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EXPANSIVE POETRY & MUSIC ONLINE A Journal of Contemporary Arts
Volume 3, No. 4A	Copyright © 1998 by Expansive Poetry & Music Online	April 1, 1998

ROBERT BLY TO COP NOBEL PRIZE; RUNNER-UP TO APPEAR IN SWEDISH

South of Boston: An unsubstantiated report from Luther Fox, PI, claims that Robert Bly will win the 1998 Nobel Prize for Literature. He will be cited, it is alleged, in the announcement purportedly written by Nobel Committee poetry advisor Helen Vendler, for both his "fluid, superbly anti-melodious, yet tartly expressive and poignantly peculiar translations of poets who used to have undeservedly good reputations," and for "poetry of delicious oddity, whose explosive lines, blent with a desire to create sublime puzzles of unintelligiblity, has brought us a generation of lesser disciples." Bly, who has heard of none of this, was reported (third hand) to have greeted the news with a strum on his zither and a brief proclamation: "the hound bones buried with the steeple have surfaced now; teeth will follow and nothing will burn the rain." The story was somewhat muted by the informant's arrest for indecent assault.

The runner-up, a local Poet Laureate, was said to be unhappy at not being selected this year. A neighbor, the editor of a local literary journal, suggested legal action, but the runner-up seemed placated when she learned that, as runner-up, her latest book will be translated into Swedish and published in the journal Zo!Whoeberhurdovdzem in Stockholm, a publication with a strong emphasis on the poetry of bodily fluids.

Critic Announces Bold New Plans: A critic bearing slight resemblance to a former star of Saturday Night Live will open twenty-five franchises of Joy-A-Burgers in the year 2000, a fast food outlet featuring turkey hamburgers, each served with an edible sheet of unrhymed sonnets. "Delightful flavor of the sheets is important to our concept; we're not so concerned that people read or understand the sonnets, rather that their palates be satisfied. In six months of operations, we should have enough variety to put a scrumptious anthology on the salad menu," the critic noted.

New Directions for West Coast Press: According to an unsubstantiated rumor floated at Poet's House, this press is moving to New York, where the publisher expects to change its direction dramatically. According to an unnamed spokesperson "We hope to illuminate the danger to free speech in America by publishing only nude photographs, particularly of poets, professors and apostles of political cults. In the flesh, of course, they're hard to tell apart, a point of critical interest to our press and to the Justice Department." (continued in Poetry Business News Poetry Business News below)

Professor Reveals All: In a shocking revelation, a professor has alleged to a Los Angeles grand jury that a recent book on vampirism in current literary culture was originally the transcript of a documentary. "It had to be recast as a novel to avoid legal action and personal threats," the professor said. However, he would not respond to inquiries about the author, nor would he explain the scar on his neck. An unnamed aide to a Dream Team lawyer, when asked, had never heard of the book. "There are vampires in poetry?" the aide inquired.

"Shelley" Arrested: In a related story from Los Angeles, a Beverly Hills man, posing as the dead poet Percy Byssche Shelley, was arrested for indecent assault last Tuesday. At his arraignment, "Shelley" pleaded innocence by claiming that in tasting the victim's blood he was obeying his own law. The victim/poet, in a surprise, has filed no charges; however, a spokesperson for LA County has vowed that her new public relations manager should be able to help her put teeth in the charges against "Shelley."

New Contest Rules: In a story that has caused ripples at university presses, new journal Starsick's editor and publisher has announced that he will refuse to take calls, e-mail or letters of recommendation from friends, relatives, lovers, former professors or colleagues of poets who submit manuscripts to its quarterly contest (The Spy in God's Eye Wild Bill Donovan Memorial Chapbook Contest -- 1st prize, $10,000 and a trip to scenic Langley, Virginia). Said Starsick editor Luther Fox, who claims to work as a private detective between issues: "any poet so recommended will have her manuscript eaten; I shall have the first lick myself." Fox was later arrested for indecent assault in Beverly Hills.

WC 1998: Conference organizers announced today that no one will keynote a special conference at The WC University, "in respect of the vanishing of the author from literature," an organizer said. To be entitled Let's Stop The BS: To Hell with New Directions in Narrative and Form, the conference, organizers remarked, "will offer the other side of the argument postulated in another well-known conference, there being so few outlets for such points of view." The West Chester Conference, occasionally mistaken for the WC Conference, will continue unaffected.

Humorous Professor New Subject of $7 Billion Lawsuit: A professor, recently retired after a long career in a northeastern university, was added to a list of defendants subject to FALUS's $7 billion dollar class action suit on behalf of, to quote, "victims of the known health affects of what is heretofore known as side stream comedy. Such victims, without any will of their own, have for generations been subtly affected by a brutalitarian hegemony of overheard dirty jokes, off-color limericks, and puns about the non-female sexual organs, forced to overhear such on late night television, while in nightclubs with dates otherwise innocent of such infractions, at restaurants, baseball games, and even in poetry readings." FALUS is the Female Anti-defamation League, United States

Fake Photo Bedevils Online Magazine: Popular Forensics has announced that EP&M's photograph of poet, professor and shepherd Robert Darling is a fake. PF researcher R. Samuel Gwynn, IV (Lt.Cmdr., USN, Ret., no relation to the poet of similar name) noted in his report on talk show American Cowpoke that "the photograph is clearly the image of a cat subjected to the process popularly known as morphing. While there is some vague resemblance to Dr. Darling, certainly in size and shape, one look at the eyes explodes the hoax. Cats may grow beards, but human eyes have no slits!"

As Editor and Webmaster of EP&M Online, this writer can only offer his deepest apologies. It is bad enough for a man to mistake his wife for a hat. Imagine the pain inflicted by a man who mistakes a friend for a cat!

Mini Review: David's Slavitt's Index To My Other Stuff. Don't miss Slavitt's 69th title, an index in erotic, rhyming couplets to all of author Slavitt's previously released books. Slavitt sings some of the entries on the accompanying CD. (219 pp., Curlicue Press, San Marcos)

The Rumor Mill: At an East Side bar, informant Luther Fox claims to have overheard the following in a conversation between Tina Brown and Alice Quinn of The New Yorker. "The key point," Fox said, "was Brown's averral that The New Yorker will publish poetry in the near future. The project," Fox said Brown said, "will be called Windows on Poetry 98." A similar project, Windows on Poetry 95, was canceled in 1997 because of pre-release problems.

Luther Fox, before being arraigned in Beverly Hills, claimed that it is not true that Joseph Parisi has accepted the popular will to become editor-for-life of Poetry. "His name's not Fred either," he told Allesandra Belladonna Smith, our new Cultural Commentator.

For several weeks, suggestions have been circulating that Hudson Review is about to be sold to America Online. Asked to comment on this, a passerby who claimed to be an HR editor told Luther Fox, EP&M's private investigator, that "I have never heard of you and, if this is another pitch to publish narrative poetry, forget it!" The last remark seemed non sequitur to Luther, although he was in somewhat of a state, having been arrested for indecent assault the day previous.

Poetry Business News: According to a source, The Wall Street Journal will merge with The New Criterion, forming the New Criterion of Wall Street. The new super-paper will have an editorial bias strongly in favor of Robert Richman continuing as poetry editor. The publisher promises to re-create the editorial commentary of the old Journal by devoting a quarter page to remarks in verse on current politics and the rest to reasons in prose as to why President Clinton should be impeached or, at the very least, strong reprimanded by Hillary. Financial news, presumed to be good, will cease.

It appeared last week that poet, cultural commentator, and information theorist Frederick Turner had been named CEO of a drug company in Rahway, New Jersey. Citing his long-term advocacy of progress through ecstatic belief in the improbable, the company's outgoing Chairman held up a dog-eared copy of The Culture of Hope as proof of Turner's understanding of the role of drugs in the future. However, it was noted by an observer that the Frederick Turner at the podium did not recognize the book, and so may not have been the author of the same name. Later, when asked about this, this particular Turner reinforced the ambiguity of the event by saying: "one of the first things you have to do as CEO is fit into the hopes of your corporate culture."

Somers Rocks Press, in a major change, has announced that it will move its headquarters to Alzada, Montana. Citing a new wind in cultural development, SRP's publisher released the imprint's list for 1998, which will focus entirely on cowboy poetry written while under the influence of alcohol at Alzada's new Lakota Rising Casino. The first will be from Cowboy Poet R.S. Gwynn's, whose book Side Saddle's Too Good for My Molly may be released in time for the West Chester Conference. R.S. Gwynn is not related to the poet of the same name.

West Coast press, continued: The spokesperson continued: "Part of our press's new efforts on free speech advocacy will be greatly assisted by our upcoming merger with the acclaimed critical journal Hustler, on which our President has put in many long hours of careful stroking to bring about. We are certain that Hustler's wide-open, anatomy class frankness will bring a new hardness to those of similar preferences; a lot more of such good things can't hurt," our reporter said the spokesperson said in an interview conducted in Alzada, Montana. A major officer, however, was reported by the unnamed spokesperson as saying that she would leave that employe to form Typical Story Line Press, to be devoted to poetry and fiction about middle-aged men who consider themselves rebels. Divining a way out of this, an unnamed passersby said: "Hey, we're no rebels; but we're no angels either." If desiring to return to top of page, click here.

Expansive Poetry & Music Online successfully defended itself in early 1998 against a hostile takeover by a food franchiser after turning aside overtures from a political cult in 1997. Since EP&M Online started out bankrupt, this has had no effect on financials; the stock continues to sell at $.01 plus contractual obligations not to disturb either the Webmaster's work or sleep.

Welcome to the April First edition of Expansive Poetry & Music Online. Click on EP&M Online, page 2 for more amazing features and titillating revelations, none of which have a thing to do with why the Titanic is not like President Clinton. And, not to forget, none of the above bears any relation to the truth, facts, or Post-Modern reality, except the fact of -- April Fool!