|
|
 |
|
|
| My first full-length poetry collection |
My first full-length collection of poems, Some
Identity Problems, just out from Foothills Publishing. $16 wherever rock em, sock em poetry is sold!
"Corey Mesler is a penpal of mine—met in the e-aether some time after he reviewed a book of mine for the Memphis
—and so I want to pay some notice to the fact that he has published that most-ignored thing, a book of poems. Foothills
has stitched up Some Identity Problems as an attractive book, generous in its profusion of poems.
You will
never meet this amusing, charming poet and novelist on tour because he is agoraphobic and stays home in Memphis, but you can
meet the joy, whimsy, love, anxiety, and contradiction in his poems. Many of these poems are modest in scale but have reach.
As a whole they are kaleidoscopic—swerving from low to high in diction, playful, belated in feeling or elated, revealing
a persona that struggles to find a center, meaning, worldview. He frolics in the realm of the absurd, then evinces a heart
of ripped-open sincerity. He bumps from sacred to profane, leaping from monkey to man to deity. His favorite tropes involve
repetition and variations on it, startling metaphor, and the yoking of opposites—a Barcalounger linked to mythic depths."
--Marly Youmans, author of The Wolf Pit
It's raining chapbooks in Coreyland:
"I read Publisher on a plane....I laughed my
[head] off. It's not only funny and clever, but it reminded me of the first 80 pages of Sophie's Choice. Great work."
--John Grisham
| BRAND NEW CHAPBOOK! COVER ART: REBECCA TICKLE! |
|
| ORDER NOW, ONLY $9 |
| Brand new chapbook! Only $8! |
|
| Order now from www.burkesbooks.com |
|
| My brand new chapbook, 10/07, $2.50 only. |
| BRAND NEW DECEMBER 2007 |
|
| MY NEWEST, FROM SHELTERING PINES, $7 |
|
| Following Richard Brautigan. Cover photo by Alisa Botto. |
Following Richard Brautigan
“This excerpt is an enjoyable read—lots
of folks will find common ground here, I think—I know I do, we just read it aloud—lots of chuckles. I wonder
how many of us stood up there at the top of the stairs in City Lights, wondering what we were doing there. “
Bill Ryan, editor of turnrow
“a young poet obsessed in his
pursuit of the muse finds that his travels land him not in touch with his idol, but in a parallel not expected”
-ruth weiss (from the Foreword)
“Mesler (to beat a cliché
dead) puts you in his shoes, makes you walk his steps and invites you to feel every moment of triumph and failure. For any
human being capable of feeling a fraction of his passion Following Richard Brautigan will remind you of some part of your
life or inspire you to begin a new life and simply sit back and enjoy where it takes you.”
-William M. Brandon III, contest judge (from the Judge's Appreciation)
“Great stuff in the voice you've
mastered--funnysad, unapologetically, celebratory, lyric. You may end up being remembered as the great chronicler of the 60s,
and you were only born yesterday.”
--Steve Stern, author of The Angel of Forgetfulness My brand new chapbook, now available at the astounding low price of $5. Cover art and inspiration by my daughter. (Maverick Duck Press, 2007)
|
| My newest, a piece of letterpress art by Paul Hunter's Wood Works Press |
|
| Cover art by Toby Mesler. |
|
|
|
The Hole in Sleep
"Two poems in this collection are particularly wonderful, "Bird" and "Soseki,"
clear, interesting and moving...[And] near the end of the collection we arrive upon "Sleepe, Angry Beauty." And find out that
when Mesler mingles an elevated love with a tender despair he is in beautiful control of his poetic sensibility."
--Elizabeth
Myhr, reviewed in The Raven Chronicles.
Dark on Purpose
“Dark. Gritty. Beautiful. Sinister. Unforgettable.”
from the press’s website
The Agoraphobe’s Pandiculations
"The Agoraphobe's Pandiculations absolutely nails the condition
to the wall, examines it with a magnifying glass, and rings completely true throughout. Having spent two decades living
in the cage, I was reminded over and over that this is an experience that is simultaneously universal and unique. It
is indeed good to know that there are fellow travelers on the journey. Congrats on a terrific collection. I can't
say enough good things about it."
--David Dawson, writer
“Mesler is
one of the few truly unique voices in the small press scene today. Direct, surprising, often profound, his poetry /
prose combo conjures a language that inspires me as few writers do. In these chaps are gems that leave their images
long after the reading.”
L. Ward Abel,
Author of Peach Box and Verge and Jonesing
for Byzantium.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Yesterday (4/21/06) I was contacted by Garrison Keillor's office. They were seeking permission
to use a poem from this collection on Writer's Almanac for May 10th. I allowed as to how that would be ok with me. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/
Friends, May 10th has come and gone and they did indeed use the poem. It was no gag. However, since
it went nationwide I have had no offers from Hollywood to adapt the poem for Michel Gondry. I did have a very nice offer from
a poet in NYC inviting me up to read in his pub poetry series. I had to explain that I could only survive such an outing if
it were held in my backyard. Onward and sideways. Keep those cards and letters coming.
Here is that poem:
Sweet Annie Divine
Sweet Annie Divine (1925-1976).
Born Rooster, Arkansas, Annie May Auspex.
Also known as The Duchess. Dropped out of school at the age of 13 to work her
parents’ cotton fields. Started singing professionally at 16 in juke joints
in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. Toured with Jimmy Reed for a while, sang with
Styx Ygg’s BamBam Five on Beale Street in the forties. Fronted her own band, The Moxie Seven (or Eight depending on the night),
which included Hillbilly Thomas and Sweetie Sykes and they had a mid-major hit with “Stephen Daedalus’s Blues”
in 1948. Recorded “Chicken Finger Blues,” “Write Em Right,”
“Saint Ursula Goes Down for the Third Time,” and her signature tune “Mississippi Low-down Blues” for
the Lightning Label. She is credited with the composition of only one standard,
the rocking “Lemme Get Up First,” later, of course, covered by The Rolling Stones.
Her last record for a major label was a cover of Holmes and Howard’s “Somebody’s Been Using that
Thing.” Comparisons to Big Mama Thornton and Bessie Smith brought her a
brief renaissance of interest in the restless sixties. She died of the drink
in a Memphis boarding house, just hours after recording her last record, the plaintive and pain-filled “I’m a Drunk
in a Memphis Boarding House.” Alan Lomax has said of her, “She could
have been one of the greats if not for the hooch.”
"I keep reading the prose poems in Short Story
over and
over. You've tapped something
in them that does a tuning fork number
on my
heart."
--Steve Stern
Forthcoming chapbooks: Pictures from Lang and Fellini from Sheltering Pines
Press (2007), Cock-a-Hoop (2007) from Zygote
in my Coffee Press, Publisher (2007) from
Workers Write Journal Press. And my first full-length collection, Some
Identity Problems (2007) from Foothills Publishing.
And finally, a book of short stories from Blaze Vox Books: Listen: 29 Short Conversations
(2007).
Brand New: The Lita Conversation
($7)
| Cover photo, The Lita Conversation by Syrie Kovitz |
|
| Just released: the Winner of the Southern Hum Chapbook Competition |
| OTHER PUBLICATIONS |
|
My other chapbooks:
Chin-Chin in Eden (Still Waters Press) Cover art by Tim Crowder. $6
Piecework (Wing and the Wheel Press) A collaboration with artist Suzanne
Moore. $45 paperback. $75 cloth. $175 deluxe. Limited quantities.
For Toby, Everything for Toby (Wing and the Wheel Press) A collaboration
with artist Terry Chouinard. $17 paperback.
Ten Poets (Wing and the Wheel Press) Editor only. Poems by Marilou Awiakta,
Floyd Collins, Buck Downs, Gordon Osing, Fredric Koeppel, Albert Goldbarth, David Spicer, Roger Sauls, Heather McHugh, John
Richard Reed. $35 paperback. $55 hardback.
Also, from Terry Chouinard's Wing and the Wheel Press, a 13" x 26" broadside with an excerpt from Talk
and published on the occasion of my first signing at Burke's. It features iconic artwork throughout by Chouinard and is available
exclusively from www.burkesbooks.com. Signed. $20.
All Wing and the Wheel publications are handmade, handsewn, letterpress, signed, limited editions.
All books and publications by Corey Mesler can be ordered signed or inscribed
from www.burkesbooks.com
|
|
|
|
