staples as well as an absolutely staggering list of other excellent writers, including Michael McClure, Rae Armantrout, Joanne Kyger, Christian Bök, Jerome Rothenberg, David Lehman, Ron Silliman, Joanna Catherine Scott, Denise Duhamel, Amy Gerstler, Pancy Maurer-Alvarez, Jenna Cardinale, Simon Perchik, Jasper Bernes, Jennifer K. Dick, Robert Fernandez, Reb Livingston, Allyson Salazar, Geoff Bouvier, Ronald Palmer, Lara Glenum, Peter Ramos, Daniel Borzutzky, Joe Amato, Jeff Harrison, Kass Fleisher, Anny Ballardini, Michael Rothenberg, Paul Violi, Chris Pusateri, Brian Kim Stefans, Jorge Guitart, Peter Davis, Karl Parker, Catherine Daly, Holly Iglesias, Katia Kapovich, Aaron McCollough, Standard Schaefer, Louise Landes Levi, Carl Martin, Lisa Jarnot, Dale Smith, Kent Johnson, Randall Williams, John Beer, Justin Lacour, Ngo Tu Lap, Ken Rumble, Julian Semilian, K. Silem Mohammad, Laura Mullen, Rachel Loden, Elizabeth Hatmaker, Eden Osucha, and Paul Hoover.

Runner-up for the fourth annual Sawtooth Poetry Prize, Heidi Lynn Staples' Dog Girl will be published by Ahsahta Press.

Dreamhouse, a "pop-tinged music-theatre exploration of sex, daughterhood / motherhood, heartbreak and longing," featuring "songs and spoken word inspired by the poetry of Philadelphia hipster-feminist Barbara DeCesare."

Workshop Mainstage Theatre, 312 West 36th Street, 4th floor. All tickets $15. For tickets call 212-868-4444 or visit www.smartTix.com. Dates on sale: Thu 7/ 21 7:30 pm; Sat 7/23 11:00 am; Thu 7/ 28 5:00 pm; Sun 7/31 1:00 pm; Mon 8/1 7:00 pm; Fri 8/5 5:00 pm.

For more information, please visit: www.dreamhousemusical.com

Martha Silano will have a poem in the Contemporary Northwest Poets anthology, forthcoming from Ooligan Press (formerly Portland State U. Press) in fall 2006. She also has new work in Gargoyle #50, Cranky, Folio, and soon in Prairie Schooner. She was recently a semi-finalist in the 2005 Kathryn A. Morton book prize, and a finalist in the New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM chapbook contest.

Derek White's Calamari Press is proud to announce the release of The Singing Fish by Peter Markus. You can get your fresh copy—still twitching from the printers here.

You may have read or heard his signature fish tales of mud, brothers, moons and rivers in places like 3rd Bed, Post Road, Black Warrior Review, Quarterly West, New Orleans Review, Third Coast, Massachusetts Review, 5_Trope, Failbetter, Taint, elimae, Pindeldyboz, La Petite Zine and DIAGRAM.

Says Gary Lutz (author of Stories in the Worst Way and I Looked Alive), "Peter Markus' gorgeously spare, riverine fables of brotherly sweetness and violence are hypnotic, haunting, and sublime," and we have to agree.

We'd also add that the book is gorgeous, suitable (like any singing fish--or rather, anything from Calamari Press) for mounting. Get your copy now for $10, straight from the source, or pay a little more for the convenience of grabbing it from Powell's and other fine independent bookstores.

Inside GutCult Summer 2005, Peter Jay Shippy joins Anne Gorrick, Devin Johnston, Donna Stonecipher, K. Silem Mohammad, Chris Vitiello, Timothy David Orme, Sawako Nakayasu, Peter Jay Shippy, Lauren Haldeman, Ken Rumble, Jon Thompson, Catherine Cafferty, Bruce Covey, Dustin Hellberg, Simon DeDeo, Mark Lamoureux, Anthony Hawley, Gareth Lee, Jennifer Tynes, Marc Rahe, Nick Twemlow, Brian Lucas, Antonio Facchino.

Robert Krut's work has recently appeared online in Blackbird, 42opus, and the DMQ Review. Since appearing in Tarpaulin Sky, work has also been published (or is forthcoming) in Caketrain, Gulfstream, and VOX (a new journal from the Poetry Editor of the Oxford American).

Bird Dog #6 contains work by kari edwards, Christian Peet, Jane Sprague, Sasha Watson, and Derek White, in addition to work by Scott Bentley, Julia Bloch, Kate Colby, Alan DeNiro, Kate Greenstreet, James Grinwis, Matthew Jewell, Paul Foster Johnson, Jeffrey Jullich, Mary Kasimor, Rodney Koeneke, Justin Lacour, Brian Lucas, Shelia E. Murphy, Chris Pusateri, Elizabeth Robinson, Sarah Rosenthal, Alan Semerdjian, Edward Smallfield, Nico Vassilakis, Laura Walker, Deborah Wood, and Bethany Wright. Plus, Michael Leong reviews Lev Rubenstein's Catalogue of Comedic Novelties, and Richard Hutter provides art.

Once again Editor Sarah Mangold has gone above and beyond the call. There are few journals out there with both the range of innovative work and the hand-crafted but perfectly-bound tactile joy that is Bird Dog.

Norman Lock's books Émigrés, Joseph Cornell's Operas, and Grim Tales have been combined into Trio, now available from Triple Press, edited by Deron Bauman, Cooper Renner, and Kathryn Rantala.

Eugene Ostashevsky's book of poems, Iterature, will be published in July by Ugly Duckling Presse. Special pre-orders are available: fifteen dollars will secure the book and a letter-press broadside of one of the poems, sent to you prior to the official release date. Orders may be placed by visiting UDP here. Designed by Anna Moschovakis, Iterature contains selections from Ostashevsky's chapbooks —Noughtbooks, The Unraveller Seasons and The Off-Centaur — plus a good deal of previously unpublished material.

In April, Spineless Books published Fourier Series, by Josh Corey. Fourier Series is the winner of the Fitzpatrick-O'Dinn Award for Best Book-Length Work of Constrained English Literature, as judged by Christian Bok.

The always exceptional Octopus Magazine has posted its 5th issue. Edited by Zachary Schomburg, the issue contains work from around 1.3 billion great writers, including Jean Valentine, Daniil Kharms, Stan Mir, Craig Morgan Teicher, Wayne Chambliss, Dara Wier, Louis Armand, Paul Muldoon, Aaron Kunin, Standard Schaefer, Jennifer L. Knox, Kate Greenstreet, Matthew Thorburn, Daniel Coudriet, Bob Hicok, Joe Wenderoth, Barry Schwabsky, Christopher Janke, Jen Tynes, Rob Stanton, Paul Foster Johnson, Carolina Maugeri, Beckman & Rohrer, Jennifer Moxley, Chris Glomski, Shane McCrae, Dobby Gibson, Nathan Parker, Thanh Thao, Maureen Thorson, Lawrence Raab, and the poet-bartender extraordinaire fueling Tarpaulin Sky's Fall Reading Series at the Four-Faced Liar, the host of the Frequency Series himself, Shafer Hall..