http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/ en Copyright 2007 Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:03:22 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/?v=3.2ysb5-20051201 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss


While the Poetry Project might be a haven, a community, or just a reading venue for poets on tour, the Poetry Project is also a not-for-profit by any means adventure, a place to debate, celebrate, and most importantly, instigate social change and justice by means of poetry and language. Poets Anne Waldman and Stacy Szymaszek talk about the East Village, views on community and the future of the Poetry Project.

Anne Waldman was the director of the Poetry Project from 1966-1978, has published over 40 books of poetry and prose, and is the director of the M.F.A. Writing and Poetics program at the Naropa Institute. Stacy Szymaszek is the current director of the Poetry Project. Her most recent book is Emptied of All Ships (Litmus Press, 2005). Boog City editors David Kirschenbaum and Christina Strong conducted email interviews with poets Anne Waldman and Stacy Szymaszek, past and current Directors of the Poetry Project, August 2007.



Q: Speaking of community, Anne, how did the poetry project serve the East Village community when you were the director. Stacy how will the Poetry Project reach out to the East Village community when the neighborhood is changing:

AW: The initial funding was from the Office of Economic Opportunity under Lyndon Johnson (heavens that admin seems light years away!) which was specified for "alienated youth" on the Lower East Side. Most of us were certainly alienated by the American War in Viet Nam, and were involved with alternative activities in and around poetry and the arts, and benefits and the like which used the space. The space was key to a range of activities. The readings were by contribution, the workshops were free and generated a lot of participants. We had a library and the means for mimeo production which benefited a lot of folk on the premises...plus jobs for locals. Ted Berrigan "put up the chairs". We served the community by being open and welcoming and we built on & continued the whole downtown scene which had historical precedence in the Deux Magots series and more...It was a place for people to come together. With a focus on poetry and community. We cultivated an amazingly sophisticated LISTENING audience. I remember Edwin Denby speaking of that - how attuned the audience was. As Allen Ginsberg once said "St Mark's was my Poetry Church". So the implications are of a sacred space for poetry and poets and poetry community activists -infrastructure poets I like to call them.

SS: I think being located in a church and a church as progressive as St. Mark’s really amplifies the message that this is a place where you can come and feel welcome and comfortable, if one is comfortable having a different experience with language. Even the way the church is situated triangular facing 2nd Ave. with a sitting area appeals. Joel Kuszai recently talked at the Project about how real estate structures life. The East Village has changed and many of our constituency of poets are commuters, however, given the struggle for space, the streets around the project are still teeming with poets and poetry readers and punks and shopkeepers. Quite a few still live here with the ominously out-of-sync but rapidly replicating bank branches. Anselm recently pointed out that as long as the trains and buses are running people will come to us. But I think you are asking how will we reach out to the people who are currently living in this neighborhood, how will we know of each other’s existence? Which is a fine place to begin. From a practical administrative perspective we have increased the number of newsletters that we’ll distribute via the office to neighborhood cafes and bookstores. We’ll make use of our outdoor bulletin board which at the moment features poems by Sparrow and Hettie Jones as well as a sneak preview for fall, we’ll post signs on reading nights earlier in the day – these small actions gain momentum and inspire bigger ideas. The Project is also a part of the St. Mark’s Church community and the possibility of some collaborative programs between the arts projects and the church are in the works. It’s another opportunity for us to reach local audiences that wouldn’t otherwise know about us.

Q: Regarding funding, Stacy what are the needs that you'd like to be taken care of and advanced but can't because of lack of funds? Perhaps technological for example, or better, someone to transcribe and digitize all those recorded readings? Anne, what were the funding issues in your day?

SS: I would love to be the one to see the Project to a place where increasing the stipends for readers, pay for support staff and salaries for employees is viable and sustainable. Our operating costs go up every year but our income doesn’t necessarily correspond. Fund development would also allow for more technical equipment (more preservation options), website development and larger scale programming and publishing projects. I see a path for realizing this goal during my term, or at least leaving the next Director in an even more able situation, then again I have the idealism of a new Director who inherited a solid, healthy Project from Anselm Berrigan. Our recorded readings are being attended to though all I can say at the moment is stay tuned for more news later in the year.



AW: Just being able to maintain doing what we were already doing. After the 2 year grant ended and I was Director by then ('68), we had to seek the funding to pay $25 for readings, workshop & staff salaries (I had one - $7,000 a year? - from the Parks Department and had to pick up the paycheck at the building by the Central Park zoo for a couple of years). Support came from Noble Foundation, Kaplan Fund, NY State Council etc. We got some support for the World from the Coordinating council of Literary Magazines. Modest amounts that went far in those days.


Q: Stacy, what are your plans for your term? Fresh voices? More symposiums? More media, video for example?


SS: My plans are to continue to improve what we do well. The Project’s curatorial philosophy is solid and provides for a remarkable range of poets thoughtfully paired. I look forward to applying my sensibility to the Wednesday Reading Series. I believe the symposiums were no longer financially viable (also the reason for the hiatus of The World), and I know they are missed. This is in the “lack of funds” list. Many of my goals involve the aspect of the job less visible to the general public and pertain to organizational well-being: board development, fund development. A couple of ideas feel too delicate at this stage to publicly document and may not be able to be implemented during my first year. The Project creates and thrives on “outrider” energy and Corrine Fitzpatrick, Arlo Quint, Akilah Oliver, John Coletti, David Vogen and everyone else bringing in season 42 are here because we have chemistry, with each other, with this place, and this feeling extends outward.


Q: Anne, can you talk about your days as director and what you've seen changed between then and now, e.g., the neighborhood, the poproj itself, the poetry world as a whole, and what do you think about these changes?

AW: Change is inevitable. And there are new generations of writers- the
post-post mod (post Holocaust/post bomb?) independents, free of the shackles of so-called "schools", and male dominated heroic scenes. Women are so much more empowered in recent decades. Cutting teeth on different wars, more sophisticated info tools - internet, cell phones etc. Faster hook-ups. Swifter activism projects. What does not change is the will to change, of course. The Lower East Side neighborhood - the economics of that - gentrification etc. might be seen as problematic and I would hope that the energy of what occurs here can spread to other needier neighborhoods. The poetry culture if you will, however seems alive and healthy - there are so many more venues currently than there were in the "old days" - and if the proliferation of the MFA programs - careerism isn't your style, there are still alternatives outside the "credentialed" universe. I find the spirit is essentially the same at the Project – and it's still the place to go when you hit town as a poet. There's a species of inspiration and going-the-extra-mile that's rare in many institutions. Like the Kerouac School at Naropa, it's still a relatively young experiment...and perhaps ultimately a "temporary autonomous zone" in the grand scheme of things. But it will have made a mark.


Q: Would you define the act of running a nonprofit as a political one? How so?

AW: Sure. There's still a bit of the gift-economy model. Much is given away from this community. It's not about the profit. It's more about sustainability.

SS: I do think of it in a political context. We are an organization that cares about language, specifically poetry. George Lakoff famously has written about the use of language to dominate politics and why conservatives are so good at it. The radical use of language in poetry and, more and more post 9/11, in expressing an unpopular to the power monger view is threatening. It means that people’s minds aren’t being controlled and mind control through fear is a tool of this democracy. I was at the Breaking it Down panel that Anne and Tonya Foster organized, and I found it to be very instructive. Rachel Levitsky talked about “building into our projects multiple identities, cultures, perspectives, experience, bodies…” and this is also a political assertion we make in the public arena.

Q: For both of you, the poetry project is sometimes seen as an insider's group, do you agree with this image and if so, what do you think can be done about this, if anything.

AW: I think there needs to be more of a breakdown of perceived cliques, possibly determined by race and class. Tonya Foster and I organized an event at the Bowery Poetry Club (a healthy sister-project to The PP) last April entitled: Breaking It Down: The Aesthetics of Common Ground. With Cecilia Vicuna, Edwin Torres, Akilah Oliver, Christopher Stackhouse and others. It was to present new work, ideas, and talk a bit about race and other barriers to fuller community spirit. It was a start. Conversation came up on the Newyorican Café, Cave Canem, and the whole downtown neighborhood. I'd been having some interesting conversation with Amiri Baraka about his history with the NY School. And the trust Frank O'Hara had in him when he had supposedly cut off from all his former buddies. Also interesting to me his deep friendship with Ed Dorn and his weeping at the Dorn memorial at St Mark's in reading Ed's Tribe poem - and how he was the only black person in the room. Why is that? Or it could be the other way around in some instances. It's interesting to notice. I've been acknowledging Amiri's influence on my own performance work or my interest in other non-western cultures being a lifelong study. How have writers been cross-fertilized, cross culturalized?

If you look at the history of the Project it's certainly been more than an insider's group, but there is a sense of "insider" lineage as well that's important to keep things going. But I think the identity biz is flexible and improvisatory. There's a distinct line from Paul Blackburn, Joel Oppenheimer, myself, former directors, assistants, teachers and advisers, editors - many bastions of the New American Poetry yet way beyond that too-but whatever it is it's not "official verse culture" in Charles Bernstein's words. The famous workshops with Bernadette Mayer & Alice Notley that forged new generation and movements. (Bernstein picking up on Bernadette's experiments etc). Alan Kornblum was encouraged to become a publisher and editor (of Toothpaste and later Coffee House Press) after taking Dick Gallup's workshop. The web-work is amazing and endless. The inter-connectedness is wild! I think of what the Project offered my own mother Frances LeFevre Waldman and so many others in the way of community and am so very grateful. The place was always inter-generational. I am grateful to Ron Padgett, Maureen Owen, Eileen Myles, Bob Holman, Bernadette, Ed Friedman, Anselm Berrigan - all those who kept it going and will continue to- Stacy, Corinne. Such good-hearted folk! Many many persons too numerous to name.

SS: When the news went out that I was the next Director I got an email from Ron Silliman saying something to the effect of, nobody ever again is going to accuse the Project of honing to a single, coterie aesthetic.. For people who don’t know me yet, he could be referring to the fact that I am a Midwesterner who has only lived in NYC for 2 years, or that when my poetics are associated with a tradition it’s not New York School, or any number of other things. I understand how this impression came to be and was once accurate, and I think Anne’s point about insider lineage is an element of our foundation to appreciate, but the organization has necessarily and exponentially grown while still remaining solidly wed to the mission. To assert a point: funding agencies that support us value openness and diversity. The whole notion is something that was put out there in the 70’s and may still be bouncing around in people’s minds, a reflex critique of the Project that doesn’t hold water anymore. It’s totally realistic for arts organizations to have a particular aesthetic bend. The Project supports work that can't be summed up easily but in an attempt to state it: avant-garde, hybrid, literary, performative, mixed genre, politically informed, language and post-language. Rachel Levitsky describes the Belladonna Books project as featuring “work committed to advancing collective thought,” which the Poetry Project also values. In this context we are inquisitive and vigorous in expanding the range of our inclusions.


Q: For both of you, what are your thoughts about the poetry project community and who are you trying to reach.

AW: I am interested in probing writing and performance and the conversations thereof and people who put their lives next to and inside poetry. These people continually show up.

SS: Christina asked me, additionally, if I think that community exists. To begin there, I mean, I think the person who runs the Project needs to have community on their periodic table. It’s elemental.

Community is a complex living thing and it can be frustrating and painstaking but we are involved in many all the time. I also think that community is plural. People tend to think community should be cohesive and romantic, but that is what memory enhances after the work. It’s not a cohesive ONE, but I believe the cadres are reconcilable and the work is fueled by love of humanity. Who do I want to reach: young people, readers, writers, artists, activists and thinkers who are looking for something they haven’t found and hey, it’s us, people who may not need us as keenly but who recognize our value and support us in whatever way.

Q: It's our hope that the poetry project lasts until the world ends. But do either of you worry or think about the possibility of it’s having to end, and do you have any plans in place to help thwart that?

AW: I think the paradigm of this experiment is good for other places - all over the world. And I've seen projects inspired by Naropa - work as well "out there". I was just at a conference in Wuhan, China on the Yangtze River – a conference on 20th century American Poetry with a double focus on Langston Hughes and Language Poetry, a terrific idea. There was a great deal of interest there in the projects I've helped shape and create, outside the academy, so to speak. The tape and video Archive is very important, as it is at Naropa. That will allow future generations (if the technology allows this) to hear the work, grapple with the thinking and see that some people on the planet were not just hell bent on destroying one another.

SS: It’s possible that in the future the Project will be dealing with a less friendly funding climate, though the majority of our support is through membership and donations. If the Poetry Project ends in our lifetimes I think it would be a result of a catastrophic shift. More likely, the Project would morph to meet whatever demands are before it in order to continue. An “emergency plan” doesn’t formally exist but options have been discussed. Whoever is responsible for the Project if and when should be ready to thwart and adapt. As Anne implies, all things end, so we do want to continue to document and archive our time.

Q: Admitting and guessing that the poetry project is not the easiest place to manage, what do you see are the best skills one could have in dealing with the place, other than a sense of humor? And perhaps a certain amount of chemical intake?

AW: Being organized, ALWAYS following through, communication, generating compassion and empathy and the sense that we are all creative people, not simply administrators. And building on what's going on. Coming forward with an idea for a series, a magazine. Being open to folk organizing something like the two Poetry Is News events, as Ammiel and I did with help from Kristen Prevallet and Alan Gilbert. Or the Olson Now event. Having the space serve the community.

SS: Perfect: organization, communication, openness, empathy. I would add a certain willingness to give pause to your own ego and serve the mission, to make people feel attended to and that they have opportunities to realize their work, and to be interested in more than what you like. I’m not big on chemical intake but we do have a candy dish of Advil.

Q: We’re curious that if you’ve noticed a high or low turnout in regard to the readers what that causal relationship was. This is a highly subjective question of course, but we’re wondering what makes a "successful" reading? And is that so important?

AW: That the person is engaged yet not neurotically grasping vis a vis their own work or merely talking to themselves or a coterie but that is IS taking to people and can also be intimate. That's there a generosity in the movement off the page and awareness of the environment. That the event or "act" of reading is investigative, even magical. A "high energy construct" in Olson's term. And gratitude for the occasion which is ultimately a precious one.

SS: As a curator I appreciate a large audience but it’s not a primary factor in the success of a reading. As a grant writer who is reporting on people “served” it becomes relevant and even important, but that’s something apart from the art of the reading. There is a bit of an attendance lag around the winter holidays, but other than that the causal relationship is hard to generalize. The best readings are when the poets and the audience create rapport and a fly by night community: addresses and works are exchanged and you leave the scene believing that seeds have been planted.

Q: Stacy, how are you going to promote the work of writers who are not so published, and have never read at the project but have been around for a while.

SS: This type of writer you describe is not to be overlooked. During the last two years of working with Anselm I learned a lot about being a curator, and how to access quality regardless of how many publications a person has. The Recluse has also addressed these poets thereby making them a little more published.


]]> http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/boog_city_newspaper/#000019 http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/boog_city_newspaper/#000019 Boog City Newspaper Thu, 18 Oct 2007 22:03:22 -0500 Boog City 43

Our Welcome to Boog City festival issue, with work on or by performers
taking part in the festival or from the East Village and Williamsburg.
Inside, a special 4-page pull-out program, complete with performer bios and
photos.

And a hearty thanks to Scott MX Turner of Superba Graphics
(http://www.superbagraphics.com) for designing the nifty logo for the
festival that adorns the back cover and the festival program.

featuring:

***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***

--"Much like Whitman, her work aspires to a kind of expansiveness that, by
its very nature, cannot be contained within a single gender or sexuality."
--from Amy King Contains Multitudes, I'm the Man Who Loves You (BlazeVOX
Books) by Amy King, reviewed by Lamoureux


***And Our Comics section***

--"War in the Neighborhood gives anyone living in the East Village a very
clear, detailed account of how the neighborhood has changed over the years,
especially the last two decades." --from My Seth Tobocman: A Personal
Meditation on the Radical Comics Artist by Gary Sullivan


***Our Music section, edited by Jonathan Berger***

--"His live performances are something to experience. Erratic and exciting,
Espinola has taken to making no preparation for his shows. ŒThere are times
when I get up there I feel I know what I am doing,¹ he says, Œand there are
other times I can go up there and make the nervousness a positive part of
the act.¹" -- from Espinola Excites!: AntiFolk stalwart writes and fights,
plays and stays in Brooklyn by Berger


***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Williamsburg's Miki
Katagiri.***


***Our Poetry section, edited by Laura Elrick and Rodrigo Toscano***
 (excerpts from each of this issue's poems below)

--Two from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn's Joanna Fuhrman

-from Inflation

When the rent went up, we shifted
all motion west, lifted the bottoms
of our pant legs as if crossing a creek.

-from Why are all the Elephants Crying?

I am wrinkle-free.
which isn¹t a problem
except for the clock bird
trapped in my curls.


--Kensington, Brooklyn's Nada Gordon with

Alpaca Lips (6/6/06)

Today is the first day
of the end of the world.

I feel that in a weaving
fever. Oxen breathe out stars ‹
men, spiny digits.

Shelly Winters bloats
into murky paralysis.
This is the first face of
crumbling.


--The Upper East Side's Nathaniel Siegel with an

excerpt from no!

stench
offering
raise a corpse
his or her
feet jump
his or her
needs rise
needs rising
invigorate Latin Quarter]]> http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/back_issues_of_boog/#000018 http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/back_issues_of_boog/#000018 Back Issues of Boog Fri, 31 Aug 2007 09:46:33 -0500 Boog City is a small press now its 16th year, and East Village community newspaper of the same name. The press has published more than three dozen volumes of poetry and various zines, featuring work by Allen Ginsberg, Anne Waldman, Ed Sanders, Eileen Myles, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Bernadette Mayer among many others, and theme issues on topics ranging from baseball to women's writing, Louisville, Ky. to The Ramones and Talking Heads making the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/about_boog_city/#000001 http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/about_boog_city/#000001 About Boog City Mon, 23 Jul 2007 03:13:34 -0500
available Saturday

Our Welcome to Boog City festival issue, with work on or by performers
taking part in the festival or from the East Village and Williamsburg.
Inside, a special 4-page pull-out program, complete with performer bios and
photos.

And a hearty thanks to Scott MX Turner of Superba Graphics
(http://www.superbagraphics.com) for designing the nifty logo for the
festival that adorns the back cover and the festival program.

featuring:

***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***

--"Much like Whitman, her work aspires to a kind of expansiveness that, by
its very nature, cannot be contained within a single gender or sexuality."
--from Amy King Contains Multitudes, I'm the Man Who Loves You (BlazeVOX
Books) by Amy King, reviewed by Lamoureux


***And Our Comics section***

--"War in the Neighborhood gives anyone living in the East Village a very
clear, detailed account of how the neighborhood has changed over the years,
especially the last two decades." --from My Seth Tobocman: A Personal
Meditation on the Radical Comics Artist by Gary Sullivan


***Our Music section, edited by Jonathan Berger***

--"His live performances are something to experience. Erratic and exciting,
Espinola has taken to making no preparation for his shows. ŒThere are times
when I get up there I feel I know what I am doing,¹ he says, Œand there are
other times I can go up there and make the nervousness a positive part of
the act.¹" -- from Espinola Excites!: AntiFolk stalwart writes and fights,
plays and stays in Brooklyn by Berger


***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Williamsburg's Miki
Katagiri.***


***Our Poetry section, edited by Laura Elrick and Rodrigo Toscano***
 (excerpts from each of this issue's poems below)

--Two from Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn's Joanna Fuhrman

-from Inflation

When the rent went up, we shifted
all motion west, lifted the bottoms
of our pant legs as if crossing a creek.

-from Why are all the Elephants Crying?

I am wrinkle-free.
which isn¹t a problem
except for the clock bird
trapped in my curls.


--Kensington, Brooklyn's Nada Gordon with

Alpaca Lips (6/6/06)

Today is the first day
of the end of the world.

I feel that in a weaving
fever. Oxen breathe out stars ‹
men, spiny digits.

Shelly Winters bloats
into murky paralysis.
This is the first face of
crumbling.


--The Upper East Side's Nathaniel Siegel with an

excerpt from no!

stench
offering
raise a corpse
his or her
feet jump
his or her
needs rise
needs rising
invigorate Latin Quarter


-----

And thanks to our copy editor, Joe Bates.

-----

Please patronize our advertisers:

BlazeVOX Books * http://www.blazevox.org
Bowery Poetry Club * http://www.bowerypoetry.com
Cuneiform Press * http://www.cuneiformpress.com/
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Kelsey Street Press * http://www.kelseyst.com

-----

Advertising or donation inquiries can be directed to
editor@boogcity.com or by calling 212-842-BOOG (2664)

-----

2,250 copies of Boog City are distributed among, and available for free at,
the following locations:

MANHATTAN

*THE EAST VILLAGE*

Acme Underground
Angelika Film Center and Café
Anthology Film Archives
Bluestockings
Bowery Poetry Club
Café Pick Me Up
Cakeshop
Lakeside Lounge
Life Café
Living Room
Mission Café
Nuyorican Poets Café
Pianos
The Pink Pony
St. Mark's Books
St. Mark's Church
Shakespeare & Co.
Sidewalk Café
Sunshine Theater
Trash and Vaudeville

*OTHER PARTS OF MANHATTAN*

Hotel Chelsea
Poets House


BROOKLYN

*WILLIAMSBURG*

Academy Records
Bliss Café
Galapagos
Sideshow Gallery
Soundfix/Fix Cafe
Spoonbill & Sugartown
Supercore Café

*GREENPOINT*
(available early next week)

Greenpoint Coffee House
Lulu's
Photoplay
Thai Cafe
The Pencil Factory

]]> http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/boog_city_newspaper/#000003 http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/boog_city_newspaper/#000003 Boog City Newspaper Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:20:45 -0500 Issue One, January 28-February 10, 2002

-The Beginning of a Great Adventure, opening editorial on why Boog City by editor and publisher David Kirschenbaum

-Lexicons from Erwin Karl (homeland security), Dan Rigney (good), and Dale Smith (the dead)
-Greg Fuchs on art in a post-September 11 world
-Kimberly Wilder’s Notes from My FBI File: Hey Bush--Sanctity, Sanctity Yourself

-Poems from:

David Baratier
Anselm Berrigan
Sean Cole
John Coletti
Ethan Fugate
Lisa Jarnot
Eliot Katz
Aaron Kiely
Eileen Myles
Wanda Phipps,
Kristin Prevallet
Jenny Smith—cover
Lorenzo Thomas
Ian Wilder

-art by Brendan Iijima
-photos from Fuchs

and an ad from the Bowery Poetry Club

Issue two, Feb. 11-24, 2002

-World Economic Forum (WEF) Coverage and photos

*Greg Fuchs's column, "It Takes A Global Village Idiot: Attention all
dunderheaded journalists, look this way"
*Notes from the WEF from Ian and Kimberly Wilder
*Lexicons from Laura Elrick (security) and David Hess (war)

-Nevermind Forever: Kurt Cobain at 35
*Reflections on Kurt from Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo
*With poems from Buck Downs, Arielle Greenberg, and Hoa Nguyen, and a special Boogside, centerfold pullout of Eileen Myles’ poem “Kurt”
*from the editor’s notebook the night/morning after Kurt Cobain’s suicide was discovered
*An excerpt from Charles Cross’s Cobain bio, Heavier than Heaven
*A vintage piece on Nevermind, circa 1992, by TimeOutNY’s Tom Gogola

-Kimberly Wilder's Notes from My FBI File: Welcome Back WBAI

-San Francisco Bay Area section, with poetry and prose from Mary Burger, Trane DeVore, Lauren Gudath, Beth Murray, Chris Stroffolino, Delia Tramontina, and Elizabeth Treadwell
And art from DeVore, David Larsen, and Will Yackulic

-Columbus, Ohio section edited by Pavement Saw’s David Baratier,
with poems from Steve Abbott, Stephen Mainard, and Julie Otten

-WBUR's "Here and Now" roving poet Jim Behrle on the New England
Patriots, Super Bowl Champion

-Poems from Edmund Berrigan, Sue Landers, and James Wilk
-Aaron Kiely reviews Skies by Eileen Myles
-Photos from Brian Ach, Chet Gordon, Kimberly Wilder
-Art from Zachary Wollard

and ads from the Bowery Poetry Club, The C-Note, and Free Cell Comm

Issue three, Feb. 25-March 10, 2002

-Information on how to run a Third-Party candidacy by Ian and Kimberly Wilder
-Craig Seeman, chair of New York’s Green Party, offers strategies on competing in America’s two-party landscape
-Kimberly Wilder's Notes from My FBI File: Monkeywrenching with Minnie the Cat
-Columnist Greg Fuchs on "Anarchy: The Secret to Democracy in the U.S.A."

-Review of the play Runt of the Litter by Brian Ach
-Tom Devaney reviews FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans
-Burka lexicon from Gerald Schwartz

Poems

Eliot Katz—cover
Edward Sanders—centerfold Boogside, excerpt from America, a History in Verse, volume 2, “Henry Wallace, Third Party Candidate in 1948”

*Coletti and Friends—readers for his Boog chapbook pub party. Readers selected by John, work selected by me
Ed Berrigan, I Feel Tractor song lyrics
John Coletti
Betsy Fagin
Greg Fuchs
Mariana Ruiz-Firmat

*non-themed work
Charles Bernstein
Caitlin Mcdonnell
Kent Taylor

Photos from Brian Ach, Vivian Demuth, Eliot Katz,

Art from Nicole Michels

and ads from the good folks at the Bowery Poetry Club, the C-Note, and Free Cell Comm.

Issue 4, March 11-25, 2002

The Rock, Rock, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Issue

-The induction of the Ramones and the Talking Heads by James Wilk
-With interviews by music editor James Wilk of Hilly Kristal, owner of CBGB’s; Seymour Stein, the man who signed both bands; and Linda Stein, co-manager of the Ramones.
-A Centerfold poster of The Ramones playing CBGB’s in 1977
-James Wilk reviews Joey Ramone’s recently released solo album
-Nancy Seewald reviews Richard Hell’s book Hot and Cold
-Greg Fuchs expounds on the relevance of critic laureate Lester Bangs
-The editor on seeing The Ramones in Montreal

Poem by Emma Straub

Photos by Brian Ach and Danny Fields.

and ads from the good folks at the Bowery Poetry Club and the C-Note.

Issue 5, April 8, 2002

Antifolk: The Next Small Thing.

-A look into the new New York underground music scene by James Wilk
-A tour diary of Major Matt Mason USA’s (AKA Matt Roth’s) travels through England
-James Wilk reviews albums from the Olive Juice Records catalogue--the DIY collective of local heroes
-Major Matt Mason centerfold poster with lyrics to song “rockstar”
-Think Local … Music, says the editor

Holy Shit: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, writes our music editor Wilk from the scene of The Ramones and The Talking Heads’ inductions.

Contemporary art hits the streets: A review of the free biennial around New York city this April by Dan Rigney

Buffalo Beat by Michael Basinski

Fiction by Sharon Mesmer

Poems by:

Veronica Corpuz
Alan Gilbert
Daniel Kane
Noelle Kocot
Lisa Lubasch

Art by Brenda Iijima

Photo by Brian Ach, Peter Dizozza, and Marshall Kappel.

and ads from the good folks at The Bowery Poetry Club and The C-Note.

Issue 6, April 22, 2002

The Baseball issue

The editor on growing up a Mets fan

Columnist Greg Fuchs on Our Other National Pastime--War

Poems from:

Marcella Durand
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Kevin Gallagher
David Hadbawnik
Owen Hill
Bill Luoma
Sharon Mesmer
Carol Mirakove
Elinor Nauen—centerfold broadside
Ann Elliott Sherman
Ed Smith

Prose from:

Angela Bowering
George Bowering
Don Byrd and Pierre Joris
Tom Devaney
Basil King

Stacee Sledge reviews the new album from The Mysteries of Life

Drawing Conclusions: Cartoonists Take on 9/11 by Gary Sullivan

Comic, The Cheerleader by Javelin P

Non-Baseball poems from:

Philip Good
Chris Martin
Stephen Paul Miller

Art by Karine Duteil and Melissa Zexter
Photos by Brian Ach, Melissa Zexter

and ads from the good folks at The Bowery Poetry Club and The C-Note.

Issue 7, May 6, 2002

It’s Belladonna* Baby

-Poet Anne Waldman visits one of the city’s best reading series. Here she and its curator, Rachel Levitsky, discuss poetry and activism.
-Anne Waldman centerfold Boogside
-Juliana Spahr tells us what’s so special about Belladonna*
-Judi Silverman on Bluestockings women’s bookstore
-The editor on Belladonna* founding editor/curator Levitsky

Columnist Greg Fuchs says Let’s Organize Yusef Komunyakaa to Help Save National Poetry Month

A Punk in the Academy: What’s in the water at UMass @Amherst, where indie rockers like the Pernice Brothers, the Silver Jews, Rising Shotgun, and the Figments have all studied with poetry professor James Tate? Music editor James Wilk finds out

Chris Stroffolino on his former professor James Tate

Frank Sherlock on Brandon Downing’s new book Shirt Weapon

Stephen Dignan on The Myth of Fingerprints: Lumumba’s Vision of a United Africa Comes to Harlem

Poems from:

Public school students
Ed Berrigan
Bob Hershon
Rebecca Reynolds

Comic from Trane Devore

Art from Karine Duteil and Gary Sullivan.

Photos by Brian Ach, Greg Fuchs, and David Kirschenbaum.

and ads from the good folks at The Bowery Poetry Club and The Unbearables Arts Festival

Issue 8, August 2003

Featuring:

Poetry on 1977/1978 edited by Arielle Greenberg,
with work from:

Melissa Anderson
Liz Brown
Maile Chapman
Sean Cole
C.S. Giscombe
Christopher Kennedy
Sarah Manguso
Chelsey Minnis
Edwin Torres

and an editorial from Arielle

cool non-themed work:

• a Nick Piombino poem
• Jane Sprague reviews Mariana Ruiz Firmat’s new chapbook
• Nancy Seewald reviews two East Village restaurants
• Greg Fuchs’s column returns with his letter from the President
• Brenda Iijima art
• a Greg Fuchs photo
• and an editorial and essay on Elvis Costello by yours truly

Issue 9, September 2003

It's the Bay Area issue, featuring:

--Stephanie Young's travel guide to Oakland, complete with a detailed list of places to eat, shop, visit, and play

--Small press editor Jane Sprague on Meritage Press

--poetry from: Taylor Brady * Del Ray Cross * Donna de la Perrière * Joseph Lease * James Meetze * Catherine Meng * Chris Stroffolino * Eileen Tabios * Delia Tramontina * Stephanie Young

--photos from Staci Foley Marengo and Andrew Nevin Rado

and non-Bay Area stuff, too:

--columnist-at-large Greg Fuchs on the community supported agriculture movement

--Nancy Seewald's Eating Well on a Lousy But Steady Income takes on Caracas Arepa Bar

--Stacee Sledge on Juliana Hatfield's new band, Some Girls, featuring her ex-Blake Babies bandmate Freda Love


Issue 10, October 2003

--Columnist-at-large Greg Fuchs’s interview with Poetry Project incoming artistic director Anselm Berrigan on the eve of the project’s new season. Includes some great Fuchs photographs of, and a poem by, Berrigan.

--Small press editor Jane Sprague on Albert Flynn DeSilver’s The Owl Press

--Nancy Seewald's Eating Well on a Lousy But Steady Income on Bona Fides
Italian restaurant

--sex poetry from:

kari edwards * Bruna Mori * Hannah Nijinsky * Chris Pusateri

       Anthony Robinson * Aaron Tieger


Issue 11, November 2003

the Brenda issue

featuring:

--Music editor Jon Berger on Brenda Kahn, Brenda Lee, Brenda Strong, and Brenda Weiler

--Joel Lipman reviews Brenda Starr: Girl Reporter

--Jonathan Skinner reviews Brenda Coultas's A Handmade Museum

--Kristen Hanlon on Brenda Hillman and Patricia Dienstfrey's The Grand Permission: New Writings on Motherhood and Poetics

--poems from:

Brenda Bordofsky, Brenda Coultas, Brenda Hillman, and Brenda Iijima

--art from Brenda Iijima

and non-Brenda content:

--Small press editor Jane Sprague on James Meetze's Tougher Disguises Press

--Nancy Seewald's Eating Well on a Lousy But Steady Income on Itzocan Café

--editorial on Elliott Smith

Issue 12, December 2003

featuring:

--Columnist-at-large Greg Fuchs interviews Major Douglas Martin, Chief Officer of Santa Tracking at NORAD

--East Village Editor Merry Fortune on the neighborhood she's known and the Whole Earth Bakery

--B. Friday reviews Jim Flynn's Stranger to the System, a collection of minibiographies of some homeless people living in and around Tompkins Square Park

--Nancy Seewald's Eating Well on a Lousy But Steady Income on Lil Frankie's

--Music editor Jon Berger on the Domestics debut CD and what CDs to give your loved ones for the holidays (by artists whose CDs there's no chance they already own)

--Steve Carll on Continuous Peasant's debut CD

--Small press editor Jane Sprague on Dana Ward's Cy Press

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, debuts with:

--Eugene Lim on Toby Olson's The Blond Box
--Jill Magi on Yedda Morrison's Crop
--Kathleen Peterson on Robert Duncan's Letters: Poems 1953-1956
--Corey Frost on Gail Scott's My Paris

Poems from:

--Shanna Compton
--John Erhardt
--Dan Fisher
--Gigi Oliver
--Robert Paredez

--art from Brenda Iijima

Issue 13, February 2004

Now available

The issue includes a 16-page clip-n-fold insert of
The Tangent (#14, February 2004),
a zine of politics and the arts based in St. Mary's City, Maryland

---------

the Boog City portion features:

--Columnist-at-large Greg Fuchs interviews Steven Cuiffo, a.k.a. Russello, The New Hot Conjurer

--East Village editor Merry Fortune interviews sculptor Eddie Boros

--Tsaurah Litzky remembers her friend, poet Enid Dame

--Music editor Jon Berger on Simone White's debut CD

--Eugene Lim on Kevin Davies' Lateral Argument

Poems from:

--David Harrison Horton
--Yuri Hospodar
--Cassie Lewis

---------

The Tangent portion features:

Art from:

--Philippe Boisnard
--Colby Caldwell
--Erika Weaver

Essays from:

--Max Boykoff on "Global Warming and Its Discontents"

--Neal "Backstreet" Sand's "Impressions of a City:
Film Geek Takes a Bite out of the Apple"

Poems from:
--Susana Gardner
--Semezdin Mehmedinovic
--Chris Nealon
--Tom Orange
--Frank Sherlock

The Tangent editorial collective is

Jules Boykoff
Max Boykoff
Kaia Sand
Neal Sand

Issue 14, March 2004

Now Available

featuring:

--Columnist-at-large Greg Fuchs interviews Gianna Chachere, the new director of programming at the Two Boots Pioneer (Movie) Theater

--East Village editor Merry Fortune on longtime Lower East Sider, poet, playwright, fiction writer, Carl Watson

--New York state Green Party co-chair Ian S. Wilder on New Paltz, N.Y. Mayor Jason West and gay marriage

--Music editor Jon Berger on Schwervon!’s sophomore CD and U.K. musician Misterlee, who will be playing some dates in downtown NYC in early April

--Small press editor Jane Sprague on Aaron Tieger's CARVE magazine and the small press conference she recently organized in Ithaca, N.Y.

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, features:

--Tom Devaney on Robert Creeley's If I were writing this
--Eugene Lim on David Markson's Vanishing Point
--Nicholas Leaskou on the Jen Hofer edited Sin Puertas Visibles:
An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Mexican Women

Our Poetry section, edited by Stephanie Young, features poems from:

--Tina Celona Brown
--Eli Drabman
--David Hadbawnik
--Simon Perchik
--Eleni Sikelianos

--art from Brenda Iijima

--photos from Greg Fuchs, Eric Lippe, and Victoria Luther

Issue 15, April 2004

Now Available

featuring:

--Photographer Nicolaus Czarnecki presents portraits from the New York City March for the Global Day of Action. New York state Green Party co-chair Ian S. Wilder provides the accompanying text.

--Incoming East Village Editor Paulette Powell previews Butch McCloud, a live-action lesbian musical comic book serial theatrical performance.

--Nancy Seewald's Eating Well on a Lousy But Steady Income on the restaurant Ginger

--Music editor Jon Berger on piano man Kenny Davidsen, redjacket's new EP, and the vaudeville roots of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"

--Small press editor Jane Sprague on Noah Eli Gordon's Braincase Press

--Lo-Fi Sci-Fi Tale #16, a comic from Jeffrey Lewis

--Cy Press editor Dana Ward on watching a ballgame in his hometown of Cincinnati at the Great American Ballpark

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring reviews by:

--Jill Magi on Betsy Andrews' She-Devil (Sardines Press)

--Alexander Samsky on George Bowering's Baseball: A Poem in the Magic Number 9 (Coach House Books)

--Solvey Schou on Mark Andersen and Mark Jenkins' Dance of Days (Akashic Books), which maps out more than 20 years of Washington D.C.’s independent punk and hardcore scene.

Our Poetry section, edited one last time by the incomparable Stephanie Young (before she moves on to Bay Area projects), features poems from:

--Michael Farrell
--Rosemary Griggs
--Michael Vernon

And yours truly selected baseball poetry from:

--David-Baptiste Chirot
--Joel Lewis
--Ryan Murphy
--Shin Yu Pai
--Anne Waldman

Our graphics editor Brenda Iijima brings us art from

--Daisy Hulme
--Alan Sondheim

Issue 16, May 2004

Now Available

featuring:

--Music editor Jon Berger travels the East Village open mic circuit with 25-year veteran John Hodel and profiles Danny Kelly, who could be the hardest working man in AntiFolk

--New East Village editor Paulette Powell with her neighborhood beat report

--Columnist-at-large Greg Fuchs on the march to legalize marijuana and profiling poet Stephen Rodefer

--Nancy Seewald's Eating Well on a Lousy But Steady Income on the restaurant Lima's Taste

--Cortney Powell on the origins of May Day

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring reviews by:

--Katie Peterson on Fanny Howe's The Wedding Dress and Economics

--Corina Copp on Lisa Robertson's Occasional Work and Seven Walks from the Office for Soft Architecture

--Small press editor Jane Sprague on Tinfish Press

Our Poetry section, edited by new poetry editor Carol Mirakove, features poems from:

--Yedda Morrison
--Rodrigo Toscano
--Mark Wallace

--Art from James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook

--Photographs from Nicolaus Czarnecki, Greg Fuchs, Danny Kelly, and Christina Strong

Issue 17, June 2004

Available

featuring:

--Columnist-at-large Greg Fuchs interviews poet, performer, educator Anne Waldman on Naropa, Buddhism, gender, and more

--Roger Hitts on his musical year in 1984 and what Prince's album Music from the Motion Picture Purple Rain meant to him

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring reviews by:

--Nicholas Leaskou on Brenda Iijima's Around Sea

--Eugene Lim on Eugene Marten's In the Blind

--Music editor Jon Berger reviews Dani Linnetz's new album Caller Seventeen

--Kathy Zimmer on JOANASPOLICEWOMAN's new self-titled ep

--Small press editor Jane Sprague interviews Subpress Colective editors Daniel Bouchard, Jordan Davis, and Juliana Spahr

--East Village editor Paulette Powell with her neighborhood beat report

Our Poetry section, edited by poetry editor Carol Mirakove, features
work from:

--Douglas Rothschild
--Alan Semerdjian
--Elizabeth Treadwell

--Art from Betty Tompkins

--Photographs from Greg Fuchs and Michael Turlo

Issue 18, August 2004

Available

featuring:

--Columnist Tom Gogola recounts his time being "technically homeless."

--Roger Hitts travels back in time … to the East Village in the 1990s

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring reviews by:

--Eugene Lim on Gilbert Sorrentino's The Moon in Its Flight

--Eva Neuberg on Brooklyn Noir, edited by Tim McLoughlin

Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger, featuring:

--Berger on Amy Hills and her new album Heroine

--Eric Rosenfield on gay, Jewish rapper Soce the Elemental Wizard

Our Poetry section, edited by Carol Mirakove, features work from:

--Allison Cobb
--Aaron Kunin
--Kevin Varrone

--Art from Inka Essenhigh

--Photo spread from Nick Czarnecki and a photograph from Monte McIndoe

Issue 19, September 2004

Available

featuring:

--Columnist Tom Gogola steps inside Madison Square Garden to cover the Republican National Convention

--East Village editor Paulette Powell's beat report on investigative reporter Greg Palast

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring reviews by:

--Valerie Deus on Susan Landers's 248 mgs., a panic picnic

--David Vogen on Monica Youn's Barter

Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger, features

--Berger on local Righteous Babe recording artist Hamell on Trial

Our Poetry section, edited by Carol Mirakove, features work from:

--Ethan Fugate
--Heather Fuller
--Kim Rosenfield

--Art from Judy Simonian and Winston Smith

--Photo from Eric Lippe

Issue 20, November 2004

Available

featuring:

--Columnist Tom Gogola on his last days as a mate helping people fish from a Sheepshead Bay party boat

--East Village editor Paulette Powell's beat report on artist Lee Harvey, with one of his comic strips, too

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring reviews by:

--Steve Dalachinsky on Wanda Phipps‚ Wake Up Calls: 66 Morning Poems

--Geoff Huth on Maria Damon and mIEKAL aND.’s E.n.t.r.a.n.c.e.d

Music editor Jon Berger on Coyote Shivers’ new double album

Our Poetry section, edited by Carol Mirakove, features work from:

--John Coletti
--Rob Fitterman
--hassen
--Karen Weiser

Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Houston artist Robyn O’Neil

Issue 21, December 2004

Available

featuring:

Columnist Tom Gogola documents his trouble with commuter rail cellphoners

East Village editor Paulette Powell's beat report on comic book artist Arthur Suydam

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring reviews by:

--Katie Peterson on Eleni Sikelianos' The California Poem

--Joy Surles on Gloria Feldt's Exporting Extremism: How Anti-Choice Policies Threaten Women's Lives Around the World

Music editor Jon Berger on
--The Dream Bitches, The Jeffrey Lewis Band, and Carter Tanton playing to help save Bronx community center Casa Del Sol from closure
--Shift, the new release from Just Jill

Our Poetry section, now edited by Dana Ward, features work from:

--Tanya Brolaski
--Jordan Davis
--Stacy Szymaszek

Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from artist Ricardo Mbarak of France and Lebanon

A comic from Lee Harvey

Issue 22, February 2005

Available

featuring:

East Village editor Paulette Powell's beat report on multimedia artist Fly, featuring some of her work.

Columnist Greg Fuchs on the late John Fisk, Poetry Project broadcast consultant and much more.


Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring reviews by:

--Nicholas Leaskou on Truong Tran's Within the Margin

--Eugene Lim on Brian Evenson's The Wavering Knife


Music editor Jon Berger on The Moldy Peaches' Kimya Dawson's "Off the Sauce Party."

Erica Kaufman on The Feverfew's debut CD Apparitions, on Eyeball Records.


Our Poetry section, edited by Dana Ward, features work from:

--Amick Boone
--Noah Eli Gordon and Sara Veglahn
--Catherine Meng
--Chuck Stebolton


Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from artist Johan Nobell of Stockholm, Sweden.

A new comic from Lee Harvey.

Issue 23, March 2005

Available

featuring:

East Village editor Paulette Powell's beat report on comic book artist Sophie Crumb--daughter of Aileen and R. Crumb--featuring some of her work.


Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring:

--Kathleen Peterson on Aaron McCollough's Double Venus


Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger, featuring:

Eric Rosenfield on the end of Luna Lounge on Ludlow Street, and downtown clubs in trouble

Berger on Angela Carlucci's two new albums, Double Deuce's Camp Candy and The Baby Skins For a Boy with a Fractious Skull


Our Poetry section, edited by Dana Ward, features work from:

--Susan Landers
--James Meetze
--Alli Warren
--Tyrone Williams


Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from artist Maho Kino of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Issue 24, April 2005

Available

featuring:

Brad Will writing from Brazil where the state is waging war on the squatters of Sohno Real

Joanna Fuhrman on the late Janet Richmond, poet, artist


Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring:

--Alan Sondheim on Svetlana Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl


Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger, featuring:

Berger on the piano-led pop punk of The Drew Blood


Our Poetry section, edited by Dana Ward, features work from:

--Jim Behrle
--Anselm Berrigan
--Sean Cole
--John Coletti


Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from artist Roberto Harrison of
Milwaukee.

Issue 25, May 2005

Available

featuring:

Photographer Mariah Aguiar reminisces about the early days of CBGB's to East Village editor Paulette Powell.

Roger Hitts on his CBGB's.


Our Printed Matter section, edited by Joanna Sondheim, featuring:

--Katie Peterson on Tomaz Salamun's Blackboards


Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger, featuring:

--Berger on the unclassifiable Kathy Zimmer
--Where You Should Be picks Kirk Kelly's Go Time! Benefit

Our Poetry section, edited by Dana Ward, features work from:

--Noah Falk
--Rodney Koeneke
--Cynthia Sailers


Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from artist Lisa Kereszi of
Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Issue 26, June 2005

Available

featuring:

East Village editor Paulette Powell on the life of her friend, the late poet and curator Micki Siegel, with a poem by Micki and a tribute poem by Bruce Weber.

Our Printed Matter section, edited for the last time by the illustrious Joanna Sondheim, featuring:

--Nicholas Leaskou on Alice Jones' Gorgeous Morning

Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger, featuring:

--Morgan Roddick on The Mattoid and Talk Engine
--Where You Should Be picks Cross-Pollination

Our Poetry section, edited by Dana Ward, features work from:

--Joshua Corey
--Drew Gardner
--Steven Vincent
--Stephanie Young


Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from artist Pali Kashi of
Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Issue 27, August 2005

Available

featuring:

Our Music section, edited by Jonathan Berger, featuring:

--Berger on downtown musician, and member of the band Cheese On Bread, Dan Fishback
--Where You Should Be picks The Fort at the Sidewalk Cafe

Our Printed Matter section, edited for the first time by Jean-Paul Pecqueur, featuring:

--Erica Kaufman on Gary Sullivan's comic Elsewhere

--Joshua Corey on the debut issue of the poetry journal The Tiny

Our Poetry section, edited by Dana Ward, features work from:

--Bruce Covey
--Ange Mlinko
--Mark Tardi
--Matvei Yankelevich

Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from artist Johannah Rodgers of
Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Issue 28, September/October 2005

Available

featuring:

Our Music section, edited by Jonathan Berger, featuring:

--Berger on Curtis Eller's American Circus and Don McCloskey's Bombs Over Bristol

--Roger Hitts on all that is his Courtney Love

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Jean-Paul Pecqueur, featuring:

--Nick Bredie on Maria Damon and mIEKAL aND's pleasure-TEXT-possession

--Pecqueur on John Olson's Oxbow Kazoo

Our Poetry section, edited by Dana Ward, features work from:

--Julia Cohen
--Michael Cross
--Dylan Michel
--K. Silem Mohammad

Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from artist Anna Tsouloufi of Chicago.

Issue 29, November 2005

Available

featuring:

Our Features section, edited by Paulette Powell, featuring:

--Kelli Bickman on her pilgrimage to India
--Powell on yoga instructor Pahztrami

Our Music section, edited by Jonathan Berger, featuring:

--Berger on Tamara Hey's Right This Minute and The Paula's Chamar a si Mesmo de Eu

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Jean-Paul Pecqueur, featuring:

--Matt Briggs on Sharon Mesmer's In Ordinary Time

Our Poetry section, edited by Dana Ward, features work from:

--Evan Commander
--David Pavelich
--Erik Sweet
--Rodrigo Toscano

Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from artist Anne Diggory of
Saratoga Springs, NY.

Issue 30, December 2005

Available

featuring:

Our Features section, edited by Paulette Powell, featuring:

--Powell on Sarah and Nick and the Misled Youth Network
--Charles Laurence on the Johnny Cash he knew

Our Music section, edited by Jonathan Berger, featuring:

--Berger on new releases from past feature subjects: Brer Brian, Dibs, John Hodel, Misterlee, Alan Semerdjian, and Soce the Elemental Wizard

Our Printed Matter section, featuring:

--Brian Clements on Sandy McIntosh's The After-Death History of My Mother and SleepingFish, issue 0.75, edited by Derek White
--Michael Cross on Sasha Steensen's A Magic Book
--Adam Fieled on Jennifer Moxley's Often Capital
--Noah Eli Gordon on Christopher Stackhouse's Slip and
Joshua Marie Wilkinson's Suspension of a Secret in Abandoned Rooms

Our new Politics section, edited by Deanna Zandt, features work from:

--Matt Levy on the socio-cultural history of the bicycle in NYC
--Poems from Shappy and Sparrow

Our Poetry section, edited by Dana Ward, features work from:

--Jack Kimball
--Tanya Larkin
--Jon Leon
--Christina Strong

Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from artist Florencia Böhtlingk of Buenos Aires and Misiones Jungle, Argentina.

Issue 31, March 2006

Available

featuring:

Our Music section, edited by Jonathan Berger

--"Casey Holford is the missing link between lesbian folk, DC punk, ’80s synth-pop, and classic rock. He's the link that makes them all seem like the same thing in the first place," writes Dan Fishback in his cover story on the antifolk musician.

Our Features section, edited by Paulette Powell

--"The Swedish ambassador and his wife enthusiastically hosted an event to showcase Sweden’s premier cartoonist, Martin Kellerman, and his new collection of strips on Fantagraphics. It was surreal sipping wine and munching hors d’oeuvres at the Consulate General of Sweden with the usual crowd from the Museum of Comic Book and Cartoon Art," Powell writes in "It's the New Golden Age of Comics."

Our Printed Matter section, now edited by Mark Lamoureux

--"This is essential for Magi's project, which is driven by her concern that nature writing has become a genre of ineffectual and homogenous propaganda rooted in the accepted tradition of destruction," writes Mackenzie Carignan on Jill Magi's Cadastral Map (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs).

--"Lasky's work has many examples of this edge set primly and perhaps affectionately for us, with a light enough touch so to be nonchalant, with a dark enough undercurrent to sit with us, to get under our skin, to haunt us in the empty spaces that it inhabits to perhaps—hopefully—shock us out of our complacency by reminding us that it's there," writes Laura Carter on Dorothea Lasky's Alphabets & Portraits (Anchorite Press).

Our Politics section, edited by Deanna Zandt

"Midterm elections will hit in 2006, as well as our opportunity to elect a new governor. I beg of my fellow spin doctors out there: please, please, PLEASE show us some vision, hope, and positive messages for this year. We can be anti-this and anti-that forever, but we’ll just keep losing," Zandt writes in My Wish List for 2006.

Our Poetry section, edited by Dana Ward

Cambridge, Mass.'s Michael Carr with Bust and apparition

Her babyface tylenol misbegotten
trivial principles of referral won’t appreciate
deaconess mint. The yellow pages now was my
second choice …

San Francisco's Brandon Brown with I Want to Play Catch with Bill Luoma

I went to plough cod with bilge lunulae.
yeah, I did plot cons with dirge salespeople—
spear my kneaded breadloaf and I’ll recline
and drink beer—I need hemlock to unwind …

Boulder, Colorado's Logan Ryan Smith with Narcissus 2000

when narcissus was careful with it he carried his mirror
around in public and asked what others saw in it
he carried it around but couldn’t care less what others saw
in the mirror when there came the celebrity of the future
upon his reflection and he was confused …

And Straight out of Kensington, Brooklyn its Nada Gordon with Porpo-Thang

The porpoises fling up their
orange underthings; swaying
in the wind, their heavy rotation
is brief and horrifying, …

Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Sue Coe, who has pieces in the collections of many major museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York.


Boog City 32, April 2006


featuring:

Our Politics section, edited by Deanna Zandt

"There¹s an absolute and direct connection between my poetry and my activism
in that what I¹m writing about is what I¹m experiencing in the world. And
what I¹m experiencing in the world right now is the disconnect between my
reality and the reality we hear in the mainstream media."
--from Poetry is More Than News: Nathaniel Siegel¹s World of Political
Engagement and Simple Acts of Love, interview by Zandt

Our Music section, edited by Jonathan Berger

"So far Belowsky has been very pleased by his U.S. experience and his
collaborations with so many musicians. Still he insists the writing comes
first. ŒI never look to a musician,¹ he says. ŒI never work to marry my
words to their music. I lead, they follow me with the music.¹"
--from The Musician's Poet: Belowsky Blows Away All of the Competition by
Jonathan Berger

"Historically speaking, the division between songs and poetry hasn¹t always
been clear. Poetry owes its invention to the transcription of songs (even
the epic poems of Homer were originally sung)."
--from Turn, Turn, Turn: Pop Lyrics as Poetry and Vice Versa by
Eric Rosenfield

Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux

"With the poem ŒIn¹ Benka takes a two-letter word and expands on its
definition, while drawing focus to the humanism the common individual
doesn¹t normally see."
--Erica Kaufman on Jen Benka's a box of longing with fifty drawers
(Soft Skull Press).

"Rizzo appears to practice a form of aural Dadaism in which his linguistic
materials exist solely within the compressed space of a chaotic emotional
life; feelings that seek a broader field than he might, in a more conscious
and deliberate frame of mind, be capable of giving them."
--Scott Glassman on Christopher Rizzo's Zing (Carve Editions)

Our Poetry section, edited one last time by the stellar Dana Ward

--Des Moines, Iowa's Anne Boyer with Journal of the Plague Hour

Life is so slow
when one is a shiv

honed hazily,
all summer decoding Š

--Chicago's Jeremy Bushnell with East on 82

Brilliantined slop on roadside canal-face.  A breed of cow,
the garland built right in.  Confusing!  Trammeled gold,
discontinued, highway canceled, blown, like the cycle
of pickup and delivery.  Engage outer-handled toast lock.

--Cincinnati's Pat Clifford with Properly Alienated

So it¹s like if I said ³Cheese²
Absolutely.  We absorb critique and
our endowment for the same reason
can¹t just co-exist.

--And from NYC's Lower East Side, Karen Weiser with
The plant must grow tired, and I very sleepy

The potato says these things and admires them
for their quiet self languages:
³Ša consideration of form and content,
glass and wine, breath and field,
gives me a grid to romance and order all eyes
here and a species there;
what is consciousness, a kind of rough platform?²


Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Laura Cinti's The Cactus
Project (2001 - ), a collaborative biotechnological art project resulting in
cacti expressing human hair.

and photos from Melanie Einzig, Ragan McNeely, and Stacy Syzmacek.


Boog City 33, May 2006

Available

featuring:

***Our Music section, edited by Jonathan Berger***

"The question remains, does Chris deserve to be locked up? The answer is Š
maybe. He¹s been convicted of harassing with threatening language a bunch of
folks, including journalists and people from City Hall. While he¹s never
actually followed through on any of the threats, it¹s hard to argue that his
language wasn¹t threatening."
--from The Incredibly Strange Saga of Christopher X. Brodeur by Brian Homa

"There¹s much more to this new release than Schwervon! has ever previously
delivered."
--from What You Should See: Schwervon! New CD Party


***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***

"As the reader steps into the role of co-creator, she carves her own paths
of meaning, collecting bits of language and assembling them into images of
story."
--Ellen Baxt on Jessica Smith's Organic Furniture Cellar (Outside Voices)

"Inoperableness is a recurring idea in this collection, as is invention, or
as he puts it here, Œmakeover.¹"
--John Mulrooney on Michael Carr's Platinum Blonde (Fewer & Further Press)


***Our Features section, now edited by Stephen Dignan***

"'My humor can be very dark. It¹s almost coiled around most of my thoughts.
I don't consciously employ humor as a device, but often it comes through as
a way to service one of the characters.'"
--from On and On She Goes Miss Amanda Stern: Novelist, Curator Gets Serious
by Dignan


***Our Politics section, edited by Deanna Zandt***

"A dozen years ago, the oil companies howled that a carbon tax would bring
the economy to a halt by raising the cost of gasoline by seven cents."
--from Warmed-over Issues: Two Years Later, What¹s the Most Important Issue
in the Election, Again by New York State Green Party Co-Chair Ian S. Wilder


***Our Poetry section, edited for the first time by Laura Elrick and
Rodrigo Toscano***

--Lefferts Garden, Brooklyn's Renee Gladman with an untitled piece

awaiting
to meet
the depicted
as if the
impulse‹to
see‹

--Chelsea's Bob Perelman with Liquid Assets

You understand the meanings of these words are beyond our control

Troops part of holiday scene as primal anxiety parts waves, paints them red

Money lines appear in scene after scene

Money shots for the unrehearsed amateurs
undressing in the unrehabbed warehouses where the plugs are full-service

--Williamsburg, Brooklyn's Chris Alexander with
Scary Ghost Stories I Didn¹t Make Up

I¹m sure everyone¹s seen the movie of the monkey that sits
in a zoo, on a branch. Then touches his ass, smells it,
     and falls down / faints!
But what I really want to see is number 5¹s movie!
That is so awesome.


***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Bushwick, Brooklyn's
Sean McCarthy.***

And photos from Martin Hägglund, Andy Nunn, and Steve Wiley.


Boog City 34, June 2006

Available

featuring:

***Our Politics section***

"But it was too late. I was too young, too brash, too rough around the
edges. I was branded a Œsocial capitalist.¹ I was an outsider to the
decision-making committee. And don¹t get me started about the effect of my
gonzo prank with Dick Cheney." --from You Can¹t Always Get What You Want:
Media Activist Hicks on the Green Party Trail by Sander Hicks


***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***

"Simonds¹ voice assumes a brazen authority, unafraid of its own momentum and
revelatory in its own contradictions and metamorphoses."
--Lamoureux on Sandra Simonds's Steam


"Nester has an uncanny ability to coax a deeper meaning from a funny moment,
or vice versa. He does so quickly, typically within the space of a few
lines, while social issues fall onto either end of his skewer."--Scott
Glassman on Daniel Nester's The History of My World Tonight (Blazevox)


***Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger***

"It¹s a pretty big place and it¹s pretty full, mostly due to the headliner:
Belle and Sebastian collaborator Monica Queen. Well, she may have had the
draw, but I¹m the one who had a bunch of really drunk guys chanting my name
during her set. Equal parts embarrassing and delightful."--Phoebe Kreutz's
Anarchy in the Phoebe (Kreutz, That Is): Our Hardcore Folk Singer Makes it
to England--And Back!


***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Chelsea's Sook Jin Jo***


***Our Poetry section, edited by Laura Elrick and Rodrigo Toscano***

--Alphabet City's Sally Silvers with Earning the Badges of Backlash

speculum du jour
histeria hersteria

anti-choice sperm is the
holy water of god


--Harlem's LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs with

!viva la villanelle!

Te llama la pikaka loli, tu eres onaona ni nalu
Cuando un azotador dágbá en una luminous la nana

Ano kána¹ohe ese láísí sus sirena de Pu¹ukapu!
Lucid to Œawapuhi que ósa bautizaba ngahuru

viva la villanelle: un macaronic (translation)

Your name is jasmine cucumber, you are fragrant like waves
When the caterpillar grows on a luminous spider,

The fisherman is without his siren from sacred hill.
Lucid and ginger like lagoons baptizing autumn


--Bay Ridge's Jill Magi with New York City, Version 1
(from The Exhibitionary Complex)

Disappointment at the pit forms a group
around a poster of ruins     then silently in white sneakers
now markers of who was there or not     sense of     to teach
them without agreeing seen as local     off the subway.

And photos from Sander Hicks and Phoebe Kreutz.


Boog City 35, July 2006

Available

featuring:

***Our Politics section, now edited by Christina Strong***

"When I told people in Massachusetts I was moving to Red Hook most of them
said only, 'Where's that?' I was glad they didn't know and I wasn't about to
lead them to a simple Google search, which is fine, because I will be priced
out of the neighborhood soon anyway." --from Red Hook or By Crook: Stepping
into Another Up-and-Coming Neighborhood by Strong


***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***

"Identity Crisis has to be the first work that draws from Ron Silliman's
blog as source text, namely his prodigious role as poet. I'm curious to see
how long it will be before this anonymous author is uncovered and what the
take will be on the anonymous aspect of this surely flarf-inspired
composition." --from Publish Poetry or Perish: Dusie's DIY Chapbook Exchange
Project by Susana Gardner


***Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger***

"Revell is like a cleverer Jackson Browne, a harder-edged Grant Lee
Phillips, but he doesn't like to label his music. 'Someone once asked me
about a song, "Is this Christian Rock?"' And I said, 'No, more like Catholic
Blues.'" --Atmospheric and Aching: Grey Revell's Back After Three Years by
Berger


"Richard McGraw's music is an excellent example of confessional acoustic
rock done well. The requisite Nick Drake, Elliott Smith, and Belle and
Sebastian influences are there, along with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen, and
Tom Waits." --Song and Void's Beautiful; Multi-Instrumentalist Abesamis by
Eric Rosenfield


***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from DUMBO's Sarah Trigg***


***Our Poetry section, edited by Laura Elrick and Rodrigo Toscano***

--Chelsea's Dan Machlin with an untitled piece

Language on the wall, you say.
Porridge in this bowl to eat.
Vague markings on a column.


--Sunnyside, Queens' Paolo Javier with 92

derelict heroic weird acumen tippers annul all timid utterance autumnal
erratio end-all being grist for the mill     Korean scientist calumny
enter guest hostile please be in-laws who must sell corpse & skull
quell askant canzones annul Agonistes dare take on Mga Alimasag


--Williamsburg, Brooklyn's Kristen Gallagher with from Gun Primer

A Religious Education

school lives on
in the hand from above
blocked out

can take you down at any minute


*And photos from Mark Lamoureux and Christina Strong.*


Boog City 36, Sept. 2006

Available

featuring:

***Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger***

³I remember ŒYour Mom¹s Car¹ and just being like you know, Œthat¹s a
classic,¹² says Sidewalk Café¹s Monday night open mic host Lach. ³[Erin]
inhabits her songs when she performs. When she gets to the sad part, you
feel this sadness emanating from her. She knows the right word for the right
time to send shivers down your spine.² --from Resilient Regan Resonates:
Southern Baptist Makes Good Music in East Village by Nicole Chin


³Larissa Shmailo is a performer who has played the Knitting Factory and
various radio stations. She clearly knows how to read, enlivening her
rhythmic work with strong presentation and excellent delivery. Many of the
poems could easily be transformed into songs.² --from Larissa Shmailo¹s CD
is Reviewed by Jonathan Berger


***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***

³[Gary] Sullivan¹s view is up-close and truncated, abstracting signs and
graffiti to language and context-less collages‹Cyrillic, Roman, and Arabic
fonts merging to form a sensuous and scintillating mélange.² --from A Walk
Down Amnesia Lane, Elsewhere #2 reviewed by Lamoureux


³Reading poet and painter Kate Greenstreet¹s chapbook, Learning the
Language, I had the sensation of being privy to a particular ³over-mind,²
where many slippery and illuminating thoughts dart by to be studied, or
merely observed.² --from Mind Over Over-Mind, Learning the Language reviewed
by Jennifer Firestone


***Our Politics section, edited by Christina Strong***

³My first street festival, not including those church bazaars and the white
elephant Rice Krispies with marshmallow affairs usually held in parking
lots, was the Italian festival in the south end of Hartford, Conn. One went
whether they were Italian or not and there was nothing arty or political
about it.² --from No Fried Dough or Sausages, Please by Strong


--Gloucester, Mass.'s James Cook with the poem Third Base

A couple of mammals with furs & helmets
outwith my slack internment
all remembered this I lost


***Our Features section, edited by Stephen Dignan***

³A woman in a pea-green overcoat buys a beef roast. ŒIt might cost a little
more,¹ she says, Œbut this boy sells the sweetest, juiciest pot roast I ever
ate in my life. Tell your Daddy ³hello² for me, son.¹² --Old and Young Sell
Their Wares: Visiting the Union Square Farmers¹ Market by Dignan


***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from The Bronx's Johnathan
Neal***


***Our Poetry section, edited by Laura Elrick and Rodrigo Toscano***

--The Upper East Side¹s Jeremy Gardner with Tercet of Tercets (or, Traiku)

We do not claim to
{Somebody tell me}
[You have done enough]


--Melrose, The Bronx¹s Urayoán Noel with There¹s Nothing on TV Anymore
(Jan ¹06)

There¹s nothing on TV anymore.
The self-help sound bytes and the bloopers of war.
The call-in shows where middle Americans
Call middle Americans to listen to them snore
In the middling conversation of ³Which Olsen twin are you for?!²


--Olympia, Wash.¹s Zhang Er with Check-Up

How long do I have to wait here?
Write a poem
lighten these heavy prognostications.

The bee needle stabs a vein
³buzz² lights up the heart
(radiation isn¹t related to emotion, generally speaking.)
Seductive green snake curves across the monitor.


*And photos from Raymond Doherty, Mark Lamoureux, and Christina Strong.*


Boog City 37, Oct. 2006

Available Saturday

**About this month's paper:

Boog City 37 is the press's latest baseball issue. I assembled 25  
poets, the number of people on a baseball roster. Each poet was then  
assigned a different position on the team and asked to pick anyone who  
had ever played their position, be they in Major League Baseball, the  
Negro Leagues, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League,  
the minor leagues, college, the schoolyard, or anywhere else, and  
write a poem about them.

**This issue is 50% larger than our usual size**

Here's our team:

Starters

Pitcher               George Bowering         Satchel Paige
Catcher               Ammiel Alcalay          Bob Tillman
First Base            Elinor Nauen            Buck O?Neil
Second Base           Bill Luoma              Robinson Cano
Third Base            Susan Schultz           Albert Pujols
Shortstop             Douglas Rothschild      Marty Marion
Left Field            Bob Holman              Frank Robinson
Center Field          Anselm Berrigan         Bernie Williams
Right Field           Marcella Durand         Paul O'Neill

Reserves

Starting Pitcher      Jim Behrle              Fernando Valenzuela
Starting Pitcher      Basil King              Sandy Koufax
Starting Pitcher      Jill Magi               Laura Rose
Relief Pitcher        Joel Kuszai             John Hiller
Relief Pitcher        Edmund Berrigan         Jack Warhop
Relief Pitcher        Lee Ranaldo             Hoyt Wilhelm
Relief Pitcher        Joanna Sondheim         Steve Howe
Relief Pitcher        Alli Warren             Rollie Fingers
Closer                Jean-Paul Pecqueur      Kazuhiro Sasaki

Catcher               Spike Vrusho            Jerry May
1B/OF                 Maureen Thorson         John Olerud
2B/SS                 Amy King                Dorothy ?Dottie? Schroeder
2B/SS/3B              Lauren Russell          Bud Fowler
LF/CF                 David Hadbawnik         Barry Bonds
CF/RF                 Scott MX Turner         Curt Flood
OF                    Nathaniel Siegel        Glenn Burke

*And baseball-themed art from Melissa Zexter.*


Boog City 38, Dec. 2006

Available

featuring:

***Our Politics section, edited by Christina Strong***

Brad Will Presente!

--³For me Brad defined a certain type of radicalism, an uncompromising way
of living life. Treesitter. Folk-Punk. Anarchist. Pagan. Dumpster diver.
Squatter. The dude wasn¹t play-acting, he was a true believer. I loved him
and admired him.² --from Brad Will Presente! by Mark Read

--³A line repeated from his last dispatch in Oaxaca, Mexico, Œshe is in the
darkŠ waiting for the earth to shift and to openŠ.¹ Stealing from his own
work.² --from New Year¹s Day 2006, Poetry Project at St. Mark¹s Church
Marathon Reading by Brenda Coultas

--³The Oaxaca story has until now not gotten major U.S. coverage. It has
been a largely nonviolent effort by teachers and social movements to oust
the corrupt and authoritarian PRI Governor Ulises Ruiz, who stole the
election in 2004.² --from Brad Will Presente!: Anarchy in Oaxaca by Chuck
Collins

--³The crowd was incredibly diverse in age, occupation, life; grizzled
community gardeners stood next to activists, next to poets, next to
musicians. Brad had so many passions it was wonderful to see all of them
together.² --Remembering A Passionate Life by Marcella Durand


***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***

--³Playing off of a back story of fairy tales, ingénues, and the trappings
of literary girlhood, Treadwell throws it all in, shakes it up, and pours
out a constantly shifting landscape that is tinged with real panic.² --from
31 Flavors of Paradigm Subversion, Cornstarch Figurine by Elizabeth
Treadwell (Dusie Press), reviewed by Maureen Thorson

--³Abstract syntax and sound tremble in balance with metaphor and meaning;
pure form is gently, sadly, lovingly, and cruelly degraded into its
particulars like Rorschach blots.² --from Look Inside, Look Inside; Razor
Love by John Duvernoy (Unlock the Clockcase); reviewed by Hugh Oster


***Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger***

--³ŒYou stay in the van if you have to before you stay in a hotel, you stay
on the floor of the club or, hopefully, thank god, someone gives you their
place to stay. Those are the kind of things I learned, that and playing loud
and fast,¹ says Brook Pridemore.² --Singing for His Life: A Conversation
with Brook Pridemore by Mike Ferraro


***Our Features section, edited by Stephen Dignan***

--³ŒYou better hustle out before all the fish is gone,¹ he says, pointing to
his watch and raising an eyebrow. ŒIt¹s 4:00 a.m., Sandy. Chop chop, pal.¹²
--from The Fulton Fish Market, One Year Gone by Dignan


***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Chicago¹s Tiffany Holmes***


***Our Poetry section, edited by Laura Elrick and Rodrigo Toscano***

--Taos, New Mexico¹s Jeff Conant with
How October Collects its Flowers
Para l@s que luchan toda la vida

October, spacious and fierce,
will make no more room for death
or darkness. Under the rain, watch,

--Brooklyn Heights¹ Kish Song Bear with
The Farm

If a farm-soft mattress
Loses the farm

Go to the library
And request a Dream receipt

--Flushing, Queens¹ Shanxing Wang with
Excerpt from Thus Speaks the Poet-in-Residence

Solemnly we abuse delinquency every chance we get, bend
to me. I would hope to never have to abuse form. But by
speaking clearly and sending metaphors that we mean
what we say, we¹ve affected the words in a positive way.


*And photos from Indymedia Brazil and Lauren Terilli.*


Boog City 39, March 2007
 
Available Sunday P.M.
 
featuring:
 
***Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger***
 
--“When Phoebe Kreutz approached Luv-A-Lot Records’ Dashan Coram with the idea for Urban Barnyard—the whole municipal fauna thing—who knew the idea would have legs? What started out as a one-joke band has developed into multiple jokes, but also a pretty rocking affair.”—from Urban Barnyard on Urban Barnyard, where the four members of Urban Barnyard reviewed some of the music that the others have recently produced (including Phoebe Kreutz’s We Gotta Go reviewed by Casey Holford, Art Sorority for Girls’ Alpha Sigma Gamma reviewed by Phoebe Kreutz, Dibs’ Dibs Bleeds Books reviewed by Daoud Tyler-Ameen, and Casey Holford’s January reviewed by Dibson T. Hoffweiler) followed by a review of their latest release, That’s the Idea, by Berger.
 
 
***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***
 
--“Throughout the chapbook, the “voice” interweaves its two languages, and locating this voice becomes an act of readerly translation. The next section phonetically translates the Thai into English, scores the syllables, and meditates on the poem in English. –from Composite Poetry, composite. diplomacy. by Padcha Tuntha-obas (Tinfish), reviewed by Craig Perez
 
--“For all its realism, Carbon seems most interested in the point at which the real becomes surreal, the sublime absurdity of the plain face of things.” --American Oracle, Carbon by Michael Ford (Ugly Duckling Presse), reviewed by Lamoureux
 
 
***Our Film section, guest edited by Jon Berger***
 
--“A fascinating adaptation from Capital Media Arts of the open mic lifestyle, the script plugs in numerous cameos for East Village superstars such as The Bowmans and, of course, the host of the AntiHoot, the singularly named Lach.” --Talkin’ New York: The Little Movie that Might by Berger
 
 
***Our Politics section, edited by Christina Strong***
 
--“Are these people tourists on vacation or actual people who live here and have copious amounts of wealth?” --Work Sucks, Life Sucks, and Then You Die by Strong
 
 
***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Belford New Jersey's Kate Greenstreet***
 
 
***Our Poetry section, edited by Laura Elrick and Rodrigo Toscano***
 
-- Bowdoinham, Maine’s Jonathan Skinner with
Borzicactus Nanus
a dwarf on a borzoi
stuffs a nan up my ass
twirling his deep
scarlet-orange hairdo
 
-- Vancouver, British Columbia’s Roger Farr with From Surplus
Security is denser now, is domination’s form
But it’s their form more than mine, my labour keeps
Taylorism’s hands (weapons) on its forward gears

and
 
XXXIV
Tissue over diagrams or fragment
Their sums with different measures. Frameworks
Framed as “Freidman’s Dream,” filed for later under
“Sphere.” Stand on guard to bound sums to
Another sense that might pass the primary
Test of deficit to chart profit margins
 
-- Pasadena, California’s Deborah Meadows with
On the state of the novel as a coffin.
Fiendish old scamps
had clapped enough
to institutionalize their tapping.


*And photos from David S. Rubio and Christina Strong.*


Boog City 40, April 2007
 
now available
 
featuring:
 
***Our Politics section, edited by Christina Strong***
 
--“Maybe after going to museums for more than 30 years I still couldn’t define art, but I can tell you that if art is satisfying it hasn’t done its job.” --from Who’s Come a Long Way, Baby? Thoughts on The Dinner Party and the Global Feminisms Exhibit by Strong
 
 
***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***
 
--“In the poetic tapestry of this chapbook where darkness has victory, the poem ‘All Saints Day’ tells us that ‘the theme of death is our thiefhood.’” --from Our Thiefhood, Evangeline Downs by Micah Ballard (Ugly Duckling Presse), reviewed by Michael Carr
 
--“The poems are so funny, and resistant to interpretation, that it is tempting to take them at face value, like an Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup can, a Jeff Koons puppy, or a Marcel Duchamp urinal.” --from Twisted Gems, Erased Art by Tenney Nathanson (Chax Press), reviewed by Adam Fieled
 
 
***Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger***
 
--“Dina Dean’s voice is the unification of her influences; somewhere between a croon and a growl, in ‘The Radio Song’ she tells the story of a sleepless character’s love affair with the radio.”
 
“Every added note, every new change in a simple pattern has a magnified importance, giving Randi Russo’s songs wave after wave of subtle dramatic leaps.”--from Alliterative Albums: Acoustic Songwriters Get Their Due by Casey Holford
 
 
***And the Relaunch of Our Comics section ***
 
--“I’ve reread this first issue maybe a dozen times since Jerel debuted it at the MoCCA Art Festival last summer, and it’s a different experience nearly every reading, as startling and flabbergasting as it is rewarding, not unlike returning to a computer that has been overtaken by a benign but active—and actively mischievous—virus.” --from Jerel Elbows the Comics Envelope by Gary Sullivan
 
--Freak Folk Meets Hip Hop, a comic from Jeffrey Lewis
 
 
***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Greenpoint’s Brenda Zlamany***
 
 
***Our Poetry section, edited by Laura Elrick and Rodrigo Toscano***
 
--Harlem’s Tonya Foster with an excerpt from Work-a-Day
Bodies of young men—
spent smoke, spent casings graph one
among many points
 
Bodies of young men—
sight-specific installations—
stoops, corners.
 
--Philadelphia’s Frank Sherlock with an excerpt from
Wounds in an Imaginary Nature Show
                                                […]
 
                                                A mirror
 
                                                & a token
 
                                                of the outdoors
 
 
                                                can bring
 
                                                the walking
 
                                                dead back to
 
                                                life even
            
 
                                                if the skillset
 
                                                that facilitates
 
                                                crawling has to
 
                                                be relearned
 
 
*And photos from Aislinn Weidele and Donald Woodman.*


Boog City 41
 
available today
 
featuring:
 
***Our Politics section, edited by Christina Strong***

--“The Ratner project is a full-scale abuse of eminent domain and will transform not just one neighborhood, but at least seven in its immediate area.” --from Idiots Raze Villages to Raise Idiots Homogeny Escalates in New York City (Film at 11) by Strong
 
 
***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***

--“Peterson writes from a place of inbetweenness, of existing within a binary—in this case gender binary.” --from Language Trans-figured, Since I Moved In by Tim Peterson (Chax Press), reviewed by Angela Veronica Wong

--“Susan Briante’s ‘Mid-State’ is a rambling travel poem, with stops in Abbott, Dallas, Odessa, San Antonio, and Waxahachie, Texas, as well as Buffalo, Chicago, Las Vegas, Mexico, New Jersey, New York City, and Tulsa, Okla.” --from Whenever, Texas; kadar koli, David Hadbawnik editor; Issue 1, Vol. 1, Spring 2007; reviewed by David A. Kirschenbaum
 
 
***Our Music section, edited by Jon Berger***
 
--“Ken Veltz writes love songs that come out of the mouths of his daughters, both babes. A strange experience, but probably stranger for the kids.”

“Jeff Jacobson’s intimacy with the industry comes as no surprise after hearing the jazzy sophistication of ‘Falling Backwards’ or the multi-cultural stomp of ‘Castles.’” --from All in the Family: The Veltzes New Release and Jacobson’s Family Records’ Album by Berger
 
 
***And Our Comics section***
 
--“Rather than just publishing a collection of images from different sketchbooks, Kevin Huizenga limits the material in each of these books to a single project or obsession.” --from Come and Take a Look at Huizenga’s Sketches, Untitled and Sermons: Notes + Sketches Made While at Church by Kevin Huizenga (both self-published), reviewed by Gary Sullivan

--The Development of Life on Earth, a comic from Jeffrey Lewis
 
 
***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Bay Ridge’s Jill Magi***
 
 
***Our Poetry section, edited by Laura Elrick and Rodrigo Toscano***
 (excerpts from the beginning of each of this issue's poems below)

--Washington, D.C.'s Buck Downs with

on tet

best when wrecked
          in the shelter
          of this non-life
tread-of-dawn marks
up my back

--Washington Heights' David Micah Greenberg with

from Five Downtown Plans

1916 – anxiety

Four continents at the Custom House
limestone warlike clouds.
Quetzalcoatl under Columbia
a veiled Arab, weeping Africa;
a purity of risk as awe its four tusks.

--Norman, Oklahoma's Linda Russo with
Daily Buzz

    Good Morning


take the number of demands we have placed on the Chinese government
              & multiply for each time it’s recalled
we’ve not signed the nuclear non-proliferation agreement
    subtract the Iraq thing from the other day
 divide Iran by Middle East Peace Talks & multiply the sum by that percentage
         then raise to the power of Canada

 
*And photos from Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (http://www.dddb.net),  Erica Kaufman, Grace T. Moy, and Strong.*


Boog City 42
 
available today
 
featuring:
 
***Our Music section, edited by Jonathan Berger***
 
--" A lot of the pleasure of Kreutz’s music is watching her perform live as she slips from character to character." --from On the Dark Side, Oh Yeah
Phoebe Kreutz Makes ’em Laugh, Sorta by Justin Remer

--"While some of us may temporarily feel dissatisfaction with those we are friends with,’ Alexander explains online, ‘I find it far more common to feel dissatisfied with those we are not friends with … My personal determination to realize music as a career stems largely from my desire for more relationships." -- The Man, The Myth. The Myth … Scott Alexander Just Wants to Be Your Friend by Berger


***Our Printed Matter section, edited by Mark Lamoureux***

--"Collaboration in poetry, I was always taught, was something to be shunned, much less read." --from Math Class, Facial Geometry by Maureen Seaton, Neil de la Flor, and Kristine Snodgrass (NeO Pepper Press), reviewed by Sandra Simonds


***Our Politics section, edited by Christina Strong***

--"After all, what’s famous about this borough? No, it’s not Shea Stadium or The World’s Fair artifacts. It’s that The Ramones are from Forest Hills. I saw them at the now-defunct Agora Ballroom in West Hartford, Conn. in 1986. I don’t remember the show too much, but I do remember the riot outside. It says something about American culture when a band can incite a riot." --from Queens: If You Can Make it Out of There, You Can Make it Anywhere by Strong


***And Our Comics section***
 
--Comics from Gary Sullivan, excerpted from his comic Elsewhere #3: “The New Life.”

 
***Art editor Brenda Iijima brings us work from Chelsea's Stephanie Wu.***
 
 
***Our Poetry section, edited by Laura Elrick and Rodrigo Toscano***
 (excerpts from each of this issue's poems below)

-- Carlsbad, California's K. Lorraine Graham with

from Dear [Blank] I Believe in Other Worlds

Pacified near world-weary life moments
of babies or computers and women without babies.
But I wanted to write a beautiful poem.


--Vancouver, British Columbia's Jeff Derksen with

The Vestiges (or, Creative Destruction)

Eight

A neighbourhood
on the verge

urban frontiers
named and renamed

for the incoming
pioneers, skid row

travel writing reports
open newness

Humboldts of the urban
beat, metro

threads ravel into
top list takers.


--San Francisco's Kristin Palm with

from City of Conscience

Things I loved:

the river
the library
Dally in the Alley
empty buildings
knowing people everywhere (& liking them)
Ford-Wyoming Drive-in
old socialists
sitting under I-94 overpass
biking on Belle Isle
feeling invincible


*And photos from Eric Lippe and Strong.*


]]> http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/back_issues_of_boog/#000002 http://welcometoboogcity.com/about/back_issues_of_boog/#000002 Back Issues of Boog Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:20:01 -0500