Crg Hill's poetry scorecard

Develop(mental) Hay(na)ku

tear

the pig

grunt the rap

run

the rage

gun the romp

win

the ridge

runt the gap

ran

the rouge

rent the peg

gauge

the raw

win the rush

rem

the road

own the tent

turn

the page

earn the age

Rocking with Rodrigo Toscano

Appreciative responses to Rodrigo Toscano’s To Leveling Swerve:

Firstly, foremostly, this book’s aptly named. This is writing not on the level, yet leveling. And it doesn’t swerve out of control, maintaining a cognitive balance, smoothing out, settling down, stirring up, the curves in our languages, our perceptions, the r/e/c/e/p/t/ions of our world, social and personal. A nice follow-up to Christian Bok’s Eunioa, less an overt exercise, more going forward.

Much, much complete incompleteness:

“That there promise the last time the word worse Argentina not having a mass-worker’s party the chaos of your text seemed good at first ended up a rout and little else.

Another word met a sudden death in the play of contingencies was optimal rather ignobly too contingencies hung itself with a rope made solely of chapbook string bindings a rather sturdy morbid turn.

Can’t look back whatever comes came and went speaking of Fuchs interested in reading that new work as a corrective somehow to mine bring it on.”

(from “62 Prose-Units Written in Illness”)

Unabashed inventitude at the level of wordplay, of phrasetumble, of lineleap, of stanza:

“those of you unfamiliar with the term

‘Gaffled,’ you also

Don’t belong

‘Loofah,’ cylindrical or star-fish,

You no capice

The’ go the doe

Colonel cultural-cap killer

In a velvet loveseat

Just outside

Sofia —

Isn’t that a capital

Gain

Outright?

Soap factories turned breweries

Breweries turned brothels

Surplus

Seems the seams are seamless

Not to mention sleeveless

Thugs at the point of production

The captain, wishing you a happy..”

            (from “Arms Akimbo, Scolding Plekhanovian”)

In their taut looseness, their capricious expansiveness, their uninhibited spontaneity, these poems cover more ground than a typical lyric poem, and they create ground as they cover it.

I also extend a high-five or five hundred to Krupskaya, one of the more adventurous contemporary publishing projects, purveyor of at least two of the most vibrant collections of poetry I’ve read in the last five years, Toscano’s book and Steven Farmer’s Medieval.

Announcing SPORE 2.0, The Errata Installment

Available for $9 post-paid.

The first run of fifty copies was printed wrong. (Because I can't afford to pay for 300 copies up front, I do 5-6 runs of 50 copies each over time.) The opening piece moved up a page, cutting out one of two blank pages following the “table of intent,” which will be stamped “clear your mind” and “clean your eyes.” Every other piece subsequently was moved up one page. So the pieces I paired to face/play off each other are currently back to back. I've made sure the printer understood what I want (the master was clearly numbered), so the next 50 should be right. I'm going to call this the errata installment, offering it for $9 post-paid. I won’t send out contributor's copies until I have the corrected printing in the next week or so.

What I hope you can’t wait to see: Bob Grumman, full-color centerfold. He may not make the Playboy mansion, but that luscious four-page color xerox spread of arithmepoetic poems smackdab in the center is worth the price of admission (of submission?) alone.

SPORE 2.0 Table of Intent, including many Spidertanglers: Cover Nico Vassilakis, Two poems Peter de Rous, Two visual poems Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Two poems John Vieira, Sun Spots Jnana Hodson, Two poems Rob McLennan, Three visual poems Andrew Topel, from auto-gravity David Nemeth, Visual poem Mike Basinski, Poem Geof Huth, Three visual poems Jim Leftwich, Two poems Greg Evason, Two visual poems Guy Beining, Three visual poems Dan Waber, Three poems Harry Stammer, One visual poem Mark Young, Four visual poems Bob Grumman, Four hay(na)ku Tom Beckett, Visual poem Tim Gaze, Visual poem Harlan Ristau, Two poems John Perlman, Visual poem Jim Leftwich & John M. Bennett, Conceptual poem Marton Koppany, Two poems Donna Kuhn, Three xalligraphs Reed Altemus, Two poems Jay Thomas, Two visual poems Nico Vassilakis, Two poems Thomas Fink, Short story Delia Tramontina, Visual poem Gustave Morin, One poem Steve Dalachinsky, One poem Harvey Steinberg, Two visual poems Arnold Skemer, Two poems Jilly Dybka, One poem Josh May

Errata installment = $9.00 post-paid

Subscribe = $10.00 + $2.00 post

1111 E. Fifth St.

Moscow, ID 83843

What Just May Be a Dancing Electric Eclectic

new mag, check out The Wandering Hermit Review now featuring online preview poems from issue 1 by Paul Hunter, Ruth Lepson, John Olson, Charles Potts, Michael Rothenberg, Anthony Seidman, and Kelley J. White. Wandering though she may bee, thee Hermit's reading for issue # 3.

Gone West, Young Man, More Points of da Compass

Compass

Yellow jackets seethe in and out of nests under the deck. Shade and sun, this moment, confuses the red fence. Overturned canoe, solid taste returning. Who scribes the arc terminates.

Compass

Pieces of heaven, running stream as property boundary, bubble of sound easy wall to bear,

Mt.

Hood

, edges softened by snow. Three dogs, two St. Bernards and a rotweiler, unleashed, foam and rail after her German short hair. Up ahead, stop sign marks his turn around, then laughing glide down hill. Cracker box cottages of harvest workers, slumping shoulder to shoulder, hell perhaps if they hate the picking, the small weight of wages in aching hands.

Compass

Ladders and legs, cherry harvest, ladders and legs. Wet from surf, chasing waves, fleeing, she warms up with sand angels. Headlands, sand, smooth surface of bay, fog, converge. Three undaunted arches, uncountable, inexorable fragile waves.

Compass

Sea or sand, which terminates which? Sound of thin falls overwhelmed by pounding surf, yet, when you can pick it out, its more musical. We walk the beaches of our lives, heading south, heads down, sifting sand for agates, sand dollars, iridescent chips of clam shells. Once in awhile we look to the horizon, shrouded in fog or, air clear, our most defined line.

Compass

In her busy hands, the envelope didn’t stand a chance. Setting, sun drains color. Shade’s in the thermometer. Chopped back by a boy’s furious, mindless swordplay, now reborn, pink rose’s slow glow.

Interview with Geoff Huth at e-x-c-h-a-n-g-e-v-a-l-u-e-s

Check out the CROgA HillSiman interview of Geoff Huth on Tom Beckett's e-x-c-h-a-n-g-e-v-a-l-u-e-s.

'Twas a joy to watch Geoff's thinking about poetry, his poetry, our poetry, viz poetry, under the deft hands of the interview team known in polite company as CROgA HillSiman. (You can also read this interview in the groggy world of frogs and hisses if you can find your L.) Mr. Huth has an encyclopedic knowledge of poetries concrete and visual; this interview does much to spring that encyclopedia onto the rest of us.

e-x-c-h-a-n-g-e-v-a-l-u-e-s, eight interviews old, a mere pup, yet it’s one of the most valuable poetics blogs on-line. No site does what this site does -- nudging those doing the doing to talk about what they do in depth.

After you've digested the Huth interview, check out the interviews with K. Silem Mohammad interviewed by Tom Beckett, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen interviewed by Mark Young, Eileen Tabios interviewed by Tom Beckett, Sheila Murphy interviewed by Thomas Fink, Thomas Fink interviewed by Tom Beckett, and Crag Hill interviewed by Tom Beckett.

He's

made, he

says, the world

a

safer place.

With his security

he

can say

that for himself.

What

about the

rest of us

who

didn't vote

for his worldview?

Under the deck, under our radar, under investigation, under wraps. Beginning of worlds, beginnings of words, beggars. Yanked back and forth, hot and cold, hot and cold, he allows her to pick the few remaining bleeding hearts. Geraniums drown irises and roses.

First he looks far, then near, at the long table in front of him, then into the unseeable distance. He rights in this direction with a sinking feeling. Violin section rises to the oboe. Profusion, infusion or confusion.

Spent fireworks, smell as loud as the explosion. They found what remains of her brother. Cut a hole in the green wall, trimmed juniper and cherry, to give the rear garden more light. Un-toward.

He swings to your magnetic north. Gigantic Atlantic. Racing back and forth, squirrel rattles the cherry tree. Back to roses, thorns in side, the world makes sense.

Yarrow stumbles into daisies, swarms bush beans. Yellow cropduster dips below canola, rises, dropping its chemical load, over spring wheat. Below the horizon, what we haven’t met yet, what we can still imagine. Our distant neighbors.

Neighborhood children chase their screams round and round. At dusk, sky bruises. She invents, persists, doesn’t give up until she sits spinning, swinging, on the stick tied by two jump ropes to a tree over her head. Yellow rose petals, bright decorative bark, stubborn, invasive grass.

birthday

but cirrhosis

killed her, 1998

seven

years later

I’m still so

angry

I could

kill her too

Dissatisfied with my own designs for a cover for SPORE 2.0 (formerly SCORE), I offer the opportunity to those artists out and about and available on the electronic waves.

SPORE 2.0, needs a cover, pronto!  I'd like to get the magazine finally to the printer by Wednesday, Thursday, before we take a trip to Oregon, so that only gives you ywo-three days. The cover can be 8 1/2 x 11 or wrap around 11 x 17. B & W, primarily, but I would be willing to tip in (paste in) a color element provided that elelment could be adequately xeroxed. Cover is usually xeroxed on cardstock (you can choose the color, etc.). If you're interested, if you have further questions, let me know.

Do You Feel Safer With George Bush?

He's

made, he

says, the world

a

safer place.

With his security

he

can say

that for himself.

What

about the

rest of us

who

didn't vote

for his worldview?

Recent Compass Points

Under the deck, under our radar, under investigation, under wraps. Beginning of worlds, beginnings of words, beggars. Yanked back and forth, hot and cold, hot and cold, he allows her to pick the few remaining bleeding hearts. Geraniums drown irises and roses.

First he looks far, then near, at the long table in front of him, then into the unseeable distance. He rights in this direction with a sinking feeling. Violin section rises to the oboe. Profusion, infusion or confusion.

Spent fireworks, smell as loud as the explosion. They found what remains of her brother. Cut a hole in the green wall, trimmed juniper and cherry, to give the rear garden more light. Un-toward.

He swings to your magnetic north. Gigantic Atlantic. Racing back and forth, squirrel rattles the cherry tree. Back to roses, thorns in side, the world makes sense.

Yarrow stumbles into daisies, swarms bush beans. Yellow cropduster dips below canola, rises, dropping its chemical load, over spring wheat. Below the horizon, what we haven’t met yet, what we can still imagine. Our distant neighbors.

Neighborhood children chase their screams round and round. At dusk, sky bruises. She invents, persists, doesn’t give up until she sits spinning, swinging, on the stick tied by two jump ropes to a tree over her head. Yellow rose petals, bright decorative bark, stubborn, invasive grass.

Today’s My Mother’s 75th

birthday

but cirrhosis

killed her, 1998

seven

years later

I’m still so

angry

I could

kill her too

Anyone Want To Design A Cover For SPORE 2.0

Dissatisfied with my own designs for a cover for SPORE 2.0 (formerly SCORE), I offer the opportunity to those artists out and about and available on the electronic waves.

SPORE 2.0, needs a cover, pronto!  I'd like to get the magazine finally to the printer by Wednesday, Thursday, before we take a trip to Oregon, so that only gives you ywo-three days. The cover can be 8 1/2 x 11 or wrap around 11 x 17. B & W, primarily, but I would be willing to tip in (paste in) a color element provided that elelment could be adequately xeroxed. Cover is usually xeroxed on cardstock (you can choose the color, etc.). If you're interested, if you have further questions, let me know.