new poetry chapbook from Blood Pudding Press

The latest Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook has arrived in all its startlingly provocative glory and is now available in the press's etsy shop at www.BloodPuddingPress.etsy.com.

This chapbook is one of the winners of the first Blood Pudding Press chapbook contest.

The Spare Room by Dana Guthrie Martin is an artfully woven and disturbingly resonant suite of twenty poems that mix myth with real life in unlikely ways and draw uniquely thought provoking parallels between torture scenes, sideshow attractions, scientific anomalies, and what it means to be a contemporary woman trying to stake out her existence as an individual and as a partner. Sex, pain, isolation, and temptation are just some of the hot button themes Dana Guthrie Martin deals with in this unflinching, intense, and brutally poetic collection.

The wonderfully unsettling cover art for the chapbook is by Keith Part2ism Hopewell.

The cover art is printed upon light gray deckle-edged paper, the innards are printed upon good quality text paper, your chapbook will be ribbon-bound by hand and then tied with an additional expanse of ribbon or jute twine or elastic trim in a flourish of artistic bondage.

"icing with amputation"

Slash Pine Press has just sent out an email announcing that my newest poetry chapbook, FONDANT PIG ANGST, is now available for pre-order for only $5.00. If you would like me to forward you a copy of this email, which includes an attached form to order by mail, please feel free to let me know. They will also begin offering an online ordering option via their website (www.slashpinepress.blogspot.com) within the next few days. Here is an excerpt from the email announcement by Joseph P. Wood, co-editor of Slash Pine Press:

"Slash Pine Press is pleased to announce the upcoming release of our first chapbook of poems, Juliet Cook's dynamically gut-wrenching, Fondant Pig Angst. I feel confident in saying Juliet's voice is an American original, fusing pastry with grotesquerie, icing with amputation. These poems are not plainly 'dark'. No, they are alive and electric and full of verve and spunk, playfulness even, and it's these competing impulses that make for such an amazing collection of poems. Simply put, never have I seen a person convey the depths of human cruelty also be so in love with the language."

The tentative release date for FONDANT PIG ANGST is December 15.

(The Birthday Pig image, which will be the cover art on FONDANT PIG ANGST, is by the marvelous Marnie Weber.)

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In other news, here is an updated article about the aforementioned extra-special Columbus Ohio indie horror movie event happening at Studio 35 on December 3. As of right now, tickets are still available. Let me know if you want in:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2431004/cutthroat_entertainment_film_premiere.html?cat=8

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And here is another announcement for Fondant Pig Angst AND the latest Blood Pudding Press poetry offering, in the form of a Black Friday alternative. Happy Thanksgiving and beyond!

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2431670/a_few_creative_black_friday_shopping.html?cat=2

poltergeists or psychokinesis?

Is a Poltergeist a Ghostly Interference or a Manifestation of a Suppressed Female Psyche?

A variation on the theme of my fondness for bloody telekinetic females and a brief exploration of cultural unease with female blood.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2402712/is_a_poltergeist_a_ghostly_interference.html?cat=34



"The link between femininity and the harboring of otherworldly power signals a cultural anxiety about the very nature of being female and gestures towards a historical view of women as being both cursed and unclean."

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And speaking of female power (and poetic blood), check out the Blood Pudding Press blog for a new announcement about what's next from Blood Pudding Press:

http://www.bloodyooze.blogspot.com/

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And speaking of what's next, here's the latest blurb from Slash Pine Press, who are soon to publish my own latest poetry chapbook, FONDANT PIG ANGST. Yay!

"It's coming in a month: FONDANT PIG ANGST. A chapbook of post-horrific proportions. Never have pastries and missing hands gone so well together. Pre-order available very, very soon."

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And speaking of bloody horror films, Columbus-based indie film company CutThroat Entertainment (known to me because I do a little writing and PR for them) is soon to premiere their first short horror film, BREAK. You may have heard me mention this before; now I'm mentioning it again, because it's also coming soon--the evening of December 3 to be exact. Tickets are still available; in fact, you can get them through me.

If attending a special premiere party for an independent horror film sounds like an interesting proposition to you, you may find out more via my article here (one difference is that after I wrote this article, the ticket price was reduced to only $10 apiece):

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2250035/cutthroat_entertainment_hones_the_sharp.html?cat=2

If you're interested in acquiring tickets, just ask me. I'll be there and you can be there, too!

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With my next update I should probably start a new entry, but here is one more update for this one. I have a new poem in the latest issue of Melusine:


http://www.melusine21cent.com/mag/node/113

poetry research (vaginas & poltergeists)

Today I typed myself into a search engine (I do this from time to time; let's just call it "poetry research") and happened upon this bizarre page called Vagina Connoisseur that randomly features a quote from one of my poems:

http://vaginaconnoisseur.com/

What the heck is going on here? I didn't willingly contribute my quote to this site. Does this have something to with my designer vagina poetry or maybe my new hair cut?

While I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this, I can't say I'm entirely displeased. After all, I do like vaginas and I do like randomosity and this site seems to have plenty of both and more--from gynecological diagrams to vagina origami to a song playing in the background that sounds like it belongs in some kind of hokey Vagina Western...

If you click on the 'shop' link, you can even buy your own vagina costume.

Weird.

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Speaking of vaginas (well kinda), let's talk about questionable self-defense techniques for women.

Questionable self-defense technique #1--Disguise yourself as a vending machine:
http://bust.com/blog/2009/11/16/forget-pepper-spray-disguise-yourself-as-a-vending-machine-for-safety.html


Questionable self-defense technique #2--Wear blades or barbs inside your vagina:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1915454/rapeaxe_is_it_a_good_idea.html?cat=5

Could we have some better options maybe? Pretty please?

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I seem to be dragging my feet (and all my other extremities) a little bit re: the poltergeist article (and pretty much everything else) I had tentatively planned to complete today, so I might not be completing it until tomorrow.

So if anyone has a little firsthand account of poltergeist activity, feel free to make contact (with me; not the poltergeist) and I'll try to include you in my article.

prayers for children, possibly blasphemous

Because possibly blasphemous is the best.

I'm not quite sure why I'm still up, though. Getting almost too bleary-eyed to type articulately. Plus, I have PMS. Plus, I'm not exactly convinced by my latest hair cut. BUT. That aside.

I'm here to say that my dog's newest lover is an entire bolt of fabric in a garish fake red velvet. I have the photos to prove it. Soon, I'll be blackmailing my own dog.

Also wrote a new designer vagina this evening, partly inspired by a childhood memory, although that sounds a little wonky, doesn't it.

Most especially though, I'm here to say that I have three poems in this fabulous, hideous, kinky new publication called Prayers for Children--and I find it so delightfully amusing that this mag. has a warning label advertising 'Queer Adult Content'. Woohoo! I love queer! So for the queer-friendly, check this out for sure. Lots of wonderfully provocative visual art and more.

As for my poems, the first piece 'Warm Milk' just so happens to be a selection from my upcoming chapbook FONDANT PIG ANGST (see entry below). Then there's a goth cheerleader piece. Then there's a different spin on Nellie Oleson piece. (I have several of these Nellie Oleson poems; another one of those is forthcoming in Columbia Poetry Review).

Anyway, this issue of Prayers for Children strikes me as very San Francisco (and I mean that very fondly) and I hope I can wrangle up some stuff to submit for their next issue and maybe you can too. Next issue has an ugly ducklings theme; this issue has an initiation theme. Check it out here:

http://www.prayersforchildren.be/

awkward insertion of meat hook

If you were desiring a more peculiar tease about FONDANT PIG ANGST then what I offered below, you're in luck. You can now read a book blurb from a robot.

I came to Juliet Cook's collection, Fondant Pig Angst, for glimpses into what it means to be human. I navigated my way through the detritus of the living -- took silk in my mouth, floated in a vat of tapioca, awkwardly inserted the meat hook. Cook's voice has disemboweled my assemblage, replaced my casing's wires with warped strings. If I am to believe Cook's speakers, the state of being human is nothing more than a blend of saltwater and ambergris, all in a jelly binding. I would rather remain a robot than dine at this feast, replete with cockroaches, confections and endless conditions.

--Feldman the Robot

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In other poetry chapbook news & views, my 2008 Blood Pudding Press chapbook 'Planchette' (available via http://www.bloodpuddingpress.etsy.com/) has recently been reviewed by poet Sarah Sarai on her fabulous and multifaceted writerly blog called 'My 3000 Loving Arms' (Ganesh has got nothing on Sarah Sarai). Here's an excerpt from her review:

"While hypomania is a 'mild mania' I have heard in arenas more esoteric than Webster's, hippomancy to be linked to divination. Which brings me back to that early girl. Whether the blue pills are valium or more 'narcotic,' in the poem they serve as emblem of the 'secret bruise' Cook writes of, of the 'Dream of white fizz' and its powers.

I'm figuring 'white fizz' can nullify the bruise. Pills do what pills will do. Mind will continue to struggle, as will spirit, thank God. Hence, poetry. The fizz feels chemical, feels alchemical, and that's part of Cook's intention, to draw the reader into a mysterious, suspect but real world."

You may read her review in its entirety (including excerpts from some of the tome's poems) on the aforementioned blog, here:

http://my3000lovingarms.blogspot.com/2009/10/stroking-poem-planchette-by-julia-cook.html

I read her review last night and at one point Sarai mentioned that I'm probably 20 years younger than she is and offers some perspective upon the sensibilities of young women, the girl sitting in the back of the class with her goth and punk leanings, etc...

Then shortly after reading her review, I found myself gazing in my bathroom looking glass, plucking out silvers, suddenly obsessing that my new hair cut seems to bring out the proliferating gray in my hair.

It must be some kind of arrested development, I thought to myself, because it can't be youth.

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P.S. I've written several little animal-oriented articles lately, so I added an 'Animal Articles' section along with my other various little articles sections, in the lower right side bar zone.

Also, here's an article I wrote about artist Frida Kahlo:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2360792/filling_the_emptiness_frida_kahlos.html?cat=2

And here's a follow up article, wherein I briefly analyze several Kahlo paintings:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2367968/bleeding_all_over_the_landscape_a_view.html?cat=2

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Saturday update: Gold Wake Press has revamped the design of their website, adding more visual oomph, and allowing poets to contribute an image to accompany their e-chaps. I contributed a piece of an old collage with a piece of an old (hideously over the top) poem. If you missed my small sequence of six short poems , (B)URN, published by GWP some months back, why not check it out now in the context of the site overhaul?

http://goldwakepress.org/2009/09/11/juliet-cook-burn/

It's coming!

FONDANT PIG ANGST coming soon!

See the Slash Pine Press blog:

http://slashpinepress.blogspot.com/2009/11/its-coming.html

In other news, my new hair cut kinda makes me look like a cockatoo.

ever so slightly belated Halloween treats

Happy November.

I wasn't feeling very well yeterday (drank the wrong mixer the night before), so didn't manage to make mention here of a few little Halloween treats of the poetic variety.

Firstly, my poem 'The Paper Dolls' debuted at Abjective on Halloween. Abjective publishes one poem/story/text every Saturday and how delightful for me that my Saturday was Halloween. Read the poem here:

http://www.abjective.net

Secondly, I published a special Halloween edition of Thirteen Myna Birds last night, featuring the spookily poignant poems of one Matt Jasper. All six of his poems within this dark flight formation were taken from his recent BlazeVOX book, "Moth Moon", which is well worth a read. I am going to try to write a review of the book this month. For now, you can sample six of his wares here:

http://13myna.blogspot.com

Thirdly, I didn't get it together enough to dress up as the Log Lady or much of anything else for Halloween, but I did wear a lovely black dress, glittery witch stockings, witch shoes, a macabre necklace--and I watched a horror movie.

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Furthermore, I wrote an article about DIY publishing and Blood Pudding Press for the latest edition of local Columbus Ohio magazine The Outer Belt, so feel free to check that out, too, on pages 16-18.

And it's not too late to sponsor a local independent horror film. Read my pitch on that matter in the same issue, pages 30-31:

http://theouterbelt.com/

Monday update: Even more Blood Pudding Press (and small press galore) goodness; I participated in a Chapbook Roundtable, amongst various other small press editors, published in this month's issue of The Chapbook Review:

http://thechapbookreview.com/current-issue/

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Finally (for now), if you're in the market for a more superfical but true tale, feel free to read my silly little article about the time I accidentally bleached off my eyebrows:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2346872/the_worst_beauty_trick_ive_ever_triedi.html?cat=69