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Necropastoral is infecting, politicizing, Plath-ing out, getting loveydovey, going post-human, getting documented in the Cahiers, showing up in The Simpsons and in class, and terrorizing children.
The Collected Songs of Cactus Cooler is an (in-progress) exhibition of the Collected Songs of Cactus Cooler, the ghost of a youth, who roamed the northeastern states during the 1990s. All songs were improvised and recorded between 1996 and 1998, in Connecticut, Maine and New York. Cactus Cooler was the nom de guerre of artist and writer [and TSky Press author] Brandon Shimoda, and owed a life debt to close friends and fellow artists Eskimo Ron, Joey Blister (a.k.a. Joey Bluesplosion) and Seatbelt. You can also watch a film of Cactus Cooler's "Wrong Things" by TSky contributor Zachary Schomburg.
Evening will come, edited by TSky Press author Joshua Marie Wilkinson, is already in its third issue, which is new as of today, 1 March 2011, and features "This wor(l)d as an illusion" from Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, "Seven journal/notebook entries" from Lisa Fishman, and an interview with Hoa Nguyen. January and February issues include TSky editor Laynie Browne, C.D. Wright, Nathanaël, and Tyrone Williams.
The ever-stunning, if poor, Poor Claudia has published a dual chapbook, Digital Macrame / On Happier Lawns, from Paige Taggert and TSky peep Justin Marks. Hand-sewn do-si-do style, with hand-cut linen covers, Digital Macrame / On Happier Lawns comes in a numbered edition of one hundred and seventy five copies. Buy one, or be as bold as we are, and just subscribe to everything Poor Claudia makes for a year, for only $30. Do it. Do it for poor, Poor Claudia. Do it because they make freakin gorgeous books that don't even require electricity. You'll like them even more by candlelight.
Edited by TSky peeps Adam Clay and Matthew Henriksen, Typo #15 is live and not only features new work from TSky Press author G.C. Waldrep, Paige Ackerson-Kieley, Alex Lemon, Catherine Wagner--but also offers said work as four stunning broadsides made by artist Jeffrey Winkelmann Evergreen. We just bought two of them. Can you guess whose? We'll never tell.
. . . some excellent news from TSky Press author Brandon Shimoda. He's got two new books out, which, he says, are "something of fraternal sibling-strangers":
The Bowling [which you can't buy any more, becuase it's sold out, becuase it was too beautiful to live--and if it's any consolation, we missed it, too--Eds.], a collaboration with the royal Sommer Browning, and made by good wizard Carl Annarummo and his Greying Ghost Press. The Bowling is a collection of bowling, no less than the grease and the gleam, the balls and the buns of ten frames of subterranean heroism ...
Lake M, a long poem, and the preface of an even longer (forever in-progress) poem, beautifully made by Sueyeun Juliette Lee and her Corollary Press. Lake M resides at the bottom of a 15,000 year-old lake in western Montana, where my grandfather, Midori Shimoda, was imprisoned during World War II, under suspicion of being a spy. . . .
I hope you will all have a look, and thank you,
Brandon Shimoda * * *
 . . . & TSky Press author Joshua Marie Wilkinson has prepared for you another fab installment of Rabbit Light Movies (a journal of poemfilms)Episode #11 features new work from TSky peeps Julie Carr, Lisa Robertson, and Zachary Schomburg, as well as from John Beer, Eula Biss, Joel Brouwer, Joel Craig, Patrick Durgin, Monica Fambrough, Judith Goldman, Sarah Gridley, Terrance Hayes, Christine Hume, Claudia Keelan, Sandra Lim, Dawn Lundy and Martin & Ronaldo V. Wilson, Peter O'Leary, Donald Revell, Michael Robins, Jennifer Scappettone, James Shea, Carol Snow, Kerri Sonnenberg, Peter Streckfus, Tony Trigilio, Leila Wilson, Allyssa Wolf, Lesley Yalen & Natalie Lyalin, and Matvei Yankelevich. * * *
 . . . & Alice Blue #11 includes work by TSky peeps Benjamin Buchholz and Brian Evenson, as well as Amelia Gray, AD Jameson, Susan Moorhead, Erik Leavitt, Julio Peralta-Paulino, Erika Kristine Bogner, Sam Schild, Timothy David Orme, Michael Kimball, and Aaron Block. You should check it out. It's edited by Sarah Gallien, Will Gallien, Madison Glass, and Amber Nelson. Amber's a wicked nice person. Also, Sarah Gallien used to be Sarah Burgess, so we're guessing that she and Will got married. That's pretty awesome. One of TSky's former editors married one of our contributors after we had our famous TSky Summer Camp '05. That event was, like, the best time ever. Even though there couldn't have been more that a dozen people there. Mainly, our dozen NYC friends who aren't scared of the woods (can you believe there are a dozen?). Yeah. That totally rocked. We should do that again. . . . * * *
 . . . & Craig Santos Perez at The Offending Adam reviews Christian Peet's Big American Trip.These postcard meditations call into question what America means by 'we,' and why many feel that the presence of immigrants means there isn’t enough barbed wire to keep them ('us') out. . . . Peet notes: “the ‘lyric’ is // written with a hand of the tremor.” Indeed, the lyrics of Big American Trip are written with a hand of the tremor—a tremor caused by the unstable surfaces and underlying forces that constitute the history, language, politics, economy, and culture of the nation. [Read the full review] * * *
 . . . & we have a lot of review copies from Ahsahta Press. High-end stuff. If it was heroin it would kill you. If you're a high-end reviewer, you should contact us about getting your hands on some of it, and then tell us what you think--if you're not dead. * * *
 . . . & our friends at SLOPE also have good news for y'all:
Dear Friends, Readers and Loved Ones,
SLOPE is pleased to be re-joining you this spring with a portfolio of poems and materials by the luminous Sarah Gridley, the author of GREEN IS THE ORATOR, fresh out from New California Press. Sarah Gridley's portfolio is part of Issue #26 which began with a glimpse into the heart of Heather Christle and will continue with portfolios devoted to the work of Don Mee Choi, Richard Meier and Nathaniel Tarn among twenty others to follow--with Slope projects in preparation by Amber Nelson (Film) and Phil Cordelli (Unmaps), and issues guest-edited by Jen Bervin, Catherine Moore, Noah Saterstrom, among other good shepherds, to come.
Thank you for reading, and resting with us,
The Editors of Slope* * *  . . . & our friends at Fence would like to make life good (and inexpensive) for you: Two years-ish ago, Fence offered a year’s subscription to the magazine, a la Radiohead’s In Rainbows release, for whatever you the buyer felt good about paying. It felt good to us and we hope it felt good to you, and so we’re offering it again.
Our Spring/Summer issue, very late this year, is coming out in a month, and you can click here to pay whatever you want, between $1 and infinity, for a year’s subscription starting with this issue. Contributors include:
Anselm Berrigan, Evan Lavender-Smith, James Wagner, Allyssa Wolf, Anna Moschovakis, Elizabeth Fodaski, Thomas Doran, Debbie Yee, Rodrigo Toscano, Christina Yu, Michael Robbins, Lee Ann Brown, Heather Christle, Carl Phillips, Sandra Doller, Tomaz Salamun, Steven Alvarez, Timothy Donnelly, Jack Boetcher, Ben Greenman, Rebekah Rutkoff, Angela Ashman, Rebecca Schiff, Aurelie Sheehan, Wayne Koestenbaum, Greta Byrum, with beautiful art by Dawn Clements.
Our slogan: Don’t regret not doing it.
 In the new issue of Harp & Altar, Jered White reviews TSky Press author Brandon Shimoda's books, The Alps and The Inland Sea.
"It may be helpful to see the two books not as distinct projects, but rather as complementary angles on the same subject, the same interior/exterior geography with its troubles and anxieties. As the trinity bomb haunts the speaker in The Alps, the radioactive specter of the bomb casts a similar plume of destruction over The Inland Sea as well, with... Read More its language of horrible “flash burn” followed by “flame.” The speaker imagines himself as subject and product of violence and atrocity done to and by the body: “The guards found me wrapped / in a bladder / seized with the enormity of flesh / spoiling / trigone—ureter, urethra and bulwark.” Every vista, from the vast to the quantum, becomes an insistent, unyielding self-portrait: “Inside of the nucleus of the Atomium / every surface is / a mirror I see my family in // though I never learned any of their names”." [Read the full review here]
And then run out and buy one of the last copies of The Inland Sea.
 Bird Dog #10 is waiting for you to pet it. Edited by our hero and past TSky contributor Sarah Mangold, this issue includes new work by TSky Press author Brandon Shimoda and soon-to-be TSky Press author Emily Toder, as well as new work from C. S. Carrier, Christopher DeWeese, Emily Kendal Frey, Anna Fulford, Anne Gorrick, Jac Jemc, Grant Jenkins, Meghan McNealy, Sara Michas-Martin, Cheryl Pallant, Nicole Pollentier, Sarah Rosenthal, Linda Russo, Andrew Sage, Maureen Thorson, Laura Madeline Wiseman, and David Wolach. Also included: an interview with Juliana Spahr by Sarah Rosenthal, art from Nathan Cordero, Lauren DiCioccio, and Vanessa Woods, and cover art by Larry Bob Phillips.
 Brandon Shimoda
The Inland Sea
Chapbook. Poetry.
6" x 8", perfectbound, black endsheets, 40 pages.
November 2008.
$10 includes shipping in the US
- click here for more info
- click here to order
In remembrance of and in thinking through the grand and generative compromises of birth, migration, dementia, sacrifice and ancestor worship, The Inland Sea is a raveling entreaty for the life of both a family departed and a family spectrally present in both complex breath and body. Spiritually addressed to Midori Shimoda, as well as factually to the inland seascapes of his birth (Hiroshima, Japan, thrice, in 1909, 1910 and 1911) and death (Lake Norman, North Carolina, the United States, once, 1996), The Inland Sea navigates the substance between origination and departure, in an attempt to find a relic of responsible and radiant life outside of benighted time. Composed of doubts, dissolutions, laments and a widening circumference of water and hope, The Inland Sea is a soft, yet urgent, ceremony, through which the ruptures of the past might find celebratory echo, and keep—
About Brandon Shimoda
Brandon Shimoda was born in California, and has since lived in five countries and nine states, most recently North Carolina and Montana. His writings have made appearances in Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, jubilat, Octopus Magazine, Practice: New Writing + Art, TYPO, Verse and elsewhere, as well as in two recent book projects, Lake M (Corollary Press) and The Alps (Flim Forum Press). He currently lives in the state of Washington, where he takes part in the lives of both Slope magazine and Wave Books, among other takings, partings and taking-aparts.
New from Film Forum Press: Brandon Shimoda's debut collection, The Alps.
ISBN 978-0-9790888-2-7
144 pages, 7x9
$14 (+ $2 shipping & handling)
"Part elegy, part celebration, Brandon Shimoda’s debut interweaves glimpses of individual lives, fragments of revolution and war, and a bird’s-eye view of the waxing and waning of generations in mapping profound issues of identity and history. Viewed through the lens of his particular family history, Shimoda stations The Alps in an eerily beautiful yet threatening landscape, one entangled, inextricably, with the brutality of human existence. By turns playful, detached, and deeply emotional, the myriad voices of The Alps resonate with a spare and violent beauty."
—Laura Sims author of Practice, Restraint
"There are the Alps, standing impossibly high and shining like pieces of the Moon grafted onto Earth. They pour their substance down into the valleys, rewriting the human landscape with passages of ice. The words of Brandon Shimoda’s The Alps also seem to arrive in this way, transfixed by cold cascades of glacial time. Human narratives embedded here are carried great distances across the white space of the page. And while Shimoda’s poetic glaciers may have the power to grind words themselves to rubble, they also serve as windows (symbolized by the empty frames of one section) into a meaning beyond words. Here, frozen records of the past––personal memories, along with the traces of ancestors both literary and familial––are fractured and reassembled according to an ‘unknown intermixture of laws’ (in the words of the British physicist Tyndall, describing glacial structure). Shimoda (citing Tyndall) looks toward the ‘order and beauty’ hidden behind the ‘utter confusion’ of the Real."
—Andrew Joron author of The Cry at Zero
"Brandon Shimoda’s The Alps is an exploration across modes of perception and through them, primarily the visual and the intuitive, which encompasses the feeling-out of experience (whether one’s own or others’) as memory, invention, collage, bricolage. A formally interdisciplinary text, The Alps expands the borders around forms of identity and, in one section, confronts the breakdown of language as the medium constitutive of identity.
Shimoda’s is a welcome voice among a new generation, one saturated by images and so compelled, at times, to creatively, renewingly engage and remake them."
—Lisa Fishman author of The Happiness Experiment
"A scattering, a drowning, a droning, a hoofing; a bombing, a sinking, a plugging, a mapping; a feasting, a birthing, a stitching, a sewing, The Alps is an avalanche inventory ceremony. Part Maximus, part Cremaster, The Alps proceeds across a 'cropping continent"' variously sounding, muffling, digesting, and smoking out histories and voices 'eroding nation-blankness sort of.' If it is true that '[…] there is/no witness//to vanquish/language from the books you know,' The Alps, in its omnivorous, flesh-eating pursuit, invites us at least to banquet with it, to be among the 'self-fertilized/guests, among ghosts' in its vast and nomadic recalibrations performs a dazzling new archeology."
—Anthony Hawley author of The Concerto Form
 Denver Quarterly
Vol. 42, No. 4
Featuring Joe Brainard cover art as well as new work by TSky editor Christian Peet, TSky Press author Brandon Shimoda, and a host of rockstars: Erik Anderson, Stephanie Anderson, Anne Blonstein, Julie Phillips Brown, Suzanne Buffam, Nancy Naomi Carlson, Kim Chinquee, Patrick F. Durgin, Kim Evans, Paul Fattaruso, Georges Godeau, Laura Goode, Nathan Hauke, Claire Hero, Garrett Kalleburg, Aby Kaupang, Katalin Keller, Scott McWaters, Eileen Myles, Ron Padgett, Emily Rae, Srikanth Reddy, Forrest Roth, Stephen Sandy, Roy Scranton, Andrew Seguin, D.E. Steward, Michelle Taransky, and Karen Volkman.
Edited by Bin Ramke, Sara Veglahn, Andrea Rexilius, and Erik Anderson.
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