BELLICOSE WARBLING

AFTER AN EXTENDED ABSENCE

2011-11-30T10:46:00.001-08:00

It's been five months since I've posted an entry to this blog. Granted, I've never figured out how to blog to my best advantage; the act seems secondary to my writing and multimedia work. For the most part, I've used it to announce updates on my publications to those who stumble into this part of the cyberspace gulag. Moreover, I don't have a strong incentive to post opinions on matters I have no strong opinions about. But this delay came about for a more fundamental reason:

I've been sick.

Since July 2010 my body has undergone a number of changes that have kept me riding a medical merry-go-round. No doubt the visits cost me a fair amount of writing time, but I didn't feel well enough physically to write consistently, either. In the past, when my sleep disorders left me floating through the day with all the verve of a Caribbean zombie, I nevertheless managed to write. I even gave my wife instructions: if I die, prop my body in the chair and put my fingers on the keyboard, and I'll produce a voluminous body of posthumous work.

This past year I couldn't even begin my pre-posthumous work. My mind felt flat. It wasn't a terrible feeling, in and of itself. But I've always run on an inner fire, a desire that overcame inertia and many subsequent obstacles. Now I could barely start my inner kindling wood. The urge to work out, especially on the heavy bag that tightens my focus, seemed less appealing than lying on the couch with the morning paper. Matters that I handled routinely now confused me. On a good day, when I'd slept well and my newly-acquired reflux hadn't made indigestion a three-day adventure, I felt like what I imagined a typical retiree felt like. I'd get through the day with some reading, some literary activity, some TV and a noodle float in the pool. Since I wasn't writing a lot of new material, I used those days to publish a large backlog of material I'd written since the late nineties. On my bad days I felt like an old man slowly dying.

Around March, with no diagnosis, I decided I was in a “malaise.” After fifty years, I'd written myself against a wall. My work received praise when people paid attention to it, but I'd never received the level of recognition I'd hoped for. The way the game worked, the next literary superstar would be half my age. Why go through all the hoops one more time for a predictable result? Conducting literary workshops and teaching special classes didn't interest me the way they did when I was younger; the pension from my job allowed me to live modestly without working. Only a MacArthur Foundation grant would make a difference in my personal and creative life, and my ears weren't burning with their whispered nominations. It was time to smell the flowers, live the quiet life I enjoyed, and let posterity keep or not keep my work alive.

But my slow fade into the sunset wasn't always so comfortably blasé. Whether I felt good or bad on a given day, I still had medical problems to address: a chest X-ray revealed calcium buildup in my cardiac arteries, a surprise since nobody on either side of my family experienced heart problems before their late seventies. Finding the source of the calcium was the biggest of a half-dozen problems that had surfaced the previous summer. I had places to see and people to meet: doctor's offices and doctors.

Riding the Medicare merry-go-round of specialists for over a year proved debilitating. Eventually, tests indicated my body's calcium level was too high and that my parathyroid glands were causing the problem. A little online research told me calcium controlled the signals my central nervous system received. The excess calcium was making my existing problems worse and triggering new ones.

The site that offered me the most information (www.parathyroid.com) explained my problem and how it had affected the past twenty-one years of my life.

In 1969, I received cobalt therapy to treat Hodgkins lymphoma in the left side of my neck. A number of people who received this treatment later developed benign tumors in one of their parathyroid glands. The tumor prevented the other glands from working. The list of symptoms related to the condition chronicled my life of the past twenty years, starting with the fatigue problem that began in 1990. By summer 1991 I found myself experiencing fatigue two hours after I woke up; a few months earlier I'd been working 15-hour days at my full-time job, writing, practicing bass and running my poetry band. On my job I began to make mistakes that threatened to undermine my reputation for producing accurate work. When I could barely stand to perform with my poetry band on community access TV, I knew I needed a leave of absence to rest. Despite three months off, I never fully recovered. Instead of being the last person to leave a jazz club, I now settled on my sofa in front of the TV when the first set started. I only went out at night to perform with my poetry band, my duo with Thomas Chapin, or as a solo poet-bassist about twice a month.

In short, I could trace my parathyroid symptoms back twenty years. In turn, I had to revise my personal history. In 1993, I'd broken up my poetry band and stopped performing because I'd come to hate the business aspect of the performing arts. The exhaustion I felt when I practiced for engagements in Southern New England and Manhattan seemed to result from my frustrating relations with presenters after the long hours I put in. Now I realize the exhaustion I was fighting when I practiced came from my parathyroid, not the presenters. Even with 20-20 hindsight and good health, I'm not sure how long I would have kept the band going, even though I viewed it as my most significant artistic achievement. I never enjoyed pitching myself to presenters. Fortunately, the work I've done since I broke up the band has made me revise my opinion of what I consider my most significant work to date.

Eventually, my team of physicians determined that I had a mildly hyperactive parathyroid gland. Treating it was another matter. According to NIH standards, my calcium levels weren't high enough to warrant attention. The parathyroid.com site insisted the calcium level should be lower. My team couldn't decide what to do, even though I was growing less capable by the day. In their opinion, it was a minor condition---until a bone density scan revealed osteoporosis in my left hip. The surgeon I selected determined the condition had gone undiagnosed and untreated for at least eight years. I say twenty, but my oncologist in the eighties and nineties never tested my calcium levels according to records I received, so I can only judge by the way my body has felt.

Since my surgery, I've returned to writing regularly. My wife hears a vitality that's been missing from my voice. Not only have I noticed a spring return to my step, but even my relaxed pace seems to have picked up some speed it hasn't shown in many years. Physically, this past year I've grown so out of shape that I've had to exercise to get into the kind of shape that will allow me to do teh exercises th atwill help me drop the weight I've gained. I'm making progress on all fronts, but have to remind myself I'm recovering and have to pace myself while all the pieces come together.

Next time I post I'll try to update my publications and performances.

THE JAZZ-POETRY FUSION: MY PERSONAL TAKE

2011-06-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

Since I considered myself a fiction writer until my mid-30s, I never thought I'd perform jazz poetry. The first time I heard the idiom in the mid-1960s, it sounded like two clashing acts performing simultaneously. The poetry and the music needed to fit together to be effective.

In too much of the jazz poetry I've heard, a booming voice recites an impassioned tirade of social-issue cliches that lack a connection to the tempo or texture of the music. Even brilliant poets who read powerfully when performing solo can sound maddeningly off-base when their declamations lose track of the music's pace and pulse. Musicians, in turn, can diminish a powerful recitation by arranging for a subdued instrument, such as a bass, to solo at the time the poet is reciting the poem's climactic segment and needs more powerful support to heighten its excitement.

Some of the most highly-regarded jazz poets I knos of perform in the manner just described, and their audiences seem to love it. For some people, it's a matter of taste. For me, however, it violates a personal aesthetic I developed and formed strong opinons about during the years when I performed jazz poetry on a regular basis, 1984-1994. To me, the performances I've described don't enhance the idiom; they perpetuate the inability of poets and musicians to recognize and explore the close relationship between jazz and the American vernacular.

Jack Kerouac had a gut-deep grasp of the relationship. The syncopations of bebop and poetry found parallel accents in his recitations. The first time I heard him read with music, the idioms fit. His approach influenced my thinking when I began my own attempt to fuse the idioms .

My approach differs from many other poets because playing a musical instrument has given me a deeper understanding of music than many poets bring to the fusion. In creating my own bassline for my first attempt, my training helped me find the most appropriate musical context for the poem. Once I laid down the bassline, I recited the poem in tempo, using space in my recitation the way an instrumentalist would in a solo.

When I recite, solo or with music, I try recite more slowly than my normal speech pattern, to give the audience time to grasp them. The music fills the spaces between phrases. When I completed “A Slick Set of Wheels, the bassline and recitation fit together far better than I thought.

The reception the poem received led me to create others. Soon I was selling home-produced cassettes, whose pieces I later recorded on The Sex Queen of the Berlin Turnpike, in 1987. I was fortunate enough to know sensitive musicians who needed minimal direction or none at all, such as Thomas Chapin, Brian Johnson, Joe Fonda, Steve Davis, Richard McGhee III and Mario Pavone, to name just a few.

When I scheduled a party for the record's release, all my accompanists on the recoridng had gigs scheduled in Manhattan. Since I was the only bassist available that I could afford, I spent two months teaching myself how to play and recite at the same time. The multi-tasking made me a less effective reader, but still more than adequate, and playing bass in the band helped me control the flow of the music. The record party led me to form my own poetry band and to perform as a single or duo wherever I could find a gig.

I told my band members: play anything you like in any key, so long as it relates to the poem, in effect challenging them to play with freedom, but at the edge of their comfort zones. If, for example, a poem contained a phrase about a bouncing ball, I expected the musicians to find phrases that recreated the ball's bounce musically, not a pat musical phrase.

Over the past decade, my poetry has become more abstract. “Talking monkey grinds to curvature polish” defies literal representation, although a musician could mimic or repeat sounds that might relate to an aspect of the phrase, e.g. a pattern of growls for “grinds” or a smooth glissando for “curvature polish.” The difficulty of finding musical counterparts to abstract phrases allows much more room for improvising. But the same principles apply; the recitation still has to fit within the band's tempo or pulse, however free it may become at any moment.

Once I started my poetry band, I practiced my recitation and basslines every night so that I'd be prepared to work with any unexpected musical situation that might develop during a performance.

This thumbnail sketch of my aesthetic and my working methods may appeal to some jazz poets or it might not. I'm offering an opinion, not a treatise.

Personally, I recommend that poets who want to work with musicians learn something about music and vice-versa. The poet Ottone M. Riccio put a fresh spin on Ezra Pound's famous dictum when he asserted, “Poetry is music made with language.” To make an effective fusion, poets and musicians need to know something about the idioms they're trying to fuse. A poet doesn't need to be a musician to work effectively in the idiom, but he needs to understand basic rhythm and pay attention to phrasing the lines of the poem. The musicians should recognize that a poet can't recite comfortably at certain tempos and count off tempi that don't twist the poet's tongue in mid-performance. It should also build its tunes so that the musicians are playing at peak intensity during the poem's climatic moments, instead of winding down. Knowing the poem will help the musicians create the appropriate dynamics. Grasping the rudiments of the other's idiom helps both execute the fusion more effectively.

I suggest that poets recite their work to recordings or a metronome to sharpen their sense of time and tempo, and, with increased practice, syncopation. The English language has a number of built-in syncopations. The word “idiom, for example, has a built-in triplet rhythm, i.e., three beats superimposed over two notes played in the same tempo. If repeated several times, it can sound like a musical phrase.

In certain situations, poets walk onstage and recite a piece cold---at a jam session, for example. The band has never heard the poem and the poet has never worked with the musicians. Trying to make specific poetic and musical phrases fit will be very difficult to accomplish under the circumstances. But reciting a poem with a sense of musical rhythm over a tempo that allows comfortable recitation will bring the poem and music closer to synthesis.

Poets who I believe fuse the idioms effectively include Barry Wallenstein, David Meltzer, Kirpal Gordon, Steve Dalachinsky, Jim Cohn and Jack Foley I recommend that you listen to their work wherever you can find it. Some have released records, others have performed on YouTube or other online venues. They don't necessarily employ my approach, but they know how to make their verbal music fit with the band.

That's my take. Feel free to disagree.

NGC-4594 (the sounds we missed in the sixties)

2011-04-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

In college, several friends and acquaintances formed NGC-4594, an early psychedelic rock band whose 45 RPM single “Going Home” made Billboard's Top 100 and who played opposite the Doors, the Mothers of Invention and other celebrated rock bands during their short-lived career. Personal and artistic problems broke up the band in the late sixties, before they could release the fourteen songs they had composed for an album. Fortunately, Steve Starger, the band's organist and, later, the keyboardist in my poetry band, had a copy and made a cassette for me twenty years ago. The tunes, joyful, lively and unabashedly psychedelic, sounded a few steps ahead of other bands that became better known in their time. I'd always thought NGC-4594 a deserved better fate.

Over the past fifteen years I've occasionally surfed the net to see how much attention, if any, other people were paying to NGC-4594. In used vinyl circles the band had gained a reputation as a precursor to many well-known psychedelic bands. One correspondent said NGC-4594 was playing Ultimate Spinach before Ultimate Spinach arrived on the scene.

Several days ago, on a “whatever happened to” surf, I discovered that a British label has released NGC-4594's 1960s recordings under the title Skipping Through the Night. If the release didn't promise the former band members the heady stardom and nonstop kicks of sixties rock stars, it gave recognition four-decades delayed to a half-dozen talented musicians who had moved on, some in the music business and some in other fields, while at least one had died.

It also gave the diehard fans of psychedelic rock a document that would broaden their knowledge of the music's development. NGC-4594 differed from other rock bands of the period because of the jazz influence several members brought to it. Since many of the members composed music, poetry or fiction, their lyrics were stronger than what I heard in many other bands of the sixties. Although the band lacked a celebrity lead singer, the vocals shared by Dan Shanok, Dave Bliss and Chaz Mirsky blended well, with each of the vocalists singing to their strengths. The combination of captivating vocals and sophisticated instrumental backing enticed more than one listener.

With the release of Skipping Through the Night, online commentary on NGC-4594 has increased. I've yet to read a negative comment. Most listeners appreciate it as a “precursor” or an “underground” band ahead of its time.

I've listened to Skipping Through the Night several times since I downloaded it to my iPod a few days ago. Forty-four years after its creation, the music still holds up. Although I have my personal favorites, this is one of the few occasions when I can say that I like all fourteen tunes almost equally. I recommend this recording to anyone who likes good music and especially to anyone who wants a greater sense what the sixties could have been.

I've lived long enough now to “witness history,” and give a little more respect to the reality of my experience. Although I've been out of touch with most of the members of NGC-4594 for almost as long as the band has been apart, I've watched several of its members make the best of their lives, personally and artistically, with no expectation of seeing their best work released. If the band's remaining members can't receive the glory they might have experienced in the sixties, they have the satisfaction, maybe even a tear of joy, of knowing that what we call history finally has corrected itself in their favor, and that every now and then over the course of a life, justice finally does come your way.

I recommend this record very highly.

For further information, check out:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=110356325655127

DISCOVERING MY IDEA OF A VACATION

2011-04-25T10:15:00.000-07:00

Picking up from where I left off at the last entry, STYLING SANPAKU has just received its first review, from Michael Parker in the Unlikely 2.0 blog:

http://www.unlikelystories.org/blog/index.shtml

Parker approaches my work a little differently from other reviewers, digging deep into the poems with more referential qualities and experiencing “fun” while trying to interpret them. For most of my writing life, I've believed that literature could be fun, that play can be an enjoyable way of moving in a direction with serious implications. Perhaps I read Catch-22 before I was too old to become somber. I'd like to thank Parker for his review. I'd also like to thank him for introducing me to Michael Harold's Red Moon, a cross-genre work that fuses binary theory, poetry and fiction with undeniable brilliance and originality. My discussion with Parker about Harold's work led me, in turn, to contact painter Harvey Bialy, a highly-regarded painter who drummed in a memorable free form jam session I played bass in forty years ago in Connecticut, at a time when free jazz players were hard to find in the area. While introducing me to a writer whose work seems geared to future generations, Parker also put me in touch with my distant past.

Sometimes the world is even smaller than we think.

In my attempt to enlarge my audience, I've just published a print edition of * on Lulu.com, for those who would like a hard copy:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/%2a/14459449?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

Those who want to browse or just have a free read can find the online edition of * at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/34761363/

Several months ago, Chalk Editions published THREE LONGPOEMS, which I wrote during my "transitional period" in 1999-2000. FREE FALL originally appeared as a Potes & Poets Press chapbook. Note that I wrote GROUND ZERO at least a year before the World Trade Center site acquired the name after the 9/11 attack. In this poem, Ground Zero refers to the nuclear testing grounds in the southwestern United Stales and to trumpeter Bill Dixon's approach to free improvisation. You can read them at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/47458357/Vernon-Frazer-THREE-LONGPOEMS

Ganick has also published several batches of my strictly textual poetry in his experiential-experimental-literature blogzine:

http://ex-ex-lit.blogspot.com

Odds Against Today, my most recent collection of textual poetry, is now available through Argotist Ebooks:

http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/odds-against-today/10302902

Its cover ranks as one of my personal favorites among the covers of my books. The blurb seems a fair description of the content:

“In Odds Against Today Vernon Frazer's linguistic techniques force language beyond semantic limitations to produce poems that become events rather than meanings, although his lexical admixtures do not necessarily preclude perceiving or experiencing meaning.”

My textual poems have appeared in a number of other magazines as well:

RED CEILINGS has published “Switch and Bait:

http://redceilings.blogspot.com/2011/02/switch-and-bait-vernon-frazer.html

and “Over Time and Over:”

http://redceilings.blogspot.com/2011/02/over-time-and-over-vernon-frazer.html

Although my experience with RED CEILINGS has been limited, I find that I'm keeping good company with Felino A. Soriano's work published as a Red Ceiling Chapbook.

BLUE AND YELLOW DOG has published my texto-visual poems, “Stasis Quo” and “Anchor What” at:

http://blueyellowdog.weebly.com/winter-issue-3-2010.html

OTOLITHS has also published my poem, "Parchment Grudge:"

http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2011/01/vernon-frazer.html

My visual poetry represented me, after a fashion, during National Poetry Month, when P 667 Series C of PANELS FROM IMPROVISATIONS became part of the Angel House NationalPoetryMonth.ca at:

http://nationalpoetrymonth.ca/index.php?id=14.

The poem appeared April 14. But a look at the calendar will reveal a new page of visual poetry every day from such artists as Camille Martin, Matthew Stolte, Reed Altemus, Satu Kaikkonen, mIEKAL aND, andrew topel, Bob Grumman, Joel Lipman, Gary Barwin, John M. Bennett, Geof Huth, and Sheila E. Murphy, among others. Amanda Earl deserves high praise for assembling this impressive and innovative commemoration of National Poetry Month.

In addition, Jim Leftwich's TEXTIMAGE POEM has published a batch of my visual poetry:

Aficionado Transfers: http://www.flickr.com/photos/textimagepoetry/5331135871/

Double Move: http://www.flickr.com/photos/textimagepoetry/5331135595/

Pentatonic Scaling: http://www.flickr.com/photos/textimagepoetry/5331135813/

Since I consider Leftwich one of our most diverse and innovative writers, I'm always honored when my work appears in one of his publications.

When I started this update, I wanted to explain that I'd been slow to post because I've been taking a vacation from writing and publishing in recent months, trying to rest after getting a significant portion of my backlog of work published and to recharge my verbal batteries. If this is my idea of a vacation, the thought of seeing myself at work might exhaust me.

Back to the mirror.

SURFACING TO ANNOUNCE . . .

2010-12-14T07:13:00.000-08:00

Several days after my October post, STYLING SANPAKU, a collection of my texto-visual poetry, came out under my imprint. Another publisher held onto it for two years, after which I decided to self-publish it, using Jonathan Penton's Make It New Media as the POD printer. It hasn't been reviewed as yet and I'm looking for prospective reviewers. If you're intersted, plesae contact me at vfrazer@bellsouth.net. Prospective readers can purchase a copy at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22styling+sanpaku%22&x=20&y=15

Sanpaku is a Japanese term that describes a condition in which the whites appear on three sides of a person's eyes. A Wikipedia entry describes the myths surrounding it:

“When the bottom part of the white part of the eye known as the sclera is visible it is referred to as 'Yin Sanpaku' by the Chinese. According to the myth, it represents physical imbalance in the body, and is claimed to be present in alcoholics, drug addicts and people who over consume sugar or grain. Conversely when the upper sclera is visible this is called 'Yang Sanpaku'. This is said to be an indication of mental imbalance in people such as psychotics, murderers and anyone rageful. Stress and fatigue may also be a cause.”

Since the reader may consider the perceived meaning of any of the collection's poems as being within the range of Sanpaku behavior, my wife, Elaine Kass, painter Ed Rubin and I gave the book the above cover, which should address the Yin and the Yang of it.

Chalk Editions has published an ebook of ANY MOMENT, one of the manuscripts that's helped to keep my file cabinet full the past few years. Until recently, the publishers experienced difficulties while posting it to their site, so I've delayed my publication announcement. I'm not sure, but I think the notion of Chalk Editions officially announcing of its publication has gotten lost in the electronic shuffle, so I'm announcing it and providing the link:

http://chalkeditions.blogspot.com/2010/11/vernon-frazer-any-moment.html

Chalk Editions is one of the major ebook publishers now giving exposure to cutting edge writers and I'm very pleased to be on board. I've often credited Peter Ganick, one of Chalk's editors, as an importantliterary influence. As editor of Potes and Poets Press in the late 1990s, he exposed me to Language and Visual Poetry, which opened the floodgate of ideas I'd stored in my head since studying bass with Bertram Turetzky and reading John Cage in the mid-1960s. Thirty-five or forty years is a long gestation period, but I'm pleased with the results that have finally emerged over the past ten or eleven years. Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, the co-editor, has given my work strong support over the years, as well. He deserves credit for the cover art, as well as for guding the work into print through uncooperative software.

ANY MOMENT was an attempt to open my use of poetic form so that its structural fluidity would allow readers to determine their own sequence for reading the work moment by chosen moment, as it were. While preparing it for Chalk Editions, I discovered I had already done a number of things with text and graphics that I was telling myself I should try in the future. Once again, cliches about forest and trees apply. I didn't realize I was a “visual poet” until Michael Rothenberg told me two months after the 2005 Visual Poetry exhibit curated by Carlos Luis in Miami in 2005, where many of my colleagues had work on display. So, now I'm open to trying things I haven't tried---if I can say for certain I've haven't already tried them.

I want to give special thanks to Matina Stamatakis for her beautiful presentation of “Anchor What” in her Venereal Kittens blogzine. Presenting it as a photographic negative was a touch of genius:

http://venerealkittens.blogspot.com/2010/04/vernon-frazer_11.html

To me, the page seems more vivid than the white background I used when composing it. Stamatakis also published several of my other poems there:

http://venerealkittens.blogspot.com/2010/04/vernon-frazer.html

and the magazine features a plethora of other accomplished poets, some whose names are new to me. Stamatakis herself is a poet worth paying serious attention to. If you haven't visited Venereal Kittens at

http://www.venerealkittens.blogspot.com/

Check it out. It's a treat.

One of my nicer critical surprises came via Jefferson Hansen's blog:

http://experimentalfictionpoetry.blogspot.com/

In a commentary on the work of Debra DiBlasi, Miekal And and me in the latest Moriapoety, Hansen say this about the work that appears in the issue (click on link):

3) Vernon Frazer

Writing about nonrepresentational language is also difficult. How do we contextualize a line such as “salmon feet" in "The Future Brings"? Obviously, we can't, if we try to look at it from a representational point of view. Instead, we have sound and rhythm.

How do we say this piece, and these pieces, work, as I think they do? How are they different from a child randomly putting magnetic poetry words on a refrigerator? What skill does it take?

It has tremendous energy, coming I think from all the active verbs, including some interesting ones such as "mottle." The energy itself is excessive, pushing the language and spilling beyond semantic limits and into alternative spaces. It's exciting. Finally, the poem is an event, not a meaning. It's about this excessive excitement, together with the rhythm and sounds riffing throughout.

This is the answer to why it's better than magnetic poetry: there's a controlled excessiveness, that breaks the taboo of "making sense," but does so in a musical way that keeps the poem from spinning apart.

And I don't think there is any more to say.

This explains my own work to me in what I consider a very perceptive way. A writer deeply rooted in free jazz, Hansen recognizes the role free jazz took in shaping my work. In 1966 I became deeply interested in listening to and playing “energy music,” so explaining my work as a kind of “energy poetry” sounds and feels pretty right to me.

I'd like to thank Jeff, with whom I've had infrequent contact at best, and say a few words about his own fine work. As a poet, Jefferson Hansen is one of the few practitioners who can capture the rhythms of jazz effectively in his own poetry, as he did in his excellent Lyrical Eddies, a series of poems inspired by the music of Marilyn Crispell. As a fiction writer, Hansen's And Beefheart Saved Craig incorporates elements of John Dos Passos and Raymond Federman as well as his own techniques of juxtaposition to create a fiction with visual and documentary overtones about the life of a dysfunctional family and one son's efforts to survive it. I recommend both books highly. Hansen is a fine writer whose work just came to my attention in the past year. It's been a very welcome discovery.

I would also like to thank Michael Jacobson, editor of the New Post-literate” a Gallery of Asemic Writing for publishing “Bordered Question.”

http://thenewpostliterate.blogspot.com/2010/10/bordered-question-from-vernon-frazer.html

Jonathan Penton and the staff of Unlikely 2.0 deserve high praise for their anthology, Unlikely Stories of the Third Kind, a collection of the quality fiction, poetry, visual poetry, photography, essays, music and videos that have appeared in Penton's magazine over the years. Penton and his staff, in particular reviewer Gabriel Ricard, have given my work strong support. The anthology also keeps alive my 1988 jazz poetry recording “Sex Queen of the Berlin Turnpike (,” which also features the late and legendary saxophonist-flutist Thomas Chapin, bassists Mario Pavone and Joe Fonda, and percussionist Brian Johnson.

(http://www.vernonfrazer.net/music/TheSexQueenoftheBerlinTurnpike.mp3)

Unlikely Stories of the Third Kind also features work by Belinda Subraman, Martha Deed, Steve Dalachinksy, Jim Andrews and Jim Leftwich among the many writers worth your time and attention. The following link will bring you to a sample of the anthology's offerings:

http://www.unlikelystories.org/u3.shtml

Enjoy!

NEW WORK, EBOOKS AND FELINO SORIANO

2010-10-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

The appearance of online publishers struck me rather suddenly. Probably I was too busy reshaping my schnozz on the grindstone to look up and see them looming over me. Once I looked up, though, I saw that a number of presses were publishing ebooks by many poets whose work I enjoy and respect tremendously, but never find in bookstores, new or used. As fond as I am of the book, and the feel of bound paper in my hands or on my lap, I realized I had to update my toy collection so that I could read the books published online. Now that I've invested in an iPad, I can read writers I've enjoyed in the past and discover new writers whose work brings me fresh discoveries. I've also learned that electronic publishing is a useful publishing vehicle for my own work. Andrew Topel's Avantacular Press has published two books for me, and I took advantage of Scribd's open publishing policy to post a copy of IMPROVISATIONS

http://www.scribd.com/doc/38013484/IMPROVISATIONS-by-Vernon-Frazer

so that more people could read it.

One of the presses that made a strong impression on me was Jeffrey Side's Argotist Ebooks, a publishing arm of Side's excellent literary magazine The Argotist Online. It has an impressive and diverse roster of contemporary poets. A few days ago, Side made me part of his roster. He published Margin L, a collection of poems in which I write from the left margin instead of a variety of positions and angles on the page. The books's blurb reads:

“The roots of Vernon Frazer's textual poetry lie as much in the free jazz of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and their successors as they do in language-centered poetry, Surrealism, Dada and abstract expressionism. In Margin L, Frazer's words and concepts play over the page until they create a sense that something has happened during each poem’s movement. The poems, however, leave their interpretation of what precisely has happened up to the reader.”

You can read Margin L at: http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/margin-l/13042003

While reading Argotist's Ebooks, I discovered the work of Felino Soriano, a poet whose ekphrastic poetry captures the mood of the jazz tune and the style of the musicians playing it with perfect poetic pitch.He writes with an ear finely tuned to the jazz idiom, employing space on the page the way Miles Davis employed it in his solos or Keith Jarrett in building complex lines and tone clusters. Soriano captures the music with an accuracy that many poets aspire to but don't achieve. I recommend his Portions of Conversational Assemblies very highly. Here's the link

http://www.lulu.com/product/ebook/portions-of-conversational-assemblies/12105086

After reading Sorianos' work, I discovered he had previously published my work in his ezine

Counterexample Poetics

http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/2009/04/information-contents_23.html

When I submitted new work, he asked me for additional material so that he could present me as a featured writer. Naturally, I'm very pleased to find someone who regards my work highly enough to feature it. You can read it at:

http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/2010/10/vernon-frazer-featured-artist.html

I'm not ready to discuss the question of ebooks in depth, although their presence has made me start to reassess my earlier comments on self-publishing. But when I notice that exponentially more readers are looking at—if not actually reading—my work, I have to consider electronic publishing a positive event, considering the quality of the work Publisher's Row produces in its endless quest for a fast buck.

*

2010-07-24T10:08:00.000-07:00

Circumstances have rendered the title of today's entry appropriate in more than one way.

Immediately after I posted my new publications and recordings, I learned that Andrew Topel's Avantacular Press had published my longpoem, *, as an ebook.

* is a longpoem I wrote in 2006. Except for one page, recently published in Epidermis, the work went unpublished until yesterday.

You can read it at: http://www.scribd.com/doc/34761363/

NEW PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDINGS

2010-07-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

NEW PUBLICATIONS

Although I'm not quite on the roll I wrote about in my last post, I've had a number of pieces published online in recent weeks.

DITCH has just published a batch of my newest poems. You can read them at:

http://www.ditchpoetry.com/vernonfrazer.htm

I just discovered DITCH in the course of looking for places to submit my work, but I recommend it highly to readers who like cutting-edge material. DITCH has also published Kane X. Faucher, Camille Martin, Rob McClennan, Gary Barwin, Mark Young and Matina L. Stamatakis, all poets worthy of serious consideration. As a Canadian magazine, DITCH advances and enhances the rich body of Canadian experimental poetry, from which I've learned a lot, and includes an international cast of writers, as well.

Although I'm sad to learn that JACK MAGAZINE'S long run has come to an end, I'm pleased that Mary Sands Woodbury has included my work in its final issue:

http://www.jackmagazine.com/jack/?cat=36

The magazine has also published one of my personal favorites among my short fiction, “The Post-Creativist Corpus of Astu Abalar:”

http://www.jackmagazine.com/issue5/teapartyvfrazer.html

Although JACK MAGAZINE emphasized Beat writing, it also published a number of literary explorers, among them Sheila Murphy and mIEKAL aND. I'd like to thank Mary Sands Woodbury and her former co-editor, Michael Rothenberg, for their support of my work.

SEX QUEEN OF THE BERLIN TURNPIKE

A few weeks ago, I posted one of my older pieces, Sex Queen of the Berlin Turnpike, to YouTube. It's one of the first poems I ever put to music. I wrote it in 1984, as I recall, then recorded it in 1986 with a pre-recorded bass line on a cassette titled Haight Street, 1985 and again in 1987 for my 1988 LP,

Sex Queen of the Berlin Turnpike. On YouTube it's referred to as one of “Vernon Frazer's Greatest Hits,” a tongue-in-cheek reference to my sales that I hope isn't too obscure. I'm told it became a kind of underground classic among the jazz DJs at some of the northeast's college radio stations, most notably WWUH-FM (University of Hartford) and WHUS-FM (University of Connecticut), where Chris Sampson keeps it alive on his Gravity and Chaos show. The jazz DJs on these stations know their music very well, so I'm pleased that they supported it the way they did.

As an LP, Sex Queen of the Berlin Turnpike suffered from the record stores switching to selling CDs. At the time it was being pressed, the record stores were selling vinyl. During the five weeks it took to press the album, most record stores stopped selling vinyl and sold CDs instead. Although I got good---if not always perceptive--- reviews, the change in format limited what I could do with the work.

Here's the YouTube version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAmpdRiSIsk

If you'd like to listen to the full ensemble version, go to

http://www.vernonfrazer.net/music/TheSexQueenoftheBerlinTurnpike.mp3

The jazz aficionados among you might recognize the musicians. At the time, Thomas Chapin, Mario Pavone, Joe Fonda and Brian Johnson were respected but not well-known. Thomas Chapin, one of my closest friends, died of leukemia in 1998. Had he survived and been healthy enough to make the headliner gigs booked at venues such as the Monterrey Jazz Festival that year, he would be considered a star today. Nevertheless, he left an outstanding legacy of recordings. For more information on his work, visit his memorial web site at

www.thomaschapin.com .

Mario Pavone, the bassist in Thomas's acclaimed trio, has continued to create fresh improvised music. His angular compositions are unique and compelling, and his bass playing drives his sidemen to play at their best.

Joe Fonda gained recognition for his collaborations with Anthony Braxton, but was always a compelling bassist. Whenever he soloed, he'd display some advanced technique that I'd ask about. With his “just plain folks” approach, he'd downplay it. Over the years, he's produced a body of provocative works with musicians such as Braxton, Mark Whitecage, David Douglas and his longtime collaborator, Michael Jefry Stevens.

Brian Johnson ranks as the most brilliant percussionist I've ever played with. In the 1990s he performed with Loren Mozzacane and tours Europe with Oboist Joseph Celli. Since he lives in Burlington, Vermont, he doesn't always get the work and recognition a musician of his caliber deserves. He was the mainstay of the Vernon Frazer Poetry Band from 1988 to 1990, when he moved to Burlington. He came down from Vermont to play with the band when he could, and performed with me on my first engagement at the Knitting Factory in 1991. Like Thomas Chapin, who played with me on most of my New York gigs, I never told him what to play; he and Thomas always came up with something far better than anything I could suggest. You can hear more of Brian's percussion work on “Demon Dance” at

http://www.vernonfrazer.net/music/DemonDance.mp3

Eventually, I plan to reissue my poetry-music records on CD Baby. If anybody would like me to burn copies of the three recordings on my web site, please email me at vfrazer@bellsouth.net. At this time, I'm giving them away.

WRITER ON A ROLL

2010-06-22T06:18:00.000-07:00

The number of poems published since I resumed submitting material on a regular basis has surprised me very pleasantly. Every writer goes through stretches in which publishers accept their work readily or reject it equally readily. At the moment, I seem to be on a roll. I hope it continues.

Anny Ballardini curates the Poets Corner of the multi-lingual magazine, FIERALINGUE. Her selection of poets includes a veritable thumbnail directory of cutting edge poets along the Beat-Language Poetry-Visual Poetry continuum. The link for the Poet’s Corner is:

http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content

My own poetry is at:

http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=373

Felino A Soriano, editor of Counterexample Poetics, has accepted a batch of my poems. You can read them at:

http://www.counterexamplepoetics.com/2010/06/vernon-frazer.html.

But you’ll also find a number of other interesting poets on the site, including some who might not be familiar to you. Check them out.

Scott Bentley’s LETTERBOX Magazine is a publication I just discovered. I gather that Bentley compiles the best material he can find and publishes it in a box format. Bookstores such as Moe’s Books and Pegasus Books in Berkley, Bookshop West Portal in San Francisco and St. Mark’s Books in Manhattan carry the boxed magazine. The publication of the latest issue of LETTERBOX probably will probably mark the first time my work has appeared in any form in any of these bookstores.

FOFFOF, a blog of asemic writing, has just posted my texto-visual piece, “Textural War at Play,” at

http://foffoffof.blogspot.com/2010/06/vernon-frazer-textural-war-at-play.html.

Although I don’t consider my work asemic per se, I do incorporate non-textual elements into my work, and am pleased to see that editor Satu Kaikkonen sees the relation between my work and the non-textual pieces he publishes.

While talking about the asemic, I should mention Michael Jacobson’s blog, The New Post-Literate: a Gallery of Asemic Writing. He publishes many of the same writers who appear in FOFFOF, and has published two of my poems, “Ode to a Cryptic Blood Mantra,” at

http://thenewpostliterate.blogspot.com/2010/05/ode-to-cryptic-blood-mantra-by-vernon.html

and “Oracle Glyph Messaging” at:

http://thenewpostliterate.blogspot.com/2010/05/oracle-glyph-messaging-from-vernon.html

I’m very pleased to see venues such as these emerging to publish more radical work. Aside from my personal time constraints, the closing of many magazines that had published my work in the past led me to restrict my submissions to calls for work posted on the various writers lists I subscribe to. Literary magazines are not unlike alternative performance venues. Each struggles to present the best possible and stay afloat economically. After a period of time, the drains on energy and personal finances cause the venues to close. Eventually, as I’ve learned the cycle goes, new ones take their place. It’s taken a few years for these publications to emerge, but I’m very pleased to have them available once again.

CATCHING UP ON CATCHING UP AND A NEW VIDEO

2010-06-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

For some time, I’ve wanted to update this blog. But I’ve been too busy clearing up a two-year backlog of old projects, learning the software necessary to create new ones and sending out poems that have been sitting in my folders for months and, in some cases, years.

In the few weeks since I’ve returned to submitting work, I’ve had a number of poems accepted, but none have been published yet. When they appear in print, I’ll post the the news here. If I post the news prematurely, I might find myself counting eggs as chickens.

The most important piece of recent work that exists outside the pending file is the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZmBlA2WiY4

It’s my basspo rendition of the opening pages of IMPROVISATIONS. In addition to advancing my knowledge of the software involved in making videos, it’s also given at least one colleague an insight into the way the lines of my multi-voiced texts interact. Interested readers can find the discussions in the May archives of the Buffalo Poetics List or on the WRYTING list.

Ever since I heard Ted Enslin read in Willimantic, Connecticut twenty-five years ago, I’ve maintained that hearing a poet’s voice gives readers a key to understanding the work. Even the recitation of a shy or uncomfortable performer renders the rhythm and sense of a work more accessible. For several decades, I’ve thought the best rendering of my work would involve a recitation, a screen portraying the text and a band. Although I’ve retired from performing in public, YouTube has provided me a venue that allows me to present my work in a way that will entertain others and, as I’ve discovered, help guide them to a greater understanding of my work.

Panels from IMPROVISATIONS (Series B)

2010-04-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

Shortly after completing IMPROVISATIONS in 2005, I realized that a number of pages in the last part of the book would look good in color and explored the possibilities in three series. Big Bridge published Series A as part of its feature on IMPROVISATIONS in its 2006 issue.

Several weeks ago, Andrew Topel’s avantacular press announced that it was seeking collections to visual poetry to publish as ebooks. I submitted Series B and avantacular press accepted it for publication:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29099825/Panels-From-Improvisations-Series-b

I’m pleased that avantacular press has chosen to publish my work. Again, I find myself in the company of many astonishing visual poets, including Andrew Topel, himself.

I discovered Topel’s work about two years ago, when it appeared with mine in an issue of Otoliths, Mark Young’s excellent magazine of cutting-edge literature. Topel’s use of text and image and text as image seemed to parallel mine. When I joined Spidertangle, I received greater exposure to his work and gained a greater appreciation of its breadth, depth and brilliance. His grasp of visual possibilities seems endless. In browsing his blog just now, I discovered some fascinating textual work, in addition to the visual. He’s also designed his own line of clothing. Frankly, my attempt to describe his work doesn’t come close to encompassing it. Topel seems to be a living torrent of creative energy continually finding new, brilliant and original ideas to make tangible through his expression. Instead of trying to grasp the scope of his work, I suggest you experience it at:

http://avantacular-press.blogspot.com/

LIE /ISLE

is a relatively new magazine I’m glad to see. Over the past few years, a number of my customary publishing venues have closed their doors, but until recently very few new ones have surfaced. Recently, however, LIE/ISLE (HTTP://LIESISLE.COM ) came to my attention. My poem, “The Hungry on Strike” appears in the latest issue:

http://liesisle.com/ISSUE03/thehungryonstrike.html

LIE/ISLE publishes a number of writers whose names I’ve never encountered, but whose work in a variety of media deserves attention. And I'm very pleased with the way LIE/ISLE presented my work.

NEW WORKS

2010-03-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

In response to the lack of publishing venues available for visual poetry, John Moore Williams and Avantexte Press have started The Bleed, an online journal. Recently, they published my poem, “Anchor What” at

http://avantexte.com/thebleed/2010/03/anchor-what-by-vernon-frazer/

The Bleed also features visual poetry by Andrew Topel, Marton Kappany, Peter Ciccariello and Rosaire Appel. I’m pleased to find myself published in such good company.

“Fading Melody,” my latest basspo piece, has just uploaded to Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQxVzWE8PFU

Surprise Along the Random Axis

2010-02-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

Life has its share of surprises and sometimes they're pleasant. Some even make your day.

Yesterday, Gabriel Ricard, assistant editor of Unlikely 2.0 (www.unlikelystories.org), surprised me--- and made my day---with a review of my latest publication, RANDOM AXIS.

I conceived RANDOM AXIS as a sort of literary samizdat. I hand-printed and assembled 66 copies of the book, each with a different sequence of pages. It violated a number of conventions of the publishing business. Since I didn't assign a separate ISBN to each copy, most book distributors and sellers won't consider ordering it. In effect, RANDOM AXIS exists outside the business of selling books. Its random pagination represents my personal effort to destabilize text, as well.

I sent Gabriel Ricard a complimentary copy because I appreciated his deeply perceptive review of EMBLEMATIC MOON (http://www.unlikelystories.org/ricard0909.shtml). I didn't ask him to review RANDOM AXIS or expect him to. So yesterday's unsolicited review dropped into my lap as the kind of surprise that can make a writer's day. Here's the link to the review:

http://unlikelystories.org/blog/content/?p=227

I want to thank Gabriel for writing the review and for his deep (and flattering) insight into my work.

And for making my day.

FRAZER PLAYS FRAZER PLAYING LAZARUS

2010-02-17T07:53:00.000-08:00

From 1985 to 1994, I concentrated on fusing poetry with improvised music. I performed throughout New England and in New York as a solo poet-bassist, as a duo with saxophonist Thomas Chapin and led a poetry band. When the demands of performing affected my health, I stopped and concentrated on writing, stepping out about once a year to make a guest appearance with Chapin or Richard McGhee, the saxophonist in my poetry band.

Performing with music affected my writing. Several years after I stopped performing regularly, my poetry began to incorporate multiple voices resembling the instrumental lines that weaved around me during my recitations.

Technological developments have given me the means to return to performing in a way that doesn’t tax my body and presents my work in a format accessible to the part of the general public that listens to poetry with jazz or other musical idioms. The link below will show you my first “live” performance since 2002, when I shared a bill with John Sinclair at the University of Connecticut:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOzR1qE5eBI

I hope you enjoy it. I plan to do more of them.

Some Thoughts on Self-Publishing

2010-01-28T09:59:00.000-08:00

About a month ago, one of Spidertangle’s correspondents commented that the American Book Review’s appraisal of my longpoem Emblematic Moon marked the first time ABR had ever reviewed a self-published work and expressed hope that ABR

would review more of them.

Actually, in 2001 ABR reviewed the first section of my longpoem IMPROVISATIONS

and my novel Relic’s Reunions as an example of the positive and negative aspects of self-publishing. According to the reviewer, IMPROVISATIONS represented the positive aspects, Relic’s Reunions the negative. At the time, I wasn’t aware of ABR’s policy against reviewing self-published work, but I’d encountered the stigma almost from the day writing became my life.

I’m not sure I would assume that ABR will open its arms to self-publishers, but I hope their review of Emblematic Moon will open the doors for others. The review came about because one of the magazine’s editors realized the literary world had changed in ways that made self-publishing a necessity for writers whose work had merit but wouldn't turn a profit on Publishers' Row or penetrate the small press networks.

From my own observations, the literary business began to change around 1973, when corporations started to buy out independent publishers and emphasize publishing bestsellers. While publishing opportunities with the major presses have become somewhere between rare and nonexistent for writers outside the mainstream, the situation seems to be much the same as it’s always been: despite the stigma against self-publishing, self-publishers have made the most innovative contributions to literature.

In 1961, when I decided to become a writer, publishers considered themselves the guardians and shapers of literary culture. A best-seller’s profits would subsidize publication of adventurous of fiction or poetry deemed culturally important but unprofitable. “Midlist titles” that sold modestly but steadily also kept the publishers solvent. A writer could submit work “over the transom” with a chance that an editor might read it and even accept it. Having an agent increased your chances, of course, but wasn’t essential.

Publishers dismissed self-publishing, and writing magazines discouraged it. At best, they portrayed it as a bridge to nowhere---except for the totally inept, who subsidized the vanity presses. The only self-publishing author given credence was Walt Whitman, a laughing stock during his lifetime who had the last, if posthumous, laugh, when his work shaped the direction of twentieth-century poetry. Articles in the writing magazines portrayed Emily Dickinson as unpublished in her lifetime, either unaware of or denying her self-publishing activities.

In the mid-sixties, the “mimeo revolution” made publishing easier for writers and editors working outside the mainstream. Literary magazines seemed to explode onto the scene because publishing became more affordable. As with the magazines of the Pound-Joyce-Stein era, many published the work of their friends and closest colleagues, a practice that hasn’t changed over time.

Despite the stigma so prevalent in the literary world, avant-garde jazz musicians self-produced recordings that established their musical reputations and their success drew the attention of record labels large enough to offer better distribution and and increased sales. In the 1960s and 1970s Don Pullen, Milford Graves and Leo Smith received critical attention for their self-produced recordings and other musicians followed their example. Although I was following this development in the music, I wasn’t thinking of doing it myself; I believed my fiction would eventually find a home at Grove Press, New Directions or Dial.

By 1978, when I finally completed a novel, Grove Press and a number of other established publishers had stopped accepting unsolicited manuscripts. If you didn’t have an agent, most publishers wouldn’t read your work

I vowed that if necessary I would publish the novel myself. But the cost of publication exceeded my available funds. The equipment of the Mimeo Revolution couldn’t produce an attractive edition of a 430-page work. So I continued to seek publication through whatever press, large or small, I thought would consider it.

By the 1980s, the proliferation of Creative Writing programs and advances in computer technology created an explosion of literary magazines as large as but less heralded than the Mimeo Revolution. Around the same time, I started writing poetry, which got published readily, although my unpublished fiction piled ever higher. In 1991 I found myself on a roll; most of my unpublished poetry and ten years of unpublished fiction found homes in literary magazines. The self-doubt generated by decades of rejection slips diminished greatly; my stories, as well as my poetry, had been good enough all along. But the major presses have virtually stopped publishing non-mainstream literature unless it fits into such niche markets as Beat, Feminist, Gay, and African-American.

In the mid-80s I began my first self-production, fusing poetry with music on home-recorded cassettes, which I sold in the jazz clubs where I spent much of my free time. My first effort at self-producing broke even because my production costs were low. By 1987 I had composed enough poetry with musical accompaniment to produce a full-length recording, Sex Queen of the Berlin Turnpike. While I was waiting to receive my 1,000 vinyl copies the record stores switched to selling CDs, eliminating any hope for retail distribution. I did circulate the record among the independent labels, receiving occasional praise but no offers.

The following year, I self-published a Slick Set of Wheels, my first chapbook of poetry.

The process involved subcontracting to a printer who couldn’t correct my proofs without making other errors. The price of publication meant that I paid each person to buy a

copy. I decided to do the next book entirely on my own, if I couldn’t find a publisher.

As a self-publisher, I learned that my first choice of distributors, the Small Press Distribution Service, didn’t carry the work of self-publishing authors. Although it made economic sense to deal with a small number of publishers instead of a large number of authors, SPD in effect perpetuated the stigma against self-publishing---in ways that I wold find laughable several years later.

From the late 1980s to the mid-1990s I self-published and self-produced books of poetry and fiction and recordings of jazz poetry. Before I self-published any work, I submitted it to small presses, receiving the occasional appreciative letter. I entered my fiction in the FC2 fiction contest several times, once finishing as a finalist in a contest whose judges couldn't determine a winner. After twelve years of self-publishing, I resigned myself to the reality that the publishing world was a closed shop, whether its location was a big building on Madison Avenue or a basement in Berkeley. Even the literary agents were sending rejection slips instead of personal replies to the work I submitted.

In 1998, I gained my first inside look at into the way the literary world really worked. A small press editor who told me he only published his friends. During the time we were friendly, he published two of my books. Instead of royalties, I received 50 copies, which I couldn't sell. But SPD listed my work and academic libraries bought it.

In recent years, several publishers have issued my books through print-on-demand. But POD publishing creates other problems. With two POD books, I was able to purchase at-cost copies form the publisher and send out review copies. Perhaps this helped the publisher increase its sales. But I didn’t get royalties or free copies. A foreign publisher couldn’t provide me with at-cost copies and paying full price plus postage to send out review copies became the line in the sand that I wouldn’t cross.

Essentially, I self-publish because I see nothing in the present literary situation that offers me a better alternative. If I’m the publisher, I buy review copies at reasonable prices. I can be sure the publisher is promoting my work. And I’m in the position to receive royalties, although I have yet to receive a payment large enough to pay for a small bottle of mineral water.

I’m certainly not the only writer publishing under these conditions. If the corporate-run literary business eliminates innovative literature from its lists and certain small presses

publish only within their circles, self-publishing becomes the only available option. Despite the bias against self-publishing that continues, I remember the long-term successes of Whitman and Dickinson, nothing to mention William Blake, Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein and many others. It seems that many of the most innovative writers have self-published before other publishers paid attention to their work.

While I’d love to have a publisher take over all the work I do and pay me for it, I realize that as a self-publishing author, I’m keeping some very impressive company.

2010-01-28T09:58:00.001-08:00

Pages from RANDOM AXIS

2010-01-16T11:14:00.000-08:00

RECONFIGURATIONS recently published several pages from RANDOM AXIS, my most recent book. It also features work from Sheila Murphy, John M. Bennett and many other noteworthy writers. Check it out at:

http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/2009/11/vernon-frazer-random-axis.html

2009-12-16T07:35:00.000-08:00

Since my first post, I’ve been too busy finishing unfinished business to post what would be gratuitous updates. Finally, I have something to post, even though it lacks the purity of posting for the sake of posting.

WEB SITE

My website, in need of updating since 2005, has finally received it. With the creative and technical assistance of my stepson, Jonathan Duboff, I’ve added visual poetry, fiction, multimedia pieces, several books of poetry that almost qualify as “lost works,” samples of my jazz poetry that probably do qualify, a PDF of IMPROVISATIONS, all 697 pages of it, and a number of other features.

Go to www.vernonfrazer.net and see what’s new.

RANDOM AXIS

I’ve also released RANDOM AXIS, a 66 page longpoem that fuses textual and visual elements. I hand-published a limited edition of 66 copies and collated each copy so that no two books have the same page sequence. Its fastener binding allows readers to rearrange the text if they choose to do so. Originally, Vugg Books was going to publish it as an ebook with an algorithm that would rearrange the page sequence each time a reader opened the site. The size of the file prevented uploading the poem in its aleatoric online arrangement, making the “samizdat” approach necessary to bring out the work in a way that destabilizes the text. For those who’d like to sample the first ten pages of the work as originally planned, go to http://randomflux.info/axis/randomaxis.cgi or to the web site’s Visual Poetry page.

GLYPH PARTY

Some readers may have seen GLYPH PARTY on Youtube. The project has been on hold for some time because I needed to learn how to use the software necessary to complete it. Multimedia work has interested me for many years. The web site has several pieces that combine text, image and music. GLYPH PARTY is the first work I’ve done that combines animation with music. You can view it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhVjchq6d-Q

Enjoy the work!

October 28, 2009

2009-10-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

Welcome to BELLICOSE WARBLING, my latest attempt to keep the 21st century from running away from me.

I seem to find myself either way ahead of the proverbial curve or way behind it. In this case, the latter applies. While many writers I know have built their own blogs and moved into more current areas, I've been too busy juggling new projects and hopelessly backlogged ones, such as the revamped web site that this blog will link to . . . eventually. I admit to fumbling through Facebook, although email seems a lot simpler. Other similar groups carry my name or face, but I've forgotten how to access them. I've avoided Twitter because, rightly or wrongly, living in the moments of too many other people keeps me from living in my own. Do I really need to know what you're doing at 11:31 A.M? If you want to know, without a Twitter, Vernon Frazer is trying to start his blog. Texting will come later, if ever. And "sexing?" At my age, you don't want to know what you have to look forward to.

As best I can determine, this will be a work in process, a mixed bag of updates on publications and occasional commentary. Keeping a journal has never interested me and, however emphatic my tone, my commentaries, like everyone else's, are one person's opinion on a given day, subject to change on the next. To spin Walt Whitman's classic phrase : If I contradict myself, I contradict myself. I am large and need to lose ten pounds.

A few weeks ago VENEREAL KITTENS published a few of my poems. Here's the link:

http://venerealkittens.blogspot.com/2009/08/vernon-frazer.html