free chapbook (don't get excited- i wrote it) (1 Viewer)

jordan

lothario speedwagon
i've been writing (poetry) again, for the first time in a few years, and i decided that it would be fun to self-publish a small chapbook.

for people that enjoy small press publications, this is a hugely wise investment. it is literally impossible for it to decrease in value over time.

if you want one, send me a private message. it's free, and postage is free as well.

also, i suppose that this may contravene some previously agreed-upon forum rules about hawking one's own wares, so i'll apologize in advance. finally, i realize how self-indulgent this is. but, i rationalized it by thinking that if someone else on the forum did the same thing, i'd want one.
 
i heard from a reliable source that your poetry is a big pile of self-indulgent wank, and that basically, it sucks ass. how accurate is that assessment?
 
for those of you that have asked me how to get chapbooks, i only need your address. however, i've decided that i'm only going to send three internationally (and one is already taken). the reason- USPS international rates just went up... ALOT. also, i only am going to print 15 to 20 to begin with.

at this point, i think 5-10 are left, after ones people here have requested, and ones i'm giving to people.
 
ok, the books are done and will be mailed later this week. it was supposed to be just black and white printed on cheap paper, but i'm such a book nut, i got a little carried away with the production... so here's what you're getting:

  • 18-page chapbook w/color title page laid into stiff cardstock cover color printed on front and back.
  • each copy numbered and signed

i felt kind of silly numbering and signing them, but a couple people asked for it, so i thought i'd oblige.

anyway, i printed 20 of them, so there are still a few available. you know you want one...
 
i sent them out today, so you should have them by the end of the week if you live on the left half of the country, and early next week if you're on the right half. international people- i sent it airmail, so it may take a while.

there is one left if anyone wants it.
 
Hallo Jordan_

I'm holding 16 and I feel content like I'm 16 again.

Thank you very much.



Regards,

Ponder.
 
It arrived today! Nice cover photo! Have'nt had time to read it yet, maybe tomorrow. Thanks a lot, Jordan!
 
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Thank you Jordan,
Thank you for your guts.

Please,
Let me know when the (next?, 1st) Initial Public Offering is available...

I'm sold.

"... a fat nurse came to
talk to me
your mother is outside
tell me something to repeat back to her that will
convince her you're alive
I had a real hard time thinking of anything."
('Deadly' pg 5 from quarter life, Jordan H)

WOW,
Thanks again .......
And I can't wait...
I can't wait!
Salut,
Zoom
 
part of the point of that poem was to write about some of the things related to the accident that stuck in my mind without necessarily talking about what happened.

but, since you asked... back in 2003 in chicago, i was at a party at a friend's house, and a bunch of people were on the balcony, which was this three-story high wooden structure (i was on the top floor). without warning, the thing collapsed, and i fell 3 stories and was then buried under people and debris for a little while until the fire department dragged me out. i was comparatively lucky, since i only had scrapes covering half my body and a couple broken ribs, and a bunch of people died or were injured way worse. you can google "chicago deadly porch collapse" and you'll find more info on it. i never wrote anything about it, because i didn't want to write disaster-porno poetry or anything, so part of the point behind "deadly" was to try to come up with something that got out how i was feeling about having been through this, without necessarily trying to get the reader to feel bad for me because of what had happened.
 
Wow, no need to Google it, I remember that. Sorry you were involved. What a weird and horrible scene.
 
those are my favourite lines, too.

Yeah! This ending of the poem in very very moving and shows a lot of understanding dramaturgy.

The description of the hospital-situation reminded me a little of Hemingways story 'In Another Country'. Of course not from the happenings there, but from the mood.

The story behind your poem is really tragic! I lack the words...
 
Sorry to hear about that. I kind of wish that I didn't know. I liked the idea of the aftermath and related emotion being more important than the event. The good thing is, as it is written, it still is.
 
From CA to Ohio..

Got your chapbook..read it while staying at a roadhouse motel room which is down the street from River Downs racetrack..drank some cheap bottled beer and turned the pages slowly..

Enjoyed it thoroughly!
 
Hello Jordan,

My copy, #20, arrived last week while I was on holiday in West Somerset.

It's presented and formatted in a clean, simple style.

The poems aren't bad, but the overall feel of them seems subdued. And that should mean nothing to anyone but me.

I'm glad you took the considered time to write the poems and make a chapbook out of them. Thank you for the free copy. Looking forward to the next one.

Cheers!
 
hmmm... my reading was quite different.
in 'deadly', there's this really dry, very controlled tone to the whole poem, even though the events being described are completely fucked up; but for me, that's what draws me in - you see it through this guy's eyes, the shock of it all, and you see him trying to make sense of it and being unable to. he knows all this stuff has happened TO him but he can't make a connection between the world he has lived in his entire life, and the world he finds himself in now. the whole poem is building up to those last lines - that's the 'pop'. and what's so powerful about it is that it's almost a kind of anti-'pop'; the poem is framed by these two lines ('i was hardly the sole survivor'---'i had a really hard time thinking of anything') which are so understated, and yet they set the tone and feeling of the entire piece. for me, those last lines wouldn't work if the rest of the poem was explicitly raging emotion, or whatever. the speaker is attempting to gain some kind of control, through a setting down of words that organises the whole experience into something that makes sense, because being on a balcony that collapses and seeing people you know dead, dying or seriously hurt DOESN'T make sense.

the language and the style are superficially subdued, but i think the whole tone created by jordan choosing to write it this way evokes an implicitly powerful feeling which is actually just the opposite. and i think that's incredibly skilled.
 
Jordan - Received my copy a couple weeks ago and enjoyed it immensely. I was stunned to learn the accident described in "deadly" was that porch collapse that happened here a couple years ago. As hackneyed as this may sound, I have to say that a little bit of something good came out of that tragedy - your poem. It's riveting. I also love "the marine layer", with it's sweeping overview of the geography of Los Angeles intertwined with your own emotional topography. Some fav lines : "i quit school/a degree and 1/3 later/and wound up a stone's throw from minimum wage/" and "under the smog layer/things happen that wouldn't/if the sky were clear."

A question: In that same poem, you refer to "LA's acne-scarred, working class poetic identity". Would that be a Buk reference ?

Good work, my man. I like the cover photo, too.
 
it is indeed a buk reference... i saw a picture one time of the hotel where bukowski met jane working as a maid (described in factotum after he comes back to LA later in the book), and i immediately recognized the goody goody restaurant... it's closed now, but i imagine buk probably drank there once or twice.

thanks for the kind words- i'm really glad you liked the book.
 

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