Gigantic. Gigantic. A big, big love.

I've been reading these guys all morning. HTMLGIANT is like the Daily Show for poetry, hilariously calling out pretentious poetry bullshit of all kinds. Interviews. Submission Guidelines. Is there a Colbert Report equivalent out there? Someone playing the role of poetry asshole while satirizing poetry assholes? Dear god I hope so.

Simultaneously, I've been fantasizing about what they would say (I wish I were wearing a bathrobe) about the Creative Writing PhD...trend / explosion / whatever. Not so much the programs themselves...reading and writing for another 4 years on a secluded poetry island with dope professors and fellow poets sounds dreamy, assuming more crippling debt isn't involved (inevitably an MA and an MFA are already in hand at this stage). But last night a friend of mine was stressing out about her personal statement for one of these things. This friend of mine has a gazillion terrific chapbooks out and a forthcoming full-length book. Does this not seem fucking crazy to anyone else? In most every other discipline, you go get a PhD to learn how to write the books, no? But now you have people with books teaching people with books how to write books? Come again?!?! And I have friends (also with chapbooks and books and who run journals and presses) getting REJECTED from Creative Writing PhD programs. Seriously?!?! What must that letter say, "Yeah...sorry. You make our professors too self-conscious about the size of their poetry junk?" Unbelievable. But the kicker is, I now have friends (with chapbooks and at this point multiple books...who run presses and journals) who have completed said programs and are getting like one friggin' interview!!! This is criminal.

Mid-post caviat: The word "friends" makes me sound like a name-dropping asshole. Well, minus the actual names. The word "friends" is being used loosely for the sake of this post. You frickin' know what I mean. Shut up.

Anydoogiehowser, point being that why the fuck are we doing this to ourselves (I say "our," 1. because I am such an empathetic friend and have so many friends who are such awesome poets, thus making me a more valuable human than most...clearly, and 2. because I imagine that somewhere down the road, I'll run myself through the same wringer). I'd like to think it is for the purest of reasons...simply a time and place to immerse ourselves in Poetry Spa...ie to get smarter, read and write more and better. But I can't stop thinking that it is all about the j-o-b market. Someone help me out here.

Post-post caviat: suck my itallics!

Best Poetry Books/Chapbooks of 2008

We asked small press editors what their three favorite books of the year were, and the results are really interesting. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I guess I was picturing some sort of consensus. Instead, of the 25 books/chapbooks nominated, only two were mentioned even twice. The “clear-cut” favorite--garnering two first place votes--was Kate Greenstreet’s This is Why I Hurt You, from Lame House Press. End Notebook by Geoffrey Olsen (Petrichord Books) was the other, receiving a second and third place vote. So what this ended up being is a comprehensive “25 Books/Chapbooks You Should Read” list, as opposed to another tired “Best of” list. Shame on us.

Anyway, here are the books that received one first place vote each:

David Gitin’s Rites (Anchorite Press), Brandon Shimoda’s The Alps (Flim Forum Press), Nathalie Stephens’ At Alberta (Book Thug), Karen Volkman’s nomina (BOA Editions), Micah Ballard’s Parish Krewes (Bootstrap Press), CJ Martin’s Lo, Bittern (Atticus/Finch), and Claire Hero’s afterpastures (Caketrain).

Second place vote getters:

Landis Everson’s When You Have a Rabbit (Cy Gist Press), Andrew Joron’s The Sound Mirror (Flood Editions), Chris Vitiello’s Irresponsibility (Ahsahta Press), Daniela Olszewska’s Jane Doe (Dancing Girl Press), Barrett Gordon’s evening (House Press), Kate Colby’s Unbecoming Behavior (Ugly Duckling Presse), Sandra Simonds’ Warsaw Bikini (Bloof Books), and GC Waldrep’s One Way No Exit (Tarpaulin Sky).

Third place vote getters:

Brett Price’s Trouble With Mapping (Flying Guillotine Press), Carolyn Guinzio’s Quarry (Free Verse Editions), Renee Gladman’s To After That (Toaf) (Atelos), Sampson Starkweather’s City of Moths (Rope-A-Dope Press), Kim Chinquee’s Oh Baby: Flash Fictions and Prose Poetry (Ravenna Press), Devin Johnston’s Sources (Turtle Point Press), Danielle Prafunda’s My Zorba (Bloof Books), and Rebecca Loudon’s Cadaver Dogs (No Tell Books).

A rebellious fourth place vote went to:

Mark Lamoureux’s Astronomy Orgonon (BlazeVox Books).

It also ended up being quite a collection of presses; only one (Bloof Books) had even two nominees. And I was glad to see two of my favorite books of the year get their props--Chris Vitiello’s Irresponsibility (Ahsahta Press) and Sampson Starkweather’s City of Moths (afterall, I chose it for Rope-A-Dope Press’ Golden Gloves Chapbook Series).

Thanks to all the editors who responded and of course to all of the poets and publishers who made these books possible.

New Titles Available for Pre-Order

Dear Black Oceanographers,

We are swollen with pride and brimming with relief now that our next two books of poetry are at the printer. Please consider pre-ordering either/both of them now, at a specially discounted rate of $10, plus free shipping. In doing so you will not only help us quickly recoup some of our overhead expense (and in these dark days of publishing all expenses seem to be over our heads har har), you will ensure yourself that status of ‘coolest kid on the block’ when you receive your copies weeks before they’re even available on Amazon. But hurry: this offer expires on February 11th. All pre-orders will ship on March 3rd. A little bit about these titles:

WITH DEER by Aase Berg / translated by Johannes Göransson
In this, her first single-volume collection to be published in English, Berg works a wicked necromancy in her poems. Filling each page with fluids and viscera she plunges into the palpable, pulsating center of our psyche—pulling up fistfuls of nightmares at once strange and familiar. To read this book is to glimpse the ecstasy you always suspected lay at the heart of every rapturous horror. With Deer [Hos rådjur] was Berg’s first full-length book of poetry, originally published in Sweden in 1996. Since then she has published four more books in her native language, exploring the divine terror throbbing beneath the surface of a naturalistic and barely human world. Read advance praise from Cathy Wagner, Dodie Bellamy and Michael Gira (and place your order) here.

SCAPE by Joshua Harmon
Scape, a poised and attentive debut collection by Joshua Harmon, engages with various landscapes—from the constructed and debased world of parking lots, potato chip factories, and cul-de-sac traceries to the “rural equation” of woods, fields, and “clouds’ crumpled page” to create a series of conversations and engagements with the idea of the natural. Through his precise observations, Harmon defines landscape—the word and the idea—through an insightful and meticulous relationship with language. For Harmon, landscape is never static; instead his poems map a constantly changing terrain, in which the interior is imposed on the exterior as a frame for seeing it. Read advance praise from Lydia Davis, Michael Davidson and Noah Eli Gordon (and place your order) here.

Black Ocean announces Forthcoming Titles

Dear Black Oceanographers,

We enthusiastically present our forthcoming publications for the following year:

Scape by Joshua Harmon (Spring 2009)

With Deer by Aase Berg / trans. by Johannes Göransson (Spring 2009)

Scary No Scary by Zachary Schomburg (Summer 2009)

Objects For A Fog Death by Julie Doxsee (Winter 2009)

Pigafetta Is My Wife by Joe Hall (Spring 2010)

The tremendous honor of escorting these books toward their public consumption has been the cause for numerous bacchanalia in the Black Ocean HQ. Much revelry has been had with each new acquisition, at the expense of personal safety and upright reputations. With our remaining limbs, we write of the joy that we experienced selecting the most exciting work that came across our desks. Each of these books stimulates the brain in its own way: exciting the cortex of language; rousing the senses; animating our nightmares; stimulating the bones of the inner ear; filling history with flesh and blood. We hope you will subscribe to the coming year of all these beautiful failures and in a few months you will be afforded the opportunity to do so formally, with your wallet.

In addition to the titles listed above, we have some other projects in the works that are top secret, to be announced only when the perfect hour is upon us. Of course a new issue of our evolving lifestyle magazine, Handsome, is due upon the shelves this winter season as well.

At a time when the corporate publishers are laying off droves of editors and all but eliminating their literary departments; when the small independents are turning to the more cost-effective mediums of digital printing and e-publishing; when all our friends and family insist we read the Twilight series—Black Ocean forges ahead by expanding our staff and continuing to publish ground-breaking volumes of poetry using the finest processes and materials available. In short, we are dancing in the ashes. Dance with us and become your own hero.