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Spent the weekend catching up on the sonnet for a couple of reasons but mostly because I enjoy the form and want to write more of them.

So what was I reading? Glad you asked! Here goes:

• The Sonnet: A Comprehensive Anthology of British and American Sonnets from the Renaissance to the Present, Edited by Robert M. Bender and Charles L. Squier
I picked this up years ago at Stand for like two bucks and I keep coming back to it when I need a good sonnet pick up. I have yet to read the whole thing since Ole Englishe gives me a headache but I do appreciate how the editors dug deep into British history. And what a bunch of haters those Brits were. A couple of the sonnets I read feel like the illegitimate love child of “pistols at dawn” and a “front stoop snaps session.”

But the sonnet that truly befuddled me was John Frederick Nims’ “Agamemnon Before Troy.” Part Homer, part Pecos Bill, part Spencer, and all good literary fun.

• Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes by Francisco X. Alarcon with English translations by Francisco Aragón
A good read with the section that looks at language and word as my favorite part. Alarcon’s work cuts right to the point but does so with a slow blade as opposed to a quick thrust which does justice to the sonnet form.

• Song of the Simple Truth The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos, Introduction and translations by Jack Agüeros
I’ve been making my way through this dense volume but by bit but skipped through to check out some of DeBurgos’ forays into sonnet. The two sonnets I came across are political odes to Jose Martí and Perdo Albizu Campos which push the sonnet as not just personal plea but as a voice in the arena of human awareness and rights.

• Sonnets from the Puerto Rican by Jack Agüeros
My favorite book of sonnets as Jack adds a Nuyorican flair to the form. You’ll find it all in here: love sonnets, persona sonnets, political sonnets, spanish sonnets, even sonnets with double the lines. You will also find a poet in full command of his language anchoring his sonnets in personal place and individual tradition.

X-Post: Amazon changes rules for print-on-demand publishers

Online retailer requires POD publishers to use its BookSurge printing service
By Linda Rosencrance

March 28, 2008 (Computerworld) Amazon.com Inc. has told publishers who print books on demand that their titles will no longer be sold directly through Amazon if they don’t use the company’s printing company, BookSurge.

Full article here.

The Newness: LATINO POETRY REVIEW

A great first issue of what is sure to be an important center for critical discussion of not only Latina/Latino poetry but American Poetics as well.

Congrats to all the editors and contributors!

Latino Poetry Review publishes book reviews, essays, and interviews with an eye towards spurring inquiry and dialogue. LPR recognizes that Latino and Latina poets in the 21st century embrace, and work out of, a multitude of aesthetics. With this in mind, its critical focus is the poem and its poetics.

La Bodega Sold Dreams

I got this video from Thy Tran’s blog. As I mentioned in her comment section: It’s funny, cuz it’s true. It’s also sad, cuz it’s true. The exposition on the “bodega food pyramid” is hilarious all by itself, but Dallas and Rafi’s thanks to the gov’t forces that be for helping keep poverty alive and well in the Bx is political satire at its best.

It’s also not a Bronx thing, either. The place I call home, West Oakland, is infamous for having 53 liquor stores and no grocery stores in the area. Near as I can tell, it’s a real thin line between a New York bodega and an Oakland liquor store.

How’m I doing?

I am near the end of my current journal–the one where I keep all my notes from workshop, first drafts, half thoughts, and stolen conversations. It’s also holding the quickly jotted lines and author banter from the last few readings I’ve attended. These notes is what has been helping me recall the little details at a poetry reading and transfer that to my recent blog recaps.

While it is a task to listen to the reading and scribbling observations; it’s also a great joy to look over these lines of poetry that are not pure lines of poetry but my best memory of these pure lines of poetry. I try to differentiate what is a perfectly transcripted line and what is my attempt to hold together a start word and end word with what I heard and what I saw or felt as I am processing the words.

But that’s part of the joy of a good live reading, which to me is still the purest form of poetry. Yes, I love books and the feel of a book in my head and the experience of having the text speak to me but I also realize that I am prone to read in the most comfortable place I can find and at the hours it is most convenient to me. I also have a bad habit of putting down a poem that I am not ready for, maybe it’s hitting too close to home or too far from where I am but either way it’s a struggle for me to get through some books even the ones I love, or better stated, have grown to love. The live reading is cool in that I give myself up the event and the poet: Ok, hit me with your best shot.

For the most part, I remain optimistic about readings and try to keep my expectations for the poetry high but my presumptions of the poet low so that I can let the key poet factors sink in: voice, cadence, stress, tone, arc of movement, ambient noise, silence, pause, facial expressions, et al; while also taking into account the external factors: venue, curator, sound system, ambient noise, audience, et al.

So am I doing a good job at these recaps? Well, you can be the judge as YouTube has been my new poetry vice and I am having a blast looking for true gems in poetry. Recently found: Neruda in his own voice, Felipe Luciano of the Last Poets introducing Salsa great Eddie Palmieri with a poem, and an interview with Ocatvio Paz.

I’ve also found some videos of reading I have recapped which is a good opportunity to see how accurate my recaps really are.

Amiri Baraka at Lunch Poems and at the Holloway Series. Recap can be found here.

Craig Santos Perez at the Holloway Series. Recap can be found here.

This reminds me that I should get around to posting more on Mackey’s half of the Holloway reading, the influence his work has had on Craig’s newer work (some of which I heard on Saturday at the Artifact series), and some other good readings I’ve been lucky enough to attend lately.