Clones Go Home is zapped with surprise to announce two new chapbooks. Lauren Levin’s A Little Chat with the Sunand Ivy Johnson’s Maiden, Mother, Crone.
Please visit clonesgohome.com to purchase!
A Little Chat with the Sun is an invocation between a liminal then and now. The way a conversation with past weaves into present, how mourning reflects and encourages, grows, laughs, confines, expands. “it’s hard not to imagine Earth a room / everything’s hidden in. Where the answers will turn up / if you keep digging. But it’s not like that. I don’t know / What else to tell you.”
Maiden, Mother, Crone explores the shifting stages of a femme life, the many selves channeling, embodying, the difference rendered by society into projections and those personalities that bubble to the surface to converse, curse and conjure. “I’m trying to say / There is nothing to soak up the time / But it’s the opposite / The time is soaked up / In a black hole sponge / In the corner of my room / Where I put my dreams / And the night terrors emerge.”
We’d also like to post a special thanks to Joel Gregory. Both of these chaps are incalculably enriched by their artwork. The flower and landscape paintings in A Little Chat with the Sun, where the gorgeous detail and surreal dailiness offer an reflective window, a portal into the work. In Maiden, Mother, Crone, the portrait on the left back cover of Ivy Johnson is not just a likeness but a shared vision, that gothic arc.
Clones Go Home doesn’t like capital. So, outside of shipping and production costs, all monies will go to a charity of the author’s choice. All books will be going out by the end of August.
Clones Go Home is a creation of Joseph Bradshaw and Nicholas DeBoer, in collaboration with the Potlatch Discordian Network.
Clones Go Home is zapped with surprise to announce two new chapbooks. Lauren Levin’s A Little Chat with the Sun and Ivy Johnson’s Maiden, Mother, Crone.
Please visit clonesgohome.com to purchase!
A Little Chat with the Sun is an invocation between a liminal then and now. The way a conversation with past weaves into present, how mourning reflects and encourages, grows, laughs, confines, expands. “it’s hard not to imagine Earth a room / everything’s hidden in. Where the answers will turn up / if you keep digging. But it’s not like that. I don’t know / What else to tell you.”
Maiden, Mother, Crone explores the shifting stages of a femme life, the many selves channeling, embodying, the difference rendered by society into projections and those personalities that bubble to the surface to converse, curse and conjure. “I’m trying to say / There is nothing to soak up the time / But it’s the opposite / The time is soaked up / In a black hole sponge / In the corner of my room / Where I put my dreams / And the night terrors emerge.”
We’d also like to post a special thanks to Joel Gregory. Both of these chaps are incalculably enriched by their artwork. The flower and landscape paintings in A Little Chat with the Sun, where the gorgeous detail and surreal dailiness offer an reflective window, a portal into the work. In Maiden, Mother, Crone, the portrait on the left back cover of Ivy Johnson is not just a likeness but a shared vision, that gothic arc.
Clones Go Home doesn’t like capital. So, outside of shipping and production costs, all monies will go to a charity of the author’s choice. All books will be going out by the end of August.
Clones Go Home is a creation of Joseph Bradshaw and Nicholas DeBoer, in collaboration with the Potlatch Discordian Network.
Impossible to talk about the depth and breadth and presence of Alice Notley. Everything I've needed has always been in the work just when I needed it. Reading "The Mystery of Small Houses" for memory and humor; "Dear Dark Continent" when I was pregnant and dysphoric and sleepless; "Alma" and "Descent of Alette" to come out of the other side of despair into steady strength and ferocity; the early poems, or all of it really, for her fearlessness of voice and her insouciance. For lists of gemstones. For abidance with death and excursions to the other side. Didn't she call all of us into being by her insistence that we existed? I've read her with friends in backyards and living rooms, read her alone when I couldn't write, with faith that her voice would impel me forward. I know she's gone but her voice is immortal (by dint of having been mortal, having consorted with death her whole career). The one time I met her in person, we talked about the Dune books. World's Bliss is one of my favorites; "he is a maiden" - and this morning, I opened Grave of Light and landed on La Mort. Thank you, Alice, for telling us no lies.
For my birthday, @rottingcutie got us tickets to go see @taylormacnyc 's Bark of Millions and a Pau ring (named for the illustrious @pau_s_pescador ) and I came home to be surprised by Alejandra's having made their first layer cake, a strawberry shortcake, for me! No words for my delight in these people and the greatest gift is being able to spend my days with them. Though Bark of Millions was absolutely incredible and I would not say no to strawberry shortcake any day of the week, so great job, guys!
My Life of course but Happily has always been my favorite guide for exploration. Thank you Lyn for your work and your presence, your publishing, your rigor and curiosity and kindness. I didn't know you well personally, but I know the writing debt I owe to you and I know the Bay was better because you were here. "Language is running / Language remains."
@fairmont.rainbow.families , the organization I'm part of at @fairmontelementaryschool , is partnering with wonderful first grade teacher Aleena Sohail @mxaleena@aleenaseats on a solidarity bake sale to benefit @palestinechildrenrelieffund . Please come join us this Saturday, Nov 11th, starting at 11 am. 🌈Fams will be there with a book nook featuring stories about Palestinian, Jewish, and Muslim children and families. Many of our members are also bringing baked goods. (Lmk If you'd like to bring something... it's not too late to sign up!) As an organization that serves children and families from diverse backgrounds, 🌈 Families believes that we are all in it together, and that none of us are free until all of us are free. We stand against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, oppression of the Palestinian people, and all oppression. We stand for the right of children everywhere to live in peace.
This is from an interview with Israeli Jewish writer Etgar Keret that my brother @joshuablevin pointed me to. I've noticed some of what Keret describes, i.e. having calls for a ceasefire or Palestinian liberation interpreted as a lack of concern for Jewish hostages or for Hamas-inflicted violence. My understanding of the call for ceasefire is that what is happening to Gaza is an emergency now, so there is an urgency to speaking up clearly and cogently about it, protesting, and so on. What is happening now is also putting Israeli hostages in danger, and by its past actions, this extremist Israeli government has shown that it cannot be trusted with anyone's safety. Another reason to speak out against the invasion is because Israel gov't short-term actions in the name of retribution endanger the long-term security of everyone in the region, Israeli and Palestinian alike (shades of 9/11). I find Keret's frame useful in that trying to do what one can for a ceasefire is a case of responding humanly to what is in front of us, now, and to what's being done in our name if we are Israeli or US Jews or US citizens for that matter. If we wait to say not in my name, it'll be too late. This moment also reminds me of 9/11 in that there are so many phrases being tossed around that shut down discussion, like "stand with Israel" (what does that mean?-if you think that the political course Israel is following will actually be a disaster for Israeli, Jews and Arabs alike, isn't there an obligation to protest?) It's powerful to read Karet's account because he is close to so much suffering and still trying to be committed to staying open to doubt, to not understanding, to having strong feelings and not leaping to platitudes, to believing his Palestinian friends when they say they are suffering. Another one of my long rambles/imaginary conversations with my parents, thanks friends for talking with me and for the patience of anyone who has read this.
