Misunderstanding the Use of a Bridge

Mort de A.D.

and there to be there still there
pressed against my old plank scabbed with black
days and nights blindly ground
to being there and to not fleeing and fleeing and being there
bent toward the avowal of time dying
of having been what was does what it did
to me to my friend dead yesterday gleaming eye
long teeth panting in his beard devouring
the life of saints a life by day of life
reliving in the night its black sins
dead yesterday while I lived
and to be there drinking above the storm
the guilt of time irremissible
gripping the old wood witness to departures
witness to returns

--Samuel Beckett trans. by Philip Nikolayev


A useful overview of chapook presses.

Kitchen Press has a channel on YouTube.

CA Conrad Somatic Poetry Exercise No. 1: "Wash a penny, rinse it, slip it under your tongue and walk out the door. Coppers is the metal of Aphrodite, never ever forget this, never, don't forget it, ever. Drink a little orange juice outside and let some of the juice rest in your mouth with the penny. Oranges are the fruit of Aphrodite, and she is the goddess of Love, but not fidelity. Go somewhere outside, go, get going with your penny and juice. Where do you want to sit? Find it, and sit there. What is the best Love you've ever had in this world? Be quiet while thinking about that Love. If someone comes along and starts talking, quietly shoo them away, you're busy, you're a poet with a penny in your mouth, idle chit chat is not your friend. Be quiet so quiet, let the very sounds of that Love be heard in your bones. After a little while take the penny out of your mouth and place it on the top of your head. Balance it there and sit still a little while, for you are now moving your own forces quietly about in your stillness. Now get your pen and paper and write about POVERTY, write live after line about starvation and deprivation from the voice of one who has been Loved in this world."

Cystic Fibrosis Fact: A defective gene and its protein product cause the body to produce unusually thick, sticky mucus that:

• clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections; and
• obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food.

An interview with Neutral Milk Hotel and a look back at the influence of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.