quite a lot of my poetic nourishment nowadays comes from the net. no surprise, you probably do too. but i do love coming home from work and seeing fat envelopes sitting in the mailbox waiting for me. nothing beats the sensuality of holding books, zines, and chaps in the hand, smelling the paper, flipping thru the pages. nothing can beat that.

this evening oz poet derek motion's diy chapbook escaping over trees was in one such envelope. i was a bit surprised to get it so quickly since last week we agreed to exchange chaps. nevertheless, the poems rock. his texts zoom with great velocity, while at the same time appear almost languid. i mean, they remind me of jimmy schuyler's work, if schuyler listened to avant-garde rock&roll while relaxing on a shady porch with a few friends, talking very fast [which he probably did, the relaxing and talking part; i'm not sure about the rock&roll -- would schuyler be a pixies fan?]. derek's poems are both relaxed and energized at once. formally daring the shape of the texts augments their sound and the visual structure keeps the live current flowing.

check out derek's blog and you'll see what i mean. in short, fucking outstanding poems.

and eileen tabios' latest galatea resurrects is now live. check it out. i have a review, and i'm pleased to find jim mccrary has 2 reviews published. mccrary i think is a tremendous prose writer as well as being a kick-ass poet. i've been saying for some time mccrary would make an excellent blogger. these reviews are, i think, proof that mccrary's got the goods.

and and and there are 3 reviews of tom beckett's selected unprotected texts. that alone is cause for praise.

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