~-H-A-L-F-- A-- C-U-P- ~

we plan to regularly showcase Longhouse publications on the Birdhouse, along with the work of Bob Arnold. We will share what we call "Half a Cup" ~ half of each publication to give to those an enticement to perhaps purchase the booklet, and for those that just want to take, take away! It is a gift. Many are broke and have no money and may be in a library right now just getting warm and have stumbled upon this page. Well, here is a friend. Others may want to build a little library. Here is your chance. Link to purchase information.

TOM CLARK

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Tom Clark has been working as a words-smith, tried and true, like the never ending town garage in every small town in once-upon-a-time-land. That's where we are now with this good man of letters: biographies of Charles Olson, Edward Dorn, Robert Creeley — maybe best described as his forefathers and respected - plus the myriad books of poems and prose and thinking matter booklets and chaplets and broadsides that have been issued for near 50 years. As a young man he started a press that he called Once, and the next issue was called Twice, then Thrice, Thrice and a 1/2, Frice, Ice, Nice, Vice, Slice and Spice. . .there is nothing like a man having a sporting time, which he then extended into his stint as poetry editor at The Paris Review, and all these years later, without fail, registers new poems and art pieces from his nocturnal post Beyond the Pale
I mean, for goodness sakes, be there or be square.




photo © bob arnold




DO KEEP READING BELOW. . .

JOHN LEVY









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John Levy has had a long and steady relationship with Longhouse, going back to the early 70s and the small anthology of poems 3, with Bob Arnold and David Giannini. His list of book publications include Among the Consonants (Elizabeth Press), Oblivion, Tyrants, Crumbs (First Intensity), The Nightest (Longhouse) plus other publications that range from a book of prose from life & times in Greece, editing his small press journal Smoot, and various chapbooks and delights. All of this well versed, while making his living as a public defender in Tucson. Three cheers!





DO KEEP READING BELOW. . .

AUSTIN SMITH








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From generations of farmers Austin Smith makes his living and his poetry. Longhouse has published both of Austin's titles Wheat & Distance and the above Instructions For How To Put An Old Horse Down. His work has taken him from Illinois to Alaska, California, and now settling onto a new farm in Wisconsin.





DO KEEP READING BELOW. . .

THOMAS MEYER








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Poet Thomas Meyer was Jonathan’s partner for forty years, and the amanuensis of Jargon, the press phenomena he ran with Williams for decade after decade. He is the author of a selected poems At Dusk Iridescent (Jargon) and other books of poems. His translation of the Daode Jing (Flood Editions) is one to behold.

BONANZA

I nabbed another prose poem, or whatever it is, through my letter to you (Jewell) about A. I had to change his name so he wouldn't be recognized, though there is only one A. If you saw him you'd say, "Yep, pretty good there Bob-O, that new name nails him." You'll see the piece before Christmas.

Plus my own new booklet of poems which I'll tuck in with your order from our bookshop on Monday. Many thanks for this order and yes you have the right amount. I believe you will love both items. This was just a little review for little beauties...I'm working on a larger spread of books, but of course none are in our bookshop, yet. Too new. They're in my library! I keep up my diet of reading through an awful lot of bad poetry that is getting published, while I try to publish a lot of very fine poets that get folded up into tiny shirt pocket booklets. Is there something wrong here? Is it me? Is it you? Is it Them? In fact, just this second, and not a second too soon, I learned that a small book of my poems scheduled from a translator and publisher in Norway has been turned down by the country's cultural board. I say: there is no such thing as good news or bad news, just news. Take the news and Press On. All I can think about is how a small tribe of devoted souls over there put in a good part of their lives dedicated to making something worth while. It didn't work. Give up? Never.

6 degrees early this morning! Where's my socks?

A kitten has changed and melted away any form of cabin fever in these parts.

A kitten? Sweetheart agrees. This is all we two snow trolls needed in our life? Such an easy antidote.

Yesterday I started calling Kokomo Cutie Pie Jimmy Monk Arnold, "Little Jo". Sweetheart made a face and sighed, "Bonanza?"

Well, not for me, just the sound and skipness of "Little Jo" is what I like. I ended up over the years calling all our cats many names. "Schizo" may as well be their names by the time they are mature.

Though I have to question Sweetheart a little closer because as I recall every single girl I knew during Bonanza's tv reign (mid-60s), fell in love with Little Joe. I believe I did as well. So who is she kidding?

I just read this aloud to her and she mused, "Yeah, but he became so square."

"I had a girlfriend who was absolutely in love with him," my Californian sweetheart said as she drifted back upstairs wearing 19 pounds of warm clothes. "Upstairs", in a genuine New England farmhouse, means freezer. I remember visiting Hayden when he was still in northern Vermont and he heated his tidy ramshackle house, and half the size as our place, with a fat kerosene heater in the living room, where H. sat beside it in maybe a rocking chair. Long ago and faraway. Going upstairs was a narrow tunnel stairway. Same with Ted's place, except Ted's staircase curls around....beloved!

The sun is returning, but no heat to it, though it's lovely on the living room floor. We will head into town for a short stay to do laundry and visit a few places. The laundry has to be taken to the car or truck now by sled, dragged back-in wet over snow and hung on a long outdoor rope line. O Pioneers.

Bob Arnold says, the somewhat forgotten actress Suzy Amis starred in the western Ballad of Little Jo.

"Little Joe" from Shane

snowman photo © bob & susan arnold

S-O-M-E---B-E-A-U-T-Y










JEFFERY BEAM
from an invocation




From cedar's green feathers---------------cedar's red odor

From moss' cool fever----------------------earthworm's glowing

From pitch-pine's field-taking--------- ---pitch-pine's black tarring

From the heel-worn path------------------eye-light roaming

~

From cornfield's stalking-------------------bobwhite ascending

From the cardinal's scarlet-----------------a royalty before us

From persimmon & apple------------------urgent oriole feeding

From blue-eyed grass in shadow-----------late summer's Eden




~




From footstep to cow path----------------mud pool & duck quack

From goldenrod's augur-------------------winter gathers

From ice cracking oak limb----------------frisson & weeping

From beech leaf in winter------------------gold filigree forming



~




From the extremely exquisite and limited edition —

Country Valley Press
countryvalley@mac.com
http://web.mac.com/countryvalley



These small Japanese bound booklets are taking off nicely in design and in almost homage to the earlier editions issued from Cid Corman's Origin and James L. Weil's Elizabeth Press.
Very good company to keep.



~


KEN MIKE


from ODINSPIT








Limited to 200 copies, visual art/poem
Nestled up in Thai Bird's Nest covers
w/ CD!

Ed Rayher was at the helm forming this beauty, but Ed informs us his Swamp Press isn't the publisher, though copies may be had from —

Swamp Press, 15 Warwick Avenue, Northfield, MA. 01360.
ed@swamppress.com





~




Ear delight —

[Temporarily out-of-stock]

12 GREAT AMERICANS

Ray Bremser
Diane di Prima
Ted Berrigan
Carol Berge
Ed Sanders
Charles Bukowski
John Wieners
Jim Silver
John Giorno
Allen Ginsberg
Paul Blackburn
Harold Norse

All 26 tracks of this CD are taken from Carl Weissner's master tape recorded between 1966-1968 for the original LP pressed by Cold Turkey Press.

The CD issued from Cold Turkey/Klacto/Sea Urchin may be purchased from Longhouse.

Interest in the collector's item LP of the same may inquire.







~


GERRY LOOSE

from the deer path to my door



here doing what I do best

weeding reading drinking




~




tax bills deadlines work undone

I plan a seat round the sycamore



~



time spent with black parrot queen of the night tulip

bulbs why not working sitting



~



early bus to town for teachings better
follow the drumming woodpecker into the woods





Oystercatcher Press publishes
contemporary poetry at—

4 Coastguard Cottages
Old Hunstanton
Norfolk PE36 6 EL

www.oystercatcherpress.com


Gerry Loose lives (British Isles) on land and water (houseboat) with photographer Morven Gregor. There is so much of his work to be found. See the very fine Shearsman catalog and elsewhere.



~



Senses delight —

LORINE NIEDECKER
CATHY COOK, filmmaker





I first watched snippets or the fledgling sweet edges of this film at the Lorine Niedecker Festival held in Milwaukee Wisconsin in 2003. Many of us were gladly squeezed into a darkened room in a Fort Atkinson library to catch this, and Cid Corman was with us — one who knew LN one of the best. I knew in the first seconds we were with a filmmaker who had the touch for Niedecker's poetry, person and habitat. Now with the whole film completed and available on DVD, the mystique of Cathy Cook's Niedecker is all of ours.

This one may be purchased from Longhouse.

TIGERS

Ow. In fact ouch.
John Ashbery

I'm inside now after a day of shoveling heavy snow
work clothes hung up by the wood stove
ice clothes melting
which attracts the kitten
the water drops. . .
each one, one after another
and the kitten is on them
never seen these before!
pattering on the small rug
then on his head
it's all fascinating


that's a kitten —
one with the wild
everybody in the world, except for millions now,
once understood how we made our living was
with nature
not against it, with
water drops also onto our heads


we can't feed every hungry person for some reason
we can't jail the corporate criminals for some reason
just the one that feverishly stole from the rich for his own reason


we can't seem to understand why we are fascinated by the sex escapades
of Tiger Woods, the first truly black athlete accepted by white people
thought of not as black by black people


in the wild many before had their own sex stories
though none were the pet of whites, on the white golf links,
not until Tiger


who is hardly a cat —
a cat is all day fascinated by just simple water drops
the freest animal in all the world



Bob Arnold says learn to meow, purr and scratch

iron sculpture by Scott Tindall & photo © bob arnold

TWO OF THE FEW



Last night I painted the third coat of

Periwinkle twilight on the bathroom floor

A new floor I just built

Sweetheart stood in the doorway in a

Pretty blue dress and talked to me



A date



Before that we had enjoyed red raspberry

Ice-cream cones with chocolate drops —

What a scrumptious world it has become!

We believe both paint and ice-cream are two of

The best things that have improved over the years

Bob Arnold wasn’t going to share this itty-bitty poem, but Sweetheart said she liked the colors


morning glory photo © susan arnold

LICHEN

48 IN THE SHADE



The other day in the local post office (closest to us is 10 miles away) while Sweetheart sifted down book packages for customers, I met up with an old builder friend I haven't talked to in almost 25 years


We built a hefty footbridge together back in those years


He wanted to know how that bridge was faring since it is a mile up river from our place


I told Pete I had to replace the stringers he cut with me from ironwood trees because the contractor we worked for refused to believe, like we both knew, that the bark should be peeled from the logs before setting them in as supports


So the good wood rotted


I told him I had to work right in the river with my aluminum ladder...12 feet deep and the top of the ladder tied to the bridge, steady as you go


I took each old stringer out and put new 4 x 4 pressure treated braces in


Holding up that small part of the bridge momentarily with my shoulder


Today I'd make sure to charge accordingly; back then I bet I thought I was rich with a few hundred dollars in my pocket


Pete liked the story


Later in the day, I got everything done up at a carpentry job across town in the woods, and Sweetheart napped on the lawn in the warm sun


Faraway from anywhere


48 in the shade

Pete also told Bob Arnold he read one of his books and recognized everybody in the book, but one

star-roof & photo © bob arnold

BUILDERS

BOOKSHELVES OF THE FUTURE

sculpture & photo © bob arnold

MOTHERS

BOB ARNOLD





LUCKY



She is right, this woman

I love, it has been a windy

Fall. And her blonde hair slips

Apart in long strands and with

One hand she combs it away from

Her face and she is smiling. For

Lunch she eats an apple and suns

Her legs, a summer skirt raised.

She is mother. A small boy is

Napping upstairs in the house.

When awake he will chase

Leaves that fall down from the

Sky, that’s how he sees it.

He calls me daddy because I am.



When I was off at work this

Morning up river laying stone

Along the road in the village

A blonde woman and her young son

Visited me. Hands cold gripping

Wet stone, boots chalked. This

Woman carried her little boy

In her arms, his green sweater

Was like the one my son wears

His mother knitted, ah the love

of mothers! and I gathered stone

By hand and thought of blue sky

Above, day clear as the river,

And why you must love what you do.








FATHERS

WELD



Oh yes, I've known welders
They're all by themselves


Their work smell is a strict greeting
From the Industrial Revolution


Years ago I knew a welder who worked
In town out of his one red garage


Doors always open wide, even in the rain
A fire of some kind burning


Victor in his helmet and torch in hand
Boots splattered, old pants------- cement floor


I've arrived to have one more truck bumper torn off
From the mud rides out of this valley brazened back on


He'll do what he can------- backside of town
Near the river------- some tall maple trees


Beautiful old homes going the way of no money any more
Look at all those slate roofs!


So many years later, Victor all gone, red garage is still there
And I'm visiting all over again the same location because


Our son has just moved into a rental in
The old house where maybe Victor lived


To my mind Victor just lived in the garage------- What's a house?
I mention how I've been here before to our son who has no


Idea really what I'm talking about except it's on
The way to just one more of his father's stories. . .

for Gerry Loose

photos © bob arnold

"Lucky" from Once In Vermont (Gnomon, 1999)

CLARICE LISPECTOR
( 1920 -1977 )

STONE

Villa of Souls

Here's where you might rest from your climb







heavy and light of leaf









balanced just-so









follow along touching with your fingertips









into the sunshine









just at your height









listeners. . .









rolling over hill & dale










stand there, year by year, rain, wind, snow









stack up, make yourself








and lean into the work

— Bob Arnold

stonemason & photographer


~


remembering
Charis Wilson