BlazeVOX [books] presents innovative fictions and wide ranging fields of contemporary poetry. We have over 100 titles that will satisfy any taste. Please browse our works and read a 15-page sample of each title. We also have 60 full ebooks, which are all free here. But if it is free poetry, check out our 500-page full sample book, which you may download here.
Guest of Honor: Anne Waldman
Hello and welcome! Let me take your coat and hat. Please grab a warm cider and let's meet the other guests by the fire. Dinner will begin shortly. This is the seventh year of this poem series and our guest of honor this year is Anne Waldman. Next year, we will have C. D. Wright at the front of our table! So be sure to come back :-)
A Menu Poem:
To have a gathering for so many, a virtual feast in order! The concept is a menu poem that I would serve if we could all gather in one hall. Each course has a poem associated with a food item in that dish. This is a small tribute to a great poet who has influenced us all. A way we can all gather in a small moment of comfort together and raise our glasses to honor fine work.
Poet Anne Waldman has been an active member of the “Outrider” experimental poetry community for over 40 years as writer, sprechstimme performer, professor, editor, “magpie” scholar, infra-structure and cultural/political activist. She grew up on Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village where she still lives part-time, and bi-furcated to Boulder, Colorado in 1974 when she co-founded The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics with Allen Ginsberg at Naropa University, the first Buddhist inspired school in the West. She currently serves as Artistic Director of its celebrated Summer Writing program. Allen Ginsberg has called her his “spiritual wife.” She is the author of over 40 books of poetry including Kill or Cure , Marriage: A Sentence , Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble , Red Noir , and the poetic text: Outrider . Her most recent book-length poem is Manatee/Humanity (Penguin Poets 2009). She is also the author of the legendary Fast Speaking Woman (City Lights, San Francisco), now translated into Italian, Czech and French, as well as the 800 page epic Iovis trilogy (Coffee House Press). She is editor of The Beat Book (Shambhala Publications) and co-editor of The Angel Hair Anthology (Granary Books), Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action (Coffee House) and Beats at Naropa (Coffee House 2009). A book of her poems translated into Chinese is forthcoming in 2009.
She has been a student of Buddhism since 1962, a feminist, and an ambassador for the oral revival of poetry, appearing on stages from Berlin to Caracas, from Mumbai to Beijing. She has been instrumental in encouraging poetry projects world-wide and has helped organize poetry programs in Vienna and Indonesia.
She has worked extensively with her son, musician and composer Ambrose Bye, for whom and “out of” whom FIRST BABY POEMS was written 27 years ago. Their collaborations include the CDs In the Room of Never Grieve , Eye of the Falcon and Matching Half , also with Akilah Oliver. He has been a constant muse and inspiration for her own work.
“[Waldman] is the fastest, wittiest woman to run with the wolves in some time”- Ken Tucker, The New York Times.
Innocuous enough, Thanksgiving is the most appropriate means to hold this kind of thing. That thing is an odd blending of cuisine and poetry. I am a chef in my day job and how I come to understand art is through this first love. Cuisine has a natural ease to bring out many complex ideas. From seemingly simple foods delightful combinations create, on the palate, sensation that are unlike any experienced previously. And a dinner party, virtual or not, poetry or food, is a as meaningful a gathering for any group of people to honor anyone! Poetry like bread, grows stale if left on the counter overnight.
Love is not easy. This began as a farewell toast to Charles Bernstein on his leaving from Buffalo. He always recalled my profession and I could think of no greater thing, than to cook for him and all who would attend such a thing.
After the positive responses of this menu poem, I decide to continue and choose Forrest as the guest of honor. He came to read in Buffalo that October. His poetic presence overwhelmed me and I was so taken with his work that it seemed natural. Both of these writings also occurred because I did not have the money to either invite them a wonderful restaurant, or to my home for a quite dinner. Thinking of it I still cannot. Kent Johnson treated my partner Donna and I to dinner just the other day. Well poverty has its finer points and these poems, for better or worse, are the fruits of these thorns. Nothing would make me happier than to have you over and whip up a meal. If resources were inexhaustible, I would, and can, cook the meals presented. They each are tailored to that particular poet. For instance, Forrest Gander’s meal incorporates regional dishes from all the areas in which he lived. Ozark pudding is of course to celebrate his wife, C. D. Wright. Each series is decidedly different in approach and manner. In my growth as a poet I was able to explore the influence / confluence of the many poets who came into and out of my life. Robert Creeley is no more a brighter star in my being than Kent Johnson and these small poorly written poems are in no way the wonderful tribute I would be able to present, if I could only cook these out. Render these words down into the rashers of that feeling that says, holy fuck, that action this writer performed in their meaningless task as poet in a time when the world cares nothing for poets – this poet means everything to me! This is my thanking Charles, Forrest, Kent, Bob, and John for everything. Which means nothing, as it is hard to convey everything that one can honor, is it not? Now pass the potatoes …
Ever & Affectionately,
Geoffrey Gatza
uring our run, BlazeVOX Books has published over 100 volumes, mostly poetry, and will publish approximately 15 titles each year during 2008 and 2009. Our latest publications, are by Noah Eli Gordon, Joe Amato and Megan Volpert. Also just out is the latest double-issue of BlazeVOX magazine. Coming soon are volumes by Mark DuCharme, Kyle Schlesinger, Mark Wallace. E-books are also available for free download, including recent titles by Gautam Verma and Patrick Chapman — just click on the e-books link. The Buffalo FOCUS Gallery contains poetry, fiction and visual work. Every issue we explore a new Buffalo writer. There is a lot going on in Buffalo, NY and it is important to engage some of that energy and bring you a sample of our home. If you're not sure how to find what you're looking for, please use the search field.
In every new age there comes a new method. Today the cyber culture sits on the brim of explosion. Our mission, after seven years is still very hard to pin down. We represent neither a group of writers nor one mode of writing. We enjoy innovative works of literature in what ever format that it chooses to find itself. We wish to promote new style, emerging voices and provide an outlet for these artists to express their artistic visions. This sounds good, and in turn we will try to live up to these standards and will do whatever is humanly possible. Please forgive us in advance for our flaws.
We have chosen Ezra Pound as our Editor-in-Chief and it is by his methods we strive to keep things new. It is our century and we look to this, as Creeley once noted, what else is one to do, make it old ? We are proud to present fine pieces of textual art in economically feasible formats.
So we are here and after five years we have seen many journals come and go, blogs come up from groundbreaking listservs, good friends die and good friends experience births … war, injustice and seemingly limitless stupidity come into power and now simmering softly as Duck Soup. We have seen many things, good and bad, and I am sure things will get worse before they get better. Our poetic voices are irrelevant in today's political arena. So with that, we shall practice our poetry in the time that we have. Even through the darkest of times, the best minds blaze forward!
BlazeVOX Books was founded shortly after BlazeVOX magazine in 2004, in order to offer collections to authors involved with the magazine. The press geared up substantially with a shift to print-on-demand publishing for most titles in 2003. In 2004 we published 18 new titles, and 24 in 2005 (including two magazine issues in book format). A further 24 titles – in addition to BlazeVOX magazine – will appear during 2008 and some 10-15 in 2009.
Nothing would make me happier than to have you over and whip up a meal. If resources were inexhaustible, I would, and can, cook the meals presented. They each are tailored to that particular poet. For instance, Forrest Gander’s meal incorporates regional dishes from all the areas in which he lived. Ozark pudding is of course to celebrate his wife, C. D. Wright. Each series is decidedly different in approach and manner. In my growth as a poet I was able to explore the influence / confluence of the many poets who came into and out of my life. Robert Creeley is no more a brighter star in my being than Kent Johnson and these small poorly written poems are in no way the wonderful tribute I would be able to present, if I could only cook these out. Render these words down into the rashers of that feeling that says, holy fuck, that action this writer performed in their meaningless task as poet in a time when the world cares nothing for poets – this poet means everything to me! This is my thanking Charles, Forrest, Kent, Bob, and John for everything. Which means nothing, as it is hard to convey everything that one can honor, is it not? Now pass the potatoes … 
uring our run, BlazeVOX Books has published over 100 volumes, mostly poetry, and will publish approximately 15 titles each year during 2008 and 2009. Our latest publications, are by Noah Eli Gordon, Joe Amato and Megan Volpert. Also just out is the latest double-issue of BlazeVOX magazine. Coming soon are volumes by Mark DuCharme, Kyle Schlesinger, Mark Wallace. E-books are also available for free download, including recent titles by Gautam Verma and Patrick Chapman — just click on the e-books link. The Buffalo FOCUS Gallery contains poetry, fiction and visual work. Every issue we explore a new Buffalo writer. There is a lot going on in Buffalo, NY and it is important to engage some of that energy and bring you a sample of our home. If you're not sure how to find what you're looking for, please use the search field.
