NOTES TO A HUSBAND

I first met J. Bruce Fuller at a science fiction convention many years ago. He was much younger than I, and I remember him having a lot more hair than now. We talked quite a while after one of my panels and we’ve stayed in touch over the years. In fact, we’ve worked together several times on various poetry projects, including my collection of vampire haiku called Wanting the Mouth of a Lover. I’ve been very happy to see him gaining a reputation as a prominent Louisiana and southern poet. From my reading of his work, it’s well deserved. Below, I review his latest chapbook offering.

  

J. Bruce Fuller. Notes To A Husband.  Imaginary Friend Press. 2013. 18 pp. Introduction by Amy Fluery. Edited by Dan Nowak.

J. Bruce Fuller is a Louisiana native who obtained his MFA in poetry from McNeese State University and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Louisiana—Lafayette. He has already been widely published and his latest poetry chapbook, Notes To A Husband, is the subject of this review.

In Fuller’s latest chapbook, he uses the form of notes from a wife to a husband to illustrate the waning of a relationship. There is no heightened poetical language to mask or mythologize the relationship. It is laid out stark on the page, in the common language of humanity. All the ambivalence of such dramas is there. Even while the woman thinks “about old lovers” she washes her husband’s “favorite mug.” She admits her own faults; she sugarcoats nothing.

It’s often claimed that what is left unsaid is at least as important as what is actually said. Notes To A Husband illustrates this perfectly. I’ve seldom been made so keenly aware of what can be revealed “between the lines.”  In her introduction to Fuller’s collection, Amy Fluery refers to the “indirection of silence,” and I think that’s a very fine way of describing the depth to be found in these mostly brief poems. They’re like the proverbial house that is much bigger on the inside than it appears on the outside. They expand in your consciousness as you read them.

I highly recommend Notes To A Husband.  You can find out more about the collection, or order a copy for yourself, at Imaginary Friend Press: www.imaginaryfriendpress.com

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All Good Things: Or Almost All

Generally, good stuff going on at the moment. First, my mom had to have the batteries in her pacemaker changed yesterday. It’s supposedly routine, but nothing is quite routine when you’re 93. However, they didn’t have to put her under deep anesthesia and she came through fine and is already home. She has developed “Shingles,” but is being treated for that.



Second, Choice Words has been released by Borgo Press. The book is edited by Robert Reginald and is subtitled: “The Borgo Press Book of Writers Writing About Writing.” Besides the fact that I always enjoy seeing new books come out for writers, I also have three essays in the book. These are reprints. Two of them come from Write With Fire and the other from Writing in Psychology: A Guidebook. The last is a collaboration piece, of course, with Elliott Hammer and Du Bois Irvin.

Third, the new Illuminata is up and looks very interesting this month. My essay on “Evolution of a Genre” is included. You can download it for free here. If you haven’t signed up for the free newsletter you can also do so on that same page.



Fourth, I just finished reading J. Bruce Fuller’s 28 Blackbirds at the End of the World and I raved about it over on Goodreads. Below is what I said there:

I originally read this collection in manuscript form and enjoyed it very much. I gave the author a blurb, which appears on the back cover. Here's what the blurb says:

"J. Bruce Fuller's "28 Blackbirds" is to haiku what Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" is to apocalyptic novels. A masterpiece."

I stand by that.

The printed version has a great cover, as seen above, and contains a short introduction by the author. If you like haiku, especially connected haiku on the same theme, you will surely enjoy this book. All the haiku revolve around the theme of blackbirds surviving, and sometimes dying, at world's end.

Here's one of my favorites:

world burned black
the hearts of men are black
blackbird's eye is black

If you're interested in the collection you can get it from Bandersnatch Books

Fifth, the Saints are still going to the Super Bowl. And I think that’s enough good news for one day!
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Last Breath Poems

Here are the covers for the two editions of Wanting the Mouth of a Lover. The chapbook is now for sale at Spec House of Poetry.

Just to mention a little about the genesis of these poems. I was introduced to Haiku in 1991 by David Lanoue, an English prof and friend of mine at Xavier University. David referred to them, memorably, as "one breath poems." That is, a poem that could be said essentially in one breath. Since I was writing quite a bit of horror fiction at the time, including working on Cold in the Light, I started--naturally it seemed to me--to think about horror haiku, and I wrote some Warkind ku just for play and to try and get a handle on the form. Then, it occurred to me that if a haiku was a "one breath poem," why not a "last breath?" That's when I started writing the vampire haiku. Rouge et Noir published some of these and they were well received, but for various reasons I didn't pursue the idea any further. When I started talking to J. Bruce Fuller about chapbook ideas, I mentioned the vampire stuff and he told me to send it to him. So, if you like them, I take full credit. If you don't, it was all J's idea.

In other news, I was grateful, and honored, to learn that my flash fiction piece, "Precious Cargo," won the "Reader's Choice" award in Jason Evans' The Clarity of Night contest. Thanks to all of you who voted for me. I really appreciate that.

And now to end on a light note, here's a picture Lana took of our poetry panel at Babel Con. That's J. Bruce Fuller there with me. Yes, he does look a little bit like Mephistopheles, but he's a much nicer fellow than I am. My pic came out with a bit of "red eye" and Lana fixed all that up. Ain't I purty?

The Mouth of a Lover

What a whirlwind weekend. Babel Con went well. I had at least 25 folks at each of my two presentations, and about the same for a horror fiction panel I sat on with two other writers, Whitney Lakin and M. F. Korn. From the reports I’ve heard, the presentations and panel were well received.

I sold some copies of my books, a lot more than last year. Scotty, a regular Babel Con attendee, bought copies of all the Taleran books Saturday afternoon and had already read 50+ pages of Swords of Talera by the time I saw him Sunday. He was liking it. Yeah!

Our late Sunday evening poetry panel was only sparsely attended, but it was exciting for me because we held the official unveiling of my very first poetry chapbook, entitled Wanting the Mouth of a Lover. I knew it was coming, but I never count my chickens before copies are in my hand. Now they are.

The publisher is Spec House of Poetry, founded by J. Bruce Fuller, a fine poet in his own right. J publishes chapbooks through Spec House, and also edits and publishes his own poetry/prose magazine called The Shantytown Anomaly, which you can also find at the Spec House site.

The chapbook comes in both a regular and deluxe edition. They feature the same cover image, but the deluxe is signed and has a silver see-through cover with the title etched at the top. The regular edition has an opaque silver cover and is printed in a smaller size. However, the regular edition also contains a short essay that I wrote on the genesis of the poetry in the collection.

The poetry consists of horror haiku with a vampire theme. Some were published in 1995 in Rouge et Noir, but there are never before seen “ku” as well. You can view the covers at the Spec House site. Copies will be available for sale at the site as soon as J gets back to his computer. I’ll also have signed copies of the regular edition for sale here in a day or two.

By the way, this chapbook is a family affair. Lana did the wonderful cover.

Wanting the Mouth of a Lover

I don't often talk about projects before they are in print but the word is actually out in some quarters about this so I'll say something here. Spec House of Poetry (Link to the right)is planning to publish a Chapbook of my work under the title Wanting the Mouth of a Lover. All the poems are experimental haiku, primarily centered around the theme of vampirism. J. Bruce Fuller, who runs Spec House, is an energetic fellow with a passion for poetry. He's on the cutting edge of the burgeoning Scifaiku movement, and also publishes a magazine called The Shantytown Anomaly, which has presented some award winning and award nominated poetry in the last couple of years.

I'm very happy about the chapbook. It'll be my first. I talked to J. quite a bit at Babel Con and we sat on a poetry panel together. (Cons are great for making and renewing contacts.) I sent him two possible collections for chapbooks and he really liked the haiku grouping. He talks a bit about it at the Spec House site under "A Welcoming." Some of the poems that are to be included in the chapbook have been previously published, but most have not. I'm not sure when this will be published. It seems most likely to be late this year but it's up to J.

J's own poetry is featured in Aurore Australe, which I mentioned here a few posts back and which can be found at the Spec House site. His personally blog is here.

Bits and Pieces

The title is both appropriate to this post and also the title of a poetry collection that I read recently by Greg Schwartz. I had not heard much about Schwartz previously to picking his chapbook up at Babel Con, but I enjoyed it quite a bit and will seek out more of his work. The chapbook is 15 poems and combines some dramatic ones with quite a few humorously twisted pieces. "The Monster in My Closet" is one of the latter, and was probably my favorite piece in the work. The last line makes it. Another poem, "The Dead have Ears," reminded me very much of a story I wrote a couple years back but have not yet sold called "A Curse the Dead Must Bear." There is some weird similarity between the two works. The best of the dramatic pieces was "Farmhouse," which was quite eerie and which I liked very much.

If you'd be interested in picking up Bits and Pieces or other poetical works check out Spec House of Poetry. Spec House is actually run by a good friend of mine, J. Bruce Fuller. I mentioned seeing him at Babel Con in a previous post. He's got a pamphlet available at his store that includes three poems of mine, as well as poems by J and Robin Mayhall, and I think it's actually free. If you want to check it out, go to his site, scroll down to his entry on "Babel Con," and you'll see the information. His storefront is accessed near the right side top of the screen there.

Other than that, I made good progress on writing today but I'm looking this evening toward getting started on my preparations for the upcoming school year. Drat it.