10.17.2009
10.16.2009
10.07.2009
Jason Bredle
The Idiot's Guide to Faking Your Own Death and Moving to Mexico
Every few seconds I check the Bible
to see what Jesus is saying about me. The answer
is always nothing. Sometimes
he's condemning me to eternal damnation,
but usually nothing. Tonight I am alone,
wearing my sex shorts, adrift amongst
the black suburban pools of eternal damnation.
No, I have not been in love. Yes,
I have been in love. I am speaking the language
in which no and yes mean the same, in which
apricot and goodbye mean the same.
I am remembering the kudzu of the awful season,
sitting with you beside the swamp for the last
time and neither of us knowing it was the last
time but yes the glass was hello and dragonfly.
Was it a blessing? They say so in this language.
Others say this language is dying, or already
dead. I speak it, nonetheless, while eating
apricots in the evening of eternal damnation
where you yell at the map and cut your wrist
and there is a darkness here that I have only shared
with my cat, like that guy in the movie who writes
graphic erotica and goes crazy. One says
pain near the black pool of everything,
my back is covered with wax. Every few
seconds I check the Bible to see what Jesus
is saying about me. The answer is always nothing,
aside from the time he lambasted the outfit I wore
to the People's Choice Awards. A green tuxedo.
Tonight, I am adrift in the suburb of the black sky,
I am speaking the language in which love
and apricot mean the same, in which pool
and death mean the same. I said goodbye
in a suburb like this, years ago. I said
goodbye in a suburb like this, years ago.
According to Hercules, if we make an angel
out of ourselves, that is what we are; if we make
a devil out of ourselves, that too is what
we are. See, this is what I am getting at.
It is the awful season and I am speaking
the language in which violence and God mean
the same, in which blood and dragonfly mean
the same. I am in the orchard of eternity
picking the goodbyes of damnation, I am licking
your dragonfly blood and speaking the language
in which pain means hello. A black pool,
a green sky. That is to say, each moment
without you is a vacant airport, each moment
without you is a glass apricot. Every few seconds
I check the Bible to see what Jesus is saying
about me. The answer is always nothing. Except
today, it's a bunch of weird stuff about how
I'm falling into a black pool in some suburb,
maybe Palatine or something, and just like that,
I've gone forever. I know! That's what I thought
too. This is the story, but in this language, this
is not the story. I am eating red ice,
harvesting a field of knives. I am speaking
the language in which heaven and earth mean
the same, in which sky and white mean the same.
O Lord, I made this dragonfly for you. Even
if you do not listen to it, just know, this
is how I have always felt about you. And I
am possessed. And I am a fatalist. Do you see
these bruises? Do you see these bruises?
They are a sad bouquet. They are a beautiful
scrapbook. I am floating. I am in love.
I am dead. On a perfect night, my back is covered
with wax. O Violence, but I did not want this hello.
O Lord, I made this dragonfly for you.
Even if You do not listen to it, just know, I made it
only for you.
Every few seconds I check the Bible
to see what Jesus is saying about me. The answer
is always nothing. Sometimes
he's condemning me to eternal damnation,
but usually nothing. Tonight I am alone,
wearing my sex shorts, adrift amongst
the black suburban pools of eternal damnation.
No, I have not been in love. Yes,
I have been in love. I am speaking the language
in which no and yes mean the same, in which
apricot and goodbye mean the same.
I am remembering the kudzu of the awful season,
sitting with you beside the swamp for the last
time and neither of us knowing it was the last
time but yes the glass was hello and dragonfly.
Was it a blessing? They say so in this language.
Others say this language is dying, or already
dead. I speak it, nonetheless, while eating
apricots in the evening of eternal damnation
where you yell at the map and cut your wrist
and there is a darkness here that I have only shared
with my cat, like that guy in the movie who writes
graphic erotica and goes crazy. One says
pain near the black pool of everything,
my back is covered with wax. Every few
seconds I check the Bible to see what Jesus
is saying about me. The answer is always nothing,
aside from the time he lambasted the outfit I wore
to the People's Choice Awards. A green tuxedo.
Tonight, I am adrift in the suburb of the black sky,
I am speaking the language in which love
and apricot mean the same, in which pool
and death mean the same. I said goodbye
in a suburb like this, years ago. I said
goodbye in a suburb like this, years ago.
According to Hercules, if we make an angel
out of ourselves, that is what we are; if we make
a devil out of ourselves, that too is what
we are. See, this is what I am getting at.
It is the awful season and I am speaking
the language in which violence and God mean
the same, in which blood and dragonfly mean
the same. I am in the orchard of eternity
picking the goodbyes of damnation, I am licking
your dragonfly blood and speaking the language
in which pain means hello. A black pool,
a green sky. That is to say, each moment
without you is a vacant airport, each moment
without you is a glass apricot. Every few seconds
I check the Bible to see what Jesus is saying
about me. The answer is always nothing. Except
today, it's a bunch of weird stuff about how
I'm falling into a black pool in some suburb,
maybe Palatine or something, and just like that,
I've gone forever. I know! That's what I thought
too. This is the story, but in this language, this
is not the story. I am eating red ice,
harvesting a field of knives. I am speaking
the language in which heaven and earth mean
the same, in which sky and white mean the same.
O Lord, I made this dragonfly for you. Even
if you do not listen to it, just know, this
is how I have always felt about you. And I
am possessed. And I am a fatalist. Do you see
these bruises? Do you see these bruises?
They are a sad bouquet. They are a beautiful
scrapbook. I am floating. I am in love.
I am dead. On a perfect night, my back is covered
with wax. O Violence, but I did not want this hello.
O Lord, I made this dragonfly for you.
Even if You do not listen to it, just know, I made it
only for you.
9.21.2009
Rick Bass Reading
Friends--
Please join me for a stellar reading! And please pass this information on to students and friends. The reading is free!
Sept 22: Rick Bass, novelist/environmentalist
Reading at UTD at 7:30 pm in the Performance Hall
Rick Bass is the author of over twenty books. His first short story
collection, The Watch, set in Texas, won the PEN/Nelson Algren Award, and
his 2002 collection, The Hermit’s Story, was a Los Angeles Times Best Book
of the Year. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and
the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short
Stories. He was a finalist for The Story Prize in 2007 for his short story
collection The Lives of Rocks. He was a finalist for the 2008 National Book
Critics Circle Award (autobiography) for Why I Came West (2008). His most
recent book, The Wild Marsh, about his life in rural Montana was published
earlier this year.
You can read an excerpt from it at:
http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/200904-omag-rick-bass
Read more about the event at:
http://www.utdallas.edu/ah/events/detail.html?id=1220068171
Susan Briante, MFA, PhD
Assistant Professor
Aesthetic Studies
University of Texas at Dallas
800 W. Campbell Road--JO 31
Richardson, TX 75081-3021
http://www.ah.utdallas.edu/people/sbriante.html
http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu/books/briante/briante.htm
Please join me for a stellar reading! And please pass this information on to students and friends. The reading is free!
Sept 22: Rick Bass, novelist/environmentalist
Reading at UTD at 7:30 pm in the Performance Hall
Rick Bass is the author of over twenty books. His first short story
collection, The Watch, set in Texas, won the PEN/Nelson Algren Award, and
his 2002 collection, The Hermit’s Story, was a Los Angeles Times Best Book
of the Year. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and
the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short
Stories. He was a finalist for The Story Prize in 2007 for his short story
collection The Lives of Rocks. He was a finalist for the 2008 National Book
Critics Circle Award (autobiography) for Why I Came West (2008). His most
recent book, The Wild Marsh, about his life in rural Montana was published
earlier this year.
You can read an excerpt from it at:
http://www.oprah.com/article/
Read more about the event at:
http://www.utdallas.edu/ah/
Susan Briante, MFA, PhD
Assistant Professor
Aesthetic Studies
University of Texas at Dallas
800 W. Campbell Road--JO 31
Richardson, TX 75081-3021
http://www.ah.utdallas.edu/
http://ahsahtapress.
9.20.2009
Dear Modifications by Trey Sager
You are the following dangerous words: 1. heart 2. love 3. mind 4. beauty and 5. eyes
(I don't consider beauty a failure, but that's just my opinion).
I wanted to save you because you are all so hackneyed;
maybe some of the words that typically surround you, I thought,
could give you some life?
So for example, for eyes, I wrote: four eyes, private eyes, snake eyes,
When Irish Eyes Are Smiling and Don't Shoot Until You See the Whites of Their Eyes.
For love I listed Hiroshima, From Russia with Love,
Love and Rockets, Love Is a Battlefield and You Can't Buy Me Love.
Maybe you were more political than I realized.
I subtracted you from these phrases, then scrambled your neighbors
into what I called a poem, but the end result was a solipsistic,
awkward definition for each of you
(I think I was trying to do something semiotic).
When I was about seven or eight, I found a blue jay with a broken wing in some nearby woods.
I ran home and told my mom, who gave me a shoe box and a pair of ski gloves
to handle him. My mom rushed us to the vet, and I felt so relieved.
But when we called later that afternoon to check on our patient, the vet had put him to sleep;
there was nothing he could do, he said.
Plato, in the Republic, says that poets must be exiled.
Shelley calls poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the world."
I remember the blue jay's eyes, looking up at me through the foot-length ferns
like I was going to kill him.
Just the exact opposite, I thought, cradling him in ski gloves.
(emailed to me by Tyler Hall)
9.18.2009
Collaborative Event from Spring 2009
What is eleven40seven?
Here are three of the production managers for the eleven40seven magazine: Sarah Dozier, Landry Weatherston, and Taylor Yarborough.
Last semester, we had an amazing
turnout for the first "Texas Creative Underground:Breaking" collaborative event.
The event consisted of groups containing creative writers, acoustic guitar players, percussionists, and/or photographers, most of whom had never worked together before. Their mission: to create an original collaborative piece by intersecting the different creative talents in their respective groups.
Mission accomplished.
(Above, to the left) Here are the officers present for the Spring 2009 Release Party of eleven40seven. Tina Le, Dr. Chantel Langlinais (coordinator for the event), Dr. Curt Rode (in back, our faculty advisor), Ashley Tambunga, Landry Weatherston, Taylor Yarborough and Sarah Dozier.
The event consisted of groups containing creative writers, acoustic guitar players, percussionists, and/or photographers, most of whom had never worked together before. Their mission: to create an original collaborative piece by intersecting the different creative talents in their respective groups.
Mission accomplished.
(Above, to the left) Here are the officers present for the Spring 2009 Release Party of eleven40seven. Tina Le, Dr. Chantel Langlinais (coordinator for the event), Dr. Curt Rode (in back, our faculty advisor), Ashley Tambunga, Landry Weatherston, Taylor Yarborough and Sarah Dozier.
Here are three of the production managers for the eleven40seven magazine: Sarah Dozier, Landry Weatherston, and Taylor Yarborough.
(Right) From musicians to poets, our collaborate participants pose for us. (back row, Left to Right, includes: Tanner Trigg, Rebecca Bookman, Mike Garcia, Kelli Trapnell, Clint Church, Takeshi Takahashi, Jennifer Brown, Melissa Crutchfield
Front row, Left to Right, includes: Liz Rector, Anahita Kalianivala, Kelsey Svirsky)
(Below) Guitarists play and sing as images appear on the backdrop. Although the camera didn't allow for much recording time, the girl in front of the black band stand was reading her own poem in the midst of all this. It was a blend of visual, audible and literary bliss.
We anticipate the next Texas Creative Underground collaborative event to be held December 4th. More information to come.
9.11.2009
BLS/TCU is Off and Running
The first meeting of the BLS / Texas Creative Underground is behind us, and, damn, but it went well. We have a lot of cool things on the table for the coming year (the next issue of eleven40seven, the next Collaborative Event, more blogging, more promotion, more hostile takeovers of various creative endeavors around campus). It's gonna be sweet.
Our next meeting will be on Thursday, September 17th @ 6:30, again in the New Media Writing Studio (Rickel 38). If you came for the first meeting, come back and bring 2 friends. If you weren't able to make the first meeting, you're forgiven. Come next time (and bring 2 friends).
Questions? Hit us up at eleven40seven@gmail.com.
Our next meeting will be on Thursday, September 17th @ 6:30, again in the New Media Writing Studio (Rickel 38). If you came for the first meeting, come back and bring 2 friends. If you weren't able to make the first meeting, you're forgiven. Come next time (and bring 2 friends).
Questions? Hit us up at eleven40seven@gmail.com.
8.25.2009
Something a little freaky for the new school year
I have no idea where this comes from (I don't think it's from a TCU student, but who knows?). But the title of the piece is "Eleven 40 seveN." Strange coincidence? You decide. Reminds me of a Tool video I saw a long time ago on MTV. Watch at your own risk...
4.21.2009
texas creative under:ground breaking
eleven40seven will release its spring 2009 issue on Saturday, May 2, 2009 at the new issue release party & collaborative event.
This event is an opportunity for TCU students to share their creative work (poetry, prose, music, art, photography, dance) and to collaborate with other students in the exhibition. You can read a piece of poetry with a musical accompaniment, or show a series of photographs while you read a short story.
If you’re interested in performing, email us at eleven40seven@gmail.com, and be sure to come by Moudy (141n) from 8-10 pm to pick up your copy of the new issue!
This event is an opportunity for TCU students to share their creative work (poetry, prose, music, art, photography, dance) and to collaborate with other students in the exhibition. You can read a piece of poetry with a musical accompaniment, or show a series of photographs while you read a short story.
If you’re interested in performing, email us at eleven40seven@gmail.com, and be sure to come by Moudy (141n) from 8-10 pm to pick up your copy of the new issue!
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