More Sifting

Seems a lot of us Mil­lenial artists are reach­ing the end of a failed exper­i­ment in mak­ing a liv­ing in part from our art. I’m hatch­ing a small solu­tion, for myself, and I want your thinkin’ all over it.

Dredge Poetics (Full Text)

Well, it’s been deliv­ered. The mighty Bren­dan Con­stan­tine also deliv­ered a deli­cious lit­tle lec­ture, and it was an honor to open this new com­mu­nity series with him. Here’s the full text. If you like or if you don’t, please say so!

To Plan the Plan

Let’s recap a moment. Fresh­wa­ter Dredge was about a year of work. Well­wa­ter Dredge, about three. So far, Trib­u­tary Dredge  –  at 20 poems, 1⁄2 Fresh­wa­ter’s length; 1⁄3 Well­wa­ter’s  –  has taken six months, and is only begin­ning to reveal its fun­da­men­tal secrets. Each takes an eter­nity because I’m approach­ing it as an explorer. That, and I don’t have the lux­ury of writ­ing full-​​​​time. From the begin­ning, the plan has been to seri­al­ize the release of this book. I wanted it to pro­ceed as a saga, a back­ward nar­ra­tive, an epic in digestible bits. And I didn’t want to lose your atten­tion along the way. This open­ing look at 17^th cen­tury his­tory has me recon­sid­er­ing. So much of what’s coming…

FIN

After more than four years’ pres­ence, and two months’ seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion, I quit face­book this morn­ing. This was in part an effort to make this space more my hub, so do keep an eye on it. If you were using the face­book page to track post­ing here, you have a few options: You can put a live link in your book­marks. You can also fol­low a new Twit­ter account to help keep it straight. All my other con­tact info remains the same. Thanks for bear­ing with me as I attempt to shovel less of my life onto the Internet.

In Which I Reject Your Stories, pt. 2

Part 1. I think our cul­tural rela­tion­ship with our dreams rep­re­sents our rela­tion­ship with spir­i­tu­al­ity. Let’s talk about some depic­tions of the uncon­scious in recent cul­tural mem­ory: Other Mother (Cora­line), Drop Dead Fred, Mau­rice (Lit­tle Mon­sters) and Betel­geuse. Of course, through them all, I’m think­ing of Mor­pheus, Hansel, Gre­tel, and the Witch. Since I’ve already cov­ered the Other House, let’s start with Drop Dead Fred. He’s the invis­i­ble best friend incar­nate. After a bad end to an unhealthy rela­tion­ship, Fred reap­pears to rein­voke Lizzie’s child­hood. Ulti­mately he grants her entry to her uncon­scious, where she can face the spec­tre of her mother  –  and “grow up.” Presto. When she wakes up, Fred’s gone, no longer needed. She does…

Off the Hook

One of the bet­ter bios I’ve read in a long time, in the back of Sand­man 6: [next to his pic­ture] This is Mark Buck­ing­ham, so you don’t have to be. Clever and, in a bizarre, almost round­about way, hum­ble. Appro­pri­ately, I’m think­ing today about an anony­mous man­u­script I got a few years back, that never panned. “This is this book you couldn’t write, so you don’t have to.”

Recurring and Returning

Augus­tus Cae­sar: Many dreams come through the Gates of Ivory, Lycius, and they lie. A few dreams come from the Gates of Horn, and they speak to us truly. – Gaiman On the long-​​​​procrastinated advice of my friend Anders, I’ve been read­ing The Sand­man. Yeah, I’m enthralled. By con­trast, Cora­line reads more like fan fic than Gaiman. Here, his insights line the land­scape, and his sto­ry­telling, a lit­tle shaky at first, quickly climbs to top-​​​​notch. There are a lot of things worth dis­cussing, from the way he rec­on­ciles mytholo­gies to his Clive Barker-​​​​backed insis­tence that the world behaves as it does, not as we want it to. But I want to drill in on something…

To End at the Beginning

Tonight, mak­ing a few small, pointed edits, I saw a line at the start of Well­wa­ter Dredge again for the first time. It ties the book neatly in a cir­cle. Maybe a few oth­ers had seen it already; maybe I’m the first to make the catch. Regard­less, it’s a relief. It comes on the heels of think­ing strongly, again, about releas­ing the book myself. I have increas­ingly elab­o­rate design plans for it, and pro­por­tion­ately less faith in other pub­lish­ers. Sub­mit­ting Well­wa­ter is begin­ning to feel a lot like apply­ing to col­lege, when I’m not sure it’s the right move for me. Is it a waste of other people’s time to apply to backup schools? In…

If you're reading this, thanks

It’s been four months of broad­sides, and I’m find­ing I really enjoy the rit­ual of prepar­ing and releas­ing them. Not to men­tion giv­ing one or two away every month. They give some of the Fresh­wa­ter poems new life, set to an image or tex­ture. So a full 6 hours before you were expect­ing it (you were totally expect­ing it) I’m post­ing July’s broad­side, right here. For you. Thanks for read­ing about my lit­tle bizarro home­town. Every day the Cycle creeps a lit­tle closer to pub­li­ca­tion, and your sup­port is the dock under my feet.

This Month's Broadside Winners

Because it makes me sad to choose among peo­ple mak­ing the dis­cus­sion hap­pen, and inter­est­ing, I’m gonna choose up to two peo­ple every month. This month’s win­ners are listed on the face­book page. Mean­while, you can grab a copy of “Hun­newell Field Base­ball Dia­mond” just as soon as you like, by click­ing on the image above. Happy May Day!