in North Texas for the rest of the week

Kendra and I will be in North Texas until next Monday. The last two orders (DF in England; MAC in Texas) were sent out this afternoon. Anything that comes in this week will be shipped out next Monday.

Debbie Kirk’s BROKEN  (KSE #108 ) is now ready, so feel free to order it. It won’t be officially “released” for another week or so, but I’ve got a few printed up and have already sent Debbie some advance copies. This is a monster chap that sizzles and bites. It’s an eclectic collection of recent poems from this Santa Cruz-based dynamo (and former Texan!!!) that will make you laugh and cry, turn you on and repel you, and most of all NEVER bore you. Debbie will be doing a lot to publicize the book in Northern California and will be selling it at her readings and appearances over the next few months. I expect this one to sell out as fast as MK Chavez’s VISITATION did.

As for me, I plan on finishing the ELECTRONIC MYTH collab with Stuart Crutchfield (KSE # 109) while I’m up in North Texas. That’s Volume 9 in the Creel Pone Sound Study series, and it should be coming out in August sometime. I’m also immersed in study of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, in preparation for the collab I’ll be doing this fall with A.J. Kaufmann based on the TBOTD.

In addition, Christopher Cunningham is back with a new one in August, volume 36 in our Sound Library Series, inspired by the music of Ennio Morricone and set in the world of poker. It’s called IN GAMBLER’S BLOOD (KSE #110) and features a haunting cover portrait from acclaimed photographer Cynthia Etheridge.

So ”summer’s comin’ on heavy”  here at KSE Central. Adios for now. I’ll be back in touch in August 4.

LCB’s GARDEN OF ROCKS (KSE 103) discussed at Orange Alert

Thanks to Jason B. at What To Wear During An Orange Alert for another fine piece on a KSE author’s work—-this time Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal’s GARDEN OF ROCKS (KSE #103). Luis’s beautiful, melancholy lyrical meditations on life and death have been getting great feedback from readers in the month that the chap’s been out, and Orange Alert has always been very appreciative of Luis’s work…and of KSE’s output in general. Many thanks!

You can read the article in its original context here:

http://wearduringorangealert.blogspot.com/2008/07/orange-spotlight_27.html

or read the text below:

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Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal Garden of Rocks (Kendra Steiner Editions, July 2008 )

“Once dreamers too,/the dead, out of time,/are buried like seeds,/safe from the lightning bolts.”

 

As I settled in for the lengthy car ride with the family to our annual camping trip, I pulled out one of the newer chapbooks from one of my favorite publishers Kendra Steiner Editions. It was the latest offering from Luis Berriozabal called Garden of Rocks. I imagined it was about gardening or perhaps hiking, but I could not have imaged what awaited my eyes. As the van buzzed with chatter and the miles faded behind us, I was wrapped in a somber and insightful meditation on death.

Not just death, but the life and deeds wasted or valued, lost and gain before death. He debates the concept or need for dying, he fears dying, but does not want to continue to live in this world. He talks about the scent of death, death being so near that he can speak to it, the safety and cares of the death. His focus and understanding is so clear and tangible. I got so caught up it in the moment, the fear, the loss… “I don’t want eternal life when I feel so alone.” I am snapped back to reality, and the girls wanting to play the license plate, and all happiness and security is restored for the moment. However, my awareness is somewhat heightened by the knowledge that one day my seed will be planted in a “Garden of Rocks”.

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GARDEN OF ROCKS is Luis’s 4th chapbook for KSE. The others are WITHOUT PEACE (out of print), KEEPERS OF SILENCE (out of print), and NEXT EXIT: SEVEN (KSE #100), which is a collaboration with Ronald Baatz and still available.

We plan to issue a fifth chapbook from Luis, another solo collection, in the Fall-Winter of 2008, sometime before the holidays. Do a Google search of “Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal”, WITH the quotation marks, and you’ll find dozens of fine and diverse poems to read absolutely free! After that free taste, why not send $8  for Luis’s two available KSE chaps: NEXT EXIT: SEVEN and GARDEN OF ROCKS while they are still available. Our earlier chaps are selling for $10 and more in the collectors’ market. Why wait and pay a collector who had the good judgement to stock up in advance on these important works , when you can pick up fresh copies for only $4 postpaid (or 3 different chaps for $10) NOW. Ordering instructions are just to your right, at the page listing “available KSE chapbooks.”

Alan Watts—-A Conversation With Myself (parts 1-4)

Recorded in 1971. Courtesy of Mark Watts and Alan Watts.com

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aufuwMiKmE&feature=related

Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ8WeLrtFnY&feature=related

Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RcjATFcbq4&feature=related

Part Four: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOYIE-RX3No&feature=related

Upcoming KSE chapbooks for August 2008

#110, CHRISTOPHER CUNNINGHAM, in gambler’s blood (sound library series, volume 36 ) ;

#109, STUART CRUTCHFIELD / BILL SHUTE, electronic myth (creel pone sound study #9) ;

#108, DEBBIE KIRK, broken .

Three new KSE chapbooks: Draime; Kaufmann; Baatz & Shute

Three new poetry chapbooks for late July/early August. More specifics will follow later, but I wanted to announce that these are available NOW and all are must-reads, in my humble opinion.

First, a stunning new extended “list poem” called BONES (KSE 107) from legendary west-coast poet DOUG DRAIME. Worthy of a Ginsberg or a Ted Berrigan, it’s 110% Draime and covers the “bones” of every imaginable aspect of history and society and life. In the words of the late great Doug Sahm, it’s a “Song of Everything.” This is a brand-new work commissioned from Mr. Draime for KSE.

Next, A. J. Kaufmann is back with a second KSE chap, the 35th entry in our Sound Library Series, called EAST-WEST TRAIN (KSE 106), inspired by the seminal Kraftwerk album TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS. It’s a wild ride beginning in Paris and ending in Prypiat, Ukraine, the abandoned city near the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Kaufmann’s work grows out of the visionary side of Beat poetry, but he’s a total original.

Finally, much-acclaimed Woodstock-area poet RONALD BAATZ and I have a new collaborative work called THE COMPANIONSHIP OF THE PLUM (KSE 105) , in the five-line stanza format Ronald has used so well in some of his earlier works. The setting is rural New York state in Winter, which was quite enjoyable for me to write as at the time I was staying in the 100-degree heat of San Saba, Texas. Ronald and I are both very proud of this chapbook—joining forces we have created a new work that’s not really like either of our solo works.

Mid-August or so we should have three more new chapbooks:

BROKEN from Debbie Kirk (KSE #108);

IN GAMBLER’S BLOOD (Sound Library Series, Volume 36–KSE #110) from Christopher Cunningham, set in the world of poker and inspired by the music of Ennio Morricone;

and the ninth volume in our Creel Pone Sound Study series, ELECTRONIC MYTH (KSE #109), a collab between Glasgow poet Stuart Crutchfield and yours truly.

Keep checking the KSE blog for details.

Ordering info can be found at
http://kendrasteinereditions.wordpress.com/available-kse-poetry-chapbooks (which is located just to the right of this message on the “available KSE chapbooks” page)

Best wishes and positive vibrations from San Antonio…

UK popsike/freakbeat fans should definitely check out the new French compilation of the complete works of THE STATE OF MICKY & TOMMY and related recordings they played on, including many tracks from obscure French EP’s and film soundtracks. It’s been blasting non-stop for the last 4 days at the KSE offices. Available in the US from Bomp.

From Bandera to San Saba and back (gone until 7/20)

I’ll be gone, travelling the back roads and small towns of the Texas Hill Country and of central Texas, for the next five days—-during this period Kendra, still recovering from having her four wisdom teeth extracted,  will handle orders.

Will be taking two manuscripts with me for editing on the trip: A. J. Kaufmann‘s EAST-WEST TRAIN, his new sound library volume written under the inspiration of Kraftwerk’s TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS; and Doug Draime‘s BONES, a stunning new “list poem” worthy of a Ginsberg or a Berrigan, but 110 % Draime. Expect to see those two new volumes appear around the end of July.

Glasgow’s Stuart Crutchfield and I are working on a new collaborative entry in the Creel Pone Sound Study Series, volume 9 (out of 10 volumes total), called ELECTRONIC MYTH, which should be out in late August or September. The 10th and final volume in the Creel Pone series will be written in collaboration with Zachary C. Bush later this summer, and that will close the book on the Creel Pone Sound Study Series, which has received much acclaim from readers and has produced some of the finest KSE volumes IMHO. PYTHAGORON TWO and SAN ANTONIO GOOD FRIDAY and SYMPHONIE ROUGE and LUNA AMERICANA are pieces that will certainly stand as the years pass by.  I hope you picked up on these while they were available. Because of the color artwork included in it, PYTHAGORON TWO (written with Stu) will not be included in my Selected Poems volume, and there are no plans to reissue it.

August-September should also see new solo chapbooks from Debbie Kirk (BROKEN is its name) and Christopher Cunningham (a sound library volume set in the world of poker!). And who knows what else?

As always, thanks for your support, your communications, your purchases, and your reading of the KSE poetry chapbooks. Thanks also to the 8400+ visitors over the last year on this first anniversary of the KSE blog.

THE JAM, “Private Hell” on ABC-TV “Fridays” 1980

In 1980, I was attending college part-time and working full-time as a cook/dishwasher at a restaurant/club in Stillwater, Oklahoma with three guys from Thailand (who drank a lot of beer every shift and listened to old Grand Funk cassettes while they worked—they must have had EVERY Grand Funk album, including obscuros such as SURVIVAL and GOOD SINGIN, GOOD PLAYIN!!).  I remember the night THE JAM were scheduled to perform on the short-lived FRIDAYS tv show: someone brought a tiny b&w tv, we plugged it into an outlet in the kitchen, and we four, some of the bartenders, some of the waitstaff, and even a few customers who were fans huddled around the TV, turned up so loud it distorted everything into a punk wail, and we all watched the following performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUo5lKDUJVw

Jam frontman/composer Paul Weller was born three days before I was. Wherever I was living and whatever situation I’ve been in over the years since then, I’ve always “checked in” with Weller every year or two, picking up his latest album and, when I can find them, a boot or two.  Although I have weathered a lot of extremes on this long, strange trip,  and I have been missing-in-action from friends and family for years at a time, I could always find a recent Weller album somewhere, and the arc of his career and the consistency of his vision have always provided me with a constant against which to compare the arc of my own journey. Weller’s had has digressions, his artistic cul-de-sac periods, his wrong turns, just like the rest of us, but he’s doing it in public and under the spotlight (thankfully, no one was paying any attention to me during my difficult periods!), and he always manages to land on his feet. I hope I have aged half as gracefully as he has.

People of the generation previous to mine may feel that way about, say, Dylan or Neil Young or Van Morrison, but for me, it’s been Paul Weller…and Alex Chilton.

mustard yellow editions at KSE

I’m printing up more copies of some of the books from a month or two ago with numbers in the 90′s such as

WIDE ASLEEP, FAST AWAKE (KSE #98);

SHORE ACCESS (KSE #92);

PIECES OF EIGHT (KSE #96);

TRANSPARENCY (KSE #93);

OZZIFIED (KSE #97);

and LOVE AND BLUES IN OREGON (KSE #94)

in garish mustard-yellow covers, with an almost day-glo shine to them. Some of these (TRANSPARENCY and SHORE ACCESS and LOVE & BLUES) are down to the final handful of copies. Act now…

Richard Wink, “All Along The Wensum” (KSE #104) now available

“I’ve observed that almost everybody who walks past me are wearing headphones connected to an iPod, mp3 player, mobile phone or going back further some may even be lugging around a walkman. These people are missing out on so much, all the sounds. The beeping horns, the sirens in the distance, neighbours’ gossiping, infants crying, birds singing and dogs barking when I walk down a driveway. For a writer this kind of shit is gold dust, for a human you are blanking out your environment. Surely all this is better than listening to the latest Coldplay album.”  

–Richard Wink (column from earlier in 2008 )

 

No wonder I was attracted to Richard Wink’s poetry with an attitude like that! As the person behind the “Next Exit” series, I value poetry that is rooted in and that evokes place. While I don’t necessarily have a primarily behavioristic view of life and society, there’s no question that people both reflect and are anchored by their environments. Read something by James T. Farrell or Richard Wright or Jimmy Santiago Baca and learn both how this works and how it can be transcended!

Richard Wink’s poetry captures the texture of real life and real people and real voices. In his two chapbooks that I own—-APPLE ROAD and THE MAGNIFICENT GUFFAW—-Mr. Wink presents “core samples” of people and places that are specific to his area of England, but also transcendent and universal like the best  particular  writing.

When I contacted Richard about writing for KSE, he offered a suite of poems he’d been recently working on, and together we’ve assembled a strong collection of 16 brand-new poems that are richly-drawn yet subtly disquieting snapshots of life in and around Norwich, England. By the way, the WENSUM of the title is the River Wensum, which runs through Norwich, England, and like all significant rivers it is the lifeblood of the community and to some extent defines its community. Kerouac had the Merrimack, W. C. Williams the Passaic….for Wink, it’s the Wensum.

Richard is also well-known as editor/publisher of the literary magazine GLOOM CUPBOARD, www.gloomcupboard.com ,  a ‘zine that offers up an astonishingly diverse variety of work. Richard also has a fine critical eye and is an ace social commentator. In addition, he’s rooted in the punk/DIY aesthetic and his writing is always has the smell and feel of live as it is lived, not of tough-guy posing nor of juvenile fascination with scatology.

KSE is proud to welcome Richard Wink, and Kendra and I feel that ALL ALONG THE WENSUM is a work not to be missed. An edition of 56 copies, we’ve already sent out two dozen of them before this announcement, so act now. See the “available KSE chapbooks” page to your right for ordering information.

“Face to Face” (KSE #101) now available

Volume 34 in the Sound Library Series, inspired by Ennio Morricone’s score to the classic 1967 Italian western FACCIA A FACCIA starring Tomas Milian, FACE TO FACE is now available.

I’d started this five-poem suite prior to finishing QUARTET, and it took me about two months to complete. Section 1, SCENE, introduces us to a depressing exit on the Interstate east of Denton in North Texas and sketches the small community that has been built up around that exit. Section 2, SCENARIO, introduces another one of my un-named 3rd-person male characters (I shouldn’t have read Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST all those years ago…that technique has stuck with me!), meant to be both Everyman and an outsider, this time a pizza cook with a knee injury that handicaps him to some extent. Section 3, PRESENCE, introduces Indian-American CPA Anjali, a widow hanging in the balance between two worlds, kept at a distance by the general community and treated as an object by her own Indian-American community in Texas. Section 4, COMBINATION, features some extreme close-ups of the pizza cook’s relationship with Anjali, provides her perspective on him, and brings them together. The closing section 5, CYCLE, is a fast-paced montage that goes inside them and to the core of their union, then places it in the larger context of the outside world, and finally grounds it in a shared spiritual hunger and desire. Circle imagery and mirroring abound.

This work is the result of a distillation process and could easily have been a 300-page novel, but you don’t want to read one and I don’t want to write one. If you’ve enjoyed any of my previous works, you don’t want to miss this one. You will care about these two characters, the fast-paced flow (I’m reminded of Russ Meyer’s film CHERRY, HARRY, AND RAQUEL in terms of fast-paced montage editing) and sensory detail will make the scenes come alive for you, and it’s a kind of “poetic biopsy” of both contemporary Texas and two anonymous people searching for meaning. Only 37 copies available, so act soon.

With FACE TO FACE completed, I’m moving on to my collaborative chapbook with Ronald Baatz called THE COMPANIONSHIP OF THE PLUM. I need to re-orient myself to work with a minimalist master such as Baatz, so I’m re-reading my Cid Corman and Frank Samperi and later William Bronk and also Richard Wright’s book of haiku. I’ll probably be working on PLUM throughout July and into part of August. Wish me luck…

To some extent, my FACE TO FACE is influenced by the film FACCIA A FACCIA. Since that’s never been issued in the US on video, check out the trailer below. When you read my chapbook, I think you’ll see the connection…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy4GBBBgwDI