POET HOUND writes about my POISONOUS BEAUTYSKULL LOLLIPOP

"I planted my oranges with teeth.
I offered my crush a piece of spiked fruit.
Next thing I knew, he was missing an arm.

Could this be transcendence in a new-fangled way,
or were we just consuming each other?"

from my poem Venus Tree, which appears within my 2013 poetry chapbook, POISONOUS BEAUTYSKULL LOLLIPOP, published by/available from Grey Book Press, here - http://www.greybookpress.com/index.php/site/ind/poisonous_candy/

*

Today you can read a new blog post/review of this chapbook upon Poet Hound, here - http://poethound.blogspot.com/2013/02/juliet-cooks-poisonous-beautyskull.html

*

A small snippet from that post -

"I can picture a woman trying to speak and what comes out is colored glitter, and her body gestures strange".  


Read the rest by clicking the link above. 

Poking through the Fabric of the Light that Formed Us: Songs and Stories to Read in the Mirror by Lora Bloom

“Tattered rags stretched over bones
Rising like yeast, stretching till implosion
Rising, grotesque
I am a virus’

(from Unanswered Question by Lora Bloom)

Blood Pudding Press is delighted to announce its second contest winning poetry chapbook of 2013, “Poking through the Fabric of the Light that Formed Us: Songs and Stories to Read in the Mirror”, with cover art including a uniquely gorgeous painting, “SummerLoveTangle” by Blueberrycrush (blueberrycrush.yolasite.com) and innards filled with fifteen poems by Lora Bloom.

Each chapbook is hand-bound with slightly furry binding threads and when you open the collection, Lora Bloom’s poetry is brimming with mind and body and blood based performance art spewed out and arranged into powerful words, sometimes dreamy sweet, sometimes dreamy scary, sometimes a one-of-kind fusion mix ensemble.  Sometimes an explosion of strange, oddly colorful brightness.

The chapbook can be purchased from the Blood Pudding Press etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress.

(Feel free to contact Blood Pudding Press editor Juliet Cook for specific questions or review copies.)

Best, Blood Pudding Press

ME ME TOO MUCH ME

I’m either too weird, too freaky OR too freaked out,  too passionate, too high energy, too talkative OR too quiet, too shy coming across as stuck up, too needy, too negative, too self-deprecating, to questioning OR not questioning enough, too mixed up.

I’m either too giving or sharing or caring OR too uncaring because I’m annoyed by over popular norms. To full of myself, too self-doubting, to up & down.

I often feel lonely, but don’t usually like sitting around in the midst of casual banter or relaxation (don’t even usually like the WORDS ‘casual’ or ‘relaxation’). Who has time to just sit around and relax?  I enjoy artsy indulgences and interludes and amusing indulgences and interludes and fun conversation and in-depth conversation – but maybe I’m too much of an in-depth goofball hybrid.

I get annoyed by people who seem to get bored easily, because I don’t understand that.  I don’t feel like any of us have enough time. I know we all have our up & down moods, but despite such mood swings, time always feels like a speed racer to me.  Thus I feel annoyed by people who basically just want to drink and watch TV during their free time (but I’m also aware that lots of people might feel annoyed by how I’m frequently online - blabbering, blathering, and posting photos).

To me, expressing oneself is more meaningful than watching random people express themselves on TV.  But to some people, expressing oneself to a personal extent is taking it too far (taking WHAT too far?) OR rather pointless (but couldn’t everything be perceived as rather pointless?  I think we all should choose to focus on what we feel strongly about, even if others don’t relate).  

I’m brimming with mixed feelings, about myself and others. I sometimes feel like I’m bound to mostly be by myself for the rest of my life; but I’m sometimes craving a really in-tense, in-depth relationship (but some people don’t even like the WORDS ‘intense’ or ‘in-depth).  I don’t like clichés, but what if I’m perceived as some sort of warped, screwball cliché?

I worry I’m too problematic by most people’s standards because I can’t drive and have no sense of direction (other than my own sort of quirky, artsy poetic directions) and I’m technically ‘disabled’, even though I don’t fit into all the disabled standards - or mainstream standards or normal standards or abnormal standards.  I don’t like when we’re supposed to automatically classify ourselves as married or divorced – as heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual.  I don’t like to automatically classify myself into any set grouping or category or terminology.  (Ditto for the poetry land classifications of academic or outsider, but I’m currently talking about that in a poetry interview, so I’ll save it).

I might be too much of a self-manifesto.  I might be too much of a self-ick-festo.  Relationship-wise, I might want too much and be filled with intense cravings, but not about to dive right in to someone who may or may not want me for who knows what reason, for who knows how long.  I might be too uncertain, too unsure, too doubtful (after years of being too quick to dive in for who knows what reason).  I don’t entirely relate to what I used to be attracted to – and I’m not entirely sure what I’m attracted to anymore – and I don’t think any one thing is entire.

I’m too much of a drinker for some people’s liking; not enough of a drinker for others.  Too much sex drive for some people, but not interested in a relationship that’s mostly just sex without more in-depth personal interest and affection and intense conversation too.  Maybe too flirty and too much of an open-minded sex talker, but sometimes I like that kind of conversation and don’t really like toning myself down, but nor do I like attracting men who think I’m all about potential sex. I’m into sex in real life IF I’m really into the other person; not some casual online sex banter.  Sometimes I like being flirty or talking dirty, but not when that seems to be someone’s only interest in me.  Maybe I’m too much of an information sharer.  Maybe I’m either too immature OR too mature. 

I wish to be attractive and appealing on a variety of different but interconnected levels - physical AND mental AND emotional AND the poetry zone but sometimes I worry that I’m not and never will be all of that for anyone – it’s either one or the other or none.

I’m too much of an odd ball mixed back to be anyone’s type on an in-depth level.

Me on Valentine's Day...

Dressed up as my new character, Zylphia "Black Taffy" Coo

New Post-Valentine Myna Birds Wings & Stings

New Valentine Weekend, Post-Valentine peculiarity brimming love notes and non-love oddities are now up at Thirteen Myna Birds.

Poems by R Jay Slais, Lisa M. Cole, Martin Willitts Jr, Corey Mesler, Kathleen Kirk, Laura Madeline Wiseman, Jay Snodgrass, Saul Hughes are here - http://13myna.blogspot.com/

“sugar, venom, and tears - a drop shivering - gentle gray head - grey-winged  - charcoal and fury - doom - thigh-high fishnets - anti-gravity shoes - sharpened stars - columns of pure air”

Fear

In case you missed my blog post about it a few days ago, I also turned it into a small article -

'What if you can't speak or move or nobody is there to help you?'-

http://voices.yahoo.com/what-if-cant-speak-move-nobody-there-12008351.html?cat=5

bloody balloon animal

Sometimes creative thoughts and projects and spurting possibilities become over over overwhelming to the point of exploding into... a bloody balloon animal? misshapen shrapnel? hot firecracker punching bags? sparks? drizzles? sizzles? swivel sticks with a cut in the middle?

I don't know yet, but my mind is sort of (over)working on a poetry related interview and body issues at the same time and is feeling tempted to morph/fuse the two and I think my fusion mix might work interestingly well.

Or it might be a repetitive outburst that I spend hours focusing on until I complete it - and then realize I've expressed this hundreds of times before.

How to Celebrate An Anti-Valentine's Day

A link to an older article of mine, 'How To Celebrate An Anti-Valentines Day'.

Despite it's title though, it's not very negative - it's more anti-standard-consumer creative.

http://voices.yahoo.com/how-celebrate-antivalentines-2489206.html?cat=7

What if you can't speak or move and nobody is there to help you?

Woke up thinking about death this morning - not in a goth, macabre, artsy way, but in a real life/death sort of way, related to myself and others.

When I had my unexpected stroke a few years ago (2010), although I had been feeling unusually uncomfortable the day before, the bulk of it happened while I was in bed at night.  When I woke up in the morning, my brain felt like it was working fine, but I couldn't speak or move.  One side of my body was paralyzed and I felt like I was trying to move the other side/to sit up, but I didn't get upright or even move myself halfway across the bed.

I couldn't sit, I couldn't stand, I couldn't even move my hands.

When I got out of bed, it was because a medical person picked me up and carried me outside to the ambulance.

The reason the ambulance arrived was because my husband called for it.

Suggestions have been made that the ambulance was not called fast enough (causing me to suffer more end-results, more brain loss). I don't no what to say about that, because even though I have a lot of detail-oriented recollections of what happened, I do not have timing-oriented recollections. 

I do know that he called my parents, left them a voice mail, and when my mom called back and asked if he had called an ambulance, he hadn't yet, so did it then. 

When I've heard that he should have called faster, I'm not sure what to think or say. Maybe he wasn't sure what was going on.  

Although I couldn't move or speak at the time,  I was mentally conscious and could THINK, but I didn't know what was going on.  I knew it was something unusual - I knew I was being ambulanced to the hospital, so it was health oriented and serious - but I didn't know I was having a stroke.

It's now three years later and I don't think about that morning every single morning since then, but when I woke up today I thought, what if I hadn't been married or living with someone else at the time that happened? 

I'd be dead.

Even if my cell phone had been right next to me, I wouldn't have been able to move enough to pick it up.

Even if I could have somehow managed to press a calling button and lean my mouth against it, I couldn't speak. 

Maybe/hopefully, after some time, I could have managed to dial SOMEONE and spurt out a bit of garbled nonsense sound, causing them to realize that something was wrong - but if that would have even been able to happen, it would have taken a lot longer than my (ex)husband took - and then I guess the 'time lost is brain lost' issue would have been all mine.

I know there's a lot of medical talk about how if you are experiencing this or that symptom, get yourself to the hospital or all 911 ASAP, but what if those symptoms happen when you're in bed/asleep and thus unable to seek out help right away - and then when you wake up it's too late, even though you're not dead yet?

Is that why so many people die of strokes? 

Because they have an unexpected stroke and live by themselves - because they wake up unable to move or  speak, with nobody there to help them?  

Even though I couldn't move or speak and was losing parts of my brain, it's not like I died right away. If I had been by myself, I wouldn't have died in mere minutes or even in an hour.  So...

Lying by themselves for hours, unable to help themselves, even though they want to and would if they could.  WANTING/THINKING/TRYING to help themselves but unable to make it happen.

Not dying in mere minutes, but unable to move or speak and so can't contact anyone to help - and so you spend your last hours lying by yourself thinking, 'Oh my gosh, what can I do!?!  Help me!  Help me!  What can I do?  What can I do? Help me' inside your own head for hours until your brain finally goes dead?

My POISONOUS chapbook created into a mini-book by Sit With Moi!

My POISONOUS BEAUTYSKULL LOLLIPOP poetry chapbook, recently published by Grey Book Press, has now been designed into an awesomely artsy mini-book, published by Grey Book Press-ish (created by Eileen Tabios/Sit With Moi!)

Here is part of her post  - 

You can also go to Blood Pudding's Etsy shop to see images of how she uses ribbon bindings.  Consequently, I decided that Juliet's mini-book also should have a similar binding.  Using the white fuzzy ribbon that came wrapped around the two chaps, I thus created the final front cover:

How neat to compare the real-size publication with its SitWithMoi mini-book version and see non-replication and yet authenticity. That is, when I look for images of miniature books, said books are often tiny copies of the real-life books.  Here, the cover of the mini book looks nothing like the real chap, and yet bears its own conceptual rationale for its design (of course, I'm not a biased critic here):

I should note that, in contrast to Grey Book Press being the publisher of POISONOUS ..., the publisher I named for the mini-book is "Grey Book Press-ish" (I live to amuse moiself....)

And you can check out the rest of her awesome creative offering here:

http://sitwithmoi.blogspot.com/2013/02/poisonous-beautyskull-lollipop-by.html

***

Then if so inclined , you can get yourself a copy of the standard chapbook sized POISONOUS BEAUTYSKULL LOLLIPOP in one of the locations linked below -

Blood Pudding Press - http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress?view_type=list

Grey Book Press - http://greybookpress.com/

New Collage Art

Happy Poetic February!

In case you missed these oodles of strange poetry goodies last month:

New Thirteen Myna Birds online lit mag update –http://13myna.blogspot.com/

New Blood Pudding Press chapbook – RENEGADE//HEART by Lisa M. Cole –https://www.etsy.com/listing/119192385/renegadeheart-by-lisa-mcole-new-2013

New Strange Girl Press online lit mag -http://strangegirlp.blogspot.com/

AND several of my poems within the Strange Girl Press also appear within my new poetry chapbook from Grey Book Press, POISONOUS BEAUTYSKULL LOLLIPOP, available here –http://greybookpress.com/

***

Coming later THIS month will be another new Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook:

Poking through The Fabric of the Light that Formed Us:
Songs and  Stories to Read in the Mirror by Lora Bloom