new 60-page SATORI IN NATCHEZ poetry collection from Bill Shute

SATORI IN NATCHEZ

poems by BILL SHUTE

approx. 60 pages, perfect-bound, KSE #408      $9.95 

ISBN  9781724883292

not sold through KSE—-in the USA, order direct from https://amzn.to/2Mt4wHO

elsewhere, from your local Amazon outlet

In the Summer and Fall of 2017, KSE issued seven different six-page open-field poems composed during my stay in Natchez, Mississippi, each as a separate stand-alone chapbook in micro-editions of 30-40 copies. Those are long-gone, but all seven pieces have now been collected in one attractive perfect-bound volume, SATORI IN NATCHEZ, available from Amazon outlets in both North America and Europe. Whatever country you are in, just search your local Amazon website for it, and it will be manufactured locally and will only require local postage (or possibly NO postage, if you order it with other things). Also, and this is a first for me, it’s available on Kindle!

contains the selections

GUEST REGISTER

NEW JERUSALEM

MELTDOWN

TIME CRYSTALS

THE DIFFICULTIES, THE IMPOSSIBILITIES 

SATORI IN NATCHEZ

ARISING, ABIDING, AND DECAY

There are write-ups elsewhere on this website about each of the above seven poems, dating from when the individual chapbooks were published last year, and you can easily find them by putting the title into the search-box on the right side of this page.

Here are some excerpts from one of those:

I composed SEVEN six-page poems during my two weeks in Natchez, Mississippi, in May 2017, open-field poems filtered through the consciousness of a narrative persona who is up to his waist in the muck, but looking toward the horizon (I’d say stars, but these were written during the daytime).  …

As I read these pages aloud to Mary Anne after not having looked at the pieces for months, I was reminded how deeply the red wheelbarrows and petals on a wet black bough of my teenage poetry studies took root, then the initial shrubbery later trimmed and pruned through my study of Charles Reznikoff and Lorine Niedecker….but I’m not the kind of person who thinks of influence very often. One learns one’s craft in adolescence and then learns how to apply and develop—-and, we hope, go beyond—-the influences during one’s apprentice years. After that, we have the tools to add whatever life throws our way into our poetic stew and to make it work and make it distinctive and make it seductively tasty in such a way that others will want to consume it….and then want to come back for next week’s variation.    …

Also, in terms of poetry serving as a core sample of life as it is lived circa 2017, if we want to better understand and to document this age, we need to taste the soil and walk the walk in places such as Natchez, Mississippi. There is a lot to experience, a lot to learn…and a lot to savor. The voices past and present are calling out.    …

Crew members took the flowers from the tables before the banquet ended….piquant piccadilly sunshine cuts through the layers of kudzu and the residue of habit….standing water from yesterday evening’s showers, widening the cracks in the cream-stained wood, washing the grime from our feet, mis-shapen from the miles marched in steel-toed boots….two black horses pulled the carriage with the coffin through a swarm of beret-wearing beatnik flies, acting as if they were still in Brooklyn…intoning the sutras of the swamp, lined-out by mud, punctuated by mosquitoes, indentured to the payday-loan store & pretending to look alive…..I’m not able to change my gait, but I can adapt it to the needs at hand       ….

Each of these  Natchez chapbooks is a stand-alone piece (the “serial poem” concept of Jack Spicer seems to fit my work well), so don’t worry about what order they are in. I consider each narrator to be a unique person telling his/her unique story from his/her unique perspective. I as poet am just the actor playing the part, the gallery-operator assembling the exhibition.

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I hope you find SATORI IN NATCHEZ interesting and worthwhile.

Thanks for your reading all these years!

Upcoming poetry publications:

I have a joint poetry book from a Western Massachusetts press with Michael Casey, CULTURE OF COMPLIANCE, which has been delayed (it was originally going to be ready for my Massachusetts reading with Mr. Casey in June 2017), but we hope will be ready later in the Fall. I’ll let you know when that’s out and provide ordering information.

Also, I have been invited by Moloko Plus in Germany to do a full-length poetry collection containing pieces from different periods, to be published in 2019. I’m presently working on formatting the selections for that book, which will be approximately 100 pages and will feature an original cover painting by MP LANDIS! Tentative title of that book is JUNK SCULPTURE FROM THE NEW GILDED AGE….