even the details have details

New review at coldfront mag

2008-08-06T16:49:00.004-05:00

Many thanks to John Deming of coldfront mag for this ultra-flattering and astute review of That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness. Great discussion of collaborative poetry and how the process can sometimes overshadow the product. (Not with us, of course!) Here's an excerpt:

I think I’d trade the last six “collaborative” books I’ve read for just half of Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney’s hip, smart, self-aware and incredibly focused new collection.

The best thing about That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness is that it is a singular, sustained inspiration spoken by a singular, if conflicted, voice.

Now go read the rest.

New review of TTIV

2008-06-16T08:41:00.003-05:00

Adam Golaski does a write-up of That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness over at the Flim Forum blog. Apparently it's "always clever, mostly light-hearted, sometimes crass, and occasionally wise" -- check out the full review here. Thanks Adam!

Also, Rusty Barnes kindly wrote on Goodreads: "These are fine poets singly, and together they're a knockout. I so so admire truly witty, playful poems, and it's very cool to have all this work in one place so I don't have to scour the 'net for it. Great stuff."

Are we witty/crass enough for YOU? Buy the book and find out.

Updates! News! Etc.!

2008-06-01T18:45:00.011-05:00

Much has occurred since we abandoned this blog like a mine shaft last year. Our chapbook, Something Really Wonderful, came out from dancing girl press in November; look for it wherever rare books and collector's items are sold. Mark Wallace had nice things to say about it, like "The linguistic energy and, really, virtuosity, can be stunning."

And last month, our full-length collection, That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness, was released from Otoliths. You can read poems from this collection in Boston Review, Caketrain, Coconut, The Concher, Dusie, Elimae, Foursquare, MiPOesias, Noo, Opium, Otoliths, Past Simple, Sawbuck, and 21 Stars Review.

Michael Gushue interviewed us for the VRZHU Press blog.

Jesse Glass wrote on the Ahadada blog that if our poems were set to music a la Japanse girl band Puffy, it would "rocket these two to cult status on the thinking woman's circuit."

Samuel Wharton called this book "really awesome, a perfect mix of spry humor, mind-curdling verbal gymnastics, & dead-on seriousishness."

Our poems were featured on Sharkforum.

Amy Kucharik wrote on Facebook: "I hate most poets, but I make an exception for Elisa Gabbert. The unexpected, playful turns in these poems are always original, never pretentious, and kind of make you wonder what Elisa/Kathy have been up to that inspired them." Thanks for not hating, Amy K.

We've got new work forthcoming in Chicago-based Make Magazine and MoonLit. Stay tuned for more.

April, we bid you adieu

2007-04-30T12:07:00.000-05:00

LAST DATE

Where’s the glitter? Where’s the excitement?
A stroll to clear our minds sounded lame, but
when you dropped me off at the vacant lot,
it became the walk of improbable detail
& I probably shouldn’t be so sad about it.
There’re worse things than having no prom date--
a prison tattoo, for example, or a third nipple.
That’s just a fad. Or a “faze,” as you’d say,
your malaprop of the day, adorable
as ever--I hate you all the more. Wherefore
the moon. The Tears of the Moon belly ring?
The king is dead. Long live the king.

Bonus tracks #5 & #6: Quatrains! Again!

2007-04-29T20:38:00.000-05:00

I love timelines, but I hate time,
& people who say You’re so linear &
Touching harms the art.
I just want to feel the lines.

*

No one has yet satisfactorily defined
the boundary between the flesh & the mind.
If you’re so fucking smart,
why don’t you take a swing, ass-brain?

Almost no one mistakes a bear for a rock

2007-04-29T14:02:00.000-05:00

FOLKPSYCHOLOGY

Whatever happened to the baby raccoon
mistaking the moon for her maker’s eye?

I lied: it wasn’t the moon either, just
a shiny lost satellite, neither hers nor mine.

“Wish I might” on that & all you end up w/
is another baby forced to grow up too soon.

You can’t fake love, wisdom, or a sneeze
& expect to please everyone. Curdled light

oozing in thru a broken window is like
an attenuated wind. Only visible.

Honeymoon's over

2007-04-28T08:32:00.000-05:00

FACEDOWN BLUES

I’m in love w/ a girl I watched eat an apple core.
Her best pet name for me was “Little Fiddlehead.”
She was the type to play games: reindeer, newlywed,
card & board. She drove a coach & four. In Baltimore
she blew me fourteen kisses, each a pouty semaphore,
unflagging. A locomotive wept in the engine shed,
each night for two weeks. I slept the sleep of a riverbed,
woke up water-logged down by the old New Jersey shore,
alone. She couldn’t take it anymore: I was a ball & chain,
or so she said. She wouldn’t take it back. A heart attack,
Jack--mending under an unfixed leak, a chance of rain,
a chance of pain: a sweet hard smack like sugar cane,
an ache like a cavity down in my soul. My gunnysack
has no counter-attack. Lightning struck my weathervane.

Bonus track #4

2007-04-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

BLUE PERIOD TRITINA

You can’t get to the top from the bottom
w/o stepping on some mentors on the way.
The sky beyond the top is powder blue,

the blue of early memories, the baby blue
of blue raspberry Slushees in a glass-bottom-
boat-shaped glass. There’s no graceful way

to fall on your ass, so you have to keep away
from the marbles: the cat’s eye, the big blue
shooter & loathsome aggie, small as a subatom.

Bottom’s up! Bombs away. Thar she blew.

It's a rich man's world

2007-04-27T08:55:00.000-05:00

POLITE SOCIETY

As per always, money money money, money money money. A typical day, a typical cadenza. It was all pretty wrong, but the wrongest thing isn’t always so bad, hm? Look at it w/ some equipoise, why don’t you? The gnomon on the sundial is to the sundial as I am to our social circle. I’m pointing out the swan. That angel’s song means that the end is nigh. On a night like tonight you shouldn’t use words like iota. I ought to reiterate: I am very, very afraid. Don’t go away & don’t get mad. Get even deeper into historically accurate drug scenes. Our whole lives we waited, & now, here’s this suitcase.

Bonus track #3

2007-04-26T16:04:00.000-05:00

NOTHING BUT TENDERNESS & PLEASURE
“The honeymoon is a relic of marriage by capture...” –Wikipedia

Sudden realization. I stopped breathing
when we reached prairie. Scary how
there’s no real “now” now. Out here,
the haystacks are infinity-shaped &
full of needles. What I’m looking for
might lie buried along the interstate, or
never have existed. When I married
the sea, it asked “Can I touch your hair?”
It was already touching me, everywhere.
Intermittent, erratic, but also erotic--
I was drenched. & I can’t forget
the infinite sky. & I can’t forget why
I came here: I’m starting to forget
why the phrase “making love” makes me
feel so strange, out of phase. Maybe
I’ll finish forgetting, one of these days.

When they do the double dutch, that's them dancing

2007-04-26T10:14:00.000-05:00

POEM CONTAINING A POEM BY DAVID BRENT

I froze your tears, & made a dagger
(so I could melt the evidence, make salt)
& stabbed it in my cock, forever
(so you could see it’s not your fault).
It stays there like Excalibur
Hotel & Casino, stuck in 1989.
Are you my Arthur? Say you are.
Or better yet, say you’re my Author.
Take this cool dark steeled blade-
tipped pen; see its calligraphic line.
Steal it, sheathe it in your lake
of ink & king me like a checker.
I’d drown with you to be together--
let’s dive into the deep end, 6’ down.
Must you breathe? ‘Cause I need heaven,
at least seven minutes. How’s that sound?

Bonus track #2: Backwards Day #3

2007-04-25T15:55:00.000-05:00

FAMILY REUNION

The future is now? You mean now now?
I love you, but ouch. A punch in the arm,
a swift kick in the pants--I can’t say I like
your idea of catching up. My life is still a sore
subject, so how about we drop it. Will I ever
stop getting carded or start liking it? Why must
the desire for a) dessert & b) a higher power
be childish or childlike? What keeps me up
at night: the fact that aliens do exist, but they
don’t care for us as we care for them. Feign
surprise? I’m actually surprised. I’ve been
getting asked that question about 100x a day.
I don’t keep up w/ cinema; even suspended
over a canyon, I can’t suspend my disbelief.
They said “Don’t look down.” I looked down.
Cold water. Bright. Satisfying. I get freaked out
when it seems like there are too many horizons,
railroad tracks & an approaching vanishing point.
This is where our ancestors went to die. Some
view. Newsflash: status jockeys don’t ride
horses, & anyway, you’re more of an anti-
social climber. Trade you my color dreams
for your black & white? Your tendency
toward abstraction for my fear of heights.
The blood pounded in my ears. I just pounded
two beers. My tour guide said nobody loves
a tourist, not even other tourists--obviously,
I had a lot to learn, so I grounded myself.
When Mom said she’d feed my pet rock until
I got back from summer camp--was that a joke?
What did Granny mean when she said I’d be
the evil one if I had a twin? If I were a statue,
I’d look like me, w/ a heart of stone & a spooky
set of eyes. I can get mad. & even sadder.
I used to think gray hair smelled like smoke.

There are some things you can't hide

2007-04-25T11:44:00.000-05:00

FIRST DATE

Neither of us is infinite--is that okay?
I’ve got hypertension, bad eyesight

& a crabwalk but on the brighter side--
or maybe it’s annoying?--I’ve got telepathy.

Is your “work name” Bruce? B/c I see
like a bat, man--w/ sonar, not sight;

I “see” right thru your disguise, esp-
ecially your phony lack of sympathy.

If your nose itches, it means you’ll kiss
your 1st wife for the 1st time at the site

of the 1st phone call ever misdialed.
Every prediction is a call for empathy.

Bonus track #1: Mike Young #2

2007-04-24T19:09:00.000-05:00

CLEVER COMEBACKS

There’s an injured marsupial in front of my tire.
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

Technically, it’s still spring.
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

Stop honking. I’m trying to think.
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

I’m not going to court you, on the tennis court or otherwise.
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

This room is full of bookish & thoughtful brunettes.
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

You’re a good-looking crowd--where are you from?
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

The letter marked CONFIDENTIAL has your name on it.
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

As of today, there are no more fish in the sea.
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

Do you feel fragile in the morning hours?
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

I’m going to unstuff those deer mounts of yours.
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

How can you tell it’s a girl?
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

It’s just a popularity contest is something the unpopular say.
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

“French fries aplenty” is just the beginning.
Would you be interested in a happy ending?

After Mike Young

2007-04-24T12:56:00.000-05:00

THE DESERT OF THE REAL

I’m one of the millions who bought the single.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

In the absence of hard news, they tell stories to compel you.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

Those billboards in the Southwest announcing “The Thing!”
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

You’re creeping me out & I’m avoiding you.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

On car trips we make up sad little games.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

You will get your humble, jocular comeuppance.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

You will know me by the impossible tracks.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

A lightbulb sits on the kernel of the precipice.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

I brace myself but never hear the crash.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

The sunrise is the bright sherbet orange of despair.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

The dirt here wants to be famous.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

The next town on the map is World of Hurt.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

Remember when you finger-drew a heart on my hand.
It’s out there, you just can’t see it.

You shall inherit my wind

2007-04-23T15:11:00.000-05:00

IT’S TIME WE HAD A LITTLE TALK

It’s wise to wear your best iron mask while
waiting for your better half to ask you to
the dance. You can’t hand your doppelganger
a bouquet of flowers. There was no Happy
Hour at Agincourt, when the French were
overwhelmed. My mother used to say you
can’t get ice cream w/ your slice of life.
Do you too believe everything you hear? Fear,
you know, is the coin of the realm. I really
do really like you! I remember when you tried
to make your royal pain available to me. You
failed. Then we wrote the same thing on
our blogs, about how Twister used to be known
as “sex in a box.” We might be astral twins,
Spastic. Your slang has to be hardboiled if
you want to be a good journalist. The only law
is: the law is elastic. By day, you pose as
a flaneur; by night, you’re sitting on the floor,
cutting the eyes out of all the photos. Guess
what--you won another popularity contest,
b/c you’re so full of yourself & so cocksure.
Did we both have the same dream? Hand
in hand, prancing down pavement encrusted
w/ pavé diamonds. I’m not a prince anymore
& I’ve finally given up on girls named Chiara
wearing tiaras. Magical things happen here,
in this wooded land. Whatever I find hidden in my
hoodie, I chuck off the balcony. I didn’t savor
your report--it had the academic crunch of high-
school French. Don’t make fun but: I thought
of fish: on the last sheet in the ream: one
word: fin. It’s hard being king. Sometimes I
get smashed like a finger in the door. Like
you wouldn’t believe. All this has been yours
since the day you were born & even before.

Quatrains! Quatrains! Quatrains! (Well, really just two.)

2007-04-22T10:57:00.000-05:00

Tell me “Nice hustle” & slap me on the behind--
a piece of my ass for a piece of your mind.
I just can’t keep chasing after every little prize
I spy w/ my little disco-ball eyes.

*

You can never have too much fulsome excess,
especially playing International Daisy Chain.
They said it would be like recess for adults.
It’s all fun & games until somebody gets pregnant.

We dub ya "Dubya"

2007-04-21T10:52:00.000-05:00

THE RUNIC WYNN

So if sardony is the new irony
what’s the new sardony? Pardon me, but
WTF is ITN & WTF even is “sardony”?
Why TF are we using “W” to mean “what”?

A tiny child, blue-eyed, w/ a tiny mohawk
is the cutest thing I can imagine
most people can imagine. If one stocks
his/her bar w/ enough sloe gin,

one might begin to ask the right questions
w/ the right number of syllables--
then again, numbers are the bastions
of those whose hours are billable.

Abbreviations, BTW,
self-defeat when one letter is double-u.

Good luck trying to get my poem

2007-04-20T10:56:00.000-05:00

SCHOOL OF QUIETUDE

The fringe of the fringe is really just the rug.

I always wanted to be one of those quirky people
who wear hats w/ the tag still hanging off.

I always thought of Mercator maps as boring
until I found out they’re controversial--
turns out, geography’s not universal

& the world’s not flat. A small-town girl
& her trusty cat know that Here be monsters,
X marks the spot, & You are here
sometimes appear on the dim mall kiosk

in place of Out to lunch or Back in five.
If this were a zombie movie, the last
out of the pool would be the last to survive.
To be the last man or woman alive would
rule, for about five. Then suck a bunch.

Faux wood paneling hugs the room;
I feel jealous. Who’s hugging me? Nobody
smart, that’s for sure. Nobody reads enough
of my diary to understand the irony.

No one uses the term “likey-dikey”
or knows who played the original Mikey.
Ordinarily, the extraordinary structure

of my sentences is overlooked & over-
fed, while I’m overworked & under-slept.

It’s hard & cold down here, under the bed.

Grindhouse: The Poem

2007-04-19T14:26:00.000-05:00

: THE REVENGE

What the axe fails to sever, we never forget
to blow away forever. Ready, aim, fire
& they drop like birds from a wire. Time

to clean up the mess now, high time
to ask ourselves, Why so violent? Unforget
the past & you’ll remember: the great fire

& the manner in which we acquired these fier-
y one-track minds. Those were good times
when anything we wanted, we were sure to get.

Forget about the fire & it burns you in time.

Happy VD

2007-04-18T12:15:00.000-05:00

HOW RUMORS GET STARTED

I told everyone how your semen stings
like a bee--a study in honesty if ever-
yone believes me. Ends justify means
& I’ve wanted to end you ever since
I found out what “midden” means
& since you were so mean to me
unbidden in my comment box;
I’d hoped for “foxy” not “trashy”--
so what if my ass shows in these jeans?
A pox on your scenesterism. & your penis.

Slight, tragic & short-lived

2007-04-17T13:14:00.000-05:00

MIDDEN OF DREAMS

“Poetic” does not have to mean “confusing,”
but it somehow always does. Anon, anon
& on & on ‘til the break of dawn, get down
from your pedestals & podia & start musing
on the scrapheap of sad & beautiful wrecks
in your unfinished drafts folder. It’s fodder
for soothing the sad & amusing the beautiful
w/ an alas here, a forsooth there, & everywhere
a hey nonny nonny no. Poems get you laid
in your wildest dreams, & pubs get you paid
in unicorns & moonbeams. In Plato’s Republic
questions were encouraged. So, I ask you,
thrice removed from the truth & the king,
what are you writing/who are you imitating?

Do we look fat in this?

2007-04-16T12:48:00.000-05:00

BEN ADDRESSES JERRY

The results of the Name That Flavor contest
are in, but I’m not going to share them until
we figure it out ourselves. What in the hell
could sell a name like Summer Pony or
Glasgow Coma Scale? I ate a full pail
of Crow & I don’t know about you, but
I hate ice cream. If I had it to do all over,
Americone Dream would be just a dream
deferred. & Tequila Mochabird, in a word,
would be unheard (of). Listen, Jerry,
there is such a thing as too much muchness.
This intellectual gamesmanship & vertical
scaling is worse than Gone Whaling, worse
than Aging Hippie. All the usual blather
about fat content & mouth feel now feels
like clever manipulation by Unilever
or whoever owns us since we last sold out.
Don’t shout at me about idealism, Jair--
have you even tried Cockblocker’s Paradise?
Season after season of busting our blockbusting
balls is no reason not to just throw it all
into the industrial freezer, dead & wheezing
like us two Bartles & Jaymesian old geezers.
People-pleasing’s a mug’s game & it bugs me
that my job entails playing it, & dealing out
desserts like so many drugs makes us thugs.
One bite of Kind Bud Krunch could land you
w/ a case of munchies strong enough to make
the pint self-defeating. Anonymous overeating
leads to bigger bodies which leads to more heat;
All about entropy’s not much of a slogan. I’m
leaving Vermont, becoming Quebecois--au revoir,
Americone, w/ your Pee Wee Hermans & Hulk
Hogans. The border skulks like a teen in the distance,
& you know how teens like their ice cream:
sweet like their hearts, cold like their schemes.

April has ides!

2007-04-15T17:45:00.000-05:00

GENERATION Y WUZ HERE

Titles make me shake my head. This is me,
forcing the landscape to oscillate. It goes
through the string of the tin can phone that we
invented as kids, so goddamn long ago.

This is what we spoke about: bespoke suits,
missing spokes, Bicycle cards, & what we called
token jokes. In the sidewalk, tree roots,
unbeknownst to us, were creeping up like skewbald

ponies & the shadows were deepening.
We were getting older, the fun was over.
Mr. this & Mrs. that started happening,
my Fido, your Rover. A box of Russell Stover

& a two-leafed-clover. Our luck ran out;
we’re the last of the full-time roustabouts.

Ides of April Eve: 14 days, 14 lines

2007-04-14T15:24:00.000-05:00

CRUELEST MONTH QUATORZAIN

I’ve drawn up a list of best practices
for those whose MO’s are smart-not-careful,
according to these complicated matrices
where x = sharp & y = killful,

carved into my desktop w/ a single scissor.
Ordering ornamental trees online
is another way to kill time, if your job is miser-
y incarnate. Rain clouds in the east incline

as though to crush me. That means spring
represents the sublime, sprung from a trap
like the ghost of a rabbit, the meadowy king
of things that multiply. Small birds flap

around in the sky, ultimately meaningless.
There’s nothing left to address/confess.