Mommy V: 6

A poem was here.

25. [expired]

poem went bye bye

24: [expired]

poem wuz here

Mommy V: 5

A poem was here.

Peter Davis: "Poem Addressing People Who Love Heavy Metal but Don't Know Anything about Poetry"...

...has been uploaded.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Peter's poems here.

Bloof Podcast Player

Subscribe to Bloof's podcasts via iTunes! Use this RSS feed URL to add the subscription: feed://www.gabcast.com/casts/18718/rss/rss.xml

Instructions: Open iTunes on your computer, and look for "Subscribe to Podcast" under the Advanced menu. Paste the full green URL above (including "feed://") into the popup window. Click OK to confirm.

(POD)CAST OF CHARACTERS

STAN APPS is the author of Info Ration (Make Now, 2007), soft hands (Ugly Duckling) and Grover Fuel (Scantily Clad, 2008). He blogs at Freewill Applicator.

ANNE BOYER is the author of Art is War (Mitzvah Chaps 2008), The Romance of Happy Worker (Coffee House Press 2008), Selected Dreams with a Note on Phrenology (Dusie Collectifv 2007), Anne Boyer's Good Apocalypse (Effing Press 2006), and the forthcoming novel, JOAN (Bloof 2009). With K. Silem Mohammad, she edits Abraham Lincoln, and with Robert J. Baumann, she curates An Actual Kansas Reading Series. She will be posting poems here each day for the month of April and a corresponding prose work at odalisqued.blogspot.com. Use this tag to pull up Anne's poems.

TODD COLBY is the author of Riot in the Charm Factory: New and Selected Work (Soft Skull, 1999), Tremble & Shine (Soft Skull, 2003) and the editor of Heights of the Marvelous: A New York Anthology (St. Martins Press, 2000). He has appeared in numerous poetry anthologies, including Short Fuse: A World Anthology of Poetry, The Portable Boog Reader, Word Up: Spoken Word Poetry in Print, Verses That Hurt, Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapalooza, and Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Café. He often posts new poems at his blog, Glee Farm. TODD'S PODCASTS: "This Morning" (4/6/09), "Breathing In the Brilliant" (4/14/09)

SHANNA COMPTON is the author of Down Spooky and For Girls (& Others), both available from Bloof Books. She is also the editor of GAMERS, a book of essays on the topic of video games, published by Soft Skull Press. Her poems and essays have appeared in such publications as Best American Poetry 2005, McSweeney's, Verse, No Tell Motel, Coconut, Abraham Lincoln, and the Poetry Foundation website. She's been playing NaPoWriMo (thanks to Reen) since 2004, with varied results! She'll be posting her poems here at the Bloof blog this month. Use this tag to pull up Shanna's poems. SHANNA'S PODCASTS: "[Don't get me started.] (4/20/09)

PETER DAVIS's book of poems is Hitler's Mustache. His poems have recently been in journals like Lamination Colony, Barrelhouse, Fou, and Tarpaulin Sky. He lives and teaches in Muncie, Indiana. His website is here. And he will be posting his poems to his blog this month too. PETER'S PODCASTS: "Poem Addressing Babies" (4/5/09), "Poem Addressing Conspiracy Theorist" (4/14/09), "Poem Addressing People Who Love Heavy Metal but Don't Know Anything about Poetry" (4/24/09)

KATIE DEGENTESH is the author of The Anger Scale (Combo Books, 2007).

K. LORRAINE GRAHAM is the author of three chapbooks, Terminal Humming (Slack Buddha), See it Everywhere (Big Game Books), and Large Waves to Large Obstacles, forthcoming from Take Home Project. Moving Walkways, a CD chapbook, is a limited edition from Narrowhouse Recordings. She will posting her daily poems at her blog this month.

CHRIS HANIS [bio to come]

JENNIFER L. KNOX is the author of Drunk by Noon and A Gringo Like Me, both both available from Bloof Books. Her poems have appeared in the anthologies The Best American Poetry (1997, 2003 and 2006), Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to Present, Free Radicals: American Poets Before Their First Books, and The Best American Erotic Poems: From 1800 to the Present. She'll be posting her poems at Ada Limon's blog (along with Ada!) this month.

REB LIVINGSTON is the author of Your Ten Favorite Words, editor of No Tell Motel and publisher of No Tell Books. Many of the poems from her upcoming book, God Damsel, were written during NaPoWriMo. Visit her blog to read her poems this month. REB'S PODCASTS: "Four Proverbs" (4/6/09), From God Damsel (4/17/09)

SHARON MESMER is the author of Annoying Diabetic Bitch (Combo Books, 2008), The Virgin Formica (Hanging Loose Press, 2008), Vertigo Seeks Affinities (Belladonna Books, 2006), Half Angel, Half Lunch (Hard Press, 1998), and Crossing Second Avenue (ABJ Books, Japan, 1997). Collections of fiction include Ma Vie à Yonago (Hachette, France, 2005), In Ordinary Time (Hanging Loose, 2005) and The Empty Quarter (Hanging Loose, 2000). She blogs at Virgin Formica.

K. SILEM MOHAMMAD is the author of Breathalyzer (Edge Books, 2008), A Thousand Devils (Combo Books, 2004), and Deer Head Nation (Tougher Disguises, 2003). His work has appeared or is soon to appear in various journals and anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 2004, Bay Poetics, and A Best of Fence: The First Nine Years. He maintains the blog Lime Tree and edits Abraham Lincoln, a magazine of poetry. Kasey pretty much always posts poems at Squirrels in My Attic.

MEL NICHOLS is the author of Bicycle Day (Slack Buddha 2008), The Beginning of Beauty, Part 1: hottest new ringtones, mnichol6 (Edge 2007), Day Poems (Edge 2005), and the forthcoming book Catalytic Exteriorization Phenomenon. Poems have recently appeared or will soon appear in New Ohio Review (/nor), Van Gogh’s Ear, Practice, and Abraham Lincoln. She has a blog called Illuminated Meat.

DANIELLE PAFUNDA is the author of My Zorba, available from Bloof Books, Pretty Young Thing (Soft Skull, 2005), Iatrogenic: Their Testimonies (Noemi, forthcoming), and the chapbook A Primer for Cyborgs: The Corpse (Whole Coconut Chapbook Series, forthcoming). Her poems have been chosen three times for Best American Poetry (2004, 2006, and 2007). Other poems and reviews have appeared in such publications as American Letters & Commentary, Conjunctions, the Georgia Review, and TriQuarterly. She blogs at Iron Caisson. Danielle will be posting her poems here at the Bloof blog this month. Use this tag to pull up Danielle's poems.

MICHAEL SCHIAVO is the author of The Mad Song (Shires Press, 2008). He blogs at The Unruly Servant. MICHAEL'S PODCASTS: "Not Never Falling But Rising When We Fall" (4/6/09), "We All Operate in a Ghost World Where We Are Maharajah" (4/19/09)

SANDRA SIMONDS is the author of Warsaw Bikini, available from Bloof Books, as well as the chapbooks Tomorrow’s Bright Bracelets (forthcoming, Kitchen Press), The Pyrotechnics of Madame Trotter (forthcoming, Coconut), Bananas and Spiders (forthcoming, H_NGM_N), A Teeny Tiny Book of War (Teeny Tiny, 2008), The Humble Travelogues of Mr. Ian Worthington (Cy Gist, 2007) and The Tar Pit Diatoms (Otoliths, 2006). She blogs at Sandra Simonds Swims and Swims. She will be posting her poems here at the Bloof blog. Use this tag to pull up Sandra's poems.

ROD SMITH [bio to come] is the author of ten books of poems, including Deed, Music or Honesty, Poèmes de l’Araignées and In Memory of My Theories. His poems have appeared in many print and online journals and anthologies including the Baffler, the Gertrude Stein Awards, Java, New American Writing, Poetics Journal, and Shenandoah. He edits the journal Aerial, publishes Edge Books, and manages the independent Bridge Street Books in Washington, D.C. Smith is also editing, with Peter Baker and Kaplan Harris, The Selected Letters of Robert Creeley. Rod blogs at Ghost Brain.

GARY SULLIVAN is a poet, cartoonist, and blogger. His DIY comic, Elsewhere—which he started drawing and writing in 2005— explores biography as an artistic construct. Sullivan lives in Brooklyn with Nada Gordon. Together, they wrote the book Swoon. Sullivan’s most recent book is PPL in a Depot. He blogs at Elsewhere.

EDWIN TORRES is the author of The PoPedology of an Ambient Language (Atelos Books), The All-Union Day of the Shock Worker (Roof Books), Onomalingua: noise songs and poems (Rattapallax e-book), and Please (Faux Press CD-Rom).

MAUREEN THORSON is the author of Novelty Act (Ugly Duckling), Mayport (Poetry Society), and other chapbooks. She is the publisher of Big Game Books and the co-curator of the In Your Ear series in Washington, DC. She will be posting her NaPoWriMo poems here, (as she has every year since 2002 when she invented the game. Big thanks to Maureen for founding our annual madness!) MAUREEN'S PODCASTS: "Figure 2.59 - Moth Balls and Sugar" (4/10/09), "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp" (4/15/09)

Mommy V: 4

A poem was here.

23. [expired]

blankness is a virtue

22. [expired]

poem stayed up past its bedtime

Mommy V: 3

A poem was here.

21. [expired]

poem gone fishin

Mommy V: 2

A poem was here.

20. [expired]

goodnight, sweet poem!

Shanna Compton: "[Don't get me started."...

...has been uploaded.

The text of this poem appears here.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Shanna's poems here.

Mommy V: 1

A poem was here.

19. [expired]

poem expelled for truancy

Michael Schiavo:"We All Operate in a Ghost World Where We Are Maharajah"...

...has been uploaded.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Michael's poems here.

18. [expired]

poem moved, left no forwarding address

A Black Cat Walking Across the Street Signifies

The human psyche embraces
symmetry and that is why famous
people die in threes. That is why
Stalin, Miro and Jacques Chirac
died on the same date. Chirac, bitten
three times by his clinically depressed poodle
named Sumo still asked
that the dog be present
at his funeral despite the trans-

gression. Why do we cheerfully accept that
without three the hum-
drum nature of the cos-
mos would be analogous
to a ceasefire between
tall but slender nations? Something
like a war
to end all wars.

Two men in North
Korea have wired together three
Playstations and a modem
to test launch their missile
which is a sign of three things—


that Fyodor
Dostoevsky's father was strangled
by his serfs, that the cat is indeed
going somewhere and that
what my great-
grandfather, who was a dyslexic
radiologist said was true, “the mind
will only allow what the body can stand.”

The Desire Spectrum is Dead to Me Now: 18

A poem was here.

17. [expired]

poem on parole

Reb Livingtson: Excerpt from God Damsel...

...has been uploaded.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Reb's poems here.

16. [First we lost it in a storm in 1633,]

First we lost it in a storm in 1633, 
along with our claim to imperial status,
a lake in the Ozarks,
a documentation license &
32 four-inch blade propellers.

If you believe the legends though,
we’re secretly in cahoots.

This time around, 
we’ve commissioned a freight line 
& drummed up the will to try everything.

We’re just going to return it all 
& see what sticks.

We’re giving up 
that interim airport code,
the company theme song,
all the purged staffs, 
any leftover conquistadors,
& the habit of erecting statues.
 
We’ve kept only this clipping
of our gaud-bedecked façade
(its five windows crowned
by coats of arms & flapping flags)
to remember our lush reign 
in its flourishing age, 
how festooned we were, & puttoed.

Skyhook
for Todd Colby


Today I lost my mucus plug
which is funny since I'm actually
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and didn't expect
to get pregnant in the first
place. Here are some

facts you should probably
know about me before yous start sending
my soon-to-be-born son X-mas

presents. My real name is
Geraldine Ferraro and, coin-
cidentally, Geraldine
is the very woman who got me
pregnant. She is also the world's

first face transplant and grew
up in the same house where Robert
Lowell's poem “Skunk Hour” takes place
at the end when he is watching
the skunk put his nose into a
dish of sour cream. Edgar Allen

Poe wrote an excellent
short story on a case of
mistaken identity steeped in Fichtean Idealism
in which the ego creates and projects itself

onto the basketball court
which mirrors the political arena
where Ms. Ferraro spent most of her
formative years. But it's Schelling's

concept of "identity" which ill-
ustrates the interaction of the
individual with its counterpart, the
man and machine, deus ex machina,
fathers and sons.

Used White Wife

It is absolutely unnecessary to write serious poetry.
In fact, anyone who
even attempts to write a serious poem reveals
him or herself to be completely anti-
intellectual by throwing (his or her) brain
into that vast trash heap. Mao Zedung,

your poems are horrible (esp-
ecially “Yellow Crane
Tower” and specifically when you state that the “yell-
ow crane is gone” and then have the nerve
to ask “who knows whither?”

My used white wife writes serious
poetry about Jacques Lacan. What a mor-
on! Doubling the drama of our frequent
disputes, she wraps our newborn
son with the highlighted and underlined pages
of his lectures. She who has
the advantage of manifesting symbolic necessity
more purely than Mao Zedung

wastes her time starting poems with lines like
“That we may believe its conception arbitrary...”
when what she needs to know is
that analytical truth is not as mysterious, or as secret
as the yellow crane
who stole the scholar from the tower that day on
the bank of the Yangtze.

The Desire Spectrum is Dead to Me Now: 15

A poem was here.

15. [expired]

poem violated confidentiality agreement

Edwin Torres: "Chiaroscuro"...

...has been uploaded.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Edwin's poems here.

Maureen Thorson: "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp"...

...has been uploaded.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Maureen's poems here.

14: [expired]

poem absconded with a large sum

Palm Trees

Once Had I a Paramour named Cesar
who was obsessed with

pineapples. (Pineapples
induce labor because there is an enzyme

in the pineapple that is
similar to one found in sperm which
is also said to induce labor.) His answer

to all could be found
in those two interlocking helices

of the Anana comosus, a duality
of form
which I believe is the perfect metaphor
for our relationship.

Cesar was not from Paraguay.
Cesar was not from

Brazil. If I had a
nosebleed he would ask

“How about a little bit of pineapple-coconut
smoothie from Jamba Juice?”

If I had a stomach virus
he would say, “It would be nice to own
a desert island where I could grow a grove

of pineapples so I googled
“How to buy a desert island for a Paramour you
love dearly”
and found out that sometimes

a private island such as Samung Island
in the Philippines goes for up
for sale on Ebay. It retails for $425,000

but given
worldwide economic problems I'm sure
you could get it for cheaper. The pro-
blem

is that not all islands are suitable
for the growing of pineapples
and my Paramour's golden dream

was to open a Jamba Juice
on the desert island but unlike all other Jam-

ba Juices, he would
use the supply from his own groves.

“It's the green revolution.
Everyone is saving energy by using solar power

and the buying of desert
islands is part of going green like the palm
tree top of a pineapple” Cesar

said. “It's the green revolution” I said

“Everyone who knows
anything is buying

the world supply of Macaw

Parrots and becoming
a botanist or farmer.”

Peter Davis: "Poem Addressing Conspiracy Theorist"...

...has been uploaded.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Peter's poems here.

(Note: there was a thunderstorm last night so I couldn't post bc my internet was out...so...this is yesterday's poem!)

A French Film / Once I Saw


To relieve some / deep-seated
about a fille / who cuts her flesh
psychological pain. / Because she thinks
forward is illuminated / history will flow
in loop-a-doop letters / then the desire graph will bleed
a manuscript / and that if you only
the mystery of / the medieval world
the language / could learn
anhanga / seeken
itself sequentially. / Would reveal

Isn't you? or is / it me? that it's never
It's always a mis- / placed dish; This is a customer
about that stuff? /Lacan's
service call regarding / your unpaid debt.
Toujours about / getting the girl, be-
pile up and / you realize what a
trayal. Mousier / you loved and let go because

What a silly girl / She should cut back
grows / skin where it should go.
at the marrow / where the poem really
ly go / should real-

Todd Colby: "Breathing In the Brilliant"...

...has been uploaded.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Todd's poems here.

The Desire Spectrum is Dead to Me Now: 14

A poem was here.

13: [expired]

poem somewhere over the rainbow

Hey Danny!!!!!!

Here I am climbing Mont Blanc with my posse. That's Nuchu and Kolimba to my left and Horace on my right. The climb was pretty tough but thanks to my guides Nuchu and Kolimba, I was able to summit 3 hours before sundown. Do you like my necklace? I traded Nuchu for it for 3 Snickers bars. Her mom back in Swaziland makes them and sells them. OMG I'm so glad I got one directly from Nuchu because she says her mom asks for 5 Snickers bars and I don't even think that that would be worth it lol. Anyway, I really don't have time to write a long email from the MONT BLANC and Horace is getting all of the food ready for the trekkers even though I WOULD RATHER STARVE than eat that food again lol. Anyway, I'll be back in Burbank soon. Hope you like the pic cause it's really a typical foto from the Alps.

Love
Gretchen

12: [expired]

poem the sound of one unicorn farting

Law & Order SVU

At least, I thought, being a
serial killer gives you
some sort of direction in life.
The rest of us, who don't resort to stuffing
the cut up bodies of prostitutes in suitcases
and throwing them into Lake Erie,
have to deal with the ennui of just
being by taking up hobbies such as
the therapeutic art of fly-fishing.

In the poem “Treading Water”
Ben Friedlander writes “a Styrofoam
cup obliterates the
world.” Being a direct descendant
of Plato, Ben probably knows that
he was a high
general in the Peloponnesian War
and it was during the great battle
with the Mongolians that he was
inspired to write
the best line of The Republic—
“great crimes are the outcome
of a nature full of abstraction,”
which is an obvious reference
to Russian cosmonauts coercing
their citizens to embrace
the American dream.

What I like about Olivia Benson, the am-
bitious and emotionally driven
detective is how unambiguously she
embraces continental philosophy
(and Ben Friedlander). She never
writes abstract poetry
about the Special Victims
Unit. As Hargitay puts it
in an interview entitled “The Missing
Occasion of Saying Yes,”
“Plato is not only a competent, street-
smart cop, he's also an empathetic
man who can respond emotionally
to victims of terrible crimes
without compromising his professionalism.”

11: Diagnosis

I’m okay,
she says

       convincingly

not
convincing me

The Desire Spectrum is Dead to Me Now: 10

A poem was here.

UNOVER or
(United Nations Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea)

Because they sell Pure brand gas
at the Salem Country Store
Benny, an immigrant from Eritrea,
has asked my husband Craig to
paint an American Flag on the canopy outside
(which is the logo
for Pure Gas) to comply with
the company's regulations. Benny
tells Craig that in Sweden the girls didn't like
him because he was too short
and in America they don't like him because
he isn't black enough so he
married a poor white Southern
girl with one purple eye and one
green one and a uterus
that looks like a sieve. She bears
no young. The Salem

Country Store sits on a sink, where the water
filled caves beneath your feet are a secret home
for some unusual creatures- like the cave
crayfish and freshwater eel. These are rare
species only found in
the Woodville Karst Plain.

Today marks the end of mothers.
What could we do but haul an old goat
up Mount Rushmore
and slit its throat to celebrate the
equinox? Today at the hospital cafeteria, my
colleague, Operation Room Technician Ana,
told me that a 300 lb
man with an Aquanet Can up his ass came into
the OR. I continued to eat
my chili and then Craig called saying
Benny's wife, that total bitch, told
him to stop painting mid flag.

10: [expired]

poem 86'd for lewd behavior

Maureen Thorson: "Figure 2.59 - Moth Balls and Sugar"...

...has been uploaded.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Maureen's poems here.

9. [expired]

poem finally fesses up to all life's mistakes

Pirate Standoff
for Anne Boyer


I have been a husband, a cop, an illegitimate
cousin and now I am a sharecropper.
As a sharecropper you are told to
google “octopussy” at least 16 times
for best results and then the person who owns
the land sells formaldehyde diapers to you at the
baby boutique (which sits on the
land you farm) for $16.95 each. There is a sign
upon entering the baby boutique
that reads “Most people in Africa have blue eyes
and most Swedes are technological inventions
that have short shelf lives so get back
to work.” There's also
a gym under the boutique called “Art of the Catwalk,”
where you learn to pole dance
because everyone knows that Baruch Spinoza
(high prince of philosophers)
was buried with a
Lil Mynx Removable Dance Pole
a few days after those high seas bandits
overtook the Maersk Alabama
shouting “God is the indwelling.
Mombasa,, we're here.”

Professional Cowboys don’t Want to be Found

from The Buckle Bunnies

Cowboys make the girth move under you.
Cowboys encounter bunnies in a night club
after the rodeo. One cowboy notes,
if they have a beer garden, they’re there.

It was the mid-1980s before a cowboy
earned a million dollars in a lifetime.
Cowboys know this: If you had a nice buckle on,
they were coming for you.

A nude picture of a cowboy appears
with the phrase: “Is this what you were looking for?”

The cowboys stay in their homes.

Bunnies Come from a Variety of Backgrounds

from The Buckle Bunnies

Bunnies surround the participants.
Bunnies wait at the gates.
They are always behind the chutes.
Them are the fun ones.

The majority have some family association.
The ones down in the circuit
wear the tightest pants.
They’re in this town today, tomorrow
they may be in another town.

The History of Asemic Writing as Told by Our Asemic Writer's Illustrator

In the Voynich Manuscript
our speaker, King Rudolfo the Eighth (who is also an
amateur herbalist
with an extensive knowledge
of the powers of chamomile develops
a false writing system of nymphs
who predict Morgellon's disease, an unexplained
dermopathy wherein spools of black and red
thread emerge from the patient's skin.
Because when a contract is awarded
by the CDC to Kaiser Permanente's Northern
California Division of Research to assist
in the investigation of this condition
the bodies of the homeless will be
drawn into our manuscript by our illustrator
King Rudolfo the Eighth.

8: [expired]

poem illegally detained on suspicion of terrorism

Lasers in the Jungle


I was at a union party last year and this girl
was telling me about how her
mom is allergic to everything--everything? I asked.

Everything, she answered
even the earth's magnetic field.

I've heard Paul Simon sing
about the boy with the baboon heart

one to many times today. No
wonder he was sued. Have I told you about

how Edie Brickell's band
drugged my husband with PCP-laced walnut
cookies about ten years ago in Dallas?

What a duo. In 1906

French physicist Bernard Brunhes
proved that the earth's polarity

reversed by taking warm honey and
pouring it over a
Taung child's (A. africanus) smallish

mandible. His life of seed-eating, sex
and reproduction is common
in generalized

endotherms. Humans
arn't cheetahs, you know—they don't
run their prey to the ground. The cost

of bipedal walking: a bubble allergy.

Dear Jen Knox:

You've been tellin' me you're a genius
since you were seventeen

so can you please tell me

why Wislawa Szymborska's poem
“Brueghel's Two Monkeys”

has two monkeys chained
to the floor in the first stanza? I mean,

is that even possible?

Jennifer L. Knox lectures tonight in Brooklyn

I'm "lecturing" for this thing called Adult Education, a Brooklyn-based lecture series devoted to making useless knowledge somewhat less useless. Each month is devoted to a given theme, and several speakers address that theme using visual aids. This month's theme is "Colors" and my topic is "Tasting Brown". It should be fun.

Jennifer L. Knox
Adult Education Series
Tuesday, April 7, 2009 - 8 pm (doors at 7:30)
Union Hall in Park Slope
702 Union St. @ 5th Ave
$5 cover

UPDATE: See the Media Bistro post here for more info and list of additional lecturers!

Union Hall is located in Park Slope, Brooklyn, right off the corner of 5th Avenue on Union Street.

QUICKEST: R Train to Union Street. Walk 1 Avenue East to 702 Union St.
(South side of the street)
QUICKER: Q, 2, 3, 4, 5 trains to Atlantic Ave (Atlantic Center). Walk South
on 5th Ave for 10 blocks. Make a left at Union St.
QUICK: F Train to 4th Ave. Walk North on 4th Ave for 13 blocks and turn
right on Union St.

BUS LINES: The B71 stops in front of Union Hall and the B63 stops around the
corner at 5th Ave and Union St.

And if you're not checking Ada Limon's blog for Jen's daily poems (and Ada's and Jason's too!), uh, you should be!

Todd Colby: "This Morning"...

...has been uploaded.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Todd's poems here.

7. [expired]

what is this poem of which you speak?

The Desire Spectrum is Dead to Me Now: 7

A poem was here.

Let Shark Meat

Let the rich demolish the rich, enzyme
the catalyst. Let nothing stop
my psychologist's wristwatch checking.

Let nuclear piss eradicate
hypnagogic hallucination, goldfish's suck
mouth swish endlessly for his tail swirl.
Let the dumb maid ask does tarragon tea
have the power to cure bunions?

Let it be known that dogs have 4 blood
types; cats 11; cows around 800. Let Alas-
ka. Let Pompeii. Let Botulism the rim
of you're the last tin can left.

Let mercury fish apocalypse the warm ocean
syphilitic and humping. Oh let
elephant AIDS, llama tampons, platypus barf.

Let the rich dismantle “The Song
of the Humpback Whale,” meta-
morphic rock quake the palm's fault lines,
the vaginal canal fill with sparrows.

Reb Livingston: "Four Proverbs"...

...has been uploaded.

(If you do not see it in the player, try emptying your browser cache and reloading. If you do not see it in your iTunes subsciption, click REFRESH.)

Read more of Reb's poems here.

Michael Schiavo: "Not Never Falling But Rising When We Fall"...

...has been uploaded.

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Read more of Michael's poems here.

the two thousands -- 6

Once I was caught in a perfect crowd.
It was a flickering heap.

That city was made of intestines.
The children there screwed their courage to a cow,
but this was not what we saw of it.

We saw a people composed of gestures.
They shared such promise.
They were those-who-would-never-fuck-out-loud.

The conjugal flesh was nothing
like that in the cities of the past.

I promise you these were composed
almost entirely of men wearing glasses.

They felt natural
in their concerns

so that they could eat or move their hands
without so much thinking.

Their pants narrowed.

There was no one way we could be unconnected.
It was a mass we were afraid of.

6. [expired]

poem on permanent vacation

A Warm and Witty Transsexual Prostitute


The only thing that will get the sound of Manuela
in All About my Mother screaming Esteban!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
out of my head today is

reminiscing about how I wrote a famous
conference paper on Trench warfare wherein

I argue that Wash-

ington DC is not, in fact, an
astrological hub of prepubescent

miracle workers with green
skin like most of the lit-
erature suggests. (It took some time but

all the historians cite it now
and that makes me feel pretty good).

Times are tough and Sally told me that to
compare everything
from my pregnancy to the high cost
of dishwasher detergent
to the Russo-Japanese war

is a bit misguided but I think she's just
jealous that I am able to

wield metaphors like “trench war-
fare is the fort-
ification of the film industry when actors

and actresses dress in multicolored
robes like cakes in the shape

of Christopher Columbus's head
you eat on Christmas."

Don't you get it?

Sally, said I,

there are only a few things in my life
that I must hold onto—the title

of this poem, my new-
found fame as an historian and you, Sally, you.

5: [expired]

bon voyage poem! don't forget to write!

the two thousands -- 5

BANKER UTOPIA

They wore bowler hats
as a gesture of defiance

The Desire Spectrum is Dead to Me Now: 5

A poem was here.

Poets House Showcase

The only event of its kind, the annual Poets House Showcase is a free exhibit featuring all of the new poetry books and poetry-related texts published in the United States in a single year—with more than 2,000 titles on view (including volumes by individual authors, anthologies, biographies, critical studies, CDs and DVDs) from over 500 commercial, university and independent presses. The Showcase provides writers, readers and publishers with a fascinating vantage point from which to assess publishing and design trends and linguistic, aesthetic and philosophical shifts. Established in 1992 by Executive Director Lee Briccetti, the Showcase reflects Poets House’s mission to make the range of modern poetry available to the public and to stimulate public dialogue on issues of poetry and culture.

Each year, Poets House adds the bibliographic records of all the books exhibited in the Showcase to its free, fully-searchable online database, the Directory of American Poetry Books. With over 20,000 titles, the Directory contains the most comprehensive information about U.S. poetry books and publishers from 1990 through 2008.

The 17th Annual Poets House Showcase
April 4-11, 2009

Opening Reception: Saturday, April 4, 1:00–4:00pm
Exhibit Hours: Saturday, April 4-11, during regular library hours

Catch an eyeful of what's happening in poetry today with this divergent, cacophonous display of all the new poetry and poetry-related books published in the United States in the last year. From micro-press chapbooks to masterworks from major commercial publishers, over 2,000 titles share shelf space for one week.

@ NYPL Jefferson Market Branch
425 Sixth Avenue (at West 10th Street)
For library hours, call (212) 243-4334
Admission free

Bloof happily sent all our books in for this. So if you're going, say hi to them for us.

Peter Davis: "Poem Addressing Babies"...

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Read more of Peter's poems here.

Metal Detectors On

The poor taking too big a dog bite out
of the debt millennium
and not rich enough
to be a vegan or to install organic diapering
systems designed by poets
with trust funds. If your baby touches

mine with a twist of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese
I am going to call you
“black boy.” Craig and I were

going to take
dynamite and porridge
to the landfill tonight to find
diamonds under the corpse-light of the moon.
(It's our anniversary, you see).

Once, stuffed in an Oldsmobile's car door
at the Pick and Pull I found a slice of Visa
but it took
beating a junkyard dog
with a club to get it. Not that I

don't envy your spiked collar.
Not that the global cholera problem has been solved.
Justice for Baby Amit!

The far right,
workaholics, pamphlets. Just the idea of Guy Ernest

Debord makes me too resentful
to move. I tried to explain to my beloved that

Slumdog Millionaire is a stupid movie
with an extra stupid soundtrack

and extra stupid cherry on top child actors
and that you, Baby Amit, are the slumlord.

the two thousands -- 4

I was a low-rank mimetician
investigating portraiture
in incorporated angles

ie “the angle at which you can appear
to everyone as dead.”

“I was a child soldier”
to admit this
might distinguish me from gladiators

all of them chanting
“sorry”
for our season in hell.

4: [expired]

the poem's legacy lives on

The Desire Spectrum is Dead to Me Now: 4

A poem was here.

Dear Oprah:


There are so many ways to treat the octomom
so please don't stop publishing O.
We were going to dismember
the octomom no sorry we were going
to shred the octomom
with a paper shredder like her
financial difficulties I'm sooooo sorry
all of my colleagues are going
out tonight to drink tequila and throw tomatoes
at the octomom to make
an omelet they hatched eggs forever
like chickens or Dexter.
There are eight eggs in the Justice Omelet
I made the octomom
eat all of the eggs at Winn Dixie and then
I begged Dr. Phil to come
on the octomom's forehead
because that's what we
do when we don't have a skillet
and I love porn, don't you?
There are so many ways to treat the octomom
because when I was a little girl
all I ever wanted was a baby octopus, didn't you
or were you more of a mini octopus yourself?
(PS I think a green tentacle is emerging from
my vagina which leaves 7 more to go. Yay!)
Do you know that there are 8 eggs
in a figure 8 and that the octomom
was born in October with 8 ovaries androgynous
and quivering
ovaries because she will die
of ovarian cancer like my dog which
is not what we want because we are treating her OK.

the two thousands -- 3

GONE TO CROATAN

I am on strike again today
so can tell you about the fuckers

in most documents like this
the girls are like land.

I am glad to be given permission to speak

but here I am
disappointing you again.

3: [expired]

the bell tolls for no poem

The Desire Spectrum is Dead to Me Now: 3

A poem was here.

2: [expired]

where poems go when they die

Night Blooming Cactus


grows in Jamaica.
Birth forth at sun down; It is right

sided. It is a major heart remedy.

As if caged in wires, feels like a wire is
digging into the affected part.
Whole body feels... as if caged.

Pain is so violent it makes them cry
out in agony. Worse deep thoughts.

Blood always seems to be in the wrong place.

He becomes stupid.
Sharp vice like grip?

Cardiac patients have dreams of
falling. Violent dreams of falling. Tincture from

the leaves from the two-year-old plant.

A picture of an elderly man
with dribbling prostrate etc.

Frequent sticks in the heart. (As if the heart
would stop beating if he moved.)

Bad news (Often you can trace it back to divorce.)

Deep sighing.
Sad stories. Became very wealthy with one remedy.
Flocked

to him. Made more money
and more money. Built up this reputation.

Brain cells go pop every time
you take it. Introduced by the old school as an

inhalation when the blood vessels were
contracting. Anxiety during the menopause.

They have to run to the window for fresh air.
Feeling of foreboding.

the two thousands -- 2

Over our many urban centers the natural men dropped
devices

for the reproduction of porous surfaces
and the hollowing out
of playlists.

Attractive young people participated.
Everyone went along with
skidding.

They broke up everything
but property*/

for this
they went to school.

Mortality was the don
of my incompleteness.

He held banks and guns—
it was a narrow resemblance I corrected

to rip? to burn?

* corrected: they broke three bank windows in London on April fools

The Desire Spectrum is Dead to Me Now: 2

A poem was here.

Did the porch just blow away?--------When panic
attacks, yoga mom-------------Buddha baby. Stand
with your feet-------------------comfortable distance
apart. I used to be---------------lofty; now I am led
to speculate? The----------------poem-columns hold
their ground. Lift baby--------------Jenga no straighten
baby Jenga and as--------------------you bring your weight to
the right side think----------------------about what Condo-
leezza Rice could have---------------------been, music-wise
if she had only followed her God--------------given talent.
With zebra wood, dwarfed-------------------cherry trees outside
the scraped south----------------------------scrapped by. Don't you see,
Randolf?—nothing-------------------------crumbles like a set of fingers.

the two thousands -- 1

I was certain these were not the cities themselves,
not the ghosts of cities.

These were not beyond the run-of-the-mill.

They were bodies
vastly functioning

their oil and currency
the center of
exegesis

stealing seventeen minutes
for polite orgies
& local news.

We could imagine illustrious cities their bronze networks ascribing
cuckholds
& age gaps.

The consolations of pornography
dried all over my face so whatever they could do for me
was nil.

I’d opened up for it, looked straight into it
as usual.

It was admittedly
an hour’s drive
looking away from one’s fingers
at sedans

I’d take it that way
every killer treatise

lost in circulation (again).

1: [In preparation she washed her hands.]

poem signed your yearbook & meant every word. stay cool!

The Desire Spectrum is Dead to Me Now: 1

A poem was here.