A Longhouse Birdhouse

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

LONGHOUSE BIBLIOGRAPHY 2011 ~

LONGHOUSE BIBLIOGRAPHY PART FOUR ~ 2011 ~

An early issue from Longhouse when it was initially "Workshop" and even before that "Our Poets Workshop". Shown here is from 1975.

2011

: so much for wanting to write (today) a marathon short commentary on all the final leg of the Longhouse Bibliography, the 2008-2012 years. Instead I opened the day's mail and there was a new book by John Brandi and Steve Sanfield (sent by Steve with other loose poems of Steve's packed in there). I got further serious and started planning a postcard by Steve of one of his poems, plus a small booklet of poems from a series on the Gulf War district, or somewhere in that bedlam. We designed and printed the postcard the next morning and shipped them to Steve. The booklet to follow, and more on all of this when we get there at the July 2012 segment of the bibliography. On with the show!

2011. Bob Arnold. A Possible Eden 2. Bob Arnold’s second book of modern fables. With two paintings by the author. Three color text. Hand-sewn wraps. 40 pages.

: A Possible Eden 2 is the second volume of prose poems I had written over the previous winter & spring. Prose poems are a good habit of mine that occur in bunches and often at the onset of Spring. Or thinking of Spring welled up deep in winter.

2011. Bob Arnold. Bigger Than You. New poems from the woods, river and beloved. All wrapped in decorative Nepalese wraps. Very limited.

: another small book of new short poems, handmade and maybe 30 or so copies sent out mainly to friends or those sending a book gift at the same time as the book is being made — share and share alike. The cover wrap is more lovely embossed natural pressed plants and flowers.

2011. Bob Arnold. Forever. 20 new poems by Bob in this handmade pocket-size companion with Himalayan wraps. One of only 50. Stapled wraps

: and one more. The title says it.

2011. Bob Arnold. Yokel, A Long Green Mountain Poem . New, perfect bound wraps, 156 pages. A small portion of this first appeared in Backwoods Broadside edited by Sylvester Pollet.

: Yokel had a few early appearances and took a great deal of time to get it all fitted right. Since I am still living in the same place as the subject matter and characters, and that back country life is disappearing, I was making celebratory poems and portraits of individuals and occasions right along with elegies and goodbye pieces to those passed on. Those I worked with and saw go. It's the first book in a trilogy that spans 40 years called Woodlanders. I'll speak to the second volume (love poems) when we get there. Someone could say these are love poems as well.

2011. John Bradley. Amongst the Turks. In three-color fold out performance. Very limited. Pamphlet

: with travel poems and photographs from Turkey by John, this is a smaller foldout booklet. John and Jana traveled for a portion of the summer and on their return John just sent poems he had coming to him (day by day) as a sharing, but I could see they would be mounting into a booklet. So it happened.

2011. John Bradley. Fordtopia . In three-color fold out performance. Pamphlet.

: all Henry Ford and his era and expanse and inventions and what was happening with our country all at the same time. A few photographs have been slipped in to grease the gears. John's uncanny ability to steer poetry and historical subjects into Bradley made poems.

2011. Hanne Bramness / with photographs by Ina Otzko. A Calendar In Colour. Three-color fold-out booklet of poems with wrap around band. Limited edition.

: Hanne's third Longhouse booklet following the year's calendar with photographs and poems to match. What I had put aside from one of my handmade books I can see went into Hanne's cover wrap. Ina Otzko was kind enough to share her photographs throughout the booklet.

2011. Susan Briante. $INDU or Ghost Numbers. In three-color fold out performance. Pamphlet.

: Susan looking over and shaking down the US financial district, with sidelight commentary on all contributors in her open field vision. Susan's manuscript arrived with her husband's Farid (up coming) and together we designed and built a family, with their new baby, two booklets shipped to Texas.

2011. Mary Ann Cain. The Water Diaries. In three-color fold out performance. Very limited. Pamphlet

: Mary Ann's complexities of body, soul and landscape brought into view by this foldout of prose reverie, written on the high crest of Colorado (since burned over) and all about a re-building, while holding on.

2011. Thomas A Clark. By The Rock Garden. A tall but narrow road broadside ready to frame from the poet's visit to Ryoanji, Kyoto with photograph by Laurie Clark.

: Tom in the Japanese garden. It looks folded but its appearance is one tall broadside. Someone wrote to me after seeing the photograph of Tom in the famed garden and asked, "How'd he get to be there all alone?!" That's Tom.

2011. Byron Coley. Beefheart. Three-color fold-out booklet of poems with wrap around band. Limited edition. Very limited.

: I already can't remember if Byron sent this to me, or someone else did, but Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) has always been close to us all. The musician and the artist. So the week he passed away we printed this up and got it to all parties onetwothree. Susan's second cousin is Don Van Vliet's wife, Janet. She always liked Janet, but when she saw Captain Beefheart perform in the 60s, no dice.

2011. Cid Corman. Chop. In three-color fold out performance. Very limited. Pamphlet

: in our wish to publish something by Cid every year from the press, Chop is here showcasing Cid's many uses for the handstamps he used on all his correspondence, often on the outside envelope or blue aerogramme. His widow Shizumi gave to me the ink stamps, all that I had seen during my long correspondence with Cid, and it seemed right and lively to share them all further.

2011. Merrill Gilfillan. Warbler Haibun. New poem sequence in fold-out fashion in forest wraps with band. Signed by the poet

: the second Longhouse publication by Merrill, this time shorter (haibun) in a foldout method of hearing the bird sing.

2011. Ray Gonzalez. The Mud Angels, Mesilla, New Mexico. In three-color fold out performance. Very limited. . Pamphlet

: Ray came our way via mutual friend George Kalamaras (we all have a three way zing for music, particularly Gene Clark and others) and while a bit crowded for the format, it all resonates and thensome. I could have made two booklets with all the good poems I had from Ray.

2011. Whit Griffin. Cathedral Ring. In three-color fold out performance. Pamphlet.

: Whit's second Longhouse booklet, and this time a taller design with some of Whit's photographs (often taken off his cellphone no matter where he might be) all taking part. Just look at the blossoms of that tree! You're in Tennessee.

2011. Ken Letko. Forgotten Inventors. In three-color fold out performance. Very limited. Pamphlet

: Ken's poems just played with me nicely as I read, and a sizable group easily fell into place to make a booklet. This effortless is hard work.

2011. Li Po / translated by J. P. Seaton. Fall River Song. A three color fold-out booklet of poems with wrap around band.

: every Sandy booklet of Chinese translations is my favorite, but this one may take the cake. We had just the paper wrap for the cover, and it had taken awhile for us both to finally get to the place where Li Po just had to show up in the Longhouse title family. I'm very partial to the Han Shan booklet we all did as well. Close my eyes on some days, choose one.

2011. Gerry Loose. "Every Year..." . Gerry as always thinking like a tree, plant or bush! A walker of the landscape. Here is a postcard poem to share. Signed by the poet on own small bookplate, ideal to frame

: this poem is the Gerry I know. I never feel I am inside anywhere when I read his poems. Always outdoors.

2011. Bob Love. Saskatchewan Waters. A three color fold-out booklet of poems with wrap around band.

: Bob is a logger in big sky Montana and came my way via his teacher, from long ago, the poet Ken McCullough. I received a bunch of poems from Bob, and while the logging poems are quite fine, there was something exploratory and of a different adventure on a fishing trip with Bob in Canada. One day in the mail, after we published this booklet, came a tangle of sweet grass from Bob and his wife — an aroma to fill the room.

2011. Antonio Machado / Alvaro Cardona-Hine. The Pocket Book Machado. A beautifully packed packet of poems from the master with photograph done-up new by New Mexico's own Alvaro Cardona-Hine. Three-color fold-out booklet of poems with wrap around band. Limited edition.

: we weren't done with Alvaro, now well into his 80's, not by a long shot. Along with his own poems and paintings, he also translates, and Machado quite well.

2011. Joseph Massey. Another Rehearsal for Morning. In three-color fold out performance. Very limited. . Pamphlet. Fold-out booklet. Our third publication by this poet.

: same with Joe, one more booklet, so carefully sculptured between us.

2011. Farid Matuk. Riverside. In three-color fold out performance. Pamphlet.

: Farid's gritty and true poems covering the wider planet he sees and wishes to protect. Some of this work first started out with us and Farid when I was editing ORIGIN, sixth series, and just maybe it was helped along by the good guidance of Dale Smith and Brooks Johnson. The best poets push other poets forward.

2011. Ken McCullough. Diet For The Smallest Planet. In three-color fold out performance. Pamphlet.

: I've long admired Ken's poems and we had already done one shorter booklet together; it was time for something larger. The poems here throw good weight between Montana, Cambodia (Ken also translates from the language) and elsewhere. He writes, "Most of my life I've been eating shit", but it's not what we read, far from it, when we have his poems.

2011. Mohammed Mrabet. / translated by Mark Terrill. "The Canary". Three color 4-1/4 x
6 postcard suitable for framing or slipping into the mail.

~ Mohammed Mrabet ~

: Mark coming through with this poem amongst maybe many he sent at one time and I let this one slip right down onto my lap to read again and again, which we then did up as a postcard. Once upon a time Mark knew and visited Paul Bowles and he brought some essentials away.

2011. Shin Yu Pai. Nearly Invisible. A three color fold-out booklet of poems with wrap around band.

: I had already worked with Shin Yu Pai and her poems in the ORIGIN, sixth series and wanted to see more and she gladly complied. A unique poet so quietly in the room with us all.

2011. Mark Terrill. Up All Night. In three-color fold out performance. Very limited. Pamphlet

: when Mark isn't writing poems, stories, essays, reviews, reading books and getting into trouble with all his cats, he's kicking around his German neighborhood with sketch pad and charcoal, and when he travels away from home, too. We made here some of the poems with some of the sketches. It's my favorite Terrill.

2011. U Sam Oeur. translated from Khmer with Ken McCullough. Ever Hopeful. In three-color fold out performance. Pamphlet.

: while organizing a booklet with Ken, I had in the back of my head his deep resource translations of U Sam Oeur. I had already seen a few of his books and would very much like to have more stemming from Longhouse. We asked and we received from the hands of the translator.

2011. Janine Pommy Vega. Walking Woman With The Tambourine. In three-color fold out performance. Pamphlet.

: these are poems Janine Pommy Vega was working on at her death (toward a new book) and put into our hands. It's another of our larger and fatter foldout booklets with some of Janine's best long poems ever. Slowly but surely this will all evolve into a much larger book of Janine's singing and praises.

2011. Karma Tenzing Wangchuk. Holding My Breath. A three color fold-out booklet of poems with wrap around band.

: Tenzing often writes to me by short email messages out there in the coastal pot of Port Townsend, home to thousands of poets and mountains. His short poems are brilliant for common locality and touch. He continues the long tradition made once by wanderers.

2011. J. D. Whitney. Other Cousins. In three-color fold out performance. Very limited. Pamphlet. Fold-out booklet. Our second publication by this poet.

: J.D. is the skilled mathematician of language and earth and all those on it, particularly the forgotten, neglected and lost. This is the second booklet from Longhouse of J.D.'s "cousins" who are often mine. We write to one another every day without fail and have yet to meet. Can you imagine that day! (Now I can — it happened this past September 2012).

2011. Finn Wilcox, Freight Train. Three-color fold-out booklet of poems with wrap around band. Limited edition.

: Finn Wilcox is what I hope the world will one day turn into — a good guy with a good heart and good hands put into the good earth. Treeplanter, hobo, train man, father, lover, husband, neighbor, family man, friend. He knows his train poems are going to be my train poems, too.