Poetry Chain Letter Project

     A trip to the post office at lunch today made the launch of Poetry Chain Letter Project official. What is Poetry Chain Letter Project? It is an experiment inspired by The 1000 Journals Project that I saw at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art last March.  It is also guerrilla marketing for a self published author with no marketing department and a next to nil advertising budget.  

   The idea for this project brewed in my head even before I completed the publication of The Morning the Mechanism Broke & Other Poems on February 26th of this year. I have given away ten copies of my book,  each of which is labeled with a number like an endangered species that is being studied and contains specific instructions pasted to the front cover.  I'm worried about the instructions. I am not certain I used a glue with proper binding strength, and I hope they stay attached. If you receive a book with failing adhesive, then please do me the favor of adding some tape or a piece of chewed bubble gum that you might otherwise leave beneath a desk or park bench.  Sorry.  I don't mean to stereotype.  Perhaps you are one of those people that actually fold it in the wrapper, and place it in the trashcan.  Perhaps you are like my sister who puts it in her water glass to save it for after dinner only to fall asleep with it in her hair. Do with your gum as you please.  Who am I to judge?  I rarely chew the stuff and really don't have enough experience to enter a debate in the subject of gum disposal.  Stick it in your ear.  I don't care; it is your life and your gum.  I'm digressing aren't I? Do you have to nod your head so vigorously? Really? It's my blog and I'll digress if I want to, digress if I want to, you would digress too if it happened to you. Okay fine.  "I'm trying to come to the point. I refuse to give up my obsession."  There are ten books.  The instructions pasted to the front cover look like this:

The Poetry Chain letter project

Book no. 1

This is an experiment of questionable outcome, and perhaps it has no traceable outcome at all.   The premise is simple.  Ten copies of this book have been given away with very straight forward instructions.  If you have this book, then someone gave it to you.  Read it.  Read it now, and then give it to someone else.  That is all you are required to do, but you may do more if you wish. If you would like to help track these books, then join the Facebook group Poetry Chain Letter Project.  Click on discussions, find the discussion relating to your book number, and respond with whom you are and where you are.  You may also include the date you received the book, who you gave it to, and who gave it to you.  If you have any thoughts or feelings about the book, then include those.  You may also find more works by the author at http://anotherscreamingtypewriter.blogspot.com.  If you wish to purchase the book it is available on Amazon.  If you wish to support the book, then log on to Amazon to rate it or write a review.

There are ten of these books circulating.  I wonder where they will go.

Sincerely,

Christopher James

     Of course the instructions vary slightly from book to book.  There are ten books, so not all of them say Book No. 1.   That would be stupid.  I could go into further details, but I feel confidant that you can use your own mental facilities to quickly ascertain what difference might occur with the other nine books.  Yes it is possible that I am wrong.  Minds work differently.  Maybe it isn't apparent.  Just keep reading. Did that sound too desperate? Just keep reading.  

      Rather than continuing to say Book No. 1 or Book No. 7 I will from now on refer to the books just by their number. I'll say Six went to such and such  and Four was given to so and so.  This is just the system that I have chosen.  I could have easily called the books Bob, Jimmy Jack, Sue, Marigold, Old Wet Sock, Distrusted Ex-Lover, The Future of Humanity, Something Important That I Dropped Down the Toilet When I Wasn't Paying Attention, Ironic Stipulation, and Something That I Vomited Up At A Very Important Company Picnic.  That is a list of ten names.  We're together right? Have we reached a point in our relationship that a hug is permissible and not weird? Good. Let's continue.

     One made a very short journey.  It was cautious and shy at first.  It didn't like change and chose to stick to a comfortable environment.  It was the first born.  If that statement made no sense to you, then read Born To Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lines by Frank J. Sulloway.  I gave One to my girlfriend Wendy.  Our desks are about ten feet apart. It was a safe journey with few unpredictable obstacles.  One is safe, and made the transition without trauma. I gave it to her because she is my biggest fan. This is convenient: writers are too fragile to fall in love with people that hate their work. 

     Two traveled south to the Echo Park area of Los Angeles.  I gave him/her/it to my friend Bill Butler. I met Bill at a hostel in Santa Cruz and we liked each other immediately. At the time both of us were broke and homeless.  I had completed a contract as a carpenter for Great Lakes Theatre Festival in Cleveland a few days earlier.   I showed up in Santa Cruz with no job, no home, and $22 dollars in my pocket.  Bill and I spent the day in a coffee shop talking about books and the Law of Attraction.  He bought some food from Trader Joe's and we had a picnic on the sidewalk. My future was uncertain and a bit scary at the time, but Iwas attending was confident that an opportunity would open.  In my state of destitution I was happy.  In a situation where I had nothing I felt there were a thousand unknown possibilities.  Bill added to this feeling.  We were arm and arm staring over a pinnacle. He has been my friend ever since.  He has also been very supportive of my writing.  He used his own time without financial compensation to get copies of my book in Stories Books.  I love him.  He is kind.  His heart is large and he is full of love.  He seemed the perfect person to give a book to.

     I handed Three to Faheem.  Faheem works at the Am/Pm convenience store close to my house.  He is a kind man. His customers know him by name and enjoy visiting him.  Faheem works long hours, and I thought he might need something to read in the late slow hours.  I also like him, and he is the best argument for local business.  Once I had a problem with my debit card.  It was declined even though I knew there was more than enough money in my account to cover the charge.  Faheem bagged my stuff, and said not to worry. He said pay me tomorrow.  People love him. He takes a great interest in his customers, and he remembers what they have told him.

     Four took a longer trip into the mountains of Boulder, Colorado.  I sent it to the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.  The school was founded by Beat writers Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman. For several years I ordered catalogs and brochures from Naropa Universtity which was at that time Naropa Institute.  It sounded like my dream school.  . I have read about their program so many times, and I have great respect for what I read.  I am glad they exist, even if I never made it there.

     Five was an adventurous book and it headed for the opposite coast.  I sent it to The Nuyorican Poets Cafe. I was a student at West Virginia University at the time studying scenic design.  I signed up for a group trip and took the eight hour bus ride into the city.  There was a great itinerary including wonderful plays and backstage tours.  I bailed on all of them to create my own itinerary.   I knew that if I ever made it to NYC, then I had to visit the cafe.  It was the most wonderful environment for poetry that I have ever experienced.  The audience was respectful and encouraging.  Miguel Algarin sat at the bar reading most of the time.  I was enthralled through the entire slam and finally approached the microphone late in the night to read at the open mic.  I read the title poem of my book.  At some point I looked up from my reading to see that Miguel had stopped reading.  He was staring straight at me.  My ego would like to believe that he stopped reading his papers due to an interest in my poem, but I can't really know if that is true. Perhaps a bee had made it inside through some vent in an unlikely season.  Possibly Miguel stared wondering if I would get stung by the urban honey maker.  After the reading someone said that I was "pushing the limits".  What does that mean?  Did I almost encroach upon some unspoken time limit, or did this have some other meaning? It doesn't matter. The Nuyorican Poets Cafe supports poets, so I sent them a book.  I wonder who opens the mail?

     Six stayed a little closer to home.  It took a ride across the bay to City Lights Books.  This is a historical establishment owned by one of my favorite poets Lawrence Ferlinghetti.  Mr Ferlinghetti wrote Coney Island of the Mind, These Are My Rivers, A Far Rockaway of the Heart,These Are My Rivers: New & Selected Poems, 1955-1993, Poetry As Insurgent Art, Pictures of the Gone World. Her, Wild Dreams of a New Beginning, and The Secret Meaning of Things.  He also published Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Other Poems.  The first copies of these were seized by U.S. Customs and led to a  huge trial where our freedom of speech went on trial.  In the end freedom won.  There is a book about the trial by Bill Morgan which is on my wishlist.  I haven't read it yet.  I am ashamed to say that I have lived in the East Bay for one year and six months and I haven't visited the book store yet.  This is is pretty stupid and inexcusable since it has been a dream of mine since 1996.  I really have to get my act together.

     Seven was jealous of Five.  It had received multiple post cards from Five about how great New York was, and it decided to check things out for itself.  It said Fine. I'll show you.  Seven did some research, booked a ticket, and headed directly to the historic Poetry Project at St. Marks Church.  The project sponsors weekly readings, writing workshops, and the annual literary magazine The Recluse.  I have never visited St. Marks, but I know that Jim Carroll read there, and I love Jim Carroll. He wrote Void of Course, Fear of Dreaming, The Book of Nods, Living at the Movies, 4 Ups and 1 Down, Forced Entries, and The Basketball Diaries which later became a movie starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Mark Wahlberg. 

     Eight decided to head south from NorCal to SoCal to pay a visit to Beyond Baroque.  "Beyond Baroque is one of the United States' leading independent Literary/Arts Centers and public spaces dedicated to literary and cultural production, contact, interaction, and community building. Founded in 1968, it is based in the Old Town Hall in Venice, California, near the Pacific Ocean. It offers a program of readings, free workshops, publishing, bookstore, archiving, and education. The Center launched its own imprint, Beyond Baroque Books, in 1998, dedicated to emerging, overlooked, out of print, and experimental writing, as well as the history and legacy of experimental and alternative writing, poetry, and the arts in Los Angeles."  My friend Bill (see book two) told me about this place.  I want to pay them a visit.

     Nine made a short but very important trip across the bridge to San Francisco. Nine made a trip as a token of my appreciation for KQED.  KQED is the local radio station that that airs the programs of NPR.  I listen to them in the car on the way to work and sometimes on the way home from work. I appreciate them most when I venture into the world to shop for the materials we need to build a show.  I am glad they are there talking to me as I go buy steel or lumber, but it is also a painful experience.  I pick up programs after they have begun and I have to go back to work before the programs end.  I really like when they talk about books. I also like their news stories.  Is National Public Radio the last fortress for real journalists?  I quit watching the news on T.V.  Its obvious bias and lack of curiosity made me want to vomit into a newspaper and cry.  On NPR the journalists actually approach different angles. They seem to seek a coherent overall picture.  It appears that they want to know the story as opposed to writing their own story over the truth to perpetuate agendas.  Why is this rare?  This should be the norm.

     Ten went its merry way to Chicago to pay a visit to my friend Kevin.  We met at the Texas Shakespeare Festival in 1998.  Kevin came to my native town of Kilgore from Montgomery, Alabama to serve as the Master Carpenter.  I had worked at TSF twice as an intern, and it was my first year as a Scenic Carpenter.  Kevin and I bonded instantly.  After three days working together Kevin declared that I needed to move, and that I did not belong in the little East Texas town.  I nodded my head in agreement, but saw no escape.  My friend made it his mission to get me out.  Thanks to his efforts I left my hometown five months later in a 1988 Volkswagen Fox loaded with books, and I began a carpentry internship at Alabama Shakespeare Festival.  Kevin also introduced me to the local poetry open mic at 1048 Jazz and Blues Club.  He is now the Managing Director for Eclipse Theatre Company in Chicago.

     That sums up the first leg of the journey for these ten books.  The rest of the journey is unmapped.  I would like to track the travels as best I can.  If you have a book, then please consider joining the Facebook Group Poetry Chain Letter Project.  You may also e-mail me with your book number as the subject line.

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