BoneWorld Publishing

I had planned to update this blog every couple of weeks, & here it's been two months. 

I guess the big news in BoneWorld is that Nancy Henry's poem, "People Who Take Care," will be republished by Longman Publishers, a division of Pearson Education, in what will be a fat (1,256 pages) college textbook, focusing on literature & the writing process, set for publication soon.  We published this poem in Nancy's chapbook, Hard, back in 2003.  So Longman needed our permission to reprint it.  And this was the poem that Garrison Keillor read on his Writer's Almanac radio show a couple of years ago.  Keillor also required our permission.  Nancy Henry is a great poet & I'm glad she's getting some recognition.

Among other news, Dave Christy of Alpha Beat Press died a few weeks back.  I don't have any other details.  Dave & his wife Ana had run Alpha Beat & a variety of broadsides for many years. Their publications were low-budget photocopier creations: big on invention, w/ no attention paid to gloss & glitter.  He will surely be missed.

In happier news, Steve Henn says that the big poetry reading he gave in Chicago last month went over real well. 

I gotta go.  More next time.

Contact John at ataraxia1114@aim.com

Okay, I'm settling into this blog thing.  What a curious word, blog, apparently a shortened version of the original "web log".  We spent the Christmas holiday in Virginia.  Two highlights.  Saw the film Avatar at the IMAX in Hampton, Virginia.  What an experience, my first time at an IMAX; the nearest one to us here in northern New York is roughly a two-hour drive.  I found Avatar simply overwhelming, both visually & audially.  David Denby, a reliable movie reviewer for the New Yorker, calls it "the most beautiful film I've seen in years."  I quite agree.  Highlight #2, of the negative variety, featured a seriously clogged traffic jam on the Washington D.C. Beltway.  We moved five miles in five hours.  I could have crawled faster, backwards.  But I learned something.  While stuck w/ thousands of other static vehicles on the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge (an actual drawbridge) I had the opportunity to gaze north at the city.  I realized that DC looks like no other American city, simply because it has no tall buildings, exactly zero.  And I realized a moment later exactly why.  It's because if you built even a few glass & steel skyscrapers, they would totally dwarf the Capitol & all the other government buildings, & that just would not do.  The city had a sort of flattened Mediterranean look, the huddled buildings swarming over the crests of the gentle hills.  Absolutely nothing vertical about it.

One thing to look out for--Steve Henn, author of Subvert the Dominant Paradigm!, will be participating in a poetry reading at the famous Green Mill Jazz Club on North Broadway Avenue in Chicago on Sunday, January 17th.  That's at 7:00.  Be there to cheer Steve on!

We're still working on the January Barbaric Yawp.  Despite a few unfortunate & unexpected reversals w/ our technology, we hope to have the issue ready before the end of the month.

And that's it for Boneblog #1.  I hope to show up here two or three times each month w/ news, highlights, & odd bits.  Be well.  Oh, all the best for 2010.

Soundtrack: The New Radicals

Weather: been drizzling snow for days, over a foot deep now

Miscellaneous: reading Shiki & Nathaniel Mackey

Contact John at ataraxia1114@aim.com

Isn't that a great word, Gazebo?  It sure is, & that's where the next SLAP meeting will be held, this Tuesday @ 6:30, June 23rd, 2009, at the Gazebo in Ives Park in Potsdam.  If you don't know where the Park is, look past the parking lot directly across from the Roxy Theater & keep walking.  And bring your assignment, which is to write a soliloquy, as though you were a character in a play, like Hamlet or Lear.  But write your soliloquy in a poetic style, like sweet Willy the Shakes.  The Gazebo is covered so who cares if it rains?

Oh, & the SLAP poetry newsletter for June is available.  You can pick up a free copy at selected sites in Canton like the Partridge Cafe & the Blackbird Cafe....in Potsdam at the Fields (if it's still open), Creative Spirit Art Center, & the St. Lawrence County Arts Council....& in Norwood at selected locations (look around).  As usual, I am always looking for new poems, so if you have some you'd like to share in a future newsletter, send them to me at ataraxia1114@aim.com.  Always like to hear from readers too, just to say hi.

I've gotta go now & write my soliloquy, really I don't have a clue.  See you all Tuesday.  Everyone is invited.

music listened to while writing this brief blog: Sonic Youth

beverage: Sam Adams Black Lager

weather: cloudy all morning early evening sunshine