9/26/12

Thirteen Myna Birds are newly oozy-licious


the heart mutates - its bioluminescent veil - blooms with thumbnails - bruised, white-belly body - swing my legs over the edge

New(ly updated) Thirteen Myna Birds flock - http://13myna.blogspot.com/!

New poems by Joseph Harker, Rachel M. Newlon , Letitia Trent, & Holly Day.

(Older pieces still remaining by Paige Theriot, Sean McPherson, Adam Fieled, Michael Lee Johnson, & Misti Rainwater-Lites.)

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As of right now I have seven darkly delicious slots still open for the mid-October Halloween rendition of the hideous haunted Myna Birds flock. Delve in, dive in, and/or submit. (I like it even darker than usual for the October rendition of the flock and if you whirl your stuff my way, you'll either be accepted or rejected - so...)

9/22/12

Dear Anonymous,


I’m not really sure why I’m investing some of my time/thought/energy/effort into commenting upon this, since you are apparently just an anonymous fuckwad. I guess it’s mainly because I don’t understand the point/power/pleasure of anonymity.  What's the pointed pleasure of posting a rude random little comment under one of my blog posts? What the heck is the point of an ‘Anonymous’ person typing me a random blurb informing me that my art sucks and I should stick to writing?

Since you’re ‘Anonymous’ and I don’t know who you are, why should I CARE about your perspective on art?  As far as sticking to my writing, have you even read any of that?  Are you a writer? Are you an artist? I do have interest about other peoples’ perspectives on art and poetry if  they are artists or writers; if I am somewhat familiar with their tastes and style; if I like their art or writing and/or if I even KNOW the person. But you’re just an ‘Anonymous’ person who for some reason felt the need to inform me, “Those look terrible. Stick to writing” and “Your art still sucks”.  Gee, thanks a bundle for the impressive critique via anonymous feedback in the form of a random negative meaningless blurt.  Do you get off on randomly making fun of people? If so, get your vibe out and at least make fun of me more creatively and artistically.

To me, an anonymous negative blurb is akin to randomly making fun of someone you don’t even know as opposed to actually openly expressing your thoughts/feelings/perspectives in any valid or valuable way. It’s not even personal expression so much as a pointless barb in a general direction.  I have enough true feelings of pointlessness in my life.  I don’t need pointless anonymous uncreative darts added to the mix.

Of course my little creations are not going to appeal to everyone. The two pieces upon the blog post you commented below are not my idea of powerful art so much as semi-artsy fun little Halloween-y treats that some people might find amusingly enjoyable.  I like them; I took the time to paint them; I have one hanging on my fridge.  I’m certainly not forcing anything into anonymous mouths. Even when it comes to more imperative art and writing, not everything is going to suit everyone’s style – and I’m not aiming for mainstream mass appeal – and I sure as heck don’t care whether or not I appeal to anonymous blog commenting dipshits.

We all have our blurbs and blurts and jealous-streaked brambles. I sure do. But at least I attempt to express mine instead of anonymously blurting and carelessly spitting them out via random streaks behind people’s backs.

Making a generic little comment supposedly related to art or writing does not seem to mesh forth from true creative flow.  If you have input about and/or issues with my art or personal expression (or anything else about me) that you really feel the need to express, then why don’t you specify it and express yourself? I guess it’s not a valid issue so much as a generic little pinch.  I don’t like generic random pinches, so even an anonymous mean streak creep is receiving multiple paragraphs from me in return.

9/11/12

New POST-STROKE Interview



A new interview about my POST-STROKE poetry chapbook is now up at Poet Hound:



"I still feel lobbing and tentacular and unglued and steamy and unfurling!"

Blood Pudding Press Poetry Treats & Halloween Offerings


Added a couple new Halloween-esque hand-painted zombie magnets to the Blood Pudding Press etsy shop, with even more peculiar doodads to come soon!

The Halloween section of the shop also offers a hand-painted mini zombie gnome and darkly delicious poetry chapbooks, including the limited edition CARNIVORACIOUS collaborative chapbook by Suzanne Grazyna & Juliet Cook. 

CARNIVORACIOUS was originally published as a limited edition in 2008 - and its limited number of copies quickly sold out. Now as a special Halloween Treat, the chapbook is being made available again for a limited time - only until Halloween 2012!

Also stay tuned for an interview with me, about my 2011 poetry chapbook, POST-STROKE, scheduled to appear upon the Poet Hound blog later today.

***

For now, here's the Halloween Treats section of the BPP shop: 

 http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress?section_id=12101200

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“My dreams of a fever-heaving language, of vowels splitting o-
pen like egg cases trembling with beads. Distended tongues,
flared operculums, the secret enzyme strip tease.”

Juliet Cook/CARNIVORACIOUS



“What doesn't kill us makes us stranger. Cracked hatched and eyelashless.”

Suzanne Grazyna/CARNIVORACIOUS






9/9/12

WITCH BURNER

I do not desire to ‘go with the flow’ that causes me to feel like an unimportant back burner - that sinks me to the bottom again.

I do not desire to feel like a last minute MAYBE.To feel like I am not particularly important to anyone anymore.  Like I’m not very special or very valuable or very fun anymore. Like soon my back burner might become broken down burner might become irksome witchety grub burden.


I am fine with expecting the unexpected CREATIVELY.  I am fine with occasional changes of plans/changes of pace.  But when I’m starting to feel as if the majority of my real life plans are ebbing rather than flowing, then the word ‘go with the flow’ starts to seem worse, more witch sinking.

Maybe I should just give up on advance planning attempts, since they often don’t materialize lately. Maybe I should give up on in-depth friendship. Maybe I should give up on long term relationships.

Maybe I should somehow just get used to being a back burner – and turn myself into some sort of witchy back burner.  Some sort of poisonous witch brooming burnt cunt cake.

9/8/12

MIXED FEELING MESS (some thoughts that emerged during a recent poetry interview)


I was recently working on answering a series of interview questions related to my POST-STROKE poetry chapbook (Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 5, 2011). That chapbook was the first new poetry collection to be written and created by me after my stroke, which happened early in 2010.  I had a tough time dealing with questions about it at this point in time, and so I needed to write some of my challenging thoughts/feelings out of my system before focusing on the specific interview points of view.  I will share those thoughts/feelings here on my blog – and then later, when the interview is posted on the Poet Hound blog, I will link to that.

Within the last few years, I have been a mixed feeling mess, about myself and others and life in general.  It’s hard for me to figure out and decide what I ought to be focusing on (aside from my poetry and art stuff) – and it’s hard for me to believe that anyone will be deeply interested in and able to tolerate me, except in small, short term doses. From family members to friends and even to significant others, I feel as if I’m not right for anyone anymore. I feel as if some people seem to think that I’ve focused on my health issue too much; whereas other people seem to think I don’t focus on it enough and should be more diligently making ongoing efforts at increased possible recovery.  For example, my ex-husband was tired of hearing about it after just a couple months – but then the next man I became seriously involved with after my divorce seemed to think I didn’t pay enough attention to my health, as if I should be primarily focused on that for as long as it took, even if it took the rest of my remaining existence.

I want others to allow me to make my own choices and to like me for WHO I AM. 

Not for whom I used to be – and not for whom they think I should try to be, by spending the majority of my time and energy and effort on repeatedly having my brain tested and scanned and researched and possibly improved upon in the midst of never ending medical stress.

Well anyone ever again appreciate and love me for WHO I AM RIGHT NOW?

(It hurts me thinking that the answer is probably know – that I’m not a very likable person – that I’m not good enough or fun enough or otherwise appealing enough anymore.)

On the poetry side of the spectrum, I am well aware of and understand that there are all different kinds of poetry out here – that some people will accept your style and some people will reject your style – that nobody’s creative work is going to be everyone else’s style. Personally, I’ve never aimed for main stream appeal or bill fitting poetry or vanilla snack pack pudding poetry (thus, why my press is named Blood Pudding Press). 

Despite being well aware of different styles and different tastes (and not caring whether I fit into them all), I got a bit bummed recently, in regards to a note I received from a press I had sent a query too, about whether they might be interested in partaking of my full-length poetry manuscript. My query had included a brief note letting them know how the title of my manuscript derived from my stroke – and then I also sent them three sample poems. 

They wrote back informing me that they thought the subject matter of my collection was too specific and might not warrant mass appeal, however they wished me health.  Well, of the three sample poems I had sent them, only one of those had been written after my stroke. It’s not like all of my poems focus on the subject matter of health or brain disabilities – and it’s not like my poetic subject matter has an obvious approach anyway.  My poetic content and style has never been very clear cut content wise.  If because of that, it doesn’t mesh well with their press’s style, then fine.  But don’t assume that the bulk of my poetic content and style is related to my stroke, just because I had a stroke and revealed that part of my book’s title derived from that. 

After reading that editorial response, I felt as if maybe I should change my manuscript’s title and remove every tidbit of my health background from my credits section - because when it comes to my poetry, I don’t wish to give the impression of being predominantly health-focused – because I’m not.  I want to be creatively poetry-focused – because I am.


However, I also don’t want to downright ignore or avoid significant parts of my life, as if they never really happened or barely exist within my brain - or not focus on them at all within my creative realm.  Thus, I honestly have found my health issue rather tricky in real life AND in my poetry life. My health issue did not largely change my poetry reading and writing style (except for slowing them down) – but my poetic content is mentally/emotionally based and the health issue certainly had an impact on those parts of me.

I’m pleased that I am still able to creatively express my thoughts/feelings/emotions/ideas through odd oodles of non-mainstream poetry. If I wanted to be a different kind of writer who was predominantly focused on my health issue, then perhaps I’d move away from poetry and try to focus on writing a real life story about my issues.  But guess what? That’s not what I want to focus on right now.

Still though, along such lines, when an interview I’m participating in is focused on my stroke, I do find myself wondering if most poets might not even be interested in reading this, because they’ll think its focus will be more about health than about art – and thus it will be rather boring and something that they’re just not particularly interested in.

9/2/12

Blood Pudding Press is accepting submissions for its second poetry chapbook contest!


Chapbook manuscript submissions for this contest will be accepted from September 3, 2012 – October 15, 2012 – with winners to be announced within late October or early November (ideally, winners shall be announced circa Halloween).

Three semi-finalists and two winners will be chosen and announced. Each of the two winners will have their chapbook published and will receive 13 free copies of their chapbook.

Of the two winning chapbooks chosen, one will be published in late 2012 (most likely mid-December) and one will be published in early 2013 (January or February).

There is a $5.00 entry fee per manuscript for entering this contest; these entry fees will be used to purchase supplies for publishing and designing the winning chapbooks. The fee is payable to the editor’s Paypal account at Julietcoo@gmail.com (although this is by far the preferred form of payment, if you do not know how to pay this way or if you would like to make an alternative payment arrangement, you may contact the editor via that email address).

After paying your entry fee, please email your collection of poems to Julietcoo@gmail.com. Please write BPP Chapbook Contest – (your name) in the subject line.  Include your manuscript title, your name, your contact data, and a brief bio in the body of your email – and then your manuscript itself can either be included in the body or attached as a Microsoft Word Doc or Docx.

Blood Pudding Press will consider poetry chapbook collections of 10-25 poems (approximately 15-30 pages). Some of the poems may be previously published, but the collection as a whole should not have been published elsewhere before.  I will consider individual chapbooks AND collaborative chapbooks by 2 different writers.  See the Blood Pudding Press online shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress and the Blood Pudding Press blog at http://bloodyooze.blogspot.com/ for more information about the press’s sensibilities and design style. 

A bit more Blood Pudding press information can be perused below.

If you have any particular questions or concerns, please feel free to ask or let me know.

Best, Juliet Cook, Blood Pudding Press

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Blood Pudding Press enjoys offerings that ooze like creamy innards of questionable dessert products and discolored flesh. Visible nipples. Sharp things, shiny things, furry things, fun things, and unapologetic things.  Railroad track debris and purring pussies. Messy, but not uncooked. Strangely-baked, sexy, queasy, volatile. Icing bags, scars, deep sea creatures, love, lust, longing, burlesque, grotesque, flirty and at least a little bit improper...



The two winning chapbooks created as a result of the first Blood Pudding Press contest were ‘At the night, the dead’ by Lisa Ciccarello and ‘The Spare Room’ by Dana Guthrie Martin (the three runner ups were Nicole Steinberg, Donald Dunbar, and John Rocco). 

Other poets published by Blood Pudding Press have included Kyle Simonsen, Letizia Merello, Christine Hamm, Kristy Bowen, Kenneth Pobo, Michalle Gould, Misti Rainwater-Lites, Adam Fieled , Brooklyn Copeland, Gina Abelkop, Jenny Sadre-Orafai, Melissa Culbertson, Nathan Logan, Nicole Cartwright Denison, Peg Duthie, Susan Slaviero,  Rebecca Loudon, Daniela Olszewska, Rachel Kendall, J.R. Pearson, Jayne Pupek, Melissa Severin, Donora Hillard, Sean Kilpatrick, Derek Motion, T.A. Noonan, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Matina Stamatakis and many more. 

The two most recently published Blood Pudding Press chapbooks were ‘Letters From Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel’ by Margaret Bashaar and the collective chapbook, ‘Fainting Couch Idioglossia’, offering individual and collaborative poems by Margaret Bashaar, Kelly Boyker, Daniel M. Shapiro, Jessy Randall, Suzanne Grazyna, Kathy Burkett, Douglas Burkett, PoetJoe H. Gallagher, Juliet Cook, and Michael Smith.