Summer Reading List

It's common knowledge that everyone's summer goal is to try to finally get through Joyce's Ulysses (damn you Marilyn Monroe!), but trust me, it will never happen. Borges didn't even finish it, but then again that's probably because he couldn't speak English (Note: I don't think Joyce could either). So in case you want to set down that pile of rubbish and procrastinate for another year, I have compiled a list of light summer reading that you can enjoy instead.

Summer is a time for nostalgia (I don't know if that's true, but I remember my grandpa telling me that one humid night in July when the New Jersey air was ablaze with fireflies and wet with the ammoniacal scent of cut grass), and Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past should be a quick read if you're feeling especially nostalgic.

If you decide to take a vacation to California this summer, you don't need a tour guide, just Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49. And if you're going south and you want to pick up the local lingo and syntactical structures, get a copy of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury.

Some would rather stay inside and read at a Starbucks or (heaven forbid) a Peet's. Get Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea and a sick bag (coffee gives me a stomachache). However, if you are indecisive and can't decide whether or not you actually want coffee, then it's best just to stay home. Draw the blinds and curl up with Samuel Beckett's The Unnamable, which might be a good read unless one of these other works appeals to you. Maybe Roberto Bolaño's 2666?

All of those sports fans out there missing the football season will love Nabokov's Pale Fire and Eliot's The Waste Land. Compare the notes on the poems within these works to John Madden's sportscasting.

The indomitable Harry Potter might be pushing it, so I'll give you the option to choose between that and Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. If you need help with these last two, there are supplementary materials in the form of film adaptations (for the former) and a collection of critical essays (for the latter) entitled "Our Exagmination Round His Factification for Incamination of Work in Progress". It's up to you to decide.


Now it seems we've come full circle, but these works should keep you busy for the next couple of weeks. If you manage to get through them all then have another go at Ulysses or wait for the next Nicholas Sparks novel to come out. Happy reading!

Book Review: In the Carnival of Breathing by Lisa Fay Coutley

In the Carnival of Breathing, by Lisa Fay Coutley.
Black Lawrence Press, 2010.
Review by Debrah Lechner. Poetry.

In the Carnival of Breathing explores human interactions with the environment, with each other, and with ourselves. There is a liquid sensibility to this collection: a body of water is never far away. Water calms, encourages reflection. Sitting near a lake or on a dock with a friend often inspires a moment not only of personal revelation, but of intent listening. Perhaps that is why Coutley’s poetry feels so warm―even if the subject is difficult. It is easy to let Coultey’s poetry in. More than many poets, Coutley assumes an intimate relationship with her reader, and that experience is lovely.

Much of the poetry in In the Carnival of Breathing is portraiture, sometimes via nature itself, as in this excerpt from the poem "My Lake:"

When she wants to ride a roller coaster, she does
it alone. When she lets her hair down, men go
blind. My lake doesn’t take any shit. She wears
stilettos in ice storms, does crosswords in pen.
She eats red meat. Her porch needs painting,
her flowers need weeding, but my lake reads
palms in twelve different languages. If my lake
puts her hand to your chest, she decides.

Sometime Coultey takes the reader into her confidence with portraits of the people in her life. This is the poem "Dad and I Talk E-Cigs:"

So then: what will I put in my breast pocket,
what will become of Zippos the world round?
There’s sex appeal in smoking, in the perfect
table smack, the firefly, the flick and spinout.
You want me to suck air from a ballpoint pen.
Hell, even at 60, a man’s gotta have bounds.
I wear the glasses, the dentures, the seatbelt
and drive 25 miles per hour all over town.
If a man wants to have a Pabst and a smoke,
I don’t see a problem. Some CCR on the radio,
a steak on the grill, beans and a baked potato.
I’m just watchin’ those big ole ore ships roll
by from this picnic table (and he angles his chin
toward water receding, toward a red light’s tick).

In the Carnival of Breathing is renewing. It will help you to remember who and what you love, assist in recovering from any weariness that you might find accumulating in the effort to be yourself, and tenderly encourage you to kick ass again. Read it.

Lisa Fay Coutley is the winner of the Fall 2009 Black River Chapbook Competition. She is also the author of Back-Talk, which won the ROOMS Chapbook Contest (Articles Press, 2010). Buy an advance copy of In the Carnival of Breathing or read more about Coutley at her Black Lawrence Press page. In the Carnival of Breathing will be released July 1st, 2011, but you can pre-order it now!

Vacationing with "Young Goodman Brown"

It is finally summer time, and so the epic lists of what to read begin to appear. But instead of providing a book list of “what to read on the beach,” or of books that weigh less than half a pound so you won’t have to pay extra for luggage, we went to some of our contributing authors and found out what books spark their love for reading, and writing.

Old Corner Bookstore

As the days get longer, summer becomes fuel for travel, and these authors’ choices of books can be best read in various literary destinations where the inspiration is tangible. New England is a wonderful vacation spot filled with hidden literary wonders that span from early American literature to modern literary works. The stunning allure of New England has inspired, and shaped countless literary works. You can take a walk down Frost Trail, a 47 mile route in Massachusetts that is said to be the inspiration for much of Frost’s work. Other landmarks of literary interest are riddled throughout the east coast such as the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston, or even Longfellow National Historic Site.

Our first author Michael Powers (author of the story “Animal” which appeared in issue #48) did not originally understand the deep mystique of New England. Or the reason “Young Goodman Brown” blended the inner doubts of the protagonist with the very nature in which he was surrounded.

Like just about everyone else in America, I first read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” in the tenth grade. I remember not particularly liking the story at that time. Something about it—the clear terms of the allegory, the fact that the devil is an actual, walking, talking character—struck me as unsophisticated and quaint, particularly in a semester in which we also read Hemingway’s “The Killers” and William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning,” stories that seem almost tailor-made to appeal to sixteen-year-olds in the late nineties.

 But he kept coming back to Hawthorne’s story. He came to terms with the almost cartoonish figure of the devil to understand the alienation and doubts that Goodman Brown experiences.

 Hawthorne’s affable devil reminded me of a certain Rolling Stones song, and I felt, vaguely that the New Englander should have been posthumously embarrassed by the company he was keeping. Somehow, though, the story stuck with me despite my initial not-getting-it, and years later I found myself coming back to it, less interested in the allegorical conceit than in Goodman Brown's slowly accumulating moral loneliness. At the end of the story, the no longer young Goodman Brown is bewildered and irredeemably alone, not gifted, as the devil had promised, with the ability to see into the secret hearts of others, but acutely aware of what a closed book the heart of one's neighbor is.

It is hard to ignore the story’s location, the deeply mysterious and majestic presence of the forest. New England is not only filled with the inspiring landscape for writers such as Longfellow and Frost but it also contains the obscurity of human blunders and the foreboding sense of what can be encountered when alone in the forest. As a vacation spot New England provides mystery and wonder the literary adventurer, and perhaps a dark encounter in the woods.

News Around the Net

Oh, you haven't been sad in a while, you say? Well, here's an incomplete list of writers who have died in car crashes over the years. Enjoy.

Who wants a poetry book by Keanu Reeves for $55! Anyone? ... Anyone?! Well, too bad! It's sold out anyway!

Oh yeah, there's this Pottermore thing. It's kinda cool, if you're into that. But seriously! Keanu, guys! It's all about Keanu!

This should help e-book-phobics get over paper withdrawals.


Enjoy the strangeness of literary fame in this one, through the preparation of Jonathan Franzen's visit to give a commencement speech at Kenyon College.

Unusual Calls for Submissions

Yeast of Eden, an anthology of stories inspired by beer, is requesting submissions. We think writing and beer are a combination that deserves recognition. Hemingway had his mojitos. Fitzgerald his gin. Plenty have written about, with, and under the influence of whiskey. We want to explore the brew of the common man, of baseball, bowling, barbecues, and nano-brewers with a garage that reeks of fermentation. We love beer. It’s not necessary that you do. Whether you celebrate the brew or not, just as there are light and fruity Hefeweizens and demonic, smoky Russian Imperial Stouts, the flavor is up to you. Send us 1,000 to 7,000 words, fiction, nonfiction, or even a drinking song by September 1, 2011. Join David Ulin, Susan Straight, Tod Golberg, Janet Fitch, and others. If nothing else, the release party will be a blast. Visit beeranthology.com for more information.

Canon & Chorus: Black Poets in Prose. Forthcoming from Willow Books in 2012—Canon & Chorus: Black Poets in Prose is a collection of essays by emerging and established poets, from the African Diaspora, focusing on what poets write, that which gives them the impetus to write and the larger job of being a poet. Essays might consider themes such as the poet’s purpose in the world philosophically; his/her approach to language and how this approach fits into the larger poetic landscape. An essay may explore the spiritual aspects of form, or consider written or unwritten “texts” that provide a metaphor for poets of all walks of life. We are not looking for literary criticism, research papers or dissertations. Limit essays to 5000 words. Work not previously published encouraged. Format essay and bio in Times New Roman, 12 point, as a PDF, and send as an attachment to: Niki Herd at canonandchorus(at)aol.com (replace (at) with @ in sending e-mail). Deadline: August 15, 2011

In what ways does being female affect one's sense of place, placement, and/or (dis)location? We are seeking submissions of prose writing by women, and strongly encourage you to submit your work for consideration. We are looking for fiction and nonfiction stories that wrestle explicitly or implicitly with the question posed above. We prefer submissions to be 3000 words or less, but will consider longer pieces of exceptional quality. We will not accept submissions of poetry. A cover letter is not necessary. Please send your submissions to inherplace.org in the following manner: Subject: Title, name of author, word count. Body: Title again, short bio, and the entire story pasted into the email. Replace (at) with @ in sending submissions. Submission deadline is July 31, 2011. Attachments will not be opened. We will consider previously published work if the rights have been returned to you but please make note of where and when it was originally published.

The New Promised Land: 120 Contemporary Jewish American Poets, a new anthology forthcoming from an as-of-yet undetermined publisher, is looking for submissions from Jewish poets who are born in the U.S. after 1945. Please send 5-7 poems (previously published is okay) in the body of an email to jewampo at gmail dot com (replace the "at" with @) by June 30, 2011. The editors, Matthew E. Silverman and Deborah Ager, welcome poems about the Jewish experience and Jewish themes but please do not feel they have to be limited to that. Please include a short bio with your submission and your contact information, including an email, address, and phone number. If previously published poems, please send the acknowledgments with your submission.

Super Arrow is an online journal for experiments in writing and art, and we're looking for work that sends us giggling through the ringer, confronts us with new sensations, invents form to fit concept. We like fiction that builds universes and sparks at the line-level, and nonfiction that pushes through convention to find bright ways to reflect our human experience back on itself. We like poetry full of syllabic burrs, from poets who take risks. Visual and audio art that investigates process and plucks both seriously and comically at disciplinary context pleases us lots. Check out our archive at www.superarrow.org to see a bit of what we've published in the past. For each issue, we offer a conceptually-driven folio, and this one -- called "FROM HERE TO THERE" is inspired by maps. Head to www.superarrow.org/Assignment.html for more information. To submit, please visit our online submissions manager at superarrow.submishmash.com. We're looking forward to seeing your work, and please do forward this call to any artmaker who may be interested. We as a publication thrive on community and connection. Be the life of our party!

Dear Writer, there are so many ways to connect with people we never meet in the flesh. With an ever-expanding coterie of Facebook friends, I'm fascinated by the pull these online connections have on my life-how this throng engages and enlightens the muddle of my daily existence via the instant world of cyberspace. This month I want your stories, essays and memoirs of whacked out, subjugated rendezvous of the fourth kind! Slam me with prose that exposes and explores strange, sinister, hysterical or legendary encounters through Twitters, blogs, text messages, sex messages, online dating sites, porn sites and psycho-shopping frenzies all from the tap of a finger or a pair of thumbs. Accepting fiction and nonfiction ONLY, no more than 3000 words. No more than two submission per author. Must be sent as an attachment (MS WORD preferred). Simultaneous submissions accepted. Previously published work is also allowed as long as the author retains the rights. Please include a short third person bio for our contributor's page. Submissions Close: July 23rd. To find out more visit www.whistlingfire.com.

Book Review: School for Tricksters

School for Tricksters, by Chris Gavaler. Southern Methodist University Press, 2011. Review by Debrah Lechner. Fiction.

Chris Gavaler has succeeded at a very rare thing—he has created a work of fiction that will be an important contribution to the discussion of racism in this country for decades to come. He has brought to life a part of history that is brilliantly defined in the stories Gavaler has published in this volume, and along the way has also put together a quite a page-turner—a fascinating, worthwhile, satisfying read.

Carlisle Indian School is an institution that operated in the early 1900’s. Its mandate was to further the assimilation of Native Americans into white society and to erase all traces, if possible, of Native American language and culture. In a period of time where schooling could be difficult to obtain for adolescents of any race, especially those in poverty, Carlisle, as much as it was a manifestation of prejudice, was also an opportunity for education that attracted those people with few options who could pass as Native American. Gavaler’s inspiration for his fiction comes from two such students that attended Carlisle during that period: Sylvester Long, a black man who recreates himself as a full-blooded Blackfoot, and Ivy Miller, a homeless white girl who poses as Cherokee to find shelter and instruction at Carlisle. Other characters that contribute to the pace and texture of this novel are also historically documented. Among them are Jim Thorpe, an Olympic athlete, who attended Carlisle, and poet Marianne Moore, a typing teacher at the institution.

The depth of historical research that Gavaler did to pull School for Tricksters together was formidable. In his acknowledgements he mentions, among other sources, congressional records investigating corruption at Carlisle, numerous cataloged historical records on Carlisle and other Indian schools, the memoirs of students and teachers at Carlisle, the unpublished letters of Marianne Moore, a biography of Jim Thorpe, and interviews with relatives of the two main characters of School of Tricksters who “pass” at Carlisle.

This research informs Gavaler’s prose in School for Tricksters in the best way possible. These details seamlessly integrate with imaginary elements to form a world that is as real for the reader as it is for the characters. It doesn’t get better than that.

Chris Gavaler has published fiction in numerous literary venues, is the author of the novel Pretend I’m Not Here, and the recipient of four awards for Outstanding Playwright from the Pittsburgh New Works Festival.

School for Tricksters has created a lot of buzz and there are quite a number of interesting articles and discussion about it on the web that you can find with a simple search. If you’d like to get your copy of this book at Amazon.com, here’s your link.

News Around the Net

Next week, J.K. Rowling is announcing something to do with the future of Harry Potter. This is what everyone knows. Everyone is excited.

Here's a big list of the best non-fiction books of all-time, according to The Guardian.

An essay on when, as readers or writers, to give up on reading/writing a story that just might not be that good. I've recently given up on the idea of finishing everything I start reading if I'm not liking it, so this was a fitting read, for me at least.

Ever spent a miserable week at Disney Land? Ever gone to Paris and hated it? Ever been horrified by being on a cruise ship? These writers can sympathize. And they love writing about their awful vacations.

Wired has five reasons paper books are better than e-books. I have at least one reason e-books are better: I haaaate cluttered spaces. This pile of books on my desk to my right right now is really upsetting me. If I'd read them already, they'd have been traded in for video games just like the last batch. Don't push me!

Letter-pressed Poetry Playlists

Buying a single MP3 for a buck on iTunes has become the industry standard, and cobbling specialty playlists has become a thoughtless music fan reflex. Architrave Press, an independent St. Louis-based poetry press, is offering letterpressed poetry on fine paper through the very same model, encouraging poetry lovers to mix and match verse.

According to Architrave's Facebook, each poem is hand-printed using an antique Vandercook #4 letterpress at All Along Press in St. Louis, MO. Most poems are printed as individual pages for purchase just like on iTunes and buyers can assemble their own self-curated chapbooks. Architrave will also sell subscriptions for readers to automatically receive each of their 10-poem editions in the series.

A website for the project is forthcoming later this year, but more information can be found on their Facebook. Architrave is also taking submissions for the individual poem series at their Submishmash page.

Book Review: Fog Gorgeous Stag by Sean Lovelace

Fog Gorgeous Stag, by Sean Lovelace.
Publishing Genius, Baltimore, 2011.
Review by Debrah Lechner. Fog.

An excerpt from "And a Little Horse Loving Girl," from Fog Glorious Stag:

Rubber hatchets. Corn cob pipes. Fried Pepsi. Fried ears of corn. A laser that will etch your own face onto the handle of a lint remover. ($8.00)

I’ve been there. But I don’t like to admit it. So when I first read Fog Gorgeous Stag my initial impression was that the text was a symptom of mental illness, or if not that then perhaps was poetry―despite Lovelace’s public denial of this second possibility. He says of this volume, “I consider it an artifact, a thing.” He says, “I hope this book is worthy of the same genre as fog.”

Whereas this volume is undeniably a thing, a thing that’s been lying on my desk confounding me for some weeks, I can’t verify that it is in the same genre as fog. That seems a high and (let’s just face it) deliberately undefined ambition. But perhaps Fog a does achieves Fog as a genre; I’m not sure I’m evolved enough to apprehend such a thing. I’m just now exploring the idea.

Other esteemed writers seem to have experienced no delay in recognizing the genius of this genre.

“Fog Glorious Stag is an electric fire of a book… if you must read it, I recommend real thick gloves like the furries wear,” says Ander Monson, who also notes that his blurb on the back of the book is not in fact a blurb on the back of the book, but a warning label.

“The pant panting! The hypoxic breathlessness! The all of it that is the all of it!” These are comments by Michael Martone, also from a blurb on the back of the book.

This constitutes my warning about the warnings and blurbs on the back of the book. They’re a little off the hook. They augment my increasing belief that genius, lunacy and poetry may be the three muses of the newly coined genre of Fog. The praise for the book may in fact have been inadequate, since these homages seem to be inspired by Lovelace’s writing but ultimately fail to equal it. In the end, they make too much sense.

I’m not even going to try… not to make sense.

Of course, freedom from syllogistic narrative has long been a feature of much modern poetry, and also of prose (or whatever). Consider As a Wife has a Cow: A Love Story by Gertrude Stein. This might be an early entry into the hitherto unnamed genre of Fog:

In came in there, came in there come out of there. In came in come out of there. Come out there in came in there. Come out of there and in come out of there. Came in there, come out of there.

Yes, and I’ve been there too. Where?

There have been many interpretations of Stein’s work, most of which insert meaning where arguably there is none. In her work, various interpretations―the role of the natural world, sexual intent and so on―all of that is as may be; but the real genius of As a Wife has a Cow: A Love Story is how Stein illustrated that repetition creates a strong illusion of meaning.
The comparison to Stein is perhaps the highest praise I can offer for Fog Gorgeous Stag. The more I spend time with this new genre of Fog, the better I like it.

An excerpt from "The Odor of Thin Cigars" from Fog Gorgeous Stag:

Iggy Pop shooting the breeze. Machine the breeze. Iggy Pop with a fresh bob haircut (made of flour, water, food coloring.) Everything ferments (like sky), so everyone intoxicated (like sky). The foaming sky.

Again, I’ve been there. Is that where I know you from?

Lovelace pops from one image to another, not at all in the manner of Stein, who lingers, to say the least. But Lovelace also says that what he loves best is “the gorgeous emptiness of white space.” In this sense, much like Stein, and paraphrasing the Beatles song, the sense you make is the sense you take.

Fog Gorgeous Stag is challenging. It’s an invitation to imagine where you’ve been; to imagine what you think. It’s an artifact of a new idea. It’s a very valuable book-thing.

Post Script: After rereading Stein, I feel. I should apologize for passive-aggressively implying Fog Glorious Stag is poetry. (It might be short stories, it might be poetry. Either way, it’s hard to disprove.)

Fog Gorgeous Stag is due to be released July 12th, 2011.

Tempe Zine Convention - June 10

The 'zine' is the do-it-yourself cousin to the magazine, a hand-assembled and often photocopied art object that takes the term 'self-published' to its furthest extent. Like the literary journal, the zine functions as a compendium for voices in the underground arts and political communities. Some notable American punk zines, such as Cometbus and Burn Collector, act as the public journals of their introspective, globe-trotting creators as they interview artists and reflect on counter-cultural ideology.

The Tempe Zine Convention will feature a horde of self-published writers and artists from the Phoenix/Tempe area hawking their wares, performing works and offering zine making techniques. The work of the participants showcases a variety of literary, autobiographical, political and journalistic pursuits, and those engaging with the visual arts will have works featuring comics, illustrations and Xerox collage art.

The event begins at 6 p.m. this Friday, June 10 at Tempe house venue YOBS (519 W. 19th Street, Tempe, AZ 85282), with readings interspersed throughout the night. The Facebook event is here and for more information on some of the participants there is a New Times blog article.

Book Review: House with a Dark Sky Roof

House with a Dark Sky Roof, by T. Zachary Cotler. Salt Publishing, London, 2011. Review by Debrah Lechner.

In this important first book of poetry, T. Zachary Colter captures our unpredictable and unfathomably strange world in moments that are singlar, simple, both exotic and commonplace. Colter sustains an acute awareness of each part of the Earth his imagination inhabits, and his imagination roams widely, from the silos of Nebraska to ancient Greece. His voice varies from the abstract to the conversational; it is always lyrical. There is use of musical forms and a variety of languages. The execution is intellectual, but also accessible. Political and international issues are themes, but the personal is never lost for long.

From “We Had a Word for the Two of Us”:

Wire fence marked my land’s edge written in my father’s will.

I traced the wire to an unshorn ram, entangled, hindparts bloody, and the

ram bucked feebly and dirged, too much for wire wounds only, a

bullet maybe, a coyote.

In my good life, some things came without deliberation — throw a pebble,

love Maria, orange the house and rope, reap milkweed, manumit

this ram.

The scythe, inherited with the land, I gripped the shaft and horizontal

handle, held the tool high at a shaking angle, poised — an iron beak,

an angel can go crazy — swung.

One foot on the neck, I ripped the tool from a bone.

Thaw pain came with the heat, so I put both feet in the blood.

T. Zachary Cotler’s poetry can be found in numerous literary journals and has been recognized through many awards and fellowships, among them the Amy Clampitt Residency Award and fellowships from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the Edward Albee Foundation, and the Djerassi Foundation.

The book will be forthcoming in both hardback and paperback shortly.

This is Fun!

News Around the Net

The long history of the James Bond novel. In honor of a new one coming out in a couple weeks.

In response to a list by Esquire listing 75 books every man should read (only one of them was written by a woman, Flannery O'Connor), this list was created. 250 books by woman that all men should read.

Starting in a couple months, DC Comics will start renumbering their issues, starting back at #1.

I had no idea these existed, but apparently they do, so here are the winners of the 2011 Arab-American Book Awards, people.

Finally, the top 10 literary feuds. Number one was deserved, but I feel like it got overshadowed by another, watching all-around grumpy old man Norman Mailer bicker with Gore Vidal and Dick Cavett on The Dick Cavett show made me more than a little uncomfortable.

Get Thee to NYC! Lit Mags Galore!

If you don't already live in NYC, the 12th Annual LIT MAG MARATHON WEEKEND may just be the reason to go. On June 11th and 12th, the magazines may be little, but the weekend is big, big, BIG! It’s time once again for CLMP’s annual Lit Mag Marathon Weekend, a massive showcase of America’s diverse literary magazines and journals.

The EDITORS UNLEASHED Magathon kicks off the weekend with a “marathon” reading. In celebration of the Library’s 100th Anniversary, editors representing journals of myriad sizes and styles will present favorite selections from their first issues. Participating magazines include: A Public Space, Adanna Literary Journal, anderbo.com, Bomb, Bone Bouquet, Conjunctions, Explosion-Proof, H.O.W. Journal, The Hudson Review, Inkwell Magazine, Literal Latté, The Literary Review, Parnassus, Rattapallax, Shot Glass Journal and The Fib Review, The Summerset Review, The Mom Egg and Washington Square. It's at New York Public Library’s DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room, 5th Ave. at 42nd St. Saturday, June 11th from 4–6:30 PM.

BARGAINS! BARGAINS! BARGAINS! Lit fiends can take home armfuls of hugely discounted lit mags— any at only $2 a copy! Choose from hundreds of magazines from all over the country and hobnob with many of the editors who’ll be there in person to meet and greet. The GIANT Lit Mag Fair at Housing Works. Housing Works Used Book Café, 126 Crosby Street in Soho. Sunday, June 12th from 11–4PM.

See all details on CLMP's Facebook page.