i saw the best minds of my generation...

yesterday marked the 50 year anniversary of the unveiling of Allen Ginsberg's seminal poem (which lucidly and viscereally described a generation) Howl. On October 7, 1955, Ginsberg read his poem to an audience in San Francisco. Howl (and that reading in specific) is given credit for kicking off the Beat movement in modern poetry.

anyway, Howl is still an amazing piece, meant to be heard, not read. i have a recording of Ginsberg reading this poem, and it is simply awesome (in all meaning of the word). i am not a Ginsberg nut, and frankly feel most of his poetry is overrated, but Howl remains one of the greatest poems ever written. and, anybody who can do that deserves to go down in history, and will earn my undying respect. Howl might have been a fluke for Ginsberg (depending upon your feelings of Ginsberg), but what a fluke it was.

read up on Ginsberg and his fight against censorship during the mid-50's McCarthyism. then, read the poem and revel in Ginsberg's images. enjoy the metrical timing and spacing. and celebrate a piece of poetic (and American) history.

the penultimate issue

i received my subscriber's copy of the penultimate issue of Chiron Review today (issue #80). if you are unaware Chiron Review has been at it for some 23 years. they've published just about everyone, and consistently put out powerful issues. the next issue will be their last, and it's a sad day indeed. hundreds upon thousands of small press magazines have spawned and died in the 23 year run that Chiron Review has enjoyed. hundreds upon thousands more will strive to fill its place (though, no doubt, ultimately failing).
Chiron will be missed.

oh, in this issue is a great interview with Edward Field (and another, surreally done by Michael Basinski, with Nathan Graziano), and poetry by A.D. Winans, john sweet, Charles Rammelkamp and a bunch of others.

some poetry news

i received my contributor's copy of the new anthology, Chemical Lust, by Monophonic Press (and the editors of Cherry Bleeds). this is a sex & drugs anthology featuring the work of Karl Koweski, Will Carpenter, Jeffrey S. Taylor and Tony DuShane.
i have two poems featured, anheuser heaven and right here.

i also just received word from Éric Dejaeger, the generous guy who translated 18 of my poems into French, that five of these poems will appear in the January issue of Noveaux Délits. he mentioned that with some appearing in Liqueur 44 and his own mag, Microbe, all 18 should appear in Belgium and/or France by the first half of 2006. this is amazing news. i'm so excited. i get about 18 poems in magazines in a whole year here in America. having 18 in French-language magazines in only half a year is spectacular. for me.

apartment hell, part II

in the last installment, i talked about some ass-hat who parked in my reserved parking spot. bad enough as that is, i've more things to discuss.
take this morning for example. today is Sunday. a day of rest. for me at least. well, this morning (and every fucking Sunday morning since we've lived here) the dipshits upstairs get up at 7 in the morning and make a shitload of noise as they get ready for church (it has to be church. why? because where the fuck else are they going this early EVERY fucking Sunday?) anyway, right on time, they wake up (which means the wife and i wake up) right at 7. FUCK THIS! church can fucking wait. CHRIST! whatever happened to sleeping in Sunday morning. if a god doesn't understand this and to hell with it.

oh, and the very first night we slept at the apartment (a Saturday night as it were) someone had a party.
but first, let me describe the layout complex. our area of this humongous place consists of 3 building arranged like a horseshoe around a central parking area. each building has 24 units, so there are 72 units to this area. there are bound to be a few (even more in an apartment setting) assholes out of 72 families.
anyway, this first night someone had a party. that's fine. i spent a good 50% of my university time at parties in a apartment complex. however, at 2 in the morning we were rudely awoken by some cocksucker yelling across the parking lot about wanting to kick some guys ass. it was loud, but since it was across the parking lot, the voice was muted and echoed.
"you pushed my girlfriend!" he was yelling, his voiced strained from emotion and alcohol. i imagined his face was red and he was sweating. his chest puffed out, his fists in balls.
"you pushed my girlfriend, asshole!" at the top of his lungs.
it died down a few minutes, then RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR WINDOW (we live on the bottom floor) we heard him. it literally sounded as if he was IN OUR ROOM!
"YOU PUSHED MY GIRLFRIEND!"
then the voice of a young girl, equally drenched in emotion and alcohol, pleading with her boyfriend to leave.
"PLEASE, JORDAN, I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!"
"DON'T FIGHT HIM, JORDAN, LET'S JUST GO!
"PPPLLLLLLLEEEEEEEAAAAASSE!"
yes, Jordan, i thought. listen to your girlfriend and GO THE FUCK HOME!
"YOU PUSHED MY GIRLFRIEND. I'M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!"
just then, a deep, booming voice from across the complex yells, "shut the fuck up!" you could tell this dude was big. pissed. and ready to roll. i was only two of the three, but lacking the most important part (namely, being "big") i try not to get myself into compromising circumstances, lest i get my ass handed to me.
anyway, the emotion finally drained, the alcohol was absorbed and Jordan apparently listened to his girlfriend.
then, of course, the scrotum-lickers upstairs woke up at 7 so they could kneel before the power and glory of their lord. FUCKING FABULOUS!

lastly, our apartment complex allows pets (which is an rarity here in Utah) so there are TONS of pets around. this is also the reason we chose this place. anyway, there is a leash requirement because of there being so many dogs and so much uncertainty when dogs get together. well, apparently this leash requirement doesn't apply to everyone. and from my quick and dirty calculation, it only applies to about half of us. we're supposed to rat on those who don't use leashes, and if we do we get a cut in our rent. it's tempting. especially when you see some punk cocksucker walking around with his dog without a leash (the dog is, of course, always either a boxer, pitbull, rottweiler or a doberman pinscher) and the dude is wearing a tank top and has a barbed wire tatto armband, or a Yosemite Sam on his bicep or something equally lame. it's hard not ratting on them. it's hard not walking up to them and just slugging them in the side of the head.

anyway, this place sucks, but i know it's no worse than the millions of similar apartment complexes across America (and probably across the world). these places suck. they harbor the lowest of human filth and do nothing more than make me appreciate the fact that i've accomplished enough with my life that this stint is only temporary.

gators

well, my vaunted Fightin' Gators of the University of Florida got annihilated by the Crimson Tide of the University of Alabama. 31-3. it wasn't even that close. i'm sad.

this apartment life

we've been in this apartment about a month now and i've come to realize how good we had it at our house. i've forgotten just how shitty it is to be renting an apartment; living with all these other assholes, renting their apartments.
at this particular apartment complex each unit is given one covered parking space. it's nothing more than a flimsy corrugated sheet of tin propped up by poles. but, it does help keep the rain, sun and (in the winter) snow off the cars. my wife has to park in an uncovered spot (and it's not some chauvinistic thing, it's just that my care is newer and hers isn't, in case you were wondering).
anyway, upon arriving home from work today some cocksucker was parked in my parking spot. i saw a bunch of assholes and dick-knuckles loitering around my stairwell. i pulled right up behind the car and honked my horn four times. they looked over and didn't move, or act like anything they should be concerned about was going down. so, i found an uncovered parking spot, wrote a nasty little note on a slip of scrap paper that i always keep with me (just in case the muse strikes, you know?) and slipped it under the windshield wiper on my way in.
i watched out my window, about 15 minutes later, when two of the cocksuckers (one asshole and one dick-knucle, as it turned out) walked up to the offending car, got in and pulled out. what fucking gall. what moxy. jesus. well, the didn't see the note until they were almost out of the driveway, but i saw them grab it and read it. they laughed, then both stuck their hands out of their respective windows and flipped (i suppose me) off. real fucking funny, asswhipes. i hope it happens again. i'm pretty sure i can take them one at a time. first the asshole, then the dick-knuckle.

on the door of our apartment, too, was a notice from UPS saying they delivered a package for us to the office (a decent feature, I suppose). well, upon arriving at the fucking office, to pick up my package, the shitheads closed a few hours early. GREAT! this package contained my 401(k) rollover information from my previous company. i need to sign the document they are trying to send me and fax it to them by Monday. well, i could've had it all done today if it weren't for these piss-ants.

goddamn, i love living in this hellhole. i CANNOT wait for our house to be done. then we can leave this beloved apartment complex for all the assholes, dick-knuckles, pig-fuckers and cocksuckers to inhabit.

i guess i'm writing this to vent a little, but also because they say the pen is mightier than the sword. i don't agree, though. i sure would've liked to have taken a razor-sharp sword to the two punks and their piece of shit car. what the hell can my pen do? give them an ink stain? maybe write offensive words on their skin and clothing? fuck it. give me the sword.

this animal life

waiting in my mailbox when i arrived home from work today was none other than Christopher Cunningham's newest collection, the winner of the 2005 Nerve Cowboy Chapbook Contest, Thru the Heart of This Animal Life, A Measure of Impossible Humor. if you don't know, yet, Cunningham is one of the best living poets in America today. that's a bold statement, i know, but i will back it up.
how? well, my Hemispherical Press will be releasing Cunningham's next book, Upright Against the Savage Heavens, in the first half of 2006. so, if you buy Cunningham's current book from Nerve Cowboy, and you don't like it, i'll give you a copy of Upright. i am THAT convinced that you'll dig his stuff. so, go to Nerve Cowboy's website, get the address and send them the $6 for the book.
you can thank me later, with a beer, if we ever meet (or if we've already met, when we meet again).

speaking of poetry books, i bought two collections of Billy Collins's work -- Nine Horses and Sailing Alone Around the Room -- the other night. they are pretty good; rife with great images and those ironic twists that i'm fond of. it's amazing this guy was our Poet Laureate considering his style of writing. gives me hope that one of our brethren (or sistren?) will make it big. but, i wonder what Collins has that some of us don't? an academic pedigree? maybe. good friends in high places? perhaps. it certainly isn't talent. there are a bunch of poets struggling in the small (and unknown) press with just as much talent as Mr. Collins. either way, they're good collections.

in the end, though, i'll take This Animal Life and Upright any day of the everloving week.

are you serious?

so, our great and prescient president sees that his constituents are grumbling about the long-rising gas prices (which have only gotten worse due to the two recent hurricanes that have ravaged the south in the past month), so he suggests that we drive our cars less.
wow, what a brilliant idea. only, it won't work. a lot of us NEED to drive our cars. with the public transit system being as horrendously inadequate as it is in much of America, driving is the only choice.
so, the genius in DC tells us to drive less. not that he wants improvements to the gas efficiency of current combustion engine technology; not that he's willing to spend money on fuel cells and other alternative fuels; not that he's looking into improving the public transit infrastructure in every major and minor city in the US. nope. we are to stop driving our damn cars. what the hell?
moron.

now, how exactly did this dolt get elected into office for a second term?

been awhile

it's been awhile since my last post. it's a pretty slow period in life right now. i'm still struggling to figure things out at the new job, waiting in the tiny apartment for our new house to be built, writing absolutely NOTHING in the interim.

one poetry-related thing: i did receive my copy of remark. #37. it's a fine issue with poetry by the likes of ron lucas, Brian McGettrick, William Taylor, Jr., Chris Kornacki, J.J. Campbell and Glenn W. Cooper, among others. check it out!

i hope to have more things to update about in the near future.

back

well, we're back from housesitting for our friend. it's nice to be back. the best is going to be sleeping in our own bed, but a close second is being able to have consistent access to the internet.

the wife is working late tonight. sucks, but it happens. hell, i'll be working late nights in the coming weeks for sure. i've only been at work three weeks an i'm already swamped with so much work. it's ridiculous how busy and understaffed they are. ah hell.

i got a postcard from my buddy Henry Denander today announcing that he and another friend, Adrian Manning, will have a book out together for Art Bureau's Highball Reading Series. the book is titled Bring Down the Sun. i'm happy for them and look forward to seeing the new book. don't forget folks, if you like the poetry of any small press writers, you MUST support the small press by purchasing subscriptions to journals and purchasing chapbooks. without support it will die.

anyway, it's good to be back.

got a few seconds

well, i was able to steal away for a few seconds. thought i'd post a little news.
i received my contributor's copy of Main Channel Voices, where my poem the relationship archaeologist is featured. Main Channel Voices bills itself as a "Dam Fine" journal of poetry, and it IS awfully "dam" good.

we're still at our friend's house, but we'll be back at our place Thursday night.

Lastly, i should mention that i'm reeling with joy from my Florida Gators' win against their vaunted rival the Tennessee Volunteers. What a great game and what a great feeling. i hope there are more wins to come.

away

we interrupt this program for a announcement from our sponsor:

we have been house (and pet) sitting since last Thursday, and will be for a week (until next Thursday) and unfortunately i have limited access to the internet, so if i owe you an email i promise to reply Thursday or shortly after.

we now return you to your regularly scheduled program.

hookt on phonicks workt for me

it's about that time, again kids:
a third installment of

justin.barrett's simple rules of English

calendar --
the word is not spelled any of the following ways:
calander
calandar
calender
callander
it's not that hard. c-a-l-e-n-d-a-r. also, a collander is a strainer used to drain water from spaghetti or potatoes or other boiled foods.

cemetery --
the word is not spelled c-e-m-e-t-a-r-y. there are no a's in a cemetery.

alter/altar --
alter means to change something. an altar is a bench that is used to pray over.

personal/personnel --
personnel are people of a company. personal is how a person away from their job lives.

exorcise/exercise --
if you mean a workout, then use the word exercise. if you mean to remove a demon from someone's soul, then exorcise is right.
one question i have is why neither of these words follows the typical American English convention of ending -ise and -yse words in -ize and -yze (realize, analyze, capitalize, organize, etc.). weird.

eminent/imminent/immanent --
if you mean something is pressing and just about to happen, it is imminent. if you are talking about someone being famous or prominent, then you are describing someone who is eminent. immanent is very rare and means inherent or present throughout the universe. if you don't know the difference between these three words, then you are most likely not meaning immanent.
by the way, it's "eminent domain" not "imminent domain".

elicit/illicit --
illicit means illegal (illicit drugs). elicit is always a verb and means to draw forth a confession or comment.

skittish --
the correct spelling of this word is s-k-i-t-t-i-s-h. it is not:
skiddish
skidish
skitish
the difficulty some people have with spelling this one baffles me.

embarrass --
this one is ironic. people continually embarrass themselves by spelling this word wrong. it is not spelled in any of the following ways:
embaras
embarass
embarras
embarress
there are two r's and two s's. don't embarrass yourself and remember how spell this one.

complement/compliment --
this one can be difficult, though you should be able to get it with a little thought. if you mean a nicety said to another, you are talking about a compliment. if you mean something that pairs well with something else, you are talking about a complement.

alright. that's the end of this installment. hope you enjoyed it. let me know if you have any other spelling or grammar errors that you consistently see, which annoy you. there are hundreds out there, no doubt.

alive and well

we made it back from Las Vegas in one piece. it’s a six-hour drive from Salt Lake City, which isn’t too bad unless you’ve slept a sum total of five hours in the two days you were down there (like we did) and drank much more during the waking hours than you should have (ditto) and drove home by instinct alone (again, ditto). anyway, we made it back alive and well.
i’d like to say it’s good to be back, but it’s not. at all.

our friend’s wedding was beautiful. he rented out a cute, little chapel in the Bellagio and the bride looked stunning. and, our friend cleaned up nicely. he’s a lucky guy. the wedding was short and sweet and not one of those long, drawn-out affairs where everyone wants to fall asleep and ends up wishing the newly-married couple a lifetime of hell and horror.
the reception was held at the MGM Grand, in a suite on the 21st floor with a balcony overlooking the Strip. it was stunning. an acoustic guitarist strummed soft songs on the balcony, the alcohol flowed freely and the food was top-notch.
and, we were sufficiently inebriated: our emotions well lubed, our stress and worries melted and pooled at the bottom of our psyche, good friends nearby to bullshit with. it was a perfect evening. my wife even mentioned to me that she wished that night would never end (and she didn’t even say that on our wedding night). granted, this probably had more to do with the fact that we were in Vegas, not working, and enjoying a fabulous celebration. back when we got married we had less stress in our lives, weren’t in Vegas and the celebration was less fabulous.

we gambled a little bit while we were there, of course. (we gamboled a little, too, but we were drunk and that’s another story for a later time.) a few slots here and there, some video poker, but we did the best playing live poker at the Aladdin. we played 1-3 limit Hold ‘Em the first night we got there. the wife and i bought in for $40 each and walked away with $130 total ($50 profit; she won $19 and i $31) after playing for over four hours (until five in the morning). nothing world-killing, but still pretty good considering two of the friends who accompanied us on the trip played as well and lost their buy-ins; and people all over the room were busting out. it was a good time, all around. we didn’t get a chance to play again on this trip, though we desperately wanted to. oh well.
so far, we’ve never had a losing session at a poker table in a casino. hopefully, we can keep that streak going for when we return to Vegas (which we are planning to do sometime early next year).

now, it’s all about trying to get our circadian rhythms back to some semblance of normalcy. so far, no dice. i need sleep.

Las Vegas

well, we leave for Las Vegas tomorrow after work. it's only a six-hour drive from SLC to LV, so it won't be too bad. one of our friends, who no longer lives in Utah, is getting married down there, so it should be fun.
i won't be posting while down there, obviously, but i do have plans to post, however, a third installment "hooked on phonics worked for me" when i get back. it's been a while since the last part, and i have some things that need to be talked about.
until then.

necessary like a revolution

i received a letter today from one of the best living poets. his name is Chris Cunningham and odds are pretty good, sadly, that you don't know of him. this will change soon as he has two books coming out in the next six or seven months. he is amazing. his poems are brilliant like ignited magnesium, painful like a lost dog, necessary like a revolution.
Chris's letters, too, burn. his words are such that i don't know whether to cry or rise up in anger and take on the world. crying is easier.
anyway, i just wanted to mention him because Hemispherical Press will be releasing one of his books early next year. it will be a MUST read. also, he was the winner of the most recent Nerve Cowboy Chapbook Contest, and the winning manuscript will be released in the very near future. look for it. it, too, is a monster and will be the best thing Liquid Paper Press (Nerve Cowboy's imprint) has ever done. PERIOD!

back to the grind. the three day weekend, as usual, was too short. i don't think i'll ever see retirement, but jesus i hope i do.

poetic injustice?

well, what do you know? in today's Salt Lake Tribune, on the front page of The Arts section, an article titled Poetic Injustice? is featured.
the article discusses whether or not "accessible" poetry (or "approachable" poetry) cheapens poetry. it's a ridiculous notion, in my mind, but the article is well-written and includes the thoughts of Billy Collins (ex-Poet Laureate) and a number of local Utah academic poets.
as you'd expect, the academics/teachers argued that "accessible" poetry (i.e. poetry that can be understood) is "lesser" poetry; not as "poetic" as the more academic, unapproachable style that pervades the academic journals.
Billy Collins had a great line about why teachers feel this way: "Teachers tend to present poetry in the classroom that is difficult to understand, and they do it to protect their jobs, because only difficult poems need a teacher to help explain them." now, that's beautiful. Mr. Collins also said he gets a lot of flak, and is a sitting-duck, because he sells more books than most of the inaccessible/academic poets, and also because he doesn't have a tortured, misery-ridden persona, which seems to be a prerequisite for much of poetry.
he did say (and this is something i agree with even more), "I think more people should be reading it but maybe fewer people should be writing it."
amen.
read the article. it's pretty good and is pretty damn typical when it comes to what the academics think about poetry of non-academics. the fact that Billy Collins was ever Poet Laureate is rather amazing, if you think about the style and voice and "accessibility" of his poems.

i received the 18 poems that Eric Dejaeger of Belgium translated into French. it's pretty wild to see your own words in another language. he said some will be published in his journal Microbe and others will likely appear in other French-language journals in France and Belgium. what's even cooler is that i will receive a copy of each journal and magazine in which one of these translations appears. man, this is so exciting.

i love this time of year

college football is here, and happier i could not be. i love it. plus, my beloved Florida Gators won today against a game Wyoming Cowboys team. the wife and i both get so hyped up during this time of year. each Saturday is devoted to nothing but football. and, this year will be no different. my Gators have a brand new coach and everything points to a us having a great season. i certainly hope so.

i've been getting a few calls recently from some people at my old job with problems and issues they need help with. i told them to call me if anything were to come up, and i meant it. i cared a lot for the people i was in charge of and with whom i worked directly, but all of these calls only let me know that i made the right decision to leave.

Monday is Labor Day and i don't have to go to work. hopefully, the rest of you (in America) have the day off as well. enjoy yourselves!

the move, the job, the new apartment

i neglected to mention how the move to the new apartment went. well, it went about as well as could be expected. the chest freezer i was so worried about turned out to be easier than i thought. with a little ingenuity, some muscle and some luck, it zipped up the tiny staircase and right out into the Budget rental truck.
the thing that nearly killed us was this huge and tall (nearly 7-foot) armoire we had in our bedroom. it had to weigh well over 750 pounds. we had two other people helping us, and with all four of us we still struggled. the armoire got some wall paint marks on it, some scratches on the side and bottom, but all is good and we survived with no fatalities.

the apartment we moved into is tiny. a small one-bedroom with a little kitchen, a small (barely existent) dining room, decent-sized living room and bathrooms and wee little laundry/utility room. it'll do for the next 6-8 months as our house is being built, but it's certainly not something i'd want to live in for too long.

the new job.
ah, the new job. well, the new job is a new job. it's slow now, as i learn my way around the building and laboratories; as i learn my way around the regulations and protocols; as i learn my way around the personalities, office culture and unspoken mores.
i can't wait until the Training Department considers me fully trained so i can jump in and get to work, but until then i can do nothing but sit around, read procedures and slowly get trained.

i'm baaack

it's been a week since my last post. and, oh, how things have changed.
we've moved to a new place; a small one-bedroom apartment. the computer i am typing on is on the dining room table, most of our stuff is packed away into a storage shed, and the dog and cat are constantly fighting because they've no room to escape from each other (i'm sure the wife and i will end up in a similar fate before long).
i also have a new job. things are going well, so far. i've only been there 3 days, and it's been nothing but reading of SOPs and testing methods, but this is typical for a new job in this industry. it's only a matter of time before i get fully trained and can begin doing real work again.

i have some good pieces of poetry news to report, and one bad.
first the bad: i received a rejection from The Great American Poetry Show. this is an anthology in its second volume. i might try with more pieces. it would be a great anthology to get into.
now, the good:
1) i received my contributor's copy of The Flatlands #2. it's a nice-looking (albeit thin) journal out of Ohio. i have two poems in this issue. other contributors include Owen Roberts, John Sweet, William Taylor, Jr. and Christopher Robin.
2) i received an acceptance from Main Channel Voices for a poem to appear in their Fall 2005 issue.
and lastly (something i'm most excited about)
3) i've received a solicitation from Eric Dejaeger out of Belgium to translate some of my poems into French to be published in Belgian and French poetry journals. this is so freaking cool. it'll be neat to see my poems in French.

last thing. when i moved i had to convert my internet account to another account and for some reason my email abilities were turned off. therefore, any emails any of you might have been trying to send me since Friday have been lost. i'm sorry. please resend any emails you might have tried to send me. everything is copacetic now.