Thursday, March 5, 2020
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
LONGHOUSE BIBLIOGRAPHY 2019-2020
T H E L O N G H O U S E
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
2019 ~ 2020
2019 ~
2019. Bob Arnold. Woodlanders. Longhouse 2019
Susan has broken her left ankle, surgery tomorrow, it’s late February 2020 and time to write up a few things for the bibliography heading us to almost 50 years of Longhouse. Woodlanders is a sequence of short poems that makes one long poem and I’m quite happy to have it looked over and cared for by Ian Hamilton Finlay’s back cover quote.
2019. Reza Saberi and Robin Magowan, edited and translations. A Rose Garden of Persian Poetry from the 10th Century to the Present. Longhouse 2019.
We have now published quite a few of Robin Magowan’s translation titles and this book, a team effort for Robin, is the largest and most expansive of all the books. Time to delve deeply into the 10th century and come forward.
2019. Guy Birchard. Ishmael. Longhouse 2019. Postcard.
How it often happens, a friend, a poet, someone sends me something in the mail that hits me squarely between the eyes and I simply want to publish it at that moment, and often do. Guy’s poem here is no exception and I designed it into a postcard for easy handling and postage. Give the postal carrier, always, something good to read.
2019. Bobby Byrd. What’s It Like Not Being Here? Longhouse 2019.
Like Guy, Bobby’s poem came through the mail from Bobby as a poem to share. I wanted to then share it, so printed it up as a longer postcard poem complete with a background relief photograph of the Organ Mountains and other ranges close to Bobby. Ted Enslin used to write me, splendidly, of his winters away from Maine spent in the Organ Mountains.
2019. Gary Hotham. 23. Longhouse 2019
It wasn’t that long ago but I already forget if Gary sent me poems or I asked him for poems, I believe the latter now that it’s upon me, and Gary complied. He sent a few more than 23 but that’s the number of poems I came up with after my reading and I said to Gary, “Why not call the gathering “23”? Gary agreed. Susan and I made the 23 poems into a foldout booklet with a wrap around band.
2019. Louise Landes Levi. The Madness of Kazuko Shirashi, The Poet's Domain. Longhouse 2019.
Louise has forever been a friend of Longhouse. She writes here as she spans the globe as the itinerant self she is, either playing as a musician or reading as poet she is a one-woman band. Lately she has taken up brief residencies in Japan, mostly in Tokyo but her heart is in Kyoto and I still await poems from Kyoto that I can consider for a booklet. This booklet is all Tokyo, with a homage to Japan’s own wonder Kazuko Shirashi. Louise knows how to treat this.
2019. Gerry Loose. In Which. Longhouse 2019.
Gerry is one of my favorite poets of the wild, particularly all that land of the old Great Britain, Scotland, and elsewhere pathways, even to Vietnam. His sentences land with care, keen observation and a manual laborer’s touch for how to make something work. Work well. This one does. A larger postcard sending through the mail.
2019. Joseph Massey. Backroad Scroll. Longhouse 2019.
Joe was visiting family in his native Delaware and wrote saying he had some new work he was immediately fond of and because we have published a finger food amount of small booklets by Joe, would we care to see these new poems for a possible booklet. We would. Joe sent them and we did them up in a foldout booklet that works with the pace of a fine long walk.
2019. J. D. Whitney. My. Longhouse 2019
J.D. and I have been writing one another, each day, without fail, for years. Sometimes a poem gets tucked into a letter, all emails, and this poem I just couldn’t help myself and wanted to publish it that same night. It spills down the page not as a spill but as water stone to stone to stone, or bird to bird calling. Here is a poet and a poem who knows what he is hearing, listening for and giving to us. Lucky us. Designed into one very long slip.
2020 ~
2020. Bob Arnold. non(e). Longhouse 2020.
I woke up one morning of the full moon and had all these lines wanting to be said and maybe even put onto paper and I had a letter owed to my friend Peter Garland in Maine, so Peter got all those words coming as a Sam Fuller horse stampede, that cinematic in my mind, which then became a document or long poem of how to love our country, keep our country, be our country. It worked best to share the document as one of our bus-tickets, folded into quarters and tucked into regular mail letters. Not as many but some still get them.
2020. Bob Arnold. How Wars Begin. Longhouse 2020
This poem, from an older book but pertinent for these times, I thought should be seen again in a postcard design with an old woodcut fabric to go along with the poem and the sharing. People have some weird idea all rural people are conservative and voters for dizzy autocrats. They may be sometimes dizzy, often conservative, even weird, but the real quality of rural people is seeing the forest for the trees.
2020. Cid Corman. The aim is a poetry. Longhouse 2020.
Here is Cid Corman, photo as a young man, looking backwards and forging ahead. Good ol’ Cid. I have a prose piece on one of Cid’s favorite subjects: poetry, the original one page manuscript, with brief corrections and date when written as the inside of the bus-ticket, ideal to frame, and it is likewise decorated with many poems from Cid’s seldom seen last book of poems of, the many hundreds of poems from volumes 4 and 5. I’m giving you a good dozen.
2020. António Osório. Translated from the Portuguese by Susan Margaret Brown and Patricio Ferrari. THE AFFECTIONATE ROOT. Selection from António Osório
I believe Patricio Ferrari came our way via Louise Landes Levi and Patricio (from Argentina) stayed spry and lively all through our correspondence setting up some plan to showcase the debut in America of António Osório’s poems. No doubt Patricio welcomed one of our foldout booklets but I saw far too many gems in this manuscript to curtail the amount of richness that would be snugged up into a booklet. A bus ticket was the way to go — tall and airy and very light to send the poems around the world considering the tax that now comes with overseas mailing. We send this one out as a letter from home.
2020. Norman Schaefer. Bear Lessons. Longhouse 2020.
All true. And Norman is the modest and sharp-eyed trailblazer to write the real bear story, without the usual hyperbole that comes with bear and fish yarns. You read the little book and look around to see if you are safe, and if you are, you’re glad.
2020. Andrew Schelling. After The Cricket. Longhouse 2020.
Decades now Andrew and I have traded what we call pony express correspondence, actual letters off an old keyboard and sent on paper and gotten there by all sorts of US postage stamps showing Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, old trains, birds of prey, Henry David Thoreau. Remember postage stamps when we were kids. They’ve gotten much better. Letters are great to write and receive. Sometimes Andrew sends poems with the letters, or one poem taste and I ask for more and more then come and I see a foldout booklet evolving and that’s how this one happened. A beautiful title.
2020. John Phillips. Hourglass Longhouse 2020.
I’ve been publishing John Phillips for almost twenty-five years. He came to me out of the blue from his native Cornwall, or he may have already been living in his favored other native habitat of Slovenia where his wife Jasna is from. They live there now, maybe settled for good? Many fine poems are being written by John and every so often I get the feel for another booklet of poems, big enough to be a small book of poems, always complete and nourishing from John, and this is one more. Turn the hourglass over.
_______________________________________
M O R E T O C O M E
_________________________________________
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Monday, March 2, 2020
YOKEL ( 21 ) ~
To Build A Barn
To build a barn you need
Pallets, lots of them.
What do you mean pallets?
I mean pallets, that’s right —
Squared oak, ash, and beech slats
Found around factories, mills,
Trucking outfits, lumberyards.
Grimy, busted, smeared and
Heaped in piled debris, no one
Will argue if you want them.
So Everett’s wife brought a
Few home each day from the
Factory job tossed into the
Pickup truck and Everett
Would unload pallets
Everywhere — behind his house
And mother’s trailer, off to the
Corner pasture — and when
He had twenty he thought to have
Twenty more and when he stockpiled
Nearly two hundred he loaded
Each one onto his hay wagon,
Drove its bounty across the
Road and unloaded it all again
Where he would build his
Barn beside the brook.
You — who buy used barn board
At five dollars a foot and sound
Dry oak or chestnut timber
For post and beam structure
And have this idea that it
All takes money please take note —
Everett’s barn was built with
Pallets, reused dimension and
Chunky hemlock framing milled
From his woodlot, built
In the worse conditions —
On a foundation that already had
One barn burn down mysteriously.
And after a full day’s work
We had the first floor deck
Finished in pallets and it
Snowed all the next day and
The next day after that we
Shoveled off the snow pad,
Went on building — kids and
Relatives handling pallets —
Bucket of all size nails
We dug into all day long.
That was living —
Since then, Everett finally
Gave up and moved away,
While the barn stands up
______________
Bob Arnold
Yokel
Longhouse
2011
Sunday, March 1, 2020
Saturday, February 29, 2020
Friday, February 28, 2020
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
PEDRO PIETRI ~
Puerto Rican Obituary
They worked
They were always on time
They were never late
They never spoke back
when they were insulted
They worked
They never took days off
that were not on the calendar
They never went on strike
without permission
They worked
ten days a week
and were only paid for five
They worked
They worked
They worked
and they died
They died broke
They died owing
They died never knowing
what the front entrance
of the first national city bank looks like
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
passing their bill collectors
on to the next of kin
All died
waiting for the garden of eden
to open up again
under a new management
All died
dreaming about america
waking them up in the middle of the night
screaming: Mira Mira
your name is on the winning lottery ticket
for one hundred thousand dollars
All died
hating the grocery stores
that sold them make-believe steak
and bullet-proof rice and beans
All died waiting dreaming and hating
Dead Puerto Ricans
Who never knew they were Puerto Ricans
Who never took a coffee break
from the ten commandments
to KILL KILL KILL
the landlords of their cracked skulls
and communicate with their latino souls
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
From the nervous breakdown streets
where the mice live like millionaires
and the people do not live at all
are dead and were never alive
Juan
died waiting for his number to hit
Miguel
died waiting for the welfare check
to come and go and come again
Milagros
died waiting for her ten children
to grow up and work
so she could quit working
Olga
died waiting for a five dollar raise
Manuel
died waiting for his supervisor to drop dead
so he could get a promotion
Is a long ride
from Spanish Harlem
to long island cemetery
where they were buried
First the train
and then the bus
and the cold cuts for lunch
and the flowers
that will be stolen
when visiting hours are over
Is very expensive
Is very expensive
But they understand
Their parents understood
Is a long non-profit ride
from Spanish Harlem
to long island cemetery
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Dreaming
Dreaming about queens
Clean-cut lily-white neighborhood
Puerto Ricanless scene
Thirty-thousand-dollar home
The first spics on the block
Proud to belong to a community
of gringos who want them lynched
Proud to be a long distance away
from the sacred phrase: Que Pasa
These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids
and latino janitors
who are well train—
to make everyone
and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent
Juan
died dreaming about a new car
Miguel
died dreaming about new anti-poverty programs
Milagros
died dreaming about a trip to Puerto Rico
Olga
died dreaming about real jewelry
Manuel
died dreaming about the irish sweepstakes
They all died
like a hero sandwich dies
in the garment district
at twelve o’clock in the afternoon
social security number to ashes
union dues to dust
They knew
they were born to weep
and keep the morticians employed
as long as they pledge allegiance
to the flag that wants them destroyed
They saw their names listed
in the telephone directory of destruction
They were train to turn
the other cheek by newspapers
that mispelled mispronounced
and misunderstood their names
and celebrated when death came
and stole their final laundry ticket
They were born dead
and they died dead
Is time
to visit sister lopez again
the number one healer
and fortune card dealer
in Spanish Harlem
She can communicate
with your late relatives
for a reasonable fee
Good news is guaranteed
Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable—
Those who love you want to know
the correct number to play
Let them know this right away
Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
Now that your problems are over
and the world is off your shoulders
help those who you left behind
find financial peace of mind
Rise Table Rise Table
death is not dumb and disable
If the right number we hit
all our problems will split
and we will visit your grave
on every legal holiday
Those who love you want to know
the correct number to play
let them know this right away
We know your spirit is able
Death is not dumb and disable
RISE TABLE RISE TABLE
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
All died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Hating fighting and stealing
broken windows from each other
Practicing a religion without a roof
The old testament
The new testament
according to me gospel
of the internal revenue
the judge and jury and executioner
protector and eternal bill collector
Secondhand shit for sale
learn how to say Como Esta Usted
and you will make a fortune
They are dead
They are dead
and will not return from the dead
until they stop neglecting
the art of their dialogue—
for broken english lessons
to impress the mister goldsteins—
who keep them employed
as lavaplatos
porters messenger boys
factory workers maids stock clerks
shipping clerks assistant mailroom
assistant, assistant assistant
to the assistant’s assistant
assistant lavaplatos and automatic
artificial smiling doormen
for the lowest wages of the ages
and rages when you demand a raise
because is against the company policy
to promote SPICS SPICS SPICS
Juan
died hating Miguel because Miguel’s
used car was in better running condition
than his used car
Miguel
died hating Milagros because Milagros
had a color television set
and he could not afford one yet
Milagros
died hating Olga because Olga
made five dollars more on the same job
Olga
died hating Manuel because Manuel
had hit the numbers more times
than she had hit the numbers
Manuel
died hating all of them
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
and Olga
because they all spoke broken english
more fluently than he did
And now they are together
in the main lobby of the void
Addicted to silence
Off limits to the wind
Confine to worm supremacy
in long island cemetery
This is the groovy hereafter
the protestant collection box
was talking so loud and proud about
Here lies Juan
Here lies Miguel
Here lies Milagros
Here lies Olga
Here lies Manuel
who died yesterday today
and will die again tomorrow
Always broke
Always owing
Never knowing
that they are beautiful people
Never knowing
the geography of their complexion
PUERTO RICO IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE
PUERTORRIQUENOS ARE A BEAUTIFUL RACE
If only they
had turned off the television
and tune into their own imaginations
If only they
had used the white supremacy bibles
for toilet paper purpose
and make their latino souls
the only religion of their race
If only they
had return to the definition of the sun
after the first mental snowstorm
on the summer of their senses
If only they
had kept their eyes open
at the funeral of their fellow employees
who came to this country to make a fortune
and were buried without underwears
Juan
Miguel
Milagros
Olga
Manuel
will right now be doing their own thing
where beautiful people sing
and dance and work together
where the wind is a stranger
to miserable weather conditions
where you do not need a dictionary
to communicate with your people
Aqui
Se Habla Espanol
all the time
Aqui you salute your flag first
Aqui there are no dial soap commercials
Aqui everybody smells good
Aqui tv dinners do not have a future
Aqui the men and women admire desire
and never get tired of each other
Aqui Que Pasa Power is what’s happening
Aqui to be called negrito
means to be called LOVE
________________________
Pedro Pietri
Selected Poetry
City Lights, 2015
edited by Juan Flores &
Pedro Lopez Adorno
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