CREATIVE WRITING :: books
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Strabismus
published by Burning Deck Press, 1995
poems, 64 pages, offset, smyth-sewn
paperback $14 or signed paperback $20
order your copy at SPD Books or Burning Deck Press
This first, full-length book of poems gets its title from the name of a medical condition where both eyes do not properly align with each another. The techniques used to write this book are variations on what may be called "visual translation." In some cases, poems are written while looking at images and other times while looking at unknown languages. In each case, the source material is translated into poetry. Surrealist automatic writing techniques are also integrated in this approach, allowing the source material to become wildly dreamlike and fantastic. (see sample text below)
ENTERING POETIC BLINDSPOTS
"What I am trying to say is this: From now on we must enter the poem from its blindspot. We must force ourselves into the danger of not seeing in order to see the poem more clearly, to see it as clearly as the head of a giant pin being thrust through the walls of the mouth. In other words, we might poke pins through our mouths in order to discipline ourselves not to speak, so that we can see ourselves go blind inside the meat of the poem. Understand this: The retina is a fool, having never said a thing. See the yellowing walls of the poem close in to speak to us, see our bodies say what we mean in a poem as we fall to the ground in total collapse of its presence. Let a fatal combustion take place at the core of the retina in order to explode it into a million pieces of useless abstraction. What a joy in the blindness of really seeing the poem at any point before it ever imagined itself in a word to see, to say this completely blind, to know this in the meat of the poem that will never come to the surface of the poem. So we enter from here now, completely naked, completely confused, completely poetic. We smile and accept that language is a futile attempt to see anything alive in a poem. We see poems dead. Yes, but O the life in a blindspot."
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Joshua Tree
published by Emigre, 2001
96 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 inches, 31 full color photographs, cloth cover
with blind emboss, sewn and case bound, with CD, $24.95
order your copy at Emigre, read a review
Joshua Tree is the third and final book in a trilogy produced by Rudy VanderLans. It is a collaborative project (photography, writing, music) that focuses on the Southern California landscape. This book is a tribute to musician Gram Parsons. I contributed a series of eight poems entitled "Elegies From a Cosmic American Ecosystem."
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Palm Desert
published by Emigre, 1999
96 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 inches, 75 full color and duotone photographs, cloth cover with blind emboss, sewn and case bound, with CD, $24.95
order your copy at Emigre, read a review
Palm Desert is the first book in a trilogy produced by Rudy VanderLans. It is a collaborative project (photography, writing, music) that focuses on the Southern California landscape. This book is a tribute to LA composer Van Dyke Parks. I contributed a fictional prose work entitled "Yucca Brevifolia Dixie Cup." This work was later used as reference material for a film by Rasmus Skotte called "Daft Beach Movie." (see sample text below)
YUCCA BREVIFOLIA DIXIE CUP (excerpt)
"Early in the morning on January 3, 1968, parked at the Oasis of Mara near Twenty-nine Palms, I pulled seven anonymous postcards from the glovebox of my Volvo. One came from Danbury, Connecticut; one came from Trenton, New Jersey; three came from New York City; and two came from Hollywood. They all included the same brief, typewritten message: “I HAVE SOMETHING FOR YOU. MEET ME IN PALM DESERT.” With the sun in my eyes, I took a healthy swig from my canteen then reached for the keys.
When I turned the ignition, I turned the sky on. It shifted color from pure blue to pure red, then to pure white. Every star ordinarily visible in the night sky was now visible in the light of day because these stars were the heroes of America. Their lips consisted of two platinum-plated millipedes. The legs of each millipede moved in different directions, yet both remained stationary on the hero’s face. The abrasive action of the legs against their skin generated a vibration, thus giving the heroes a voice. The voices from several of the heroes were extraordinarily intense but indecipherable because all the millipedes were moving simultaneously. Through the windshield, I could see that these heroes formed a seven-pointed constellation. I called it The Yucca Brevifolia Dixie Cup. In an attempt to hear each voice independently, I drove in the direction of the nearest point in the constellation. I drove for a while until I checked my rearview mirror. In it, I saw a dense swarm of sootywing butterflies that were quickly approaching my open window. The swarm became dense enough to take the form of a cowboy boot. The boot entered my window and stepped on the brake pedal. I stopped at a place called Sheep Pass.
At the first point in the constellation, I could hear nothing except a harsh, repetitive sound—chug chug chug chug then ka ka ka ka. As the sounds became unbearably close, two cactus wrens flew around me and perched on each of my shoulders. They picked me up and carried me to an oven-hot mound of rock. Isolated against the sand and sky, I saw a third wren approach. Flying over me, it dropped a leather briefcase monographed with the letters “C” and “I.” Unable to catch the briefcase, I watched it crash to the ground, sending insurance forms into the air. As the forms settled, I saw the head of Charles Ives. His facial skin softened into the dough of a pie crust. Baked through the slits of his eyes, I could see apples. The rising steam smelled of escaping hymn tunes and little golden zinnias. He marched toward me because the desert floor was a smooth Formica counter top. Lowering his head to this household surface, he sliced a piece of freshly baked pie. He raised his head back up and, as he served it to me, said, “Resume the NOSTALGIA you sift into flour cups.” I ate the warm pie in silence."
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Toward a Poetics of Taking
published by Ouroboros Books, 1994
hand-made, Japanese-bound hardcover
written, designed and constructed by the author
limited availability, contact Brian Schorn for details
Using short excerpts from Jean-Yves Collette's The Death of Andre Breton, these three short prose works address the notion of appropriation from the perspective of cellular differentiation. Collette's words are taken as a source text from which a new, original text can grow. (see sample text below)
TAKE 1
"The Morula cut-up lashing at the wrist line, the newsprint left dangling. All this in the confine of burrows. Hand lump another time in the making. Gunfire so familiar, the way the mouth takes form from the anal bead. Speaking role elevated into kingdom. Animal divisions as fingers, as mortar driven by teenage must. Dirty (t/b)owel embossed shell shock. Those glorious little mulberries, alive in the opposite of my taking. You took so that I might hatch from your taking. To be born took. Another time divine. Lead dust piling up in a solid ball of suggestive cell tight. Designed long loss equivalent to the linguistic organ of incoming tongue buds. The fruitless speaking into one's own cell muck. The writing already taking water from the bag chance. Cleavage intact through periods performing acrobatic blade grips. Make that a pencil tip. So rapid since the stretch pumping sand. The dune forced to disclose the writing, the terrible air rising from the half-mind/mouth. Movement in a pure coma. Write against the wall of my rectum, write sun, write indefinitely so that this said thought is luck or meat. Take some."
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Zipper Back Into the Body Fly
published by Ouroboros Books, 1991
hand-made, Japanese-bound softcover
written, designed, letter-pressed and constructed by the author
limited availability, contact Brian Schorn for details
The eighteen poems collected in this book progressively follow each of the eighteen years of childhood, while simultaneously following cellular and fetal development. The result is a language mixture of subjective biographical memories and objective scientific jargon. (see sample text below)
2.
"I am a heap of cells, fizzing inward.
Fizzing outward as a whole before my mind.
I am the bulb of a Zeiss projector mind.
My mission,
as specific as those of starfish under pressure.
I am the result of a finger stuck in the middle of
an orange,
with unimaginable grace.
A day later the free-swimming me flattens out another
reflection, pieces stratified as what-is-to-be. Exotic
proteins in full force. This is what I
call
a complete sentence,
a complete thought in my mind,
before my mind.
My mouth comes apart when I say this
& I say this better than gills."
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Logic of Sensation
published by Ouroboros Books, 1987
hand-made, Japanese-bound softcover
written, designed and constructed by the author
limited availability, contact Brian Schorn for details
The poems collected in this book explore the de-evolution of the ten phyla of the animal kingdom whereby, ultimately, all animals concern themselves with the primal instincts of eating and reproducing. Using accurate biological vocabulary for each phylum, its characteristics are anthropomorphized and sensationalized within a worldly human existence.