STEVE ROGGENBUCK

about steve roggenbuck

2011-09-10T19:39:00.012-04:00

im steve roggenbuck. im a 23-year-old boy living in chicago. i was a death metal drummer in high school and a poet after that. now i make culture in many formats. im a vegan. my heroes are walt whitman, the buddha, and lil b.

LIVE MY LIEF
LIVE MY LIEF is my main artistic focus right now. i post videos every weekday, along with other images/poems. i have ambitions to make it a high-traffic blog and an icon for post-ironic positivity.

BOOKS
i have two free e-books. DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM is 100 excerpts from my MSN messenger history set in helvetica bold. i am like october when i am dead is 15 minimalist plain-text poems.

VEGANISM
i've made a 9-minute video about veganism. i've also blogged about veganism.

+++
in 2010-11 i blogged about poetry. i also created INTERNET POETRY and Poetry by Emily Dickinson. i have several old music projects online.

i am on twitter, facebook, youtube, and google+. my email is steveroggenbuck at gmail.com. thank you very much.

blog archive (nov 09 - may 11)

2011-07-27T01:29:00.011-04:00

02 aesthetics and identity

12.09 notes on home alone 2: lost in new york
12.09 visual poem: "express / the / birds / if you can"

find my newer work at LIVEMYLIEF.COM

vlog lief: understanding my video blogging as poetry

2011-05-31T18:12:00.001-04:00

hello friends, i explained in my previous post that "poetry" as a label is not really important to me, although i do have fun applying the term where it seems exciting or new

i think my recent vlogs can be productively considered as poetry. beyond their focus on language, they also use styles and notably methods of certain strains in contemporary poetry

when i vlog i usually draft material for an hour or more, walking around in my apartment or outdoors recording myself talking. i usually have a loose topic to start with, but in my most recent vlogs, i don't explain anything directly or comprehensively. i'm just riffing off the basic topic with jokes and assertions (improvising poetry i think)

i started vlogging as a more exciting, less comprehensive alternative to my long blog posts. around the time of my vlog on facebook commenting, though, i realized i was most satisfied with my vlogs when i drifted to different topics and didn't pressure myself to really explain things. from there my videos have become even more free and open. i haven't really communicated specific, well-supported ideas in my most recent vlogs at all

these videos might be different from other poetry in certain ways. a text-only transcript wouldn't really capture the work. voice and gesture play a big part in creating the humor and surprise. yet it still feels like language and voice are the main event, as with my simple design template for DOWNLOAD HELVETICA... the main creative work is not really visual, even though there is a visual element

my vlogs are like poems compiled from automatic writing fragments, but the automatic writing is done orally and recorded with a camera instead of a keyboard.. or they're like slam poems that are performed only once, before they're written: improvised slam that i then cut up and form into poems. the revision process includes some new hurdles (it's harder to make small changes to a line, for example), but my same basic method of revision applies: cut out everything except what consistently excites me

thats all today! thank you dominate the web

toward a more flowing culture: lit 2.0 + the online "total work"

2011-05-20T16:33:00.004-04:00

this blog post is a complement to my vlog, "am i even a poet anymore?" /// in order to make the vlog funnier and more exciting, i sacrificed some of my clarity. this post is an attempt to make the ideas in the video clearer to anyone really interested in them. it also serves as a more complete introduction to my new website LIVE MY LIEF and what i'm trying to do there

M=E=M=E=P=L=E=X

ever since i started writing poetry, i've been very interested in style (voice, visual formatting, punctuation). all my favorite writers have had highly differentiated voices and, often, visual styles. in the case of gertrude stein, for example, it didn't seem to matter at all what she wrote "about"; it was almost entirely about how she wrote it

as i've suggested for a long time and recently explored more deeply, aesthetics (for me) is strongly connected to identity. i don't just like certain poetry books because they're "good." i like them because they're relevant to who i am, who i want to be, how i understand the world, or how i want to live. often the relevance (the "how to live") is usually in the overall style of a book just as much as the specific poems or sentences. it's a fluid voice or overarching design that suggests a personality or demeanor

there are a number of terms referring to this idea of individual texts and stylistic moves relating to larger ideas:

memeplex: my favorite of the terms, a "meme complex," a grouping of associated memes that are consistent and which support each other. "meme" here is understood to be a unit of culture and/or anything that is spread by imitation (stylistic moves included). a poem is a meme, a slogan like "live my lief" is a meme, stylistic choices like using all lowercase in conversation is a meme

(personal) brand: generally associated with business. "personal branding" is acknowledged as important by a lot of bloggers who strive to unify their tone, design, and ideas. successful brands are often centered around a mission and have been described as belief systems. cultural/lifestyle brands aim to embody a way of life or a cultural myth/archetype. it's understood that voice and design/style elements contribute to the effect of a brand

discourse: usually on a broad/social level—there are different discourses based on social class, gender, and subcultures. Discourses have been described as "the combination of language with other social practices (behavior, values, ways of thinking, clothes, food, customs, perspectives) within a specific group," or "ways of being in the world" (source: wikipedia, too lazy to find the original articles at the moment)

ethos: usually about presentation. how do you use your appearance, language, demeanor, dress, and other things to affect the impression you give, your ethos, in a certain situation?

stance: used in a book i read by harold bloom to discuss a poet's overall philosophy and how that is reflected in their specific stylistic moves

there are also other things like the sapir-whorf hypothesis and liguistic determinism that draw connections between language usage and worldview

JACKIN MY SWAG: THE "TOTAL WORK"

in 2007 i read the first two volumes of poems for the millennium, which contain a wide range of international experimental poetry. an idea mentioned several times in PftM, which has continued to excite me, is that of a "total work"—an all-encompassing Book—usually a hybrid between overt literature and other forms of writing or even visual art

along with that, i've been talking to stephen dierks and some other friends about my ambition to create a "magnum opus" as my next book: 400 to 1,000 pages, with many diverse forms, maybe including essays, poems, and image macros. something excites me about creating a gigantic book where i'm free to include anything i want—something that has little structure or precondition except being what i like

when planning this project, i had to acknowledge that a single book might not be the best medium for an expansive "total work" in 2011. so i considered building a website that would be the main work itself—not just a promotional tool for the "actual books." the more i considered this, the more i liked it

after a certain point, i got the idea that my ideal online "total work" would have the depth of something like hipster runoff: multiple content streams, all updated regularly; images created/edited specifically for the project, not just stock photos; podcasts, or probably videos in my case; ongoing themes/memes and characters; and a "applied" component, including news or cultural criticism as a side aspect of the work (past "total works" have blended poetry and journal/diary forms, poetry and philosophy, etc.)

i haven't quite achieved that broadness yet with LIVE MY LIEF, but that's what interests me the most as a writer/creator right now: creating an active, varied, and prolific source of culture, allowing me to fully develop and enact a memeplex or a set of memeplexes

LIT 2.0: FROM BROADCASTING TO INTERACTING

"i am living out the logical conclusion of my books" - john wieners

whether or not you think poetry has adapted itself to the internet in general (with online lit mags, sites like htmlgiant, ebooks, and more writers with blogs), i'll assert that poetry has not really adapted to social media in any major way beyond that. and maybe it doesn't need to, but i'm curious what could be achieved if it did

i've praised @horse_ebooks, @tao_lin, and @hipsterrunoff for their twitter streams, which have a lot of humor and stylistic continuity. but even those accounts neglect the two-way interaction that characterizes a lot of social media. i mean that none of those accounts will respond to your tweets: it's still just one-way publishing, a writer broadcasting out to an audience

this is the case for a lot of other prominent sources, too. htmlgiant has a twitter account that just sends out links and occasional 1-liners. my own work with @internet_poetry has been kind of passive, i'll admit, just linking to new posts (look for that to change in the future—i'm working on some new stuff for IP)

all this still resembles web 1.0 more than web 2.0. it's still just individual writers or magazines broadcasting their writing and links one way, out to everyone else. if you're not familiar with the distinction between web 1.0 and web 2.0: "a web 2.0 site allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to websites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content that was created for them" (source)

i'm interested in further exploring the potential of things like my energetic facebook presence, which my classmate jessica dyer has referred to as "social making": social interaction/exchange as part of the cultural experience that i work to create. (whether you call it "literature" or not, it seems indisputable that it's culture at least, including the way you talk, the mood you pass along, etc)

this idea excites me—synthesizing literature and everyday communication. but why? what is at the core of my excitement?

I WANT TO BE AN ACTIVE PART OF YOUR LIEF

maybe it's because i grew up with the internet and social media, or maybe it's something else about my disposition or values, but i want my writing (/ my memeplex) to be an active, integrated part of (at least some of) my readers' lives

i've made comparisons between my ebook pageviews and the average press run for poetry books, suggesting the value of an online presence for a writer.. but i think there is an even better reason to establish a presence online: you can talk to your readers every day. you can build two-way relationships with them. you can help them and matter to them in a much more integrated way, while still radiating the same memeplex and also gaining attention for your more overtly literary projects

i think it's weird that it took me years to find any contemporary poets i like, because really, contemporary poets have great advantages over dead ones. if i'm inspired by walt whitman's poetry, i can't even tell him about it. i can't send him a tweet, an email, or a comment about it. we can't have an extended conversation about anything in his book. all i have is the static text from 150 years ago

living writers can offer a lot more than static texts. they can offer a living (if inevitably inconsistent) incarnation of the poetry/memeplex. this might sound kind of involved or difficult to produce, but i don't think it is; it just requires transparency. i'm already expressing myself in my poetry; now i can just give my audience myself more broadly and openly, beyond the poetry as such

i've been trying harder to respond to every tweet, every wall post, every email, and every comment i get, although i still miss some because facebook notifications only count up to 99. maybe this isn't the life for many other writers at the moment, but i really enjoy it. i want to be your poet. i want to give you something really valuable and ongoing. i want to inspire you and talk to you. in many cases, i really want to be your friend

AM I EVEN A POET ANYMORE?

when i saw lil b's video "am i even a rapper anymore," it really resonated with me because i've been feeling the same things about poetry. i've felt alienated by experiences with the literary world—lit journals, some teachers and feedback in my mfa program—and i've thought, "if people are so upset that i'm writing poetry like this, maybe it's not poetry. maybe i'm not really a poet"

i've tried to weigh the different options, calling myself a "poet" versus saying i'm a designer or something. much of the difference is just on how the work gets distributed (books versus gallery showings, etc) and what kind of publicity it can get (big helvetica might be boring as design but shocking as poetry)

my current sense is that "poetry" and opposing categories are ultimately arbitrary distinctions within culture or just life. what we think of as "poetry" (as opposed to other artforms) is so dependent on historical details, i don't think it can accurately divide up our human activity

poetry was originally oral and memorized. then it started to get written down. eventually poets started considering the visual arrangement of the written poem, and most poets today acknowledge the validity of breaking linea for visual reasons. then some people pushed it further and created visual poetry. still today it's generally expected for the poem to be "on the page" and something that can be read aloud at a reading. we still treat poetry like a script for something oral, but we're also open to its visual appearance—but only to a certain degree, rarely specifying fonts or letter spacing, rarely adding overtly graphic elements

it seems like a weird combination of expectations and norms that mainly exist just because that's what we inherited from the past. if you look at the actual texts, prose poetry and flash fiction are often indistinguishable, and visual poetry and graphic design are often indistinguishable. these categories are so sloppy i really don't know how they've managed to cause me so much anxiety: should i refer to myself as a "poet"?? what do you call something broader, a "cultural artist"? maybe just a "blogger," when it's put in the online context?

there are different critical traditions with each artform too, but i'm not deliberately engaging with many specific traditions. i write so that non-poets can appreciate mostly everything there. as poncho peligroso wrote, "i want people who never read poetry to read my work." i'm just engaging with people and with culture broadly. i'm trying to figure out a way to live that i hope will help people live and enjoy their lief in 2011, engage with (post)ironic culture enjoying things like justin bieber, and do things in their life and not feel overwhelmed or worried a lot

thank you for reading this. thank you caring enough about my writing to come here. i really appreciate that a lot

check into my memeplex like an effing hotel. follow me on twitter + friend me on facebook

minimalist blog design: hire me

2011-05-03T18:20:00.000-04:00

hello friends, how are you doing? my presence on this site has been kind of sparse as i've been channeling most of my energy into LIVE MY LIEF. i encourage you to check that site out if you haven't, as i'm gradually growing it into my main site

in this post i want to make a formal announcement that i'm making myself available to do paid web design starting this month

over the past year, i've created a bunch of websites and become pretty familiar with blogger, tumblr, and wordpress. i specialize in minimalist design, usually with a heavy use of helvetica and other clean/bold san-serif fonts (although i'm open to different platforms and styles)

for a sample of my blogger (blogspot) designs, i've designed the blog you're currently on and richard chiem's blog (pic below), as well as some static websites like my click-through (e-)chapbook from 2010

for a sample of my tumblr designs, i've made my tumblelog LIVE MY LIEF (pic below), as well as modifying another theme for INTERNET POETRY and adding endless scrolling

for a sample of my wordpress designs, i've made my click-through 2011 (e-)book (pic below), as well as another site using a grid-like layout that i never launched

options, details

if you like, i can help you design across all your internet presences, carrying design ideas across from a main blog onto a secondary tumblelog or an e-book and your twitter profile and even your profile pictures, etc. i can work on your existing designs or build new sites for you

i can also help with photo editing, usually making pictures brighter and clearer. i'm even open to designing printed posters, stickers, book covers, business cards, book layout, or business cards. i can also do copy-editing if your project has a lot of text. (on my own sites, i don't always use "proper" grammar and formatting, but i have three years experience in a writing center, so i do know the rules.)

i'm also knowledgeable about a lot of web mechanics like social media buttons, feeding your blog updates to twitter and facebook, setting up domain names, setting up subdomains (http://subdomain.yourwebsite.com), and url redirects

pricing, etc

my girlfriend was showing me someone in her social circle who designs blogspot blogs for $200 each, with some cheaper options for smaller jobs. since i'm still beginning, i'd gladly take on a few people at $50/blog. and if you have a smaller job idea, like just a header image or logo, i could do it for $20 (negotiable/depending); if you have a really complex/big job, i might ask for more than $50

if you're interested, email me and we can work out the details and payment and everything one-on-one: steveroggenbuck (at) gmail.com. if you take me up on this, i promise i will work hard to make your blog(s) look really good, and i will keep working with you until you really like it, even if it takes longer than my past blogs have

i also want to say: i'm personally appreciative of anyone who takes me up on this, because i'm still trying to figure out my financial situation for the summer and whether/how i can afford to go on a poetry tour with poncho peligroso (!). i'll probably end up getting a part-time job, but i'd love if i could pull together some money doing something i love to help people in my internet community who i love

thank you so much friends :) i love you. please leave me a comment or a wall post if we haven't talked in a while. i try to keep up with everyone, but i know i forget people occasionally. stay me with me. help me grow something out of our <3

three video poems

2011-04-26T18:14:00.002-04:00

each of the following videos have been posted at my tumblelog LIVE MY LIEF in the past couple weeks, but i wanted to collect them here and give an update for readers who only check this blog. as i've been mentioning in various places, i'm shifting my internet presence(s) around a little and stil deciding how i want to release my creative content from here forward, and how much to integrate that with my blogging about poetry. thank you all so much for being interested in what i'm doing

FACEBOOK COMMENTING AND WALL-POST FLARF

ROLLERCOASTER DAY 2011: R U GOING??

VIDEO RESPONSE TO HOTTIE JUST FARTED BY CTFXC

introduction to flarf tweeting and getting followers on twitter

2011-04-14T20:31:00.000-04:00

last week i video blogged about microflarf and mentioned some people who are flarf tweeting. this week i'm breaking down the techniques of flarf tweeting in a comprehensive video guide. in this video i cover the different twitter searching techniques, then i cover youtube and other sources for flarf tweets, and i end with an explanation of how to get followers for a flarf tweeting account. music by merchant ships, owl city, robinson, and kanye west

introduction to microflarf

2011-04-08T18:49:00.000-04:00

flarf is a well established tendency in contemporary poetry. with my book DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM and much of my activity since, i've specifically focused on flarfing single lines and presenting them alone, which i have called microflarf. in microflarf, even more attention is placed on the tone and cultural references of individual source texts. microflarf is emerging as a viable trend on social media platforms such as twitter and seems to be used even by major players such as @horse_ebooks

owl city fan video

2011-04-05T12:40:00.000-04:00

macro: "fuck you and your sites"

2011-04-04T12:32:00.000-04:00

break free from the shackles of word documents

2011-04-01T20:41:00.002-04:00

poetry was originally an oral form and has appeared in various other forms through history, but it's currently dominated almost completely by word-document and printed-page poems, small black text on a white background. i think there are many other possibilities that deserve to be taken seriously including jpegs and video

this is my first time making a long poetry discussion video like this. please let me know if video is a good format or if i should stick to my long informative blog-post format instead. THANK YOU FRIENDS

related posts /

+ raising poetry to the level of internet culture
+ doctrine on internet poetry
+ two image macros
+ three text messages by brett gallagher

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2011-03-31T12:46:00.001-04:00

"feel good from the songs and the coffee and thinking about someone you like" - michael inscoe, don't die alone

fashion / tao lin lookbook photo
music / justin bieber mashups
music / "head strong" by linkin park
nonfiction / hipsters, poetry, and cultural change
publishing / guerilla novel distro in new york city
publishing / sator press selling a print book for "pay what you want"
reading / at cool dogs: me, me again, stephen dierks, m kitchell, shaun gannon
tweet / by @11wheeltwet
tweet / by @a_penis_
tweet / by @aurist
tweet / by @christiansmag
tweet / by @horse_ebooks
tweet / by @justinbieber
tweet / by me :)
tweet / by @michaelinscoe
tweet / by @moagley
tweet / by @ponchopeligroso
tweet / by @preteentious
tweet / by @teensinlove
tweet / by @tree_bro
tweet / by @toastbeard
tweet / by me guest-tweeting on @vomitweek
tweet / by @wolfpupy
writing / image macro by omar de col
writing / image macro by alexander j. allison
writing / image macro by aaron steely
writing / viral justin bieber image macro
writing / pop serial image macros
writing / image+writing combos by ryan hume
writing / iphone poem by aaron steely
writing / my new poem "song of myself"
writing / new project by brett gallagher
writing / poem by jess dutschmann
writing / poem by poncho peligroso

website update

hello friends, how are you doing

i really appreciate all your comments lately and i appreciate everybody helping out with #poetrybyemilydickinson (info here), which is still wide open for submissions so keep tweeting :) thank you very much!

ok i have an update: this site will be expanding soon, and i'm shifting my hosting to wordpress.org kewl :) i think my url will stay steveroggenbuck.com, but i'm going to add another content stream, which i don't think i can do with blogger

the new site will have a stream of my creative content ("poems" if you like, but most often jpeg or video format), along with a blog stream, which will continue the work of this site and maybe expand more into discussing veganism and other things. it will essentially be a merger between my tumblr and this blog

also when i get the site up i'm going to start releasing creative content much more frequently. i'm going to try posting five days/week with either a jpeg, a video (lit vids / liteos, the way of the future bb, it's coming), or a text piece. i'll probably keep blogging at about the same rate, once or twice/week

posting five days/week maybe seems like a lot, but it only took me about half a year to make my 150 helvetica poems, so the main difference is just that i'm releasing things as a stream, not all at once. as i've stated, i think this model will help get more readers for each specific piece and help build a subscriber base for my creative content

i have some exciting blog posts on the horizon and some collaborative projects (read a preview of one). thank you so much for caring about my writing. i mean that + i am amazed at how many people care about what i am doing now. thank you

i love u / love my friends / love my fans / love u until i die / never stop lovin / Just love u add me on facebook if you haven't already

bonus links: recent press + fan art

htmlgiant post about me with 75 comments / philolzophy post about me / interview of me with noah cicero / review of dhff.com in the link / spanish review of dhff.com by jacob steinberg / tweet by @a_creep / dhff.com advertisement by michael inscoe / critical tweets by andrew edminister / beachsloth on poetry by emily dickinson / stacey teague about our poetry community and kewl writers

guerilla distribution of my 2010 poems by david sorensen / jpeg by ben brooks / jpeg by nick / video montage of my 2007 poem by rachel milan richards / video montage of my 2010 poems by brendan griffin / helvetica poems translated to chinese and back by becky lang / helvetica poem remix by michael inscoe

#boykittens / essay by grant leuning / beachsloth coverage / discussion by marcus speh / shit talking by someone, i don't remember who

introduction to dada and the relationship to zen buddhism

2011-03-24T17:20:00.001-04:00

"One need only utter a statement for the opposite statement to become DADA" - andré breton

dada is well known as an (anti-)art movement from around world war 1, one of the more international modernist movements. there are a lot of funny and interesting things dadaists did in my opinion. they performed in funny cardboard outfits. they did sound poems and cut-up poems. in general they used art to make a mockery of art

of couse the dada movement had a lot of historical particulars, but for me the spirit of dada is pretty basic and will live forever. the spirit of dada is to reject everything / destroy everything / make fun of everything / not stand for anything. "'Peace at any price' is the slogan of DADA in time of war, while in time of peace the slogan of DADA is: 'War at any price'" (andré breton)

of course dada was an enactment of a certain extreme, which allowed it to become pretty iconic, and it has had pretty big effects. things like duchamp's fountain continue to provoke people to reconsider what we mean by "art." but i also think the dada spirit, or something similar, comes out in more subtle ways in almost all writing and art that i like

dada and zen buddhism

"We must cease to consider these dogmas: morality and taste." - andré breton

"When you can do everything, whether it is good or bad, without disturbance or without being annoyed by the feeling, that is actually what we mean by 'form is form and emptiness is emptiness.'" - shunryu suzuki

dada courage

the month i first read tristan tzara's dada manifestoes was the month i committed myself to veganism. i vaguely believed in the ideas of veganism for a long time before that, but i think reading about dada helped me solidify an aesthetic/worldview that encouraged me to reject mainstream opinions like "veganism is too extreme" or "veganism is too hard." it gave me an aesthetic that encouraged me to just do things that other people were too lazy or afraid to do

up through today i think the most distinctive aspects of my online writing project have been possible because of this foundational courage. after a certain point i felt empowered and confident enough to say all my writing would be free online and in the public domain. at an even later point i had the courage to forego publishers all together and try to use social media almost exclusively as my means of distribution

poetry as an argument against formulas for poetry

one year of my high school i engaged in a long campaign where my art teacher insisted "no satanic artwork babie!" while she allowed other religious content. in protest, every week i turned in drawings with "666" and pentagrams, not because i actually believed in it but because i wanted people to be free to believe in it (solidarity?), or just free to have fun drawing what they want

i think that push toward freedom is often the kind of motivation behind dada. it looks meaningless maybe, but i think the fact that some of an era's most talented writers would choose to create "meaningless" texts is its own kind of meaning

confusing other people + guerilla surrealism

in spring 2009 i took a literature class where a lot of my classmates made claims about what poets should do and what poems need to do, and my fire became kind of rekindled for dada. this was when i started hanging fliers around my campus that had single words or phrases like "corn" in 200-point font

i also participated in a couple flashmobs at my school and did some other things like placing foreign objects in grocery stores such as a land-line phone receiver

on twitter, present day, i often tweet lines that i took from search results or other twitter profiles. a lot of people misread my flarf tweets as honest communication and respond to them, and sometimes i retweet them. i created a justin bieber fan twitter account with poncho peligroso, 2011 poet laureate, largely so i could do one-off tweets that shock and perplex my core belieber fanbase

dada and e.e. cummings + being a nonconformist

e.e. cummings wrote aggressively about being different from "mostpeople," and he was the first poet i ever liked and the only poet i liked for quite a while. this is the introduction to his 1938 collected poems (written by him):

The poems to come are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople --it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike. Mostpeople have less in common with ourselves than the squarerootofminusone. You and I are human beings;mostpeople are snobs.

for me that same dynamic is there through cummings's whole body of work, with his emphasis on individual freedom and his rebelliously playful typography, and that was really valuable for me and maybe what originally attracted me to his poetry

dada and walt whitman + worldviews with less emphasized hierarchy + aesthetics that encourage non-attachment

"I write a manifesto and I want nothing, yet I say certain things, and in principle I am against manifestoes, as I am also against principles." - tristan tzara

"Great is goodness; / I do not know what it is any more than I know what health is . . . . but I know it is great. // Great is wickedness . . . . I find I often admire it just as much as I admire goodness" - walt whitman

dada pushes against everything including even themselves ("the true dadas are against dada" - tzara). and walt whitman thinks everything is great including even death. these are opposite yet really similar positions to hold because in either case, the hierarchy of one thing being better than another is torn down. in a sense, there is no better/worse art or better/worse morals for whitman, or for dada (or for tao lin, more on him below); everyone/everything is equal

of course these are not very realistic worldviews to consistently have in your life. in some sense, at least, i love my friends and my family more than i love strangers. and in some sense at least, i would be more resistant to mocking veganism than some other ideologies, because i actually think veganism will help society the more it spreads

but i think being able to engage with these worldviews playfully, even enthusiastically at times, can be helpful for achieving a healthy detachment. compare the walt whitman and dada quotes with this by shunryu suzuki (bolding is mine)

Dogen-zenji said, "Although everything has Buddha nature, we love flowers, and we do not care for weeds." This is true of human nature. But that we are attached to some beauty is itself Buddha's activity. That we do not care for weeds is also Buddha's activity. We should know that. If you know that, it is all right to attach to something. If it is Buddha's attachment, that is non-attachment. So in love there should be hate, or non-attachment. And in hate there should be love, or acceptance ... We should accept weeds, despite how we feel about them. If you do not care for them, do not love them; if you love them, then love them.

dada freedom and tao lin

tao lin seems pretty free about what he writes. i really liked reading eeeee eee eeee by tao lin. tao lin has said that he consciously decided to "ruin" eeeee eee eeee by putting nonhuman animals in it. i really liked that and i think that's funny

i laughed out loud on the train reading scenes of the book where nonhuman animals appeared and disappeared without any real explanation or (that i could see) connection to other aspects of the book. it is exactly the kind of writing that teachers and books tell you not to do, and i think that's why it feels so good when somebody does it. it might seem immature, but i think it means we're free, and it means there is more possibility than we thought before

conclusion = dada rulez

"When you study Buddhism, you should have a general house cleaning of your mind. You must take everything out of your room and clean it thoroughly. If it is necessary, you may bring everything back in again. You may want many things, so one by one you can bring them back. But if they are not necessary, there is no need to keep them." (shunryu suzuki)

"there is a great negative work of destruction to be accomplished. We must sweep and clean." (tristan tzara)

notes on 'AGORA' by derek piotr

2011-03-21T15:29:00.000-04:00

derek piotr is a sound composer and AGORA is his new album. he has written about all the album's songs on his blog, and a couple of the songs are online

the thing i like most about derek piotr's sound compositions is when one or more of the sounds are skipping but other sounds aren't, or they are skipping at different speeds. the skipping vibe is familiar to me from artists like venetian snares but derek piotr's is set in more spaced out tracks and has a different feeling

as with some other spaced out electronic music and sound compositions, i usually liked when there are no vocals or the vocals are cut up and used like any other instrument. my favorite track is "invoce," which has a lot of vocals that are really cut-up

some of the aesthetic reminds me of björk, and derek piotr has talked about really liking björk. here is my favorite song by björk: hyperballad

i have also talked to derek piotr about john cage when i first met him online. during listening to the song "focus," i also accidentally started listening to an interview with derek piotr about "focus," and i had a good time

here is derek piotr's blog / here is derek piotr's soundcloud page / here is derek piotr's review of my chapbook i am like october when i am dead

demonstrate that we own the internet: poetry by emily dickinson

2011-03-18T12:55:00.004-04:00

friends, i love you and i want you to help me create a collaborative poetry website with over 100 contributors

the website will be called POETRY BY EMILY DICKINSON; this will be an important detail later when we google bomb it :)

there are two levels of contribution: you can contribute as a writer, and/or on the remix/editing team. i anticipate more people being interested in writing, but both people will get credit on the poems

anyone can contribute writing to this project: anything that is tweeted with the hashtag #poetrybyemilydickinson in the next few weeks (months?) will enter a pool of text that will be considered/used for this project. in addition, you can submit writing by posting it in the comments of this blog post or emailing it to me (steveroggenbuck [at] gmail.com)

all writing submitted to the project will then be considered by a remix/editing team (which is also open to anyone, email me about helping: steveroggenbuck [at] gmail.com). the remix/editing team will pull lines and poems from the submitted writing, sometimes revising / compiling / rearranging, other times just approving it as-is

i haven't decided the exact format of the site. should all the poems be posted right from start, but in a random order (like this site)? or should the poems be released periodically, each one getting a day or a week at the front of the site?

i want to create beautiful things with you. i rewatched my chapbook birthday video this morning, and i felt very grateful and happy. i also felt disappointed because my helvetica project hasn't been as much of a party since its release because the books are too expensive to ship out for free. POETRY BY EMILY DICKINSON will be a party

please help me do this and show that (1) poetry can be not boring (2) our community is powerful enough to google bomb a phrase like "poetry by emily dickinson" and hijack 50k visitors per month (3) twitter and blogs are not worthless for writers, they are the way of the future and if walt whitman was alive today he would domi nate tweet deck

thank you for reading my blog and being my friend online; i appreciate it very much; please contribute to this project! #poetrybyemilydickinson

update and optional guideline for submissions /// a lot of the submissions emerging on twitter.com are pretty funny if you actually read the hashtag "#poetrybyemilydickinson" as "poetry by emily dickinson." for example, walter davis's tweet becomes "poetry by emily dickinson is really inspiring me to be creative." carmen holtby's tweet becomes "You're sweet. poetry by emily dickinson."

my idea for the remix/editing team is to include the phrase "poetry by emily dickinson" in as many poems as possible for the website... i think it is pretty funny, it will give the project more cohesion, and actually it will also help with SEO

related posts /

+ help me concoct a google bomb for poncho peligroso
+ raising poetry to the level of internet culture

raising poetry to the level of internet culture

2011-03-08T13:35:00.003-05:00

the 2011 poet laureate poncho peligroso recently posted about the equal validity of words. his manifesto was originally part of a long email to me outlining the potential for a major resurgence in poetry of a certain kind (an idea also explored by becky lang at the tangential)

poncho says people are reading more than ever, just not reading as many printed books. there are a lot of people online doing short-form creative writing and reading now, especially on tumblr and twitter. many of them don’t consider their writing "poetry" (or didn't start that way; read poncho's story), but the writing is often (to me) satisfying in the same ways as my favorite poetry

poncho's main emphasis is “words are words” / “language is language” / “poetry is words" / "run wild." one idea behind “words are words” is that we can humble ("lower") poetry by including common speech in it. this has been an idea in western poetry since at least william wordsworth, although it rarely comes out in its full form, and it’s slow to adapt to new aspects of the common language, such as emoticons :). most contemporary poetry borrows from common language while maintaining a lot of other standards and conventions specific to poetry. the appearance of shorthand like "lol" would be read as a joke in almost any poem

for people who have been disappointed by a lot of poetry, “words are words” allows poetry to become something more fun and useful than it has been in the past. it allows us to "raise" poetry to a different level. “words are words” means that we don't need to retain any of the things we have disliked about poetry. we can start with whatever interests us, and then do whatever interests us. we don't need to be limited by others' ideas of what “poetry" is, if “poetry journals” will accept it, if looks like "poetry," or if the main audience is poets. by ignoring most of what "poetry" has meant, i think we can start to write some really good poetry ;). in particular i am interested in looking to internet culture for ideas of where to start and where to go with poetry

aspects of internet culture poetry could benefit from adopting mayb

some of these have already been taken up by some poets, but none of them seem really common in contemporary poetry yet

80% or more free content, 20% or less paid /// the current structure is for poems to be scattered in literary journals, some free and some paid, then collected into paid print books. i advocate making everything free as a baseline, with printed versions, possibly extended versions, or pdf downloads as sources for income/donations. making your content free allows it to spread much faster. it's also the most fun, as you get to share your work with everyone immediately. and because of the current standard against this, it makes you seem generous and friendly compared to others :)

periodically + consistently releasing content in the same place /// usually poets write on their own for a year or more, send out individual poems to various literary journals, and then collect 50-120 poems together and release a book all at once. in contrast to this, the blogging, webcomic, and viral-website model is to consistently release content (weekly, biweekly, daily) on the same website and build a subscriber base for that content. after a subscriber base and a large body of content is built up, a book can be released that collects some or all of it. (youtube accounts often do the same with dvds collecting their videos.) you can keep a free-content ideal while allowing readers to support you with money if they choose. my next book-length project will be released in this manner, periodically rather than all-at-once

crowdsourcing /// internet poetry is a push in this direction, and any literary journal is at a basic level, but i think much more involved, open collaborative projects are possible. poetry tumblelogs with tighter themes could arise (i'm thinking the tightness of something like LOLcats). i'll soon be announcing a collaborative poetry project that i hope will involve at least 100+ contributors. crowdsourcing might also include encouraging a group of people to help promote and google bomb a poetry site

being rly rly funny /// i have written about the social/political values poetry can have for me, but i also think humor and enjoyment in themselves are really valuable now. i think a lot of poets, artists, and activists are burned out… and yet most humor in our culture is kind of insensitive and reflects unhealthy values, so i avoid a lot of sources of humor. i think making funny poetry that is inclusive and not offensive is really valuable. i also think it is one of the ways poetry will manage to get spread online, as funny content gets shared a lot

image and video, not only text by itself /// literary journals usually present poems by themselves on a page, for 100+ pages in a row, and it's kind of boring. if i really like the writing, i'll still enjoy the journal, but it could be a more engaging format. image and video can either accompany poems or be poems in themselves. (this helps with sharing and free distribution too. do viral texts even exist? the closest i can think of is an email forward, or maybe a short spoken form or something broad like a rumor.) of course if a magazine editor chooses an accompanying image or layout for a poem, the poet's vision might be skewed. so i think the best solution is for poets to become responsible for making their own poems look exciting, either working closely with a designer or learning basic design themselves

increased prominence of the writer as a person /// pictures, blog design, status updates, comments, and "about" pages allow internet writers to establish themselves as people with personalities. this seems like more fun, and it also strengthens the tie between poetry and how to live because it depicts a person who is actually living in the world. (i try to live my values and i like if my readers know i am vegan and buddhist.) pop serial has advanced an understanding of writers as people in a community of friends by posting pictures with each of the tumblr updates, and by including author pictures in the contributor listing of the first issue

value determined by readers as much as by editors /// i think this change will naturally occur as full texts are released online. blogs grow largely as a result of readers sharing the content/links on social media. of course this includes links from big blogs and online journalists, but importantly it also includes individual readers sharing links with their friends. this model shifts power, somewhat, from the few (editors, reviewers) to the many (all readers). putting full texts online in itself allows any reader to link from their social media. adding share buttons to the site further encourages reader sharing. [on the power shift away from editors/publishers see also internet poetry and self-publishing]

there may be many other aspects. these are the ones that most immediately stuck out to me. i love you, have a great day

related posts /

+ doctrine on internet poetry
+ break free from the shackles of word documents
+ publishing literature into the public domain
+ content models for spreading poetry on the internet

content models for spreading poetry on the internet

2011-03-02T12:25:00.002-05:00

eight days ago i launched the tumblelog INTERNET POETRY. it has been received pretty well, already surpassing my personal tumblr account in followers. the screenshots on INTERNET POETRY represent one specific way poetry can be published on the internet: with guerilla tactics. i think it is fun, exciting, and perhaps symbolic of the larger shift in power. the tumblelog as a whole also represents a possible model for literary magazines online, with the potential of viral sharing and subscription built into the site

yesterday i launched my book/website DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM. i hope that this collection can represent another way poetry can be published online, and one that is important and practical for individual writers. guerilla tactics are a lot of fun, but they don’t usually build a sustained readership for your poetry. publishing at literary magazines doesn’t usually build a sustained readership for your poetry either, although it may get you some hits. i think you can build a sustained readership for your poetry online by creating websites where the primary thing being shared is your poetry

viral websites and other content models for poetry

from the beginning i had hopes of DOWNLOAD HELVETICA going “viral.” now that it’s here, i’m not sure if “viral” is actually possible for this collection. to go viral, something has to be shared by a certain percentage of people who view it, so that the number of people exposed to it keeps growing and snowballing. therefore, the size of my initial push, by itself, would never be enough to make something go viral

[% of visitors who share the site] x [average number of people invited] x [% of invitations accepted] = n

if n > 1, the site becomes viral

(equation paraphrased from the dragonfly effect, kind of a boring book overall in my opinion, but it had a couple takeaway points)

i’m still interested in creating viral poetry sites, but for poets who want to build an audience over time, it may be most important just to create sites where full works of poetry are available for reading, or sites like spencer madsen’s where new poems are periodically added like blog posts or webcomics—sites where the emphasis is clearly on new poetry. this is different from my blog here and other lit blogs like ron silliman’s or tao lin’s: here, even though i’m a “poet,” i mainly post prose writings about poetry

i think i fell into this blogging model because (1) it’s what most other writers are doing and (2) it’s more compatible with submitting poems to literary journals. but i’m surprised how long it took me to even become critical of this model or aware of other models. at one point, i read blogging advice that said “provide useful content,” and i decided to post about submitting to literary journals. i also considered posting articles like the stuff on thought catalog to drive traffic to my poetry. i didn’t consider just posting a consistent stream of my poems

DOWNLOAD HELVETICA represents a number of things to me: the value of design in literature / the potential of found poetry / the freedom of abandoning conventional publishing / the beauty and notstalgia i feel about being a young vegan, going to college, and being in love with another person. recently it also represents to me the hope that poetry itself can be a solid basis for a content model online: that poetry can excite people enough to subscribe to a website: that poetry can be worth sharing on facebook: that poetry is something people intentionally read☺

share my book if you want

in the first 24 hours, my book had 1,660 visitors, which is pretty exciting in relation to most of my traffic up to this point. but i also know there is even more potential for poetry, and i will keep taking steps to develop the methods to reach the full potential

the value of my site will be primarily long-term; if people really like my site, they will share it, and it will spread. getting an initial burst of traffic is not my main goal with this site… but i figured i would ask for as much support as i can get: if you want to help me, you can try some of these ideas:

1. link: i have twitter and facebook share buttons on the site, so it’s very quick and easy to link that way. if you link from a blog or tumblr, remember the google bombing techniques used to elect the 2011 poet laureate. i recommend linking the whole title, DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM or else another combination of those words: “free helvetica download” or “download helvetica.” i’m already on the first page of results for “download helvetica for free” so your links could really help with long-term traffic

2. reviews + interviews: if you have a blog, i would love if you shared your thoughts on the book; if the post goes out to any kind of sizable audience, that’s even better. if you’re a journalist or you have connections with an established blog/magazine, i would be very appreciative of coverage; i’m willing to mail free print books for that purpose. i’d be excited to do interviews discussing internet poetry, public domain self-publishing, or veganism. i’ll link out to the posts on my bonus features page

3. other: remix my book; create an audio version, a video version, or another image-based version. tweet the poems; print them as fliers or hand-outs; chalk them, wheatpaste them, spray-paint them. submit them to image- and type-based tumblelogs; put them as your avatar or profile picture. it’s not really important that i even get credit; just spread the poems in any way you think would be fun

i feel very grateful to my friends and readers… thank you so much for believing in me and saying nice things about my poetry. i hope you think this post is ok and not too much of tooting my own horn, or even tooting our collective Horn

i hope you like me

i like you a lot

internet poetry and self-publishing

2011-02-22T12:44:00.008-05:00

it is funny to self-publish a poetry book, and i know it. the quote embedded to the right is an excerpt from my msn messenger history from 2006. five months after starting to write poetry, i was "looking into getting a book of my poetry published." i was also "looking into copyright for my poetry." these things are funny to me now

but in one week i am really self-publishing a book of my poetry free helvetica download download helvetica. and although i am ok with jokes about it, i actually think self-publishing is an effective way to get poetry to a wider audience

in october i self-published a chapbook that has reached about 1,000 people in print and 15,000 online. i only lost around $100 on printing and distribution costs. i spent quite a bit of time making chapbooks, but after a point, my traffic has become self-sustaining online to a degree, mostly from facebook and blogs. meanwhile, many poetry chapbooks, even really great ones, have a print-only distribution of less than 100

in 2011, poetry can find an audience without the permission or assistance of anyone other than the writer. it has been this way for a while, but it is becoming even more this way as presses struggle and online writing communities grow

self-publishing allows you to publish free online with a paid print version

i will post more about this later, but only a few publishers are willing to do this with their books. blazevox has done it, and they report higher print sales on their books that are also free online. free online is the way to go for undiscovered writers just like how mp3 sharing helps unknown bands. this is also how viral websites like LOLcats run usually and bloggers in other niches, as well as webcomics. post your content for free online, build an audience because people share your content, and then occasionally collect it into books. it is ethical, it is quicker than trying to sell everything, and it is the most fun

self-publishing, kewl

if you are good at design, self-publishing allows you to design more of your stuff if you want, so the book is more of a total work: your writing, your cover design, your distribution choices. there is also a page in the back of my book about veganism and a paragraph about "how to actually download helvetica for free." i don't know if publishers would have allowed that, but i like having them in my book

doing something different and interesting is the way to find an audience on the internet

some people think the lack of gatekeepers on the internet is too much: "Anyone can now be a writer, but should everyone be a writer?? LOL boing boing!" but for me the internet makes it much easier to distinguish yourself as a writer and that's great

if you can make something that surprises people and actually makes them laugh or feel something deeply, they will share it with other people on facebook. so schmoozing and impressing editors and following their submission guidelines ("hai plz use a paper clip rather than staples wassup babie") is not really necessary now to reach an audience

the internet also makes it easier for writers to build a readership across projects. the followers and subscribers i gained from my chapbook are mostly still aware of my presence online and will also be my readers for DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM

nice editors :) hi

actually there are very nice people who are editors, and they perform a great function of connecting writers together, either by sharing pieces of writing or by actually introducing people. after moving to chicago and meeting stephen tully dierks (pop serial), i became connected to many other writers. i think there may be a place for publishers in some form. but even stephen has admitted that just collecting stories and poems together in a journal may not be the way of the future

if publishing falls IRL and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound babie?

as i continue writing and posting online, i care less about prizes, publishing credits, legitimate reviews, or respected literary journals. my new project is a justin bieber fan twitter. acknowledgment from the literary world may provide some encouragement, but i would rather have blog readers, active facebook friends, and excited feedback from people in my email, which i am getting already and having fun

what i want to do is have a great time making poetry, build up a group of friends who can accomplish things together, find a way to develop donation-based income from art, and inspire people to do what they really believe in. i think i can do these things just as well, probably better, by self-publishing, and it's more fun, so that's what i am doing

i considered creating a paradoxical SELF-PUBLISHING HOUSE, but somehow that name is already in use by a serious company, anyway i will keep posting about my experiences with self-publishing. if we are really going to spread literature online, we need to share our experiences about what is working and what is not

there are viral videos that make me laugh out loud, and there are poems that make me laugh out loud, but for some reason poems don't go viral on youtube. together we will find out a way to make poems go viral on youtube

thank you very much

INTERNET POETRY is here + download helvetica for free + subscribe to my blog (rss)

+ doctrine on internet poetry

+ publishing literature into the public domain

+ content models for spreading poetry on the internet

help me concoct a google bomb for poncho peligroso

2011-02-15T12:10:00.019-05:00

update: as of thursday 2/17, 11pm eastern, ponchopeligroso.com is the #1 google search result for "2011 poet laureate" (with or without quotes)

a google bomb is when many people link to the same webpage with the same phrase, causing that website to rise to an unnaturally high place (ideally #1) in search results

the most famous example of a google bomb was when george bush became the #1 result for "miserable failure" about five years ago

i am interested in google bombs and other search engine optimization (seo) as a way for poets and other creators of culture to achieve an audience without relying on gatekeepers or corporations

what distinguishes google bombs from other seo is that it doesn't even require that a webpage includes the keywords; it is completely based on links from other sites

i mentioned google bombs in my doctrine on INTERNET POETRY, but in order to actually achieve one, many people have to work together. so instead of waiting for someone to spontaneously submit a google bomb, i'd like to organize a community attempt at one

i'm not sure if we have enough people to organize a google bomb or not. google supposedly made it harder to do google bombs after 2007, but i read some articles that make me believe it still works, as pagerank is still highly affected by the anchor text of links. i think together we will be able to achieve some results, and probably achieve #1

poncho peligroso for 2011 poet laureate

i didn't want to just promote myself with this project, so i chose another poet to help out. poncho peligroso was a natural choice to me because he is one of the fullest embodiments of an internet poet. he has discussed his belief in self-publishing, social media, and being a vagabond poet. he has become one of my closer friends in the writing scene, and his charismatic, full-on internet presence seems to fit the grandness of a google bomb

if you check out the google keyword stats for "poet laureate," there are currently about 1,300 global monthly searches for "2010 poet laureate," and the competition is very low. "2011 poet laureate" is not yet listed, but it seems obvious that it will be a regular search later this year

if we start now, building a large network of "2011 poet laureate" links, all pointing to ponchopeligroso.com, i think we can have a good grip on the search results by the time the new u.s. poet laureate is appointed in the summer, maybe much sooner. poncho will get some traffic, and people searching for the 2011 poet laureate will be perplexed

how you can help

how to help is simple: link to ponchopeligroso.com with the phrase "2011 poet laureate" and convince others to do the same, starting now. if you know someone with a high-traffic website, those links are even more valuable. (from what i know, blog comments rarely help because of the "nofollow" tag included in most blog platforms)

+ link "2011 poet laureate" on your blog sidebar
+ link "2011 poet laureate" in anything about poncho peligroso
+ link "2011 poet laureate" as a non-sequitur in your blog posts
+ link "2011 poet laureate" as a non-sequitur on tumblr
+ link "2011 poet laureate" regularly for the next several months

+ ask your roommates to link "2011 poet laureate"
+ ask your friends to link "2011 poet laureate"
+ ask your classmates to link "2011 poet laureate"
+ ask your family to link "2011 poet laureate"

+ show people this blog post: share on facebook + share on twitter

a symbol of hope for internet poetry

i am pretty interested in the immediate effects of this project: driving traffic to poncho's website and baffling people who search for "2011 poet laureate." but i am even more interested in the symbolic worth of the effort

if we can achieve a google bomb together, it may be a source of collective hope and empowerment. future google bombs and other pranks could take aim at higher-traffic opportunities, and could provide readers for our literary magazines, ebooks, and twitter accounts in amusing ways

the symbolic message of this particular google bomb also seems valuable: by organizing our online efforts, we may be able to rank a mostly-unpublished internet poet (poncho) higher than the official poet laureate selected by the library of congress

manifesto

we are taking over Poetry ///////// we are taking over The Internet

websites committed to helping with this project

1. internetpoetry.tumblr.com
2. steveroggenbuck.com
3. feeltheinspiration.tumblr.com
4. jessdutschmann.blogspot.com
5. minorml.org
6. snailshellbackpack.wordpress.com
7. semianimis.tumblr.com
8. humansympathy.tumblr.com
9. stephentullydierks.blogspot.com
10. popserial.tumblr.com
11. jlkirsch.blogspot.com
12. aurish.tumblr.com
13. deejberndt.blogspot.com
14. spacecadetforlife.tumblr.com
15. htmlgiant.com (!)
16. mediadarlings.net
17. theverylastpelican.wordpress.com
18. uninterpretative.blogspot.com
19. meatmagick.wordpress.com
20. quicklysemicolon.blogspot.com
21. kumquatparadise.tumblr.com
22. zacharywhalen.blogspot.com
23. jlkirsch.tumblr.com
24. personman.tumblr.com
25. neverbesoberagain.tumblr.com
26. quicklysemicolon.tumblr.com
27. 2011poetlaureate.tumblr.com
28. amapofthecountry.wordpress.com
29. thetangential.tumblr.com
30. beachsloth.blogspot.com
31. lazyfascist.com
32. philolzophy.com
33.

the response has been great so far, but we'll still want more links to help cement the #1 result long-term. leave a comment or email me if you can help and want to be included on the list (steveroggenbuck [at] gmail.com). if possible, please commit to linking multiple times, but a single link still helps

if you have expertise with google bombs or seo, feel free to give feedback and help refine this effort

thank u, dominate society

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2011-02-12T11:43:00.002-05:00

this is the cover spread ( back + spine + front) for my upcoming website/book DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM; cover photo by osy. the collection will be free online march 1st, and print copies are available for preorder ($10)

comic / labor day comic by blaise larmee
fiction / "reasons why we could not be men in the movie Centurion" by richard chiem
fiction / "what the fuck does 'in real life' mean..." by stephen tully dierks (+ video)
photography / nude pics of walt whitman
interview / of poncho peligroso by brett gallagher
music / "desire lines" by deerhunter
music / "what it's like" by everlast
poetry / flarf poem by ben rosamond
poetry / "frist poem" and more by peter orlovsky
poetry / two poems by me at the scrambler
tweet / by justin bieber
tweet / by michael inscoe
tweet / by marshall mallicoat
tweet / by poncho peligroso
video / for michael inscoe's self-publishing kickstarter
video / michael inscoe flying my poem over a tree and a city
video / me interviewing stephen tully dierks after never say never 3d
video / "paranoid 4" by jackvalefilms

my friends poncho peligroso and brett gallagher are in chicago starting yesterday and i'm having a lot of fun. also i'm taking a typography class this semester that i really like

thanks and hello to the new subscribers since john campbell reblogged :) i will have pictures of the print copies of ...HELVETICA... soon, and i have some more doctrines i will be posting about internet poetry; please keep submitting to that project

i love you, never forget me

tumblr / twitter / facebook / veganism / subscribe to my blog

doctrine on "INTERNET POETRY"

2011-02-08T15:00:00.001-05:00

starting february 22nd, 2011, there is a new literary tumblr called INTERNET POETRY, taking submissions now:

INTERNET POETRY will post screenshots of poetry* being spread with guerilla tactics on the internet: poetry* on twitter, email, gchat, amazon book reviews, and live chat customer service windows: poetry* as wikipedia entries, blog comments, trackbacks/pings, google bombs, and youtube video responses: poetry* as facebook statuses, facebook groups, facebook notes, facebook events, facebook pictures, facebook videos, and facebook friend requests:

INTERNET POETRY will be a beacon of hope: a symbol for a new and blossoming way to spread poetry and culture: INTERNET POETRY will carry us through the end of gatekeepers in poetry, the end of poetry as an obscured printed product, and the end of poetry as something people intentionally and successfully avoid:

print is dead: publishers are dead: academia is dead: borders is dead: literary journals are dead: ezra pound is literally dead:

windows 95, 98, and XP are dead: millenium edition was only released on a small number of computers: myspace is dead: dial-up and dsl are dead: realplayer is dead: winamp has been dead for years:

long live blogs: long live free literature: long live public domain and creative commons: long live self-publishing: long live torrents: long live free pdf's: long live pay-what-you-want: long live image macros: long live the internet:

poetry is dead: long live poetry: INTERNET POETRY

* loosely defined

related posts /

+ raising poetry to the level of internet culture
+ content models for spreading poetry on the internet
+ demonstrate that we own the internet: poetry by emily dickinson

pre-release remix and book cover voting for my upcoming website/book

2011-02-03T16:44:00.009-05:00

on january 25th, i called for submissions of pictures of my helvetica poems in real life. i said i would use the pictures to create a pre-release remix of my book and to generate a book cover (to be voted on)

around forty people signed up, and twenty-four people successfully sent me pictures by the remix 1.0 deadline. the pictures come from several different countries, and they include oversized printings of the poems and some light vandalism. many of them have made me laugh out loud

time-sensitive opportunity: please view all twenty-four pictures, noting your favorites as potential book covers. then come back to this blog post and leave a comment voting on your top picks (up to five). voting deadline: tuesday morning, feb 8th (9 a.m. CST) voting is now closed.

the most voted-on picture will be the cover for the book’s first print run. other most voted-on pictures will be used for future print runs, if there are future print runs. (each print run will likely only be 100 copies, so there may be many print runs depending on demand.)

if you missed out on this remix, i will launch a second remix (2.0) along with the normal book launch, march 1st, or soon after. if there seems to be a demand for even more print-runs, pictures from that remix will be eligible as book covers too. i encourage you to email me (steveroggenbuck [at] gmail.com) pictures for that remix

thank you very much, and have fun looking at these

VIEW THE PRE-RELEASE REMIX OF DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM

voting is now closed. #6 by osy chung received the most votes and will be the cover for the first print run of DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM. other pictures in the top 5 will probably be used for future print runs, depending how many print runs i get

thank you!

LEADER BOARD / FINAL VOTE

1. 19 votes / #6 by osy chung
2. 16 votes / #17 by john campbell
3. 13 votes / #9 by felise norris
4. 12 votes / #5 by michael inscoe
5. 11 votes / #1 by jessica kirsch
6-7. 9 votes / #4 by shaun gannon + #11 by laurel kate
8-10. 7 votes / #3 + #13 + #14

related posts /

+ help me concoct a book cover and remix for my upcoming website/book
+ announcement: download helvetica for free.com
+ blog post sharing the dhff.com book cover

notes on 'person' by sam pink

2011-01-31T15:20:00.004-05:00

person by sam pink was out in 2010 from lazy fascist press. it is a novel with chapters that are only a few pages. the cover art is by sam pink

occurrences in person include sleeping in a sleeping bag, eating a sandwich, and buying a pencil

the writing is first-person and has a combination of deadpan and more conversational lines, including exclamation points

the feelings expressed by the speaker vary a lot between negative and positive and are usually pretty extreme, so they feel playful and funny

          It's cold and I hate everyone I can see.
          All of my strength is required to hate this many people but I manage and
   I am proud of my effort.
          I expect the same of everyone else.

and

          She looks at the tv and she says, "I will agree that he is a cute old-man."
          I lean over the edge of the bed and reach to the floor.
          "See," I say. "He is absolutely adorable and he is tremendous."

there are repeated phrases and occurrences throughout the book, such as "It feels like practice" and having words scroll through the speaker's headhole

          The word "bad" scrolls across my headhole in neon letters and I see myself saluting it.
          Goddamn.

and

          I like reading alone in my room on the floor waiting to go to sleep.
          It's the closest thing that makes me think the word "perfection" and have the word "perfection" flash through my headhole
     in neon letters.

there are chapters that are repeated in different versions, which adds to the playful and laid-back feeling for me

i read most of person on the subway, and i felt happy. the writing felt like sam pink was writing whatever he wanted, not restricted by ideas of consistency or what should be in a novel

whenever i am around sam pink at readings or something, i have fun and enjoy his character. when i saw sam pink read at ear eater (audio of the reading), it was the funniest reading i have been to

read an excerpt from person and visit sam pink's blog

related posts /

+ notes on 'frowns need friends too' by sam pink

help me concoct a book cover and remix for my upcoming website/book

2011-01-25T12:23:00.031-05:00

one of my favorite things about my chapbook distribution was getting pics of people with my chapbook. i want to do something similar for DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM, but i can’t mail you all free print copies because it costs more to print full books. so i developed this idea

i am seeking up to 50 people, but probably fewer, to help with this project. if you sign up, you will be emailed a jpeg of a poem from DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM. you can then print out the poem, put it somewhere (probably in public, but whatever is funny or nice), take a pic of it there, and email me the pic by february 2nd

then i will do two things with the pics

1. on thursday february 3rd, i will post all* the pics online as a pre-release remix of the book, giving each person credit for their pic, with a link to their blog or other site

2. people will vote on what pic is their favorite, and i will use the pic with the most votes as the cover for the printed book. there will not be any added text on the cover, just the pic. the person who took the pic will be given credit inside the book, with their blog address if they like

this also means: (a) please submit large, hi-quality photos if you can. (b) i am no longer mailing out early printed review copies of DHFF.C, since i am waiting for this project to generate the cover. i can send an early pdf to reviewers, but i would actually prefer that most reviews are written on/after the website launch (march 1) so any traffic can be linked directly to the full text

to sign up for this project, please comment below with your email address (if i already know your email, then you don't need to include it) or email me (steveroggenbuck [at] gmail.com). if you are familiar with some of my helvetica poems, you can have your choice of which poem to do. for some basic ideas of where to put poems, check this out and also crazy bilby

thank you very much!

SIGN UP LIST

1. jessica kirsch (chicago, illinois, usa) ["I LOVE YOUR HAIR AND THE REST OF YOU"]
2. poncho peligroso (great barrington, massachusetts, usa) ["HEY CALM DOWN // I AM, HEHE"]
3. carina santos (philippines) ["I'M NOCTURNAL LIKE RACCOONS"]
4. nikola richter (berlin, germany) ["MY MOM WAS IN MY DREAM"]
5. liam adams (kent, england) ["I THINK OF YOU EVERY TIME I SEE MY COMPUTER..."]
6. nejwa jacobs (belgium) ["CHECKING OUT MY BMI, ONLINE"]
7. shaun gannon (college park, maryland, usa) ["I THINK I'M IN THE PERFECT MOOD..."]
8. delta pi delta ["I AM LISTENING TO MADONNA..."]
9. michael inscoe (little rock, arkansas, usa) ["I AM STILL WORKING ON MY WATERMELON..."]
10. osy chung (hong kong, china) ["DO YOU THINK THEY WOULD HAVE FINAL DESTINATION..."]
11. rachel milan richards (toronto, ontario, canada) ["I SAW YOU GO BY MY HOUSE LAST NIGHT..."]
12. brandon brandon (florida, usa) ["HAHA AMAZING WHAT SOME PEOPLE ACCOMPLISH"]
13. stephen tully dierks (chicago, illinois, usa) ["WELL, I WATCHED THE MOVIE THIRTEEN"]
14. felise norris (brisbane, queensland, australia) ["FINAL DESTINATION 3 IS OUT ON DVD"]
15. dom carnicelli (upstate new york, usa) ["JUST CHECKIN MY PSYCHOLOGY GRADE ONLINE"]
16. emma adria (vancouver, british columbia, canada) ["PITA BREAD IS VEGAN?"]
17. laurel kate (portland, oregon, usa) ["IS THIS HOW YOU SPELL THIS? 'ATREYU']
18. spencer madsen (new york city, new york, usa) ["THE SKY IS BEAUTIFUL... NICE WORK..."]
19. jesse francis (prince edward island, canada) ["ON TV, THEY SHOWED HOW BIG..."]
20. richard chiem (san diego, california, usa) ["I AM GOING TO CHANGE MY SONG ON MYSPACE..."]
21. jenna mcdavid (new york city, new york, usa) ["WHAT SHOULD WE DO..."]
22. mario ["TRY TO CATCH ME RIDIN' DIRTY BABE"]
23. eric beeny (buffalo, new york, usa) ["'WHAT IT'S LIKE' BY EVERLAST..."]
24. madison langston ["'I CAN'T GET TO THE HOMEPAGE OF MYSPACE..."]
25. frances e. dinger (seattle, washington, usa) ["YOU ARE THE GREATEST LOOKING AND HUGGING..."]
26. mansy abesamis ["I DON'T KNOW WHY, BUT I FEEL AGGREVATED (SP?)"]
27. tricia gervacio (las piñas city, philippines) ["HAVE YOU HEARD OF THAT WII THING..."]
28. sarah rupp (washington dc, usa) ["I JUST WATCHED GARDEN STATE FOR THE SECOND TIME..."]
29. john campbell (chicago, illinois, usa) ["I MAY GO INTO ADVERTISING BUT I DON'T LIKE..."]
30. paul ["I WISH I OWNED A GYM"]
31. m and v (california, usa) ["IT LOOKS LIKE DRIFTS ARE BEING CREATED..."]
32. ben rosamond (napier, new zealand) ["NICE. THE PARK HAS A WALKING PATH"]
33. stefhamae sarangaya (round lake, illinois, usa) ["I SAW TWO AWESOME MOVIES THIS WEEKEND..."]
34. malori (chicago, illinois, usa) ["GUESS WHAT I BOUGHT TO DRINK TODAY..."]
35. marta eme ["MY NEW POEM IS ABOUT THE COMFORT..."]
36. anonymous ["MY MATH HOMEWORK WAS EASY..."]
37. carrie rosalind (chandler, arizona, usa) ["I JUST PUT SOMETHING IN MY TOP DRAWER..."]
38. aaron nicholas/steely (ocean city, maryland, usa) ["THE FLAMING LIPS IS..."]
39. jonathon russel (mount pleasant, michigan, usa) ["I DOWNLOADED SO MANY PHOTOSHOP ACTIONS..."]
40. adam katz (toronto, ontario, canada) ["CHECKING MY BMI, ONLINE"]
41.

update, tuesday feb 2: the deadline for book-cover pics is today. if you're interested in joining in last minute, please take a poem from here and just tell me in the comments or an email (steveroggenbuck [at] gmail.com)

if you don't get your picture submitted in time for the book-cover voting, i'm still interested in using your pics for a later, additional remix of the book, so still send me the pics if you like

* i may refrain from including a pic if it seems offensive or racist / sexist / homophobic / classist.

notes on 'loop loop endogenous nightscape' by brett gallagher

2011-01-21T14:49:00.000-05:00

yes the view are great from inside the sarcophagus

loop loop endogenous nightscape is an e-book forthcoming from radioactive moat on february 1st. it is 20 pages of poetry by brett gallagher and illustrations by elizabeth arnold

subjects include the sea (/ seafoam), forests, black magic, the moon, cabins, and bears

my breath

hush hello on glass are

these nordic colonies

i feel that the subject matter is dark and magical. it reminds me of objects for a fog death by julie doxsee, the man suit by zachary schomburg, or william shatner by c. mcallister williams

the dark and magical feeling is also in elizabeth arnold's illustrations, with colors such as neon green, purple, bright yellow, and teal

the poetry does not include commas or periods except for abbreviations, and there are prose blocks of continued run-ons

flashlight dissassembler you i look these i's alive yarn weather parkas step out tent flaps limbless mountain unwavering cape desolation

words are often repeated multiple times in a row, and there are extra words at the end of sentences. this reminded me of the l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e poet peter seaton and kind of the futurist f.t. marinetti

     sweaty palm hello hi i
     like your cobwebs night
     travel

there are also words combined together and having multiple suffixes. there are sometimes multiple parentheses such as "((((." i feel that brett gallagher is "painting" with words in this e-book. instead of making statements, he creates a feeling by collaging words based on their associations/aesthetics

transient rhombosomes triangular conversate window the city our great city are falling have fallen are will be fallering

brett gallagher also posts facebook statuses with a similar style, and some of the most extreme book reviews. brett gallagher has texted my phone using the phrases "siberian winds" and "north face parka"

here is another excerpt

aquarium of heavy water

here is the tumblr for loop loop endogenous nightscape; here are brett gallagher's blog and elizabeth arnold's tumblr

self-publishing a poetry chapbook and distributing it for free

2011-01-19T13:06:00.001-05:00

three months ago i published my chapbook, i am like october when i am dead, online and in print. the website has received a little over 14,000 unique visitors, and i've postal mailed about 900 copies to my internet friends and readers

for most of this post, i will try to be helpful to other beginning writers, explaining how i self-published my chapbook and what worked the best/worst. some of this post may be more in-depth than necessary. just read whatever parts are interesting to you

please also notice the 10-minute video embedded above. if you wrote a review or took a picture with my chapbook, you are probably in the video. also, there are 13 overlapping mp3s in the video

let's get into it

writing, revising, and deciding to publish my chapbook

most of the poems in my chapbook were drafted in 2009, and after a year of revising them i had 20-30 haiku-length poems. almost every poem was originally longer. i just kept removing the "ok" parts so i had only parts that made me actually laugh or feel something strongly

i spread the poems on the floor to determine an order, being most deliberate about the first poems, last poems, and the progression between funny and emotional poems

in spring 2010, i emailed a 22-page file to around twenty friends for feedback. in june 2010 i submitted a manuscript (about 20 pages) to h_ngm_n for their online chapbook series. i wanted my chapbook to be available online so i could link to it and use it to introduce people to my writing

i pulled my submission from h_ngm_n in august because i wanted to revise it more. i cut/shortened a few more poems, down to 15 poems. in september i was encouraged by a good response to my ear eater reading, and i decided to try to publish my chapbook again

i considered bearcreekfeed and pangur ban party, but i wanted to design it myself. i also wanted to publish into the public domain, and i wanted a free print version to spread the word and give to people casually. i considered asking a press to go along with these ideas, but i realized the main reason i wanted a press was just for credibility, which has recently become less important to me, so i decided to self-publish

i credit a lot of my chapbook's good reception to the long revision process. i returned to the same poems repeatedly and took out everything except what honestly and consistently excited me

promoting my chapbook online

i made my chapbook website using some of the techniques in my post "minimalist blog design using blogger," removing almost everything from a premade template

i have been surprised by the traffic to my chapbook website. there have been spikes in traffic, but there are also 30-100 visitors every day. i have not done a lot online to promote it. i just mailed print copies to other people, who promoted it online

around half my online visitors (over 5,000) came from john campbell. john campbell dominates culture and the internet. my other biggest sources of traffic were it's nice that and ron silliman

i did not get a lot of "credible" reviews. instead i about 20 reviews and more links from blogging friends, and people shared my writing on facebook. when i first tweeted a link to my chapbook, i got 10 retweets, which is high for me (a technique to get more retweets of a tweet is to add "(please retweet)" in a tweet)

although there have been 14,000 visitors to my chapbook, the total hits (56,000) indicate most visitors only read a few pages. i would guess 2,000-3,000 people read the full chapbook online

making print copies of my chapbook

i designed my chapbook to be paper efficient. each chapbook is 2 sheets of paper and 1/3 sheet of cover stock. the approximate cost is 20 cents per chapbook, but it may cost me more because of overstocking supplies

formatting a chapbook to have smaller pages is a little confusing. i took two sheets of paper, numbered each section of the paper, then sliced and folded it into a chapbook. then i marked what would have to go on each page ("cover page," "first poem") under the number i had written earlier. then i manually arranged the content in a document using columns, and i printed double sided. there may be a better way

i printed mostly on my own laser printer, using one and a half toner cartridges (my friend chris also printed 50 copies). in undergrad i made over 500 chapbooks in school computer labs, but i didn't want to deal with printing limits or lab assistants for this chapbook. i used recycled high-volume copy paper, which was around $8 per 500 sheets (i bought four packs so far)

not wanting to use all my toner on big text, i printed my covers at staples, a corporation that may not have the best values.. their copy center has 10 cent black-and-white copies. i used 67 lb. cover stock, which i couldn't find recycled where i looked

i sliced my chapbook papers into thirds at my university's library. i could slice about 10 sheets of normal paper (or 5 sheets of cover stock) with each slice. i printed most of my chapbooks in batches of 100 or 200, so i spent over half an hour slicing paper sometimes. then i collated the pages together into chapbooks (shown in the video above), which took another hour

i stapled the chapbooks together using staples' long-reach staplers. i brought refill staples so i didn't have to always ask the staff for reloads

i numbered each chapbook with a permanent marker. i don't know if this benefitted me in any way. maybe each chapbook felt more unique, or maybe it emphasized the high press run for a chapbook

spreading print copies of my chapbook

the first print copies of my chapbook went to friends on twitter, facebook, and my blog who volunteered to review it on their blog or spread 5-20 copies in their area. i am really grateful to these people

a lot of my online friends who reviewed my chapbook are people i found from a mutual friend like tao lin or the bear parade page on facebook. in many cases i was not a very engaging online friend to them; i mostly just added them. but these people read my writing and created an actual friendship, and i have really appreciated that

i used white mailing envelopes to package my chapbooks. around 5 copies fit easily in an envelope. with higher amounts i used an envelope and wrapped two sheets of reused paper around it to create a free shipping package. many of my packages had the word "mail" on them, which some people appreciated, and it may have made my package more memorable

i wrote notes in my handwriting for each package, and it took a long time. i understand why other authors just sign their name or don't write anything. in later notes, i encouraged people to stay in touch over email, facebook, or blog comments

shipping within u.s.a. was only 44 cents for a single chapbook because of the small size and weight, around $1.50 for a pack of 10 chapbooks, and around $2.50 for a pack of 20 chapbooks. shipping larger packages to other countries was very expensive. it was about $9 to send 20 chapbooks to england, and $6 to send 15 chapbooks to asia. the difference in price may be due to thicker packaging making it a parcel instead of a large envelope

distribution costs and donations

i did not keep perfect track of the money involved with my chapbook. i think i spent $300 on printing and shipping. after about a month, i put up a paypal donation button (easy to make under "merchant services" in paypal) and received about $150-200 in donations. i was surprised by how much people donated. two people donated $50 each; thank you to everyone who donated

was it worth making print copies of my chapbook?

print distribution of my chapbook, doing all the work myself, was maybe 50x more time-consuming than online promotion, it cost money, and it seems to have reached fewer people. creating print copies was boring/repetitive work, and the way i did it, i supported some corporations and created waste

richard wehrenberg jr encouraged me by saying that print copies are essential: print makes writing more tangible and intimate. online writing is easier to click away from and forget. this seems true to a degree

the biggest benefit i have noticed from print distribution is that it led some casual readers and online friends to become more enthusiastic supporters. i received over 20 pictures of people with my chapbook, and the links and support have continued into my next project

i had around 100 people stock my chapbook in bookstores or give them to friends, but i haven't heard from a lot of people who received or found those copies. i received an appreciative email from one person, a blog comment from another, and an enthusiastic facebook message from another. all the other comments i've received were from online sharing

i don't know if it was worth making print copies of my chapbook. the meme of taking a picture with my chapbook would not have happened without print copies, and most of my reviews wouldn't have happened. but i wonder what i could have done if i invested the same amount of time/effort into online promotion, getting my link on various websites

most of my traffic was online, but i'm not sure i could have gotten people's attention if i didn't give them print copies. zachary german and ron silliman both posted about my chapbook, but i'm not sure they would have acknowledged just an email with a URL

chapbook publication as an event

i hope my promotion of my chapbook has not seemed dramatic or egotistical. usually writers just release chapbooks; it is not a big deal, just like a "checkpoint" on the way to a book. my chapbook felt like more of an event in itself to me. i think the "event" feeling of my chapbook is what caused a lot of the attention

here is a list of things that may have contributed to the event of my chapbook: creating trailer and commentary videos, creating a full website with an "about" and "bonus features," encouraging people to take pics with the chapbook, encouraging people to remix/adapt the poems, having an unusual kind of distribution (public domain and free copies), announcing the chapbook a little before its release, and posting this 3-month birthday article/video

publishing into the public domain

there have not been a lot consequences of publishing my chapbook into the public domain. some people emailed me about their support, leo babauta linked to me, poncho peligroso credited my poems to the universe, and people may have felt more encouraged to remix or reblog the poems. no-one has blatantly "stolen" my writing that i know of (which i would be fine with.. please feel free to submit my poems to literary magazines. i thought poetry magazine might take my opening poem. although you would have to conceal it was previously published)

conclusion / if i did it over again

the poem i felt most unsure about in my chapbook has been the one poem that no-one has really responded to (actually some people responded to it, but only because it mentions sigur rós). if i did it again, i would maybe trust my intuition more and cut that poem

in future projects i want to emphasize online distribution more than print distribution, and embrace my role as an internet poet. for my next collection, i am offering print copies, but more of my energy will be online

ok, this is a long post, and i may seem pathetic, patting myself on the back and having a birthday party for my chapbook

thank you for reading!

follow my blog / follow me on twitter

related posts /

+ internet poetry and self-publishing

+ submitting to literary journals
+ publishing literature into the public domain

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2011-01-11T16:05:00.008-05:00

"every day is a different page in my book. i call it life." - soulja boy

jpeg / by craig rathgeber
music / dr. dre and snoop dogg, "bitch niggaz"
music / la dispute, "such small hands"
music / merchant ships, "sleep patterns"
music / pianos become the teeth, "houses we die in"
music / soulja boy, "first day of school"
music / zachary whalen, "jam tracks"
poetry / 2 poems by k. silem mohammad in shampoo
poetry / 2 poems by elaine s. at new wave vomit
poetry / 3 of my email poems at new wave vomit
social media / tweet by @marshallmallico
social media / tweet by @11wheeltwat
sports / poncho peligroso yoyoing with parents hula-hooping in background

next wednesday is my chapbook's 3 month birthday party, and you're all invited. what image or animated .gif should i tile as my blog background for the birthday party?

also i am making a 10-minute video including 13 layered mp3s, and pics of people with the chapbook and other things. please email me if you have a pic for the video (steveroggenbuck [at] gmail.com). thank you very much!

"2011... This. Changes. Everything." - a generation

tumblr / twitter / facebook / veganism / follow my blog

announcement: DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM

2011-01-07T14:16:00.004-05:00

my friends... today is a momentous day in the history of verse. i am announcing the release of my full-length poetry collection, which will be set in a boundary-breaking 80 pt. helvetica, all caps

the collection will be completely free online, with print copies available for $10 or 5 copies for $25

i am releasing the collection into the public domain so people may adapt it, translate it, republish it, or blog it as they wish

in order to attract maximum long-term traffic, and because it's funny, i have titled my collection DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM, with a keyword combination that is searched over 70,000 times per month on google.com

friends... i love you. you know that you inspire me. because of your help, my chapbook has received over 13,000 unique visitors in 3 months. i couldn’t have made it this far without you. (to say nothing of your blog comments)

with my new release, i am breaking new ground in the art of poetry... for the first time in verse, a full-length collection of poetry will be published with the explicit intention of going viral on social media, with twitter and facebook share buttons on each page

friends... you must stay with me. we are bringing a new way of life to millions... my new collection includes references to bands such as pedro the lion, daughters, the flaming lips, and arsonists get all the girls

i will be sending review copies in early february. if you can do a review or interview in a well-known blog or publication, please email me: steveroggenbuck [at] gmail.com. if you have a personal blog and want to cover this release, please email me too, and i will get you an advance PDF at least

DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM will be released online and in print march 1st. it will not be available through the corporations amazon or barnes and noble, but you can preorder print copies from me and the money will directly support a 23-year-old vegan poet in chicago

thank you my friends... i love you. together we are like a flock of cranes flying over a gigantic sea. we can feel the inspiration evaporating out of the water and entering our beaks. i know i can. my friends... i want to be a bird forever. i want to fly with you

visit the website for DOWNLOAD HELVETICA FOR FREE.COM

writing style in relation to buddhism and veganism

2011-01-04T15:01:00.004-05:00

my dear friends.. i have considered myself a vegan and buddhist for a couple years. however, buddhism and veganism can be defined in different ways. my ideas may be different from others'. for me, buddhism and veganism are a foundation for living in a way that is healthy and enjoyable for myself and others

my writing styles have changed in response to many things in the past 3-4 years. many of these changes are related to my thoughts about buddhism and veganism. this is a blog post outlining those connections and changes

how i got into veganism and what it means 2 me

in 2005 in high school, i listened to cattle decapitation, a death metal band that is all vegetarians. then i saw a video of slaughterhouses online and said to a friend, i will be vegetarian someday. i went vegetarian after my friend doug did a 30-day vegetarian challenge with my current gf and i realized it is not very difficult

i "became" vegan in 2007 after seeing a video online about egg production. it was the same month as when i read tristan tzara's dada manifestoes. my younger biological bro (biologibro) "became" vegan on the same day as me

in 2008 i read essays online by animal welfare groups such as vegan outreach, and i read peter singer. later in 2008, i felt i disagreed with a lot of peter singer and animal welfare, and i read about veganism as anti-oppression, which i still believe in. i read a lot of the vegan ideal and helped start l.o.v.e.

veganism to me is about not using others without their consent. many species of animals are here on earth. we can never get consent to use animals of other species, yet they experience the consequences of being used (confinement, fear, pain, etc), so i believe in not using them. for a fuller explanation of why i am vegan, watch this video i made

because it is often in opposition to the status quo, i also associate veganism with questioning things in general. to me veganism feels connected to other anti-oppression movements and aesthetic tendencies that question the mainstream (like dada, or most avant-garde movements). sometimes when i say “veganism” i am actually thinking of things that other people would consider lgbttqq, anti-racism, or feminism

how i got into buddhism, and what it means 2 me

i read walt whitman a lot in early 2008 and eventually identified with his non-duality. he said, “great is wickedness . . . . i find i often admire it just as much as i admire goodness” (whole poem). here are numerous unpublished excerpts from my 2008 poems in a whitmanian style... if you are not interested, just skip over it

! consider This moonlight
any moment
like Jesus could be coming down
, petting a Turtle
slowly in his arms
...
! the stars Tonight / also , They
remind me of Jesus
they do / but he has duct-taped
grandPianos on each leg this time &
caster wheels ! o babY i mean that !!
...
yes ! i 'm huge on hiLLS ! im on
The big EARth ! O
i come to her i'm so beautiful &
The BAth of
nooN is here It's yellow It's beautiFul !!
...
o HAPPINESS you have ended philosophy thank you
...
The morning is beauTiful
eVerything else
is beaTiful Too i am aLive i am aLIve
and FInally
aLL searches are dONE

! yOu
The bright Noon
...
"i love to hear you talking,"
that is a sentence
as well
...
a pOET tells us to LOOk at our Hands.
Then we do it, its wonderful.
...
Then i say good bye for all of my life.
...
if i Fall down to die
, Then grass will be a beautiful surface
...
i am like The squares of Hay
pLummeting
thru doorways of Barns...
i am like the Reliable hands of
Math
...
i am like the dogs
They are
happy to see out a window
i like it also
...
If Nobody Else Ever Lived
It Would Be Enough Anyway
Because I Am So Alive That I Make Up
For Anything Else That Happens Or Doesn't.
...
we might as well clap in all The rooms !
any rooms we can!
...
Everybody come here i love you
...
i stand along the lake.
ah.
I think there is nothing better than it
...
I think i will put
my hand
in This place
( it's good i just stay for ever

in summer 2008, i repeatedly watched the ending to the activist/conspiracy documentary zeitgeist. actually, i embedded it on my myspace page. i really liked the quotes by richard alpert, so i looked him up and watched some talks by him on google video

in the fall of 2008 i read be here now by ram dass (the name richard alpert started using later). it was pretty cool in my opinion, like hippie self-help with drawings. i emailed my vegan activist friend victor about buddhism because he is a buddhist. victor recommended two books to me

in february 2009 i read zen mind, beginner's mind by shunryu suzuki, my favorite book ever since then. there is audio of it on youtube (get a taste). i have practiced zazen/shikantaza (zen meditation) with various amounts of consistency since 2009

buddhism for me is about sincerity and feeling ok. it is about having integrity and doing what i feel is right, but not being dogmatic, dramatic, or attached to my ideas

buddhism overlaps with veganism for me. my ideas about veganism are more easily understood in the context of buddhism. with both, i am trying to find/create a way of life that is calm/enjoyable for me and good for others and society

poetics of liberation, dada, and pushing against

in 2007 i read poems for the millennium volumes 1 and 2 cover to cover. a lot of the commentary helped me intuitively understand modernism and postmodernism. i think the commentary shaped my writing and life philosophy a lot

i came to understand modernism as questioning or pushing against the establishment. i understood postmodernism as a simultaneous pushing against the establishment and pushing against dogmatic or restrictive versions of modernism (or any dogmatic countercultures)

my understanding of modernism and postmodernism as “pushing against” relates to an idea my friend victor wrote about: the importance of criticism. in our vegan blogging, our group l.o.v.e. has questioned other activist groups as much as questioning speciesism and non-vegans

i developed an idea of veganism as questioning the mainstream, other vegans, and myself. this fit well with buddhist attitudes toward growth and change (suzuki’s talk on beginner’s mind)

my writing style illustrated “pushing against” by doing what other people said i shouldn’t do. people say you should use a normal font, for example, so i have used large helvetica, unusual capitalization, and the lowercase “i” that people say is immature. this tendency in my writing has been a way for me to assert freedom

my inspirations in this area have been dada, some flarf (see below for more on flarf and buddhism), youtubepoop videos, and some tao lin

ron silliman, lyn hejinian, and experience as a series of separate events

in 2009-10, i read from various language poets. the writings i disliked seemed to be more intellectual, scholarly, and dense. the writings i liked usually had simpler sentences and images with a fragmented form

in ron silliman’s ketjak (pdf), the first poetry book to make me really smile and read more than 20 pages in a row in 2009, there are a lot of sentences and fragments that are not connected to each other

Red shingle roof. I’m unable to find just the right straw hat. Primal soup. Pineapple slices. Extra paper money was kept in the closet, rolled by my grandmother into the shade of the samll window there, behind the coat hanger heavy with old ties.

i like the feeling of reading these fragments and encountering separate images. there are sentences about reading before dawn, eating oranges on a balcony, and rain in the summer. i feel nostalgic and appreciative when i think of these things, and the lack of continued plot emphasizes the feeling for me. instead of focusing on a larger theme or message, i just appreciate individual events and images

ron silliman said in an interview that the message of his writing is to “be here now,” and i think i feel that message from his writing. for me that message is connected to my ideas of buddhism. he also said, "you can just read what's there and that will tell you everything you need to know about my work"

lyn hejinian’s my life has a similar effect for me, and so does robert grenier’s sentences (which emphasizes plotlessness even more because it is 500 notecards with no order). fiction by tao lin and zachary german haven given me a similar feeling when the scenes are not clearly connected

tao lin, bell hooks, and direct statements and minimalism

this is similar to the above section, but also adapted more to sentence-level tone. about a year ago, i read and really liked shoplifting from american apparel (sfaa) by tao lin (and later, ellen kennedy's prose and zachary german's and timothy willis sanders'). the minimalist tone makes sfaa feel clean and calm to me. this excerpt is from sfaa, and the characters are at a bar:

Kaitlyn and Sam went upstairs into an outdoor area and each did a cartwheel. Kaitlyn broke a glass and covered her mouth with her hand. Sam covered his mouth with his hand then tried to climb onto the roof.
“You can’t climb that, someone said. “And this area is closing.”

another writer that influenced me with minimalist tone is bell hooks. i read feminist theory: from margins to center, which i recommend. i liked how she acknowledges both sides of a debate without using rhetoric to dismiss other people's ideas. bell hooks has been referred to as a buddhist, but i haven’t read any writings by her on the subject

influenced by sfaa, bell hooks, and maybe other things, i started writing in more minimalist styles (including for chapbook revisions and my blog) in spring 2010. my writing process now includes cutting over half of my drafts usually. in late april, i wrote something to a teacher about this style, which was maybe also influenced by haiku:

I try to remove extra lines until only the core remains. I try to remove evaluative bias, rhetoric, and adjectives. The line is just there. “This is the case. This is also the case.” One of my poems is, “oh, you have a smock on.” The reader is given a phrase and no context, no explanation, no “good guys” or “bad guys.”

i have written some minimalist fiction that is kind of like zachary german's, but i don't know if i will publish it. my vegan video has narration that is mainly straight-forward statements, as well

another aspect of minimalist tone for me is trying not to be dramatic. whenever i feel embarrassed of my older writings, it is usually because i was being very dramatic. my minimalist tone on my blog was partly an effort to be less dramatic

just making statements allows you to convey things like your beliefs, or tell a story, without being obsessive or dogmatic. it is just there, and it seems accurate because it is just the fact and nothing else, and it feels like you are less worked up about it

i have used a direct minimalist tone to write clear helpful blog posts, but unless you are interested in learning the information, the writing style can be boring i guess. this may be a reason why i am shifting more to flarf styles (see below), especially for my twitter and facebook updates

irony, flarf humor, and laughing at the seriousness of humans

in spring 2010 i read the front by k. silem mohammad and a couple other flarf books. flarf is a genre/school based on a method of making collage poems from search engine results. however, i think there is a kind of “flarfy” tone and flarf style of humor, so for me “flarf” signifies a voice also

check out the following lines from the front:

“damn I wish the Garden State soundtrack didn’t kick so much ass” (71)
“Get it through your head: your government doesn’t give a fuck about you.” (9)
“She had a big ass then, she’s got a big ass now.” (9)
“To the farmhouse, fuckboys!” (9)
“So I have determined that Myspace is creepy. / You may ask how I have determined this. / Well I will tell you.” (10)
“Rocking the Sprint Campus” (14)
“oh no, brother, you won’t score” (14)
“why in blazes would a man walk down a hot road / with his private parts hanging out” (98)
“it was basically high noon and I was jogging” (98)
“as my eyes were closing here were these amazing lines / ‘a frozen path / a path in autumn’ // may you write many more beautiful poems and songs” (98)
“it was like heaven to have those shade trees” (99)
“I must do things ASAP / (most people have heard of ASAP)” (78)
“let me just finish by saying that yes sometimes I am offended” (59)
“and I am offended by some of your comments” (59)
“I avoid a lot of rap music because I am offended by the words they use” (59)

these lines made me laugh a lot, and they have influenced my style in my recent poems. many of my recent tweets have a similar voice, as well. mohammad was also my original source for “boing boing,” a phrase i have adapted and used frequently, and which poncho peligroso has also taken up

for me, this style of humor makes me laugh at people who present themselves or some thing really seriously

in my helvetica poems, many of the cultural references are to things i actually like, and yet i am laughing at the speaker a little for how they think they are being clever, awesome, or badass. for me it is a loving and playful kind of humor, not meant to be really scathing satire, and my source is often older writings by myself (msn messenger history)

i think i am most relaxed/sincere when i am laughing, and i think laughing at yourself and your own beliefs suggests detachment for me. the worldview suggested to me by this kind of humor feels incompatible with dogma or violence. it is playful, goofy, and ridiculous

some of my other favorite sources for this kind of humor/style are hipster runoff (tweet, tweet); zachary german (blog post); tree_bro (tumblr, tumbr, tweet, tweet); and marshall mallicoat (tweet and his blog title youtube.com)

shunryu suzuki and warm, simple, detached writing tone

my minimalist and flarf styles are also shaped by a warm tone. i like to address writings to “my friends,” use simple words, and sign off emails with “warmly” or “sincerely”

shunryu suzuki has a tone that i think is simple and warm in this way. here are excerpts from zen mind, beginner’s mind, my favorite book:

“our approach is just to be concentrated on a simple basic practice and a simple basic understanding of life.” (65)
“There is no secret in our way. Just to practice zazen . . . is our way.” (57)
“when my talk is over, your listening is over. There is no need to remember what I say; there is no need to understand what I say. You understand; you have full understanding within yourself. There is no problem.” (55)
“I do not feel like speaking after zazen. I feel like the practice of zazen is enough. But if I must say something I think I would like to talk about how wonderful it is to practice zazen.” (47)

another example of a warm tone is peter orlovsky, especially due to his misspellings. i recommend his book clean asshole poems and smiling vegetable songs, although it can be hard to find (out of print)

andrew topel usually has a very warm tone in correspondences, and i also got this feeling in some emails from tao lin beginning “Dear Steve." also here is a quote from poncho peligroso's manuscript the romantic

hey pretty girl

i like you

i like being around you and talking to you

for me, the warm tone suggests a simple innocent persona and outlook that is not involved in much intellectual or rhetorical banter (a post by tree_bro that illustrates and maybe exaggerates the simple tone). this tone feels kind to me, which for me also relates to a simple idea of veganism as trying to be nice to others

ok my friends, that is all.. i want to bask in your love for eternity

as i posted on my tumblr, i will be announcing info about my collection of helvetica poems later this week

thank you for reading. if you like my blog, please subscribe/follow or remember to come back

related posts /

+ introduction to dada and the relationship to zen buddhism
+ aesthetics and identity
+ 'you can help stop this' (vegan video)

pop serial 2, theatrical trailer

2010-12-27T17:32:00.000-05:00

my friends, i have created a theatrical trailer for issue 2 of POP SERIAL

print copies of the magazine are now being distributed to contributors and kickstarter donors

a free online version is also coming soon (contact editor dierks for info, stephen.dierks [at] gmail.com)

if you like the trailer, please share it on your blogs and social networking sites

thank you everybody

two image macros ___________________

2010-12-23T10:02:00.003-05:00

i have expanded out from poetry into image macros. the ones here are from a series of rap song titles paired with pictures of my family. these two portray me on a scooter (~2008) and me holding a michael jordan baseball card (~1995)

unrelated note: recent requests for printed chapbooks have been delayed... i've printed but still have to assemble and package the next 200 copies. they should be in the mail the first week of january. sorry about the wait my friends

related posts /

+ three poems
+ visual poem: "express / the / birds / if you can"
+ three text messages by brett gallagher

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

2010-12-15T11:08:00.005-05:00

"three albums in sixteen months, homie... i know all about chasin paper" - plies

comedy / stand-up by marshall mallicoat
design / minimalist posters by emil ruder
music / "dance the way i feel" by ou est le swimming pool
music / "yippeekayay mother******" by the tony danza tapdance extravaganza
poetry / excerpts by johannes göransson
poetry / reading by me at the book cellar in chicago
poetry / "your semen is the data that your penis compresses" by ana c.
social media / inspiring quote by stephen tully dierks
social media / tweet by marshall mallicoat
social media / tweet by poncho peligroso
social media / tweet by carlos rowles
social media / tao lin retweet marathon
veganism / 30-day animal experimentation protest at tulane university

hello everyone, the first semester of my mfa program is almost over. i am happy about winter break and visiting michigan. i have a tentative title and release date for my collection of helvetica poems, and i will announce that stuff soon. i'm very excited about it

demand for my printed chapbook has decreased a little, which is ok because i am kind of exhausted printing them; i may stop at 1,000. thanks so much to everyone who has helped with that online promotion or spreading print versions

friends, please help me out: what should i definitely keep on my blog in 2011? i might start doing different things. i could post more of my poems, more long posts about literature or social issues, more posts like this with links and personal things.. what is your fave? thanks

etsy / tumblr / twitter / facebook / veganism / follow my blog

notes on 'orange juice' by timothy willis sanders

2010-12-10T18:05:00.003-05:00

orange juice by timothy willis sanders is out on awesome machine press this year. it is around 45 pages of short stories, and the stories are between 2 and 8 pages long

topics include a lot of relationships, wwe smackdown (the game), listening to pimp c. in a car, dogs, and seeing titanic in theaters

the tone is minimalist and concrete including a lot of brand names. the verb tense and point of view change between stories. the tone reminds me most of zachary german in eat when you feel sad

my favorite story is “driver’s license.” in the story, there are descriptions of carl checking his email

It’s Monday. Carl checks his email. There’s an offer of discounted hotel rates in Cancun. There’s an evite to a robot theme party. The party requires attendees to dress up “like your favorite robot.”
Carl’s mother forwarded a chain email. It’s a series of quotes from Andy Rooney. “I think if you feel homosexuality is wrong, it’s not a phobia, it’s an opinion.” The quotes are followed by pictures of kittens and the Pledge of Allegiance.

and

Carl gets home from work. He checks his email. Heath Miller sent Carl a Facebook invite to a housewarming party. Carl thinks, “Haven’t talked to Heath Miller in 10 years.” The housewarming party is in Nebraska. Carl clicks Maybe Attending. Carl’s mother forwarded a chain email. It’s in Comic Sans. There’s a picture of a cross over a schoolhouse. “When they took prayer out of school, students started shooting.” A spam email says “Party with the horse team she takes for a long walk!”

the end of the same story felt very powerful to me. in the scene, jill had left her id at carl’s house

Carl looks at her ID. He thinks the photo is pretty. Jill is 5’9”. She is 122 pounds. She lives three blocks from him. Carl types Jill’s address into Google Maps. He goes into “Street View” and zooms in. The house is white and the mailbox is stuffed with envelopes.

the book has a creative commons license, and it is $8 in the u.s.a.

the first thing i knew about orange juice was from an email from timothy: “the cover features a kitten and the title is comic sans because THAZZWUZZUP”

here is timothy willis sanders’ blog and twitter; here is a story from the book; here are reviews of orange juice by stephen tully dierks and zachary german; here is the orange juice page on awesome machine press’ website

more reviews by me / follow my blog (rss, email)

related posts /

+ notes on 'eat when you feel sad' by zachary german
+ notes on 'richard yates' by tao lin

minimalist blog design using blogger

2010-12-07T16:20:00.001-05:00

other than submitting to literary magazines, the most common thing people ask me about is how i designed my blog. it is a blogger blog, but the design is simple and clean. i have also designed this and this on blogger. i created my blog design by experimenting for a long time, so my understanding is not really complete. but here are some practical tips

minimalist blog design

minimalist blog design forces you to decide what is important. almost nothing on a blogger template is completely useless. for example, i removed the “followers” widget because i think it is ugly and huge. however, i may get fewer followers now. minimalist design allows you to emphasize one thing at a time, but you must leave out other things

removing things from blogger templates

the main thing i did with my blog is remove things from the template i had. some things are easy to remove. to learn how to remove more confusing things, i usually search “how to remove ________ in blogger” in a search engine, and someone has written about it. usually you just have to add or delete a couple lines of html (see below for the “edit html” tool)

here are links for basic things to remove
+ remove navigation bar
+ remove “subscribe to posts (atom)”
+ remove “home” and "newer" "older posts" links

directing traffic within the blog

other than appearance, one of the main ideas in web design is to encourage people to visit the pages you want them to visit

i used to have a link on my sidebar for book reviews, but in the past two months i decided i didn’t care if a lot of people check out my old reviews, so i removed the link. my review archive is still linked from my “about” page, but it doesn’t get nearly as many views from there. i am thinking of re-adding some links to the sidebar, but it’s hard to choose what is most important

also, i recommend making it quick to access things you want people to access. i had a “poetry” page that was just links to my poems around the internet, and i noticed a lot of people clicked on my “poetry” page and never followed any of the links. now i have poems right on my “poetry” page

making helvetica look good in blogger

helvetica is the only font i use on my blog, with arial as the second choice if the computer doesn’t have helvetica. (the order of font choices can be changed in your html: wherever there is a list of fonts in the html, you can add fonts or rearrange the order)

whenever i use large sizes of helvetica, i tighten the letter spacing and leading (line spacing, line height). this is an important part of making helvetica look good in my opinion

the letter spacing and line height are counted in “em,” a unit that is relative to font size. you don’t have to change it much to get tight spacing; the letter spacing for my date and post title is set around -0.05em

changing the blog “icon” to something else

the “icon” is the small square that shows next to the blog address in most browsers and next to the website name on browser tabs. most blogger blogs have a white “B” on an orange shape. i changed mine to a white square, and other people have pictures of themselves or a logo

this was another thing i searched in a search engine, but it was a little more confusing than other things. i think i had to convert a file to “.ico” format

using the “edit html” tool in general

most of this stuff is on the “edit html” page under the “design” tab. most people recommend that you back up your html (save in a text document) before you edit it

at the top of the html, there is a bunch of information you won’t probably change. then there are a lot of lines about fonts and colors, which you can change in the template designer as well

a lot of the html is broken into sections titled with “/* ________” and within those sections, smaller sections like “# _________.” most of the changes i’ve done manually are in these sections

other tips about this:
+ “#outer-wrapper” includes sidebars and the “#main-wrapper,” which is where posts are.
+ i use “text-transform:uppercase” for my date and post titles. but if you want to bold, underline, or italicize, the code is “text-decoration:____”
+ for me, the section for the date is labeled “h2.date-header”; the section for the post title is “.post h3”
+ usually if you need to move something up, down, or across, you can use margins, like adding “margin-top:50px;”

at the bottom of the html, there is a section with a lot of “div” lines. i don’t usually change these except when i’m following a how-to that says to change them

ok, if you have more specific questions, i can try to help. my main suggestion is to search in a search engine for how to remove things

note: my goal with this post is to help people design their own blogs, but if you want to hire me to design a blog instead, email me: steveroggenbuck[at]gmail.com

thank you everybody

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notes on three chapbooks

2010-12-04T19:40:00.002-05:00

hello friends, usually when i do chapbook reviews, they are really small posts. now i am doing 3 chapbook reviews in the same post. it is actually pretty long. was it a good idea, or bad?

william shatner by c. mcallister williams

william shatner told us there would be a reckoning.

we tell ourselves the waves are meant to devide.

william shatner by c. mcallister williams is out from alice blue in 2010. it is 10 pages of poetry. it is sewn together with handmade paper on its outside

subject matter in william shatner includes william shatner, blood, scented candles, country-western, anointing your clothing with sequins, and whalebone

the tone is epic, but there is some subject matter that is comically non-epic

william shatner is the uncommitted. he is wearing a combination.
earlier, with immortal science, he fondled his lollipop in my
backseat.

it is all lowercase, and ampersands (&) are used instead of "and." most of the poems have a pattern of 2-, 3-, or 4-line stanzas but they break from their pattern once or twice

there are five exclamation points!

& now: tribulation! our petty
vessels are all naught for william shatner
is shamed!

i have been friends with c. mcallister williams for around 4 years. he was one of the first "serious" poets i became friends with and he has influenced my reading and writing a quite a bit

here is the page for william shatner on alice blue’s website, and here is a limited edition version including a mirror

snowing fireflies by eric beeny

snowing fireflies by eric beeny came out in 2010 from folded word. it is 22 pages of short fiction. copies are numbered up to #75

topics include shoveling a driveway, bird island, drilling into a museum exhibit, and growing umbrellas in your garden

stuffing my mouth with a rainbow of children’s refridgerator magnets

most of the paragraphs are one sentence long. the word “big” is used as an adverb a few times (“smiling big”)

there is a story where a kid gets repeatedly dominated and injured

When I was a kid, I went down the hot metal slide on my tummy and skinned my knee.

At the bottom I flew off the slide, scraping my elbow on some broken glass in the sand.

Staggering from the playground, I accidentally knocked over a bigger kid’s bicycle and the bigger kid punched me in the face.

A girl smaller than him, than me, scratched my neck, my chest.

The bigger kid pushed me and I fell to the ground, knocking my head against the pavement.

i have talked to eric in email and comments since june. he was one of my first regular readers after i started writing reviews, and he recommended aram saroyan’s minimalist poems to me

here is eric beeny’s blog, links to a lot of eric beeny’s fiction and poetry, and the snowing fireflies page on folded word’s website. here is an online chapbook by eric beeny. here is a video of eric beeny solving a rubix cube

make-believe love-making by ana c.

make-believe love-making by ana c. came out in 2010. it is 24 pages of poetry. copies are numbered up to #69

topics include penises, semen, bad tasting pasta, sexism, and water beds

the poems are all lowercase except for the abbreviations “PETA” and “FML”

there is a poem called “hung: the vulgar slang definition”

instead of quoting various lines, here is a full poem i like

i hate your saliva

and you probably left me
because of my haircut

it’s generic

unworthy of description

and you think i look like a boy

i recently went to a reading (audio here) where ana c. read over skype. a lot of people laughed at the reading

here is an online chapbook by ana c., and here is ana c.’s blog (she posts poems on her blog pretty often)

you can read more of my reviews here; thanks everybody

three poems ______________________

2010-11-30T15:15:00.004-05:00

these are from my project of uppercase helvetica poems. the language is from youtube.com and my msn messenger history. check out more on my poetry page

i have also posted a new one at my tumblr, which i am starting to use now

also, i have made vague plans to publish a collection of these in late winter or spring 2011, free online but also available in print. more info coming soon. thank you friends

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one year anniversary for my blog

2010-11-26T19:40:00.005-05:00

last november i started my blog. the first post was called “today is buy nothing day in the united states.” (buy nothing day is today this year, so i am posting this today)

in commemoration of the fun times, blood, tears, and happiness, here is a recap of the year for my blog and my life

november and december 09 | i played chess on yahoo chess and chessmaster 9000. i watched southland tales. i read shoplifting from american apparel by tao lin. my poems were published at nthposition and cricket online review. i reviewed home alone 2

january 10 | i read almost all of tao lin’s blog archives. i wrote on my blog that being alive is “suffering that is beautiful.” my blog started to attract readers who know me in real life

february 10 | i wrote a long post about aesthetics and identity. i wrote a crappy blog post about eminem and deleted it. i wrote about robert grenier, and ron silliman linked to it, propelling me to 90 hits in one day... i wrote about a vegan-related news event

march 10 | i had a lot of online publications. i got acceptance letters from cal arts, california college of the arts, and columbia college chicago; i got rejection letters from other places. i posted visual poems on facebook and tagged 50 people in them

april 10 | i decided to go to columbia college chicago for an mfa. i visited chicago and read at the columbia poetry review release. i adopted a more minimalist tone on my blog and revised old posts to be consistent with it. i watched the documentary helvetica on my parents' netflix instant play

may 10 | i started reviewing books on my blog. i took a graphic design class that encouraged my already blossoming use of helvetica. i reviewed tao lin, and he linked to it, and my hits were over 100 in a day... i wrote poems by translating things between languages on google translate

june 10 | i redesigned my blog to basically my current design, and i released an ironic computer background. i deleted my content from november to april and created a post to archive some of it. i finished my last undergrad classes. i submitted a chapbook manuscript called i am like october when i am dead to h_ngm_n books. i moved to my parents’ houses

july 10 | i cultivated beans and sugar beets on my dad’s farm, and i got free books to review on my blog. i watched hgtv with my gf while eating veggie burgers and various grains. i wrote poems every day for 30 days with my friend j joseph kane. i visited chicago again and found an apartment with my gf. i went swimming in lake huron, then i moved to chicago

august 10 | i had my 5 year anniversary with my gf. i released a video about the oppression of nonhuman animals. i met stephen tully dierks in person. i withdrew my chapbook manuscript from h_ngm_n. i started going to the library every morning to work on poetry and my blog. i posted image poems on my blog

september 10 | i read john keats’s love letters. i met brett gallagher in real life. i started school. i went to tao lin’s readings in chicago, and i hung out with stephen, brett, and tao. i read at ear eater 1. i decided to self-publish my chapbook in october so i could control the design and distribution

october 10 | i posted about submitting to literary journals, and ron silliman linked to it. i posted about publishing into the public domain, and leo babauta linked to it. i released my chapbook and many of my internet friends reviewed it. my blog hits increased a lot from september. i was an elephant for halloween

november 10 | john campbell linked to my chapbook. i opened my etsy store of ironic greeting cards. i helped stephen design pop serial 2. i helped organize poncho peligroso week 2010. i started a collaborative blog with brett gallagher called bloodhound gang. my image poems and greeting cards went slightly viral on fuck yeah helvetica

thanks to everybody who has read my blog or been my friend online or in real life this year. sorry if i left out something that had to do with you

for a more complete round up of posts, see my archive. thank you my lovely friends

selling art: commodification of art + donation-based income from art

2010-11-24T14:54:00.009-05:00

after i wrote about publishing into the public domain, some people assumed i am against making money from art. but two weeks ago i opened an etsy store of minimalist greeting cards, and last week i put up a donation section on my chapbook website

there are a lot of reasons artists may be opposed to selling art. some artists have clearly defined reasons, and a lot of artists have vague feelings about it. i have thought a lot about it, and i believe in making money from art under certain conditions

reasons people may be against selling art

one reason is that selling art may require you to conform to what is in demand. this concern is similar to why i don't want donations for my vegan activism. veganism is a direct effort to change society, and accepting money can make you accountable to what someone else wants. some donor-funded activism groups have assimilated into mainstream values over time. if you make art and try to sell it, there is a chance you will assimilate to styles of art that sell more. i used to be more concerned about this than i am currently. when i write something that is exciting to me, i have found that usually other people like it

there is also commodity fetishism, which i understand a little. once the goal of selling is introduced to a situation, selling can become the main goal. then a conversation with a blog reader (for example) becomes a means to an end, selling something. something that was deeper or harder to objectify or replicate (like friendship, a lifestyle, or social change) becomes a commodity

also many people are annoyed by always being sold something. instead of people just sharing what they like, most communication and media is actually attempting sell an idea or product. economically, tv shows exist to sell advertising. any show you like, it is actually being broadcasted because it attracts a target demographic (you) to watch commercials. if an artist is very concerned about selling, it is possible their conversation, presentation, or actual art may become inauthentic

why i am against the usual ways of selling art

i don't want to withhold my art from anyone. i want to share and spread my writing and art. in practice, a lot of poets are really nice and will share their books for free, but usually charging a fixed price for a book means that you will withhold the book if the person doesn't pay. i want to share my writing whether or not people pay. if i withhold my writing from people who don't pay, then i have let payment come before sharing my writing

there is not much in this section, but it is actually the main point of the post

positive interpretations of selling art

people also say paying for art is beautiful because it supports the artist. paying for something is a way to show appreciation because money shows value. if i go to a restaurant and the food is wonderful, the payment can show appreciation and allow the chef to be able to cook for people every day

i think getting money for art can be beautiful if it is a free exchange (see below). the usual way of selling is just not ideal to me because it is conditional. instead of openly sharing and accepting support in return, you may become actively involved in selling. then if someone is poor or they don't have money with them, you refuse to share with them or help them

if people want to support me as an artist, i want to allow and encourage it. i need money for food, shelter, and other things. i would like to spend as much time as possible on my writing, blog, and etsy store. if i don't make money from any of them, i need to make money from something else. i can do that, but it is less fun for me, and most jobs seem to actually be involved in worse social practices. i think spending my time on writing and art is beneficial for myself and others. so i will accept the support people offer

donation-based income from art

my main idea is that i want my writing income to be donation based. when i have a full-length book, the text will be online for "pay what you want." you can read all my writing for free if you want. or you can support me if you want. i am also soon posting the high-res files for my etsy designs for free if you'd like to print your own (to me, this makes buying the printed version seem like a donation). if you buy something from me, i want it to be an open offer of support

if a full-length artwork is not available for free, then excerpts, free mp3s, poems at literary journals, readings, blog posts, and music videos can just feel like advertisements. in dreamworlds 3, sut jhally said the main point of music videos is to sell cd's. economically, that is true, even if the artist is still able to express themselves through it

if the full-length artwork is available for free, a lot of the commodified feel of making money from art is gone for me. i can try to get it to many people, and it doesn't feel bad to me, because people can experience all of it for free in some form. i am still gaining something from readers: i get the joy of higher hits, the ability to direct more readers to what i post, and probably more donations in the end. but if those people like what i post, that is a mutually beneficial situation. i am not building up desire for something and then charging a fixed rate of money to access it

trying hard to create a better way

my etsy store is not perfect by my values. it would maybe be better if it didn't involve producing and shipping physical products, and it would maybe be better if the products were as cheap as wholesale cost. those might be things i try to change in the future. but even as it is, i think i am making a solid effort to create a better way

donation-based income often involves the artist more directly with money than publishing with a press, so it might seem more like turning the artist into a business person... my poetry may be dismissed because i sell things like greeting cards. but actually for my values, i think it is more transparent and ideal to handle all selling/donations myself in a way that i believe in, rather than having a press do it the usual way

more than talking critically about the system, i am trying to change the way things are. i think artists can be supported as artists without compromising their values or being exclusionary to their (potential) fans. maybe there is something wrong with my ideas; i don't know yet. but i am trying hard to create a better way

thank you very much

guerilla distribution of poetry by poncho peligroso

2010-11-20T20:13:00.002-05:00

for the last day of poncho peligroso week 2010, stephen tully dierks and i spread two of poncho peligroso's poems around chicago

the poems ("tar toof" and "baby, you got it all") are from poncho's unpublished manuscript the romantic, which was recently reviewed by stephen

some additional pics have been uploaded to a photo album on facebook

here is poncho peligroso's website

poncho peligroso computer wallpaper

2010-11-16T23:18:00.001-05:00

to celebrate #ponchopeligrosoweek2010 (website), i have made a computer desktop background featuring the likeness of poncho peligroso and a title to a famous poem by him

i have made three popular computer desktop sizes. if you need a different size, let me know and i will accommodate you

in the largest size, poncho's face is being enlarged over 300%

1024 x 768
1280 x 800
1920 x 1200

thank you very much

see also the official marshall mallicoat computer wallpaper

related posts /

+ minimalist/ironic 'computer' computer wallpaper
+ guerilla distribution of poetry by poncho peligroso
+ help me concoct a google bomb for poncho peligroso

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2010-11-11T19:41:00.006-05:00

news _ today is the grand reopening of my etsy store.. check it out

design / marshall mallicoat computer background with kayne west's dick, designed by me
design / the cover for pop serial 2, designed by me
design / the poncho peligroso week website, designed by me
film / 3d documentary about justin beiber, trailer
film / the corporation on youtube
interview / with tao lin
music / "elder misanthropy" by the black dahlia murder
music / "people=shit" by slipknot (w/ lyrics)
photography / by elizabeth arnold
photography / pic of me and stephen tully dierks cuddling, by elizabeth arnold
poetry / 3 new poems by poncho peligroso
poetry / "i don't want to think about a duck dying" by matthew savoca (video)
poetry / "i like my body when it is with your" by e.e. cummings
poetry / old/rare poem by tao lin, scroll to bottom of page
prose / 1,000+ page novel by marshall mallicoat
veganism / "the rhythm" slaughterhouse video
video / stephen tully dierks and richard chiem dropping tully bombs
video / "simon and schuster rejected hitler's 'mein kampf'"

sorry there are so many links

thanks to everybody for helping spread my chapbook. i have mailed out almost 500 print copies now, and the e-book version has had over 6,000 unique visitors.. i feel happy and appreciative. i will still mail you 5-20 free copies if you can spread them in your area (friends, bookstores, cafes): steveroggenbuck [at] gmail.com

coming soon is a blog post about selling art, commodification, and integrity; a blog post about minimalist blog design with blogger; a blog post about veganism and writing style; and miscellaneous contributions for poncho peligroso week

oh and today is my birthday.. i am 23.. for a gift, buy something from my etsy store haha

thanks my friends. if you like what i am doing, please consider following my blog

etsy twitter facebook veganism

three text messages by brett gallagher

2010-11-09T12:03:00.000-05:00

this is my 2005 nokia phone

texts by brett gallagher, photography/editing by me. brett is in my phone as karl marx

here is brett's blog

notes on 'thin kimono' by michael earl craig

2010-11-03T11:45:00.002-04:00

   She silently mouthed the word pop
     twice—pop, pop—and I felt myself twitch sharply
     in my bed. I knew I could wake up if I wanted to,
     but it just wasn’t my style.

thin kimono by michael earl craig is out on wave books in 2010. it is around 105 pages in three sections

the subject matter includes rural settings, dead people, ice cream, domesticated horses, and the names of paint colors

Varieties of corn rain down

quite a few poems talk about poetry

the poems were written for me, or for readers who were exactly the same person I was. I said I couldn’t imagine any other person.

there is political commentary in some of the poems

It’s Wednesday, I’m
gonna get me a belt buckle with
a bald eagle on it.

some of the poems end with a clever and funny line that isn’t really related to the rest of the poem. the lines quoted at the top of this review are from the end of a poem

my favorite poems in the book are "hello" and "a bold coat of vodka bonbons"

The man in the porno is lying back on the plastic lounge chair.
His eyes seem loose in his head.
Like maybe they don’t belong to him.
They flutter like the delicately hinged eyes of a doll
surfacing from a parallel universe.
I hit Pause.
These eyes are trying to tell us something.
They are trying to help us.
Anyone who looks into them can easily see this.
It is difficult to understand how the world works.

here is the page for thin kimono on the wave books website, michael earl craig’s e-book on bear parade, curt busch's review of thin kimono, and links to three other wave books i have reviewed, beckman beckman and beckman and rohrer

three poems ______________________

2010-10-30T11:52:00.006-04:00

you can view more of these in my aug 14, sept 15, and sept 30 blog posts. you can also watch a video of me reading 15 of them

10 poems like this are coming out in pop serial 2, which i also designed the cover for

happy halloween everybody. i am being an elephant for halloween

notes on 'long love poem with descriptive title' by matthew savoca

2010-10-26T11:14:00.003-04:00

you’re so ornery in this picture, you said

stop yelling at me, i said

long love poem with descriptive title by matthew savoca is out on scrambler books since last month. i don't know how many pages it has

there are extra spaces between some lines but no separate poems. there are pencil drawings of nonhuman animals and a lamp, computer-made drawings of plants, and other drawings

owls are my favorite winged creature

the book has a lot of scenes of two people in a relationship being bored in a hot apartment and not doing a lot

i don’t think we even like each other anymore

the way we don’t really like ourselves anymore

i first found matthew savoca on the pop serial tumblr and i read his ebook i am being honest. i liked it a lot for the warm simple tone in it, especially in the opening poems. long love poem with descriptive title has a similar warm tone in parts

i am going to go cut fruit and put it into a bowl for you

there is also a more clever/ironically mechanical tone that reminds me of cognitive-behavior therapy by tao lin. i was interested about how this voice combines with the warm tone, although i liked the warm tone more

here are the first sentences of long love poem with descriptive title: ‘large eyes and visible cheekbones // are what make you beautiful // i know this abstractly // and feel it distinctly’

here are the first sentences of cognitive-behavioral therapy: ‘seen from a great enough distance i cannot be seen / i feel this as an extremely distinct sensation / of feeling like shit’

it is not the number of life affirming experiences that you have

but the moments that take your breath away that count

there is a spoiler for an episode of lost in the book

his author pic is cropped to look a little like a polaroid, and his bio says he doesn't eat animals

here is matthew savoca’s website; his twitter; the scrambler books page for long love poem with descriptive title

i am like october when i am dead: chapbook release

2010-10-19T14:09:00.020-04:00

my chapbook is now posted at http://iamlikeoctoberwheniamdead.com/

on the website, you can read the full text, view 'bonus features' including deleted scenes and commentary, and get information on helping me distribute and promote it

[updated november 29th] i have distributed about 680 print copies. i have about 60 more soon to be mailed. i'm still looking for more people who want to review it or spread 5-20 copies in their area. please let me know if you want to help: steveroggenbuck [at] gmail [dot] com. i have added a "donate" button if you want to help with printing or shipping costs

an interview is up with marshall mallicoat

reviews are up from it's nice that, brett gallagher, jake fournier, curt busch, poncho peligroso, derek piotr, morgan myers, jake teitelbaum, liam adams, chas holden, bilby p. dalgyte, nick hadfield, lucas ruppel, alexis carek, zachary german, zachary whalen, beach sloth, carina santos, margarita deslizamiento

mentions/links by celebrities ron silliman and john campbell

pictures of people with it tracy meg poncho poncho and bill somebody phillip rex huddleston somebody alexis carek zachary german carina santos

video of people reading some of the poems richard wehrenberg jr., richard chiem and ana c.

thank you friends for keeping up with my writing and helping spread my chapbook. i really appreciate it a lot

click here to visit my chapbook's website

publishing literature into the public domain

2010-10-14T14:26:00.005-04:00

hello friends. i have called myself a poet, but my main goal is to make things i like and share them with other people. whenever the standard practice of poets and that goal are in conflict, i try to acknowledge my own goal rather than the usual way of poets

i am publishing a chapbook next week. some people will judge me for self-publishing, or they will assume my chapbook wasn’t good enough to find a publisher. but my decision to self-publish is connected to a decision i made more than a year ago to publish all my writing and art into the public domain

if a person’s main goal is to share their art with other people, i feel copyright may be counterproductive. if taken seriously it actually restricts others from sharing your work, making it illegal to publicly share poems and images

there are bloggers and computer programmers who have published without copyright for a while. the vegan video i finished this summer was explicitly uncopyrighted, as well as l.o.v.e.’s vegan blog. but i haven’t heard about many literary writers, even radical/anarchist poets, doing this

maybe an explicit ‘uncopyright’ has seemed unnecessary because poetry doesn’t sell a lot anyway. but i think it makes a difference. most of my favorite contemporary poetry is not available for free online. i had to pay money to find and read most of my favorite contemporary poetry

for me, requiring people to pay money to access my poetry and art is against my goals and values. if i fall into that practice of withholding my writing, then i am letting the usual way of poets and our economy interfere with what i really want to do

there are some other options i have read about like creative commons and copyleft, but i have thought about it for a long time, and i believe in the public domain. i don’t want to protect my art work from anything; i just want to share it

i plan on publishing full-length print books in the future, probably with a publisher, but i will always put the full text online for free or optional donation, and it will always be in the public domain. this also applies to my blog

i want to encourage you to use my writing and art however you want. it is just here for you to enjoy it. you can post my poems on your blog and upload my art to your facebook. you can print or republish my writing wherever you like, with or without credit. you can modify it, then publish it. you can sell it under your own name

i love you

thank you very much

related posts /

+ selling art: commodification of art + donation-based income from art
+ self-publishing a poetry chapbook and distributing it for free
+ doctrine on internet poetry
+ internet poetry and self-publishing

submitting to literary journals

2010-10-07T17:08:00.007-04:00

hello friends, some people who read this blog have told me they are interested in submitting poetry or fiction to literary journals and would be interested in my advice

here is my history with submitting to literary journals: since 2006, i have sent 91 submissions to literary journals. i have been accepted 30 times by 21 journals, rejected over 50 times, currently pending on a few. the first places i got accepted were my school’s literary journals and a really low press-run place that i think accepted everybody. in late 2007 i got accepted at moria, in 2008 i got accepted at blazevox and barnwood, and then in late 2009 i got published in around 10 places, and around 10 more so far in 2010

reasons to submit or not submit to literary journals

my primary goal with publishing is to share my writing with other people. other writers may have different goals like getting credentials for their teaching career, having an impressive byline, making money, or something else. if your goals are different from mine, probably not all of my conclusions will apply to you

some people say no one actually reads literary journals and they only exist to give people publishing credits in academia. i think that is half true. most people do not read journals all the way through unless they really love and trust the specific journal. but i have found some of my favorite contemporary writers in literary journals (tao lin, andrew topel, brandon downing, sam pink), so i have a little belief in them

one thing about submitting to literary journals is that you have to wait before sharing your writing with people. if i write a poem and want to share it, i could blog it immediately. but publishing through a literary journal takes months, sometimes a year. (if you’ve posted a poem on your blog, a lot of literary journals will consider it previously published and won’t accept it)

i submit to literary journals because i think it will help me share my writing with more people who are interested in my kind of writing, but i am not fiercely confident about it. i do not rely only on literary journals to share my writing with people. below, i will explain a reason why i don’t submit all my poems to literary journals anymore

finding literary journals you like

there are a lot of literary journals. newpages has a very big list of them. there are print journals and online journals, and journals that are both. one of my friends suggested submitting to online journals because more people can access it for free; they don’t need to subscribe to a print journal. other people think print journals are more credible (if you want credentials). i do feel more satisfied when i see/hold my writing in a print journal. one time i got to see my poem in barnes and noble, via columbia poetry review (a print journal), and that felt cool also

i have used a variety of tactics to find literary journals. in 2007-08, i visited every literary journal on a newpages list of online journals and wrote down my opinion of them. i don’t recommend this method because it takes a long time and it’s very scattered. also, i don’t even consult that list of opinions anymore because my taste has changed multiple times since then

in december 2008 and january 2009, i went through all of poet’s market, a huge book, with a pen and highlighter. because i was writing political poetry and nature poetry at the time, i marked all the journals that asked for those themes, also marking payment and names i recognized. i don’t recommend this approach. it takes a long time, and when i looked up most of these journals online, i usually didn’t actually like what they published. also, as with the huge list from newpages, i haven’t even consulted that copy of poet’s market because my writing has changed since then. so it’s a lot of time invested in something that may not last you very long

in mid-late 2009 when i was writing very fragmented poems and cut-up visual poems, i found a number of journals i liked from the ‘links’ page at word for/ word, an experimental poetry journal. some other journals have ‘links’ pages, too. i recommend this approach if you can find a journal you like with a ‘links’ page. a lot of contemporary poets also have sidebars on their blogs with links to literary journals they like

in 2010 my tactic for finding literary journals has been looking where my favorite contemporary writers have published. if you look in the front or back of most poetry collections, for example, there is a list of where the poems were first published. you can also search the writer’s name online. recently, because i have been reading a lot of contemporary poetry, i recognize a lot more names and i can more quickly assess a journal’s general styles from the contributor list. i recommend this approach. it seems practical and quicker than other methods

in 2010 i’ve tried to submit to some ‘bigger’ journals, relatively speaking... for a while i only submitted to journals that have published some of my favorite writers. but lately i have also been submitting to ‘smaller’ journals if i like them. i think i have been taking literary journal submitting less seriously in general. the most important ‘principle’ for selecting journals is probably to find places you like

here are some journals i’ve been accepted by alba, blazevox, columbia poetry review, cricket online review, drupe fruits, elimae, hot metal bridge, moria, nthposition, prick of the spindle, the red ceilings, right hand pointing, sawbuck, word for/ word, and others

here are some journals i want to be accepted by action yes, alice blue, coconut, court green, eleven eleven, fence, filling station, harp & altar, h_ngm_n, the hat, isreads, jubilat, konundrum engine lit review, la petite zine, lit magazine, no tell motel, notnostrums, octopus, past simple, poetry, saltgrass, the scrambler, shampoo, verse magazine, we are champion, west wind review, and others

blog hits from getting in literary journals

some journals may provide blog hits, but none of the places i’ve been published have given me a lot of traffic. occasionally people google my name to arrive at my blog, and i wonder if they read my poems in a literary journal. other than that, most of my publications only result in 5-20 blog visitors each. twittering, facebooking, and getting linked for my reviews have given me more hits

simultaneous submissions

one of the tactics that resulted in my increased acceptance rate in late 2009 was that i started submitting batches of poems to 4-5 different journals at once. usually, out of 5 places, my poems get taken somewhere. this is in contrast to sending a group of poems to one place, waiting a few months, getting rejected, sending them to another place, waiting a few months, and so on

i recommend simultaneously submitting if the journals allow it. the only reason i can think of to not simultaneously submit is if you really want to publish a specific thing in a specific journal. then you’d want to only send to them, and maybe try others if you get rejected

keeping track of submissions

if you submit things to multiple journals at once, you may want a record of it so you can tell the other journals if you get accepted. my system for this is not very good. i have three documents; in one, i mark the individual submissions; in another, i sort by poem and write what has happened with each poem; and in a third, i sort by each literary journal and mark my history with each one. this is like doing the work of microsoft access manually, i think... you don't really need to sort all three ways. it might be better to make one list and use the 'find' command to look up specific poems/journals/submissions

cover letters

for my cover letters/emails, i use standard capitalization and punctuation, address the editors by their names, briefly compliment the journal (usually if i am submitting, i like the journal), mention the number of poems attached or ‘pasted below’ and if they’ve been submitted elsewhere, then a short bio in case they need it, then say ‘thank you’ and sign off with my name and email. i haven’t copied this down into a template, but it is essentially a template. the submission can speak for itself, so i don’t say much about it unless they ask

cash money

i have made $150 from publishing poetry in literary journals. when i got published in barnwood, i got $25 for each poem. i also got $100 for winning 'best poetry' in an issue of my school's literary journal. there are a lot of journals that pay at least a little bit ($10-50), but most of them don't seem to publish the styles of writing that i like

publishing the same thing at multiple literary journals

almost all literary journals want to be the first place to publish something, but some places accept ‘previously published’ writing. usually these journals aren’t very ‘respected.' if they seem like a cool journal, it seems ok to submit to them anyway. i haven’t done this much because almost all the journals i like want unpublished writing

blogging vs publishing in literary journals

something i realized recently is that posting some of my poems on my blog may actually be more effective for my goals compared to submitting them all to literary journals and then linking to them. i want to have a blog that is worth revisiting regularly. my image poems seem very liked on my blog, resulting in more comments and excitement than most other posts. so i don’t think it is a ‘waste’ to publish some of them for the first time on my blog. (another idea is to publish poems in a literary journal and later post them on your blog. almost always, you have the rights to republish your poem anywhere as long as the journal gets to be the first place)

ok, if you have other questions about my experiences with submitting to literary journals, i will try to answer them in the comments or another blog post

if you like my blog, please considering following or remembering to come back

thank you very much

notes on 'wild life rifle fire' by paul siegell

2010-10-05T11:34:00.001-04:00

wild life rifle fire by paul siegell is out from otolith earlier this year. it is a book of concrete poems in large-sized bold helvetica, black on white

a lot of the poems contain puns by breaking words into two or three lines. this combined with the visual emphasis in general reminded me a little of e.e. cummings

a lot of nonstandard characters/letters are used, with tails and accent marks, and there is a lot of fluctuation between underline, italics, uppercase, and lowercase. i think this gives the poems a more lively/active feel compared to my grid-set uppercase poems, for example

there is a poem that says 'RAIN' at the top and has a page full of letters and punctuation that looks a little like rain. i am not sure, but this may be an allusion to past concrete poets. there is a poem by seiichi nikuni in poems for the millennium volume 2 that has the word 'rain' and a lot of punctuation filling the page

there is also a fourteen line poem that includes the word 'sonnet' enjambed

from reading and viewing wild life rifle fire, i feel paul siegell is probably a cool person who says witty things and mostly has a good time

here is a youtube trailer of the book

here is paul siegell's blog, where you can currently get a signed copy of this book for $6

three poems ______________________

2010-09-30T11:57:00.002-04:00

these were taken from msn messenger logs on my computer from high school. for more of this project, go here and here. there is also a video of me reading/presenting 15 of these

thank you for reading my blog. if you like these, please consider following or remembering to come back

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2010-09-25T15:45:00.007-04:00

"natural causes, they won't kill me." - sam pink in frowns need friends too

fiction / video of stephen tully dierks reading 'serious european art film'
film / howl is 'in theaters' (i haven't seen it)
film / joaquin pheonix in 8 mile 2
music / dance remix of the mountain goats by jordan castro and david d'amato
nonhuman animals / honeybees dancing to communicate the location of flowers
poetry / seasonal helvetica poem by me on facebook
poetry / video of me reading/presenting image poems
poetry / visual poem by constantin zenakis at renegade
veganism / spanish subtitles now on my veganism video

hello friends. it is fall now. there is a person i know from michigan who says every year that october is the best month of the year. i'm not sure what i believe

i think i will self-publish my chapbook i am like october when i am dead next month. i will post an e-book version and also print free copies. more info coming soon; if you want an early copy to write about on your blog, please comment or email me

i might start a series of profiles of vegan artists, also, either on this blog or a different one. most of the first people will be writers i have emailed about veganism. if you want to be profiled or refer someone, please comment or email me

i will be reviewing books by paul siegell, johannes göransson, and michael earl craig pretty soon. i'll keep posting image poems every 2-4 weeks since people seem interested in them. i might post some things about my experiences with guerilla distribution of poetry. please let me know if some of these seem more interesting than others

thank you very much

my other sites twitter facebook veganism

notes on 'blink and the world goes blank' by filbert conroy

2010-09-24T11:41:00.000-04:00

blink and the world goes blank by filbert conroy was out in 2010 from on lives press; it is a chapbook with about 30 pages of microfiction scenes

the subject matter includes pointing a video camera at a tv that it is plugged into, dating, being in your bedroom, and trying to use a vacuum cleaner that has a full bag

it is written in the 2nd person, using present and past tense

You had just left a date who didn’t hug goodbye long enough.

the narrator seems to have a lot of information about ‘you’ and ‘your’ stuff; sometimes it seems funny

You went to a bar on a weekday and spent upwards of $20.00. This wasn’t a wise move given your limited funds.

there are funny similes

The subway platform was as quiet as outer space.

the author’s note says filbert worked at a shoe factory for 17 years

here is the blink and the world goes blank page from on lives press’ website and a page 'on filbert conroy' from on lives press' website

three drawings/'john hancocks' by tao lin

2010-09-21T09:37:00.006-04:00

the middle drawing is tao's ugly fish. the last drawing is an upside-down cross jumping out of water and flying through the air

i really liked meeting tao lin. stephen tully dierks wrote about some of the fun times we had. here is tao lin's blog, tao lin's art blog, and tao lin's tour dates

three poems ______________________

2010-09-15T13:37:00.002-04:00

these are from my image poetry project in uppercase helvetica. for 3 more poems and a brief discussion of this project, please view my august 14th post

notes on 'richard yates' by tao lin

2010-09-08T13:13:00.001-04:00

richard yates by tao lin is a novel out from melville house starting yesterday; it is about 200 pages

most of what i read about richard yates made me think it would be like shoplifting from american apparel. the tone feels similar, but the book is very different and more focused

almost every scene in richard yates has interactions between the characters haley joel osment and dakota fanning. there are scenes of haley by himself peeing, showering, or doing push-ups, but those scenes are rare and almost feel out of place to me

i liked reading the ongoing jokes between haley joel osment and dakota fanning

"I keep staring at Richard Yates' face on the back of The Easter Parade but not having any reaction to it. Just looking." Haley Joel Osment said "Party girl" which was a term they had for people who did not speak in a quiet monotone and were not severly detached. Inanimate objects and situations and animals and boys could also be party girls. Dakota Fanning said if they wrote a book about a party girl called Party Girl they would be rich. "I just searched it on Amazon and there's like 4 books and 3 movies call Party Girl," she said. "Party Babe would make us the most rich probably."
Haley Joel Osment said "Slut Babe."
"Slut Party," said Dakota Fanning.

and dakota fanning referring to her mom at first

       "I will talk to fried Nicholas Sparks cheese beast."
       "That is good," said Haley Joel Osment. "Cheese beast."
       "I kept looking at 'cheese beast' and ignoring the rest."
       "Me too," said Haley Joel Osment.
       "Let's refer to her as a cheese beast now," said Dakota Fanning. "Like tape man or headbutt girl."
       "Sometimes we can call other people cheese beasts too," said Haley Joel Osment.
       Dakota Fanning said the name of a person and said the person was a cheese beast.

there are a lot of things in richard yates that are also in cognitive-behavioral therapy by tao lin or sometimes my heart pushes my ribs by ellen kennedy

as i wrote in a review of sometimes my heart pushes my ribs, and in a comment to an 'auxillary text' to shoplifting from american apparel, i like the experience of reading about these events and people in multiple fictional accounts. in each account, there is different information

i also liked reading about the origin of tao lin's 2006 blog post about dark literature

Haley Joel Osment [...] went to a computer and typed an essay on his blog about Nicholas Sparks and suicide. The essay was directed at Dakota Fanning's mother and mentioned a King Kong DVD he had seen in Dakota Fanning's mother's bedroom. The essay said Nicholas Sparks could also cause people to hurt themselves.

this reading experience is possible because tao lin (as well as ellen kennedy) writes about his own life

knowing that tao lin writes about his own life also makes richard yates feel very painful. during reading richard yates, i had many experiences of looking up from the book and feeling pain

there is a power imbalance in richard yates between haley joel osment and dakota fanning. haley joel osment tells dakota fanning she should take caffeine instead of sleep so she can stay awake longer when they are together or talk longer on gmail chat. haley joel osment gets upset when dakota fanning doesn't offer to carry his bag and when she doesn't mail him things every day

when reading richard yates, i thought, 'if haley joel osment is tao, is tao really this mean? or was tao only like this in the past, primarily, and he wrote a book that shows how destructive that kind of behavior is?'

mostly i think richard yates is painful to me because i have also done things like haley joel osment does in richard yates. and when i read haley joel osment doing them, i don't want him to do them. and after reading haley joel osment do them, i don't want to do them. it is maybe similar to the feeling of watching footage of slaughterhouses. i want to be a nicer person after i read richard yates

richard yates website (has links to excerpts and reviews); tao lin's blog; tao lin's twitter; tao lin's tumblr; tao lin's art blog

related content:
+ notes on 'cognitive-behavioral therapy' by tao lin
+ notes on 'sometimes my heart pushes my ribs' by ellen kennedy
+ notes on 'during my nervous breakdown..." by brandon scott gorrell

notes on 'your time has come' by joshua beckman

2010-09-02T12:36:00.001-04:00

I wanted to stop writing
and the poem said
it's a beautiful blue night
stop writing.

your time has come by joshua beckman was out from verse press in 2004. it is '150 short lyrics.' the pages of the book are small, and the poems average 3 lines each

personification in some poems makes them feel similar to traditional haiku, like joshua beckman read a lot of haiku and consciously wrote in that tradition

Foolish boat
ignoring the water
you push through.

the poems seem to approach vaguely buddhist ideas

Don't be concerned,
live another week
and then be concerned.

sometimes there is a 'you,' but the poems do not seem to consistently address a single person

Are you enjoying
getting in trouble
for what we did last night?

the speaker seems lazy and chill

i liked the descriptions of the weather and the temperature

So hot tonight
even the cops eat ice cream.

7 poems from your time has come, 1 poem from your time has come, 1 poem from your time has come

two other joshua beckman books i've reviewed here here

joshua beckman on poets.org (5 more poems), your time has come on the wave books website

notes on 'eat when you feel sad' by zachary german

2010-08-26T13:53:00.002-04:00

"I wish Myspace and Facebook wouldn't email me when people send me messages or leave comments or anything, so I would have another website to log on to. As it is, I know that nothing new is happening on Myspace or Facebook."

eat when you feel sad by zachary german was out from melville house in 2010; it is fiction and 117 pages. it is not broken into numbered sections or chapters

eat when you feel sad has minimalist sentences; sometimes it is repetitive or mechanical

Robert searches "vintage ralph lauren" on eBay. He looks at his bank statement. Robert listens to the song "Gold Soundz" by Pavement. He listens to the song "Gold Soundz" by Pavement. He listens to the song "Gold Soundz" by Pavement. He looks at pictures of Lil Wayne on the internet.

all the dialogue is introduced with 'says' before the quotation, and thoughts are introduced with 'thinks'

     Jim says "Hey Rob." Jim is lying on the couch. Jim says "Just get back from partying?"
     Robert says "Yeah I was over at Dan and Ted's."
     Jim says "Oh, you were over there?"
     Robert says "Yeah."

eat when you feel sad has a lot of cultural references. maybe there are 100 references to bands and songs. most of the references are indie or counterculture to a degree but not really obscure. there are scenes that only describe robert making a playlist, and a list of the songs

the book is a series of scenes; the scenes are not usually connected with explanations of their relationship. a lot of times, i read a scene and think about what it is like, to do some action or experience something, not really thinking about plot

a lot of the scenes have things like laundry, eating, and masturbating. sometimes there is a lot of description of a mundane activity

Robert puts the sweater on the counter. The salesperson looks at the sweater. The salesperson says "It's sixteen dollars and fifty cents." Robert hands the salesperson a twenty-dollar bill. The salesperson says "Out of twenty?"
Robert says "Yeah." The salesperson does something with the twenty-dollar bill. Robert says "I don't need a bag." Robert puts the sweater into his book bag. The salesperson hands Robert three one-dollar bills, two quarters, and a receipt. Robert puts the change and the receipt into his pocket. He says "Thank you."

there are some emotional issues in the book. in some parts i can relate to how robert wants to have money

The bank teller is talking to another bank teller.
   The other bank teller says "Yeah, my buddy's a valet, some steak place in midtown. The other day Jay-Z came in, gave him a hundred-dollar tip."
     Robert's bank teller says "Hell, if I was Jay-Z I might just give out hundred-dollar tips myself." Robert's bank teller says something.
     Robert says "What?" Robert's bank teller is typing.
     Robert's bank teller says "If you were rich like that, wouldn't you do something like that?"
     Robert says "Oh. Yeah." Robert's bank teller hands Robert a receipt.
     Robert's bank teller says "Have a great day."
     Robert says "Thank you." Robert walks outside. He thinks "I wish I was Jay-Z. I wish I was rich like that." He walks to the laundromat. He takes clothing and sheets out of the washing machine. He puts clothing and sheets into a dryer. He puts quarters into the dryer.

i felt emotional reading 2 or 3 parts in the book. here is an excerpt of robert talking on the phone to alison

     Alison says "Do you feel depressed?"
     Robert says "Yes."
     Alison says "About Mike?"
     Robert says, "I don't know." He says "About you. Sort of."
     Alison says "Oh." Robert moves his cell phone from his right ear to his left ear. Alison says "I'm sorry I've been such a bad friend to you."
     Robert says "It's okay." He is crying quietly. He says "You haven't." He says "What are you talking about?"
     Alison says "I'm sorry I don't know how to make you feel better."
     Robert says "No, that's okay."
     Alison says "What?" Robert takes his cell phone away from his ear. He presses the red button on his cell phone. Robert connects his cell phone to his cell phone charger. He plays the song "William, It Was Really Nothing" by The Smiths.

here is zachary german's blog 'everytime a police officer gets shot i throw a party'; eat when you feel sad as an e-book in a different version; blog about zachary german's purchases; wikipedia; poems by zachary german (click his name for a supply of more poems); 'selected work' from zachary german's blog; zachary german's formspring; the page for eat when you feel sad on melville house's website

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2010-08-21T22:32:00.002-04:00

'understanding how a rainbow works, yo' - k. silem mohammad

fiction / eric beeny snowing fireflies skype launch august 24
music / 'home' by bone thugs and phil collins
music / 'miracles' by insane clown posse
music / salem
poetry / the continental review, video poetry
poetry / poem by michael hessel-mial
poetry / essay poems by marshall mallicoat
poetry / poem by sam pink
veganism / 'basing our advocacy on values we actually believe in' by me at l.o.v.e.

going to review some fiction soon by zachary german and tao lin. i might start doing 'close readings' of individual poems. are people bored of reviews on here? i don't know if i'm focused enough, reviewing almost every book i read

what are some rap songs that sample older songs?

notes on 'sometimes my heart pushes my ribs' by ellen kennedy

2010-08-17T11:37:00.002-04:00

sometimes my heart pushes my ribs by ellen kennedy was out from muumuu house in 2009. it is fiction and poetry; it is around 52 pages, not broken into any sections

the subject matter includes fruit, ants, sex, shoplifting, a relationship(s), depression, marijuana, waiting in the car while your mom is in a store, and obese nonhuman animals

some of the more serious and emotional fiction affected me more than i am usually affected by books. the relationship between 'woody allen' and 'ned vizzini' in 'Eoody Mobby' felt very genuine to me. the end of 'Probably Going to Die Alone' made me feel very strongly

the description of judy's parents and friends in 'Probably Going to Die Alone' felt relatable to me

In the car Judy's mom opens her free promotion bag and finds a chocolate covered pretzel bar. It says "100 calorie snack" on it. She says, "100 calories." Judy's mom opens it and starts eating it.

sometimes the stories end in the middle of something, or at a seemingly 'insignificant' time, which i liked

there are quite a few 'progressive' cultural references like an inconvenient truth and organic food

After I take my vegan dietary supplement my piss is brighter and clearer

(i have experienced having brighter and clearer piss; i've heard it happens because of there being about 500% DV of riboflavin in multivitamins)

a lot of the cultural references are very specific including specific store names

put the entire box of clif bars from a duane reade in penn station in your bag and walk away

there is a poem in the book about ants killing a slug, and the same story is mentioned in cognitive behavioral therapy by tao lin. in cbt, a hamster's friend talks about it online; in smhpmr, there is a direct description of it by the speaker

there are also things in an online story by ellen kennedy that are mentioned in cbt by tao lin. this interested me because it suggests ellen kennedy and tao lin write about their friends and real life experiences and things they talk about with their friends

two poems are called 'Poem.' i like that because people say it is a 'cop out' to name a poem that

there are 'realistic' and 'surreal' events in the book. most descriptions are about humans doing usual things; there is also a walking restaurant and a bear who headbutts a house window

here is a story in the book; poem in the book; story not in the book; poem not in the book; ellen kennedy e-book on bear parade; ellen kennedy's twitter; tumblr; the page for smhpmr on muumuu house's website

three poems ______________________

2010-08-14T21:27:00.012-04:00

here are 3 poems from my project of uppercase helvetica poems. the language in these poems is taken from social media like youtube and msn messenger logs. the tone and cultural references seem funny to me and sometimes make me feel nostalgic. i think the visual format brings attention to the sentences as sentences and encourages the reader to spend more time on each poem

notes on 'objects for a fog death' by julie doxsee

2010-08-10T18:13:00.000-04:00

   OK, you are
   a bird.

objects for a fog death by julie doxsee was out from black ocean pretty recently; it has 93 pages in 5 sections

subjects include lightning, magnets, wings (expensive wings), water, ghosts, secrets, knives, the number 13, rabbit costumes, moons, bullets, radios, hands, and suns. the diction is 'quirky' and 'cute,' sometimes dark

   We sleep
   on that voice as it kills us

the poem 'Lightbulb' includes the phrases 'a baby bunny,' 'my mitten,' 'a molehill,' and 'jack-o-lantern'; sometimes the book feels like a kind of fragmented, neo-surrealist children's book

most of the poems are in couplets but some poems have 'tercets' and other forms

   like

   I said I
   will come
   at you at

   one of the wee hours
   as I make light
   saber noises

the book has a lot of wordplay including verbing nouns, nouning adjectives, adverbing adjectives, count nouning noncount nouns, and intransitive verbing transitive verbs

   People elevator the upward

   numbers

and

   The higher quiet of me
   walks through smoke

there are a lot of long sentences stretched over short stanzas; sometimes a poem is just one sentence. in 'The Solid Odd of Headlights,' one sentence 'ranges' the first 7+ lines of the poem

   Six months later I
     translated the swans' winter dance

     from my window & blacked out
     when the landlord vacuumed

     electricity out with those cooled
     versions of light & melted my reading

     glasses upping the thermostat
     2 degrees

it's sometimes difficult for me to picture things mentally because the surreal details are layered 3-4 times

here are three of the poem titles that i liked

     A Bit of Couch

     Secret Water

     Our Child is a Vulture

here is info on the reading tour for this book (august + september 2010); page for ofafd on black ocean's website; a video of julie doxsee reading a poem from this book; a blog of mostly photography from julie doxsee; bio and other publications

you can read julie doxsee poems at tarpaulin sky, shampoo, la petite zine; many more available if you search her name in a search engine

notes on 'frowns need friends too' by sam pink

2010-08-08T13:21:00.001-04:00

"yep, I am combing your hair with my fingers you motherfuckers."

frowns need friends too by sam pink was out from afterbirth books earlier this year. it is 154 pages, sometimes with more than one poem on a page. i found sam pink through coconut, then read his poem at pax americana, then read his poems in columbia poetry review 23 and decided to read a book. a friend on facebook recommended this book of his

the poems are usually made up of 1-4 line bits pasted together without much obvious connection between them. for me the book read like a string of punchlines

Board games make me want to kill.

i visited my mom and i had this book and she said sam pink 'is pretty morbid.' the speaker says they want underwear made out of eyelids and 'to cut thin sections off you, beginning with your feet'

the speaker in fnft has a deadpan tone like speakers in bsg, tao lin, or castro, wehrenberg jr, but pink's seems more smart-assed and outgoing

At a restaurant I saw a man with a very long beard. I said, "I like your beard." He said thanks. Then I braided my fingers, put my thumbs together and said, "What do I have to do to walk away with that bad-boy in my pocket?"

the speaker asserts a lot of things that seem logically or physically impossible

My face is held on by magnets. I can take my face off.

the speaker is portrayed as kind of gross/disgusting

I can't help but think of how disgusted people must feel when I give them a hug.

i liked some of the poem titles a lot. here are 4 of them

WHAT IT IS, MOTHERFUCKERS

WHEN I GO FOR WALKS I PURPOSELY BRUSH UP AGAINST BUSHES AND STREET SIGNS BECAUSE, I DON'T KNOW, IT JUST FEELS SO RIGHT

DICKHOLE

I STILL HAVE ALL MY TEETH, HOMEY

there are a lot of poems linked on the sidebar of sam pink's blog. here are two e-chapbooks by sam pink. here is fnft on the afterbirth books website

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2010-08-05T09:48:00.005-04:00

'yall know this band radiohead?' - stephen tully dierks

film / ‘the corporation’ trailer (freeware version is on piratebay)

film / ‘dreamworlds 3’ trailer (whole film is on youtube)

film / 'exit through the gift shop' trailer

music / ‘pass by’ by b fleischmann

music / ‘phones, machines, and king kong’ by b fleischmann

music / ‘the hit’ by daughters

music / kissy face fashion faux-pas

music / podcast about fluxus music

poetry / ‘i am being honest’ e-book by matthew savoca

poetry / ‘ketjak’ long poem by ron silliman

social media / levar burton twitter

social media / mallory ann whitten tumblr

social media / popserial tumblr

visual art / 'um' by richard wehrenberg jr (+ more)

veganism / ‘earth balance is not vegan’ blog post by jenna at l.o.v.e.

veganism / ‘you can help stop this’ video by me

zen / reading of 'no trace' by shunryu suzuki

i live in chicago now; i moved here for graduate school but i like chicago for a lot of reasons; motivated by personal experiences with pesticides, i'm trying to eat mostly all organic food in chicago; 3 or 4 book reviews are coming pretty soon for this blog followed by a normal stream of reviews, probably 1 per week

links to my other sites twitter facebook veganism veganism

'you can help stop this' (vegan video)

2010-08-02T11:49:00.002-04:00

i was working on this video for a little over a year, and now it is posted online. if you want to understand why i advocate veganism, please watch this

for more info and resources, youcanhelpstopthis.com

thank you

notes on 'baby hedgehogs and american apparel dogs' by david fishkind

2010-07-17T13:23:00.004-04:00

You want your life to seem meta?
Eat more salad.

bhaaad by david fishkind was self-published in 2010; it is around 50 pages. i found david fishkind through his blog, and i read some haiku by him that made me interested in his chapbook

subject matter includes crying, drinking, sex, 'shit-eating grins,' a lot of nonhuman animals, 'the hibiscus,' listening to music while working on a farm, freudian theory, eye contact, suicide, new york city, iphones, jesus christ

     And they maintained eye contact for three weeks

a lot of the chapbook is directed at 'you,' but the 'you' seems to maybe change throughout

     You are going to be alone forever.
     Even when you are with other people.
     You are alone.

the chapbook has 25 sections. section 13 has nothing at all in it

the structure reminded me of lyn hejinian's my life, which has a section for each year of her life. bhaaad seems maybe less chronological, though

some parts remind me of 'song of myself' by walt whitman

     I am asleep in Washington Square Park, I am asleep in Union Square Park, I am asleep on the Q train,
     I am walking from the Q train to my room, I am in my room, I am looking at my computer,
     I am the cell phone, fuck me,
     I am the genitals, don't fuck me, ever

also

     I am always at the beach when I am alive,
     And when I am dead I am always at the beach.

american apparel is referred to something like 7-10 times. i didn't like the way this seemed to associate a clothing brand with other counterculture references and/or emotional experiences in the text. in parts, though, it felt like the references were satirical/ironic

   We go into American Apparel,
   We are two young happy Americans

there are a lot of online texts on the sidebar of david fishkind's blog / here is a tweet by david fishkind that i liked / david fishkind's twitter account in general / website for bhaaad

when i write 'david fishkind' in my word processor, it changes it to 'david fishpond'

two poems ________________________

2010-07-11T11:01:00.001-04:00

an abstract

we are so dark in this place. i chew a rubber hose until it breaks into another
piece. the way she leaves a room

pages of ripped poems. pages of ripped poems

i remember your wet hands. 5:30 barn lights,
watercans & rosebush

i will never stop. i love to cut grass. do you hear this

it was july, thank god

i go into a field of flower bushes with my dad’s car

i drive the car onto them. dust rises into the
mirrors, i look
at the side
of my dad’s car. sky blue paint
job,
chrome hub caps, i turn off the car.
i’m near to a wood shack that has a sheet metal
roof. a bird
flies onto the hood of my dad’s car.

this is georgia summer i can’t believe it, 1997.

notes on 'think tank for human beings in general' by richard wehrenberg jr. and jordan castro

2010-07-09T21:15:00.005-04:00

'i am going to hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil // bitches…' (castro)

think tank for human beings in general is a self-published chapbook (2009) broken into a section of jordan castro's poems and a section of richard wehrenberg jr.'s poems

earlier today i read a review of this chapbook by brett gallagher. a lot of the things i would type about the subject matter and tone have already been typed by him, so maybe read that

brett noted the repeated mention of animal rights and opposition to oppressive ideologies in ttfhbig. the following lines are from wehrenberg jr.

responding with violence
to a violent world does not
feel ok to me

the poems are a little hesitant about how they address these things, not really confident or bold

this excerpt is from 'victory' by jordan castro

is subjecting millions of people to starvation and poverty
an okay method of dealing with personal insecurities

i want to lie down

under 50,000 blankets and 2,000,000 pillows

i 'just' want to 'lie the fuck' 'down'

this excerpt is from 'think tank for human beings in general' by richard wehrenberg jr.

this poem is an extinct volcano

once
it exploded with lava-power
now it does not want to

it is tired

it sits still
wanting nothing really

just kind of there

the speaker(s) responds to oppression and suffering with imagery of being 'tired' and wanting to 'lie down'

the aesthetic is not like a manifesto calling for 'revolution!' but an individual saying 'damn' or 'wtf' repeatedly in response to mainstream society and corporations, expressing burn-out and hopelessness

the tone in the poems seems sometimes ironic or clever and other times direct and honest, for both castro and wehrenberg

here is a poem by richard wehrenberg jr.; here is a poem by jordan castro

here and here are e-chapbooks by jordan castro

richard wehrenberg jr.'s art blog and tumblr, jordan castro's twitter

you can buy ttfhbig here

notes on 'ghost machine' by ben mirov

2010-07-06T12:53:00.002-04:00

'The sentence in my mind is turn your breasts into cash with music.'

i found this book by reading ben mirov’s e-chapbook collected ghost at h_ngm_n, and then going to ben mirov’s blog and going to his twitter at some point

ghost machine won the 2009 caketrain chapbook competition. it is 97 pages, so it seems kind of like a full-length book

themes in the book are ghosts, machines, kids, dreams, sex, hoodies, headphones, and the san francisco bay area, and some kind of relationship, maybe a dying/dead relationship

the book has 7 sections that vary in form. there are a lot of prose poems and short poems. one section has longer prose poems, but still less than a page each. two sections have poems with page breaks in the middle of sentences. one section has the word ‘Eye’ instead of the pronoun ‘I’

Eye touch a night machine

[page break]

in the shape of a woman.

the collection has a lot of unity/coherence. there is a lot of repetition or near-repetition of lines and phrases, like references to ‘the "green bunny poem"’ or ‘green bunnies’ and someone being in a room with fleetwood mac. also, the speaker refers to a lot of characters by using one letter (‘R,’ ‘D’), and some characters return multiple times

sometimes because of the returning references, you can ‘put together’ more of the story of the characters. the speaker states in one poem that they don’t think they will ever take the train to berkeley, and in another poem, the speaker states that a woman they know lives in a cottage in berkeley

some poems end abruptly with lines that don’t seem ‘significant’ in any immediately apparent way. here is the end of the poem ‘ghost receptor’

I tell Meric it makes me sad.
I tell Dan I’m wiser now.
My head is full of Love is Chemicals.
I’m sleeping on a couch.

the sentences in the book are mostly short and direct, and the sentence structure is usually ‘subject-verb-object’ in present tense. some poems include almost only sentences with this structure, so it feels repetitive, maybe monotonous or deadpan

He’s staring at neon graffiti and doesn’t look away. He looks like a rich kid on acid. He turns into a duffle bag. The man I have sex with is me. I don’t dream about you. I find your feelings’ cloud. It doesn’t end with Brain and Jeremy at Delirium. It’s better without music in the dark.

the poems remind me of a lot of different writers and texts for different reasons

the poems that have page breaks in the middle of sentences remind me of ethusiasm: odes & otium by jean day, which has a similar form in its ‘romantic fragments’ section

the poems juxtapose a lot of lines that don’t fit together in any immediately apparent way

We go to the roof and put a blanket on Victor. I search his head for something to do. I remember how to carry a snare drum.

this form reminded me of what t.s. eliot wrote in ‘the metaphysical poets’

When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experience; the ordinary man's experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary. The latter falls in love, or reads Spinoza, and these two experiences have nothing to do with each other, or with the noise of the typewriter or the smell of cooking; in the mind of the poet these experiences are always forming new wholes.

the juxtapositions also remind me of ‘ketjak’ by ron silliman, and maybe his poem ‘BART’ (which i've written about). also the repetition in ghost machine reminds me of ‘ketjak,’ and the way the repeating lines have a different feeling each time

in a couple sentences of the book, i get a feeling similar to what i wrote about robert grenier’s ‘sentences.’ a sentence describes something that i have done, like wearing a hoody and walking out of a building, and i feel kind of nostalgic about it

some poems seem to stay with the same characters or situation for multiple sentences or a whole poem, but those poems are still usually a little ambiguous or surreal

E thinks things are over. I didn’t know how to do it in a hotel. I put a wet rag over my head. I was breathing fast.

the ghost theme in the book and design seems maybe more prominent than necessary, but i like the look of the black and white, and the circles

the first 40 pages of the book can be viewed in this pdf (poems start on page 17)

you can buy the book from ben mirov here; you can buy the book from caketrain here

notes on 'the difficult farm' by heather christle

2010-06-26T15:03:00.004-04:00

Here, lie down
on top of the armoire. It is

a big one.

heather christie’s the difficult farm was out from octopus books in 2009. it is numbered to page 77, broken into 4 sections. i didn’t notice any obvious differences between the sections

topics in the book include farms, nonhuman animals, death, and a lot of other things

If a farmer wants something
to do with me there is a way for him to get it.

the poems change topic a lot; sometimes the lines seem to only connect intuitively, or maybe by implication by being in the same poem

the vocabulary was sometimes a little bit intellectual, including some words i hadn’t heard before, but not to extreme degrees

the voice felt ‘clever’ or ‘cute’ to me at times

Magnificence comes
in a small car, but we all fit.

sometimes there is a storytelling voice that reminds me a little of matthea harvey in modern life. there are characters, like a scientist and a nurse, for example, and their actions are described in the past tense

sometimes the events in the book are quirky; other times the description of a pretty normal event is quirky

At four a.m. the pharmacy was like a theme park
whose theme was Being Very Quiet.

i like the cover of the book

here is heather christle’s blog, including links to a lot of poems online

here is the poem 'acorn duly crushed,' from the book

buy the book from octopus books here, buy the book from spd here. you can also get it from amazon and other places

the content of this blog from november 2009 to april 2010

2010-06-19T22:50:00.001-04:00

i recently deleted most of the archives of this blog, but i wanted to preserve some of the writing so i made the following lists

posts from november 2009 to april 2010 that i have preserved, chronological order

visual poem: 'express / the / birds / if you can'

notes on ‘home alone 2: lost in new york’

i read ron silliman’s poem 'BART'

aesthetics and identity

robert grenier makes me feel nostalgic about everything

an orca whale killed a human

right now she opened // this veganism airport

mother fucker, i rented a movie and recorded over it with two hours of myself

all the poems i published in 2009

music that i mentioned between november 2009 and april 2010, alphabetical order

acacia strain, 'the dead walk'

animal collective, 'merriweather post pavillion'

animal collective, 'strawberry jam'

arsonists get all the girls, 'hits from the bow'

arsonists get all the girls, 'the game of life'

björk

boards of canada

bright eyes, 'letting off the happiness'

john cage, 'caged/uncaged'

the chariot, 'and then came then'

chiodos

comeback kid, 'wake the dead'

the contortionist, from the myspace

converge, 'petitioning the empty sky'

emmure, 'goodbye to the gallows'

fear before the march of flames, 'art damage'

fear before the march of flames, 'odd how people shake'

i killed the prom queen

jackson mac low, 'doings'

m83

meshuggah, 'nothing'

meshuggah, 'obzen'

mia, ‘paper planes'

mogwai

mono (japan)

norma jean, 'robots 3 humans 0'

origin

owl city, 'ocean eyes'

parkway drive

saosin

scary kids scaring kids

sigur rós

soulja boy, ‘rubber bands’

sufjan stevens, 'chicago'

vanna
venetian snares, 'frictional nevada'

venetian snares, 'hospitality'

films that i mentioned between november 2009 and april 2010, alphabetical order

american beauty

american psycho

the box

brüno

the curious case of benjamin button

donnie darko

the front

garden state

little miss sunshine

southland tales

waking life

weekend at bernie’s

welcome to the dollhouse

publications that i announced between november 2009 and april 2010, chronological order

3 poems at temenos

3 poems at cricket online review [2] [3]

2 poems at nthposition

4 poems at hot metal bridge

1 poem at elimae

3 visual poems at moria

1 poem at right hand pointing

2 poems at alba

2 visual poems at word for/ word

4 poems at the red ceilings

3 poems at blazevox

other links i posted between november 2009 and april 2010, chronological order

theme song from 'eyewitness'

l.o.v.e. vegan blog: 'toward vegan language'

l.o.v.e. vegan blog: 'in defense of veganism'

jack horkheimer full moon howling contest

k-mart realism

'anthropocentrism' wikipedia page

the vegan ideal

l.o.v.e. vegan blog: 'political correctness, political expedience, and veganism'

l.o.v.e. myspace page

tao lin’s blog

paul siegell concrete poems

andrew topel concrete poems

l.o.v.e. vegan blog: 'vegan activism is respectful activism'

chess tutorials

barrett watten discussing my blog post

chess gambits

'i heart huckabees' trailer

j. joseph kane poem at elimae

smell chess

my review of 'home alone 2' in altered form

yale open courses: theory of literature

l.o.v.e. vegan blog: 'building a local, anti-oppression collective'

l.o.v.e. vegan blog: 'emptying cages: from animal abolition to prison abolition'

no sweat apparel

jean-paul sartre wikipedia

books that i mentioned between november 2009 and april 2010, alphabetical order

mIEKAL aND, 'zerzerex'

charles bernstein and bruce andrews, 'the l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e book'

john cage, 'silence'

raymond carver, 'what we talk about when we talk about love'

brandon downing, 'lake antiquity'

drew gardner, 'petroleum hat'

lyn hejinian, 'my life'

hannah higgins, 'fluxus experience'

jen hofer, 'slide rule'

bell hooks, 'feminist theory: from margin to center'

incite!, 'the revolution will not be funded'

kenneth koch, 'collected poems'

tao lin, 'bed'

tao lin, 'shoplifting from american apparel'

a.g. marquis, 'marcel duchamp: the bachelor stripped bare'

sharon mesmer, 'annoying diabetic bitch'

k. silem mohammad, 'the front'

friedrich nietzsche, 'the nietzsche reader'

frank o'hara, 'selected poems'

bob perelman, 'face value'

gertrude stein, 'everybody's autobiography'

gertrude stein, 'how to write'

shunryu suzuki, 'not always so'

rodrigo toscano, 'to leveling swerve'

anne waldman, 'the beat book'

hannah weiner, 'hannah weiner's open house'

quotations that i posted between november 2009 and april 2010, chronological order

'why is that man walking down the middle of the freeway?' - ron silliman

'where do you think i’ve / got to? the spectacle of a grown man / decorating / a christmas tree disgusts me that’s / where' - frank o’hara

'human beings include freud' - peter seaton

'the poet and the people get on generally very badly, and yet they need each other. the poet knows it sooner than the people do. the people usually know it after the poet is dead; but, that's all right. the point is to get your work done, and your work is to change the world.' - james baldwin

'a sentence is not emotional a paragraph is' - gertrude stein

'trade curses everything it touches' - henry d. thoreau

‘the true dadas are against dada’ - tristan tzara

‘i am abnormally fond of that precision which creates movement’ - e.e. cummings

‘GET ALREADY SCARED’ - hannah weiner

‘i was promised / to him just a little bit everyone’ - hannah weiner

‘i still / drink coffee lover I WANT MY LOVER’ - hannah weiner

‘work your ass off to change the language & don't ever get famous’ - bernadette mayer

‘the social revolution . . . cannot draw its poetry from the past, but only from the future’ - karl marx qtd. in silliman

'who’s dunkin’ who’s donut in who’s chalice.' - rodrigo toscano

'put the mcdonalds into it.' - rodrigo toscano

'why not dance 24-7 everyone' - rodrigo toscano

things that people have googled to arrive at my blog that i mentioned between november 2009 and april 2010, chronological order

'mcallister house home alone'

'home alone 2 objects used to hurt bad guys'

'is there going to be a snowstorm tonight?'

'my grandma googled my name'

'i know being alive is not the same as having a life'

'i dont care to become grandiloquent in expressing my lovelife'

'i don't like being alive anymore'

'what is it called when you dont like being alive'

notes on 'during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present' by brandon scott gorrell

2010-06-15T15:51:00.003-04:00

‘why don’t you touch my penis some time’

brandon scott gorrell’s dmnbiwthabp is a poetry collection out from muumuu house in 2009. it is 88 pages, not broken into any sections. it has very short poems in it and also very long poems and medium length poems

subjects in the book are email, boredom, alienation, aliens, thesaurus.com, social injustice, and apocalypse

i shoot aliens in their heads and their heads explode

the tone in the book seems kind of minimalist based on the abrupt transitions and direct sentences

some poems also seem ‘maximalist’ based on being multiple pages and having a kind of ‘rambling’ tone

i got two emails today
i was disappointed by both of them
this happens on a daily basis
what does my life mean

also

hunger is the body’s response to lack of nutrients and stuff

why am i typing this

a lot of the book is written to a ‘you.’ the poem ‘butterfly apocalypse’ ‘recounts’ an online conversation between ‘you’ and ‘i’

i said i’m smoking

i said do you find smoking attractive or unattractive, what should i do

you said i find everything you do attractive

i said you are nice

i said i’m sending you a song and we will feel closer

you said can this song play when we meet

in a poem that begins ‘i was frozen in amber for 53 million years,’ the speaker says ‘i crush people with the time i’ve spent in amber’

one poem in the book included a lot of facts about oppression and social injustice

phamaceutical corportations have convinced a large number of people that they think incorrectly; that they must take pills to change the way they think, otherwise they will fail at work, school, and personal relationships
there is a target audience for talk shows and infomercials
a very small number of white men control what billions of people see and hear, which indirectly means that they control what billions of people think and feel
there are around 2.5 gallons of water in every toilet in america while in africa the water is poisoned or there are massive shortages

this list of facts felt surprisingly compatible, to me, with the ironic/maybe 'deadpan' voice in most of the book

in my opinion the main feeling of the book is expressed in the poem ‘some inconceivable crisis thing’

has anyone else ever felt incredibly sarcastic about feeling incredibly depressed but at the same time felt incredibly depressed

the book feels like a sarcastic version of 'the yellow wallpaper' but not completely sarcastic

also there is a lot of imagery of apocalypse and battles between aliens/robots and humans, which seems to metaphorically reinforce the feeling of 'breakdown' mentioned in the title and in the book

after reading this book, i feel pretty interested in reading the brandon book crisis

here is brandon scott gorrell’s blog

here is brandon scott gorrell’s formspring

here are 3 poems from the book

here are 4 poems from the book in different versions

here are a lot of online writings by brandon scott gorrell; some of them are in the book, some aren’t

buy this book here, here, or here

minimalist / ironic 'computer' computer wallpaper

2010-06-13T10:50:00.020-04:00

i made this computer wallpaper that says 'computer'

below is the wallpaper in various sizes and colors. if you want a different size or color let me know. it is pretty easy to make more

black on white
800x600
1024x768
1152x864
1280x800
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blue on white
800x600
1024x768
1152x864
1280x800
1280x1024
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1920x1200

white on grey
800x600
1024x768
1152x864
1280x800
1280x1024
1440x900
1600x1200
1680x1050
1920x1200

blue on grey
800x600
1024x768
1152x864
1280x800
1280x1024
1440x900
1600x1200
1680x1050
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green/teal on near-black
800x600
1024x768
1152x864
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1280x1024
1440x900
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1680x1050
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if you like this, please tell other people

notes on 'angle of yaw' by ben lerner

2010-06-06T11:35:00.004-04:00

‘I am wearing a Mikhail Gorbachev Halloween mask.’

most of the poems in angle of yaw are small prose poems with a title (?) running into the paragraph (example poems, example poem, example poem)

the other poems in the book vary depending on the section, but the forms are usually longer. the middle section, ‘didactic elegy,’ felt like an essay in verse kind of like charles bernstein’s “artifice of absorption”

the content in the poems changes without a lot of transition, which allows for a lot of possible readings based on what the reader connects with what

A highly accurate weapon housed in a silo.
I can’t stop crying.

the content of the poems often approaches the politics of representation, i think, the effect of images on how people understand themselves and the structures they live in. the middle section, ‘didactic elegy’ most directly addressed this

Refusing to assign meaning to an event is to interpret it lovingly

some of the poems remind me of ron silliman’s chinese notebook in how they extend theoretical ideas about literature, maybe post-structuralist ideas, to discussing things like how the color of a pen affects what can be written with it

I believe there is a question in the back. Yes, thank you. Do you own Hitler’s upper teeth? If you do own Hitler’s upper teeth, and it seems that you do, would you be able to resist the temptation to try them on? If you’re wearing Hitler’s upper teeth right now, and it seems that you are, how does that effect the validity of your answer?

a lot of the poems seemed vaguely critical/satirical of mainstream u.s. culture, war, politicians, maybe popular sports

We are pleased to offer a lamp that turns on and off when you clap

in an interview in 2005, ben lerner was asked about 'the role of the poet,' and he said 'I think that the poet, whether she likes it or not, always has to struggle against what Chuck D has called the "dumbassification" of American culture, against the deadening of intellects upon which our empire depends.' i feel like this shows in angle of yaw, that ben lerner is struggling against this

the tone of the poems felt kind of intellectual but also at times clever and/or funny. i wrote down a lot of lines that i thought were funny

It was when I tried to eat a straw through a straw that I learned my first important lesson about form

As an artist I’m interested in filling things with blood, especially clocks, but as a mom I demand the illusion of continuous motion

this book was out on copper canyon press in 2006; it is 125 pages

more on ben lerner here, here, and here

buy angle of yaw here, here, or here