Read a Good Book: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami is published by Random House and is a complex story involving layers of characters. The main character, Toru Okada, is unemployed and trying to figure out what to do next. While searching for his missing cat his wife goes missing as well. As he tries to unravel these mysteries more fantastical and strange things begin to occur in his life.

Toru Okada encounters an aging war veteran who tells his tales of the horrors experienced during Japan’s campaign in Manchuria while he also receives visits from a psychic who helps him track down his missing wife. In addition to all of this, Toru Okada explores his neighborhood for his missing cat and encounters a teenage girl down the street who is simultaneously welcoming and vindictive. In the neighborhood he also discovers an abandoned well and begins to climb down inside for perspective which may seem odd but fantastical things happen as a result of visiting this well that fold into the layers of the story. The well belongs to a house that has a dark story behind it and all of the characters who seemed to be part of other circles in the beginning then blend in together as you move deeper into the mysteries surrounding Toru Okada.

Murakami paints a complex, eerie world filled with magical characters and surreal activities that envelop our main character slowly but surely until what we would call reality is no longer recognizable. It is an excellent book and while some mysteries are solved you are still left with a sense of wonder, a sense of longing for more explanations. This story will ink itself in your mind and perhaps invade your own dreams.

I highly recommend this book and you will most likely be able to find this in your local library and definitely in your local bookstore.


If you would like to purchase a copy for yourself on-line, visit:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_16?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+wind+up+bird+chronicle&sprefix=the+wind+up+bird


To learn more about the author, Haruki Murakami, you can visit his link below:

http://www.randomhouse.com/features/murakami/site.php?id=


Thanks always for reading, please stop in again next week…

The Writing Disorder Open Submissions

They are open year-round, four issues a year. They have an on-line submissions form or you can send your poems on-line, via e-mail, or snail mail. They really make it convenient for you. You may send five to eight poems or one piece of prose. If you submit prose, double-space your submission. If you send your poems via the internet attach an MS Word Document. It may take 2-6 months to hear a response, please include a bio, and send only one manuscript at a time per reading period or twice a year per writer.

By e-mail, your subject line should include your last name, provide your contact information in your e-mail and MS word attachment:
submitATthewritingdisorderDOTcom

By snail mail, specify Poetry Editor either on the envelope or with your bio when you enclose your poems and mail poems typed on individual pages (please remember to place contact information on each page and always include a self-addressed stamped envelope) and send to:
C.E. Lukather
The Writing Disorder
P.O. Box 93613
Los Angeles, CA 90093-0613.

Their guidelines are very detailed in a very helpful way so please check out full details using the link below:

http://www.thewritingdisorder.com/submit.html

Good luck to all who submit, please stop in again tomorrow for another featured good book…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

https://sites.google.com/site/howiegood2011chap/technotopia
“Technotopia” by Howie Good

http://www.poolpoetry.com/poetfour.html
“metaphorically speaking we…” by Frankie Drayus

Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions...

Poet Hound’s First Give-Away: For All These Wretched, Beautiful & Insignificant Things So Uselessly & Carelessly Destroyed by Hosho McCreesh

Yes, that’s right, we are giving away a collection of poems signed by the poet for the first time here on Poet Hound and the rules are simple: Simply prove you have links to both my blog and Mr. McCreesh’s web-site either by leaving a comment with a link to your own blog/web-site or by sending me an e-mail with a link to your blog or web-site.

In order to qualify you must have the following links somewhere on your blog roll/web-site list:

http://hoshomccreesh.com/hoshomccreesh.com/Home.html

and

http://poethound.blogspot.com


You have until Sunday, Sept. 18th 2011, to enter. I will literally draw your names/web-site/blog names out of a hat for the winner and then contact the winner for their mailing address to send them their free copy. The winner will also be posted on Sunday, Sept. 18th so make sure if you do not have a way to be contacted that you can contact me and receive your prize.

It’s as easy as that and I am happy to feature the collection here with a sample poem so you know what the collection is all about:

For All These Wretched, Beautiful, & Insignificant Things So Uselessly & Carelessly Destroyed, Hosho McCreesh’s poems record the city streets of the world and humanity’s attempts to live in a world of madness, hunger, and tragedy. The poems are dark and appealing and are a wake-up call to experience the world around you. I am happy to share a sample poem:


Homeless Man at a Bus Stop on Central Ave.

He wanted to ask for money,
that much was obvious

but before he could
he found himself trapped
in a meaningful conversation
with a stranger

& suddenly it must’ve felt wrong
to somehow cheapen it with a
ham-handed request for something,
anything the stranger could spare.

For a few moments they were just
two guys talking about
something true.

It couldn’t last of course, & ended
in an awkward parting of ways,
he cursing himself
as he walked toward the next bus stop,
trying to remember
not to invest himself
in these current transactions,
not to
connect meaningfully
otherwise he’d spend
the whole goddamned day
sober & starving

with truth.

This poem is intriguing in that you often don’t see a homeless man depicted in any other way than someone who is looking for a hand-out or is simply drunk and sleeping on the sidewalk. Here, a homeless man is having a real conversation, something outside the stereotype for both parties involved in the conversation. I wish we knew more about the discussion they were having, what truth were they speaking of to each other?


If you enjoyed this sample and would like to purchase a copy of the book, it is available at Sunnyoutside Press for $10.00:

http://www.sunnyoutside.com/authors.html

So if you do not enter or do not win the contest, you may visit Sunnyoutside Press of Buffalo, New York, to snag yourself a copy of this poignant collection.

Good luck to all who enter the contest and thanks always for reading…

The Writing Disorder

Wow, wish I’d found this site sooner! Poetry, fiction, nonfiction, art, reviews, blog, all of it is intelligent and engaging. Definitely check it out at:

http://www.thewritingdisorder.com/index.html

Thanks for clicking in, please stop in tomorrow for another featured poet…

Read A Good Book: The Mermaids Singing by Lisa Carey

This book was a gift from my father simply because my little sister’s name is Lisa. He had no idea what it was about but thought it looked interesting and I am so glad he gave it to me several years ago because it is an incredible story about three generations of Irish women and personal and intertwining lives.

In The Mermaids Singing, Clionna is the grandmother who comes to America to find Grainne, her granddaughter, to take her back to Inis Muruch, Ireland when Grace passes away from cancer. You learn about all three women’s private lives and what makes them who they are. Grace had rebelled against her mother and then fought with the love of her life in Ireland and came to America to make a new life for her and Grainne. Teenage Grainne remembers nothing of Ireland and hardly knew she had a grandmother named Clionna in Ireland when she is summoned to accompany her back “home” to Ireland. Grainne struggles to fit in to a new country and struggles with the idea of meeting her father for the first time. Clionna herself must find a way to share her love and emotion with a young girl she has always desperately wanted to know and can finally reconnect with. We learn about the lives of all three women, their struggle or embrace of their sexuality with the men they fall in love with, the rise and fall of emotions as they struggle to connect to their family members.

The Mermaids Singing by Lisa Carey is an intense and beautiful story that is definitely in my top ten list of books that I enjoy reading over and over again. I highly recommend this to all women who seek and struggle with connection to the female family members in their lives and who struggle with love and relationships. It is all here in an amazing story.

If you enjoyed reading about this book you may find a copy in your local library of purchase a copy for yourself through links on Lisa Carey’s web-site by using the link below:

http://www.lisacarey.net/ms_buy.php


To learn more about the author and her writing, visit her site at:

http://www.lisacarey.net/about_about.php


Thanks always for reading, please stop in again next week…

Steel Toe Review Open Submissions

This is a journal based in Birmingham, Alabama, that enjoys reading poetry, fiction, and more from all over the world. The guidelines specify that you may send your poems elsewhere but please let them know if they are accepted elsewhere. You must submit using their on-line submissions link, make sure you include your personal information when submitting and I would recommend 3-5 poems as that is a typical number to send. To learn more and to use the on-line submissions link, go to:

http://steeltoereview.com/submissions/

Good luck to all who submit, please stop in tomorrow for another good book review…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

https://sites.google.com/site/howiegood2011chap/3-tiny-heart-attacks
“Tiny Heart Attacks” by Howie Good


http://steeltoereview.com/2011/08/13/%e2%80%9cif-i-rise%e2%80%9d-by-amit-parmessur/
“If I Rise” by Amit Parmessur


Thanks for clicking in, please drop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

The Bulk of the Mailable Universe by Jules Gibbs

The Bulk of the Mailable Universe by Jules Gibbs is published by Dancing Girl Press and contains poems that are layered in meaning. I would recommend reading this through at least twice as you will pick up on more layers the second time around. Jules Gibbs currently lives in Syracuse, New York, and enjoys teaching poetry to adults and children. The title of the collection is what caught my eye as I absolutely love snail mail (not the bills kind, the letters-from-friends-and-family kind) and was delightfully satiated to read the contents. The poems greet you with words you do not see or hear every day yet are familiar such as “concordant, tycoon, slake.” These are words that make me want to reach out and touch them, experience them more in every day life. Then as you read there are layers that peel away as you understand them more with each reading. Below are a few I am happy to share with you:


Tussle

Deep in the jejunum, factory
of post-vertebral reasoning,
a concordant tome
produces a quasar, a nolo
prow for the cocky free speech
of her conceptual A posse.

The historic nonstandard
of her one congratulatory chromosome
says: You’re blocked; he’s Virgo
as any jellyfish, recherché, hopes you’re free.

Volcano at fifteen, she’s a woman
by reprisal, catalyst
doing battle, unashamed
as an evening gazette corrigendum.

It’s like the last rational brain cell
Whispering to a girl gone wild: Tussle,
you got some time—your future depends on it.

As many other girls have discovered
the hard way,
there’s nothing worse than creating
an expectation — then failing to deliver.

This poem makes me think of teenage girls coming into their own. The “congratulatory chromosome” that makes them female instead of male, “Volcano at fifteen” that describes their energy and feelings as they learn how to present themselves and strive to become what they hope to become. The ending stanza is a perfect way to encapsulate the experience of a girl trying to find herself: trying to become a particular someone or something and then being unable to fulfill it in other people’s eyes and/or their own. It’s an excellent poem that uses layers and imagery rather than direct language. Beautiful.



Ones and Ohs

Our system is supported by Mom
and another girl photo coming
soon. You need the most recent version of Flash
to get Catwoman, Gwen, D.C. comics—
everything comes with a rating: hottest
hotties stuffing age between biography—
Natalia, Jessica, Pamela, Beyonce’—
even Sharon Stone was saved
by post-sitcom success.

A girl named Ellora was born
on the 22nd of June in a hospital
just outside Paris. Already
she cries in four languages,
ones and ohs while a storm
marvels the beach in L.A.,
covers the sand that beat
Britney’s jailbait in the face,
Broadcast to the world. And still
she out-charts Christina.

I interpret this poem to mean that all women can become a star thanks to the internet, thanks to the ones and ohs of computers that can place in our faces the stars of every-day life on television, music, and now our own lives. While we may recognize the names in the first stanza there is background provided for Ellora: a baby girl born to parents who apparently speak four languages between them if you see the reference about crying in four languages. The first lines in the first stanza I interpret to mean that the Mom will be posting photos of her new daughter soon and post them on the internet just as so many starlets are found, whether they deserve the fame or not, on-line. In an era like ours, everyone’s pictures and daily lives are broadcast to the world, it’s a poem that high-lights the closing gap between everyday people, celebrities, and pop-culture.



If you enjoyed this short sample of poems as much as I enjoyed its entire collection you may purchase a copy of The Bulk of the Mailable Universe by Jules Gibbs at Dancing Girl Press for $7.00 using the link below:

http://dulcetshop.ecrater.com/p/11517243/jules-gibbs-bulk-of-the-mailable

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound

Very Like A Whale Site

Nic Sebastian has wonderful commentary on making video poems, insights into other people’s inspirations, provides opportunities for you to send your own, and much more at this delightful blog, check it out at: http://verylikeawhale.wordpress.com/ Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow for another featured poet…

Read A Good Book: The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa and translated by Stephen Snyder

If you like mysterious story-telling this is a wonderful book. Written originally in 1990 and 1991 by Yoko Ogawa there are three novellas titled: The Diving Pool, Pregnancy Diary, and Dormitory. Stephen Snyder translated these stories in 2008 and the book in my hand is the result of his work. My father in law sent this collection to us and each story is gripping, fantastical, and they will crawl inside your head and stay there.

The Diving Pool is my favorite of the collection. The main character is a young girl whose parents run an orphanage and tend to leave their biological daughter to her own devices. The girl herself has a fascination and secret crush on one of the boys living there, his name is Jun, and he is a diver on the swim team at school. The girl constantly observes Jun’s good behavior and admires him deeply while she herself feels she is not well-behaved and acts accordingly. The twist at the end, which I will not give away, is startling and heartbreaking. The story has crawled inside my head and has stayed there coming to the front of my mind with startling clarity at the oddest moments in time.

The second story, the Pregnancy Diary, is about a woman keeping a diary about her sister’s pregnancy. She catalogs her sister’s comments about food and smells, the clinic she visits, and recounts memories of going into an abandoned clinic and poking around. The sisters had seen the instruments, the tables, they had snuck around inside and all of these memories influence the diary. There is a twist at the end that leaves you wondering what is real and what is imagination.

The last story called Dormitory is one that has crawled inside my father-in-law’s head and stayed there. This one is about a woman visiting an old college dormitory that her young, male cousin is interested in living in. The woman visits the dormitory’s Manager who explains that this particular dormitory has changed and may be deteriorating but welcomes the cousin to move in. Mysterious things begin when the Manager admits a boy disappeared without a trace and the Manager becomes increasingly strange himself with each visit by our main character. I cannot give much more away but it is a strange ending that gives no relief yet will stay indelibly inked in your memory.



If you enjoyed this review, I urge you to find a copy of The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa, translated by Stepehn Snyder, at your local library. To purchase a copy of this book you can visit your local book-store or visit Amazon.com using the link below:

http://www.amazon.com/Diving-Pool-Three-Novellas/dp/0312426836/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314454809&sr=8-1

Thanks always for reading, please drop in again next week...

Typo Magazine Open Submissions

You may send up to six poems all in a single document through their on-line submissions manager. Please be sure to include your contact information within the document of the poems you send and while they don’t request a bio it is always a good idea to include at least a short one.

For more details, go to:

http://typo.submishmash.com/submit/1038/account

Good luck to all who submit, please stop in tomorrow for a featured good book…

Poems Found by Poet Hound

http://juked.com/2011/06/florida.asp
“Florida” by William Stephenson


http://www.alicebluereview.org/main.html
“Dear Lillian” by Colleen McCarthy


Thanks for clicking in, please stop by tomorrow for more Open Submissions…

Nerve Cowboy Issue 31

I always enjoy reading Nerve Cowboy and this issue is packed with stories, poems, and art meant to shake up your attention span. There are always poems that are shocking and this issue has some real stunners. One poem in particular is about a man and how he handles his father’s ashes. You’ll have to snag an issue for yourself to read that particular poem. In the meantime, here are several that also piqued my interest:


Kerouac Spodiodi, Bukowski Wine

At age 15 I began to write stories on my father’s
1942 Underwood, hunt and pecked up to 5 pages
long starring a perky protagonist resembling Debbie
Reynolds in love with heroes wise as Abe Lincoln.
Mailed them off to Saturday Evening Post, McCall’s,
Collier’s, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, Seventeen
magazine and waited for the $1000 check to arrive,
enough for a year’s rent, a trip to New York City to
sip Spodiodi with Jack Kerouac and by age 20 my
rejection slip pile stood high enough for a game of
Old Maid and when my life turned crazy, my days
ran away and I became a vegetarian holding on to
the wheel of a quivering meat conception, at age 35,
I learned to type up to 100 wpm on my IBM Selectric,
so I wrote 20-page stories and sold my first for $50,
barely enough for a week’s rent and a bus ride to L.A.
to chug wine with Charles Bukowski. Age 40, at last
I sold a story to Paris Review for $275, only 2 week’s
rent by then. And now I’ve got a computer, can blab
blog a story or more a day, but publishers can barely
pay their own rent anymore so they send me instead
of money comp copies of their magazines containing
my stories I tuck away neatly into boxes beneath the
coffee table, my impecunious stories, my millions of
words, clever idioms, hyperbole and denouements
starring perky Debbie Reynolds and brave Honest Abe
Free Rent, mere cheeseburgers and beer- for silverfish.

By: Joan Jobe Smith of Long Beach, CA

When you are a writer of any kind I believe you go through very similar experiences above. You send out your work and dream of bigger things and when success comes it is not quite as large as your runaway imagination had you believe yet you keep on sending and dreaming, sending and accepting reality.




The Last Time My Mother Read Me Jack and the Beanstalk
--for E. W., 1925-2010

There should have been a harp playing
to honor the singing one Jack stole.
There should have been a glass of milk

to celebrate the cow Jack swapped for beans,
and a ladder to symbolize upward mobility.
There should have been a glow to simulate

the giant’s stolen gold, and pancakes
to commemorate his wife, who fed Jack breakfast,
and saved him from her husband’s appetite.

I’d never read Carl Jung, or dreamed
that Jack’s life-themes would be my own:
valuing beans others despise; being small

but lethal (in my mind); clever (but shallow?);
less concerned with Right than right-for-me
and-mine; always trying to shine for women-

each a version of my mom, who’d sit me
in her lap and read Jack any time I liked.
Today, I wish I’d liked more often.

Sure as hens laid golden eggs, harps
Screamed, and giants thundered
between earth and sky, I thought happily

ever after (which should have tolled
as bagpipes keened) meant, and always would,
my mom and me.

By: Charles Harper Webb of Glendale, CA

This one definitely tugged at my heart-strings, what can I say? A man paying tribute to his mother is a wonderful thing to read. A timeless tale that almost everyone I know has either heard because it was read to them or because they read it to someone else is romanticized by the poet above and shared with us. Comparing the story of Jack to his own life, the poet shares his new perspective on the tale of Jack and of the time shared with his mother. I love this poem and now I want the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk read to me again.



Repeating Myself

Repetition in poetry is beautiful
but at the reference desk
it is painful.

Computer lab?
Go straight back past the stairs.
You’ll see glass doors on your left.
Go through them into the computer lab.

Change for a dollar?
Checkout desk.

Can I use your phone?
No. There are pay phones down the hallway to your right.

Stapler? Scissors? Tape? 3-Hole Punch?
Chained to the table behind me.

I know I have beautiful eyes.
The ring on my left hand indicates that I’m married.
No, I will not go out with you.

Between these interactions
I think of Ron Padgett’s poem “Nothing In That Drawer”
where every repeated line comes out slightly different.

Or Gary Snyder’s “is this our body?...this is our body”
from his poem “The Bath”
where repetition transforms question
into mythic proclamation.

Or Diane Wakoski’s
“it is blue
it is blue
it is blue”
in “Blue Monday”

Pencil?
Pencil?
Pencil?
Unfortunately, our budget doesn’t allow us to buy pencils for patron use.
There is a pen
chained to my desk
that you can use.

By: Heather Abner of Brighton, MI

This poem makes me grin wide. I like seeing things from the other side. While I approach reference desks for directions it is nice to catch a glimpse of the reference desk worker’s perspective. I can picture the poet rolling her eyes with each repetition, the constant and unchanging needs of the patrons and I am curious to know which library or building she works in and why absolutely everything is chained down. The stapler, three hole punch, even the pen, all chained to her desk so that no one, not even the reference desk worker, can borrow them outside of that very desk.




If you enjoyed these sample poems, each issue of Nerve Cowboy is $6.00 or you can subscribe for two years for the more than reasonable price of $22.00. I have been a subscriber for four years now and I highly recommend them. The editors are also the type of editors who look for new and unpublished poets so I feel that reader support is vital for this particular journal. For more details, visit their website at:

http://www.jwhagins.com/nervecowboy.html

Thanks always for reading, please click in tomorrow for more Poems Found by Poet Hound…

Mann Library's Daily Haiku

Posted from Cornell there is new haiku posted by Tom Clausen each and every day. Check out the daily inspiring poems at:

http://haiku.mannlib.cornell.edu/


Thanks for clicking in, please stop in tomorrow for another featured journal…