Body

GOSPEL OF THE ORGAN DONOR

                                  Light enters
my stung & swelling heart,
a complacent poison. Consider

this rate of change, the manuals & pedals,
a tinsel-wrapped fist. The IV pole

decorated with narcissi, two deflated

Mylars. Mistletoe, Poinsettia, Holly
berries. Impress me with the scalpel,

my blood’s grenade. With the love song
for the new body made of my one blue eye,

left finger, larynx, liver. Rutted chin, wind-
shield glass. Tell me of the red chair

by the bed, my never-waking brain.

Poem

APPENDICITIS

In the voice of my birth-
mother: abdomen, be still, let this

baby quiet her kicks. On the floor,
she tears off her sweater, claws

at the hot heat of her belly. Small stomach
stretched to hold my two pounds

of heartbeat & bone.

*

Stomach ache, gas, rotten fruit. Her vomit-
damp shirt. Her mother

searches for car keys, is on the phone
with the hospital:

Is there a low fever?
Meaning does she feel

only slightly warm? Is there pain,
a sharp pain? Deep breath,

cough, sneeze, does any of this hurt her?

*

At St. Joseph’s Hospital, I am the hour’s
miracle, the magic trick, her unveiled

secret. In the voice of my newborn self,
I am ceiling-glazed and tired.

Deep well in my chest, diamond light, blood-
slick. I say nothing in defense

of my body barely weighable in pounds.
My birthmother’s voice statics

something like Shannon, then want or
don’t want. My fingers

move to touch her—skinny teenaged
arm, mole, freckle,

and her lips that say, take her away.

(the form of this poem is different than depicted here, but I have no idea how to offset lines/stanzas)

Brazosphere & Inprinty

Brazos' 1st Wednesday Book Club
Time: Wednesday, February 7, 2007 7:00 PM
Location: Brazos Bookstore

from Brazos: Brazos Bookstore is pleased to announce the formation of the 1st Wednesday Bookclub. This will be the initial meeting. Come with your ideas and enthusiasm. We will be selecting books for the upcoming months. For more info, visit the Brazos Bookstore website.

*

Come hear poets Pimone Triplett and Andrew Feld as part of the new Inprint Studio Series on February 8, presented in association with DiverseWorks, The Honors College and the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston

Pimone Triplett and Andrew Feld
Time: Thursday, February 8, 2007, 6 pm
Location: The Honors College at University of Houston, entrance #1, in the M.D. Anderson Library

All readings are free and open to the public.

Iowa & Poem Friday #7

I found out today that my poem, "The Annunciation," has been accepted for publication in The Iowa Review!

*

Shopping around for Valentine's Day? Check out the t-shirt & skivvies at Pebble Lake Review's Cafe Press store.

*

POEM FRIDAY #7

Einstein's Testicles by Brian Barker

Early evening, and the winter dark
has already battened down

the rooftops of the farmhouses.
On the news, Walter Cronkite

drones on, some controversy
over Einstein’s brain. I am eight.

I think Cronkite is British.
I think Einstein invented electricity,

his white coif singed, teased up
permanently from shocks and jolts

endured in the name of progress.
How I want this, my gangly body

to be a conduit for something
magnanimous, monumental,

and giddied by the idea, I dance around
my father splayed in his La-Z-Boy,

wagging my index finger
in the air, singing “Eureeeka!”

to the beat of a saucy rumba.
I am too much, my mother says,

and sends me to the mudroom
to fold laundry. Instead,

I grab two light bulbs
off the shelf, and still breathless,

shake them like maracas, gyrating
my skinny hips. Then,

in my only stroke of genius,
I dangle them, giggling, between my legs,

stand there at the back of the house
in the dark, waiting for someone

to flip the switch, for the first light
to flicker, and flare on.

(from The Animal Gospels)

FROCK

I will be reading with Switchback Books @ AWP in Atlanta this year. The event will take place Friday, March 2nd, at 8:00 pm at Django Lounge and Restaurant in Atlanta. Please join us in what is known as Django’s “Belly” for some poetry and general merry-making!

Current participating poets include:

Amanda Auchter
Becca Klaver
Brandi Homan
Hanna Andrews
Jackie White
Jason Bredle
Jeannine Hall Gailey
Jen Tynes
Kristin Aardsma
Kristy Bowen
Kristy Odelius
LaRaie Zimm
Mary Biddinger
Michael Robins
Simone Muench
Teresa Miller
Tony Trigilio
William Allegrezza

SPAM FOUND

Do you have a book/chapbook/poet to recommend who works with SPAM (email)/Found poetry? Or even a poem to recommend using either of these methods? I've got Mary Ruefle's A Little White Shadow and I Am Spam by Larry O. Dean.

Snow to Snow

I'm back from Bennington where it snowed a total of one day, and was freezing & damp the rest of the time.

Fun was had all around: I (along with Erica, another June 08 classmate) organized a "Build Your Own Burrito and Taco Bar" for our Dark Night activity. (Seriously, you northern follks have no idea what real tacos and queso taste like.) I went to 2 "high energy" dance parties held at the new Student Center and once again witnessed the jivings of Timothy Liu. Much gossip, reading, writing, and avoidance of the BBQ tofu. Several of us had beers and played a round of exquisite corpse (the drawing kind, not the poem kind) with Timothy & Major Jackson. I went to several readings & lectures and especially enjoyed hearing Spencer Reece read and the lecture from Rick Moody.

I'm working with April Bernard this term (after my joyous work with Amy Gerstler this past term), which I'm terribly excited about. April is exceptionally cool, intelligent and well read. We had lunch meetings twice, where we worked on my reading list (again 30 books). She's having me read Persuasion by Jane Austen because I have a serious aversion to Jane Austen (too sappy for my tastes), the love sonnets of Millay, Pound, Snodgrass, Astrophil and Stella by Philip Sidney, and a several other poets she wants me to take a fresh look at, which I appreciate and I know will help me in my own work and in the future. I do have some say in what I read and I'm thinking of Milosz, Bidart, Marie Howe's What the Living Do, Roam by Susan B.A. Somers-Willett, Broken Helix by Din Ben-Lev, Jorie Graham, Carolyn Forche, and some Sexton (probably Transformations and The Awful Rowing Toward God). My first packet is due on Feb. 5 and is supposed to consist of 5-10 pages of poetry, 2 (2-3 page) annotations, letter, and an updated reading list. I'm a little freaked out since everything is due so soon, but I'm looking forward to working with April.

The flight home was cold & crazy. I left Albany 45 minutes after we were supposed to because the plane had to be de-iced several times. We landed in Cleveland at 5:19 PM and my final flight to Houston was supposed to leave @ 5:35 PM. Mary S. (also from Houston & in my class) & I hauled over to our terminal and luckily the plane was held for us. We were exhausted, but happy to be going home.

*

The CLMP fair today (which I had to wake up @ 7:30AM for and was going on caffeine, adrenaline, and a bowl of peaches & cream oatmeal) was successful for PLR. We sold out of every single copy we brought and made some great contacts. I picked up several journals (FIELD, Salmagundi, West Branch, and The Literary Review) for $2 each, a copy of Michael Ford's Carbon (Ugly Duckling Presse) for $4, and swaped an issue with Nathan from Bat City Review.

Have you seen the great new review of PLR up at NewPages?

We're still reading for the Spring 2007 issue (due out in April), so send over your work!

*

Ice storm & snow showers tomorrow. I brought the weather with me.

Off

I'm off to Bennington tomorrow for 10 days, but before I go I want to leave you with this announcement about the CLMP Fair that will be coming to Houston on Jan. 15. Pebble Lake Review will be there, magazines & super-low discount subscriptions in hand. If you're in town, come see us and say hello!

COUNCIL OF LITERARY MAGAZINES & PRESSES

CONTACT: Jamie Schwartz (212) 741-9110 x12; jschwartz@clmp.org

LITERARY BARGAINS FOR HOUSTON LIT- HOUNDS!
Attention Lone Star Lit Lovers: Start the New Year off right with all
the magazines and books you can carry off from our Third Annual
CLMP Li t erary Magazi ne & Small Press Fair in Houston,
where hundreds of regional and national independent literary
publishers will converge to sell their journals for only $2 an issue
and books for $4 each.

After a one-year hiatus, the fair is back by popular demand and at a
new location: Ziggy’s Healthy Grill on W. Alabama. Many publishers
will attend in person to meet Houston’s eager readers! Don’t miss
this opportunity to discover literature you are unlikely to find in a
single store—everything from Absinthe: New European Writing to
Verbatim: The Language Quarterly.

CLMP Literary Magazine & Small Press Fair
Monday, January 15th, 2007
10am-4pm, free and open to the public
Ziggy's Healthy Grill
2202 W. Alabama (at Greenbriar)

The fair is co-sponsored by Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and
Fine Arts and The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.

CLMP is the nation’s only nonprofit support and advocacy
organization serving the independent literary publishing community
(more info at www.clmp.org). This program made possible in part
through support from the National Endowment for the Arts.