Most Vulgar & Violent,.... (Holy Land)

well, well, what goes around doesn't always come around....





my Super-Ultra-Mega Muse, Seth Abramson gives my debut book, Holy Land, a thumbs up at the Huffington Post!!!



These poems may well be among the most vulgar and violent published in the English language in the past quarter-century. Many will be offended by what's in this book; Klassnik doesn't just gore sacred cows, he disembowels them and devours their entrails. A superficial reading of the text might even produce a damning accusation of homicidal misogyny. Yet such a careful study of violences--which is what, in toto, Holy Land is--permits a notable accumulation of gravitas, and Klassnik earns his strong language and deeply distressing imagery. In both its tender and horrifying moments, Holy Land aptly maps how we are chained to time, place, ourselves, and one another by a million minor assaults--only some of which are physical. As a wide-ranging, metaphoric look at death, power, gendered bodies, sublimity, despair, and anguish, Holy Land succeeds even as it terrifies and, yes, turns the stomach. A remarkable achievement, and one which deserves to be (and must be) read in its entirety.


The Whore's blood's trembling in me !!!

Rauan.... Rauan... Rauan..... Rauan (O, Reb Livingston)

"Rauan’s difficult time breast feeding"

"Rauan in charge of meat"

"Rauan reduced to meat"

"deep inside Rauan is a swimmer trapped in a mailbox"

"marry me so we can save thousands of dollars on taxes"


Reb Livingston going at it over on her Tumblr

Reaching Out Again (Whore??)

About 6 months ago I deleted, in cold blood, about 90% of my Facebook "Friends." It was a long and tedious process that I thoroughly enjoyed.

(Spread out over a week or two my Friend list dwindled from close to 1700 to under 150.)

But, now, feeling strong again the Whore's blood in me, I am building my Friend base back. Perhaps to two or three times its previous peak.

O, this is so annoying. Sad. Trivial. And exhilarating.

This whoring. Deleting. Destroying. Building back.


O God !!!

Vulturish Bear

Click here to read an interesting, playful, predatory and Romantic poem by J. P. Dancing Bear (Not Persephone)

and funnily enough the poem's dedicated to my old muse "Seth Abramson"

thinking of Seth now I am haunted again by the lines from a sad old Big Country song

what would you be
if the waves set you free
and the wind in your hair
sent you sailing to me

tied up on shore
would you weary no more

what would you be
what would you be



in the old days i would have loaded up all my guns, dynamite, warhorses, wardragons, roosters and mice-- and gone out bear hunting !!

but, now, i just sit by slightly green...

Ed Skoog at The Hugo House

Sometimes poetry reading are like so much clucking, wings waving, an awful and boring mess of feathers and birdshit. But sometimes the clucking quiets. Broods. And produces, magically, an egg. It was like this last night at The Hugo House.

Following an extended warm-up act (5), Ed Skoog stepped on to the stage like John Candy in Stripes' mud-wrestling scene. Stood up there with honest confidence and delivered like the Big Boy kid with cheeseburger.

I'm playing around a bit here because Ed strikes a big, imposing figure. But he's no clown. Dresses well. Like a character out of All The King's Men. Slightly formal. Very polite. And slightly old-fashioned. But clear, warm and open as the poems he read quite imperiously.

Ed Skoog looked like he'd popped into the Pub after a busy afternoon of pheasant shooting. Popped into the pub to snare a few tit bits of Raclette, Goldfish, caviar, smoked duck and, perhaps, a small bowl of spiced artichoke soup.

Ed Skoog read well. Well-paced. And confidently. Smooth as an egg in a fairy tale. A fairy tale tinged perhaps, no, surely, with sadness. O, La Vie, La Vie,...

Dishevelled up a bit, Ed Skoog might have resembled a conductor in one of Prague's tourist-castle concerts.

-------------------


And, so, of course, I ended up trapped in the castle. And could do nothing but stare out the frosty window. Like a bemused child. And there, lo and behold, on the sidewalk was the evening's last piece of magic: Ed Skoog transforming into a goose.

And rising up into the starry night. Honking gently.

Holiday Question

"That’s the universal question as a 21^st century male artist, right? How can I desire (women) without my desire being damaging?"

Alexis Orgera in "Pen Pals: A Conversation with Nate Slawson"

Less Than a Year

Less than a year now till my 2nd book, The Moon's Jaw, releases,....

will I switch back into idiot blogger mode ???

Old Flame

"A Poem is Not a Teddy Bear"--- (my soul-mate, Tony Hoagland)

Black Ocean's 2012 Schedule

Hunger Transit by Feng Sun Chen (Spring 2012)
Fjords by Zachary Schomburg (Spring 2012)
Handsome Vol. 4 (Spring 2012)
Dark Matter by Aase Berg, trans. Johannes Göransson (Fall 2012)
The Moon's Jaw by Rauan Klassnik (Fall 2012)

and you can pre-order it all now for $50
(Almost a 30% savings! And as always, free shipping!)

Black Ocean is also currently offering package deals on
their entire catalog of books. Check them out here.

So and So Poems

so
some of my newer poems are included in the new So and So

along side work by Cisewski, Hall, MacDonald, Mirov, etc,...

check it out here