| ZYGOTE IN MY COFFEE.COM |
| ***BIO*** KARL KOWESKI: I'm a 31 year old displaced Chicagoan, now living on top of a mountain in Alabama for reasons that involve a woman. I was the lead singer/banjo player of the now defunct country/punk/disco band The Screaming Shits. Now I just work in a machine shop and write articles for porno mags. |
 |
 |
| © 2007 zygoteinmycoffee Ink. |
| Home |
| Submit |
| Another Babel Debacle |
| by Karl Koweski |
| Cuntly wrote POETRY. Capitalized like that for emphasis, importance, pretension. POETRY. ART. CRAFT. The loftier the ideals, the bigger the ego, the larger the letters. Except for the first letter of the first word beginning every verse. Those letters weren’t capitalized because the MUSE would not allow it.
Another thing: Cuntly didn’t believe in editing. He believed in channeling the COSMOS. He got it right the first time. He was a POET, by god, in the purest sense of the capitalized word. He vibrated like a tuning fork. WORDS erupted from him. WORDS like small press SCRIPTURE – even if the small press heathens were literary atheists who couldn’t comprehend GENIUS. Myself, I wasn’t a poet so much as a pornographer. Poems were birthed from aborted story fragments, inverse Frankenstein monsters that I had some luck publishing. Some people liked the poems. Some didn’t. Most didn’t give a fuck one way or the other. The small press is its own best audience. I could accept this. Cuntly could not. “We need to begin a MOVEMENT,” Cuntly blogged. “A MOVEMENT that flies in the face of Academia and any other literary institution that refuses to acknowledge my POETIC BRILLIANCE. It’ll be all about subverting EGO. It’s about putting POETRY in the hands of the PEOPLE.” How are we going to do this? I wondered. If the capitalized people wanted capitalized poetry (even if the poems were written in lower case) couldn’t they simply google “poetry”? “We will covertly insert POETRY broadsides,” Cuntly continued, “into books at bookstores, libraries, coffee houses and used bookstores. We’ll enlist operatives across the GLOBE to do my bidding.” “That’s the most greatest, bestest idea I’ve ever heard,” b.j fawned. “At heart it’s a great idea,” I commented. “But in execution, it’s doomed to failure. Cough – Babel – Cough.” “No, this will be DEMOCRATIC. EGOLESS. Are you with us, comrade Koweski?” “Sure.” And so the Poetry Placement Program began. Seven members and a letter press later. “We are in opposition to the POETRY elitists,” Cuntly railed on his blog like a limp-wristed Tyler Durden. “We accept everyone regardless of race, gender or sexuality provided you pay the fifty dollar sign up fee; the money going to postage and printing. We’re totally non-profit. The ADMINISTRATORS will vote on who is invited to submit their poetry and we’ll decide in a FAIR and DEMOCRATIC way which poems are worthy to be IMMORTALIZED and secreted into CLASSIC books chosen by the triple P. And I will create a MANIFESTO that will TOPPLE the pillars of the literati, SUNDER the foundations of Academia and FART in the face of editors across the country who dare reject my POEMS with impersonal FORM letters.” Three days and a sporadically capitalized manifesto later. “Operatives,” Cuntly blogged. “We will insert broadsides into carefully considered and specifically chosen books. In the interest of following orders, broadsides are to be placed ONLY in the books chosen by the PPP. These will include all Bukowski, all Fante, the Beats, all Hemingway, Hamsun’s “Hunger”, Celine’s “Journey to the End of the Night”, Henry Miller...” “Jesus Christ, man,” I commented. “Can’t we stick’em in books people will actually buy.. Contemporary writers like Arthur Nersesian or Jonathan Ames or Steve Almond. Why limit ourselves only to authors mentioned by Bukowski?” “First of all, you PRICK, I didn’t pick the books based on BUK’S recommendation. Just because BUK liked the same authors I do, that’s fantastic. We at the triple P want to hit the books we all read when we answered the CALL to assume the mantel of POET. Not that FRAT BOY garbage the less literary enlightened read between raping coeds and watching football.” “You’re an idiot. And as far as writers who made us want to write, I’d be putting the fucking broadsides in Stephen King or James Ellroy novels. All Hemingway ever made me want to do is kill myself. And Hamsun... fuck Hamsun.” “An idiot? This coming from a READER of Stephen King? Why don’t you FLY out to Georgia and call me that and I will STRIKE you down.” “Watch it, nancy. I’ll kick you in the face so fuckin hard the COSMOS will vibrate.” I didn’t feel the least bit silly threatening someone over the internet. “What we need to understand,” Cuntly continued, “is that this isn’t about EGO. We must put EGO aside to better serve the POEM. Otherwise, no one will discover my GENIUS.” Two weeks, a beautifully designed website and a Hunter Thompson Gonzo knock-off logo later. “Good news, operatives,” Cuntly blogged. “We’ve been working around the clock to make the triple P a truly REVOLUTIONARY revolution. And so far my hard work and diligence has paid off handsomely. We are now an official entry in Wikipedia. That’s right! Anyone in the world can go to Wikipedia and find the PPP and read our manifesto and find out what we’re doing to save the SMALL press from MASSIVE anonymity.” I’m thinking... what the hell does Wikipedia have to do with poetry? “Also,” Cuntly continued. “You’ll notice on the official PPP blog the commercial I made promoting the BRAND NEW PPP stickers. YES, that’s my black friend at the poker table and YES that’s 50 Cent playing in the background! How cool is that?” I’m thinking... what the hell does 50 Cent have to do with poetry. Unless the guy holding the PPP sticker is Shane Allison. “As a PPP core operative,” I commented, “I feel it’s my duty to inform you, that this may well be the dumbest fuckin thing I”ve seen in my entire life. And I grew up in a Polish neighborhood.” “So it’s not to your liking. So what? b.j likes my commercial, don’tcha buddy?” “Hell yes,” b.j fawned. “It’s the bestest commercial I’ve seen for the grandest small press venture ever.” “At least we’re DOING something besides being NEGATIVE. If you’re AFFRONTED by my CREATIVITY, come out to Georgia. I’ll meet you at the airport and we can SETTLE this.” “Dude,” I wrote, “I live like three hours away. I can just drive over and ELBOW you in the HEAD so fuckin hard, you’ll be dictating POEMS from the COSMOS in CRAYON for the rest of your miserable existence. Follow?” “The PPP is not about EGO or what books operatives read. We’re about ACTION. We’re about POETRY that will stand the test of TIME. We’ll be voting on poems shortly. Until then, I’m sending along some points for you to put forth should you be INTERVIEWED about the triple P. This IS the REAL DEAL boys.” A dubious voting process, two broadsides, a deleted PPP Wikipedia entry and no interviews later. “All I have to say is FUCK Wikipedia for not acknowledging us as a viable literary commodity just because we only have twenty hits on Google.” What does Google have to do with poetry? “I have 3,000 hits on Google, personally,” Cuntly blogged. “But the PPP is not about EGO. It’s about a community of writers, the y2k version of the Beats like b.j says, united by DSL and a love of POETRY. That is why when two of my best POEMS were nominated for broadside publication and covert insertion, I was selfless enough to sacrifice one of my places for Garot Silver’s poem “when the blood red sun sets behind the burnt umber leaves, your mother will die alone”. Congrats, Garot.” “You truly are a gifted and benevolent poet and friend,” b.j fawned. “As you may well know,” Cuntly continued. “Several of my best-selling, award-winning chapbooks are for sale, the proceeds of which go toward funding the PPP. The “core” of the triple P are getting ready to put TOGETHER a chapbook of poems. Ten poems from each of the CORE members. CORE members will get to choose which poems to send, and I’ll decided which poems get included in the book. We ask only that members send along a small fee of one hundred dollars, only one hundred Wendy’s cheeseburgers, to cover the cost of printing and postage, not to mention your very own contributor copy at a reduced price. A small price to pay for IMMORTALITY. Sales will go toward assisting the PPP in DOMINATING the literary landscape.” And so ended my affiliation with the venerable PPP. Call it EGO. Call it PRETENSION. But I swore to myself a long time ago I’d never pay for publication. Even if it meant revolutionizing Cuntly’s vision of the small press. |
 |