Will Petersen was such a good man — one could sense this not even knowing Will personally via his sweeping and full-hearted letters. A close friend during the "Japan years" with Cid Corman and Gary Snyder and others. That era of American poets & artists in Japan after WW2, either as students of zen, or living and working there, or visiting, awaits in the wings for some scholar to take up and showcase an historical record, with photographs, book length. It'll be a rich telling.
In the meantime, when in Illinois over the five weeks of Will's tribute, why not stop in and be nourished. Will and Cynthia's Plucked Chicken was unlike any other small press journal — most definitely inspired by Corman's Origin in all the right ways (poets published etc) but also with the flair and freewheelin' of the artist's own brush. It's said so often but still not enough:
Carson Arnold comes from a place where poetry is dignity and where nature defines all. As any teenager will attest, you either scowl or smile away the purity of realism, and in Carson’s case he expressed this dynamic in a dialogue with music, primarily rock n roll and all its offspring. Owing to nada, but going for the gold, and dreaming towards radical awareness. And the kid done grown up.
Most of the essays and interviews on Track and H(ear) can be found at the website: www.LonghousePoetry/hear.html
There
were a few longer interviews with the musicians Dredd Foole and Peter
Siegel — too long to manage in print — that are not in this collection
but can be found at the same website.
The postcard series LISTEN! is shown here in facsimile copies, but there are real copies, in limited edition, available from Longhouse.
This
book publication was made by Bob Arnold, with great help from Susan
Arnold, the mother of the lode. One day, Bob said, he walked into
Carson's music store and saw a young man busy at work helping customers
with their requests and keeping good cheer with his fellow employees. It
was the ultimate tribal experience of record stores around the world. The groove. You know one when you're in one.
He
also saw that this young man had gone through some struggles. That this
treasure chest of writing had been done, and while some from his
website readers had sent back hurrahs and salutations (music energy is
beautiful) there was something missing in his hands, and it may be this
book.
So over one of the coldest and snowiest winters in the backwoods, or anywhere else, for years — two~hands
set to work to compile a book and have this ready for Carson’s 29th
birthday in June. Same birth date as Che Guevara's; same day as Flag Day
— just to show you how much of a Gemini this young fellow is.
I don't know. . .Thomas Perry can be quite good when it comes to the crime thriller, not always even, but good enough. He usually starts off with a bang, pads the middle, and when he's the best, creeps with you on all fours to the finish line. The Butcher's Boy certainly. Fidelity is pretty well twisted on tight, as is Pursuit, and the recent The Boyfriend isn't bad, except the boyfriend himself isn't all that memorable. Perry's had better women assassins. Enough on Perry. It's Kem Nunn I'm here for. His books are three Perry's-in-one for dynamo, and unlike Perry, Nunn isn't writing a cookbook method mystery. He's writing powerful, well-built novels, often starring a surfing culture, or bikers, or outcasts of some model and misshape, or a Native American tribe; and for what Raymond Chandler did for his time in Los Angeles, I believe Nunn is doing it now in present California, all with a certain knowing click and hipness that Chandler owned in his era. Nunn's first book, the best novel ever written about surfing, Tapping the Source, should be showcased here with The Dogs of Winter. Again, surfers, but this time not in southern California as with Tapping, but in the outback of northern California. It turns out a dangerous corner of the woods. Chance is brand new. With characters clumsy and tattered and even boring in some ways which in the hands of Nunn he can handle with his eyes closed. You can almost feel him enjoying playing with this role as a writer making something grand out of nothing. Barely a surf in this book, but surf is there, because we're all the time in San Francisco. I couldn't put the book down, but I did, because I wanted the pleasure of fine writing over a few days. As soon as I finished Chance...I ordered, used, Tijuana Straits. The only book of Nunn's I haven't read and could have when it first appeared, but like I say, I want his books to last. So I've been saving this one. While I wait for the book to show, I reread The Dogs. . .since it's been over ten years since I last read the novel, and I might be a wee bit smarter now having the second reading grabbing me by the arm. Taking me under.
A book fell on my head today while building up in the cottage with Sweetheart. All day slugging out new shelving. Sweetheart moving lots of books as well with me over snow. With a sled. Have to be very careful, one tipsy with the sled and many books ruined in the mud and snow-melt puddles. The puddles are now deep. We'll take it if it means the snow is melting. It says it is melting. We say keep up the good work. So back to the book that crowned me. Sure enough, one by Codrescu. One I have been lugging around from building to building waiting for it to sell over 10 years. Never did. I dropped the price down to $3.95 hardcover, brand new. The problem is it crowned me on the head at an inopportune time for me and the book (but not Codrescu, he didn't feel a thing), and on the second floor, with the windows wide open (double window shutter style, lots of wide opening) I took the book in one hand and motion flung it out the window to never never land. Into snow. Near a brook running well, the cover flew off mid-flight. Ah, well. Temper temper. Two hours later we got back to the house and sure enough, there was an order for the book, we sold it. You can bet in the split second before I tossed the book I knew we had another copy, this was a double, so expendable with my wrath. All is well.
Coming very close to mirroring the masterpiece three volumes first published by Mushinsha/Grossman in the early 1970s,
here we have the Trilogy all under one roof, in one volume, from Skysill Press in England. Once again, an American poet has to be taken across the Atlantic only to be brought back home. With three authors writing appreciations of Samperi — Robert Kelly, Peter O'Leary, and Elizabeth Robinson — something new for this new edition.
On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley arrived at the White House carrying a commemorative world war II colt .45. Being a badge collector he wanted to trade the gun to President Nixon for a narcotics bureau badge. Elvis received the badge and the gun is now on display at the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California. The irony is too thick & bewildering to measure. Anyway, no one looks stoned here.
I had Paul Wellstone in mind today and thought it a good idea to pay my respects to the loss of a fine fellow, most likely murdered for being a fine fellow, eleven days before his re-election to the Senate (October 2002), where he would have provided the Democrats with a majority vote.
On the high line, 400 feet above the Animas River in Colorado runs the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. Once upon a time I rode the RR with someone I bought a ring for in the old mining town of Silverton that fit perfectly, and by the time we returned down from the high altitude to Durango, the ring fell loose. She's still with me.
Many of the most dangerous criminals in the United States were sent to Alcatraz Federal Penitentary to serve their sentences. Al Capone, George Kelly and Robert Stroud were three of the well known convicts that spent time on "the rock". While two of the three used bullets, Robert Stroud handled birds and wasn't as handsome as Burt Lancaster who portrayed Stroud in the 1962 film The Birdman of Alcatraz.
A poem (or more) will be offered by the hour or with the day and at the very least once a week. So stay on your webbed toes. The aim is to share good hearty-to-eat poetry. This is a birdhouse size file from the larger Longhouse which has been publishing from backwoods Vermont since 1971 books, hundreds of foldout booklets, postcards, sheafs, CD, landscape art, street readings, web publication, and notes left for the milkman. Established by Bob & Susan Arnold for your pleasure. The poems, essays, films & photographs on this site are copyrighted and may not be reproduced without the author's go-ahead.
New from Bob Arnold ~ "Faraway Like The Deer's Eye" ~ Bob Arnold Faraway Like the Deer’s Eye — A Saga — FOUR BOOKS IN ONE VOLUME ~ A Poet’s Memoir // 50 Years of Longhouse & Poets // A Builder’s Life, with photo assembly // The Selected Poems of Bob Arnold // An afterword by Andrew Schelling
Longhouse Bibliography Quick Link —
Link to the Birdhouse Bibliography
Visit the Longhouse Bibliography (a press edited by Bob Arnold) ~
"Poets Who Sleep" by Bob Arnold, Longhouse 2019. 500 portraits by Bob Arnold of poets worldwide & others. Please link on image for ordering information.
Link to a Preview of Poets Who Sleep
Shared at "Dispatches from the Poetry Wars"
Heaven Lake by Bob Arnold
Available from Longhouse. Please link on the image for ordering information.
The Woodcutter Talks by Bob Arnold
Available from Longhouse. Please link on the image for ordering information. Drawing from years of poetry and also new poems, The Woodcutter Talks is Bob Arnold at his finest branching love poems with back country work poems and settlement with community, family and individual portraits. The extensive collection also showcases vintage photographs from woodcutters and woodchoppers and big-saw-pullers of old. Sweat runs down the cheeks of the mere literary and they adore one another.
Stone Hut by Bob Arnold
"Once again, my friends, this is your best book! Exquisite in design, fat enough to be a feast, pretty enough to just wade around in, but deep enough to dive into and stay with, all I can say is WOW, you guys really did it – it’s the first of its kind, a scrapbook novel that is also a how-to and a mystery -- how did he do it, and how does he make rocks balance like Thor? — Gerald Hausman" ~
Museum, An Unlikely Meditation, written by the poet Bob Arnold, is as much an unlikely novel. Visit this page for details.
Cid Corman's Of, Volumes 4 & 5 from Longhouse.
ANNOUNCING. The final volumes to Corman's opus in one book ~ of, volumes 4 & by Cid Corman. 1500 poems, 850 pages edited by Bob Arnold, now available in a limited edition from Longhouse, 2015. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information ~
'Fully a book ~
An interview with Bob Arnold on Cid Corman’s ‘of’
Janina by Janine Pommy Vega
New and available now from Longhouse ~ Janine Pommy Vega Janina Visions, Tales & Lovesongs 288 pages perfect bound packed with poems and photographs. Janine's full course album of photographs, travel journals, poems, facsimile notebooks of poems, childhood photographs, and family, Beat family, plus her unfinished memoir of Jerusalem.
Walking Woman with the Tambourine is the final book of poems by Janine Pommy Vega.
"Walking Woman with the Tambourine is the final book of poems by Janine Pommy Vega. The author completed the manuscript and left it as she wished with her executor Bob Arnold … New and available now from Longhouse ~ Poetry. 144 pages. Perfect bound softcover. Please link on the image for ordering information
New! James Koller : Selected Poems 2003-2004-2005
James Koller — Selected Poems 2003-2004-2005 Longhouse 2016, 72 pages, perfect bound. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse
OPENINGS by JAMES KOLLER
Selected poems 1959 ~ 1985 edited by Bob Arnold. New and available now from Longhouse ~ 72 pages . Perfect bound softcover. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse
Lorine Niedecker's A Cooking Book
A Cooking Book Lorine Niedecker Longhouse 2015 72 pages, perfect bound. Please link on the image to purchase this new title from Longhouse.
Kent Johnson's "I Once Met"
Available once again now in 2022! $25 plus shippingVisit the Birdhouse for Kent's book information :
JD Whitney's Selected Poems
J.D. Whitney ~Sweeping the Broom Shorter Selected Poems 1964-2014 from ~ Longhouse 2014. 192 pages. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse
New! from Longhouse ~ Island Dreams by Gerald Hausman Please link for details & Paypal payment
ISLAND DREAMS by GERALD HAUSMAN Selected Poems 1968 ~ 2015 chosen & edited by Bob Arnold New and available now from Longhouse ~ 160 pages Perfect bound softcover. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse
John Bradley's "And Thereby Everything"
L O N G H O U S E is very proud to announce a new book by John Bradley in their on going series of S C O U T book publications — other titles from the series have been by Kent Johnson, Janine Pommy Vega, James Koller, Bob Arnold and Lorine Niedecker with more in the works. An opening salvo at the front of the book by Patrick Lawler should provide ample cover for what the reader should come to expect. And Thereby Everything John Bradley Longhouse 2015 First edition only issued in softcover 208 pages, perfect bound illustrated throughout by Bob Arnold with 150 photographs
Dudley Laufman : Bull & More Bull
Visit this page for information on this new Longhouse by Dudley Kaufman (2016)
Dudley Laufman's Islandian Poems
The Islandian Poems & Fables Dudley Laufman Longhouse 2015. 72 pages, perfect bound. Please link on the image to purchase this new title from Longhouse.
Duo by Bob Arnold — New from Longhouse Please link to A Longhouse Birdhouse for more information
DUO Bird Poems by BOB ARNOLD. New and available now from Longhouse ~ 92 pages. Perfect bound softcover. Please link on the cover image for details & Paypal payment information PLUS more from Longhouse
Start With The Tree by Bob Arnold
New in 2015. Building a marriage, building a family, building a small barn out in the woodlands together as a family, as a marriage, and seeing the roof go on. Over 150 color photographs
Beautiful Days by Bob Arnold
Beautiful Days ~ new poems of living and working in the Vermont woodlands and to Hurricane Irene
Yokel by Bob Arnold
[from "Yokel, A Long Green Mountain Poem" by Bob Arnold] ~ that and more at Bob Arnold webpage of books & poems: Please link on this image for more
Go West by Bob Arnold
Filled with poems and travel photography — shares one cross-country trip the couple took in the mid-1980s to California from Vermont.
"I'm In Love With You Who Is In Love With Me" by Bob Arnold
from Bob Arnold's new book "I'm In Love With You Who Is In Love With Me" ~~~~~~~40 years of love poems
"Rain Bear" by Bob Arnold
Bob Arnold's first children's book "Rain Bear" New and available now from Longhouse ~ 50 pages. Perfect bound softcover with photographs ~ & drawings by Jason Clark
"Heretic" by John Phillips from Longhouse
New from Longhouse ~ John Phillips "Heretic". Poems with collages by the author. Click on the image for more ~
Kim Dorman — "Owner"
"Owner" by Kim Dorman. Including photographs by Kim Dorman. Selected and edited by Bob Arnold. New and available now from Longhouse 2016 ~ 80 pages. Perfect bound softcover
