We're rethinking our site

This ol' site needs a thorough overhaul and update. We're working on that (and have been researching and learning behind the scenes toward this end for a while now).

Here's a post about the design (which of course includes function and organization, not just good looks) of book-related sites, at Real Pants:

[…]And this is what I’ve been talking about, with regard to book design, really. How can the look/feel/aura of the physical object compel you to touch it, to open it, and then to read what’s inside? What about when you can’t touch it, because you’re online?

[…]What site elements make a great virtual browsing experience, rich enough to give you a real sense of the book? Are there sites you feel do this well? Sites you find bafflingly bald? Presses from which you trust everything will be excellent, sight unseen? Is media like audio/video useful? More pics of the cover and interior? What do you want to see? (Read the rest)

I'd love to get more input from our readers. Let me know what you think?

—Shanna (& Bloof)

Celebrating Jennifer L. Knox: Happy birthday to the poet laureate of Bloof!

Jennifer L. Knox is the first poet Bloof published. She's one of reasons we exist. We've done three books with her so far, and have another one on the way. She's a brilliant poet (duh), performer (OMG), and a ton of fun on a road trip. Wildly swerving and unflaggingly absurd, Jen's poems are just as likely as she is to get pulled over for "erratic operation of a vehicle" in North Dakota.

Today is her birthday. We love her, and so do you. We stealthily passed this card around the office yesterday.

Happy birthday, Knoxie! 

Love,
Bloof

______________________________

There are few things she loves more than watching the ASL person interpret her poems on the fly at a reading. If only there was video of that interpeter signing "Everything Melted in a Really Weird Way." —Adam Detusch

Two words. Chicken Bucket. —Laura Cherry

Chicken Bucket 4ever —Michael Nicoloff

I first fell in love with her when I read "Hot Ass Poem." —Jaimie Nagle

"Hot *^^ Poem". I te*ch it Every. ^ingle. ^eme^ter. —Metta Sáma (whose keyboard is broken)

She signed my book, "Good luck in prison." —Laura Carter

THIS. —Stephen Caratzas

Long car poem —Sandra Simonds

"I'm not used to doing readings in libraries.
I've never been in a library.
That's why my poems are like this." 

—that time we read in a library, as recalled by Shanna Compton

Jennifer Knox has hung out in Benton, Kentucky. That's right. Benton. Benton is near Possum Trot. She has probably been there too. —Nancy McGuire Roche

"I'm gonna stop and get sausage biscuits. Then, in a little while, we can stop so I can regret my sausage biscuits." 

—in the car one morning as we embarked on a 7-hour drive, somewhere in the South, as recalled by Shanna Compton

"Anomalies of the Female Reproductive System" –Jenn McCreary

I was at the zoo with Jen when she started talking to one of the parrots for an unusually long time. She kept trying to get it to flutter its wings and 'show us your pretty feathers.' I thought she was insane (she was, in fact, flapping her arms up and down) until the bird started to mimick her not only spreading its wings but hopping a little dance on its perch. The two were clearly having a conversation that was perfectly intelligible to both of them. Since that afternoon, I have never ceased being envious of Jen's connection to another, better world. —John Cotter

The time she sed bondo-clogged... uh... what was bondo-clogged? I stole it... BONDO-CLOGGED something hole? So good. —Danielle Pafunda             

[That phrase appears in "Pimp My Ride," another front runner for most-famous Knox poem, published in the New Yorker. Danielle stole (and pimped) the line for one of her own poems in Natural History Rape Museum: "The undead shirk, circle shirk in their Bondo-clogged antennae hole. "]

I wrote "you're really a drag queen" on her poem, and at the bar, as I sat down to a giant plate of fries, she said, "Your metabolism is going to change and I want to be there to watch." We've been besties ever since. —Jason Schneiderman

i've got a lot of great memories of jen and i'd share some but i can't think of which to pick. i just love her. she's just terrific (in every way). —Peter Davis

I don't know Jennifer, but I taught "Chicken Bucket" last semester and had a student who said something to the effect of "that poem just SHOCKED me. I've never read anything *like* that before...(at which point I thought, here we go...super conservative land) and then she said. "Now I feel like I can try anything in a poem! It's given me so much permission." ahhhhhh..... —Marci Nelligan

I really couldn't say which of her poems is my favorite because there's something to love, admire and TOTALLY HATE 'CAUSE IT'S SO GOOD in every one. But I have two briefs tales about Jennifer Knox: when I first moved to Kensington -- a move I didn't want to make, and plus I was having a nervous breakdown and had recently had breast cancer surgery -- she took me on a tour of the Prospect Park South Historic District, which is nearby. We spent a lovely couple of relatively anxiety-free hours looking at the disgustingly beautiful houses and shaking our heads and saying "Crazy … " Then we had lunch and she walked me home. At one point, we stood on a corner and she pointed to her apartment building -- "See that window? That's my window." We exchanged apartment keys, in case of an emergency. I still have her keys. I still remember what she said whenever I'm standing on that corner, and I look at her window. I cried when she moved. Second brief tale: I went to see her read with Jason Schneiderman at the Half King in November 2010, and something from one of her poems gave me an idea for a piece about my sister who had died the year before. Four months later, on March 16, 2011, I read an excerpt of the piece at the Poetry Project. Exactly week later I had the nervous breakdown. I totally blame Jennifer Knox for that. —Sharon Mesmer

You guys both came to my creative writing class taught by Peter Davis. It was one of the most memorable class experiences I had in college, which isn't really saying much, but it's something, right? —Lauren Orto

Which reminds us of this moment: 

"Yeah, uhhh, don't tell your parents we're what made you decide to switch majors." —Jen to Nate Logan 

I don't think Knox suffers as much from the same kind of knee jerk categorizations from the poetry world. Poetry has always been more forgiving of its experimenters than rock will ever be—and Knox is just so good with language and timing that even if the humor might shock the reader, the pitch perfect quality of the writing always shines through. 

—from Charlie Orr's tribute to Jen at Hypothetical Library (read the rest!) 

And to end the festivities on a corgi-related* note: 

Jen was so encouraging when I was a baby poet and taught me to interact with birds and survive a hangover as a medium poet and she is like a balloon made of corgis that plays "The Rainbow Connection" in twinkly midi piano while bored girls chewing bubblegum roller skate in elaborate patterns beneath the balloon's portentous yet oddly comforting and furry shadow. —Maureen Thorson

*Corgis! by Jennifer L. Knox: 

Sympathetic Nervous System by Jackie Clark

front of slipcase

back of slip case

full slip case + texture/ink swatches

(production mock-up; colors are not accurate)

title page

sample poem (untrimmed sheet)

Excerpt from Sympathetic Nervous System
See larger image here

Sympathetic Nervous System

Jackie Clark

PREORDER: March 2015

Antique Gray linen-texture 100 lb cover slipcase

70 lb text smooth natural interior

Machine stitched in white thread

10 x 6 inches | 28 pages

$8.00

Bloof Books Chapbook Series
Vol. 2: Issue 6
ISSN: 2373-163x
LIMITED TO 100 COPIES

Sorry, this chapbook has sold out. But we have released the PDF for free, along with the rest of our out-of-print chapbooks. View/download all available PDF chapbooks from Bloof here.

To purchase by check or money order, or to calculate shipping outside the US & Canada, please email us.

Read more at Interrupture.

Jackie Clark is a poet living in Jersey City.  She is the series editor of Poets off Poetry and Song of the Week for Coldfront Magazine and is the recipient of a 2012 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship in Poetry.  She is the author of three chapbooks: Red Fortress (H_NGM_N), Office Work (Greying Ghost Press), and I Live Here Now (Lame House Press). Her first book of poems, Aphoria, is out now with Brooklyn Arts Press. For more, visit her site at nohelpforthat.com.

LITTLE UGLIES by Dawn Sueoka, now in free ebook formats

Interactive PDF for online reading  (970 KB)
Color cover image, black and white interior
Read via your browser, or download and open in full-screen mode for animated page transitions

PDF for printing (204 KB)
Black and white cover image
Read via your browser, or download and open

EPUB
To come

THE FAILURE AGE by Amanda Montei, now in free ebook formats

Interactive PDF for online reading  (970 KB)
Color cover image, black and white interior
Read via your browser, or download and open in full-screen mode for animated page transitions

PDF for printing (204 KB)
Black and white cover image
Read via your browser, or download and open

EPUB
To come

Announcing the 2015 Chapbook Series

Eagle Nebula's pillars of creation (NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope)

We opened for our annual reading period in August, and were both thrilled—and honestly a little overwhelmed—by the response. 

We received more chapbook manuscripts than ever before—twice as many as the first year we called for them—and still had way too many in our must-have pile after several readings. 

So it took us longer than expected to finalize our decisions. 

But we did it, finally. And we couldn't be happier about this list!

2015 Chapbook Series

• Khadijah Queen: Exercises in Painting
• Ginger Ko: Inherit 
• Maureen Thorson: The Woman, the Mirror, the Eye
• Jenn Marie Nunes & Mel Coyle: HYMN: An Ovulution
• Alyssa Lynee: Knotted
• Catie Rosemurgy: First the Burning & Then the Witches

And a bonus graphic chapbook

• Nikki Wallschlaeger: I Hate Telling You How I Really Feel

Plus the already scheduled books 

• Jennifer L. Knox: Days of Shame & Failure
• Sharon Mesmer: Title TBD
• Shanna Compton: The Hazard Cycle

2015 subscriptions are available in our Square Store or via PayPal


online


Or purchase via PayPal:

Choose Subscription

Chapbooks Only (reg.$68) $50.00 USD Books Only (reg. $52.50) $40.00 USD Whole Shebang (reg. $120.50) $90.00 USD

As always, the chapbooks are limited to 100 copies each. Subscriptions are sold out once any of the chapbooks are sold out (though we can sometimes offer substitutions). 

________________

We'd also like to recognize the following poets, whose outstanding manuscripts made our decision process so tough. We found ourselves wishing we had space for them all, but we'll be looking for these books elsewhere, and hope to see them in existence soon.

• Hanna Andrews   Arcana
• Jennifer Bartlett   The Hindrances of a Householder
• Julia Bloch   Chronology
• Dan Brady   Stroke Diary
• Lisa Cattrone   My Secret Life
• Liz Countryman   Phobia Formation
• Marisa Crawford   Big Brown Bag
• Zoe Dzunko   Selfless
• J. Hope Stein   I Lob You
• Lo Kwa Mei-en   Daughters & Citizens
• Clara Lipfert   In the Dining Room You Saw a Phantom While I Killed Time
• Kate Litterer   Ghosty Boo's Terror Rooms
• Justin Marks   I Am Very Influenceable
• Roberto Montes   No Subject
• Alexis Pope   Bodies
• Molly Rose Quinn   One Small Part of My Youth
• Jess Rowan   snwpoems
• Metta Sáma   the year we turned dragon
• Justin Sherwood   Low Theory
• Laura Sims   The Olga Poems
• Nicole Steinberg   This World Is Beneath Me
• Laura Theobald   Edna Poems
• Reagan Louise Wilson   Roses but Really Roses