My poem, “Exam Questions For The Next World” appears today in the online journal “Truck.” Very pleased about that.
Category Archives: uncategorized
A note to the daily subscribers to Dark Matter…
Just wanted to give you folks, you 500+ loyal readers, a hearty thank you and a heads up.
After 40 some years of writing new poems pretty regularly, I am coming to a point I am calling the Hard Stop. I will be completing and posting another 19 poems, and then calling a stop to the writing and posting of NEW work.
I’ve got a backlog of over 2000 poems on this blog alone. In other files and archives are roughly another 2000, dating back to early high school efforts (say, 1974 or so). Many of them — perhaps the vast majority — are not very good. But some of those might actually benefit from a second look and more editing and revision.
I have decided that this will be my focus for the future. I think I have enough material written to work with for the rest of my lifetime, frankly.
I will also be working hard on submissions to various journals and compiling one or more manuscripts as well. There are some logistical things that will need to be worked out around those efforts — namely, finding journals and presses that don’t consider this blog a “publication” — but I’ve dealt with that before and no doubt will figure it out again.
I will continue to post “newly revised” poems as often as I can, so you may not actually notice a large reduction in posts. I do hope you’ll see and appreciate any improvements I make no matter how often I post.
Your loyalty and readership have been a great comfort to me over the years. I think every poet — every artist — needs a great audience. You have been that for me, and I thank you yet again.
I hope you stay with me on this next phase of the journey. I will understand if you choose not to, of course.
Here’s to the future. I think the next 19 new poems or so will be interesting to write and I hope you let me know how you feel about them and about this.
Thanks, again.
Tony Brown
May 9, 2014
Recent Publication
http://drunkinamidnightchoir.com/
The link above will take you to a relatively new online journal, “Drunk In A Midnight Choir,” which published three of my poems this week. I don’t submit to publications all that often, so I’m always pleased when pieces are accepted.
The work being published in this journal is excellent, and I highly recommend adding the publication to your reading.
My thanks to the editors for their kind attention.
–T
Note to subscribers
Just a note to regular subscribers — I’m still writing but am in a cycle of revisions and also working on music for my poetry/music group The Duende Project. There’s been a bit of a break in posting new work, I know…but that will change shortly. Thanks for your patience…
Shameless Horn Tooting
Happy Thanksgiving indeed…grateful and pleased to hear that my poem “The Blood I Can Draw” has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the good folks at Radius.
Very honored — they have a lot of amazing work to choose from and it’s nothing I would have expected. Thanks!
Maybe fourth time will be the charm… 😉
Repost of question to subscribers…
I posted this a couple of days ago and got a frankly disappointing response — only three of the hundreds of subscribers to the blog answered. Trying it one more time…it was the weekend, after all.
If I were to put together a manuscript of selected poems and have a book published of my work, would you read it or purchase it? Or does the presence of the work online make that irrelevant?
If I were to do this, would you purchase a hard copy or an e-book?
I would especially like to hear from subscribers I don’t hear from often.
Thanks in advance!
Tony
Question for subscribers to this blog
If I were to put together a manuscript of selected poems and have a book published of my work, would you read it or purchase it? Or does the presence of the work online make that irrelevant?
If I were to do this, would you purchase a hard copy or an e-book?
I would especially like to hear from subscribers I don’t hear from often.
Thanks in advance!
Tony
Trivial Pursuit
There are things of import to address,
momentous words yet to be written,
some idol-shattering calls to action
to be made into Earth-saving poems.
For example, in one the action may center
on a rooftop in Brooklyn.
The protagonist will think
of a PJ Harvey song
and refer to the day the towers came down;
then, he will move, and refocus on the street
where a coin will fall from his too-soft hand into a beggar’s cup
as something from the Qu’ran is whispered to the night —
but it’s not my place to write that poem.
I feel a little queasy that I’ve described it here;
someone elsewhere would have preferred it if I’d let it be
until they got around to it; my grand apologies to one and all.
See, the nights are still cold in New England this early in spring;
the heat burns money, the coffee takes power I can’t afford,
even the cat’s demanding more of me than I have to give.
The promise of rebirth is a carrot I can’t reach;
the road I’m being urged to travel
is too long for the time I have left.
Let someone else write the poems for that road,
someone indifferent to me and my kind
who just want to move somewhere warmer
than this place, who long for a place
where simply being warm and in love and full is enough,
and that’s all everyone in the world really needs.
A note to subscribers
I will be taking an indeterminate break from posting poems. Please feel free to read through some of the archives of thousands of older poems at the blog itself.
I hope to be back sooner rather than later.
Thanks for your loyalty, attention, and understanding.
Note for subscribers to Dark Matter: The Duende Project
Just wanted to drop a note to all the wonderful folks who subscribe directly to Dark Matter.
I really appreciate your desire to follow my experiment here of putting an entire body of work out there — the good, the bad, the ugly, and the mediocre. I certainly hope you enjoy it and I’m always happy to respond to any comments or questions.
Wanted to also point out to those new to the blog that I also have another project — a poetry and music ensemble, a band if you will, called The Duende Project. It features two spectacular musicians — Steven Lanning-Cafaro on bass and nylon string guitar and Chris O’Donnell on drums — and me on far less than spectacular electric guitar now and then, and poems all the time.
Our early work is available on Amazon.com, iTunes, Barnes and Noble, Spotify, etc., etc., while our two most recent albums are out on Bandcamp, at theduendeproject.bandcamp.com .
I would certainly love it if you’d go take a listen at the least — and if you saw fit to purchase a track or a whole album, that’d be terrific too.
Thanks again to all of you. I am humbled by your continued interest in my work, and I hope to interact with you soon.
Tony
Short relaxation of the pace in posting here coming up
April, AKA National Poetry Month here in the USA, is usually a time when I’m out doing readings and shows. For some reason, that’s not happening this month. Ah well.
It’s also the time for NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month. A lot of my friends are doing a “30/30,” writing 30 poems in 30 days to celebrate. Long time readers of this blog know I kinda do that every month, so I’m not making a big deal about it…in fact, I’m taking a little “break” from it.
I’ll be spending some time in April doing other poetry-related things — catching up on reading for one; editing old poems for another; and mostly working on music and promotion for the Duende Project, the music and poetry collaboration of Steven Lanning-Cafaro, Chris O’Donnell, and me. I’ll be writing and practicing some guitar parts, choosing poems for us to work on, and most of all getting ready for more gigs and recording in the next few months.
I’m also thinking about pulling an actual manuscript together. I have mixed feelings about it as it sorta negates the whole point of doing this blog (see the “About” section here if you don’t know why I say that) but a lot of people seem to think I should. Do you? Chime in in the comments here if you have a thought about it…and whether you might purchase such a thing were it to become available.
Anyway — if you see fewer poems from me over the next few weeks than you are used to, that’s why. I’ll try to check in with other content, links to edited poems for example…but it’s a good month to look a little deeper into the archives here if you are so inclined.
Thanks, as always, for subscribing and reading and commenting. It means the world to me.
Tony
Lion And Breeze
There once was a lion in love with a breeze —
neither jet stream nor hurricane,
just a humble riffle of air —
but on that breeze the lion soared.
Once could say the lion must surely have been
transformed into some other being, as lions
cannot fly — and yet, the lion flew,
and there’s not more to be said of that, I think,
unless you are one who must find meaning
in all things, one who must sip rainwater
from a china cup, one who raises a book
to understand sunrise and thus misses the sight
of a lion making a transit across the face of the sun,
borne in the arms of his longtime beloved.
If it happened to you, you would no doubt seek a parachute;
you’d be so unworthy of the love of a good breeze.
I’m sorry, folks.
Just a note to subscribers to “Dark Matter” that I will likely not be posting a lot of poems in the near future due to a variety of circumstances. I promise to return as soon as possible. Know that I am trying to remedy the situation as quickly as I can.
Thanks in advance for your understanding.
NOTE: break in posting
A good friend and magnificient poet, Jack McCarthy, passed away yesterday after a long struggle with cancer. I’m taking a couple of days off from posting to reflect. Back soon.
Thanks, all for understanding.
Dark Matter 