New Books from bedouin books

hello book lovers---

bedouin books is proud to announce a new book of poems from liz collins, neo logo isms, as part of its winter/spring 2008-09 season.
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liz collins is:
'a poetess akin to HD in resonant lyric/womaness... [her] work is sacred elixir, a remedy we nearly forgot to recall'
antoinette nora claypoole, author/Oregon Literary Arts recipient

collins' work is: 'juicy, provocative and challenging... the poems read like sacred chants for a planet that awaits our attention'
Linda Saccoccio, artist and writer
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visit our website to order your copy
m.d'alessandroeditorwww.bedouinbooks.comt.

New Book by Summer Brenner

A note from Summer Brenner about her new book. Looks awesome!

To friends and acquaintances, near and far,

Attached is an announcement of my new book from PM Press/Switchblade: I-5, A Novel of Crime, Transport, and Sex. A 400-mile crime scene along the interstate from LA to Oakland. Not exactly scenic, but if you like sinister thrillers, this is an order form which directs you to a website <http://www.pmpress.org/> and/or PM's tel. 510.658.3906.

For schedule of events and readings in SF, LA, and NYC, check PM website.

Cheers! Summer Brenner

Advance comments: ..."insider's look at the seedy world of sexual slavery...." David Batstone, Not for Sale campaign.

"....This book bleeds truth -- and after you finish it, the blood will be on your hands." Barry Gifford, Wild at Heart.

"....Anya is a wonderful, believable heroine, her tragic tale told from the inside out, without a shred of sentimental pity....." Denise Hamilton, author and editor of Los Angeles Noir.

"...no better novel in the genre. Roll over, Willeford, tell Goodis the news." Owen Hill, poet and crime writer.

"...moves so fast you can barely catch your breath....." Julie Smith, author, journalist, and editor of New Orleans Noir.
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It's April already?

National Poetry Month:
I read this poem that I wrote back in 2003 at Mina's school's morning assembly on April first to kickstart poetry month. I forgot that one of her nicknames was "goose" until I came across this poem.





“The Goose”

The goose’s beak trembles as it leans
Toward you to pluck stale bread
From your miniature hand.
Green goose muck stains your white
Leather shoes and my socks, thighs
And shorts where you climbed into my arms
After the geese’s excited squawking scared you.
Together we have eased down to goose-level,
Eye to eye. We coax it closer with tossed bits of bread.
We are almost still like the oaks dropping
Spiraling leaves. You and the goose step forward
Examining each other, cautiously deciding to continue
The exchange. Each is offering a measure of delight.
I stand back as you seem to fall from me, not painfully
But like a natural extraction. Like the changing of the seasons,
The world revolves from dangerous to safe. There will be
So many geese, my goose, that I will never see.

New Print Edition of Exquisite Corpse

Parts of the long poem I'm writing about the leprosarium in Carville, LA are in the new corpse. Dave has some wonderful poems in here as well. The whole magazine is amazing; they certainly came back into the print world with a bang!

ADVANCE COPIES OF EXQUISITE CORPSE ANNUAL #1 ON SALE NOW! Ed in Chief Andrei Codrescu presents artwork by Ralph Steadman, Joel Lipman; poetry by Diane di Prima, Bill Berkson, Alice Notley, Mike Topp, Jim Gustafson, Ruxandra Cesereanu; prose by Jerome Rothenberg, Willie Smith, Aram Saroyan, Lance Olsen, Davis Schneiderman; and more more more! So get your historic freak on!Send a check made out to "UCA" ($20 per issue) to Exquisite Corpse Annual/Department of Writing/University of Central Arkansas/Conway, AR 72035 or send PayPal payment to corpse_ed@yahoo.com.

For intl. orders please add $7.50 per issue for shipping. Lifetime subscriptions $100. Also available on Amazon.com .

http://www.corpse.org/

Rex Rose, Design Ed. Terry Wright, Associate Ed. Mark Spitzer, Managing Ed.

Spotlight on Small Press: bedouin books

Solid Quarter interview with Publisher Michael D'alessandro:

SQ: What will readers find coming from Bedouin Books Press?

md: readers will find 3 new books released this winter/spring season. the first will be published this month, a book of short fiction titled It Can Be That Way Still, by Shane Joaquín Jiménez. the upcoming two are books of poetry from liz collins and Scott Alexander Jones. also bedouin books' semiannual journal swap/concessions will have a new issue out in the spring focusing on short non-fiction.

SQ: Why did you want to start publishing?

md: i started publishing my own poetry under the bedouin books label in San Francisco, in 2003. i would make them by hand and consign them with City Lights Books, and sell a few now and then. it wasn't until 2007, when i wanted to produce a literary semiannual, that i decided to reinvent bedouin books as an independent publisher of works of literature in addition to the journal. now bedouin books hopes to put out 6 books a year from emerging writers in a small pocket format, handmade and covering a cross-selection of genres.

SQ: swap/concessions 3 focuses on short tales. Any reason for that particular genre?

md: swap/concessions is a way to test the genres in a digestable format. 3 writers come together with 3 works each. swap/concessions 3 features short fiction, whereas the first two issue featured poetry and comics respectively. i want bedouin books to expand to emerging writers who write in multiple genres.

SQ: Can you describe what's on the horizon for Bedouin Books in four words?

md: poetry chapbook and magazine

Below is a brief excerpt from the newest release from Bedouin Books. To order this book or the latest issue of swap/concessions please visit: http://www.bedouinbooks.com/

‘Hundreds of Miles’ by Shane Joaquín Jiménez from his forthcoming book of short fictions, It Can Be That Way Still published by bedouin books.

Hundreds of Miles

I knew a man at Briscoe who went on to death row. Only man I ever knew who went that way. We was celled together my last year incarcerated. He said he was a shaman, told me so out of his own mouth. Said he was the last of his people, the Quapaw tribe, but the ghosts of his ancestors walked this earth and talked to him. They showed him things of this world and the next.
Two, three days before they let him out, we was together in the mess hall. Two days. Suddenly, like it was just any damn thing, he took the tin coffee cup from my hand and overturned what was left in it onto my shoes. He looked at the grounds at the bottom as if he was reading the Sunday paper.

‘When you leave this place’, he said finally, ‘you go home. You go where you come from and you make peace. Any where else for you is death. And beyond that is finally Hell’.

The shaman himself went back home when they set him free. Had a job in a supermarket waiting for him from the parole board, stocking shelves on the graveyard shift. It was union and he got weekends off. Wasn’t long before he found a girl. This was down in Neches. This girl was fourteen years old, the paper said. She was in eighth grade. Wanted to be a dentist when she grew up, if you could believe that. Her daddy said she knew the name of every tooth in the human head. What that shaman did to her before he butchered her, and then after, I won’t repeat. But from what I understand, they never did find everything.

That shaman was given a small trial in Lubbock County and then sent on back to Briscoe State Penitentiary. They sent him to the row. Fried him shortly thereafter. I always wondered if his ghosts ever let him know what was coming. Maybe they didn’t have the heart. Maybe they just let him enjoy his damn coffee. First thing I did when they let me free was get as far away as I could get. I wasn’t concerned with where I ended up, how I got there, nothing. I went in straight lines, hundreds of miles off, until there was nothing that was familiar around me. I didn’t think once of the getting back.

These and many things are strange

Ok. I really did not write that poem.

And I wouldn't point it out except for the fact.

That someone commented on it.

And they called me Scott.

So, things are looking up.

Well...I got that going for me.

If I were scott, I would probably use the word "untrammeled."

If I were a dot, I would apply myself in various and numinous ways.

Vampires as it were. And other spookies. Cold a bit here in New Orleans.

Anselm Hollo was here last week. And I could not keep my Italian dinner down.
Not that the two are related. But Ed Sanders is here now. And so we have 1968 and poems for New Orleans to look forward and not back to.

We are very sad that Brendan, Tracey and Aurora are not coming. Damn you economy.

But very Happy that Phil and Bernadette will be here Wed. and Hannah will be here Thursday.

If you are looking for your poets and think you have misplaced them, don't be alarmed.
They are safe here in the New Or-leans!

New Poem

I wrote this great new piece that's already been published here (it's on page 3035) if you want to see the original.

http://www.forgodot.com/2008/10/issue-1-release-announcement.html

Refraining Solitude

Vegetation and mischief
Lusty and untrammeled
Prudence and glory
Shaking

Taking

More inborn than a
durability
Taking above a
man
Your inbred mankind
Refraining on a strength
At a congenital piece




I'm thinking about changing the word untrammelled though...it just doesn't sound like me....maybe just trampy.... wow, i sound really tense too. I need some valium.

The Vulva Song of Innana

I love this so much.

Nicole, you are my hero!

Maureen Owen and Mina

The wonderful Maureen Owen was here last week. She led a wonderful discussion here at the house with about 11 other poets. We talked about her own career in publishing Telephone books and then spent quite some time talking about the current state of reading and writing in schools and among children, especially why poetry gets such a bad rap in education as either hard to teach or confined to boring, overanthologized versions of the same-old poems. I was amazed to hear college professors reveal they had students who have never read a book or who are unfamiliar with the parts of speech.


As a result, all of the middle schoolers will be wading through an expansive lesson on these grammar "details." Sixth graders today will be collecting words for their 3-d project on bagging language into the 8 parts of speech.

Maureen gave a fabulous reading on Thursday night; also featured was the poet Gabe Gomez.


People often think we named Mina after Mina Harker, not Mina Loy. Isn't it interesting how the fictional character has more presence than the very real poet? No, not really. But maybe, yes.

I've been reading Bellamy's Mina Harker Letters, a wonderful juxtaposition to a flurry of Young Adults novels that I've been reading at the same time. And to complement Bellamy, I've been listening to Vintage Horror Radio podcasts before falling asleep.