Late June Delightful Poetry News

Utterly delighted that my poetry has been published in two different awesome places in two days – Diode 7.2 went live this past Sunday and includes one individual poem by me. ILK Journal oozed out its fourteenth innards Monday and includes two collaborative poems by me and j/j hastain.

Diode - http://www.diodepoetry.com/v7n2/index.html

ILK - http://ilkjournal.com/journal/issue-fourteen/

I am also currently in the process of working on a new collaborative poetry interview, assembling a new collaborative poetry chapbook to submit, and working on the next Blood Pudding Press chapbook, among other things.

I'm a little bit behind with reading Thirteen Myna Birds submissions, reading things other than lit mags and submissions, and emailing my friends (and writing new poems, and revising old poems, and submitting).

However, having poems in Diode and ILK outweighs the behind-ness.

And stay tuned for news about the new Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook coming soon – They Talk About Death by Alessandra Bava.

New ILK! (Including two collaborative poems by me and j/j hastain)

antibodies hidden in my hip flasks
three is more I
have three hips

swathe swaddle
swooning nevermore
inside this threesome of

nether region, tethered neverlands
tongue tied, speaking through
the eyes

A few lines from "Wonderland or Wanderlust", one of the two collaborative poems by  Juliet Cook and j/j hastain that are now up at the new Issue 14 of ILK (we are your kind).

Read more here - http://ilkjournal.com/journal/issue-fourteen/juliet-cook-j-j-

A poem of mine in the new diode! (Love Can Be a Chokecherry)

"She knows another nightmare is coming
when the bird sounds turn into dark moans.
Mounds of wings torn, ripped, pitched
until she wonders when did wings even exist?

None of this is real, so why give birth to more?
Somebody will sea the shells, but not the birds
tiny fetuses stuck on concrete, dripping beaks,
ants crawling in and out of the cracked necks."

from my poem, "Love Can Be a Chokecherry", now up at diode

Very excited and delighted to have a new poem published in a new issue of diode, which has been one of my favorite online literary magazines for years.

Read more here - http://www.diodepoetry.com/v7n2/content/cook_j.html

NEW Review of House on Fire by Susan Yount (Blood Pudding Press, 2014) at Cleaver Magazine

A NEW review of House on Fire by Susan Yount (Blood Pudding Press, 2014) is now up at Cleaver Magazine.

Thank you to Carlo Matos for writing this excellent review. 

Here are some parts of it:

In “House on Fire,” which is set apart from the other poems by its reddish, flame-colored print, the speaker says, “The house is kindling . . . The house is a pyre . . . The family aflame . . . Her father, a devil . . . Your house ablaze, get out.” These simple declarative statements capture much of the desperation of a family being held hostage by a father who has become a force of destruction.

 and

In the prose poem, “Notes on Despair” we begin to deal with the aftermath of these traumatic experiences, with guilt and/or blame. The speaker says, “She never worked as hard as her sister. Maybe that’s why it / happened . . . His teeth. His hands. His fist. His dick. She is feeding them. She is ten. She cannot tell.” The “she,” as I mentioned earlier, is the narrator herself, who is trying to rationalize why her father targeted her. She fears it might be punishment for her lack of industry as compared to her sister. But in “Almost Dark” there are no rationalizations, only anger: “and I squat thinking of ways / to kill him.” But by the time we get to the final poem, her feelings have become a bit more complex—blame and guilt seem to be beside the point: “I’m not sure what is more pathetic you trying to decide if the poem is blaming you / or her and you and I and you or I again can’t remember things or don’t care” (“Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking”). And the syntax is such that it is quite difficult to pin down just who “you” is. Clearly, “you” can be the father, but “you” could also be the speaker—a self-incrimination designed to force her to move beyond the past, to “Stop writing / about your father” (“The Oracle”).

Read the whole review here - http://www.cleavermagazine.com/house-on-fire-by-susan-yount-reviewed-by-carlo-matos/

And get your own copy of House on Fire here -https://www.etsy.com/listing/177826146/new-house-on-fire-by-susan-yount-2014?ref=shop_home_feat_4

Six Collaborative Poems by me & j/j/hastain at ALTPOETICS

Is the place in which you are engaged
full to you? Or are you another never
ending cascade? Bright red, dark red.

from The healing potion explodes, one of six collaborative poems by me & j/j hastain, now up at ALTPOETICS

here - http://altpoetics.wordpress.com/2014/06/09/six-poems-by-juliet-cook-and-jj-hastain/

NEW June Thirteen Myna Birds! - "raindrops fall like sugar skulls - down the swan-neck of a bottle"

The NEW Thirteen Myna Birds skull swan song flock has arrived! Offering poetry by Alex Stolis, Maureen Alsop, J. Strife-Burgos, John Thomas Menesini, David Rutter, and Tori Schuh all here - http://13myna.blogspot.com/

the crash of breaking glass - the sound the world makes when it stops spinning - straining pulleys - between the waters the river invented then erased - silvers and grays - weird angles everywhere - sunlit swan, the arms our words imagined - raindrops fall like sugar skulls - down the swan-neck of a bottle - the rain keeps drumming inside my skull

Poltergeist Infested Pig Blood Tirade

AM I DYING? AM I DYING? WHY
are they laughing as I'm bleeding to death?

http://www.menacinghedge.com/spring2014/entry-cook.php#sequins

Keep it secret or express it (which way will make it last longest?)

A few poem lines of mine from a long time ago suddenly popped out of my head. Lots of stuff from the past has been popping into and out of my head lately; I don't know why. 

I could think of lots of lines from the old poem of mine, but not its title - and I felt compelled to take myself to the point of finding its title. So I spent a long time searching through my computer poem stuff and paper poem stuff with no luck, until I finally realized I could probably just type in a line from the poem and my computer would find it that way and it did.

But in that overly long, oddly obsessive feeling process, I also happened upon other paperwork from the past, in my semi-organized, semi-unorganized paper land. Why did I find a past (special) letter from a past (special) someone in the POETRY section of my computer? I guess it had seemed as important to me as poetry, in the past.

I read part of it and started feeling weird about the ongoing past/present/future, emotional letter after letter after letter from people and times and experiences and mental connections that seemed significant, important, and meaningful for a time, but not anymore. Various people who seemed really meaningful in my past are now people I barely or NEVER talk to anymore. That's the case for everyone, right? At least in semi-romance land.

Which is why I'm pretty sure that nothing involving another individual will be meaningful forever (at least not in person - maybe in unorganized papers, unorganized boxes, unorganized computer files, or bits of unorganized brains that turn it into something different). Even if something seems extremely important in the present, it won't last. It's all going to end in one way or another.

Of course some things last longer than others. Like poems.

It is now after 2:00 P.M. I haven't eaten breakfast (or lunch) or started coffee yet. Finally found the old poem title though - "BOY/GIRL ORDER".

Here are a few lines from that old poem, starting with the three that suddenly popped out of my head.

                        The declawed kitty gets the heavy petting.

                        You don’t want to be a sick cat,

                        spitting your hairballs in public.  Just smile

                        and purr, hide the evidence in your purse.

                        Keep your transformation a secret, a pretty riddle

                        in a little pink pouch.