Home-Schooled By a Cackling Jackal

2008-05-14T10:58:00.003-04:00

Dear Substitute Pilates Instructor,

Tell me what to do with my legs, arms, hands, feet, back and butt. Tell me to lift my toes, wrap my thigh muscles, bend my elbows. Tell me to look forward. Tell me to stop shrugging my shoulders. You're the boss. I submit.

But don't tell me to smile. That's the one muscle I get to fully to decide what to do with. I'm concentrating on all my various parts. As a busy mom, I have not a second to spare on a smile. I have something called a "powerhouse" that I'm supposed to be engaging. Times like these, I must not be distracted with frivolities.

And for that matter, where does anyone get off telling anyone else to smile? Nothing makes me want to stick a shank in some guy's gut faster than when a random stranger approaches and tells me to smile. Fuck you. What's next, telling me what to do with my uterus?

Exactly.

My smile is my domain. My smile is sincere and true. Or I'm trying to trick you into being at ease and liking me. But that's my call. I decide when I'm false. You decide when I half-assed my elephant and whether or not I need to do it again.

Sincerely,
Little Ms. Frowny Pants with the Tight Hamstrings

Bedside Guide Reading in Paris

2008-05-13T00:30:00.002-04:00

19 May at 8:00 pm. AT: The Highlander, 8 rue de Nevers, just southwest of the Pont Neuf, 75006, M° St-Michel. (Happy hour from 5-8. Come early & have a glass with us.)

A double-bill poetry reading to celebrate spring, agape, & eros featuring poets Evie Shockley, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Lea Graham, & Timothy Bradford from The Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel - Second Floor (No Tell Books, 2007) followed by an open mike with David Barnes & the Spoken Word reading series.

* Evie Shockley is the author of two poetry collections: The Gorgon Goddess (2001) & a half-red sea (2006), with Carolina Wren Press. Cave Canem fellow, Hedgebrook fellowship for women writers, Shockley teaches African American Lit & creative writing at Rutgers.

* Jill Alexander Essbaum's first book, Heaven, won the 1999 Bakeless Prize followed by Oh Forbidden, a collection of erotic sonnets (Pecan Grove Press), & Harlot, with No Tell Books. Necropolis, (neoNuma Arts), is forthcoming in spring 2008. She splits her time between Zürich & the States.

* Lea Graham's work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Notre Dame Review, American Letters & Commentary, Mudlark, Shadow Train, & The Worcester Review. Her chapbook, Calendar Girls, was published in the spring of 2006 by above/ground Press in Ottawa. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English at Marist College in Poughkeepsie.

* Timothy Bradford's poetry has appeared in Bombay Gin, CrossConnect, DIAGRAM, H_NGM_N, Mudlark, No Tell Motel, & Runes, among other journals. Currently, he is an associate foreign researcher with the Institut d'Histoire du Temps Présent as he finishes researching & writing a novel based on the history of the Vélodrome d'Hiver.

This Week at No Tell

2008-05-12T00:26:00.002-04:00

Craig Morgan Teicher shall proceed such that a stream comes careening through the sky across this week at No Tell Motel.

Gideon's Week at Spa Grammy

2008-05-11T23:26:00.000-04:00

Wow, what a Mother's Day Dream

2008-05-11T09:09:00.001-04:00

Dr. Temperance Brennan (aka Bones) is pregnant. As the pregnancy progresses, it becomes obvious to everyone that it's not a human fetus. She is being guarded by a centipede/alien-like creature that prevents anyone from "saving" her although it's likely too late even if someone could. Her body is contorting and the birth will no doubt be deadly and it's likely her body will be the offspring's first meal. Angela arrives and gives her a cigarette. Bones puts the lit cigarette backwards (lit end) into her mouth. It's the best way to die at this point.

2008-05-08T05:22:00.002-04:00

So all week Chris was telling me about how he bought tickets at his conference for an event at a castle. Oooh, a castle! I thought and happily went along believing my last night here would be in a castle. Well, last night I asked him the name of the castle so I could learn a little bit about it before we went. Turns out it's not a castle or anything like a castle, it's a nightclub. Talk about lost in translation.

2008-05-07T15:06:00.000-04:00

2008-05-06T16:00:00.002-04:00

Wanton Textiles' Mighty, Giant Testicles

2008-05-06T10:47:00.005-04:00

Bernadette Geyer on Wanton Textiles:

Wanton Textiles, the result of a creative collaboration between poets Reb Livingtson and Ravi Shankar, is what the Griffin and Sabine trilogy could have been, if Nick Bantok had really had some guts (read: cahones).

That's right! Buy the chapbook here.

Stasi

2008-05-05T17:41:00.002-04:00

New at Delirious Hem

2008-05-05T08:50:00.002-04:00

Disarming, Destabilizing & Creeping Out the Patriarchy: A conversation on the Gurlesque with Arielle Greenberg

This Week at No Tell

2008-05-05T07:43:00.002-04:00

Anna Maria Hong shall drool empathically supine this week at No Tell Motel.

I'm a Jelly Poet

2008-05-03T10:38:00.006-04:00

I looked through one of the Berlin guide books to figure out where I'll be staying in the city -- right by the zoo and a big ass shopping district. Normally I'd be thrilled to be right by a shopping district, but I decided I wasn't going to do much shopping on this trip since the US dollar is worth just a little more than monopoly money. 1.00 EUR = 1.54 USD

Oh well, guess I'm coming home with some really expensive shoes. That's what Chris gets for registering us at the economy hotel right next to the fancy conference hotel. He was all, it's a 1/3 the price. I was all exasperated and like, your company is paying for it--that's when you stay in the nice hotel!

I don't know what's the matter with Chris. But there's something the matter with him.

Blogging will be light (hopefully) while I'm on travel.

Auf Wiedersehen, bitches!

Nick Cave Reads Harlot

2008-05-02T22:08:00.005-04:00

No Tell Books' first celebrity endorsement!

Nick Cave reading Jill Alexander Essbaum's Harlot.

2008-05-02T11:38:00.003-04:00

I'm making breakfast. Phil Collins is singing on the television. There are several annoying flies flying around. I'm handling a couple of dead ones. Also, there's a large bee flying around that's a bit more menacing than the flies. I open the back door and shoo it out. Gideon says: "When you have an unwanted triangle: use your own algorithm."

2008-05-01T23:06:00.001-04:00

Jill Alexander Essbaum is blogging at The Best American Poetry blog this week.

2008-05-01T11:40:00.001-04:00

I answer Nic Sebastian's 10 Questions at Very Like a Whale.

Poetry Mag Updates

2008-05-01T10:39:00.003-04:00

New issue of Moria at www.moriapoetry.com

Poetry by: Jesse Ferguson, Mary Kasimor, Davide Baptiste Chirot, Andy Nicholson, Geof Huth, Laurel Ransom, William Garvin, Diana Magallon and Jeff Crouch, Steve Roggenbuck, Mark Young, Andy Gricevich, Eric Weiskott, Laura Harper, Thomas Fink, Raymond Farr, Michael Crake, John Lowther, Kyle Schlesinger, and Adam Strauss.

Reviews: Mark Wallace on Maryrose Larkin, Aileen Ibardaloza on Eileen Tabios, Jake Kennedy on Andrea Baker.

* * *

The May issue of The Scrambler is out featuring an interview and artwork by Didi Menendez, poems by Davide Trame, John Findura, Aaron Dailey, Greg Luce, a story by Shyner Nybok, a movie review of Lars and the Real Girl by Heather Craig, photographs of wire sculpture by Ruth Asawa and our monthly Playlist.

http://www.thescrambler.com/may08.html

* * *

No Tell Motel's reading period is open during the month of May. Please read the submission guidelines and some of the work already published before submitting. And if we do publish your poems, for goodness sake, don't e-mail on Monday in a panic because only *one* of your poems is appearing. Do you know how many times that happens? Do you know how exasperating that is?

Bye Bye Cruel April

2008-05-01T00:53:00.002-04:00

NaPoWriMo poems will stay up until early afternoon today. Read them while you can! Now back to your regularly scheduled mommy blogging.

2008-04-30T11:48:00.001-04:00

Jilly Dybka compiles an update on our Amazon/POD/Booksurge Overlords. Welcome!

Coconut 12

2008-04-30T10:30:00.002-04:00

Featuring new poems and collaborations by David Trinidad, Jeffery Conway, Gillian McCain, Reb Livingston, Chelsey Minnis, Elizabeth Treadwell, Christopher Salerno, Lauren Spohrer, Terita Heath-Wlaz, Tyler Carter, Elisa Gabbert, Michael Ball, Brenda Iijima, Sam Truitt, Jessica Piazza, Claire Hero, Matthew Zapruder, James Sanders, Linnea Ogden, Emily Kendal Frey, KC Trommer, Gina Myers, and Seth Landman—has dropped from the palm! Come visit at www.coconutpoetry.org!

Read my poems first! I'm needy like that.

2008-04-30T01:50:00.003-04:00

I'm all caught up -- just one more to write. I deserve the NaPoWriMo Medal of Fortistooge. Whoever's in charge of bestowing that -- accept this self nomination.

This Week at No Tell

2008-04-28T00:07:00.002-04:00

Daniela Olszewska is partially barred by the loose translations of black market smoke this week at No Tell Motel.

2008-04-27T22:33:00.004-04:00

TB received too many shower gifts. In the spirit of Joan Crawford, she was allowed to keep one and made to donate the rest to charity.

And here's Gideon practicing early for his big day:

2008-04-27T12:14:00.004-04:00

I haven't fallen down on the NaPoWriMo job, er, I kind of have, but am getting back to it tonight. Been in Pittsburgh for TB's bridal shower festivities. But now that I got that out of my system it's NaPoWriMo overdrive. I have to finish this week because I'm leaving for Berlin on Saturday. Did I mention that? I'm going to Berlin. With my American dollars. I'm gonna live like a king! Or is that live at Burger King? I get confused sometimes. Do they have BKs in Germany?