Willem de Kooning, Pink Angels, 1945

Good Things About The NBA: 1

This morning we were all able to see Metta World Peace's line in a box score for the first time. It was, overall, an extremely satisfying experience. The NBA player formerly know as Ron Artest (a.k.a. Ron Ron), with killer name change and acting as one of the main participants in the most shameful brawl in professional sports history, now may, officially, be more of a character than Dennis Rodman!

Rambo Goes To Idaho

Scott Abels's first book, Rambo Goes To Idaho (Blazevox 2011) conflates the identity of film character John Rambo and editor-poet Scott Abels, oftentimes with humorous results. In the opening poem "Screenplay," we find "Rambo, checking his email" (9) and "drawing diagrams / of sex moves with his knife in the sand"(10), among other activities, while he pursues an MFA at Boise State University. Later, we discover that Rambo "started a journal called Country Music" (Hey, just like Scott Abels). And so goes the collection: a quirky examination of self with poems that are "brutally / autobiographical" (19), all through the persona of a Hollywood-constructed action-hero who "is a product of the world" (9): the world and the individual as a singular farce.

And if that's not reason enough to read Abels's debut collection, check out the trailer for First Blood to really get your juices flowing:

Good News For Shawn Kemp

Earlier this week, Greying Ghost Press released Trey Moody's second chapbook, Once Was A Weather. Today at Verse Daily, a poem from Jeff Alessandreill's book Erik Satie Watusies His Way Into Sound appeared. Somewhere out there in America, all seven of Shawn Kemp's children are smiling.

Coincidence?

Coincidentally, my daughter shares her birthday, November 26, with Shawn Kemp.