ROSIE FLORES, tonight in Austin at Patsy’s Cowgirl Cafe

 

The whole family is heading up to Austin tonight to see that great San Antonio native ROSIE FLORES at Patsy’s Cowgirl Cafe. Whether performing Country or Rockabilly or Tex-Mex—-or creating her own intoxicating blend of all those and more—she is an amazing talent and a fireball of a performer. Her Christmas album, with its San Antonio-specific songs, is in regular rotation at our house 3-4 months each year. Right now, I’m blasting her 1987 Pete Anderson-produced album on Reprise, when she was being marketed as a kind of female Dwight Yoakum, and it is a thing of beauty. Mary Anne and I had our first date in 1995 at the Wanda Jackson-Rosie Flores duo concert at Billy Blues here in SA. We’re all really looking forward to this evening with the captivating and always exciting Ms. Flores.

Brad Kohler reviews Jay Gatsby’s ESP-Disk album “Platinum Brain”

Here’s a treat. A new review by BRAD KOHLER (of the legendary ESP-Disk album  “Platinum Brain” by Jay Gatsby), which just appeared on Chris Stigliano’s essential BLOG TO COMM, an extension of Chris’s magazine BLACK TO COMM. Brad and I met in the 1990’s when we both were writing for BTC. Enjoy!

http://black2com.blogspot.com/2009/06/jay-gatsby-platinum-brain-death-of-jean.html#links

KSE #140, SUBTRACTION by Bill Shute, now available.

KSE  #140    now  available

 

BILL   SHUTE,  “Subtraction”

My newest offering, the 8-page poem SUBTRACTION (KSE #140), was composed in May while I was spending time at Ronald Baatz’s farm in the Catskill Mountains in New York state. Being beyond the range of cell phones and internet access, being in a beautiful secluded area, was exactly what I needed to decompress and to eliminate all the clutter from my mind and from my life. I would start the day with some music from Pauline Oliveros’s “Deep Listening” label, listen to some of an audio book by the Dalai Lama, slow down my metabolism, quiet my mind, and enter the environment of the Catskills. This process of SUBTRACTION is captured in the chapbook of the same name. Those who enjoyed my earlier minimalist pieces such as SPIRIT and who appreciate the poetry of a Frank Samperi or a Larry Eigner or a Cid Corman (not that I’m in their league, of course!), should appreciate where I’m coming from in this piece. Written in the Catskills and then edited in Providence, Rhode Island, the next week, I left it for a month to age—–like cave-aged blue cheese—–and after some minor tweaking, it’s ready, and I hope it’s potent.

Shadows climb the barn wall, dew evaporates, an oak leaf travels downstream. Seeing without eyes, hearing without ears. Nothing added, nothing removed. Subtraction.

Hand-numbered, hand-assembled edition of 48 copies.

Cost is $4.00 each or 3 for $10.00 (only one copy of any book per customer) postpaid in North America. Send a check (or well-concealed cash) made payable to Bill Shute, 14080 Nacogdoches Rd. #350, San Antonio, Texas, 78247. OR chapbooks are available to overseas readers DIRECT FROM KSE postpaid outside of North America for only $5 each. Overseas orders should write and request a paypal invoice for whatever you’d like.

Choose the 3-for-$10 deal and select SUBTRACTION as one of your books.  Here’s what’s available now from KSE:

#137, ALEATHIA DREHMER, circles ;

#134, RONALD BAATZ, headlights from the otherside of the world ;

#138, BILL SHUTE, the stumble (sound library series, volume 44) ;

#135,  BILL SHUTE, stereo action (sound library series, volume 42) ;

#130,  MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, odd years ;

#126,  MICHAEL LAYNE HEATH, grey rage (dyed) ;

#127,  BRAD KOHLER, dog nights, dog days ;

#129,  MIRA HORVICH / BILL  SHUTE, suspension ;

#119,  A. J. KAUFMANN, satori in berlin (x-berg songs) ;

#133,  BILL SHUTE, this day without (sound library series, volume 41) ;

#131,  BILL SHUTE, acres (sound library series, volume 40) ;

#122,  LUIS CUAUHTEMOC BERRIOZABAL, still human ;

#116,  MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, next exit: ten .

The official release date of SUBTRACTION is July 10th, but I’ll be very busy in the weeks until then, so I’m making it available now. As Jerry Van Dyke used to say on the commercials for “Big Lots” stores, “come on, you know you want to go there.”

 

ALEATHIA DREHMER, “circles” (KSE # 137), now available!

KSE #137 available now!

CIRCLES   

poems  and  photographs  by   ALEATHIA  DREHMER

      Kendra Steiner Editions exists to give poets an opportunity to create, in a supportive environment, longer-form conceptual poetic works, allowing them to take their art to the next level…to stretch, to grow, to mature.  We commission projects from poets who take chances and who are ready. A perfect example of that concept is found in the eight poems and ten photographs that comprise Aleathia Drehmer’s new chapbook, CIRCLES. She has sculpted these short but haunting poems rooted in the concept of  ”circles”  until all that’s left are the images. Well-chosen metaphors and images do not need explanation—they communicate in a deeper and more permanent way when they are felt, when they are experienced. And each poem is accompanied by a stark, resonant black & white photograph, suggesting circles embedded in our environment. Circles are one of the oldest and most universal symbols—-representing wholeness, representing infinity, representing cycles…the circles we step into, the circles we step out of. The circles we emerge from, the circles we’re sucked into. The circles that surround us. The circles we cannot enter. And another circle is this suite of 8 poems, which takes us through developing phases and begins again where it ends, “solitary and complete.”

Make sure YOU enter the world of Aleathia Drehmer’s CIRCLES. It’s a book you’ll keep coming back to, a book that will not give up its secrets easily, a book that will enchant you.

Hand-assembled, hand-numbered edition of 89 copies, of which we’ve already moved 19.

Cost is $4.00 each or 3 for $10.00 (only one copy of any book per customer) postpaid in North America. Send a check (or well-concealed cash) made payable to Bill Shute, 14080 Nacogdoches Rd. #350, San Antonio, Texas, 78247. OR chapbooks are available to overseas readers DIRECT FROM KSE postpaid outside of North America for only $5 each. Overseas orders should write and request a paypal invoice for whatever you’d like.

Choose the 3-for-$10 deal and select CIRCLES as one of your books.  Here’s what’s available now from KSE:

#139, A. J. KAUFMANN, antiquewhite rain (sound library series, volume 45) ;

#134, RONALD BAATZ, headlights from the otherside of the world ;

#132, DOUG DRAIME, knox county (photographs by Lena Ozuna) ;

#138, BILL SHUTE, the stumble (sound library series, volume 44) ;

#130,  MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, odd years ;

#126,  MICHAEL LAYNE HEATH, grey rage (dyed) ;

#127,  BRAD KOHLER, dog nights, dog days ;

#129,  MIRA HORVICH / BILL  SHUTE, suspension ;

#119,  A. J. KAUFMANN, satori in berlin (x-berg songs) ;

#122,  LUIS CUAUHTEMOC BERRIOZABAL, still human ;

#116,  MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, next exit: ten .

Thanks as always for your support of KSE, of small-press poetry, and of small-label music.

Coming soon:

JULY 2009—joint chapbook from Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal poetry) and Cynthia Etheridge (photography).

AUGUST 2009—solo chapbook from Zachary C. Bush.

SEPTEMBER 2009—solo chapbook from A. J. Kaufmann.

KSE #138, THE STUMBLE, now available

      now available:  KSE #138

 

BILL  SHUTE, “THE STUMBLE” (sound library series, volume 44)

That I would eventually do a sound library volume inspired by a Jandek album was inevitable. After all, I’ve been listening to Jandek albums for almost 25 years (Byron Coley and Chris Stigliano turned me onto his work around 1984-85), his work has been a huge influence on my own, and his label Corwood Industries was the main influence on the business model of Kendra Steiner Editions. Hearing the struggle and the search-for-meaning and search-for-fulfillment found in each of those many Jandek albums, I’ve felt like his work has been a constant series of dispatches from a fellow traveler on life’s highway. And his constant experiments with form and texture and persona are endlessly fascinating and an inspiration to any artist interested in breaking beyond established barriers. So here is my dispatch from Texas 2009, growing out of the soil of repeated listenings to the wonderful 2003 album THE PLACE (Corwood CD 0772). Penned dogs are barking at anything that moves; led by the nose by a sensationalistic and science-ignorant media, the public is going crazy about the swine flu; people are living vicariously through chatrooms and false online personas; men and women are doing their fourth tours in the Army of occupation in Iraq; used cars are washed and polished for any remaining customers; metal dinosaur birds are blocking the sun; and that affair with the married woman is coming to an end as the all-night jazz radio plays so low in the background it becomes musical homeopathy. It’s a personal stumble, and it’s a national stumble…but we’ll get our balance upon this wobbly rock …somehow… someday…

hand-assembled, hand-numbered edition of 89 copies, of which we’ve already moved 27.  issued with the blessing of Corwood Industries (long-time KSE readers).

Cost is $4.00 each or 3 for $10.00 (only one copy of any book per customer) postpaid in North America. Send a check (or well-concealed cash) made payable to Bill Shute, 14080 Nacogdoches Rd. #350, San Antonio, Texas, 78247. OR chapbooks are available to overseas readers DIRECT FROM KSE postpaid outside of North America for only $5 each. Overseas orders should write and request a paypal invoice for whatever you’d like.

Why not get the 3-for-10 deal and choose THE STUMBLE as one of your selections.  Here’s what’s available now from KSE:

#134, RONALD BAATZ, headlights from the otherside of the world ;

#135,  BILL SHUTE, stereo action (sound library series, volume 42) ;

#130,  MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, odd years ;

#126,  MICHAEL LAYNE HEATH, grey rage (dyed) ;

#127,  BRAD KOHLER, dog nights, dog days ;

#133,  BILL SHUTE, this day without (sound library series, volume 41) ;

#131,  BILL SHUTE, acres (sound library series, volume 40) ;

#129,  MIRA HORVICH / BILL  SHUTE, suspension ;

#119,  A. J. KAUFMANN, satori in berlin (x-berg songs) ;

#122,  LUIS CUAUHTEMOC BERRIOZABAL, still human ;

#116,  MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, next exit: ten ;

#34,  STUART CRUTCHFIELD, shack simple (reprint).

and next week we’ll be rolling out Aleathia Drehmer’s poetry-photography chapbook CIRCLES. watch for that!

Ronald Baatz’s HEADLIGHTS FROM THE OTHERSIDE OF THE WORLD (KSE #134) now available

RONALD BAATZ

“Headlights from the Otherside of the World” (KSE #134)

Ronald Baatz’s new chapbook HEADLIGHTS FROM THE OTHERSIDE OF THE WORLD (KSE #134) is now available from Kendra Steiner Editions.
Two haunting and surreal narrative poems and three diamond-sharp poetic koans from this zen-beat master who regularly appeared in the legendary Wormwood Review back in the 70s and 80s and who has a number of chapbooks available from Cross+Roads Press, Kamini Press, Xerx Press, and Concrete Meat Press in addition to KSE. It’s no surprise that Baatz’s work would be championed by other publishers who are themselves first-rate poets: Norbert Blei, Henry Denander, Mark Weber, and Adrian Manning. They know!

Baatz’s work, though diverse, often falls into one of two major categories: the narrative pieces, with their elegantly crafted sentences and a surreal logic; and the miniatures, the short stand-alone koans that are often five lines each. We’ve included fine examples of both forms in HEADLIGHTS.

I can tell by looking

at an old man’s lips

if he had been breastfed

if his mother had loved his father

if his father had feared death

Ronald Baatz is a poetic genre unto himself, and we are proud to feature him here at Kendra Steiner Editions. This is his third KSE chapbook, but his first solo one: NEXT EXIT: SEVEN was a joint chap with Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, and THE COMPANIONSHIP OF THE PLUM was a collaboration with me.

An edition of 68 hand-assembled, hand-numbered copies, and 25 have already been distributed, so act soon.

Cost is $4.00 each or 3 for $10.00 (only one copy of any book per customer) postpaid in North America. Send a check (or well-concealed cash) made payable to Bill Shute, 14080 Nacogdoches Rd. #350, San Antonio, Texas, 78247. OR chapbooks are available to overseas readers DIRECT FROM KSE postpaid outside of North America for only $5 each. Overseas orders should write and request a paypal invoice for whatever you’d like.

Why not get the 3-for-10 deal and choose HEADLIGHTS as one of your selections.  Here’s what’s available now from KSE:

#138, BILL SHUTE, the stumble (sound library series, volume 44) ;

#135,  BILL SHUTE, stereo action (sound library series, volume 42) ;

#130,  MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, odd years ;

#126,  MICHAEL LAYNE HEATH, grey rage (dyed) ;

#127,  BRAD KOHLER, dog nights, dog days ;

#133,  BILL SHUTE, this day without (sound library series, volume 41) ;

#131,  BILL SHUTE, acres (sound library series, volume 40) ;

#129,  MIRA HORVICH / BILL  SHUTE, suspension ;

#119,  A. J. KAUFMANN, satori in berlin (x-berg songs) ;

#122,  LUIS CUAUHTEMOC BERRIOZABAL, still human ;

#116,  MISTI RAINWATER-LITES, next exit: ten ;

#34,  STUART CRUTCHFIELD, shack simple (reprint).

 

Bill Shute presentation at University of Texas at San Antonio, 11 June 2009

I’ve been invited to be Guest Writer with the San Antonio Writing Project, held at the University of Texas at San Antonio, between 12 and 3 p.m. on Thursday 11 June.

The presentation will contain readings from my poetry and non-fiction (including the premiere of the new chapbook THE STUMBLE, inspired by the Jandek album The Place) ; a discussion of my editing work for Bedford-St. Martin’s on the five editions of Susan Anker’s book Real Writing ; thoughts on the relevance of my work in literacy education to my work as a poet and editor of poetry ; a discussion of form/structure in the work of poets Charles Reznikoff, Paul Blackburn, Ted Berrigan, and William Carlos Williams; and a workshop dedicated to bringing out particularity and vivid sense impressions in one’s writing.

I’m usually too busy DOING to talk about doing, so this will be a rare occasion for me to pull together all the work I have done in different fields over many years and find common ground. I also tend to avoid anything to do with academic poetry or creative writing programs, but these folks are all working in the field of literacy education and/or teacher training, so I have nothing but respect for these professionals who help students to empower themselves through literacy and real-world language study.

I’m very excited about this opportunity, and I hope that the members of the SAWP find my presentation/workshop to be useful.

Recommended Summer Poetry Books

 

RONALD BAATZ, bird effort

MARZANNA KIELAR, salt monody

BILL SHUTE, this day without

ANSELM BERRIGAN, to hell with sleep

PAUL CORMAN-ROBERTS, neocom(muter)

BRAD KOHLER, teenage stoned death games

LUIS CUAUHTEMOC BERRIOZABAL, before & well after midnight

      BILL SHUTE, stereo action

Gone for two weeks…

I’m heading off to the Northeastern US for about two weeks, stopping in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. KSE Orders that come in during that period will be shipped on May 28th when I return. I’ll be visiting my 89-year-old mother, taking her to “Raynham Park” dog racing track (one of my favorite places) for an exciting afternoon of greyhound racing, and trying to get her to do other things that no one else in the family could ever get her to do!  

During this trip, I’ll also be visiting two great KSE poets: Ronald Baatz in the Catskills west of Woodstock, and Zachary C. Bush in Jersey City. In addition, I’ll be hitting the small towns in the Catskills, the Louis Armstrong House in Queens NY, the legendary DIA:BEACON Museum (in particular, the Warhol “Shadows” permanent exhibition) in Beacon NY, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum in Providence, looking up other old friends (among them, one pal of mine from back in elementary school days is in a bar-band that appears here and there south of Boston, and I’ll try to catch him–haven’t seen him in person since I was 14 or 15), and mostly just taking each day spontaneously and seeing what I find and what happens. And no computer access the whole time!!!

 Talk to you again at the end of May…

Chris Wilson & James Ferrell reunited in Paris

With all the excitement surrounding the “reunion” of Flamin’ Groovies stalwarts Cyril Jordan and Roy Loney in New Orleans, other seminal members of the world’s greatest rock’n'roll band have been getting together too. Groovies co-leader Chris Wilson (from the band’s Skydog and Sire period, probably their best period IMHO) and guitarist James Ferrell got back together in Paris a few days ago, and thanks to some French fans from the Groovies listserv, we’ve got video of them doing a moody slower take on the anthem “Shake Some Action”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xlPS-MSXkI&feature=related

And if that’s not enough, how about “Slow Death”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E00WEW4PXa8&feature=related

And speaking of the Loney/Jordan reunion, here’s the boys doing “Tallahassie Lassie” at that recent Ponderosa Stomp appearance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOKh2ExevuI&feature=related

And if you’d like to compare versions, here’s Loney and Jordan doing “Shake Some Action” at the Ponderosa Stomp about two weeks ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmhzk3uEHJo&feature=related

God bless the Flamin’ Groovies, wherever they may be!!!!