SPD Bad Poetry Contest: Worst Poem Titled “Steampunk”

SPD's AWP BAD POEM CONTEST
1st Prize Winner: Chris Vitiello
Category: Worst Poem Titled “Steampunk”

Steampunk

yeah, you open your can
of PBR while i open
my can of whup-ass

SPD Bad Poetry Contest: Worst Use of White Space Poem

SPD's AWP BAD POEM CONTEST
1st Prize Winner: Paul Baker
Category: Worst Use of White Space Poem

White Space Poem

SPD Bad Poetry Contest: Worst Poem Titled “Unicorns in Fog”

SPD's AWP BAD POEM CONTEST
1st Prize Winner: Samuel Amadon
Category: Worst Poem Titled “Unicorns in Fog”

Unicorns in Fog

One unicorn said “I can’t see you”
The other unicorn said “I can’t see you”
One unicorn said “I still can’t see you”
The other unicorn said “I still can’t see you”
One unicorn said “I can’t even see the ground”
The other unicorn said “I can’t even see the ground”

Brandon Shimoda and Lisa Schumaier visit SPD with their Volvo 740 Turbo Intercooler station wagon.

Life's a beach, as Marie Laveau said, and she was an avid reader.

STOCK UP NOW FOR THE SUMMER READING SEASON!

Save 30% on all SPD fiction titles—from the latest and the greatest to our golden oldies! All of your favorites and future favorites. Now through July 5th.

Details here.

JEFF MASER & SPD BUCK-A-BOOK $ALE!

Our recent SIDEWALK SALE of SPD's "gently hurt" books plus books from Jeff Maser, Bookseller was such a success we are going to do it again!!! this Saturday, 12 June from 10-3 Lots and lots of "new arrivals" from Jeff Maser, both hardcover and paperbacks in poetry, linguistics, history (esp British), art, contemporary literature, and more. 911 Camelia (between 7th and 8th, one block south of Gilman).

Jeff Maser, around the corner from SPD's front door

PLEASE COME! AND PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!

Leslie Scalapino
(July 25, 1944 – May 28, 2010)

It was with tremendous sadness and grief that we received the news of Leslie Scalapino's passing last weekend.

Leslie Scalapino was a major writer as well as a beloved teacher in the Bay Area, at Bard, at Naropa, and at numerous other institutions. The publisher of O Books and an active member of the SPD community, Leslie was tireless in the cause of small press literature.

Leslie did so much for SPD it is difficult to ennumerate everything, and even more difficult to express our gratitude and respect for so many decades of support for this organization.

(Above: SPD Open House 1998, from l to r:
Ellen Ullman, Camille Roy, Leslie, Steve Dickison)

In her lifetime, the majority of Leslie's poetry and writing appeared on SPD publishers. The earliest catalog we can find containing one of Leslie's books is a stocklist from 1983 that includes CONSIDERING HOW EXAGGERATED MUSIC IS (North Point, 1983, out of print). There are still over 25 of her books in stock in the SPD warehouse, encapsulating a lifetime of literary experimentation and philosophical/spiritual investigation.

(Author photo from WAY, 1988)
(photo: Tom White)

Leslie, via O Books, was also a key SPD publisher. She founded her press in 1986 as a publishing outlet for young and emerging poets, as well as prominent, innovative writers. The first SPD catalog to contain an O Book came out in Winter of 1987. It listed Robert Grenier's PHANTOM ANTHEMS (still in stock). In that catalog there is also an advertisement for the Grenier book and for the then-forthcoming DREAMING CLOSE BY by Rick London (also still in stock).



From such modest beginnings over 20 years ago, O Books now has nearly 100 titles in stock at SPD. Its list easily constitutes one of the richest troves in the SPD warehouse.

But Leslie's positive influence on contemporary literature reverberated well beyond even her own writing and publishing projects. Cliff Becker, the legendary Literature Director at the National Endowment for the Arts from 1999 until his death in 2005, regularly mentioned Leslie in many of his presentations. He used her as his example of the sort of challenging work the NEA existed to support and cultivate. To Cliff and many others, even those far beyond experimental writing circles, Leslie stood as the very symbol of a committment to literary re-invention, to work that invigorates and even redefines the expectations of its readers. Such writing may not be everyone's cup of tea--almost by definition it can't be everyone's cup of tea--but according to Cliff and to many legions of Leslie's readers it is absolutely irreplaceable to those who need and live by it.

We are inexpressibly sorrowful that Leslie is no longer here. We want to extend our sincerest condolences to her family, and to all her many friends. We are grateful that she has left such a wealth of great writing behind, even if it will never replace the pleasure and great intensity of her person.

Laura Moriarty
Brent Cunningham
&
the entire SPD Staff

• The obituary notice prepared by the family can be found here.

• Ron Silliman has put up an extensive list of online links to tributes, remembrances, condolences, and works by Leslie here.

• There will be a memorial event for Scalapino at St. Mark’s Poetry Project on Monday, June 21st.

• A Zen Buddhist funeral ceremony will be conducted by Abbott Norman Fisher in about a month with the arrangements in a subsequent announcement.
  

JEFF MASER BUCK-A-BOOK $ALE!

Jeff Maser, Bookseller, is having a Sidewalk Sale tomorrow, Saturday, from 10:00 until 3:00! Poetry, poetics, contemporary literature, history—all at $1/book! There will also be a generous selection of "gently hurt" books from SPD, those also for just a dollar!

Jeff Maser, around the corner from SPD's front door

PLEASE COME! AND PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!

The Corset Lewis Warsh $3.95 | paper | 21 pp. In Camera ISBN: 9780932597045 LAST COPIES! Poetry. "THE CORSET is not a poem so much as a new way of seeing the world. In these sly and laconic epigrams, Lewis Warsh manages to explore the domain of sexuality with an almost perverse equilibrium. The facts are allowed to speak for themselves, and as the evidence mounts, we realize that we have been taken beyond the facts into the darkness of the human imagination. There is a stunning intelligence at work here, a fierce, deadpan wit that disturbs and enlightens in equal measure." —Paul Auster

The SPD Bee-In 2010

Kevin Killian won with "contrapposto."

Big fun was had by all!

Thanks to Andrew Kenower for these excellent pix.

Thanks to our sponsors the Poetry Foundation, Rasputin Music, St George Spirits, NetRead, the Crown Point gallery and everyone involved for making this the best Bee ever!