[Tin House]

I am very excited to share the news that two of my poems appear in the December 2010 issue of Tin House magazine. Last March, on St. Patrick’s Day to be exact, I received a call from Tonaya Thompson, senior editor at TH, asking if “The Prelude After” & “The Crocus Thief” were still available. While I might want to pretend I was nonchalant about the whole thing, I must be honest that I remember jumping around my apartment for a full five minutes before I became aware of much else. TH is exactly the kind of journal that it’s cool to geek out over, & I did. I was so thrilled by the news that a half hour later I realized I could hardly remember any of the details of the conversation! And when, many months later, I received the issue to discover I have the honor of sharing a binding with ADRIENNE RICH (!!!), well I was somewhat beside myself once again.

So the point is that I have been & I am excited. But truth be told, I really want to take a moment to send some gratitude to the kind folks at Tin House. Tonaya, Cheston Knapp, Brenda Shaughnessy, & everyone else—they were all real pleasures to deal with. Yes, we’re only talking about two poems, but it’s always a joy when a great journal turns out to be the creation of lovely people. (As an aside, they also happen to run an excellent indie publishing press as well. I recommend checking it out.)

Of course, I hope you’ll go find my poems in the new issue of the magazine. You can get your hands on Tin House pretty easily in most Barnes & Noble stores, not to mention many cool independent book shops. Take a look. Support the journal by buying a copy if you like it. Besides my work, there’s 200+ pages of quality magazine there—of which I’m proud to be a part.

Click on the image & you’ll get whisked over to the “Current Issue” section of the Tin House website.

[A Sunday in God-Years]

I’m happy to say that my review of A Sunday in God-Years, by Michelle Boisseau, is published in the latest issue of PLEIADES: A Journal of New Writing. Volume 30.2 has plenty of great work in it, as usual, and it’s certainly a pleasure to be printed in the same pages as many of these writers (Sherman Alexie!). It’s a particular pleasure to have my review appear just after one from my friend, the amazing B.J. Hollars. Incidentally, he also has a review of Bigfoot appearing today on 300 Reviews.

While I always enjoy the work in PLEIADES, I especially enjoyed this issue’s opening poem, “Sisyphus” by Jay Leeming.  Yes, it’s true, I take a bit of a shining toward anything sisyphean, but this poem delivers more than your standard mountain & boulder routine.  There is the rock, of course, and the incline, and Leeming primes us for an event by starting the poem at what we should expect to be the zenith!–at the moment when the speaker is about to collapse.  And what a wonderful moment it is: “…my whole body shakes / like a struck bell…”  (I won’t quote further, because it’s a short and excellent poem that deserves to be read on the page, but I had to share that resonant image as soon as I read it.)  Without spoiling the development of the poem, I’ll say something more: unlike the motion of many rewrites of the myth of Sisyphus, where the plummeting of the stone signals a descent back into hell, Leeming’s poem presents a descent back into life!  Joy, communion, celebration!  A deft reversal, and done in ways to which my description serves little justice.  The point is that I love the poem, and I am happy to see it lead off my contributor’s copy.

You can find PLEIADES available in cool bookstores, and even some not so cool ones.  Give it a gander, should you find the opportunity.

[Another Anniversary]

Elaine Feinstein has given us many things for which to be grateful.  Among her novels, poems, translations, and other writing, I was first struck by her translations of Russian poet Marina Tsvetayeva.  You can see a copy of one of the most famous poems here.  If Feinstein’s translations of this remarkable “silver age” poet had been all she could contribute to the literary world, that alone would be enough for us to forever owe her a debt of gratitude.

But she has given us more.  In her most recent book of poems, Talking to the Dead, Feinstein teaches us something about grieving (a subject that you would think exhausted after so many millenia), and shows that extended apostrophe need not be either sanctifying or crude.  I think she demonstrates the best of what grief has to offer: a confusion that is ultimately clarifying in how it shows us how death brings both loss and relief (for the survivors too), both the endearing and the things we might rather forget.  Here’s a highlight from the volume:

Another Anniversary

Today is your birthday.  There is cool sunshine.
Fig leaves and roses cover the wooden fence.
What happiness can I wish you in your death?

Here is the garden that I made for us
though you saw only the winter shape
of a weeping crab apple and a bare plum,

it was my offering, and you received it so;
but most of what we work at disappears.
Little we worry over has importance.

The greedy and the generous have the same end.
The dead know nothing of what we say to them.
Still, in that silence let me write: dear friend.

I don’t know Feinstein personally, but the work brings out many of the ideas I’ve been working with, lately, on grief and loss.  It strikes close to the things I’ve wanted to say.  In short, a simple and high compliment: I find myself wishing I’d written it.  Thus, I felt the need to talk about it and share the poem.  Back to navel-gazing in the near future.

*The above poem is reprinted with permission from Carcanet Press.

[Sisyphus]

I don’t really intend for this blog to be only a site for self-promotion, but lately there’s been some positive things to report; I promise to post material less ego-centric soon, but in the meantime…

I gave an interview here in Brașov several months ago, and the results have been published in online cultural review SISIF.  The journal seems interesting and varied, with interviews, essays, poetry, art, and other material.  Sadly my Romanian skills aren’t really up to snuff.  There are some English contributions, but the bulk of the work will be lost to you if you don’t vorbesti Romanesti.  If you do happen to speak the limba romăn, please check out the article written about my work, I’d be interested to hear some feedback (as would, I’m sure, the author, Ramone Tane).

I also want to get in touch with the magazine’s founders.  There’s a varied and interesting tradition of cultural reviews here in Romania, but I’m especially interested to speak with people doing it in the modern online idiom.  It also peaks my interest to have the magazine named after Sisyphus; regardless of his detractors, I’m a commited fan/student of Albert Camus*, and he has definitely convinced me to consider and reconsider the man pushing his boulder up the hill.

What does that act symbolize here in Romania?

*Is this what it means to be a student?

[Craig Arnold]

Terrible news this weekend for friends and family of American poet Craig Arnold.  Word spread quickly among the writing world at the end of April that Craig went missing on a small island in Japan while exploring an active volcano as research for an upcoming book.  Around the world, people sent concern and contributions to a fund set up to finance search operations.  Sadly, the most recent news reveals that Craig has most likely fallen to his death from a cliff where his tracks were found to end by an American search and rescue squad.

The sadness of Craig’s passing is obvious.  I feel deeply for his family, friends, colleagues.  I have been teaching from his first book, Shells, for several years now, and have admired him as a poet since I first saw him read at Kenyon College in 1999.  And I will continue to do so.  It seems to me like the best fitting act of remembrance.  In an article for the Salt Lake Tribune, Craig’s colleague, Professor Jacqueline Osherow is quoted as saying, “This is a loss to American literature and letters. It’s wrong to say he was full of promise, because he delivered on that.”  That seems accurate to me.

Remember Craig Arnold: read one of his poems.

[Making Connections]

Along with links to some reviews I’ve written, the trusty sidebar has a few other goodies to check out.  First you’ll see “Some Other Blogs.”  Currently this list includes the blog-projects of some close friends and compatriots of various persuasions.  This list will expand as I get time, but for now, check out everything from food, to flag football, to BEXOnymous Rex.

Two other fledgling sections you’ll see are “Some Presses,” and “Some Zines.”  In the first category, you’ll find four independent presses run by friends and associates; as mentioned before, Blue Hour Press is open for chapbook submissions, as is Slash Pine Press! (PS, hot news: BHP just released a new digital chapbook today by Alexis Orgera, go check it out!)  Now, in the realm of zines, you’ll find three journals, all of which I’ve been associated with in one form or another: The Black Warrior Review, Dislocate, and Zoland Poetry.  Again, both of these sections will expand as time allows, but for now, I want to give credit to these friends and colleagues.

In unrelated news, May 9th is NATIONAL TRAIN DAY in the States.  Get out there and ride a train, folks.  I’m not asking you to support Amtrak, exactly, but affordable, sustainable mass transit in the USA.  Just imagine if we had a TGV in America! [please see above image for sleek and connective rail transport heaven]

ps. Thanks to Nik DeDominic for the info on NTD.

[Wiki'd! -- well not exactly]

Since it’s spring, and since I’ve moved over to WordPress, I’m trying to make some improvements to ye olde blog, with better links in the sidebar, for example.  One thing I planned to do was link to some reviews I’ve written in the recent past.  You can see them trying to look inconspicuous over on the LEFT (I hope to move the sidebar over to the RIGHT eventually, though, once I feel motivated enough to pay for custom CSS).  You’ll find two reviews published with Zoland Poetry, and one with my former colleagues over at The Black Warrior Review.  Check them out if you get the time, at least for the magazines that host them if not for the reviews themselves.

But I have to say I had a funny surprise as I was pulling up the links to the reviews.  Searching Google for “Jeremy Hawkins Dismal Rock” to jump directly to my review of Davis McCombs’ book, I was startled to see a Wikipedia page appear in the search results, #2 as a matter of fact!  It turns out that the Davis McCombs entry in Wikipedia quotes from my review.  It’s a strange quote to pull, as well, just taking the first three sentences, before I even have much of a chance to say anything substantial.  A later quote might have demonstrated a much more negative view of the book, and would make the other review against which mine is juxtaposed stand in stronger relief. (The quote chosen may also highlight a factual error I made in my review! See if you can find it.)  While I think of it, I should say that McCombs is a fine poet, even if I was highly critical of Dismal Rock; my critique fell more squarely on the nature of the collection itself.

In any case, I’m not so illustrious as to have my own Wikipedia entry, but I’ve made my splash.  I’d say it’s time to pack up and call it quits; what else do I have to acheive after this?!