Tag: Blood Pudding Press

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Alessandra Bava’s “They Talk About Death”

alessandra-bava

 

Taxidermy

No display cabinets
for you, but black
and white rooms,

unhinged doors,
thresholds leading
everywhere and

anywhere. And you.
Evanescent fragments
of skin stuffed

with your personality
surrounded by objects,
debris, flowers.

Precious specimen
of human taxidermy
dancing amidst

shafts of light.

(for Francesca Woodman)

—

This selection comes from Alessandra Bava’s chapbook They Talk About Death, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!

Alessandra Bava lives and works in the Eternal city. She holds an MA in American Literature and manages her own translation agency. She is the author of two bilingual chapbooks, NOCTURNE (Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, 2013) and GUERRILLA BLUES (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012).

THEY TALK ABOUT DEATH is her third chapbook but her first US published chapbook. Her fourth chapbook is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She is the editor of ROME’S REVOLUTIONARY POETS BRIGADE ANTHOLOGY Vol. 1 (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012) and ARTICOLO 1 (Albeggi Edizioni, 2014). Her poems have appeared in several journals such as Plath Profiles, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Empty Mirror and Left Curve. In 2010 she had a cathartic encounter with SF Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman and she is currently writing his biography.

Margaret Bashaar’s poetry has been previously collected into two chapbooks, Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel (Blood Pudding Press) and Barefoot and Listening (Tilt Press), as well as in many literary journals and anthologies including Rhino, Caketrain, New South, Copper Nickel, and Time You Let Me In. She lives in Pittsburgh where she edits the chapbook press Hyacinth Girl Press and is a staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine. Her debut collection, Stationed at the Gateway, will be published by Sundress in 2015.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Alessandra Bava’s “They Talk About Death”

Alessandra Bava

Madame Bowery

It’s the Seventies and one can’t expect to
see the late 19th century street gangs, nor
Crane’s Maggie & Co.’s despair, nor the
leisure destination of two centuries earlier,

nor the arias filling the small shop run by
Mozart’s librettist. He sings “Così fan tutte,”
but not to you Madame Bowery. Your dress
is scanty and no black train follows it, your

lips are smeared with poison, your eyes
filled with lines sparkle along these streets.
Treading in the cold winter skyline,
your spirit soars as a pearl gray crow.

(for Patti Smith)

—

This selection comes from Alessandra Bava’s chapbook They Talk About Death, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!

Alessandra Bava lives and works in the Eternal city. She holds an MA in American Literature and manages her own translation agency. She is the author of two bilingual chapbooks, NOCTURNE (Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, 2013) and GUERRILLA BLUES (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012).

THEY TALK ABOUT DEATH is her third chapbook but her first US published chapbook. Her fourth chapbook is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She is the editor of ROME’S REVOLUTIONARY POETS BRIGADE ANTHOLOGY Vol. 1 (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012) and ARTICOLO 1 (Albeggi Edizioni, 2014). Her poems have appeared in several journals such as Plath Profiles, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Empty Mirror and Left Curve. In 2010 she had a cathartic encounter with SF Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman and she is currently writing his biography.

Margaret Bashaar’s poetry has been previously collected into two chapbooks, Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel (Blood Pudding Press) and Barefoot and Listening (Tilt Press), as well as in many literary journals and anthologies including Rhino, Caketrain, New South, Copper Nickel, and Time You Let Me In. She lives in Pittsburgh where she edits the chapbook press Hyacinth Girl Press and is a staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine. Her debut collection, Stationed at the Gateway, will be published by Sundress in 2015.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Alessandra Bava’s “They Talk About Death”

alessandra-bava

Rimbaud’s Spoon and Fork

How many did you feed on arsenic with
that spoon? How many times did you
hold those shiny utensils in your hand
dreaming vowels and drunk boats,
in a preposterous mood? How many times
have your azure eyes laid their
stare on them, cussing lines at the
world? The poet’s table is coarse, set with
bowls of steaming ink, with forked tongues
feeding on Truth, and visionary imagination.

Et donc, mangeons!*


*And so, let’s eat!


(After Patti Smith’s photograph)

—

This selection comes from Alessandra Bava’s chapbook They Talk About Death, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!

Alessandra Bava lives and works in the Eternal city. She holds an MA in American Literature and manages her own translation agency. She is the author of two bilingual chapbooks, NOCTURNE (Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, 2013) and GUERRILLA BLUES (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012).

THEY TALK ABOUT DEATH is her third chapbook but her first US published chapbook. Her fourth chapbook is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She is the editor of ROME’S REVOLUTIONARY POETS BRIGADE ANTHOLOGY Vol. 1 (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012) and ARTICOLO 1 (Albeggi Edizioni, 2014). Her poems have appeared in several journals such as Plath Profiles, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Empty Mirror and Left Curve. In 2010 she had a cathartic encounter with SF Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman and she is currently writing his biography.

Margaret Bashaar’s poetry has been previously collected into two chapbooks, Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel (Blood Pudding Press) and Barefoot and Listening (Tilt Press), as well as in many literary journals and anthologies including Rhino, Caketrain, New South, Copper Nickel, and Time You Let Me In. She lives in Pittsburgh where she edits the chapbook press Hyacinth Girl Press and is a staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine. Her debut collection, Stationed at the Gateway, will be published by Sundress in 2015.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Alessandra Bava’s “They Talk About Death”

Alessandra Bava

St. Baudelaire

I dream of you at night
entangled in the spires of evil,

tied to a living pillar in the
profane sanctuary of Poetry—

the spores of wild flowers in
your nostrils, the ecstasy of

“the Word” painted on your face
& slowly dripping from your

St. Sebastian-like wounds
in sanguine lines.

I twist the arrows in your flesh,
I dip my fingers in your scars

as you spit out your own
poisonous mythology

into my soul.

—

This selection comes from Alessandra Bava’s chapbook They Talk About Death, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!

Alessandra Bava lives and works in the Eternal city. She holds an MA in American Literature and manages her own translation agency. She is the author of two bilingual chapbooks, NOCTURNE (Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, 2013) and GUERRILLA BLUES (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012).

THEY TALK ABOUT DEATH is her third chapbook but her first US published chapbook. Her fourth chapbook is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She is the editor of ROME’S REVOLUTIONARY POETS BRIGADE ANTHOLOGY Vol. 1 (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012) and ARTICOLO 1 (Albeggi Edizioni, 2014). Her poems have appeared in several journals such as Plath Profiles, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Empty Mirror and Left Curve. In 2010 she had a cathartic encounter with SF Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman and she is currently writing his biography.

Margaret Bashaar’s poetry has been previously collected into two chapbooks, Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel (Blood Pudding Press) and Barefoot and Listening (Tilt Press), as well as in many literary journals and anthologies including Rhino, Caketrain, New South, Copper Nickel, and Time You Let Me In. She lives in Pittsburgh where she edits the chapbook press Hyacinth Girl Press and is a staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine. Her debut collection, Stationed at the Gateway, will be published by Sundress in 2015.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Alessandra Bava’s “They Talk About Death”

alessandra-bava

The Murder of Stars

(August 19, 1936)

The garden is still dark and warm, dawn
will come but not for me. The smell of
steel caresses my back as your loving hand.

They brought me here under the bluest
firmament with political contempt. The
duende of the swirling stars burns in me

as a galaxy of lines I shall write no more.
The trigger shoots. My blood is a constellation
of red roses singing from a mass grave.

Then I realized I had been murdered…
They never found me?
No. They never found me.

(all words in italics by Federico García Lorca)

—

This selection comes from Alessandra Bava’s chapbook They Talk About Death, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!

Alessandra Bava lives and works in the Eternal city. She holds an MA in American Literature and manages her own translation agency. She is the author of two bilingual chapbooks, NOCTURNE (Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, 2013) and GUERRILLA BLUES (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012).

THEY TALK ABOUT DEATH is her third chapbook but her first US published chapbook. Her fourth chapbook is forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She is the editor of ROME’S REVOLUTIONARY POETS BRIGADE ANTHOLOGY Vol. 1 (Edizioni Ensemble, 2012) and ARTICOLO 1 (Albeggi Edizioni, 2014). Her poems have appeared in several journals such as Plath Profiles, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Empty Mirror and Left Curve. In 2010 she had a cathartic encounter with SF Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman and she is currently writing his biography.

Margaret Bashaar’s poetry has been previously collected into two chapbooks, Letters from Room 27 of the Grand Midway Hotel (Blood Pudding Press) and Barefoot and Listening (Tilt Press), as well as in many literary journals and anthologies including Rhino, Caketrain, New South, Copper Nickel, and Time You Let Me In. She lives in Pittsburgh where she edits the chapbook press Hyacinth Girl Press and is a staff writer for Luna Luna Magazine. Her debut collection, Stationed at the Gateway, will be published by Sundress in 2015.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Susan Yount’s “House on Fire”

SusanYount

Socks of Fire

Never mind that the manager instructed you to wear solid black or navy
socks. Hey little pistol. You’ll even forget the four fat fucks at table five. Want
to make some extra cash? You got the round table tonight and in these smokin’
socks you’ll serve chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and sawmill gravy
scintillatingly. Let me be your pepper, you salty centerfold. You. The star of the
Cracker Barrel Ballet and Roadside Freak Show. Your Glowing Charcoal
Argyle Socks (No. 555), dyed in China, will stay mid-calf as you dance to the
tune of cranky, deep fried okra. What time you get off? I’m staying at the hotel
next door. Even that 50-cent tip left by the two old crones is no match for these
swanky Uzbekistan-combustible-cotton, hand quilted socks. Another cup of
coffee hon. Your patrons will be amazed as you blaze through kitchen grease
seizing oversized portions of mac and cheese for their delight. More cornbread.
More biscuits. Then, sparks flickering from your ankles — the manager notices
your defiance. You are fired. You’re secretly thrilled. He calls you into his
office. You take a seat. Kick off your shoes. Light a cigarette from your hand
linked-heel.

Ribbed, stay-up tops. Made by India’s leading hosiery-maker to the upper
caste. $13. Glowing Charcoal Argyle Socks (No. 555), as described,
combustible cotton.

—

This selection comes from Susan Yount’s poetry chapbook House on Fire, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!

Susan Yount is the Editor and Publisher of Arsenic Lobster, works full time at the Associated Press, teaches online workshops at the Rooster Moans and is the founder of Misty Publications. She recently earned her MFA in poetry at Columbia College in Chicago while working full time and raising her son. Her poetry has recently appeared in several print and online magazines including Roar, Jet Fuel Review, Booth Journal and Menacing Hedge. Susan is a 2003 recipient of The Lynda Hull Memorial Scholarship in Poetry and in 2010 she was awarded first prize in the 16th Annual Juried Reading competition at The Poetry Center of Chicago. In her spare (!) time she moonlights as madam for the Chicago Poetry Bordello. Her first poetry chapbook is the sequel to this one, Catastrophe Theory, and can be found at Hyacinth Girl Press.

Andrew Koch’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Bluestem, Connotation Press, Mojo, Rust + Moth, and others. Although a Tennessee-native, Andrew presently lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife and cat while teaching literature and pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Susan Yount’s “House on Fire”

SusanYount

Butterfly Catastrophe

She was not a bride in Elmhurst,
a novice or a parallel fourth track
on Bad Religion’s 1996 album –
she was ripe like 1993 – like bending
drinking ditch fog – wrapped-up
in her warmest whitest fakest fur –
she was not a feminist. She was not a teardrop,
nor an actress. Her ass was not ground round.
Yes, she said, her middle finger had been broken
on a grade school classmate’s head.

She was not a scrawny snot nose
snottier than her scrawniest calf.
She was not alive during the famine –
not a mime, not a lesbian nor a riding horse at the county fair.
She was not a split-die operator, a sweetheart
or server at the Sheep Shed. She was not
the real mistress to a tire-making tsar –

and she never worked at Cracker Barrel
and she never danced naked in a corn field.

She was as wild
and sharp as claptrap–
as a car-surfer, as a damned
ringing bell.

—

This selection comes from Susan Yount’s poetry chapbook House on Fire, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!

Susan Yount is the Editor and Publisher of Arsenic Lobster, works full time at the Associated Press, teaches online workshops at the Rooster Moans and is the founder of Misty Publications. She recently earned her MFA in poetry at Columbia College in Chicago while working full time and raising her son. Her poetry has recently appeared in several print and online magazines including Roar, Jet Fuel Review, Booth Journal and Menacing Hedge. Susan is a 2003 recipient of The Lynda Hull Memorial Scholarship in Poetry and in 2010 she was awarded first prize in the 16th Annual Juried Reading competition at The Poetry Center of Chicago. In her spare (!) time she moonlights as madam for the Chicago Poetry Bordello. Her first poetry chapbook is the sequel to this one, Catastrophe Theory, and can be found at Hyacinth Girl Press.

Andrew Koch’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Bluestem, Connotation Press, Mojo, Rust + Moth, and others. Although a Tennessee-native, Andrew presently lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife and cat while teaching literature and pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Susan Yount’s “House on Fire”

SusanYount

House On Fire

This house is kindling—
with a wood burning stove.
He has her hiding in the bathtub

where she shaved her legs twice today.
She can hear the cockatiel tweet.
He shoves trees into the stove.

Her mother is a gray bluebird
toasty in a tarnished coop.
She can hear the green fern carol,

This house is a pyre—
A hot ham poked with cloves.
He has her hiding in the goat pen

where she fed her goats twice today.
She can smell the rabbits fry
in black cast iron skillets and grease.

Her sister is a chicken breast
baked dry on a cracked glass tray.
She can hear the horseweeds sighing,

This family aflame—
Roast beef and potatoes.
He has her hiding in the maples

where she kills herself twice a day.
She can hear the red stream calling,
a shallow ditch swelling with pain.

Her father, a devil,
his pitchfork in the hay.
She can hear the damp grass whisper,

Your house ablaze, get out.

—

This selection comes from Susan Yount’s poetry chapbook House on Fire, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!

Susan Yount is the Editor and Publisher of Arsenic Lobster, works full time at the Associated Press, teaches online workshops at the Rooster Moans and is the founder of Misty Publications. She recently earned her MFA in poetry at Columbia College in Chicago while working full time and raising her son. Her poetry has recently appeared in several print and online magazines including Roar, Jet Fuel Review, Booth Journal and Menacing Hedge. Susan is a 2003 recipient of The Lynda Hull Memorial Scholarship in Poetry and in 2010 she was awarded first prize in the 16th Annual Juried Reading competition at The Poetry Center of Chicago. In her spare (!) time she moonlights as madam for the Chicago Poetry Bordello. Her first poetry chapbook is the sequel to this one, Catastrophe Theory, and can be found at Hyacinth Girl Press.

Andrew Koch’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Bluestem, Connotation Press, Mojo, Rust + Moth, and others. Although a Tennessee-native, Andrew presently lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife and cat while teaching literature and pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Susan Yount’s “House on Fire”

SusanYount

Sissy

holds the bloated baby goat.
Tongue licks death. He bawls
recoiling neck and I cannot stop this.
Evident Baby is sick beyond kilter,
straw sticks to his teeth. Yet I
still pretend to call the vet
and help support Baby’s neck.

Sissy looks at me and blue eyes
balloon behind saline. Life whiffs
in her hands while the phone rants
off hook. She drops to her knees
opening frothy shriveled goat lips.

Breathes into him
as hard as she can.

—

This selection comes from Susan Yount’s poetry chapbook House on Fire, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!

Susan Yount is the Editor and Publisher of Arsenic Lobster, works full time at the Associated Press, teaches online workshops at the Rooster Moans and is the founder of Misty Publications. She recently earned her MFA in poetry at Columbia College in Chicago while working full time and raising her son. Her poetry has recently appeared in several print and online magazines including Roar, Jet Fuel Review, Booth Journal and Menacing Hedge. Susan is a 2003 recipient of The Lynda Hull Memorial Scholarship in Poetry and in 2010 she was awarded first prize in the 16th Annual Juried Reading competition at The Poetry Center of Chicago. In her spare (!) time she moonlights as madam for the Chicago Poetry Bordello. Her first poetry chapbook is the sequel to this one, Catastrophe Theory, and can be found at Hyacinth Girl Press.

Andrew Koch’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Bluestem, Connotation Press, Mojo, Rust + Moth, and others. Although a Tennessee-native, Andrew presently lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife and cat while teaching literature and pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Susan Yount’s “House on Fire”

SusanYount

Father Was a Hard Man

With windows rolled all-the-way
down and his motor-oiled hands
slapped around the steering wheel,
he drove slow over potholes.
His need-a-shave chin scratched my face
when I went with father from hayfield
to hayfield following my sister
on the Massy Ferguson.
She pulled the round bailer—
and we dragged the rake.

Pressed against father’s grisly body,
I was always hot & excited
to make it to the field
where I would be reunited
with my sister. Together,
we spun ‘round fields tossing-up
dusty wind-rolls of orchard grass.

We always ate
our peanut butter sandwiches.
We always drank
our frozen milk-jug of water.
He always came back at dark.
When we made it home,
I always packed
my Barbie doll case.

Dreamed of crawling out the window.

—

This selection comes from Susan Yount’s poetry chapbook House on Fire, available from Blood Pudding Press. Purchase your copy here!

Susan Yount is the Editor and Publisher of Arsenic Lobster, works full time at the Associated Press, teaches online workshops at the Rooster Moans and is the founder of Misty Publications. She recently earned her MFA in poetry at Columbia College in Chicago while working full time and raising her son. Her poetry has recently appeared in several print and online magazines including Roar, Jet Fuel Review, Booth Journal and Menacing Hedge. Susan is a 2003 recipient of The Lynda Hull Memorial Scholarship in Poetry and in 2010 she was awarded first prize in the 16th Annual Juried Reading competition at The Poetry Center of Chicago. In her spare (!) time she moonlights as madam for the Chicago Poetry Bordello. Her first poetry chapbook is the sequel to this one, Catastrophe Theory, and can be found at Hyacinth Girl Press.

Andrew Koch’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Bluestem, Connotation Press, Mojo, Rust + Moth, and others. Although a Tennessee-native, Andrew presently lives in Spokane, Washington with his wife and cat while teaching literature and pursuing his MFA in Creative Writing at Eastern Washington University.