This is the anthology for the one-man show, The Blood & Turnips Poetry Festival, which was first performed by the author in San Francisco in 1975 at Intersection Theater, and later at other venues.
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January 31, 2009
January 15, 2009
We Tie Our Wings to the Trees
We Tie Our Wings to the Trees is prose poems from 2006-07 .
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January 14, 2009
Attack of the Heart
Attack of the Heart was written in 2002, after a heart attack that shocked my body and mind, as if my body and mind had been living an illusion of the reality of their own transience. Despite consciousness of mortality and the awareness of greater being, this simple occurrence in the blood brought the reality of death into a more tangible presence. Suddenly, my body accepted its transient reality. My mind followed, in reordered thought, as if everything I once thought of death became what I knew of it. Everything that had been true became true, and in that, there is freedom in being human. Freedom became known to me in the body, for the first time, as if it were a function of the body, beyond being an occurrence of consciousness in awareness.
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January 11, 2009
Never Mind Gertrude Stein
Never Mind Gertrude Stein, a collection of aphorisms, was begun in 1982, after an incident in the Owl and Monkey Cafe in San Francisco. I was sitting with Chuck Ferrera, when I said something clever. Chuck suggested I write it down. I said it was just a remark. He said I was a writer, and I should write it down. I said that Gertrude Stein had said, “Remarks aren’t Literature.” Chuck said, “Fuck Gertrude Stein, you’re a writer, write it down.” So, I did, and began to compile that and other aphoristic remarks into a volume, then titled, “The Captain of the Wind.” At the time, I had read only two books of aphorisms in my life, one by La Rochefoucault and the other by someone else, whose name escapes me. I sent the book to Northpoint Press, in Berkeley, and they wrote back that they were “swamped with aphorisms.” The same day, I read, in the New York Times Book Review, new reviews of three books of aphorisms. Over the years, I turned these “remarks” into greeting cards, after doing the drawings that accompany them, and called them, “Small Talk.” I have reverted to nearly the original sense, calling them “Never Mind Gertrude Stein.” I thought of calling them “Fuck Gertrude Stein”, but that was Chuck’s attitude, not mine, and I think Never Mind Gertrude Stein scans better.
Never Mind Gertrude Stein:
January 9, 2009
I Became a Florist to Run for the Roses
I Became a Florist to Run for the Roses is a collection of occupational justifications. From 2001.
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January 8, 2009
The Boy Who Named Himself
The Boy Who Named Himself is a fable, written in Lucknow, India, in early 1992 and performed for a small group of delightfully indifferent people from around the world on the lawn of the Carlton Hotel. One older woman said, at the time, “You may think this story will change the world, but it won’t.” She was right, of course. The world does or does not change itself.
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Spike’s Eye View
Spike’s Eye View is a book of cartoons for children and others, from 2000.
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January 7, 2009
The True Story of Zenman
The True Story of Zenman is a book of cartoons, compiled in 2001, for children and adults, that could also be an introduction to Zenwords.
January 5, 2009
Music Night
Music Night, abstract poetry and art, was written and painted one night in the Honey Bear Bakery Cafe, in Seattle, in the mid-Nineties. Music Night Stanzas is a better version of the printing that accompanies the artwork.
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January 4, 2009
The Cartoon Kid
The Cartoon Kid is a collection of cartoons, my attempt to create a New Yorker style cartoon, a life-long ambition, it seems.
Steve Brooks (Abhaya) - Poetry, Prose & Art 