some non-blogged comments...

UPDATED:

as a writer, it often appears that you work into a void. there is usually a long lag time between a magazine/journal's acceptance of and then final publication of a poem or bit of fiction. certainly there is space between book publications if you are lucky enough to find anyone who cares enough and has cash enough to put one out (and that is if you have the work to fill one) into a world that cares very very little for poetry. at least on a daily basis, as it is my experience that when people hurt, when the pain is more than they can communicate, when the emotions fill up the guts and threaten to destroy them (and of course, me by extension, or better yet, us) most folks reach for a poem in some form. this form could be the Bible (full of metaphor) or Buddhist texts or plain old secular literature or some fragment of a poem they heard someplace, etc; they reach for an old familiar song (poetry in motion), they reach out crying, they reach and the right line, the right word, the right note can ease the suffering a bit, can act as a lifeline to sanity, dragging us back from the brink of despair.

but sometimes you get lucky and you get some feedback while you're alive. and in a subtly veiled self-congratulatory effort to help Bill at Bottle of Smoke Press sell some books of mine that he has courageously decided to publish, I offer some damning praise heaped upon the broadside words like terror from the forthcoming And Still The Night Left To Go: Poems & Letters. thanks to Bill for sending these along to me:

HI cc,
Here are some comments on the little poem... More later

Thanks for the great "Words Like Terror." Great poem..very nice design/print job... -- Jeffrey Weinberg - Waterrow Books

I got the remarkable poem, so needed in my poet's heart right now, from Bottle of Smoke, by C. Cunningham. I am so pleased to have it. Great friggin job! -- Ann Menebroker, Poet

Thank you for Words Like Terror. First of all, the poem is good; I can "hear" it. The choice of font, paper and execution of the presswork is excellent. And the binding, or presentation, is about the finest thing I've seen for something of comparable size. Just a mind blowing item. -- Richard Krech, Poet & former Publisher

Got the mini-broadside, WORDS LIKE TERROR by Christopher Cunningham. Excellent! Beautifully printed, and a great little poem. I've already read it a dozen times and it just gets better. Please thank him for inscribing it to me with the cool little typer drawing. You both outdid yourselves with this one. I know the book will be exceptional. -- David Barker, Poet

cunningham's poem is just unreal, like all of his stuff....i cannot wait to see that book....oh, it will be so amazing....thank you so much for sending all this stuff! :) -- justin.barrett, Poet and former sufferer of writers block

now go there and preorder a copy of And Still The Night Left To Go: Poems & Letters, and Bill will send you a copy of the broadside gratis. help the small press rise up and destroy the pasty thin walls of the academic, anemic, Pinsky-esque, empty headed, worthless, incestuous and cockshaking University Boys. real art is made daily with blood and timeclocks and hard fucking work. real art is made with sweat and spit and wild singing in the darkness. real art is improvised and unstoppable.

it is the concrete soul of man.

now: please tell me I'm full of myself and give me some coordinates for sticking it. I'll understand...