NOÖ Weekly March 26th Edition! Edited By Carolyn Zaikowski!

It's up! Read new work from Dawn Sueoka and Ben Hersey. Visit NOÖ Weekly.

"Not even above using a better period" : Nat Otting on the first week of NOÖ Weekly

NOÖ Weekly is the new bi-weekly or weekly arm of NOÖ Journal, allowing us to publish more great writing all the time, and it's guest-edited by a different person each week. We couldn't have picked a better inaugural guest editor than the erstwhile Nathaniel Otting, Minutes Books publisher, HTMLGIANT contributor, a distinguished founder of the Robert Walser Society of Western Massachusetts, and a supporter of literature whose enthusiasm and sweetness seems magic enough that I often believe he was born on a submarine made of buttermilk. Oh, and he's a pretty diabolical poet his own self. We're honored to have him talk a little bit about his choices for the first NOÖ Weekly.

You toss something in Italy / that lands at my feet. I pick it up. You read something funny on the internet, like "Terrible pass, great catch, terrible shot" (Seth Landman quoting Lewis Freedman), and then you read Guy Pettit's poems and think how perfect that the spot on the internet where you go to do so is called catch catch throw throw. You go, and lo:

MIRACLE GRENADE

I am standing next to the solid gold tube. 
When I wait for it to speak a religion hurries in,
like a recycled screen, I call the Capitol. 
I pose indirectly for a stranger 
until I’ve discredited every inch of my body.
The Capitol is not your head. It tells your head
that you have none until it’s gone. 
I see the figments of a careless toss.
You toss something in Italy 
that lands at my feet. I pick it up.

From Italy (great catch: your toss is "in Italy", "my feet" could be anywhere), you cross the Brenner Pass into Austria where you read Pettit's "Even If It Lasts For Hours" and "Archive Your Mistakes" to Ilse Aichinger, the nigh-on-90-year-old-master (Bernhard's elder, an Austrian Beckett, Kafka's etc.), whose "Bad Words" begins:

I now no longer use better words. The rain which pounds against the windows. Previously something completely different would have occurred to me. That’s over now. The rain which pounds against the windows. That’s sufficient. By the way I just had another expression on the tip of my tongue, it wasn’t only better, it was more precise, but I forgot it, while the rain was pounding against the windows or was doing what I was about to forget. 

(translated by Uljana Wolf & Christian Hawkey in the latest Poetry Project Newsletter)

After reading Aichinger's "Salvage" (from Bad Words), you won't feel bad about leaving better words to Dakotah Burns, whose Austria ("Also since I returned from Austria I've been back to wanting to do all kinds of stupid things in the woods.") is neither Aichinger's nor Bernhard's. Watch him throw around gait: "my gait moves from marvelous to monstrous in an instant" or "my gait’s mistakes are excused as a tantrum of imperial feeling" or "my gait consented to a period of more formal instruction." Burns--read his story "NBA Fantasy" and you'll see--is not even above using a better period, a period of more. As he once put it, on the internet:

What about two periods,
at the end of a sentence,
instead of one. Two periods.

NOÖ [11]! NOÖ [11]! NOÖ [11]! NOÖ [11]! NOÖ [11]! NOÖ [11]! NOÖ [11]! NOÖ [11]! NOÖ [11]!

NOÖ [11] now out!
First installment of NOÖ [weekly] now online!

rad poetry #16: for erin fitzgerald

RAD POETRY THANKS ERIN FITZGERALD AND DANIEL BAILEY!



ROCK OF LOVE BUS: THE TORNADO EPISODE

for Erin Fitzgerald

I held a tornado
let loose amongst the people
who keep blood in their veins

for too long.
Beverly called it lifelines,
but Mindy called it french fries.

The longer it sat
in my palms the more paths,
Taya said, I could take

with my life.
Then she said it could be like
in a bus or something. And I could bring all

my friends. And I
said what if I hold the tornado again?
Wont we all die in my palms?

And she said, Yeah.
But it wont be that bad.
It never is.

rad poetry #15: for michael jauchen

RAD POETRY THANKS MICHAEL JAUCHEN AND ELLA LONGPRE!



JAKE SAID NOT MY WHALE AND WE SAID OKAY, WHATEVER YOU SAY JAKE
(written one word at a time by Ella Longpre and Mike Young)

for Michael Jauchen

Home trails in a gorge.
Slate tiles outlast my flat
notions, upscale neighbors
disapprove. Meanwhile, our
growing congregation of talcum-
colored cacti lay untouched and
depraved. Careless! Mobile,
lifting patches, ranking wayside
skinheads.

This time, the whale wouldn't gesture
to anyone, but maybe she expects sympathy
or revenge. Eh!

And, thankfully, the less we notice this
backasswards nostalgia, this imminent
mealtime snack, this understated crunch,
the bigger our luck. Windy, mulchy, barren,
swamped. It's a timeless turbine
that performs. But frail as passing.
Faulty signals, fitful returnings.

rad poetry #14: for nicki-poo demske

RAD POETRY THANKS NICKI-POO DEMSKE AND FRIENDSHIP COUNTY (FOR DELICIOUS PROMPTING)



EVERYONE'S A LIGHT SWITCH IN A SUNDOWN TOWN
(as read by Carolyn Zaikowski)

for Nicki-Poo Demske

We moved and mom took the pylons.
We reconvene, sinister ventriloquists,
cliquey as a microbrew. Sure I get down
hill, but I don't use skis. Is there anything you
know that you didn't find on the wet underside
of a Snapple lid? Thanks, but no. Thanks, I'm
good. We moved and mom put the pythons in
expensive Tupperware. My dad worked in a salt
mine and then he worked in a lighthouse. My dad
works for nothing and then he'll work for love.
I don't sit, I study. When we move in together,
you're not allowed to bring the setee. Hard candy
and Skoal. Cum and photo chemicals. We sat up
all night writing blurbs for cereal. Sandals and dust.
Prayer cards and piglets. I would care about the world
more, I think, if it would meet me with the things I think.

rad poetry #13: for roxane gay

RAD POETRY THANKS ROXANE GAY!



JUDGE JUDY AT THE GYM
by Carolyn Zaikowski & Mike Young

for Roxane Gay

In walks a robe we all know. It covers
leotards we don't. In walks a known we've all
robbed. We will never know a cape. We will never
cowtow a charred knoll. Is there justice
in a hot mama? There is no fallacy in a can.
If you're on TV, is it ever a real gun?
It's never, ever a toad of steel. The way
I see my problem is this: if it's not my
problem, I'll accept a smaller check.
I don't have a Sam to worry about nor do I
take Deborah well. It's not like I'm paying
for these seats. This shampoo's got a
hole in it. Frig. How many reps does it take
to know yourself? About a quart, we said,
about a thimble knock. If I was a judge,
we said, I'd be mostly in it for the wig.

rad poetry #12: for jono tosch

RAD POETRY THANKS JONO TOSCH, CAROLYN ZAIKOWSKI, AND—OF COURSE!—MAUDE



SONNET? I DON'T EVEN KNOW HER!
by Carolyn Zaikowski & Mike Young, starring Maude

for Jono Tosch

Sometimes you cook 'em the big trout.
Daddy eat my sugar. Daddy clean my bark.

Don't you gimme me that looking get.
Daddy eat my sugar. Daddy clean my bark.

Grandpa pair of dice swooned for the pork.
Daddy eat my sugar. Daddy clean my bark.

Don't marry that kale before you know her.
Daddy eat my sugar. Daddy clean my bark

Tow your bride to a burn pile.
Daddy eat my sugar. Daddy clean my bark.

Don't pinch an itch on the side of the tweeze.
Daddy eat my sugar. Daddy clean my bark.

If you don't take your breath, agreed?
Daddy eat my sugar. Daddy clean my bark.

New books from NOÖ Journal contributor Elisa Gabbert and NOÖ Journal friend Chris Tonelli

They're debuting from the awesome new press Birds, LLC. Here's the scoop:


Birds, LLC is a new independent poetry press specializing in close author relationships in order to make the most awesome books in the world.

The first two books published by Birds, LLC are The French Exit by Elisa Gabbert and The Trees Around by Chris Tonelli.

SPECIAL PRE-SALE OFFER: Buy the first two Birds, LLC releases for just $20. Pre-Sale offer lasts until March 31st. Books ship the first week in April.

About The French Exit:
It’s a pleasure to listen to the opinions of the narrator of The French Exit. Clear-eyed imagery and wit control the anxiety: “[A] boy at the counter disappears / or I can see through him.” Likewise, in a fine prose poem: “Do not be afraid of angering the birds. What angers the birds is fear.” The energy throughout Gabbert’s collection has the clip of the French exit itself – allons-y! – self-aware, self-sufficient, in control, in touch.
- Caroline Knox

About The Trees Around:
Full of the will and the weather, that great skeptic Wallace Stevens walked to work and wrote his poems, poems you may well already love and believe. (Good, as they say, for you.) And as for Chris Tonelli, he walks in that integrity: read him, and be merciful unto yourself. His foot standeth in an even place. This book’ll make you bloom.
- Graham Foust