Film + Poetry = Motionpoems.

Former Issue #47 contributor Dag T. Straumsvåg e-mailed us this week about an amazing project he has recently become part of: Motionpoems. It's a coming together of my two favorite art forms - film and the written word - in an incredibly creative and beautiful way. The project is the love child of animator Angela Kassube and poet Todd Boss, who came together in 2008 with a common interest: "generating new audiences for poetry."

Since their initial team-up, they have extended the offer to other poets and animators to collaborate. And they've gotten some pretty big names in the poetry world to sign on to the project, including Jane Hirshfield, Robert Bly and Thomas Lux. Check out the video below that explains the project, and consider donating a few sheqels so that these guys can pay the bills:





And here's and example from Dag's poem "June":






Check out the website to see a bunch more of this awesome project.

Happy/Sad Memorial Day, Everyone

An amazing poem from our new issue, as we think about all we've lost to war.

E. Douglas Calaway
by Mario Chard

who followed his son into a war
that took his son that was not
....................their own, who fought
....................thereafter as his son,

returned. Lost his wife to those
who kept her in his absence,
....................though he knew it
....................when he left. Who

slept with women younger
than his son, then, women
....................with whom he spoke
....................little of the war and

how the war aged everyone
but those who fought it.
....................Who could not keep
....................dust from falling out

of creases in his palms, from
the hair grown out of baldness,
....................from the sheets where
....................women held him like

their own sons returning.
Who saw the age rinse from
....................his face like sweat
....................from the laundered

cover of a stained and outworn
pillow. Who could not wash
.................... the age behind the sheet
.................... that was his face, behind

the face that was the
war’s and not his son’s.

News Around the Net

With Oprah's show ending, here's a look back at her book club. It was a juggernaut for the publishing world, then Franzen happened and ruined it for everyone.

A great piece on the disadvantages facing translated literature when the judges of international prizes are English speaking.

If you're a pregnant reader, here are some books that you should probably not read. Unless, of course, you really want to.

The One Story blog posted a list of the best short stories ever, according to them. Worth a check, there are a lot of good ones there.

From The Awl, a lost e.e. cummings poem was discovered.

Here's another story on the to-MFA-or-not-to-MFA debate, which I never really understand. I mean, sure, obviously, it's bad for people who'd like to write to enter programs that encourage them to write and give them substantial time to write. Awful.

Contributor Spotlight: Luke Geddes

When I workshopped an early draft of “Surfer Girl,” someone accused me of stealing the plot from Dirty Dancing. In fact the plot of the story is pretty much 100% ripped off from the proto-surf-party Sandra Dee vehicle Gidget. I’ve never seen Dirty Dancing, but I’m pretty sure there are no surfing montages or clambakes, so I can’t say where the similarities lie. I think the person in question just doesn’t like me very much. In any case, if you read the story, please don’t picture Patrick Swayze in the role of the Big Kahuna.

Writing “Surfer Girl” made me very nervous. Part of it was the stolen plot thing. I wasn’t really writing a Gidget parody. I don’t know what I was trying to do. For a supposedly fluffy drive-in flick you see on TCM on a Saturday afternoon, I was surprised by how all the men in the movie were really weird and cruel to the eponymous heroine. I thought it might be funny if this fantasy beach movie-world were truly brutal. I didn’t give it much more thought than that, which makes me feel crude and ineloquent. The story that resulted, I think, does a lot more than I’d ever intended, turned out smarter and more interesting than the person who wrote it.

I can never come up with plots. I don’t even know what plot is. I just know that I’m constantly stealing them, and not from the places I ought to, like intricately constructed short stories and novels by confirmed masters. No, I’ve stolen plots from Scooby Doo cartoons and Archie comics, old educational hygiene films, infomercials, crappy Technicolor movie musicals, and other pop cultural ephemera. I’d rather elevate lowbrow trash than pretend I have any grasp of real high culture. During childhood and a good chunk of my adolescence, I watched about eight hours of TV a day, even on school days. It’s actually helped me as a writer more than you might think. It taught me about clichés, for instance, which is why I can’t stand to watch even a minute of most sitcoms—I’ve heard all the jokes before.

I think the first thing I said upon meeting the (ethereally attractive and charming) HFR staff at AWP this year was “You’re publishing my story—please don’t change your mind.” My writer friends and I sometimes talk about how nice it would be to not have any ambition—and all the insecurity, neurosis, and pettiness that go along with it. I realize this is an incredibly smug, privileged, head-in-ass sort of position to have.

I don’t think, either, that there’s anything necessarily high-minded about writing fiction, though a lot of writers surely feel pressured to justify their careers/hobbies with pretentious talk of the need for “brave new voices” in a society that’s hostile to art and always aiming for the lowest common denominator. When I feel insecure, I accuse myself of merely making stupid ideas sound smart instead of actually attempting to communicate something intelligent and wise to readers. But the more I think about it, there’s something to be learned from the so-called hacks who fashion narrative for profit and cheap entertainment—the B-movie directors, the pulp authors artists, the anything-but-confirmed-masters from whom I filch my plots—and it’s this: story is story. It works pretty much the same for a sitcom like Two and a Half Men as it does for a literary masterwork like Lolita. Leave it to the author to manipulate the audience into wanting to enter a narrative, not to convince the audience of its monumental importance. (And come to think of it, Charlie Sheen would make a pretty awesome Humbert Humbert.)

I don’t know if it’s a particularly brave or unique thing to write fiction, but I do know that it’s hard, and often, for me, even joyless. When writers talk about flow, or being carried away, or letting their characters dictate their stories to them, it drives me mad with jealously. For me, mostly it’s not very fun and I just feel like I’m faking it. However, being finished with a story—I mean totally, never-change-another-word finished—whether it’s because it’s been published or because I’ve realized it’s hopelessly unsalvageable, is a pretty good feeling.

There’s this band I love called Half Japanese. It was formed by two brothers who could not, and still—after twenty-five years of touring and releasing music—cannot technically play even one note or one chord of a single instrument. But they never let that stop them. In the amazing documentary The Band That Would Be King, co-founder Jad Fair states without a trace of irony: “On day one of the beginning of the band, I was…a drummer, guitarist, and vocalist. And anything else I could put in my hands, I could play it, and play it well.” I’m too self-conscious and neurotic to ever be able to apply such an attitude to my writing, but they’re still words I find tremendously inspiring.

I taught creative writing for the first time this semester. I look at my students, many of whom barely knew what “creative writing” meant when they registered for the class, who still insist on calling their stories “papers.” The fact that they’ve written anything—that I’ve written anything—it’s—well, it’s not amazing or impossible or anything. Pretty much anyone can do it. But not everyone does.
*

Depending on who you ask, Luke Geddes is either the most charming or most annoying person who will hound your table at AWP. He has a blog but he’s too boring to ever have anything of interest to write in it. He will start at the University of Cincinnati’s creative writing Ph.D. program in the fall. “Surfer Girl” appears in HFR #48.

Spectacular New Mexico With Photographer Harvey Stein

October 1-9, 2011

New Mexico has been described as a place of inviolate, pristine beauty, engendering an almost spiritual feeling for the land and the overwhelming sense of peacefulness. Since the1880’s, photographers and artists (Georgia O’Keefe, Paul Strand, Ansel Adams, Laura Gilpin, Eliot Porter) have been irresistibly drawn to the incredible landscape, brilliant clear light, and rich Native American heritage.

Join Harvey Stein (his photograph pictured here is from our most recent issue) for a photographic adventure based at an historic hacienda in Taos, one of the first European settlements in the United States. Frequent lectures combined with daily photographic activity offer a rich input of technical and aesthetic concerns. Instruction will cover strategies of approaching strangers and the appropriate lens choice, as well as issues of landscape photography, portraiture, and photographing in available light. The group will also explore the special fall light characteristic of New Mexico during early morning and evening excursions, and photographing with and without flash. Digital photography and/or local processing of color film will provide the opportunity for quick feedback and critiques. Historical and contemporary images of New Mexico, and especially the Taos/Santa Fe area, will be shown for context and inspiration.

The workshop is open to all levels of photographers who have a good working knowledge of their cameras. Moderate hiking and walking will be required in this fast paced, information packed workshop. Limited to 14 participants.

HARVEY STEIN has taught at most of the major workshops in the United States and has led workshops in Europe and Mexico since 1994. Besides currently teaching at ICP, he has been on the faculty of the Rochester Institute of Technology, New School University, School of Visual Arts, Drew University and Bridgeport University. He is the author of five photographic books, the most current is Coney Island 40 Years, just published this spring. He has had over 70 one-person exhibits and has been in 145 group shows. His work is in more than 45 public collections including the George Eastman House, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Denver Museum of Art, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the International Center of Photography, and the Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh). He has traveled extensively throughout the American southwest for the past 14 years. View some of his work at his websites, www.harveysteinphoto.com and www.coneyisland40years.com.

Workshop fee: $2500. Fee includes 8 nights lodging (double occupancy, $700 extra for single supplement), all breakfasts and one welcome dinner. A non-refundable $500 deposit must accompany your registration to reserve a space. Placement is on a first come, first serve basis so we urge early registration. Full payment due by August 1st. Upon receipt of registration, participants will receive an information packet with travel suggestions and recommended material to bring. Workshop begins on Saturday evening, October 1st in time for a group dinner and concludes on Sunday morning, October 9th.

Find more details and registration information here. For more information call Donna Ruskin, Education Department, 212.857.0062, International Center of Photography • 1114 Avenue of the Americas New York NY 10036

Book Review: Oyster Perpetual

Oyster Perpetual, by Austin LaGrone. Lost Horse Press, 2011. Poetry. Review by Debrah Lechner.

There’s an emotional response that develops when reading Austin LaGrone’s poetry that reminds me of watching Tennessee William’s plays, or reading his best short fiction. At the moment I’m thinking in particular of William’s short story “Two on a Party”, where the perpetual road trip and the visceral feeling of movement continue even when the characters have stopped.

LaGrone has the same way of catching a moment, quiet or not, while his subjects are already moving on. Whether they are resting, conversing, drinking or simply observing each other, they’re already on the way to somewhere else. The characters he draws aren’t easily jammed into a particular place, attitude, or identity. The result of LaGrone’s finely developed sensibility for continual change in his characters and the landscapes they live in is this—the subjective, objective, passionate, indifferent, loving, mundane, tragic and amusing are all well acquainted with each other, and have no difficulty sharing a room. If difficulties do arise living together in such close quarters, the result is all the more interesting.

The title of the book “Oyster Perpetual” meant nothing to me. Poets are liable to choose obscure names for their collections that may or may not acquire meaning as you read, so I don’t usually (as we are warned against in aphorism) judge a book by its cover, but this time I had the impulse to Google “Oyster Perpetual,” and discovered that it is the name of a Rolex watch. Considering the sense of continual movement as manifested in discrete moments that permeates LaGrone’s work, I decided the title was sort of brilliant, if still obscure.

I like to provide a taste of the author’s writing in my reviews. I am a sucker for humor, and although this is not by any means the most profound or lyrical poem in Oyster Perpetual, I have decided to quote it just because I thought it was fun to read. From the poem “The Apology”:

Even though you are in a private room, it is, at best only visually

private. We can hear Everything. Any noise reduction you can

manage while performing acts of intimacy, use of drugs, or

conversations in general would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Room 8

Dear Room 8, pretend you are at the zoo

or listening to the mating rituals of nomads.

Wish your rendezvous in Vegas last year

was half as mad. Dream in color Room 8,

use your imagination, record it and sell it

back to us on a hot-line. But learn to love it,

live it vicariously, practice biting the pillow

as though to learn just how difficult

silence can be. When the jackhammer

splits the sidewalk you say nothing.

The janitor, with his mop swashing,

and swashing, goes unnoticed.

Need I mention church bells?

Room 8, times like this are rare. Frankly,

last week I was feeling a little bit rusty.

I know the lure of leather boots

is cliché. But such things have significance

or, at least, playfulness.

―So, the boots and the cuffs and the biting

the animal noises and rough talk

are staying until Thursday.

Oyster Perpetual is the winner of the 2010 Idaho Prize for Poetry. Austin LaGrone was born in Louisiana and has been published in multiple literary journals including Hayden’s Ferry Review, Black Warrior Review, Brilliant Corners, Fourteen Hills, Many Mountains Moving, Spoon River Poetry Review and New York Quarterly.

You can find three videos of Austin LaGrone reciting his poetry on this Youtube page. There are also several copies of his poetry in print on the web. Look for his work at any bookseller. At this point, there is one copy of Oyster Perpetual left at Amazon.com here.

Unusual Calls for Submissions

Call for Submissions: The Postcard Press
We're seeking prose works of approximately 100 words or less; poems of approximately 10 lines/35 characters per line or less. (It’s gotta fit on a 4x6 postcard with room for the title and your name.) Simultaneous submissions are fine, just let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere. Please, one submission per theme. Send your work by May 31st for our second theme, THAT'S NOT FUNNY. Send it in the body of an email (no attachments!) along with your name, email address, phone number, and one-sentence (no more than 25 words) bio. Please put SUBMISSION and your name in the subject line of youremail. Address: thepostcardpress (at) gmail (dot) com. If published, you'll get 15 copies of the postcard on which your work is printed. Find out more about our submission guidelines and our history at www.the-postcard-press.com.

Call for Submissions: LaChance Seeking True Stories about Breast Cancer for Anthology Series. Deadline: May 30, 2011. Seeking true, first-hand stories of literary merit for Volume 2 of Voices of Breast Cancer anthology. If you or someone you know has had breast cancer and wish to share your heartfelt, inspiring, true story of facing this life-defining challenge, please visit www.lachancepublishing.com for additional details and submission guidelines.

Twit Publishing is now accepting submissions for its fifth anthology, Strong Black Coffee, which is slotted for release in February 2012 for Black History Month. Strong Black Coffee will be a collection of stories whose main characters are African Americans, dealing with African American issues. We are looking for stories 3,000-7,000 words long. This will be distributed as an e-book and a smart-phone application, in addition to a print-on-demand service. Each author will receive 3% of revenue. We want stories that resonate, with strong themes -- writing that takes risks and is unapologetic about it. But please, no excessive or explicit sex or militant rants. ***Deadline for submissions is 6/30/11.*** Please email submissions to submissions@twitpublishing.com. The file format should be .doc. Manuscripts should also include a short bio about the author.

An invaluable resource to graduate students and instructors of composition, Tate, Rupiper, and Schick's A Guide to Composition Pedagogies, points to the critical need in Creative Writing Studies for an equally in-depth discussion of pedagogy. That's why we seek essays for our proposed edited collection with the working title of A Guide to Creative Writing Pedagogies which explore current and future creative writing instruction through the lens of a single writing pedagogy.We are interested in essays which engage readers by compiling existent scholarship on a particular creative writing pedagogy and discuss personal experience with the pedagogy, as well as suggesting possible future extensions of the pedagogy inside Creative Writing Studies. Essays could utilize scholarship from both Composition and Creative Writing Studies. We recognize that the field of Creative Writing Studies has a long way to go before it is as pedagogically honed as Composition Studies, and we hope that this collection will help instructors and graduate students advance creative writing in the twenty-first century. In a nutshell, essays should explore what the field of creative writing would look like when shaped and steered by a particular pedagogy, mentioning theoretical and classroom implications. We have commitments from high-profile scholars to write chapters on the following topics: process pedagogy, rhetorical pedagogy, collaborative pedagogy, international pedagogies, critical pedagogy, WAC pedagogy, and commercial pedagogy. We still seek chapter proposals on the following topics: expressivist pedagogy, feminist pedagogy, cultural studies and creative writing, community-service pedagogy, basic writing pedagogy, writing center pedagogy, holistic pedagogy, and technology and the teaching of creative writing. Note that we are also open to consider chapters not developed in Composition Studies and are instead ones designed entirely for creative writing. Submit a proposal of approximately 50-150 words. Important Deadlines: June 15, 2011: Proposal Submission Deadline. July 15, 2011: Notification about Proposal at which time we will submit the proposal to a publisher. One Month After Book Acceptance: Draft of Full Chapter. Inquiries and submissions should be sent to Tom C. Hunley at tom.hunley(at)wku.edu (replace (at) with @) and Alexandria Peary at pearya(at)wit.edu (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail)

Fiction contest: FICTION INTERNATIONAL
Fiction International is the only literary journal in the United States emphasizing formal innovation and progressive politics. Each issue revolves around a theme and features a wide variety of fiction, nonfiction, indeterminate prose, and visuals by leading writers and artists from around the world. A prize of $1,000 and publication in Fiction International will be given for a short story on the theme of "Blackness." The contest is intended to give exposure to writers who have no more than two published books. Entries will be read by Fiction International editors, with the top 20 entries read by FI editor Harold Jaffe. The winning submission will be published in the 2012 volume of Fiction International and the author will be awarded a $1000 cash prize. All entries will be considered for publication. Submit a story of up to 2,000 words with a $15 entry fee by June 1. Pleasevisit the Web site for complete guidelines.

VOX PRESS, in conjunction with the well known online journal, Drunken Boat, is compiling a collection of perspectives on Barry Hannah. If you have any perspectives on Hannah's work or personal accounts or both (a merging of the two would be ideal), send them as attachments to louis-bourgeois(at)hotmail.com (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail). The essays can be any length. Initially the essays will appear at Drunken Boat but eventually they will be collected and published in a book via VOX PRESS. There may be money involved when VOX takes over the project in earnest. All rights revert back to VOX and the authors. Louis Bourgeois / Executive Director of VOX PRESS, INC / 662-816-4775.

"Whitman Cooks" Poetry Contest- Deadline: June 30th, 2011
Does the smell of cherry pie conjure up such sweet memories of holidays past that you are inspired to write a poem? If so, poets, chefs and restaurants should all consider entering the Whitman Cooks poetry contest. Walt Whitman Birthplace Association is embarking on a historic and artistic fund raising journey. They are spearheading a fundraiser to produce Whitman Cooks, a national cookbook / poetry anthology comprised of poems & recipes that resonate together. Walt Whitman Birthplace Association is seeking poems about food with recipes to accompany them, for a cookbook anthology to be published in 2011. In addition, all poems submitted (only the poems) will be entered into a poetry contest awarding cash prizes! First place $150.00! Second place $75.00! Third place, $50.00! The reading fee is $10.00 for three poems with their accompanied recipes. Each additional poem and recipe is $5.00. Submissions will be accepted beginning September 1, 2010 through June 30, 2011. All proceeds will be used to continue the legacy of the Walt Whitman Birthplace. Cookbook / poetry anthology contest winners will receive cash prizes as indicated; those selected for the anthology will receive an author's copy.

News Around the Net

At least one person is now a Philip Roth fan. Carmen Calil stepped down as a judge of the Man Booker International Prize after Roth was named the winner. She asks the questions "in 20 years will anyone read him?" while apparently being unaware that he's been publishing books for, what, 50 years?

Amazon revealed that they consistently sell more e-books than print books now. They also say that the new $114 dollar is the fastest selling Kindle ever. Still though, they refuse to give specifics on how many Kindles of e-books (i.e.how many free ones are included here?) they sell.

Look what we missed on May 8. I feel like this could have been fun.

The results for the Independent Publisher Book Awards have been announced. I did not win in a single category, unfortunately.

Check out this pictorial history of Science Fiction.

Here's a good essay about the strange appeal of the long novel.

Issue #48 Revealed!

Hot off the press, our fabulously dark new issue wants to greet you.

Does that sound creepy? Maybe a little. But wait until you get a load of the photos and writing in #48.

If we haven't convinced you to subscribe yet, this might win you over. Check out some samples here.

HFR Cover Artist is Featured on CBS News!

Remember the cover of HFR's issue #46? Artist Brian Dettmer makes sculptures out of vintage books, giving them new life. See our interview with him here. And check out this fabulous feature from CBS news.

Book Review: Building the Barricade

Building the Barricade and Other Poems by Anna Swir. Translated by Piotr Florczyk. Calypso Editions, 2011. Review by Debrah Lechner. Poetry.

Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska) was born in Warsaw Poland in 1909 and lived and wrote through World War II and through the Nazi occupation of Poland during which she worked as part of the resistance and as a military nurse. Three volumes of her later poetry have been translated into English: Happy as a Dog’s Tail (1985), fat like the sun (1986), and Talking to My Body (1996). Swir is renowned for writing fearlessly about the female body. In this earlier work, which she published in Polish in 1974, she is no less candid concerning the primacy and imperative of living as a mortal, whether male or female, but this poetry is not very far removed from the trauma of war, from a period when Poland was under relentless bombardment. The raw honesty and imagery that emerged in Swir’s poetry through this experience makes it impossible not to respond emotionally.

This all the more the case because Swir’s unsparing poetry is in fact spare: simple, unyielding, unadorned. Every stroke is sure, much like a sumi-e painting.

Here is the poem “Conversation through the Door”:

At five in the morning
I knock on his door.
I say through the door:
in the hospital on Śliska Street,
your son, a soldier, is dying.

He opens the door,
doesn’t unhook the chain.
Behind him his wife
trembles.

I say: your son asks for his mother
to come.
He says: His mother won’t come.
Behind him his wife
trembles.

I say: the doctor let him
have wine.
He says: please wait.

He hands me a bottle through the door,
locks the door,
locks with the second key.

Behind the door
his wife begins to scream
as if she were in labor.

This is my first exposure to Anna Swir. I will be reading everything I can find of hers in English.

If you speak Polish, it should be noted that the poems are included in Polish, too. Translator Piotr Florczyk is to be congratulated for bringing this volume to English readers.

The poetry of Building the Barricade and Other Poems conveys how life is to be cherished so purely that, after reading, it is a book you could hold while praying. Or if you’re not the type to pray, just hold it and hope.

News Around the Net

Jonathan Lethem and David Foster Wallace inspired by the same foot clinic sign? Why not?

What sports make for the best literature? No votes for curling or rowing so far, unfortunately.

A prequel to The Godfather will be written by Ed Falco. It will be based on a screenplay by original author Martin Puzo, who died in 1999.

This enormous cookbook apparently had the worst copy editor ever. Check out this huge list of corrections in the first edition.

Milton's Paradise Lost is going to the big screen (although I sincerely hope the entire thing isn't, can we cut it down to a couple sections? Let's keep it under 16 hours). In talks to play Lucifer? Everyone's favorite douchey, rat-faced actor, Bradley Cooper! Let's hope the scarf (pictured in link) is included.

Jennifer Egan added the LA Times book prize to her awards for A Visit From The Goon Squad. In April, she also won the Pulitzer Prize.

Origin of the Beginning

Remember the green head guy from the cover of our issue #43? Of course you do. That's artist Levi van Veluw and he's at it again. If you happen to be in Amsterdam later this month (don't I wish) you can catch his newest installation in person. If not, check out the amazing pictures and video on this website.

Levi will showcase new work from a series of new installations, photographs and videos in which he draws from his own childhood memories to thematically and narratively develop his own brand of self-portraiture. The artist has created 3 “rooms” covered with more then 30.000 wooden blocks, balls and slats respectively. Each “room” is executed as a life-size installation (4m x 2.5m x 2.5m) and will be presented at the gallery together with photographs and videos.

I love this description of the project from his website: "On the one hand these works present themselves as a continuation of van Veluw’s formal approach to self-portraiture, with their preoccupation for materiality, pattern and texture. Yet they are simultaneously very personal pieces. The repetitive structures seemingly express a ‘horror vacui’ and recall van Veluw the youth and his obsessive attempts to gain control on his life by gaining control of his surroundings. Dimly light and dark in colour the overriding tone of these pieces are claustrophobic and sombre, exuding a sense of loneliness. The meticulous craftsmanship and high quality material with which every last knock and cranny is covered, result in a series of works that are also highly aesthetic."

Say it With a Robot!

Are you tired of the greeting cards you find in CVS? Do they take some small version of your actual feelings about Easter, your friend's graduation, your ex-girlfriend's wedding or Mother's Day and twist it into something magical and hyper-sincere? We're writers! We like complication and nuance. Sure, we're happy you're happy, but we'd also like to stab you a little bit!

John Cameron Fielder understands. Not only is he a former HFR editor, but he has a bona fide MFA. So, he gets it. And now you can get it, too. For $5 on his Etsy site, Marginal Sentiments, you can buy greeting cards that say what you mean.

This charming robot, for example, announces: "I'm an emotionless automaton, and even I can see you're loveable."

Right? That's not even my favorite! Get shopping.