Stroffolino

A couple days before Christmas, I was invited to see Chris Stroffolino perform his music at a house full of people who knew each other eating turkey. Everyone was very nice and friendly and happy. I had never met Chris Stroffolino, so Mumolo and I were going in there blind.

Stroffolino's set was cool, especially a cover of a song by The Coup, the Oakland rappers who got a lot of fuss about them due to the clairvoyance of their album artwork. I like his music and the way he approaches music in general. Afterward we were able to hang out, and I don't think I've met anyone more excited and excitable about poetry and Shakespeare.

I guess Stroffolino's a little controversial. He is unapologetic and frank about his opinions, and people freak out on anyone who speaks their mind without considering the political ramifications of every utterance. But he's a good poet, and he's critical of his art. Those who cannot handle criticism are always shunning critics. But criticism. hard and open criticism, is what keeps art alive. Criticism is good. If you don't like criticism, you might be crappy.

Art is painful. If you don't like pain, maybe you shouldn't be an artist.

Anyway, it was exhilarating to meet Chris Stroffolino and to be able to talk with him for so long about poetry and music. Stroffolino gave me maby reasons to be excited about being a poet.

A photo of Chris Stroffolino and Jack Morgan

Sorry for Snake sold out at Pegasus along with Dearest Children of the Revolution. Thanks to everyone who got a copy. I will be restocking it tomorrow. And they are both still available online.

Abraham Lincoln

When I was asked to do the cover for Abraham Lincoln after having wanted to be asked for what seemed like a long time, I made the mistake of telling everyone I know. I was rather excited. But telling everyone about it put a lot of pressure on me. I started working on it right away, and I have been working on it for a much longer time than I usually take.

I think I'm done now. I might change little things before it goes to press, but I love putting things I've done here to find out what people think. It's one of my favorite things about having a blog, especially when it comes to poetry and graphics. People see things in both that the author is unaware of.

Abraham Lincoln is one of my favorite journals. It's new, but it is fantastic. I am honored to be a part of it. It makes me happy to be in the po-biz. I've always been lucky as an artist. I think it's because I really, truly dig it.

Agent G4

Sooooooo Avant-Garde

Suzanne S.

Dear Suzanne S.,

People are afraid of you. I was kind of afraid of you when you attacked me. You didn't know me, you had never officially met me, and you personally attacked me. You called me names. You should look up the names you call people because it was pretty funny how you misused the central pejorative in your attack, but that's not my point.

My point is that you walked into a place where people were sparring and shot everyone in the room with pistols. While I was poking someone in the ribs with my finger, you took to my knees with a sledge hammer. Maybe your tendency to overreact is why people are afraid of you. I know you were trying to stick up for your friend, but as admirable as that is, you only succeeded in escalating a tiff into a rivalry and hatred, which was uncalled for.

I mean, I was just talking about how I felt about something that happened to me. I purposely didn't use anyone's real name so that Google wouldn't find out about the thing and hit it on an ego surf. But you weren't there, and I don't think you had any reason to go crazy on me the way you did, vaguely threatening people who work with me. It was gross.

But I forgive you. I know that sometimes people freak out when they are angry because I freak out when I am angry sometimes. I say stupid things when I am hurt or upset. And I am sorry that what I said hurt or upset you. I never called you names, though.

So the last thing is that I hope you will consider wearing fewer animal products. Leather counts. There are lots of jokes that I would like to write about people who wear black leather, but I want these last posts of the year to be taken as sincere, so I won't do it anymore.

Yours in the new year,

Jack Morgan

Michael N.

Dear Michael N.,

You would have gotten an apology almost immediately from me had it not been for then unexpected involvement of Suze Stein. I have started walking toward you with the intention of apologizing many times now, but some other nonsense has stopped me again and again. So, I am doing it here, the most public way of apology I have available to me.

You made me angry, and I handled it poorly, and for that I am sorry. But neither of us has really done anything to the other aside from a little trash talking, and I don't see any reason why we have to do it anymore.

I hope that in the new year, and in a new bar, we can all sit at a table together instead of being lame about it like we were last time we ran into each other. I actually don't even have a problem with you.

I know that we will never be best friends or anything like that, but I hope that we can pretend like all this pettiness between us never happened, and I will try my hardest to be a grown-up about any aesthetic arguments that come up.

Yours in the new year,

Jack Morgan

Cupcakes and Poetry

Last night was the last poetry-related event that I will be attending this year. Liz Howe, the genius behind Sorry for Snake's last cover, is also a baker and baked delicious, and I mean DELICIOUS!, cupcakes, and we had a living room reading. I am sorry I didn't tell you about it, but it was "invite only" because Liz's house has limited space for such an event.

We drank sherry and port and ate cupcakes and listened to sweet-themed music. It was a wonderful way to put this year to rest. I'm sorry that so many of you had to miss it.

I am getting sentimental now because it really has been a phenomenal year for poetry and me. I published two chapbooks and four journals. I designed more posters and flyers for poetic events than I can remember. I went to countless readings. I won a fancy award and got published a bunch of times. I forged friendships and created enemies. I have met some of the coolest, most amazing people I have encountered in my life. I curated successful events. I shot myself in the foot and then put it in my mouth so many times that I have to pause to laugh at my own stupidity and pettiness. I've said things I need to apologize for. I've done things that deserve pats on the back.

For the remainder of this year, this blog will deal primarily with tying up some loose ends. I think that you will like it. It will be sweet as we open up old wounds and drink some sherry and ruby port together.

Taking a Stand Against American Women!

The truth is I make much too much fun of American women and their hang-ups. You can say what you want about their propensity to crying and their daddy issues, but I think I am right about a few very distinct things.

You may never tell an American woman that the moon is a spotlight on our city. You can never tell her that stars are plentiful or beautiful. You can tell her that things are magical, but she won't believe it. You can tell her anything, and she won't believe it. American women believe nothing.

You also cannot count on them for anything. Do not count on them for appointments of any kind. If you would like to be stood up, make a date with an American woman. American women have been permitted to behave like children, so what should anyone expect? They treat service personnel like garbage, and that is a crime.

I keep giving them chances because I think I find some redeeming quality in them, but it is not enough to outweigh their culture. And let's face it, they are a product of their culture. American women delight in their child-like behavior. They turn men into children with it. American men love to behave like children, so this works out fine.

I am lost when it comes to love in America. I am lost in America. America does not love me.

Sorry for Snake 2

Only $4.00!

Featuring the talents of:

• Hillary Gravendyk
• Chelsey Minnis
• Michael York Kelsey
• Chris Stroffolino
• Michael Earl Craig
• Bronwen Tate
• Logan Ryan Smith

More Ruinous Times

Dear Mia,

Even if I were to believe your new version of the time line, you solicited work from me. After doing so, you failed to champion it with your publisher, you neglected to tell me that I was competing with none other than the person who solicited me, told me the art director was having his friend do the cover, which now looks like a lie, and went about this entire business in a way that does not befit a person of moral fabric.

Your admonition falls on deaf ears.

It is very unfortunate that things ended up the way they did, and I am sorry that I ever got involved. At this point, for all of my faults, my commitment to what might be called the poetic community is unquestionable, I think. I am known as a person who, at the very least, is generous with his time. This generosity burns me from time to time, this being one of them. I have nothing to gain from libeling you. In fact, it hurts me. I lose a friend, and Anchiote, who I hear is a press made of good people, will probably never want to work with me.

We all end up looking like jerks, but I was just trying to help a friend when she asked. No matter how you look at this, I am the one who has been slighted.

Very Truly,

Jack Morgan

P.S., This email will be posted on my blog because I am dedicated to chronicling my failures as much as my accomplishments.

Major Complaint Department

Major Complaint Department
by Jack Morgan

Woke to alarms. System trouble.
A telephone pole got tired
of bearing the weight of our power
in this fair city

Copper is heavy.
Water weakens wood.
She died of old age right
on my street.

Power was out and it rained.
Had to hang dry.

Fell asleep on a futon.
Walked home in the rain.
Went to sleep on a futon.

Do not die on a futon.
Do not die on a futon.

Some Books I Read While You Were Sleeping

I was lucky to have read two really good books recently. One is HAZARD by Jake Kennedy, put out by Book Thug Press. It's kind of about famous people dying. I especially like the Beckett chapter, but they all are quite awesome. Totally worth ten dollars at Pegasus Downtown.

I also read DRUNKARD BOXING by Linh Dinh. I have heard it's outta print, which is very unfortunate. Singing Horse Press should reprint it or something. I read it to remember why I am a fan of Linh Dinh's work. I have read a few more recent poems of his that I didn't like, and his work is difficult to talk about, so I won't go into why I think I don't like the new stuff. I was surprised to find that many people I know don't know who Linh Dinh is. If you haven't read one of his books, you are doing yourself a horrible injustice. You should buy BORDERLESS BODIES or AMERICAN TATTS. You will like them.

I saw and waved at Judith Goldman at the SFMOMA. She is always nice to me. So I took another look at VOCODER, and I still like it very much. I think it might end up being one of my favorite books of poetry.
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The power died, and I was all middle ages for the whole day yesterday. Walked around in the rain.

HANG!

Men with nooses round their necks
don’t like to work unless

There are other men with nooses
round their necks.

No matter what,
you end up working

For someone’s dad.

You have to get a cleaning lady
because when you die no one will find you.

DESTROY!

Last night, I went to a party at the house of the world's preeminent Joyce scholar.
Not that you'd care.
It was very fun.

I will never find a woman who gives a fuck about the world's preeminent Joyce scholar.
They don't care.
It is very sad.

Life is like that sometimes when it comes to girls and creatures of the night and scholars.
No one cries.
If you die alone.

Sorry 4 Snake 2

Sorry for Snake 2 is now out and available at Pegasus Downtown for only four dollars.
It will available online in a few days, but if you live nearby, please support the most poetry friendly bookstore I know of by getting your copy there. 2349 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley

I love this issue. I am extremely proud to have edited such a cool publication. A little giddy, really.

This issue features the talents of

• Hillary Gravendyk
• Chelsy Minnis
• Michael York Kelsey
• Chris Stroffolino
• Michael Earl Craig
• Bronwen Tate
• Logan Ryan Smith

• Cover by Liz Howe
• Edited by Sara Mumolo and Jack Morgan

Catsup

Humuhumu, inspired me to take Mumolo to the Tonga Room for happy hour. Many a time have I been in the city and wanted to go there, but only this Thursday was able to partake in their pretty good mai tais and tiki-tiki thunderstorms. Tiki lounges are cool because they feel like they are far away from where you live.

This was after SFMOMA, which had the best exhibits that I have seen there for a very long time, including a car made of ice. It reminded me of my heart.

After the Tonga Tiki Room, we went to the fiction readings at the LAB and Adobe Books. We only got to Adobe Books in time to hear the ending of a story, but that was okay because Sona Avakian had already made the evening worthwhile with her fantastic story, which is currently in Instant City.
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Yesterday, Sorry for Snake Issue 2 was proofed and finalized. It will be available very soon. Like this Sunday even!!! Sorry for Snake does not make great gifts for Christmas or Chanukah.

And we even sat for another session for our portrait being painted by Liz Howe! WOW!
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I have been single for over a year now. Sometimes flings look like they will be turn into relationships, but they haven't. It's not that I get bored easily, but I find many people boring.

I would like to have a girlfriend. Someone who is preferably neither a poet nor rich nor painfully stupid. Know anyone?

I am thinking about going back to old ideas I used to have about things like this.

Many people make fun of me for wanting a girlfriend. Schopenhauer, for example.
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I like this and this. Don't tell anyone. Especially not Arthur.

Trader

Yesterday, I went to Pegasus Downtown, which has the best selection of new poetry in America. . . maybe even the world! I traded a few novels for a few chapbooks. I think that that is a very good trade. I like reading them and trading them.

Keeping a book on your shelf is akin to keeping the mounted heads of bucks or bass on your wall. I do not like trophies. Such outward things dwell not in my desires.

Every time I finish a book, I can't wait to get rid of it. To give to a friend, to trade for another. A few reference books is all I keep. And some chapbooks. Chapbooks have an aura that other books don't have. They are not mass produced in Canada, and they are almost never the fruits of corporate effort.
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Today I am going to all the prose fiction readings in San Francisco. The first one is at the Lab at seven. The last one is at Adobe at nine. I can't remember when and where the one in the middle is. The Mission is going prose fiction mad.
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Sunday is New Yipes, and Rachel Zolf will be reading. Robert Grenier will be reading, too.
That starts at seven at 416 25th St. on the corner of Broadway, at everyone's favorite gallery, 21 Grand.

Poet Costume

There is a poet's costume. I think about it sometimes because I think that you can tell a poet by the way they dress. Also, people are always telling me that I don't dress like a poet. Someone even told me that I obviously don't care how I look. I have always thought that people who dress a certain way to fit into a certain crowd are phonies. I don't want to be a phony.

But when I moved to America, I gained a bunch of weight. The shit we eat here! Honestly, that is my harshest criticism of this country. I got used to eating everything on my plate, and now the plates are bigger. I got used to drinking one soft drink at lunch, but here they beg you to refill. So, I gained a lot of weight. I felt comfortable in my clothing, but when I adjusted to the lifestyle here, and I went back to a normal weight, none of my clothes seem to fit me anymore.

I enlisted the help of my aforementioned friend, who said that I don't know how to dress myself, to take me around the Mission and pick out clothing for me. I said I would buy whatever he said. I did. Now I Have a bunch of clothing that looks like something I would wear if someone else were buying it for me. But I still don't look like a poet. I hope the other poets don't make fun of me.

I think I'd rather blend in than fit in, but I have never been capable of either.

Political Race

I got home tonight to find my fish, Dopsy, happy to see me. I am happy to see him, too. My good friend, Sara Mumolo, picked me up, and we talked about poetry. I like talking about Shakespeare very much, but I like talking about poetry just as much, so it's nice to have both worlds. I am a very lucky person.

I forgot that I couldn't check my bag when I got on the plane in Charolottesville, and was thus deprived of my toothpaste. They took it because it was the wrong size or something. So now, I am without the means to clean my teeth tonight. Quite disgusting. The terrorists have won. How am I supposed to have fun in the shower with a girl in her bathing suit without my toothpaste? This is what the terrorists hate about us. They hate that we brush our teeth. They have tricked the government into taking away out tubes of toothpaste so that we won't be able to practice proper dental hygiene.

Every time I hear that the war is going well, I think about people dying for no reason, the fact that I have to take off my shoes on command, and that my toothpaste can be confiscated at any moment.

If I were raised in the country. this would not be such a big deal. But I enjoy brushing my teeth. Is that not an inalienable human right protected by the constitution that has now been truncated by the government? Should not I have the right to the pursuit of happiness? Don't the people in the above picture look pleased with themselves? It's because good hygiene is happiness.

The terrorists also want us to wear bathing suits in the shower.

Rhymes Galore

In this small town, Staunton, I could find only one book of poetry. It was a little chapbook of "songs without music." It admitted that its rhymes were broken, but it begged for the reader to excuse that and like the book nonetheless. I didn't.

I wonder lately if rhyming, metered verse is dead. Is it just much harder to do well? Every time I read something new written in verse, I cringe. It's unfailingly a failure. But I don't think that is the form's fault. I think that poets just don't spend years on honing that part of their brains from whence rhyme and meter come.

I think a lot about syllables in my poetry. I think a lot about meter. And sometimes I even rhyme. But I would be laughed out of the country if I tried to get something rhyming published. Imagine if I read something that rhymed to a room full of people who have come to expect anything except that. I mean, you don't know what to expect at a poetry reading, but you know you aren't going to get rhyming verse. If you do, it almost always sucks. I have seen a few people try and run a rhyme, but it always sucks.

I guess you go to Slam if you want rhymes. But Slam is different. What if someone came along as good as the best rhymsters of the romantics? Wouldn't that blow your mind?

I think so.

Stealing Sparrows

Mia You asked me to design the cover of her chapbook, which was just published by Achiote press. I was excited about it because I have wanted to start doing more book design for some time. I worked very hard on the cover for Mia You. I read the chapbook closely, looking for images I thought would work well for the cover. A lot of time went into the concept before I started the drawing. She said she thought it was beautiful. It was a sparrow because I thought that a sparrow in one of her poems was very striking.

A couple days later, she told me the art director at Achiote wanted his friend to do the cover, so I was out. Although I was upset about the snub, I know that's how things go, and I didn't even write about it here. People like to hook up their friends.

A few weeks later, Mia You's book came out. Guess what's on the cover!

If I were to use someone else's idea, even if I did not use their words, I would have to cite them as the source. If you do not cite them, you are a plagiarist and a thief. It is unethical to take credit for someone else's work.

So when Mia You's book cover had a sparrow on it, I assumed that it was the art director who saw my design and asked his friend to draw a sparrow. But it was Mia You. She found a sparrow that she had lying around and threw it on the cover.

I thought it was funny at first. Now I am disgusted and hurt. This kind of thing happens in advertising a lot, and there are lawsuits about them all the time, and I would expect it from a publishing house, but I didn't think that a Harvard graduate who is doing post grad work at UC Berkeley would be so facinorous. She's tried explaining herself, but her story changes, and I don't believe her.

I can't get it out of my mind. I give so much of what I do away for free. Why steal it?

So I guess I get hoodwinked by another friend, thereby losing one as well. I guess I roll over and take another beating by a hand I thought was friendly. I guess I get used to people stealing from me.

And the cover they used looks like garbage, adding insult to injury.

Staunton, Virginia is Nice and Smart

I am in Virginia. Please do not sneak into my house and kill Dropsy. He's an innocent in this. Just leave him alone.

There's a college here called Mary Baldwin College. The people who go to Mary Baldwin are very smart. I like them very much. They know about things like William Shakespeare. Last night, they invited me to a party, and someone there spoke German, and someone there knew who Chelsey Minnis is, and someone there knew about ancient religions. They all knew about William Shakespeare and William Shakespeare critics.

They all promised that, if I invited them to stay at my house and go to Cal Shakes or OSF, they would also go to poetry readings and read Sorry for Snake. They also promised to treat Dropsy with the dignity and respect that he deserves.

Optimus Prime's Poetry Workshop Crosses the Line.

Optimus Prime teaches poetry at a top-ranking university. Optimus is very powerful, but very supportive and nice to everyone.

In Optimus’s workshop, Prime teaches robots how to write poetry. One robot in the class writes all of its poetry about hubcaps. Another robot writes funny, edgy poems that make all the other robots nervous and guilty about laughing.

The funny robot writes a funny, edgy poem about the hubcap robot.

They read the poem in the workshop.

The nervous robots start freaking out, calling the funny robot a racist-sexist-rapist-I-don’t-know-what robot.

“You crossed the line, funny robot. We will not read your poetry.”
“You have to ask permission before you write poems, funny robot.”
“O, funny robot, I don’t think your poem is funny.”
“All workshops should be safe and warm like a womb because male robots are cold and mean.”
“Yes! All art should be safe because you don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, do you, funny robot?”
“Out of line, I say.”
“You crossed the line. Here’s the line; you crossed it.”

One greazy tear falls down funny robot’s metal face.

Optimus Prime thinks that funny robot poet is more than meets the eye, but Prime is outnumbered. It clearly states in the University guidelines that poets are only allowed to write what they are allowed to write: safe, friendly poems about squirrels and small, flightless birds and wheelbarrows of predetermined colors.

Prime wishes there were something Prime could do. Outnumbered. Hands tied.

Later, at the oil depot, I meet the nervous robots. I say, if you want to be safe, leave art. Andy Warhol was sued by Jane Fonda for drawing a picture of her. She lost the suit because that is bull shit. Whose line was Funny Robot crossing? Yours? But Funny Robot need only worry about Funny Robot’s own line. How dare you try to control an artist. Funny Robot can find the lines and decide to cross them.

They all laughed at me and called me names. I had crossed the line. They all went home and wrote mechanical poetry. I called Funny Robot and asked for a Funny Robot Poem. I hope to see it in the next Sorry for Snake. I think that you will find that it is not offensive.

Optimus Prime pinches the bridge of Prime’s nose and shakes Prime’s head. “This is a top ranking university?”

Dearest Children of the Revolution, I Am Pleased to Announce My Resignation

Dearest Children of the Revolution, I Am Pleased to Announce My Resignation
By: Jack Morgan
$5.00

Only five smackers!

Connie Coady Loves Dropsy!!! I love Connie Coady!!!

Connie Coady, one of the most lovable people on the planet, loves Dropsy so much that she wrote a poem about him.

Smack Down

I don't know anything about wresting. I was mildly into it for about a year when I was ten or so. What's going on with this guy? How will he know when to give the smack down when his clock is obviously malfunctioning? What time is it? Nine? What is this guy going to do when it's nine? He's called the boogey man, so he's going to scare you around bedtime or something?

I find poetry in a lot of what other people like. Even football games, but Pro Wrestling?

I've always thought that wrestling is one of the most bizarre phenomena in the world. And it's everywhere! It's not just an American idiosyncrasy that you can dismiss as just another one of those things. It's all very weirdly racist and sexist and kind of self-loathingly homosexual and homophobic, and I don't understand the draw. I guess the spectacle of big people flying through the air and all the yelling? I kind of want to study it to find out what grown men think is cool about the Boogey Man and his ilk.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^I^^^like^^^you^^
A lot of cool people were at the reading tonight. I didn't get there in time to see everyone, but the stuff I saw was good.

A girl named Della was there from Chicago. She told me the girls at Venom Literati say hi. Pretty awesome that someone from Chicago knows people in Chicago who I know but have never met. I'd like to go to Chicago and hang out and go to readings some day. MLA is in Chicago this year, and I have never been to it. I really want to go to that. . . hmmm.

People seemed to like what I read. I read a new cycle I have been working on called The Ways. People I didn't know were approaching me to tell me that it was good, and that's a good sign, methinks. How many people can just be being nice? Somebody famous was there that said something that hurt my feelings, but that's OK. But maybe she didn't mean to give me a horribly back-handed compliment. I am always begging for the benefit of the doubt, so I should give it to others freely, yes no?

I'm not afraid of famous poets. They have been around long enough to take whatever I say about them, but I am afraid of all their friends. There's a real gang mentality in the po-biz that I try to be wary of. I just feel like we should all be able to go to everyone's party, I guess. So I won't say who it was. But I was really happy about the way the reading went, and I feel like I kinda got smacked by someone much bigger than I am for no reason.

Election News

I Like this by Scott Garson. I like things like this.
::::::::........:::.You are:important.and.special::::.....::
I am reading tonight at Philz in the Mission on 24th and Folsom. I hope you can come to see me read all new stuff. Maybe some stuff that you like even.

I somehow managed to sleep for most of the day today. That is very weird. I was just barely able to get Ninja Town postmarked. I love the post office sometimes. Running down the cold street with a manila envelope covered with Gerald Ford's face because I like stamps with pictures of people on them. Gerald Ford was never elected. The post man said, no problem, our truck hasn't left yet. I bowed graciously and thanked him emphatically. This package is very important to me. We'll take care of it.

Perhaps one of my favorite presses, Futurepoem Books will elect to publish The Haunting of Ninja Town by Jack Morgan. They published Rachel Levitsky's book, which I like very much. I want to write a review of it for Rain Taxi. Maybe they will elect to publish that, too.

I picked up those charity posters I did for Connecting Through Dance today. One of my favorite things is when someone gets something printed in color, and they are really happy. Feels like I won an election. People always thank me emphatically when I finish a print job. Makes me feel good. I do a lot of work for free; sometimes people want to pay me when I don't want them to. I tell them that I do it for smiles and thank yous.

Smiles and thank yous are very important to me.