OSAMU DAZAI ~

 

OSAMU   DAZAI

AMY CLAMPITT ~

 

Gooseberry Fool

The gooseberry’s no doubt an oddity,

an outlaw or pariah even—thorny

and tart as any

kindergarten martinet, it can harbor

like a fernseed, on its leaves’ under-

side, bad news for pine trees,

whereas the spruce

resists the blister rust

it’s host to. That veiny Chinese

lantern, its stolid jelly

of a fruit, not only has 

no aroma but is twice as tedious

as the wild strawberry’s sunburst

stem-end appendage: each one must

be between-nail-snipped at both extremities.

Altogether, gooseberry virtues

take some getting

used to, as does trepang,

tripe à la mode de Caen,

or having turned thirteen.

The acerbity of all things green

and adolescent lingers in 

it—the arrogant, shrinking,

prickling-in-every-direction thorn-

iness that loves no company except its,

or anyhow that’s what it gets:

bristling up through gooseberry ghetto sprawl

are braced thistles’ silvery, militantly symmetrical

defense machineries. Likewise inseparably en-

tangled in the disarray of an

uncultivated childhood, where gooseberry bushes (since

rooted out) once flourished, is

the squandered volupté of lemon-

yellow-petaled roses’ luscious flimflam—

an inkling of the mingling into one experience

of suave and sharp, whose supremely im-

probable and far-fetched culinary

embodiment is a gooseberry fool.

Tomorrow, having stumbled into

this trove of chief ingredients

(the other being very thickest cream)

I’ll demonstrate it for you. Ever since,

four summers ago, I first brought you,

a gleeful Ariel, the trophy

of a small sour handful,

I’ve wondered what not quite articulated thing

could render magical 

the green globe of an unripe berry.

I think now it was simply

the great globe itself’s too much to carry.

December 1981

Don't miss this unique biography — told with a

storyteller's charm.

[ BA ]

RR / RIDING THE FEATHER RIVER ROUTE ~

 

Riding a Union Pacific freight on the former Western Pacific line that runs over the Sierra Nevada and through the Plumas National Forest to the Central Valley of California . Featuring John E. Ringo

PATRICK STREET ~

 

LITERARY ACTIVISM IN INDIA ~

 

 R E A D   M E

From left: Karthika VK, Amit Chaudhuri, Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, and Saikat Majumdar at the launch of the first two titles in the Literary Activism series

A LOST INTERVIEW (Clarice Lispector) ~

R E A D  &  L I S T E N 

REV ROBERT WILKINS ~

 

THE GHOST FOREST ~

 

R E A D    M E

Public Affairs, 2023

LUCINDA WILLIAMS ~

 

R E A D    M E

Crown, 2023

SARA BAUME ~

 

R E A D     M E

Mariner, 2022

ALBERT AYLER ~

 

R E A D     M E

Jawbone 2022

MISSISSIPPI JOHN HURT ~

 

OUMOU SANGARE ~

 

MARINA TSVETAEVA ~

 

R E A D     M E

Ugly Duckling Presse

2016

HENRY AT WORK ~

 

H E N R Y

Princeton, 2023

PAUL BOWLES (1995) ~

 

     Directors ~

    Catherine Warnow, Regina Weinrich

Catherine Warnow

Regina Weinrich

Regina Weinreich, Catherine Hiller Warnow

Regina Weinreich, Catherine Hiller Warnow

ADA DEER ~

 

Ada Deer, Native American Voice Inside Government and Out, Dies at 88

   ADA  DEER

VINOD KUMAR SHUKLA NEW! FROM LONGHOUSE ~

 

Vinod Kumar Shukla has won the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature for lifetime achievement in literature, one of the most coveted literary prizes worldwide, after decades of composing acclaimed novels like Naukar Ki Kameez (1979) and poetry collections like Sab Kuch Hona Bacha Rahega (1992).

__________

Limited to only 100 copies:

$10

Free shipping in USA

Overseas please inquire

OR

signed copy by translator

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra

$15.95

Issued from Longhouse, 2023

Paypal, use our email of longhousepoetry@gmail.com

[we can invoice you]

or check to ~  Longhouse, PO Box 2454, West Brattleboro, VT 05303
or contact us by email for information

BULL DOG SAL ~

 

JULIA HOLTER, AVIARY ~

 

    I Would Rather See

2018