Maximum Go in the Resulting Hogshead

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

In Another Castle now available on Amazon and SPD.

You can now buy my new book of poems, In Another Castle, from Amazon.com.

Please buy it, read it, and post your own customer review. I'd love to hear what you think about it.

Or, if you write reviews for magazines, print or online, let me know. I can have a review copy sent to you ASAP.

If you're a bookstore or library please find the book on Small Press Distribution.

Thanks! Happy reading!

And thanks also to everyone who showed up tonight to Brookline Booksmith. I had a blast, and I really enjoyed hearing the poems of my fellow readers - Ashley Capps, Elisa Gabbert, and Jon Woodward. You can find a few pictures from this evening on my Facebook page.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

A Poem for October

It's getting near Halloween so it seems like as good a time as any to post my one pumpkin poem. I read it at the reading last night at DG Wills Books and it was a fun one to read out loud. The reading was fun, all around. It was great to see Oni Buchanan again after, what, about 7 years? She gave a great reading and I was happy to read with her.

I'm looking forward to the next reading -- in Boston on November 11th. And to all the readings after that. It's fun to talk poetry again.

Anyway. Here is the pumpkin poem. It also has leaves in it. Very autumnal.

Inc.

Business is booming. It’s booming business.
You bring me a nickel and I give you
either a flower or a mushroom. Lucy
took the flower. All that night she dreamt
of people smiling. Now you, you look
like the kind of guy who could use
something special. I have a pumpkin out back
that might be just your size. Seriously,
what can I do to get you leaving here today
with this pumpkin? It’s worth more
than a nickel but that’s OK. I’ve invested
in leaves and they’re coming in nicely.
I can take a loss now and then for a kid like you,
just starting out. I can tell
there is someone you’re missing. Paint her face
here on the pumpkin and you can walk out
thinking you’ve got one up.
The kept bride. The pumpkin shell.
How do I know? Because I know
it is sad when the light of one thing falls
in the space of another. The streetlights
hung in the early fog like something
beautiful strung up for amusement:
some beautiful novelty. It is sad.
The lamp obliterates the empty desk.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

What may just be the final cover

Here it is. It still needs to be fiddled with for the press info, barcode, etc. And I don't think I'll be putting an author photo in here. That's not so important to me. And there's not really any room. Not unless Steve wants to put one on the last page of the book, where the author bio is.

Friday, October 10, 2008

What did I write?

Recently a few thousand of us poets whose names are on the web (I'm guessing we're the poets on Ron Silliman's blogroll,* since that seems like the easiest way to get a ready-made collection of names this large) appeared on a list of contributors to Issue 1 of what would seem to be an unnamed journal or project that we had no idea was being put together. Before it was posted, none of us knew what poems of ours were going to be included or how they'd gotten permission to publish them. Now that it's out, it seems that the project is called Principal Hand and that the editors have actually gone into the future (or some permutation of it in which we all write in the same basic style -- maybe we've become a hive mind?) and brought back samples of our work. I've never seen my anthologized poem before in my life, and yet I must have written it because my name is attached to it. It is mine. Hive or no hive.

So, my friends, here is my latest (or maybe my last) poem. Perhaps it was written via telepathy from a cryogenic freezer somewhere. It reads as though it may have been.

Turning surrender into progress

The trader is rather purple;
the queer thunder instructs our progress
And the triumphant colleagues turn the
voices of personages upon your
nerve
We become
Between these prints and
those prints

Matthew Shindell

I do enjoy a good semicolon. That can't be mere coincidence.
Thanks to Stephen McLaughlin and Jim Carpenter for whatever corpse handling they had to do. I hope you wore gloves, boys.

*Now that I look at Ron's page, I realize that my name is no longer on his blogroll. I hope it's not because he doesn't like my future poetics. Hopefully it's just because I've changed my blog address. I'll know for sure if he unfriends me on Facebook.

Labels: cold dead eyes, cryogenic telepathy, hive mind, Jim Carpenter, Principal Hand, Ron Silliman, semicolon cleansing, Stephen McLaughlin, the future

Monday, September 08, 2008

Blurbs, Cover Art, and Other First Book Concerns

When I was a young MFA student, knowing very little about the poetry world (I only learned about MFA creative writing programs about a year or two before I applied) I didn't really know much about books -- let alone first books -- and what made them publishable. I thought I knew about poetry books. I owned enough of them to know at least a little bit about them. But my poetic role models were of such a high caliber that it was difficult to see what was really going on there when they finished a book. It all seemed to come very easily. My first poetry teacher, Norman Dubie, was in the Norton Anthology, for God's sake. What work went into getting published for him? He seemed to write his poems directly into the pages of the American Poetry Review.

My view of books was that books just happen. You write poems, you put them together into a collection, somebody publishes it (of course someone wants to publish it!), and then people who like poetry go out and buy it, pat you on the back, and name their cat after you. Of course this view of poetry books was unsustainable. Like a lot of my assorted naivete in various and numerous areas of life, this too had to melt away slowly through disappointing experiences that left me, for a time, almost too jaded to even believe that books get published on their own merits at all. This too eventually faded, after my ego had been worn down enough to the point where I could see beyond myself and see my book, and others' books, with a little more perspective. It's not true enlightenment, it's just -- how shall I call it? -- seasoning. (How I came to this point, if I can figure out how to describe it at all, is a topic for a whole other post, I think. I still question a lot of the decisions made by editors out there in the poetry world, but I also read a lot of books that I really enjoy. And more and more, small presses are making up for what the bigger presses are missing. There's just no point in sitting around hating on poetry presses you don't like. Let's leave it at that.)

What I never really had the stomach for until recently were blurbs. This is one area where I've bought into the cliche and learned to take the good with the bad. I was of the camp that believes that blurbs are meaningless bits of nonsense attached to important names that stand between the potential reader and the book. I found most of the books I read through word of mouth from other poets, or from reading isolated poems in journals and then looking up books in libraries and bookstores. I didn't need some poet I barely knew selling me some hyperbolic half-truths about a book. And, I also thought (and on this my mind has not changed) that any reader who would skip my book because it didn't have the right names attached to it was a reader I didn't want or need.

Fast forward over the past 5 years and you'll find me in a very different place. After publishing pretty much every poem from my first book of poems in the magazines I admired most, I was getting nowhere with publishing the actual book. There were lots of very nice notes and letters coming in from contest judges and readers, but no one was lining up to publish the book. Some of this was my own fault, of course -- I wasn't really doing too much to get it published. In my own defense, I was busy reading piles of books for the initial stages of a history PhD and preparing for quals. I didn't have too much time to do more than the minimum amount of work that gets books published. No time for AWP, not much of a local poetry scene, and not really even enough time to travel to readings or conferences in nearby cities. I had gone into a sort of hibernation, living at just a subsistence level in the poetry world, partly through this blog and other online venues. This is probably not the best way to get your first book published. I did somehow manage recently, despite myself, to be named a finalist for the Tupelo Press First Book Award.

When at last a publisher finally did take a strong interest in publishing my work (Steve Mueske of Three Candles Press), I found that a lot of my attitudes changed virtually overnight. I already had a growing fondness for small presses. Friends of mine had founded a couple -- Action Books, for example. And I was very happy with what new options were opening up for poetry publication. Because small presses pretty much get to publish whatever poetry the editor likes, or whatever the editor believes is needed, the work coming out has tended to be very strong and even subversive of the poetry status quo. So I was very happy when Steve approached me not because of a panel of readers or judges, but because he had been reading my poetry on his own and felt that my book was worth publishing. Though I had always had my heart set on a big press, my heart fixed itself pretty quickly on the idea of a small but dedicated press. I started to feel like this was what I had in mind all along, I just hadn't known it until then.

Blurbs also took on a new significance. Now, having waited so long for the book to appear, I wanted the book to be exactly what I thought it should be. This included good blurbs by poets that I knew and trusted -- poets who I knew had read my book (or who I could get to read my book) -- and who I knew could be honest about what a reader would find in the book.

The first poet I approached was Norman Dubie, my first poetry teacher. I didn't even have to ask him to write the blurb. When I called him up to tell him that a publisher had taken the book, it was the first thing he offered up after his congratulations. This is partly what changed my mind about blurbs, I think -- they're not just endorsements (although they are definitely this), they're also friendly gestures exchanged between poets. Norman, better than anyone else, knows what I will uneasily refer to as my 'spiritual' side. He knew the younger, more idealistic me.

The second poet I approached was Dean Young, another fantastic poet whom I also had as a teacher when I was at Iowa. I chose Dean not because we've remained close. In fact, I had not heard a word from him since leaving Iowa. I chose Dean because he was the last poet I had as a teacher. He saw my work when it was pretty much becoming what it is now. I also felt that, of all the teachers I had at Iowa, Dean's attitude toward poetry was most similar to mine.

Finally, I thought I should have a blurb from someone who had not been one of my teachers, but whose poetry I like. I wanted some fresh eyes on the book. I had recently bought a copy of Mark Yakich's new book at the time I was making this decision. On the back of Mark's book was a blurb written by a poet whose work I admire but who I don't really know personally, Gabriel Gudding. Gabe's blurb was one of the most responsible, non-hyperbolic, and urgent memos about poetry I had read on the back of a book. I asked Gabe if he would read my manuscript and write me a blurb, and hoped for the same treatment.

So. Eight paragraphs later. This is the long way of saying that the blurbs are in. Here they are:

“I believe in this first book by Matthew Shindell, a man who has devoted much of his life to the history of science; in it we find the changing simultaneous particle or standing wave alive in a confounding space that is like the special silence between lovers. There is sadness here and the brittle music of Kafka's decisions in language. And, yes, what an original and brilliant book it is.”

–- Norman Dubie

“Let’s call this poet Blind Lemon Shock Therapy, he who knows how our visions prey on us and redeem us. Let's give him a wreath of drunken hummingbirds, a life supply of Goo Gone, he who sings as an inebriate of air and wipes the film from our helmet's visors. Let us admire the poise of this poet in the burning building of his poems where the party is. Let us praise Matt Shindell for offering us another castle where the ferocity of the imagination bedazzles and many-persons us until we be kaleidoscoped.”

–- Dean Young

“In what may be one of the saddest, weirdest books I've ever read, reminding me at once of a critique of Blake and Stevens, Matthew Shindell explores the hollowness of the imagination and declares it all but bankrupt. For the last two hundred years we've been told there is some kind of glorious refuge in the imagination. We've been told the imagination is this transcendent kingdom, a stalwart distant castle, anchoring the real, where it's all okay, a place where there is safety and order in the supreme fiction: that poetry is an oasis and a poem is a kind of Wallace Stevens Memorial vacation get-away. But Matthew Shindell's book explodes this lie and shows us that the imaginative capacity is not a palace of wisdom, but a castle of delusion. And that we have to find another castle. An admirable, amazing – and really depressing – book.”

-– Gabriel Gudding

It doesn't really trouble me at all that the blurbs represent three different (but I think overlapping) readings of the manuscript. There is an ambivalence to the poetry I like, and to the poetry I write. There are unresolved tensions and fleeting clarities. There is confusion and messiness. All three of these readings are different, and all three are correct. I still have mixed feelings about blurbs, but at least I like mine. So I am going to just stop complaining about blurbs from here on out. Until I read another bad one out there and the whole cycle begins again...

That takes care of the back cover. I still need an author photo but I'm hoping that problem will resolve itself (but how?). This just leaves the front cover. I've always wanted to have a piece of original artwork on the cover of my first book. For this I am fortunate enough to have three artists in my family -- my mother and two of my brothers. I decided after talking to all of them that my youngest brother, Nick, a phenomenal painter who recently graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, should do the cover art. I gave him the manuscript and asked him to read it as he painted a piece for the cover. After a month or so of work, this is what he sent me:

This is not actually what the cover will look like. This is a fake cover that I made up in Photoshop just so I could imagine my brother's painting as part of the cover to the book. I still don't know what the cover will actually look like. (One of the great things about publishing with a small press is that you can ask for as much creative control as you like, and I've decided to exercise some on this cover.) I do know that I love the painting. I'm still waiting for Nick to have a high-resolution photo taken of the painting so I can start work on the real cover. But I have to say that I am very happy with how it all looks so far.

But how about the author photo?

Is this picture of me taken with my iPhone in my favorite taco shop good enough? What if I make it B&W. I wonder...

Labels: blurbs, cover art, first book, naivite, poetry

Monday, July 21, 2008

The Final Manuscript Is Off to the Press

... well, off to the editor anyway. Who, in Steve's case, is the press, too. So, I guess it all works out.

It feels like it has taken forever to get this manuscript ready. You would think that after 6 or 7 years of sending a manuscript out and about to various contests and friends, etc., the thing would be pretty much ready to go, right? Well. I guess I was a glutton for punishment because I decided that the manuscript had to be totally re-imagined before publication.

I had never really been happy with the arrangement of the poems in the manuscript. I experimented over and over again with different arrangements and could never come up with something I liked. I was occasionally satisfied with it, but never really excited about it.

After about a month or so of tinkering since I got back from Moscow, I'm pretty sure I have it this time. The fact that the book is coming out in October really made me capable of seeing the big picture this time, I guess. (I really think much better under pressure than I do otherwise; that's what makes me such a functional procrastinator). I finally saw the forest through the trees this time. And I think it reads better than it ever has before. In fact, I can't imagine it reading any better than it does right now (though I could just be basking in the afterglow here).

We'll see what Steve has to say once he's read it.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

It's official

3 Candles Press will be publishing my first book of poetry, In Another Castle, this coming Fall. I'm really looking forward to this, as you can imagine. And I'm very happy to be publishing the book through 3 Candles. Steve Mueske is the editor of the press, and he is very dedicated to the cause of poetry, not self-promotion. So I feel like I am in very good hands.

: Name: Matthew Shindell; Location: San Diego, California, United States

Matthew Shindell used to live and write in Phoenix, Arizona. He now lives and writes in La Jolla, California.

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The Poetry Postcard Project:

Stay tuned to this blog for updates on the status of the Poetry Postcard Project.

Go to the Poetry Postcard Project website to see the project and find out how to participate.

Where are my poems?

Read a PDF of my chapbook, Were something to happen it would be both funny and interesting. Copies of this limited edition chapbook are no longer available.

American Letters and Commentary Issue 17 - "Hoo Ta Ta, Hoo Ta"

American Poetry Review July/August 2004 - "It sounds like a saxophone tugging across a field"

Black Warrior Review v30n2 - "Sidekick"

FENCE v6n2 - "Drinking with the Ventriloquist's Dummy" & "Parable of the Boy inside the Deer"

Hayden's Ferry Review #25 - "The Willow"

Hayden's Ferry Review #35 - "The Monkey's Skull: Where Do Good Newsmen Come From?" & "Made Easy"

Jubilat 7 - "But Emerson Says, 'The body is a metre. The eye appreciates finer differences than art can expose."

The Melic Review - "In Short, a Pleasant Day :: The Man Arrives, Hooray!" "The Same Words :: Order of Harpoons," & "A Birdâ€™s Head Rolls Into Two Baskets :: Walkie-Talkie"

No Tell Motel - "Order of Harpoons :: Digitalia :: Dobre Vecher" 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Read my discussion of the poem here.

Northwest Review - "Clink" & "Bear-Caught"

Octopus 4 - "About the Author," "Four Star General" &
"The Day :: Born :: The Red Door"

Pleiades 24:2 - "Speech of Artificio, a Character in My New Play" & "Inc."

Tarpaulin Sky v2n2&3 -
"Two Jokes About Bears"

Unpleasant Event Schedule - "He Called Her Forest (or was it Forest?)" & "The Brain Full of Bourbon (concerning the doctor and the simulation of Switzerland)"