Scrumptious poet Margaret Bashaar wrote a new little review of 'Angel Face Trailer', a small Blood Pudding Press poetry chapbook by me & Letizia Merello (as well as little reviews of two other poetry chapbooks, too). Partake -http://pluckedfromogygia.blogspot.com/2010/11/micro-reviews.html
And then you just might want to scroll down to the post below this one to check out an article about my poetry written by Letizia Merello AND another little review of another one of Juliet Cook's poetry chapbooks written by Margaret Bashaar AND more!
P.S. To kind out more about Angel Face Trailer, look at its hand-designed paper format at the Blood Pudding Press etsy shop, here - http://www.etsy.com/listing/53420815/angel-face-trailer-by-juliet-cook-and%20/
And/or check out its free online version here - http://www.scribd.com/doc/33331342/Angel-Face-Trailer
***
ALSO, here is the Writer's Almanac (an etsy Treasury, including my FONDANT PIG ANGST) - http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4ce7190657cd8eef306b4a5c/writers-almanac
11/19/10
11/10/10
A Few Newish Treats -Sweet & Erotic
In case you missed it a few days back, it is not too late to partake of the fact that O Sweet Flowery Roses loves me (or at least loves three of my poems):
http://osfrjournal.blogspot.com/2010/10/juliet-cook.html
For even more hideous poetic delight, you might also like to partake of this succulent morsel of an article about me written by the scrumptious Letizia Merello and published on ARTEROTICA. The article is in Italian, but just in case you are interested and can't read Italian, Leti's English version shall be pasted below the Italian link:
http://www.arterotica.eu/3762-juliet-cook-poesia.htm
*
Tales of unordinary womanhood: suctions, injections, mutations.
An introduction to Juliet Cook's poetry.
Letizia Merello
Mine was another abstract series
some might label botched results.
I might call small mutants. A different kind
of before & after. Squirmy tentacles somewhere
in the midst of dry ingredients.
A new definition of zest.
(from Adornment[1])
Tentacles into the reassuring warmth of a kitchen. What sounds like an exotic recipe is something more: the writing of Juliet Cook, poet and publisher from Ohio. Juliet's poetry is run across by a desecrating vein, it's a per-verse dough in which the author delves into, shaping anti-lyrical and powerful forms, contaminated by a diversity of languages: the obsessive rhythm of assembly lines, the sophistication of wanton pastry decorations, the cruel precision of surgical instruments, splatter gore and porn from the '70s ... The result? A clear, surreal yet hyper-realistic world and a reconfiguration of the female sex: a revolution against the broadly accepted standards of femininity none of us is (unfortunately) immune to, taking place on the body's scene.
In addition to continuously engaging in a visceral poetic research, Juliet runs her own publishing house, Blood Pudding Press, a tiny vibrant piece of the U.S. underground publishing world, through which she publishes her own poetry collections, as well as giving voice to other authors with multi-writer projects and chapbooks. Particular attention is given not only to contents (the short manifesto published on the press' website, http://bloodyooze.blogspot.com/ reads: "Blood Pudding Press hearts (...) Icing bags, scars, deep sea creatures, love, lust, longing, burlesque, grotesque, flirty and at least a little bit improper…") but also to the package: each book is handmade by Juliet, who also personally takes care of the artwork or selects works by other artists. Another of her initiatives is the online magazine Thirteen Myna Birds (http://13myna.blogspot.com/), a constantly evolving "flight formation", consisting of 13 poems by different authors, which alternate from time to time in submission order.
In shaping her words with her carving knife, Juliet reveals the woman's body in its essential nature: a product not intended for mass consumption, despite the frosting and colored sprinkles (after all even vanity is a female prerogative).
Along her lines we discover the unknown - yet deeply set inside us - horror of our innards, dripping with juices and secretions, resonating on teeth and bone, but also a new flesh with new capabilities, mutant appendixes and indecent orifices. The recesses of the body, despite being unattractive in terms of conventional aesthetics, can not but arouse an irresistible magnetism, due to their own truth, soaked in the extremes of horrid and grotesque: the mixture dripping from Cook's cauldron not only works, but is beautifully intoxicating and thought-provoking . The body's factory eventually becomes the forge of self-expression: flesh becomes the mouthpiece of its own shameless hunger and inevitable necessities, and the instrument exposing the myriad forms of direct and indirect violence and repression to which it is subject. Beware, though: we're not talking feminism. Juliet shuns dogmatism, focusing on the consistency of inconsistency: "I'm interested in the conflict inherent in my desire to be perceived as consumable, even though I don’t really want to be consumed."[2] A sensitive force, aware of its fragility. A recent series of Juliet's poems, the Designer Vaginas, inspired by the recent fashion of vaginoplasty, or vaginal rejuvenation, focuses on one of the bizarre manifestations of the female desire for acceptance. Here is an example, Designer Vagina 5:
Her pink scalloped lips part, a meatier variety
of snapdragon. A strange but effective treatment
is meat tenderizer. Then she’s so deliciously numb,
it’s like tying phantom limbs to four horses & performing
surgery, as an audience applauds those delicately trembling lobes.[3]
Every image, even the crudest, and every object, even the sharpest, are essential to the creative process, which becomes a sort of digestion process: "Stuff like bukkake and bestiality don’t seem so troublesome to me anymore now that I’ve had my way with them by inserting them into MY contexts."[4] Juliet's Mondo Crampo (Dana Teen Lomax for Dusie Kollektiv 3, 2008) poems are an excellent example of this: an assembly of frames in which the female "womb" plays a lot of roles: in the middle of a feast, worn as an accessory, even transformed into a donut hole, in a whirl of improbable porn-food metaphors.
Contrast and non-conformity seem to be critical aspects of Juliet Cook's poetry, which faces the dichotomy of love and death in Soft Foam (Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 4, 2010). As she explains in her afterword, Soft Foam may be "(…) the calmed down version of a violent frothing, but it could also be something that is purposely sprayed into rifts and crevices to contain the gaping. To put it another way, it could be ebbing & flowing expression versus repression(…)."[5] Hot Water just talks about a "pearl-making ache" to which the tongue (the words, the longing) is tethered: a painful tension for self-expression, on the verge of complete abandon.
My tongue is tethered to this pearl-making ache.
This longing to escape the bivalve open & shut.
I can’t turn off the steam. Like abalone
in hot water when he flashes his eyes at me.
Flares his nostrils (please). Already attached, but
this multicolor seizes up my partial formation.
Shiny and gritty. The messy truth is
I want them both.
(Is this such an anomaly?
So dastardly?) To be so tempted
I’ve pretended the timing was off when I knew
my impulses were non-linear. Not about the nice fit.
Whole enough to roll between his fingers’
small circles, but not perfect spheres that might be strung
around a couth neck, an orderly solar system model.
My adornment is misshaped. Desire
to spill down his naked chest.
I don’t want to be fastened.
I want to stay open. I want to be crushed
by the entire wild weight of his body.
Emotional and sexual impulses are body languages, just like illness. A few months ago Juliet suffered from a stroke that prevented her from reading and writing for a while. Her Post-Stroke Poems are just another form of experimentation, though unwanted, of a female body which can't help but express itself.
Marmalade Glaze
Like a terrible pterodactyl necklace it bit,
sunk in and left me
bloody. Snorted thousands
of remembered words out of my system.
Appealing turned into appalling.[6]
For a complete list of publications and for more details about Juliet's poetry, please feel free to visit her website at http://julietcook.weebly.com/.
Letizia Merello has been translating Juliet Cook's poetry into Italian since 2008. Angel Face Trailer (Blood Pudding Press, 2010) is the first of Juliet's chapbooks featuring her translations, available both in print, on Juliet's Etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress) and online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/33347869/Angel-Face-Trailer.
[1] Juliet Cook: Horrific Confection, BlazeVOX Books, 2008.
[2] Juliet Cook: Designer Vagina Dentata, Delirious Hem (http://delirioushem.blogspot.com/2010/02/juliet-cook.html), February 2, 2010.
[3] Published on print literary magazine "Tits".
[4] Ibid.
[5] Juliet Cook: Soft Foam, Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 4, 2010.
[6] Published on online literary magazine "Horse Less Press".
"This article was first published in a slightly different Italian version on Arterotica http://www.arterotica.eu/3762-juliet-cook-poesia.htm "
*
Speaking of Soft Foam, check out this wonderful little review of that chapbook, by Margaret Bashaar - on Karen the Small Press Librarian's site:
http://karenslibraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/guest-review-juliet-cook-reviewed-by.html
*
ALSO here's a snippet from 'THE RAVENOUS AUDIENCE:
Becca Klaver interviews Kate Durbin'
"I also think there can be different types of vomit-writing that aren’t confessional in an I’m-revealing-my -personal-life-for-you kind of way. Puking or regurgitating something you’ve ingested culturally that is poisonous. The Ravenous Audience is like that. I think Lara Glenum’s Maximum Gaga could be read that way too. Some of Danielle Pafunda’s work, like her new series “The Dead Girls Speak in Unison.” The poems of Juliet Cook. "
Yay! I like Kate Durbin's description!
Read more here:
http://www.h-ngm-n.com/h_ngm_n-11/becca-klaver-on-kate-durbin.html
http://osfrjournal.blogspot.com/2010/10/juliet-cook.html
For even more hideous poetic delight, you might also like to partake of this succulent morsel of an article about me written by the scrumptious Letizia Merello and published on ARTEROTICA. The article is in Italian, but just in case you are interested and can't read Italian, Leti's English version shall be pasted below the Italian link:
http://www.arterotica.eu/3762-juliet-cook-poesia.htm
*
Tales of unordinary womanhood: suctions, injections, mutations.
An introduction to Juliet Cook's poetry.
Letizia Merello
Mine was another abstract series
some might label botched results.
I might call small mutants. A different kind
of before & after. Squirmy tentacles somewhere
in the midst of dry ingredients.
A new definition of zest.
(from Adornment[1])
Tentacles into the reassuring warmth of a kitchen. What sounds like an exotic recipe is something more: the writing of Juliet Cook, poet and publisher from Ohio. Juliet's poetry is run across by a desecrating vein, it's a per-verse dough in which the author delves into, shaping anti-lyrical and powerful forms, contaminated by a diversity of languages: the obsessive rhythm of assembly lines, the sophistication of wanton pastry decorations, the cruel precision of surgical instruments, splatter gore and porn from the '70s ... The result? A clear, surreal yet hyper-realistic world and a reconfiguration of the female sex: a revolution against the broadly accepted standards of femininity none of us is (unfortunately) immune to, taking place on the body's scene.
In addition to continuously engaging in a visceral poetic research, Juliet runs her own publishing house, Blood Pudding Press, a tiny vibrant piece of the U.S. underground publishing world, through which she publishes her own poetry collections, as well as giving voice to other authors with multi-writer projects and chapbooks. Particular attention is given not only to contents (the short manifesto published on the press' website, http://bloodyooze.blogspot.com/ reads: "Blood Pudding Press hearts (...) Icing bags, scars, deep sea creatures, love, lust, longing, burlesque, grotesque, flirty and at least a little bit improper…") but also to the package: each book is handmade by Juliet, who also personally takes care of the artwork or selects works by other artists. Another of her initiatives is the online magazine Thirteen Myna Birds (http://13myna.blogspot.com/), a constantly evolving "flight formation", consisting of 13 poems by different authors, which alternate from time to time in submission order.
In shaping her words with her carving knife, Juliet reveals the woman's body in its essential nature: a product not intended for mass consumption, despite the frosting and colored sprinkles (after all even vanity is a female prerogative).
Along her lines we discover the unknown - yet deeply set inside us - horror of our innards, dripping with juices and secretions, resonating on teeth and bone, but also a new flesh with new capabilities, mutant appendixes and indecent orifices. The recesses of the body, despite being unattractive in terms of conventional aesthetics, can not but arouse an irresistible magnetism, due to their own truth, soaked in the extremes of horrid and grotesque: the mixture dripping from Cook's cauldron not only works, but is beautifully intoxicating and thought-provoking . The body's factory eventually becomes the forge of self-expression: flesh becomes the mouthpiece of its own shameless hunger and inevitable necessities, and the instrument exposing the myriad forms of direct and indirect violence and repression to which it is subject. Beware, though: we're not talking feminism. Juliet shuns dogmatism, focusing on the consistency of inconsistency: "I'm interested in the conflict inherent in my desire to be perceived as consumable, even though I don’t really want to be consumed."[2] A sensitive force, aware of its fragility. A recent series of Juliet's poems, the Designer Vaginas, inspired by the recent fashion of vaginoplasty, or vaginal rejuvenation, focuses on one of the bizarre manifestations of the female desire for acceptance. Here is an example, Designer Vagina 5:
Her pink scalloped lips part, a meatier variety
of snapdragon. A strange but effective treatment
is meat tenderizer. Then she’s so deliciously numb,
it’s like tying phantom limbs to four horses & performing
surgery, as an audience applauds those delicately trembling lobes.[3]
Every image, even the crudest, and every object, even the sharpest, are essential to the creative process, which becomes a sort of digestion process: "Stuff like bukkake and bestiality don’t seem so troublesome to me anymore now that I’ve had my way with them by inserting them into MY contexts."[4] Juliet's Mondo Crampo (Dana Teen Lomax for Dusie Kollektiv 3, 2008) poems are an excellent example of this: an assembly of frames in which the female "womb" plays a lot of roles: in the middle of a feast, worn as an accessory, even transformed into a donut hole, in a whirl of improbable porn-food metaphors.
Contrast and non-conformity seem to be critical aspects of Juliet Cook's poetry, which faces the dichotomy of love and death in Soft Foam (Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 4, 2010). As she explains in her afterword, Soft Foam may be "(…) the calmed down version of a violent frothing, but it could also be something that is purposely sprayed into rifts and crevices to contain the gaping. To put it another way, it could be ebbing & flowing expression versus repression(…)."[5] Hot Water just talks about a "pearl-making ache" to which the tongue (the words, the longing) is tethered: a painful tension for self-expression, on the verge of complete abandon.
My tongue is tethered to this pearl-making ache.
This longing to escape the bivalve open & shut.
I can’t turn off the steam. Like abalone
in hot water when he flashes his eyes at me.
Flares his nostrils (please). Already attached, but
this multicolor seizes up my partial formation.
Shiny and gritty. The messy truth is
I want them both.
(Is this such an anomaly?
So dastardly?) To be so tempted
I’ve pretended the timing was off when I knew
my impulses were non-linear. Not about the nice fit.
Whole enough to roll between his fingers’
small circles, but not perfect spheres that might be strung
around a couth neck, an orderly solar system model.
My adornment is misshaped. Desire
to spill down his naked chest.
I don’t want to be fastened.
I want to stay open. I want to be crushed
by the entire wild weight of his body.
Emotional and sexual impulses are body languages, just like illness. A few months ago Juliet suffered from a stroke that prevented her from reading and writing for a while. Her Post-Stroke Poems are just another form of experimentation, though unwanted, of a female body which can't help but express itself.
Marmalade Glaze
Like a terrible pterodactyl necklace it bit,
sunk in and left me
bloody. Snorted thousands
of remembered words out of my system.
Appealing turned into appalling.[6]
For a complete list of publications and for more details about Juliet's poetry, please feel free to visit her website at http://julietcook.weebly.com/.
Letizia Merello has been translating Juliet Cook's poetry into Italian since 2008. Angel Face Trailer (Blood Pudding Press, 2010) is the first of Juliet's chapbooks featuring her translations, available both in print, on Juliet's Etsy shop (http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress) and online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/33347869/Angel-Face-Trailer.
[1] Juliet Cook: Horrific Confection, BlazeVOX Books, 2008.
[2] Juliet Cook: Designer Vagina Dentata, Delirious Hem (http://delirioushem.blogspot.com/2010/02/juliet-cook.html), February 2, 2010.
[3] Published on print literary magazine "Tits".
[4] Ibid.
[5] Juliet Cook: Soft Foam, Blood Pudding Press for Dusie Kollektiv 4, 2010.
[6] Published on online literary magazine "Horse Less Press".
"This article was first published in a slightly different Italian version on Arterotica http://www.arterotica.eu/3762-juliet-cook-poesia.htm "
*
Speaking of Soft Foam, check out this wonderful little review of that chapbook, by Margaret Bashaar - on Karen the Small Press Librarian's site:
http://karenslibraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/guest-review-juliet-cook-reviewed-by.html
*
ALSO here's a snippet from 'THE RAVENOUS AUDIENCE:
Becca Klaver interviews Kate Durbin'
"I also think there can be different types of vomit-writing that aren’t confessional in an I’m-revealing-my -personal-life-for-you kind of way. Puking or regurgitating something you’ve ingested culturally that is poisonous. The Ravenous Audience is like that. I think Lara Glenum’s Maximum Gaga could be read that way too. Some of Danielle Pafunda’s work, like her new series “The Dead Girls Speak in Unison.” The poems of Juliet Cook. "
Yay! I like Kate Durbin's description!
Read more here:
http://www.h-ngm-n.com/h_ngm_n-11/becca-klaver-on-kate-durbin.html
10/23/10
Happy Halloween Poetry
The Halloween issue of Thirteen Myna Birds has now gone live and includes a mouthful of hideous succulent creations by ten different poets, chosen by me.
Plus this issue also includes a new lighter color (but not a lighter taste of poison laced candy; hahaha)!
Have a look, have a read and feel free to let me know what you think.
Happy Halloween, you darkly delicious morsels.
http://13myna.blogspot.com
ALSO, in case you missed it and are indeed interested, three of my own post-stroke poems (plus a large assortment of other poetic goodies) can be partaken within the new issue of Horse Less Reivew, here:
http://www.horselesspress.com/HLR8doc.pdf
ALSO, in case you're interested in looking at some zombie photos:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=249573&id=842512457
Plus this issue also includes a new lighter color (but not a lighter taste of poison laced candy; hahaha)!
Have a look, have a read and feel free to let me know what you think.
Happy Halloween, you darkly delicious morsels.
http://13myna.blogspot.com
ALSO, in case you missed it and are indeed interested, three of my own post-stroke poems (plus a large assortment of other poetic goodies) can be partaken within the new issue of Horse Less Reivew, here:
http://www.horselesspress.com/HLR8doc.pdf
ALSO, in case you're interested in looking at some zombie photos:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=249573&id=842512457
10/1/10
Ooh la la October
October can often be a darkly delicious fun and creative month and I hope it is this year, as well.
To get started with the divination festivities, I added a new little temporary section to the Blood Pudding Press etsy shop - 'Halloween Yummy Horror'!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress?section_id=7409216
Soon, I will be working on my own Halloween costume.
And you?
To get started with the divination festivities, I added a new little temporary section to the Blood Pudding Press etsy shop - 'Halloween Yummy Horror'!
http://www.etsy.com/shop/BloodPuddingPress?section_id=7409216
Soon, I will be working on my own Halloween costume.
And you?
9/21/10
Whale Sound
Listen to Nic Sebastian read two of my poems in the wonderful online Whale Sound:
Half Moon-
https://whalesound.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/half-moon-by-juliet-cook/
&
Sink or Float [quick fix witch]-
https://whalesound.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/sink-or-float-quick-fix-witch-by-juliet-cook/
Both of these two poems are from my chapbook called Soft Foam which you can find out more about a couple entries down.
(You may also partake of the entry right below this one to hear/watch me read two of my own poems live as part of a TypewriterGirls Gone Furry event a few months back).
Half Moon-
https://whalesound.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/half-moon-by-juliet-cook/
&
Sink or Float [quick fix witch]-
https://whalesound.wordpress.com/2010/09/21/sink-or-float-quick-fix-witch-by-juliet-cook/
Both of these two poems are from my chapbook called Soft Foam which you can find out more about a couple entries down.
(You may also partake of the entry right below this one to hear/watch me read two of my own poems live as part of a TypewriterGirls Gone Furry event a few months back).
9/20/10
Typewriter Girls Gone Furry Juliet
Part of the Fabulous Typewriter Girls Gone Furry event this past June -this segment includes me reading two of the six poems I read - "Maybe My Muse Is a Devilfish" and one of my "Designer Vagina" s
Soft Foam/Dusie Kollektiv 4 now online
"I could be mute or I could be gaping."
If you haven't (or even if you have) read my poetry chapbook 'Soft Foam' in print, you may now partake online for free (as well as partaking of other Dusie Kollektiv 4 chaps.). Just click on the last name to partake of that writer's collection. Click on Cook for mine.
http://www.dusie.org/issue11.html
If you would like to purchase the print version for your very own, it is still available within my Blood Pudding Press etsy shop.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/53943144/soft-foam-by-juliet-cook
*
As well as always being available in my own etsy shop, a few more hand-designed copies of Soft Foam will also be available at AWP this year, as part of the Dusie table!
Also, very soon (maybe next week), two of my poems from Soft Foam will be read aloud by the darkly delicious Nic Sebastian on her wondrous online site, Whale Sound. Partake of Whale Sound readings here and consider subscribing!
https://whalesound.wordpress.com/
If you haven't (or even if you have) read my poetry chapbook 'Soft Foam' in print, you may now partake online for free (as well as partaking of other Dusie Kollektiv 4 chaps.). Just click on the last name to partake of that writer's collection. Click on Cook for mine.
http://www.dusie.org/issue11.html
If you would like to purchase the print version for your very own, it is still available within my Blood Pudding Press etsy shop.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/53943144/soft-foam-by-juliet-cook
*
As well as always being available in my own etsy shop, a few more hand-designed copies of Soft Foam will also be available at AWP this year, as part of the Dusie table!
Also, very soon (maybe next week), two of my poems from Soft Foam will be read aloud by the darkly delicious Nic Sebastian on her wondrous online site, Whale Sound. Partake of Whale Sound readings here and consider subscribing!
https://whalesound.wordpress.com/
9/17/10
Goosebumps
A Blood Pudding Press dark delight of Odd, Creepy, Hideously Yummy Vintage GAUZE has been chosen as part of this fun, Halloween-esque listing at etsy. Slurp!
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c93783fca4b8eef9825f5df/goosebumps
Some Blood Pudding Press chapbooks can be darkly yummy too, such as Planchette by Juliet Cook.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46003176/planchette-by-juliet-cook
You may also partake of Juliet's Scary & Fun Halloween Dinner Recipes if you wish.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2107065/scary_and_fun_halloween_dinner_recipes.html?cat=22
What will YOU be dressing up as for Halloween?
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4c93783fca4b8eef9825f5df/goosebumps
Some Blood Pudding Press chapbooks can be darkly yummy too, such as Planchette by Juliet Cook.
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46003176/planchette-by-juliet-cook
You may also partake of Juliet's Scary & Fun Halloween Dinner Recipes if you wish.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2107065/scary_and_fun_halloween_dinner_recipes.html?cat=22
What will YOU be dressing up as for Halloween?
9/15/10
Zombie-fied & Poetic
This past weekend was a uniquely good one, including hanging out with a wonderful poetic lady friend, Margaret Bashaar, attending a Yusef Komunyakka poetry reading also involving other poets and a powerful jazz band, and then heading to the possibly haunted but definitely creative Grand Midway Hotel in Windber Pennsylvania where I met quite a few interesting individuals, plus played a zombie part in a new movie. Slurp! A few photos below.
*
Haunted Hotel room -
*
Another Haunted Hotel room featuring Margaret B. & a dead monkey -
*
Me with Zombie makeup & dead monkey with bright pink floating out of head -
*
Me oddly smiling at the dead monkey -
*
Zombie-fied Juliet.
*
Haunted Hotel room -
*
Another Haunted Hotel room featuring Margaret B. & a dead monkey -
*
Me with Zombie makeup & dead monkey with bright pink floating out of head -
*
Me oddly smiling at the dead monkey -
*
Zombie-fied Juliet.
9/3/10
Doll Injection Mold Disaster
Intro (Post-Stroke):
Hello hello. This is my affair with an odd semi-personal, semi-creative blog entry, possibly to be linked to on Big Tent Poetry, which means that some of my content will need to be poetry-esque, which should not be an enormous problem, since I do indeed adore poetry. First I will admit that often times when I try to think of the name Big Tent Poetry, I accidentally think Pig Tent Poetry. I will also admit that it was actually a few months back that I had intended to write a blog entry that could be linked to by Big Tent/Pig Tent, but alas. I’m certainly not poking fun at Big Tent, by the way. It’s more like these days words and letters sometimes slip out of or into my head in a slightly different way.
Approximately seven months ago, I experienced an unexpected health issue, a Carotid Artery Stroke and something to do with words including Dissection, Aneurysm, and Aphasia. I’m not in the mood to explain all those details right now, but the Stroke affected my brain and other aspects of my life. It is harder and slower than it used to be for me to read, write, remember or memorize, especially certain easy little words that I first learned when I was a child. For months now, I’ve been trying to focus on re-learning and unfortunately, it doesn’t come anywhere near as quickly or easily as it did when I was a kid.
You can find out a few more details about my health issue by reading a short article I wrote a few months ago and posted on my Associated Content site, called Post-Stroke Survival and Sad Little Blues, here -http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2807396/poststroke_survival_and_sad_little.html?cat=70 . Also, I more recently had a new article posted on Associated Content, called Full Length Dissection, which is related to my continuing slow but sure Stroke recovery AND very recently assembling my second full-length poetry manuscript and submitting that to its very first source. I hope to submit it to more sources soon. I hope to do all sorts of fun and exciting creative writing stuff soon. In the meantime, please feel free to partake of my Full Length Dissection, here - http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5602556/full_length_dissection.html?cat=70
I’ve had kind of a rough, tough time lately. At the end of 2008, I lost my long-time full-time job for no good reason, had not gotten a new job for a year (despite applying for well over 100), but was at least receiving unemployment and still able to pay my bills. Then my Stroke happened at the beginning of 2010 and I was no longer eligible for my unemployment since I could no longer apply for jobs. Then, in addition to having lost my long term job and part of my brain power and other skills, I also seemed to be losing the love of my life who seemed to expect me to be fully recovered in just a few short months, even though it is likely to take a year or more to recover as best I can (and some people never fully recover; sigh). He told me he was tired of hearing about my Stroke and my poetry. I am lucky and grateful I survived, but sometimes I feel so sad I can hardly stand it. Aside from my extreme sadness, I am glad that my personality has remained pretty much the same. Along those lines, I am trying to continue focusing on poetry because I have loved and adored poetry for most of my life and still do.
Despite my love and adoration for poetry, I started my Associated Content site near the end of 2008, when I was spending lots of time looking into new jobs. One of my ideas about where to/how to work involved researching writing or editing gigs that might help pay the bills more than poetry. I started my Associated Content site, published more than 120 articles there from November 2008 through December 2009 and made less than 200 dollars from that. Still though, if I don’t have a real job and am making even a teeny tiny tidbit of money, I will try my best to continue to do so. I have only published 8 articles there this year– one in January, which I wrote and submitted one day before my Stroke; two others that were also written before my Stroke and initially published elsewhere and then added to my Associated Content site later; so only five short pieces were actually written post-stroke (including the new Full Length Dissection).
*
In Progress (Oddball Doll Poeticism):
I’m very pleased and happy that I am still so passionate about and turned on by poetry. I’ve always drawn my poetic words from various sources, including product packaging, TV shows, scholarly articles, pop culture, porn and more. Now, due to my own weirdly, slowly healing brain power, which continues to have a hard time remembering lots of little words without extreme concentration, that extreme concentration seems to be causing big, strange, oddball words and phrases to suddenly blurt out of my head. Is that globular outrage or globular adaptation?
Reading other writers’ poetry also sometimes catalyzes my own. A few telltale signs of another person’s poem working for me is if it suddenly makes me feel like shimmering, shivering, dancing in crazed shapes or masturbating.
My strange take on feminism is also oddly related to my poetry. You can read a lot more about that within a long semi-recent article of mine published as part of Delirious Hem’s ‘This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like’ forum here - http://delirioushem.blogspot.com/search/label/Juliet%20Cook. As just an itty bitty tidbit of sorts, the day after submitting that piece, I started wondering why I had picked such an ugly photo of myself to accompany it. In truth, the photo is not ugly so much as it’s a realistic representation of what I look like most of the time these days. I don’t gallivant around my house wearing makeup and hair shining products, but apparently part of me would feel more comfortable providing an author photo that is more gussied up than the typical me; an author photo that is strangely sexy. Why would I sometimes waste brainpower thinking about my appearance when I should be attuned to my words? After all, if I spend more time applying sexy makeup, then I’d have less time to write sexy words—AND I LIKE WORDS MUCH BETTER!
Even knowing that, I can’t seem to help sometimes thinking that I might have more power if I was more attractive. If people enjoyed looking at me more, then they might also be more inclined to read what I had to say. I often suffer from one of my silly little, ‘I am not attractive enough’ episodes. Even now, following a time in my life when I really need to focus on being attuned to my own health and wellness and well-being (including less sadness and stress, pretty please), I can’t seem to help thinking with some frequency that I am 37 years old and starting to look older too. For crying out loud, I could have lost my ability to walk, my ability to talk, my own personality! Why on earth am I dwelling on wrinkles and white hairs? Screw the damned Media inundation of fictive imagery related to what constitutes a desirable woman. Egads!
*
A Poem:
I have written some poems since my Stroke and within the poetry section of my computer, those pieces all start with the phrase ‘post-stroke’ before each individual title. I recently experienced a little worry that perhaps ‘post’ was not the right word. I then searched for Post-Stroke on Dictionary.com to make sure ‘Post’ was the right word and ended up reading some sadly scary information about Post-Stroke Depression. Sigh.
My recent poems are considerably shorter than most of my poems used to be and different in other ways as well, but then again, so is my brain – and deliciously enough, I really do not think the new poems are bad at all. They are mine, mine, mine, plus other than the very latest one, all of my other post-stroke poems have been selected for publication by various sources, starting with one in The Nepotist and more coming soon within Arsenic Lobster, Source Material, and Horse Less Review. Hurrah!
*
P.S. Did Big Tent Poetry think this blog post was globular or blobular?
Find out by clicking here:
http://bigtentpoetry.org/2010/08/sideshow-finding-the-words/
Thank you yummy Big Tent Poetry!
Hello hello. This is my affair with an odd semi-personal, semi-creative blog entry, possibly to be linked to on Big Tent Poetry, which means that some of my content will need to be poetry-esque, which should not be an enormous problem, since I do indeed adore poetry. First I will admit that often times when I try to think of the name Big Tent Poetry, I accidentally think Pig Tent Poetry. I will also admit that it was actually a few months back that I had intended to write a blog entry that could be linked to by Big Tent/Pig Tent, but alas. I’m certainly not poking fun at Big Tent, by the way. It’s more like these days words and letters sometimes slip out of or into my head in a slightly different way.
Approximately seven months ago, I experienced an unexpected health issue, a Carotid Artery Stroke and something to do with words including Dissection, Aneurysm, and Aphasia. I’m not in the mood to explain all those details right now, but the Stroke affected my brain and other aspects of my life. It is harder and slower than it used to be for me to read, write, remember or memorize, especially certain easy little words that I first learned when I was a child. For months now, I’ve been trying to focus on re-learning and unfortunately, it doesn’t come anywhere near as quickly or easily as it did when I was a kid.
You can find out a few more details about my health issue by reading a short article I wrote a few months ago and posted on my Associated Content site, called Post-Stroke Survival and Sad Little Blues, here -http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2807396/poststroke_survival_and_sad_little.html?cat=70 . Also, I more recently had a new article posted on Associated Content, called Full Length Dissection, which is related to my continuing slow but sure Stroke recovery AND very recently assembling my second full-length poetry manuscript and submitting that to its very first source. I hope to submit it to more sources soon. I hope to do all sorts of fun and exciting creative writing stuff soon. In the meantime, please feel free to partake of my Full Length Dissection, here - http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5602556/full_length_dissection.html?cat=70
I’ve had kind of a rough, tough time lately. At the end of 2008, I lost my long-time full-time job for no good reason, had not gotten a new job for a year (despite applying for well over 100), but was at least receiving unemployment and still able to pay my bills. Then my Stroke happened at the beginning of 2010 and I was no longer eligible for my unemployment since I could no longer apply for jobs. Then, in addition to having lost my long term job and part of my brain power and other skills, I also seemed to be losing the love of my life who seemed to expect me to be fully recovered in just a few short months, even though it is likely to take a year or more to recover as best I can (and some people never fully recover; sigh). He told me he was tired of hearing about my Stroke and my poetry. I am lucky and grateful I survived, but sometimes I feel so sad I can hardly stand it. Aside from my extreme sadness, I am glad that my personality has remained pretty much the same. Along those lines, I am trying to continue focusing on poetry because I have loved and adored poetry for most of my life and still do.
Despite my love and adoration for poetry, I started my Associated Content site near the end of 2008, when I was spending lots of time looking into new jobs. One of my ideas about where to/how to work involved researching writing or editing gigs that might help pay the bills more than poetry. I started my Associated Content site, published more than 120 articles there from November 2008 through December 2009 and made less than 200 dollars from that. Still though, if I don’t have a real job and am making even a teeny tiny tidbit of money, I will try my best to continue to do so. I have only published 8 articles there this year– one in January, which I wrote and submitted one day before my Stroke; two others that were also written before my Stroke and initially published elsewhere and then added to my Associated Content site later; so only five short pieces were actually written post-stroke (including the new Full Length Dissection).
*
In Progress (Oddball Doll Poeticism):
I’m very pleased and happy that I am still so passionate about and turned on by poetry. I’ve always drawn my poetic words from various sources, including product packaging, TV shows, scholarly articles, pop culture, porn and more. Now, due to my own weirdly, slowly healing brain power, which continues to have a hard time remembering lots of little words without extreme concentration, that extreme concentration seems to be causing big, strange, oddball words and phrases to suddenly blurt out of my head. Is that globular outrage or globular adaptation?
Reading other writers’ poetry also sometimes catalyzes my own. A few telltale signs of another person’s poem working for me is if it suddenly makes me feel like shimmering, shivering, dancing in crazed shapes or masturbating.
My strange take on feminism is also oddly related to my poetry. You can read a lot more about that within a long semi-recent article of mine published as part of Delirious Hem’s ‘This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like’ forum here - http://delirioushem.blogspot.com/search/label/Juliet%20Cook. As just an itty bitty tidbit of sorts, the day after submitting that piece, I started wondering why I had picked such an ugly photo of myself to accompany it. In truth, the photo is not ugly so much as it’s a realistic representation of what I look like most of the time these days. I don’t gallivant around my house wearing makeup and hair shining products, but apparently part of me would feel more comfortable providing an author photo that is more gussied up than the typical me; an author photo that is strangely sexy. Why would I sometimes waste brainpower thinking about my appearance when I should be attuned to my words? After all, if I spend more time applying sexy makeup, then I’d have less time to write sexy words—AND I LIKE WORDS MUCH BETTER!
Even knowing that, I can’t seem to help sometimes thinking that I might have more power if I was more attractive. If people enjoyed looking at me more, then they might also be more inclined to read what I had to say. I often suffer from one of my silly little, ‘I am not attractive enough’ episodes. Even now, following a time in my life when I really need to focus on being attuned to my own health and wellness and well-being (including less sadness and stress, pretty please), I can’t seem to help thinking with some frequency that I am 37 years old and starting to look older too. For crying out loud, I could have lost my ability to walk, my ability to talk, my own personality! Why on earth am I dwelling on wrinkles and white hairs? Screw the damned Media inundation of fictive imagery related to what constitutes a desirable woman. Egads!
*
A Poem:
I have written some poems since my Stroke and within the poetry section of my computer, those pieces all start with the phrase ‘post-stroke’ before each individual title. I recently experienced a little worry that perhaps ‘post’ was not the right word. I then searched for Post-Stroke on Dictionary.com to make sure ‘Post’ was the right word and ended up reading some sadly scary information about Post-Stroke Depression. Sigh.
My recent poems are considerably shorter than most of my poems used to be and different in other ways as well, but then again, so is my brain – and deliciously enough, I really do not think the new poems are bad at all. They are mine, mine, mine, plus other than the very latest one, all of my other post-stroke poems have been selected for publication by various sources, starting with one in The Nepotist and more coming soon within Arsenic Lobster, Source Material, and Horse Less Review. Hurrah!
*
P.S. Did Big Tent Poetry think this blog post was globular or blobular?
Find out by clicking here:
http://bigtentpoetry.org/2010/08/sideshow-finding-the-words/
Thank you yummy Big Tent Poetry!
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