Carl Mayfield's All the Way Up: Modest Proposal Chapbook, #24

 

Carl Mayfield is a small press icon and, as with many an old school icon, you will find very few electronic footprints in his wake. Back in the threadbare 80s, he published a small press poetry magazine called Margarine Maypole Orangutan Express. And by magazine, I mean a single sheet of 8.5 x 11" paper, folded once, and slipped into an envelope, with an average of 10 or so brief, sparkling shards of poetry.

It was one of a handful of publications that were an inspiration for Lilliput Review. 

As happens on occasion, a small press editor doubles as a poet in another, slightly askew, but parallel universe. And so we arrive at chapbook #24 in the Modest Proposal Chapbook series (by the by, all chapbooks in the series are $3 postpaid in the US, $5 everywhere else), entitled All The Way Up by Carl Mayfield.

I've been publishing Carl for many years in Lilliput Review and I knew that one of these days we'd get around to doing a collection. All the Way Up is 20 pages of succinct shards of awareness from one of the finer observers, lyrically speaking, of the human experience. Since this is not a review but a notice of publication, I'll simply slip three of those poems into this post to give you a taste. See what you think.  

If you are taken with these three, there are more where they came from. Do a little slipping of your own - a check (made out to 'Don Wentworth') into an envelope or 3 discreetly secreted dollars - and mail it to Lilliput Review 282 Main Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15201. 

Or, if you are in more of a modern mode (or mood), at the top of the right hand sidebar you will find a Paypal 'Buy Now' button for your relatively instant gratification.

20 poems for 3 bucks and you can say you did your small press duty for the week. Give it a go.

You'll be happy you did.

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Photo by Shaggy 359

stirred by people's voices
the greening
willow

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don   

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Ed Baker - She Intrudes: Modest Proposal Chapbook, #23

original color artwork

She Intrudes

by

Ed Baker  Modest Proposal Chapbook, #23

Chapbook front cover

Chapbook back cover

Page 1 of 20

Click images to enlarge

I'm proud to announce a new chapbook, She Intrudes by Ed Baker, number 23 in the Modest Proposal Chapbook series from Lilliput Review. The cost is the always modest $3.00, postpaid ($5.00 overseas).  You will find a Paypal button at the top right of this page or can pay the more traditional way via the mail (check, money order etc. made out to "Don Wentworth," Lilliput Review, 282 Main Street, Pittsburgh, PA  15201).

She Intrudes is a bit of a departure from recent chapbooks in the Modest Proposal series; it is in essence one long 20 page poem, a lyrical epistostlary examination of love, inspiration, and desire, while in recent years the MP series has concentrated on shorter forms such as haiku and tanka.  Those of you who know Ed's poetry (and artwork), from the pages of Lilliput or as posted here occasionally on Issa's Untidy Hut, know him as a master of the short poem, work he likes to characterize as "shorties," eschewing the highly politicized and nominally meaningless battles over an acceptable definition of haiku in English.

However, Ed is also known for his ground breaking, innovative works in longer forms, of which She Intrudes is a classic example.   To put Ed's work into a larger context, please see Joe Hutchison's outstanding review of Ed's 515 page epic Stone Girl E-Pic.  He touches on many essential themes in Ed's poetry, such as the devotion to the Goddess/Muse, echoes of which may be found in She Intrudes.  In addition, Hutchison detects stylistic elements which recall E. E. Cummings and James Joyce, and cultural influences that predominate from both East and West.  In an essay on Stone Girl, Conrad DiDiodato enhances and furthers the larger context of Ed's work, teasing out the minimalist, haiku-like, Buddhist connections in both the short and longer forms, connecting him to previous and current contemporaries such as Cid Corman, Carl Rakoski, John Martone, and John Perlman.  If this whets your taste, you'll find Stone Girl E-Pic is still available from the publisher or amazon.

I highly recommend it.

She Intrudes is a more modest affair, perhaps an ideal entry point for Ed Baker's longer poetry.  Working with him on the manuscript has been a real joy as an editor.  The layout and typography, as you may get a hint of in the excerpt above, were a real challenge and Ed's approach, which may best be described as a constant state of revision or, more fairly, a constant state of composition, added layer upon layer to that challenge, which was at once exhilarating and exhausting.  My editorial eye, refined by a more modestly lyrical one, was constantly thrilled by the chase and, ultimately, I feel proud indeed to be able to publish this fine work.

She Intrudes is standard digest size, 5 ½ x 8 ½", laid out sideways to accommodate the long lines, 20 pages in length, and bound in a beige stock cover.

And did I mention the modest cost of $3.00, postpaid?  Yes, of course I did.

O goddess Ichihime
smile!
a meadow butterfly

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Call for Submissions: Miriam's Well

One of my favorite small press poets, whose work I've been reading and admiring for well over 20 years, Miriam Sagan, has her own relatively new blog and is looking for submissions of material. Here's some details:

Miriam's Well (http://miriamswell.wordpress.com) is
looking for submissions of poetry and prose and art,
particularly in the categories listed in the blog, such
as Baba Yaga, birds, glass, etc. etc. I'm also looking to
interview published poets, and for guest bloggers,
ideas, text, images, and news!

Come visit.

In addition, Miriam tells me she is "also looking for haiku/tanka and little posts on writer's favorite places to write..."



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Pictured above is the 10th chapbook in the Modest Proposal Chapbook series, entitled The Future Tense of Ash. "Reading Chiyou -Ni ..." is one of 5 longish poems, centering around the poet's mood and feelings after the death of a husband. This remembers one of the finest haiku poets of all time. A nice selection of Chiyou-Ni's work may be found here. Miriam's chapbook is still available via Lilliput at the chapbook page for $3, postpaid.


Reading Chiyo-Ni, 1703-1775, Japanese Women Haikuist
-all night I quarrel with you in my dreams
-Reading Chiyo-Ni, 1703-1775, Japanese Women Haikuist
-all night I quarrel with you in my dreams
-the child who wants to return to the sea
-the mother who wants to keep her
-in Edo Japan, widows, whores and nuns write haiku
-a path through oak trees, or the way of the tao
-day three on the tramp steamer she ran out of things to read
-we went to see the volcano's steam vents despite the rain
-holding up one black umbrella
-a butter-colored cat I had never seen before stalking the
--------perimeter of the field
-nail shell broken on the sidewalk
-my daughter woke and interrupted my handwriting
-statue of the famous woman poet stands facing the New England
--------harbor
-each button cast in bronze
-a notion of impermanence, an actual alteration of the shoreline
-monuments to the dead whose names meant nothing to us
-in the town square, or on marble tombstones obscured by moss
-you could count seventeen syllables your whole life
-you could try to follow the mind
-you could see instead
-a falling down barn and house
-field of Queen Anne's lace
-goldenrod
-orange butterfly
-you could ...

Miriam Sagan

And from master Issa:

gobble up
my dawn dream...
cuckoo!

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

April ...

April is turning out to be one of the busiest months of the year. I find, due to a variety of circumstances, that I've fallen behind in a number of areas and need to play catchup.

I've a review due at Modern Haiku I need to polish off. Later this month, in close proximity of each other I will be leading a discussion on Elizabeth Bishop for the 3 Poems By ... discussion group, helping to judge a county-wide teen poetry contest in conjunction with a One Book, One Community book initiative, conducting another introduction to poetry session for Oasis lifelong learners, and doing a followup reading of my own work for the New Yinzer at Modern Formations. In addition, I've fallen woefully behind with the print magazine, Lilliput Review, and have a new chapbook in the "Modest Proposal" series which needs to go to press.

The "bad" news is that, for the month of April, I need to gear down a bit with the blog to catch up with all these things. The good news is, as hinted at before, I have a plan.

Besides cutting back on the blog for a bit, I've decided to put out a double run of Lilliputs, 4 issues instead of the customary 2, to be mailed together. I know this seems like more work but, trust me, in the long run, this will help me get the ship righted in very solid fashion. Though, of course, in the short run it will take a little longer to get all those issues together, printed, cut, collated, stapled, and shipped.

So posting will be intermittent. I'm thinking of April at Issa's Untidy Hut as being scattershot - a sort guerrilla blogging approach, if posting at all. I will forgo the daily Twitter Lilliput poems for the foreseeable future. Issa's Sunday Service, too, will be on hiatus for a bit.

I'll be putting my nose to the grindstone for the next couple of weeks. Wish me luck!

the silver dew
becoming round, this too
takes work!

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don