I am mad excited to announce that a project I have been working on for a long time will be released in the near future by Microcosm Publishing. The title is
Punk in NYC’s Lower East Side 1981-1991 . Microcosm is releasing it as the first installment in a series of zines about the history of punk scenes in different cities.The context makes sense; it is definitely a music fanzine. Specifically, it's a giant
Reagan Youth fanzine. At the same time, it's a monograph about anarchism and inherited holocaust trauma. It's also an oral history about the Tompkins Square Riots, and a bunch of other things. Depending who I'm talking to, I call it a zine or a monograph. Like Townes said, "It's funny, about words." The cover will have some beautiful photos that a woman named Amie Hertzig took of the legendary Dave Insurgent. Basically, when the project comes out, you should buy it, and then you'll know what it is. You might learn something too.
Other things I want to show you:
In addition to this nonfiction work, I have been writing a lot of poetry in the past year that is more personal, or more confessional, than a lot of the poetry I've published. I'm not sure how I feel about this. It might be time to go back to writing poems about historical mining techniques. For now, though, I have some recent poems on Shabby Doll House and Watershed Review.
A former student of mine, Hia Chakraborty, wrote a rad novel called
Aurora's Ashes. I don't care what anyone says, teenagers are smarter now than they used to be.
I think this might still be the finest short story I have ever read:
My First Fee by Isaac Babel.
