LOWELL MURPHREE'S E-BOOK, "BINDINGS" ~ A MODPO COLLABORATION

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Lowell Murphree is one of the legion of poets I met online via that MOOC, ModPo (Modern and Contemporary American Poetry) a couple of years ago, then in person in Seattle at the beginning of May. One of our number, Jamie Zoe Givens, was slated for cancer surgery and Lowell wrote a poem for her that wound up in a lovely e-book, Bindings. 

With Lowell Murphree, at the Cascadia Poetry Festival in Seattle, May 2014

I know, I know, I'd still rather hold poetry in paper form, but the way this collaboration came together an e-version is absolutely right. Jamie wrote the introduction, Professor ModPo, Al Filreis, provided a foreword, and Jeremy Dixon, another ModPo enthusiast who happens to be Hazard Press in Wales, designed and edited it. 

You can read and/or download a copy of Bindings free of charge here through Dropbox. Neither Lowell nor Jeremy is making any money from this project, but if you're so inclined you could make a donation to Jamie's health recovery fund via this gofundme campaign.

                           Somebody else’s hands are

                           doing my hand’s work today

                           on a keyboard never mine

                           in a chair in a country never mine.

                           (from Diction of Unemployment

                                  by Lowell Murphree)

ModPo is happening for the third year this fall. If you're curious about MOOCs and you like poetry, check it out. Here's the link again.

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MORE FRIDA CARDS, WITH RED RIDING HOOD'S WOLF AND AN ANDY WARHOL FOR GOOD MEASURE

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I'm glad to have these cards to post as opposed to writing up long blurbs as I'm up to my ears in projects these days. 

I'm doing ModPo (Al Filreis' wonderful MOOC on Modern and Contemporary American Poetry) again, and it's a little like the song, almost lovelier the second time around. I'm not all anxious about the essays and evaluations and such, just giving them all my best shot and sending them off to the ethers. I'm enjoying the forums more this year, concentrating on a few rather than being overwhelmed by how many there are (and there are many). And while it's covering the same material as last year, there is still so much to be learned. 

I'm busy with book making projects that have to be done by December. And I'm working on something for The Light Ekphrastic's next collection of collaborations again. 

So, on to the postcards. This first one's pretty self-explanatory:

“Apart from that, you were built

            like a walrus.”

                                    Ian Williams

                Her huge

            her lover

            her mega-man

            her nemesis

            her monster

            her betrayer

            her bastard

            her prick

            her first-seen-on-a-ladder

            her messed-with-her-sister

            her love-you-forever

            her death-do-us part

This is Andy Warhol's Seated Male Torso:

“and I was by the orchard’s edge, the quince orchard,

            reading an ode, perhaps by a captive prince”

                                    Ghassan Zaqtan

            This, too, a black ballpoint.

            This, sturdy cardstock,

            meant for mailing without

            having to pack along

            a companion,

            Did he know, when filming

            that boy in the shower

            or those endless, soul-sucking

            kisses, that his own 15 minutes

would never, ever end?

 The incredible Frida again:

“Katherine and I avoid

            the live exhibits these days, even

            the pretty petting zoo.”

                                    Jennifer Maiden

            Oh, the darkness of it all —

            black cat, black dog,

            black monkey on

            the black-eyed woman’s shoulder,

            blackbird, dead of night,

            black as a storm cloud

            come to drop rain

            into the black lake

            but when it clears — and it will —

            the way we rejoice

            in the light!

 I love these children's stories illustration cards:

“Here is the intense

            amnesia of the just now

            at last no longer longing”

                                    Alan Shapiro

            That moment

            when what goes up —

            balloon, smoke, wallpaper —

            stays up

            belies everything we’re told

            about gravity

            by songs and stern professors

            though spinning wheels

            do go round

            that is the nature

            of spin

 Here's one I picked up in Mexico last winter:

“No poetry. Plain. No

            fresh, special recipe

            to bless.”

                                    Brenda Shaughnessy

No storks mid-flight

no black flamingos bobbing

no water-bearing women

no fallow fields to sow

no opening of eyes, of hearts

no running out of time

no beckoning lacuna

no thwarted empty page

no thought

no life

no poetry

no

 When I saw this one I knew I had to send it to Lana Ayers!

“Or as truth is disguised in fiction

            or as the truths of philosophy may be

            disguised or veiled in poetry.”

                                    David W. McFadden

            Tell me again your story,

            tell me how you howled

            when I appeared,

            red cape to your bullishness,

            never enough in your basket—

            yes, I know I was the one

            who carried treasures

            not intended for you,

            I was your target, your desire,

            and you? you were

            always skulking about,

            going on about your basket,

            not getting that I really

            didn’t care.

 I just liked this one with its odd proportions:

“and my mind climbs down

            to the half-remembered

            country I have left”

                                    James Pollock

            In this particular version

            of the age old story

            a man rides into town

            his turban bigger than his mount,

            he’s on a mission

            got a ticket to ride

            he won’t stop until he gets there

            wherever ‘there’ is.

            Could be a birth story,

            and he’s on the ride

            of his life.

            Could be an odyssey,

            he’s not telling.

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