in the mail today was the new issue of small press review (Vol. 38 Nos. 5-6). a review of Naked Knuckle #6 was featured and it included quotes of poems by both Hosho McCreesh and our very own Christopher Cunningham. congrats, guys. you know my thoughts on your work, so it's just good to know others are noticing, too.
on the drive home from work today, i was ruminating about the announcement that Donald Hall will be new (and 14th) Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. there wasn't much a fucking announcement, really. just some tiny blurbs in the papers (or at least in their online facades). instead, we hear more about Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. ridiculous.
anyway, it seems to me that the announcement of a new Poet Laureate would be a big fucking deal. i think it is. or at least i think it should be. oh well.
at least there's still those of us like McCreesh and Cunningham rewriting the myths for the next generation.
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25 comments:
dandy. thanks for the mention. that fucker mccreesh is the most underrated poet working/not working today. as soon as he gets his shit together (and he is, stronger each day...) he is gonna crush all of us with work that will make our poems seem like the musings of half-retarded wire-haired nutdiggers. and if any of you chumps want some of his work, email me or j.b and we'll make sure mccreesh shoots some your way.
and as for me, I'm leaving the poem making up to Tommy, my NSA agent.
more time for "ovaltining."
i agree with you on McCreesh, and both look forward to and fear the day he returns. look forward to because, obviously, he's an immense talent and i love his stuff.
fear because when he comes back all of my own hackneyed attempts at poetry will become obsolete. i mean, damn it, i've already got to contend with the likes of you and LCB and Glenn Cooper. jesus.
i bet Tommy is one helluva poet. i believe it.
fuck... i've been looking to get my hands on McCreesh' stuff for awhile now. hook me up! PLEASE!
got you covered...
i gotta tell you, i really am looking forward to Hosho's return. i owe him a letter. probably two.
i owe everyone at least one letter.
anyway, it'll be nice to see his words again. they sear.
me too. I've read some of his latest poetry in his letters to me and I tell you man he is devestating (sp?). brutal. hard diamond lines that rip yer guts right the fuck out.
beautiful.
I sent him an email and will let you guys know.
C ALLEN: send me an email, or JB forward me an email addy for you (CAR.) & street addy so I can give it to McCreesh.
I'm not familiar with McCreesh but feel after reading this that I ought to be. Is there somewhere on line that I can read his work?
probably not. "google" his name, Hosho McCreesh and you come up with a few items, but no poems, I dont think. I will email him and get him to send you a submission, Kat. you'll like it.
Christopher-Thank you so much. It sounds like he's pretty amazing. Can't wait to hear from him. :)
please check the post on UPRIGHT for more on MCCREESH:
McCreesh poetry
kat: did i send you a copy of
remark #25 (the first remark
print version); three poems by
Hosho McCreesh there; also you
can order issues of Silt Reader
or the American Dissident, more
poems there for you to read.
Also, poetry in Bathtub Gin #6
and Struggle Fall 2002.
thanks for your post on SAVAGE HEAVENS chris! well done.
Kat, Hosho is really amazing. and he makes it look so goddamn easy. a true sign of genius is making the impossible look easy.
he was around for a while, but i believe just got burnt out on the whole scene (i can understand that, and i know chris can empathize as well). hopefully, he comes back with renewed vigor.
we are waiting Hosho!
Christopher-From what I read on your blog...wow! Please send this guy my way!
Luis-Yes, you did. I'll go look through it right now.
justin-making it look easy...that's always how you can tell! And burnt out on the whole scene...I think I sort understand. Not totally because I have not been doing this as long as any of you. I'm still sort of excited about the whole thing! :)
hey, chris c., j.b. sent me an e-mail aboot you sendin'some hosho. thanx man! much appreciated. i owe ya' one.
Found these 2 McCreesh poems in an ezine called GNOME, which was suppose to actually publish a poem of mine like a year ago, but they haven't released a new issue in longer than that... oh well. this first one by McCreesh kicks serious ass.
ONE FOR THE PEOPLE WHO THINK IT'S
EASY TO WRITE POEMS & FOR THOSE WHO THINK
POEMS ABOUT EX-LOVERS ACTUALLY MATTERS
Heard a story once about a guy who was
attacked by something
wild
& the thing gored & eviscerated him
& he literally had to drag his guts
through the woods
to a road, miles away,
& collapse.
A pair of headlights
would find him later,
& in the emergency room
they couldn't sedate him,
they were afraid he was too weak to survive it,
that they couldn't revive him if they did,
so they hand-washed his intestines,
scrubbed away the
grit
pebbles
pine needles
him wide awake & watching
feeling it
all
full-bore, &
straight on
through . . .
He lived.
Now that's a
goddamned
poem.
LURED INTO, RAPED & THEN ABANDONED BY ALL FORMS OF LIFE & ANY SHRED OF KINDNESS
It was a cowboy bar in
Tucumcari, New Mexico
& a drunk, haggard old woman who'd been
lured into,
raped, & then
abandoned
by all forms of
life & any shred of
kindness
cornered me by the pool table &
with most of her teeth gone
smiled & said
"You are a beautiful me . . ."
(which I am not)
& she kept on & on about it,
telling me how beautiful I was
& I kept insisting she was
wrong,
& then I lied to her & told her
I had a girl
back home.
Later, whe I left
her & her equally drunk, equally haggard friend
followed me out,
walked behind me as I made for my hotel,
yelling as I walked away:
"Come back, you want a blowjob?
I'll suck your dick, just
come
back . . ."
& I ignored her
& just
kept
walking
good stuff...thanks for posting them, chris!
i am torn about the existence of someone like McCreesh. why torn? his poetry makes my life fuller. so full, in fact, that it's painful.
but, his poetry is so amazing, so brilliant, so powerful, that my own feeble attempts at it are shown to be the farces they are in comparison. without him my life would be emptier, but with him my poetry is.
tough one, that. in the end, i'm glad he's around and writing. just means i have to up my game. if i can't, then Darwinian selection will eradicate me. hell, us all.
good posts, thanks chris K., espec. those are good poems, the "one for the people who think..." is in DEEP SURFACE FISSURES, so if you want it, anyone out there, email me or j.b and we'll get McCreesh's ass in gear.
no problem CAR. my pleasure. I mean, who the fuck likes to pimp themselves? DEFINITELY not McCreesh.
j.b, I'm gonna have Frimp punch you in the neck if you don't stop slighting your own good godamn work, you punk.
one more McCreesh for the road:
& the sad truth is
...there's more courage in a
seed
that splits & pushes itself
up through the earth,
forces itself into the sky
than there is in
every human
that has ever lived
or ever
will.
- Hosho McCreesh
now that is a fucking poem. oh i miss his stuff. just makes me want to move into my damn house that much more.
oh, and that fucking Frimp just punched my in the throat. kinda hurt, too, but he's a little guy and i'm a big guy so it wasn't too bad.
fucking Frimp!
definitely diggin' hosho. he emailed me aboot sendin' the book, so thanx again. has anyone ever read any sharon olds? if not, be sure to. she is amazing.
glad you're liking Hosho. guy can lay the line down like very few ever could.
i've read some Sharon Olds. not much; and it's been a long time since i last read anything by her. maybe i should check her out again.
i read her stuff a long time ago.
maybe a little late, but here is one of olds' poems i love -
The Girl
by Sharon Olds
They chased her and her friend through the woods
and caught them in a waste clearing, broken
random bracken, a couple of old mattresses,
as if the place had been prepared.
The thin one with straight hair
started raping her best friend,
and the curly one stood above her,
thrust his thumbs back inside her jaws, she was twelve,
stuck his penis in her mouth and throat
faster and faster and faster.
Then the straight-haired one stood up-
they lay like pulled-up roots at his feet,
naked twelve-year-old girls-he said
"Now you’re going to know what it’s like
to be shot five times and slaughtered like a pig",
and they switched mattresses,
the blond was raping and stabbing her friend,
the straight-haired one sticking inside her
in one place and then another,
the point of his gun pressed deep into her waist,
she felt a little click in her spine and a
sting like 7-Up in her head, and then he
pulled the tree-branch across her throat
and everything went dark,
the gym went dark, and her mother’s kitchen,
even the globes of light on the rounded
lips of her mother’s nesting bowls went dark.
When she woke up, she was lying on the cold
copper-smelling earth, the mattress was pulled up
over like a blanket, she saw
the dead body of her best friend
and she began to run,
she came to the edge of the woods and she stepped
out from the trees, like a wound debriding,
she walked across the field to the tracks
and said to the railway brakeman "Please, sir. Please, sir."
At the trial she had to say everything –
her elder sister helped her with the words –
she had to sit in the room with them
and point to them. Now she goes to parties
but does not smoke, she is a cheerleader,
she throws her body up in the air
and kicks her legs and comes home and does the dishes
and her homework, she had to work hard in math,
the sky over the roof of her bed
filled with white planets. Every night
she prays for the soul of her best friend and
then thanks God for life. She knows
what all of us want never to know
and she does a cartwheel, the splits, she shakes the
shredded pom-poms in her fists.
that is powerful.
is this a true story? jesus.
great images and wonderful word choices and metaphors.
brutal. thanks for posting it Casey!
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