So pleased to have my article, "Metric Action in the Free Verse of (Bowery Bob) Bob Holman," mentioned on the Best American Poetry blog! The announcement is for John Tranter's new Journal of Poetics Research. Thanks to Annie Finch for the prosodic theory and tutelage!
John Tranter's JPR to Hit the Stands!

http://sovay.livejournal.com/809149.htmlhttp://sovay.livejournal.com/809149.html

Thanks to Sovay for the shout out on Live Journal for my translation of Victory over the Sun and for the Červená Barva Press bookstore.


Date: 2016-10-19 17:12 Subject: Well what's to be done I'll go away askance into the 16th century through the quotes over here

Delightful surprise of the week: visiting the brick-and-mortar office of Červená Barva Press in the basement of the Somerville Armory and discovering that not only do they sell their own books, like the chapbook of Aleksei Kruchonykh's libretto for the Futurist opera Victory Over the Sun (1913, trans. Larissa Shmailo 1980/2014) I had originally contacted the publisher about, they are a really lovely tiny used book store. My mother left with Gene Stratton-Porter's The Harvester (1911), Inez Haynes Irwin's Maida's Little School (1926), and Frances Hodgson Burnett's Robin (1922), all first editions—jacketless, but in otherwise quite respectable condition; the first two are books from her childhood and the third neither of us had ever heard of, so fingers crossed it's not terrible. I walked out with Barbara Helfgott Hyett's In Evidence: Poems of the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps (1986) and the Signet paperback of Mickey Spillane's Kiss Me, Deadly (1952), which I did not buy solely for its cover, but you must admit it helps. I am enjoying Victory Over the Sun.

So delighted! My critical paper, "Metric Action in the Free Verse of Bob Holman," is live now at the Journal of Poetics Research: http://poeticsresearch.com/…/larissa-shmailo-bob-holman-an…/ Great pictures of Bowery Bob, Annie Finch, and Roland Barthes!

Honored that my critical paper, Metric Action in the Free Verse of Bob Holman, which examines Holman's poetry in the light of Annie Finch's prosodic theory and Roland Barthes's narrative codes, has been accepted by John Tranter's Journal of Poetics Research!

Very pleased that these excerpts from my novel, Patient Women, appear in the international arts journal Alephi:Patient Women excerpts

Thanks to Alephi in India for designing this "Today Book" ad for Patient Women!
http://alephi.com/

https://gumilev.ru/languages/706/

Very pleased that my translation of one of Nikolai Gumiliev's acrostic poems on the name of Anna Akhmatova will be published on Gumiliev.ru!Larissa ShmailoNikolai Gumiliev (April 15,1886 – August 25, 1921) on the name of the poet’s wife, Anna Akhmatova. I have used successive kh to transliterate the Russian x in Akhmatova’s name.

Acrostic
Addis Ababa, city of roses.
Near the bank of transparent streams,
No earthly devas brought you here,
A diamond, amidst gloomy gorges.
Armidin garden … There a pilgrim
Keeps his oath of obscure love
(Mind, we all bow before him),
And the roses cloy, the roses red.
There, full of deceit and venom,
Ogles some gaze into the soul,
Via forests of tall sycamores,
And alleyways of dusky planes.

Tr. L. Shmailo

Акростих
Аддис-Абеба, город роз.
На берегу ручьёв прозрачных,
Небесный див тебя принес,
Алмазной, средь ущелий мрачных.
Армидин сад… Там пилигрим
Хранит обет любви неясной
(Мы все склоняемся пред ним),
А розы душны, розы красны.
Там смотрит в душу чей-то взор,
Отравы полный и обманов,
В садах высоких сикомор,
Аллеях сумрачных платанов.

Very pleased that my poem, "My Dead," appears on the popular FULCRUM  Facebook page this weekend.

MY DEAD

My husband lost his shirt at cards; insolvent, he then drowned
in slick Cancun on our honeymoon; years now, it still astounds
how fast, how fast, a living hell can turn a life around.

My godchild told me pointedly if she were to attempt
to die that she'd succeed at once; her word she quickly kept,
and took a hundred opiates and drifted to her death.

My punk-rock pimp, a crush of mine, loved theater and art.
He sodomized and strangled a young man close to his heart,
then packed a bag of bondage toys and left for foreign parts.

Before her death, my mother called and calmly sat me down;
if she could do it all again, she'd have no children, none.
She lived her life in anger and, despite us, all alone.

My father drank and slept around; he was a well-liked guy.
He said I love you once to me the night before he died.
Was there a feeling come too late or panic in his eyes?

Fulcrum

Ladybug, the autumnal, menopausal forest is aflame,
Burning with your yearning and desire: go home.
No season of mists or mellow fruitfulness for you, only
The hot flash of Eros dying, growing old.

Fall now, the deep loam envelopes your breasts,
Dugs that hang low. The crimson leaves as
Veined as your hands, varices red and blue,
Glitter with last dew, the brilliance before death.

Can you, withered Phoenix, rise?
Female over fifty, do you have your music too?

So excited to share the cover of my new poetry collection, Medusa's Country! Cover art is by Robert Hunt and cover design is by Marc Vincenz. The book, from MadHat Press, launches at AWP17!

You must have seen it, at a crepuscule shore;    It strikes as lightning does, trembling the sky,      with summer rose and lilacs calling "more,"   and the flash of white egrets as they fly.     
You must have heard it, crickets in the dusk,   the flap of water on smooth stone and bark,   the sound of a lone loon in the summer musk,   the breath of your lover as she speaks in the dark.       
Self-centered, we cannot see God in ourselves,    and in others we too often miss the divine;   in nature, not ours, we sense eternal lives    for a moment alive in our chattering minds.   

Larissa's Amazon page - click here

The fascists are winning because I am losing my sense of humor. They are here to stay, past the election in November, which Trump will claim was rigged. Trump will say he won by a landslide and call for revolution, as he did when Romney lost. All the armed militia, Klan, Nazi, and the 72% of Republicans who doubt Obama was born in the United States will answer his call. But until then, I can imagine Trump and Sarah Palin having a discussion about geopolitics, and smile, a little

In his book Mythologies, Roland Barthes examined the ways in which modern society creates myths about its experience. Using semiotics, he wrote of the atmosphere of disorder a stray lock of Calpurnia's hair creates in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Julius Caesar and how writers on holiday are thought never to stop writing.
The mythology of Donald Trump is that his presidential campaign is a reality show that will be promptly canceled in November. Statements that threaten violence, like his suborning assassination this week, are part of an entertainment, like The Trumpanos or The Walking Trump or Game of Trump. Scary, yes, but contained. He'll just retire after the election, we --- kinda -- think. And give up the media attention, the crowds? Think of Trump's red face as he mocks and smears and threatens. No, in this show, the best, or worst, is yet to come

Daily Art Source review of Medusa's Country

Happy birthday, my sister Tamara, my most loyal reader.

Death of a Reader

I'm thrilled to announce that Madhat Press will publish my third full-length poetry collection, Medusa's County. Thanks to Marc Vincenz and Mad Hatters everywhere!