Release/redux

I'm supposed to be boycotting Amazon. They've just recently adopted a really awful policy by which they're taking all the teeny indie print-on-demand presses who publish all the great poetry monographs that I like to buy and read straight to the cleaners. According to this policy, if these presses want to sell their books on Amazon, they have to use a subsidiary of Amazon to have their books printed. This particular subsidiary is notorious for both its low-quality books and its exorbitant fees. However, if these presses want any to have any serious distribution of their books, they must sell through Amazon. Therefore, Amazon has concocted a brilliant plan by which it's ripping off this little cottage industry that publishes all this great experimental work and first-time authors -- and even plenty of more established poets as well. The people who run these presses do so as a labor of love and they most certainly do not turn profits. Everyone knows that only poets buy poetry and there aren't enough poets (and contemporary poetry enthusiasts like me) out there to really support this art form in any substantial economic way. Hence, this policy of Amazon's is really just bullyish and monopolistic.

However, a buttload of notable poetry monographs have been released in the last couple months and it's just plain cheaper to buy them off Amazon than it is off of Barnes&Noble.com. Amazon offers most books coming out of big industry publishers at a 32% discount off of retail. When I worked at a bookstore, my employee discount was only 30%... so I still got plenty of stuff for a little cheaper off Amazon than I did in my own store. And I buy such a volume of books that it's really hard for me to justify to my often-cranky bank account why I'm going to pay full price for a book because I'm so damned "principled".

Hence, I must manage my Amazon expenditures extremely carefully.

Here's a list of some of the cool new releases:

1) C.D. Wright, Rising, Falling, Hovering (Copper Canyon Press)
2) Jorie Graham, Sea Change (Ecco)
3) Marie Howe, Kingdom of Ordinary Time (W. W. Norton) -- Regarding this book, Brenda Shaughnessy (who's first book, Interior With Sudden Joy, I loved completely) says, "Marie Howe's books of poetry materialize once a decade and are big news and cause for celebration." And it's true. It's always pretty darn exciting when Howe publishes something new.
4) Brenda Shaughnessy, Human Dark with Sugar (Copper Canyon Press) -- I'm all atwitter to read this sophomore effort, too, actually.
5) Jane Miller, Beverly Pepper (illustrator), Midnights (Saturnalia) -- Jane's got at least 6 brains and I was lucky enough to have her as my manuscript advisor while I was getting my own MFA. And even if she hadn't been, I'd still be interested to see this collaborative work.

That's but a small sampling of my current Amazon wish list (which, by the way, I've whittled down and now contains only 91 titles! )

And then I think I mentioned a few posts back something about Harmony Korine's newest film, Mister Lonely, coming out this month. Right now, I've got an older release (Julian Donkey-Boy) sitting on my coffee table awaiting my attention, but I'm quite intrigued by this new film, which is apparently populated almost entirely with characters who impersonate celebrities. For my Nashville readers, I hope to encourage some of you to attend some portion of this "Directions" event at the Belcourt. Korine himself will be in attendance and I would give my right tit to pick his brain in a Q&A. Perhaps I can send someone as my proxy? I'd at least let you hold my right tit for a while...? Appealing? No?


And one final list of other stuff I'm boycotting for political reasons (much more on what those reasons are later, I hope... if I recover from an entire week's worth of insomnia at some point this weekend):

1) All Coca-cola products
2) All Pepsicola products
3) All Nestle products (including all bottled water under an assortment of very common labels, including Deer Park, Perrier, Pelligrino, Zephyrillis and bunches more)
4) feedlot beef
5) corn

None of these 5 are really huge sacrifices for me as I haven't regularly consumed any of that stuff in some years. But boycotting Amazon is hurting my heart -- er -- bottom line.