The kind of review that keeps me pushing my pen across the page

An astonishing review of my New & Selected Poems (1984-2011) just posted over at a site called Pseudo-Intellectual Reviews.

The reviewer and I belong to the same LibraryThing group and she mentioned she was picking up a copy but, sheesh, I didn’t expect such a smart and, yes, glowing review.

It’s the first critique of any sort the poems have received. I get general rumblings of praise from the people who’ve read New & Selected Poems but folks seem reluctant to address the subject matter or prominent themes. I worried, in my Afterword, that the collection might be too personal, too intense and I think there might be something to that. If you watch the footage of the book launch, the poems are often received in what I would describe as strained silence. Sherron told me that at one point a woman near her was softly weeping.

Dear Lord…

What kind of strange zeitgeist has my verse tapped into?

Poems are a hard enough sell these days—apocalyptic, mind-bending excavations on the human spirit may not be what readers are looking for.

Cripes, look at the bestseller list.

Yup, once again, it appears I’ve missed the mark.

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Cliff Burns: In Performance

At long last it’s done.

My son Sam completed final edits on the film he shot of my reading back in October, 2012.  The official launch of New & Selected Poems (1984-2011) and Stromata: Prose Works (1992-2011).

It was a huge file and he had to combine footage from a couple of cameras, synch sound, touch-up glitches and try to make an author reading as visually interesting as possible. No mean feat. But he’s done a fantastic job. The kid has an amazing eye and even if you don’t think much of the prose (or performer), I think you’ll agree that this effort is striking to look at, cut and trimmed and shaped with precision. All credit to my son, Sam Burns.

Here’s the reading, in its entirety.

Sit back and hit that play button…

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Two short pieces from STROMATA

Kafka Fuck

 

Once back at my place she plays it coy scuttling under the couch until I menace her with a can of Raid using it to steer her toward the bedroom antennae twitching in excitement crawling up the edge of my bedspread chittering as I run my fingers along her polished carapace stroking her thorax her withered ornamental wings fluttering mandibles dug into my pillow in insectile ecstasy while I prepare to mount her probing for anything resembling a vagina wondering if she uses protection and if not if the pupa will look anything like me.

 

* * * * *

Greenhouse Effect

 

I’m not going back to you. I’m gone. I’m outta here. You won’t find me. It’ll be like we never met. Just another face in the crowd. On a forgotten street. In a strange country.  One of the disappeared. Yeah. Lost in time and space. I wasn’t born in the first place.  Back to the womb. Stillborn. No. Aborted. A puddle of pink flesh. Gristle and blood.  Dumped in an incinerator. Reduced to ash. Floating in the troposphere. Burned by the sun. Ultraviolet radiation. A cancer on your body.

 

* * * * *

These are two of my favorite short prose pieces, excerpted from my recently released volume Stromata: Prose Works (1992-2011).

For ordering information, please go here.

Photo credit:  Sherron Burns

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My book launch is over–now watch for the movie!

A memorable evening last night: we launched my two new collections, New & Selected Poems and Stromata to an enthusiastic audience and, I add (much to my relief), there were no glitches or screwups on my part.  I read for just over 35 minutes and then took questions from those in attendance. Great questions too, folks seeking clarification on my status as an independent author and also asking me about the changes in my writing over the past 25 years, among other things.

I’ll post some pictures ASAP but we also had two cameras running so in the next couple of weeks we’ll be uploading the entire reading on to YouTube where people can tune in and see me in action.

Without a trace of humbleness, I can tell you that there aren’t too many authors in this country who perform their work as well as I do. I take my responsibilities as an entertainer very seriously; I have been to too many readings where the authors have forgotten that they must also be performers. When I hit that podium, it’s my intention to blow people away, destroy their preconceptions, make it a night they won’t soon forget. And usually I succeed.

Thanks to everyone who came out on a chilly autumn night and an especially big THANK YOU to my production crew—Sherron, Sam, Sean, Micah—for their hard work.

Watch for the finished film, I really believe it captured one of the best readings I’ve ever done.

Man, was I hot…

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Companion volumes

Perfection!

(Click on image to enlarge)

For ordering info, visit my Bookstore.

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Date of my book launch

The official launch of my two latest efforts, New & Selected Poems and Stromata: Prose Works, is October 4th, 2012. Sherron created a wonderful event poster. Hope to see you there:

(Click on the poster in order to view it full size)

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Next up…STROMATA: PROSE WORKS (Publication date September 20th, 2012)

I’ve already leaked some of this over at my RedRoom page but (rubbing his hands together eagerly) here’s the cover of the companion volume to the New & Selected Poems.

Stromata: Prose Works (1992-2011) includes the creme de la creme of my short prose pieces (some folks call them prose poems).  These are brief (usually under 500 words) narrative works, often quite surreal, twisted, satirical and, frankly, vicious. These bits are perfect for performing at readings and frequently provoke gasps and, seconds later, gales of laughter.  Some of my favorites are in Stromata: “Cranes”, “A.I.”…material that hasn’t been in print and available to readers for many, many moons.  And some new pieces that, I think, show a progression in terms of themes and my approach to the subject matter.

I’ve said it before but here it is again: I love these two thin volumes.  While books like The Last Hunt and Of the Night reflect my skills as a storyteller, the collected poems and prose poems prove that I can “dangle” artistically with the best of them.

Dangle? Sorry, that’s a term that might only be familiar to hockey fans. If a player can really fly on the ice, skate fast and stickhandle you right out of your jock, we say, “man, look at that guy dangle”.  It’s like a whistle of appreciation.

I hemmed and hawed about it but there will be an e-book and Kindle version of Stromata (unlike the poems). Frankly, the books are so beautiful, who would want to settle for electronic copies? Why not get the real thing and have two lovely tomes that you can treasure forever?

Chris Kent did both covers and, I’m telling you, his book designs just keep getting better and better. He seems to understand intuitively what I’m looking for, the “less is more” mentality I apply to every aspect of my life.  Chris is a delight to work with—no huge ego, just a desire to execute  covers that are artful and eye-grabbing and irresistible.

Both the Selected Poems and Stromata retail at $12.00 (U.S.A. & Canada) and they each clock in at around 116 pages. Slim…but there’s a lot of power packed into those little gems.

New & Selected Poems is available now, today, this very instant…the release date for Stromata is September 20th.

More info to come…

(Click on covers to see larger versions)

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Now available from your favorite bookstore

It’s official:

New & Selected Poems is listed for purchase from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

…and, of course, you can place an order through your favorite bookstore.  God bless the indies!

Finally, you can drop a money order my way and get a personally inscribed copy.

I want to remind everyone that this volume is only available as a “dead tree” edition—no Kindle or e-book versions envisioned at this time.

And if you could see and pick up and handle the book, you’d understand why.  It’s beautiful and should be experienced as a tactile, physical object, a relic from another time.

I love this book…and hope you will too.

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Latest news from Black Dog Press

A flurry of activity around here, finishing projects and scheming new ones and, meanwhile, trying not to over-do it on the work front.  That means maintaining a regular regimen of stretching, getting out of the house at least once every day for a walkabout, even if it’s only to the library and back. That also means reading more and trying to familiarize myself with this notion of “relaxing”. Re-lax?

I’ve been devouring lots of memoirs of late, a genre I usually wouldn’t touch with a fully charged cattle prod. But I’m not talking about the recent crop o’ crap—whining, self-indulgent wankfests—I’m referring to stellar efforts by Bernard Cooper and Frederick Exley. Exley’s A Fan’s Notes is an amazingly accomplished and courageous book. Two titles by Daniel Pinchbeck have also impressed, Breaking Open the Head and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. I find his ideas and conjectures far more lucid and comprehensible than the late Terence McKenna’s; I predict Monsieur Pinchbeck is gonna be a star. He’ll alter more than a few consciousnesses before he’s through…

I’ve been bringing in lots of hard to find books via interlibrary loans…but, unfortunately, I’ve acquired a rather formidable stack, all of which must be read within a finite, prescribed time limit. No pissing about. Brilliant stuff like Graham Robb’s Parisians, Colson Whitehead’s Sag Harbor, The Great War and Modern Memory (Paul Fussell), The Good Soldier Svejk (Jaroslav Hasek) and an anthology of modern German poetry edited by Michael Hamburger. And more on the way…

Ah, but don’t think I’ve been devoting myself entirely to leisure. Surely you know me better than that.

I have not one but two major projects nearing completion. You heard right.

It’s always bothered me that much of my early work (pre-1997) is out of print. There were a number of limited edition chapbooks produced during that interval (That First, Wound-Bearing Layer and Genuinely Inspired Primitive), poetry (violins in the void)…and none of it is available any more. Sold out. A cursory check on-line tells me that a few enterprising souls are offering these hard-to-find editions at a pretty steep price.

So I’ve spent the last couple of months assembling, culling and editing two short volumes, clocking in at around 115 pages each.

The first, which should be out in mid-July, is New & Selected Poems (1984-2011). Over 25 years of my best verse brought together in one nice, compact tome. These poems are personal and revealing, condensed almost to the point of combustion…I love them but they scare me. I think the short Afterword I’ve provided at the end of the book explains why.

The other volume is a compilation of my short prose pieces and monologues. I’m calling it Stromata and the material it covers dates back to 1992. Stromata will be available the end of August.

The two books are intended to be companion volumes and their design will reflect that. You’ll see what I mean—I’ll upload the covers once our pal Chris Kent has put something together.

Both books will retail around $12 and, no, before you ask, no advance orders. Nothing until I have the first shipment from Lightning Source sitting in my front hallway.

Looking forward to an exciting summer…although I wish this mix of sun and rain we’ve had so far would be replaced by two weeks of hot, dry weather. A real Saskatchewan summer. Ah, well, it’s still early days. Other than the horrendous mosquitoes, last summer was just about perfect. Here’s hoping for lots sun, fun and reading in the months ahead.

See you at the lake.

Remember to bring a good book.

Here are ten poems, excerpted from New & Selected Poems, just posted on my Scribd page.  Click on the link and go have a look…

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Black Dog Press news (March Madness)

Awhile back I noticed that sales of the e-book versions of So Dark the Night and Of the Night had really flattened.  No growth, which meant my best marketing device (word of mouth) wasn’t having much of an impact.

Then I came across a blog entry from a gal who had read the e-book of So Dark the Night and complained that its formatting was funky and created a number of annoying glitches.  Not good news.

Not long afterward I learned about the ePub format, which supposedly renders text compatible with most tablets and reading devices.  So I contacted my chum Daniel at Scribe Freelance and had him whip up ePub versions of both my “Ilium” novels and dispatched them to Lightning Source, instructing them to replace the old files with this latest batch.  Now we’ll wait and see if this helps re-ignite sales.

My e-books are available through places like  Powell’s (among others)…and, yes, there are Kindle versions of all of my titles.

I admit (eyes cast down) I’m a very poor self-promoter.  As a publisher, I complain bitterly but as an author I won’t be moved.  I leave it up to readers to discover my work and I’m absolutely convinced that once they do, they become fans for life.  And only too happy to spread the word about this whacked out Canuck writer who defies all conventions, tackles every genre and has carved a different path for himself, independent of the mainstream.

I’ve sent out some review copies of The Last Hunt to some western-themed magazines but, honestly, does anyone read book reviews any more?  In those few publications that still deign to leave some space for something as retrograde and uncool as books…

It can be disheartening.  How do you draw attention to one particular title when the media is flooded with thousands of new releases (books, e-books, CDs, DVDs, games) every day?  You begin to feel like a tiny, insignificant figure lost amidst all the others in one of those Where’s Waldo? books.

On the other hand, this tiny press has been responsible for some pretty fine books over the past twenty (+) years and my readership is growing, albeit very, very slowly.  My wife reminds me that I’m always been a late bloomer…let’s just hope it’s not too late.  At some point, I’d like to enjoy the fruits of my labor.  Instead of getting pelted with them.

What I wouldn’t give to be able to make the “Grand Tour”—see all the great capitals of Europe, capping things off with a long-anticipated visit to Thermopylae.

Sigh.

But will it ever happen?  Will my workaholic nature and bouts of agoraphobia allow such a scenario?  I’m dubious.

If nothing else, it’s a helpful, distracting fantasy.

A possibility, however remote, that some day all this craziness will lead to better, happier times.

A golden age, yet to come.

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