Status: Married
State: California
Country: US
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Blog Archive
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March 12, 2008 - Wednesday
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LA Times Festival of Books
Category: Writing and Poetry
Poetic Matrix Press supporters
If you going to be in the LA area in late April come see us at the
LA Times Festival of Books
Saturday, April 26 • 10 am to 6 pm
Sunday, April 27 • 10 am to 5 pm
UCLA Main Campus
We’re at Booth No. 1038 near the Poetry Stage
on the Powell Library/Moore Hall grass.
We’ll have all our titles there and may of our authors will be at the
Festival available at our Booth reading and signing books with some
authors participating on official Festival programs. Come meet
and greet, Brandon Cesmat, Joe Milosch, Gail Entrekin,
Tomás Gayton, Sandy Stillwell, John Peterson. We’ll also have
Charles Entrekin, poet, novelist and husband to Gail,
there with his soon to be released novel,
Red Mountain Birmingham Alabama 1965,
published by El León Literary Arts.
For Poetic Matrix Press this will be a great
opportunity to present the work of our Press
to 140,000 book lovers.
Come say hello!
Mention you saw us on MySpace
and pickup a free chapbook!
10:39 AM
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November 21, 2007 - Wednesday
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TRIAL & ERROR
Category: Writing and Poetry
"A year later, driving on the parkway to another trial, I nearly
skidded off the road when WAMU-FM blared breaking news:
A man named Louis Drame just stormed through the
courthouse where his wife worked as a clerk. He argued
with her briefly, drew a thirty-eight revolver, shot her dead.
I gripped the steering wheel to control my shock, repeated
lawyer mantras, vainly tried to pilot through a tsunami
of guilt.
Like E.R. doctors, court-appointed lawyers can't choose
who gets their services. I was duty-bound to do all that
I could for anyone entrusted to my care.
The adversary system only works when freedom lawyers
tug with vigor on their end of litigation's rope.
I wasn't tossed a crystal ball when I was yoked to
Louis' case.
It took years for me to own more than professional
responsibility for the part I played in Louis' life, to accept
the truth that sometimes I—as all of us—forge crucial links
in others' karmic chains.
But did Louis ever ponder from his prison cell an irony my
mind can't shake? Had his case been handed to a Fifth
Streeter that day before Thanksgiving, no doubt he'd have
served some prison time, but not decades in a cage. And at
least one person's life would not have been destroyed.
An excerpt from THE THANKSGIVING ADDICT,
one of Arthur W. Campbell's fascinating prose poems on
his development as a "freedom lawyer" from his new
volume of prose poems:
TRIAL & ERROR The Education of a Freedom Lawyerprose poems byArthur W. CampbellAvailable from Poetic Matrix Press
9:26 AM
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November 17, 2007 - Saturday
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Poetic Matrix Press on-line periodic letteR
Category: Writing and Poetry
Web Flash!
Just a note that Poetic Matrix online periodic letteR for fall 2007 is up.
Click on Poetic Matrix Press
Tomás Gayton - poet and world traveler in Portugal
From the Publisher's page:
We have poems by some very talented poets with something to say to us. Our
contributors come from around the globe including: Ashok Niyogi - India,
Christopher Barnes - England, Molly Weller - with roots in Australia, Alex
Galper - Ukraine, Joseph O'Connell - Ireland. Tomás Gayton gives us poetry
and pictures from his ongoing world travels and Rayn Roberts' PhotoPoem is
beautiful in language and beautiful visually, sent from his home in South Korea.
We have poetry from Gary Beck, Page McKay, James Downs, Barry Ettenger,
and Wendy Patrice Williams; Joyce Downs, and Tim Pariseault." Also J. Glenn
Evans, Art Campbell, John, and Joel Netsky.
We think you'll enjoy it and we invite your comments. We have 3 new volumes
since the last letteR and we invite you to look at them on the Press pages.
If poets and lovers of poetry don't write, publish,
read, and purchase poetry books then we will have
no say in the quality of our contemporary culture
and no excuse for the abuses of language, ideas,
truth, beauty, and love in our cultural life.
John Peterson, Publisher
Poetic Matrix Press
10:06 AM
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August 23, 2007 - Thursday
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News of the Day
Category: Writing and Poetry
Well, its time to do some self promoting. I have a new book of poetry out called News of the Day poems of the times. This is a work that spans many years and, as the title indicates, many of the poems in this collection are tied to a specific event, some social, some personal. I found, when looking through my poetry some years back, that I, like many poets, wrote about events of the day. Some of the events of the day glavanized ideas that found their way into poems. As I write in the Acknowlegments, "...the events may date the poem but if the event and the poem are worthy then something of lasting value may come along with the piece." And so I put this collection together.
Carin and the Beat Chicks
Beat Conference - 1994
Listening to "Beat Chicks",
Hattie, Joyce, Carolyn, Jan,
I thought of you.
I don't know where you are now
but you did the road way back.
You didn't hit the road with the guys
you did it yourself, catchin' rides from
California to Iowa—
I remember a photograph of you
sittin' on the porch of an old Iowa farm.
What our older sisters couldn't do,
you and your sisters did years later.
Your road is still way out there.
Some day you'll tell your younger
sisters how it was in the 70s,
hitch hikin' on the road
in the u s of a without fear.
No fear that your brothers on the road
would harm you.
Tell your sisters
that it was this way once,
When the innocent
were free
and we did love each other.
***
Bopal
TV news report
of the Union Carbide pesticide leak, 1984
that poisoned and killed two thousand
in Bopal India.
This was immediately cut to a bombastic ad
for Vacation Holiday Cruises
to various parts of the world.
This image, one on the other,
close to the new language of the earth,
so close to the earth in speech
that it cannot be misunderstood.
Close to one heart beating in another.
***
November 30th
Upon the Death of George Harrison
First, we were born the same year only weeks apart,
the heavens opened terribly at that moment.
We streamed through the opening when the world
was full of grief, and we share with others that grief.
'My sweet lord' he sang out and I like many others
found a momentary blissful connection.
Enlightenment some say is but a stringing together
of momentary blissful connections.
They come, they go and they alter us, only so
that we can realize who we are.
We string them together, he in his moment of birth
and in his moment of passing and all the songs in between.
So, this collection covers many years and for me is itself a news of the day. It was time to put it out.
NEWS OF THE DAY
POEMS OF THE TIMES
BY JOHN
126 PAGES, FULL COLOR COVER, PERFECT BINDING
ISBN 978-09789597-3-9
PRICE $15.00
Take a look at it at www.poeticmatrix.com, order it on-line at Amazon.com through our website or ask you favorite bookstore to order it.
8:00 AM
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July 9, 2007 - Monday
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July 2, 2007 - Monday
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Why we publish poetry!
Category: Writing and Poetry
MySpace Folks
I'd like to thank the many MySpace Bloggers who have stopped in at our blog and looked at what we do. I'm still new at this and still getting to know this resource.
As a poet and a small poetry press publisher I have taken on the responsibility of getting poetry out to readers as much as I can. Some years back I took the following as the purpose of our Press:
If poets and lovers of poetry don't write, publish, read, and purchase poetry books then we will have no say in the quality of our contemporary culture and no excuse for the abuses of language, ideas, truth, beauty, and love in our cultural life. I have been a practicing poet, activist, and publisher for many years. I've also raised a family of 4 and managed fine dining establishments for 25 years. During all of this time, and through all of these activities, I've meet many, many people who are both looking for an understanding of our current social conditions and who are participating, in their own way, to add to the contemporary culture so that we will have a say "in our cultural life." I invite you to look at our authors: Brandon Cesmat - Driven into the Shade, (winner 2003 San Diego Book Award for Poetry); Gail Rud Entrekin - Change (will do you good), nominated for a Northern California Book Award; Tomás Gayton - Winds of Change/Vientos de Cambio, Bilingual poems from his world travels; James Downs - Merge with the River, written from his love of Yosemite; Sandra Stillwell - A Dress Made Of Butterflies, just plain beautiful. Plus many more. They have somthing to say about our comtemporary life, and the means to say it well. If you buy a book, from Amazon.com (go to Amazon from our webpage), our website via PayPal, or any other source, drop me an email at poeticmatrix@yahoo.com, I'd like to give you a copy of any one of our other books as my thanks for your support. Also, if you are a poet, musician, artist, drop me an email and give me your web address and I'll add it to our special links page. I do put out an on-line periodic letteR 2 xs a year. I am putting one together now and I'd love to see your poetry, art or music and see if it can work with our current issue. Thanks again for your interest in Poetic Matrix Press. John www.poeticmatrix.com
10:12 AM
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July 8, 2007 - Sunday
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New Volume due our soon!!
Category: Writing and Poetry
Poetic Matrix Press
 
NEWS OF THE DAY
POEMS OF THE TIMES BY
JOHN PETERSON
"At the 50th Anniversary Beat Conference at NYU in 1994, Gregory Corso lead off his part of the Town Hall Concert with the statement that poets should bring the News of the Day to the community; with that he read a piece he had written only hours before the concert with his poet's comments on the day's goings on. Since then I've taken it upon myself, prior to a reading or concert, to find that poem that is the News of the Day, reading it to start off the event."
from the Acknowledgments
This is a work where in most cases the reflectrion came soon after a significant event and so the poem is attached to that event. It sets the poem in time and often reveals something remarkable.
Available on www.poeticmatrix.com and soon on
Amazon.com and find out more or purchase.
140 Pages
ISBN 978-09789597-3-9
Price $15.00
Young Lady at Denver Airport
It is the perfection of your roundness.
The placement of hips, the walk
that was inside you and came out.
The atmosphere like handfuls of pale
sun lit water. The warmth in your breasts
that shown like turbulence as you moved.
You revel in your life, you change your
surroundings to match your swelling,
your brightness to conceive. It was your
roundness, the roundness of attraction, the
roundness of hips, the roundness that encircles
your walk and your acceptance of revelation.
1:37 PM
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April 8, 2007 - Sunday
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The Unequivocality of a Rose is OUT NOW!
Category: Writing and Poetry
Poetic Matrtix Press new volume is OUT NOW!
The Unequivocality of a Rose by Joel Netsky chosen for publication in the 2006-2007 Slim Volume Series. ISBN-13 978-09789597-1-5
80 pages, color cover, perfect binding $15.00
Go to our web site (http://www.poeticmatrix.com) to order direct from Poetic Matrix Press, or order from Amazon.com through our web site at a significant discount.
If you buy this or any other Poetic Matrix Press title from Amazon.com drop me an email and let me know and I'll send you one other title "FREE". Just say "saw you on MySpace". We want to do our part to assist small poetry presses (like ours), Amazon.com as a small poetry press source, and MySpace as a vehicle for letting people know about small poetry presses. Thanks - John
10:01 AM
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February 26, 2007 - Monday
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New! Poetic Matrix periodic online letteR
Category: Writing and Poetry
Poetic Matrix
periodic online letteR 3 starts here
with Guest Poetry Editor James Downs
Poetry from: Shadab Zeest Hashmi and Joseph Milosch. Terry Hertzler, Brandon Cesmat, Kate Watson and Tomás Gayton. Lawrence Rouse, Sylvia Levinson, Jon Wesick and Charlaine Coleman. Mary Ellen Wilson, Christopher Vera, Tim Donnelly, Daniel Williams and David Sharpness. Ocean Jones, JC, Maw Shein Win, Nat Shazi, Joseph Zaccardi.
A special Photo Essay by Kiirsti Peterson, Meditation on a Hard Freeze 2007.
And a note from the Publisher on the Press in 2006.
***
The Poetic Matrix periodic letteR has been going on since 1997 first as a newsletteR sent via regular mail and then in 2005 as an online periodic letteR. The internet has allowed poetry to flourish providing a means to better look at the world through the eyes and with the voice of a poet. Besides the periodic letteR Poetic Matrix Press has published numerous chapbooks and full volumes. Poetry goes through radical changes as it moves along with the cultures history. Often new venues and new vehicles show up to help showcase the emerging poetic voices.
The best example of dialectical poetry is the west coast poetry of the 30s, and early Beat poetry, that had as its objective the breaking out of the confines of the east coast hierarchy, and as a critic of pre and post WW II society. The Beats were "sweeping in their condemnation of their countries social, sexual, political, and religious values." 38 Kenneth Rexroth writes in 1970 of this time. "We finally broke it," east coast, British domination of poetry. "Nobody else broke it. We broke it. And we had damn few outlets." 39
(the above quote is from a forth coming book of essays, writings and poetry Exploring the Poetic Matrix - Poetic Creation and Consciousness by this blogs author due out sometime this summer)
I believe that the internet is critical in telling the story of this era because it has the capascity to get unheard voices and new voices, (sometimes unfinished voices) out where they can be seen and heard. The story now is complex and need be told by many voices. We shall see what is the outcome. - John
11:50 AM
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January 28, 2007 - Sunday
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Poetic Matrtix Press new volume!
Category: Writing and Poetry
Poetic Matrtix Press new volume due out soon!
The Unequivocality of a Rose by Joel Netsky chosen for publication in the 2006-2007 Slim Volume Series. ISBN-13 978-09789597-1-5
80 pages, color cover, perfect binding $15.00
From the Preface:
"The Unequicality of a Rose by Joel Netsky is a story. All good poetry tells a story; some poems are stories told in grand poetic language like the great epics of our shared cultural history; some poems are individual pieces set together to create a story. The Unequicality of a Rose is a story told both in individual verse strung together and as a long tale told with a unique poetic language."
If you like poetry that pushs the envelope of what poetry today should be you'll like this daring work. Joel takes a classical approach to language and then does something that extends the language out where we haven't seen it before. He makes large demands on us both in the language and in the philosophical approach he takes to important poetic questions. Go to htttp://www.poeticmatix.com for more information.
Philosophy is a Discourse
Philosophy is a discourse traversing the continuum:
one speaks,
millenia later another comments,
millenia after that redux.
It is of a quietude, a blissful quietude,
a tree into which birds snuggle,
an untroubled glade.
That pristine thought,
that questing mind:
two voices in harmony,
their lips embrace.
Elixir are those springs,
that melody of wing and earth,
that bottomless quarry of concord,
which will last as long as eternity,
as long as the mind.
1:38 PM
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