Things Ben Mirov Thinks are Rad: Post 1 of ???

Hey. My name is Ben. I'll be posting all week about things I think are rad. The first thing I'd like to tell you about is a small journal slash reading series based in Brooklyn, called SUPERMACHINE (disclaimer: this post is vaguely self-promotional, because SUPERMACHINE is publishing a small chapbook of my poems in early 2011, but I also just think they are dope and I want everyone to know about them and send poems etc.). SUPERMACHINE is a modest conglomerate of poets, editors, and book makers. They have an impressive reading series and a classy journal. Probably my favorite thing about SUPERMACHINE is the sense of taste that prevades both the reading series and the journal. The design of the journal is a mix of affronting, contemporary graphic elements, and straightforward yet reverential treatment of text. Poets featured in the journal and the reading series are more often than not, a relatively nascent generation offering fresh visions, but many more established writers are included as well (the brand new 3rd issue, includes the likes of CAConrad and Tomaž Šalamun as well as a younger upstarts like Andrew Gorin, Mark Leidner and Amanda Nadleberg).  

If you are like me and you love fresh, high-quality literature with a locally grown flavor, you can reach out and help the folks at SUPERMACHINE by contributing to their Kickstarter campaign.  If they are able to raise $522 more dollars by February 1st, they will have reached their fundraising goal for 2011. The minimum pledge is $15, but if you pledge $30 you get:

"a one year subscription (2 issues) and signed copies of the first two SUPERMACHINE chapbooks planned for 2011: Ben Mirov's VORTEXTS and Genya Turovskaya's DEAR JENNY." 

Your contributions will go towards supporting one of the most progressive, revolutionary journals I know of. Here are some poems from the current issue. Please contribute, you won't be dissapointed:

 

Joseph Calavenna

[our shower sometimes looks like Los Angeles]

our shower sometimes looks like Los Angeles

smells like steel when the water’s hot enough

when I’m hot enough I smell like oranges

I open the windows and take my shirt off

when you put the coffee on this morning Kat you forgot it

when I found it all over the stove

I opened the kitchen window halfway

and the clothes line did nothing original

 

Kristen Kosmas

from “H”

I walked all the way here I didn't expect

I didn't expect it to be made of sugar.

I didn't expect this house this hut to be made out of ginger

bread. I'm tired. I tried. The door. I tried. I tried and I tried and I'm tired. I just wanted

I just wanted to

I just wanted to go down

across that

river. I just wanted to

put it into words.

I just wanted to take that green dress off her.

Rip that green dress off her and put that whole thing

in my mouth.

A mouthful. I just wanted a mouthful. Of that. All of it.

I just wanted to

rip those green leaves off. The trees. Rip those green leaves off and take a mouthful.

I just wanted to bite into the earth and say thank you. I just wanted to express my

gratitude. Fall off the edge of some dirt clump, tilter into some sky clump I just wanted to    

get the fuck out of there.

Tomaž Šalamun

Face

  

Was your mother catholic? Did you put

your hand in Špina? I grabbed white legs 

in silence. All of them were effective. You,

the last one  to see the czar when you

were a kid, will you die? Why didn't you die

before? How come your eyes are flaming

and voluptuous? The virgin is twice kaput.

The dawn is twice kaput. (                ) is

twice kaput. The sun is twice kaput. If you 

eat grapes it disappears. It will disappear 

in any case. It disappeared as I was late. 

The competing engine doesn't climb the vine. 

The eyes are make-upped. I drank a dark 

vase from the spring, 'till he bewitched me.

 

Amanda Nadelberg

from Regardless of Rivers, Aggression in the Driveway Is Unlovely

By razor blades

I’m bleeding.

I love London in July!

The Riviera!

But I am serious.

A stand off. 

And if something fell 

into my arms 

I would take it.

I know boats

and you’re no boat,

and this, what to say:

little wild orchard. 

Comments

[Dave]

To be honest, SUPERMACHINE kind of sucks.