S H A M P O O   36  Contributors


Sherman Alexie is the author of many books, including a new collection of poetry, Face, from Hanging Loose Press.  he started his writing career in the mimeographed micro-presses and is overjoyed to have recently discovered that same independent energy in the online magazine world.  he apologizes for being such a Luddite sloth.

Stan Apps washes his hair with Paul Mitchell Teatree Oil Shampoo, or else anything made out of petroleum and roses.  his poems are in books, such as Info Ration (Make Now), God’s Livestock Policy (Les Figues), and Handbook of Poetic Language (eohippus labs).  his essays will be in a book: The World as Phone Bill, forthcoming this year from Combo Books.

Louis Armand:  LA-Prague.  close to the scalp.  twice a day.

Robert J. Baumann feels a very special sort of embarrassment when he rubs the crown of his head with his palm.  he doesn’t really know what to say ever, which is probably the reason he hasn’t called Jody Wood since having a nice time with her on September 5, 2009.

Lucas Bernhardt is temporarily in New Zealand, teaching.  he will soon return to Oregon, or Iowa, or wherever filial piety is threatened.

Megan Breiseth is an Oakland poet and Hollywood wife.  her favorite possession right now is her Barack Obama action figure, who tends to point his finger at her in a strangely motivating way.

Will Burke is a hands on hands off kinda guy.  the authorities and his girlfriend no longer bother with him.  he currently helps Hawa, Batula, Seynab, Ali, Mechan, and others sell produce.  finally, he is all BSG all BSG the time.

Christopher Cheney was just named “Mr Massachusetts” for the third year in a row.  visit here for information about the next competition.

Marisa Crawford grew up in New York and in Connecticut, and currently lives in San Francisco where she works as a copywriter.  some of her poems have appeared in Invisible Ear, Big Bell, GlitterPony, and Parthenon West.  her first full-length manuscript, The Haunted House, was the winner of the 2008 Gatewood Prize, and is forthcoming from Switchback Books.

Aaron Crippen is a National Endowment for the Arts Literary Fellow with a cowlick issue, never quite resolved.  he leans toward the pseudo-Nordic-scientific in hair products.  it shows.

Peter Davis’ book of poems is Hitler’s Mustache.  he lives in Indiana with this sweet wife and these two sweet kids.  and he goes, “and you may find yourself in a beautiful house / with a beautiful wife / and you may ask yourself / well, how did I get here?”  he’s got a website.

Susan Denning lives and writes in Portland, Oregon.  she loves animals.

Denise Dooley has a new plan to not spend any money south of Devon or north of Howard till May.  b/c what if you just try and love what you love?

Laurie Duggan currently lives in England.  his most recent book is Crab & Winkle (Exeter, Shearsman, 2009).  he stopped coloring his hair some years back and now eagerly awaits the bus pass.

Mark Stephen Finein earned his BFA from Buffalo State in 1986, specializing in surrealistic wood block printmaking, lithography, and 3D constructions.  now that he’s shaken off the demon of representationalism, he’s proud to be showing his visual artwork publicly for the first time in two decades.  it was rumored but unsubstantiated that one of his songs was used in a short industrial video about the dangers of drug use on the job.

Ricky Garni is a graphic designer and writer living in Carrboro, North Carolina.  until the day he can write a line as good as jamabalaya and a crawfish pie and fillet gumbo ’cause tonight I’m gonna see my ma cher amio, he will continue to be the broken man who stands before you tonight.

Amy Garrett-Brown teaches writing at George Mason University.  she lives in Northern Virginia with her hairy husband, film-maker and rocker Thomas Brown; Harold, their healthy and happy 10 lb. Rhinelander rabbit; the love of Harold’s life, a frisky black and white bunny named Rue McClanahan; and a guinea pig with a silky shiny coat, named Ruth Brown.  Amy recently bought a new vacuum.

Angela Genusa learned the four principles of healthy poetry and art (Bouncy, Spring, Shiny, Fluffy) at the Jaclyn Smith Military Academy for Beauty, Poetry, Art, and Poise.  she is a licensed poetry aesthetician and art manicurist.

Christoph Girard habitually sends flirty text messages to radical queer theorists when he isn’t finishing an MFA at UC Santa Cruz.  despite suffering from cabin fever amid the coast redwoods, he manages to collage poetry that offers a symbolic relationship with the exterior.  his recent series of 11-line poems entitled Ten and One Left explore the use of public language that is written and translated to the outsider by the outsider who writes to the public and its busy surroundings.

Eli Halpern rocks.

Alisa Heinzman lives in Oakland and attends Saint Mary’s MFA program.  she recently abandoned her antiquated, water-based hair rinser for a shiny, Starfleet issue sonic shower.  believe me, she groks it!

Luke Humphries whoops heinie.

Russell Jaffe runs O Sweet Flowery Roses blog/journal (BLOURNAL).  he has all the birds, all the potatoes, and is trying to get the things.  he hoped the long winter would yield a harvest of fresh nouns.

Alexander Jorgensen says: “‘Art’ with lowercase or capital vowel is really no matter for me.  what is important, rather, is that I am intentional in my communication -- that I say to whomever: ‘here we are.’”  among his many peculiarities, Mr. Jorgensen has a fine soap and comfy sock fetish.

Raud Kennedy is a dog trainer in Portland, Oregon.  more of his work can be found here.

Caroline Klocksiem is a googler and is googleable.  she prefers things that are orange to things that are not, and authentic poo to sham poo.

erica lewis is a fine arts publicist in San Francisco, where she curates the Canessa Gallery Reading Series.  her work has appeared or is forthcoming in P-Queue, Ur Vox, Cricket Online Review, alice blue, and BOOG CITY, among others; chapbooks include publications from Etherdome Press and Queue.  she is currently being haunted by a ghost of herself.

Alana Madison writes poems that seem to get published, and has a daughter that has chosen not to be published.

Anthony Madrid lives in Chicago.  recent (or pending) publications include Agni Online, Cincinnati Review, Lit, Now Culture, 6X6, and Web Conjunctions.  the title of his manuscript is The Getting Rid of That of the That Which Cannot Be Done Without.

Esa Mäkijärvi (b. 1984) is a poet and a critic from Helsinki, Finland.  his first poetry collection, Yökiipijä (Nightclimber), was published by Leevi Lehto’s Ntamo publishing house in 2007.  the poems included in this issue are translations from the original book, which was written in Finnish.

Ian M. McCarty is a poet and bon vivant who occasionally tests to see if he has developed telekinetic powers.  furthermore, he is a person of convictions and adamant that the highest form of any cuisine is expressed via The Sandwich.  he wonders if you’re going to finish that.

rob mclennan lives in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, is the author of some twenty poetry, fiction, and non-fiction trade books in four countries, and blogs here.  his daughter and student loan are now both old enough to drink in the province of Quebec.  he already knows she would be more fun, but would probably complain more.

Michael Montlack is the editor of My Diva: 65 Gay Men on the Women Who Inspire Them (University of Wisconsin Press, 2009).  he splits his time between New York City, where he teaches at Berkeley College, and San Francisco.  he is, without a doubt, a Hummus Sexual.

Anjali Khosla Mullany: Olivia’s sis married a Mullany and pieced together a little Fuji.  good on ya, no worries mate!

Caitlyn Paley has had work featured in Moria Poetry Journal and the Ledger Line.  she suffers from a crippling Photoshop addiction.

Stephen Ratcliffe’s (Reading the Unseen: (Offstage) Hamlet) is forthcoming from Counterpath this fall.  REAL, 474 pages written in 474 consecutive days, was published by Avenue B in 2007.  two more recent manuscripts, CLOUD / RIDGE (also 474 pages) and HUMAN / NATURE (1,000 pages), appear in ubu editions’ “Publishing the Unpublishable” series.  the complete (14 hour) reading/performance of HUMAN / NATURE at UC Davis is available at PennSound.  he lives in Bolinas and teaches at Mills College in Oakland.

Matt Reeck enjoys living in Brooklyn, New York; he has also enjoyed living in New Delhi, India and Seoul, Korea; he also enjoys reminiscing about those times and places (as he’s doing now ...).  he uses shampoo once a week.

Daniel C. Remein lives in Brooklyn, New York, holds an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh, and is a Ph.D. student in Medieval Literature at NYU.  he also edits the journal Whiskey & Fox.  Daniel desperately would like to have a border collie named ‘Sheep’ as a companion animal.

Ryan B. Richey grew his hair out on the sides so he can use shampoo again.  it gives him supershine, superbody, and he smells fresh as a meadow.

Paul Siegell just learned the word “contrail” existed and is psyched because he can now describe the white lines that planes poop out with only one word.  Paul is the author of Poemergency Room (Otoliths Books, 2008) and the forthcoming jambandbootleg (A-Head, 2009).  he is a staff editor at Painted Bride Quarterly and tinkers with stuff at ReVeLeR @ eYeLeVeL.

Suejin Suh, who is a native Long Islander, has been living in Cheongju, South Korea for the past three years.  she will soon be washing her stubbornly straight locks in Seoul.  Tom and Suejin hope Gus gets the hang of walking on a leash soon.

Eileen Tabios is pissed that her hair is thinning.  so far, that (thankfully) hasn’t made it into her poetry.  you are invited to visit her as the Chatelaine.

Steve Tills finally published his “golf poetry” book RUGH STUFF, after nearly five years of having to put it off because dried-up funds and cranky spirit during Bush-Cheney years disinclined him to indulge in such “extravagant spending.”  recently relocated to lovely, pastoral Palmyra, New York, where he and his wife have purchased their first home and where Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons).  TRUE saint-poet David Bromige, Steve’s dearly loved mentor, passed away recently (June 3rd) and this passing will be softly mourned for many, many years.

TC Tolbert pees in the shower.  not accidentally and not occasionally.  when s/he has an idea that a shower is looming, pee is held for that future occasion.  this practice is based on the hypothesis (not his own) that peeing on the feet prevents (or does it kill?) Athlete’s Foot.  s/he is an athlete and has never had Athlete’s Foot.

Gautam Verma reports: “my wife and I live in Piacenza, Italy where we are kept company by our very own behemoth (of Master & Margarita fame) instigator of things poetic and not, weighing-in at a svelte 9 kilos.  I have a trio of e-chaps: Tombs and In Ladakh from Shearsman and Soundings from Blaze Vox.  my first full-length manuscript, The Opacity of Frosted Glass, should shortly be available at Moria Books.”

Dana Ward lives in Cincinnati where he edits Cy Press.  he is the author of Goodnight Voice (House Press 2008) and the Drought (Open 24hrs, forthcoming 2009).  he couldn’t wait for spring.

when Arisa White’s mom was pregnant with her, she would crave fried chicken from Bee’s Restaurant in Brooklyn, New York.  as a toddler, Arisa would wake every time her uncle came home late at night, cry out, and he would rescue her from the crib.  they would sit and eat fried chicken and scrambled eggs with ketchup.  she will write a poem about this.

Zhuang Yisa lives in Singapore.  his poetry has been published in Yuan Yang (Hong Kong), ditch, (Canada), The Salt River Review, Eight Octaves, Numinous, Quarterly Review Singapore, Red River Review, and The Smoking Poet, amongst others.  he also reviews for The Substation Magazine, an online arts journal based in Singapore.


SHAMPOOArt by Angela Genusa

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