you can be handsome i'll be pretty

OCHO #10

Full disclosure: A few of my poems hung out in OCHO #9.

Um, OCHO #11 is already out. But I want to talk about OCHO #10 because I got a free PDF version in my email. Didi Menendez, publisher of MiPOesias, publishes OCHO print-on-demand through Lulu.com. And what else should you buy but poetry? Those infomercial lights that illuminate your dresser drawers right when you open them? What, is your dresser a refrigerator? Do you store apples in it? Don't be an ass.

When OCHO started, each issue had eight poems, but now the name is more like Motel Six. A complete list of things unlike Motel Six: airplane hangars, hurricane shelters, my eyes. Menendez eschews the aesthetic myopia that ensnares most poetry rags edited by people who write clauses like "eschews the aesthetic myopia that ensnares." OCHO resembles a more frequent and poetic version of those NOW! compilations. The variety, I mean, not the suck. OCHO will deliver your scraggly first person Bukowski yawp, your elliptical la-la, your one style of poetry with a lot of abstract nouns, your search engine collage, your sexy confessional monologue, your syllabic freakout, your snarky syntactic inversions, your self-referential sigh, your cigarette poem, your childhood recollection + dialogue--okay. You get it. I mean, you didn't even read that whole sentence once you saw how long it was. We all like different shit. I like playing T-Ball and screaming.

Some of my fan vote all-stars from OCHO #10 include: the Amy duos of Amy Gerstler and Amy King. Amy Gerstler gives us the phrase "skinny dipping regret," our collective lack thereof, and this smiling sort of line that is like climbing a ladder out of a mine into a smile.

My friend and former haircare mentor Kasey Mohammad has this epic poem called "All of Me" which alone is worth the nine buck plunk. Not even shitting you. Witness these random, out-of-order quotes!

  Part of me wants to feel bad for being such a beeyotch. Another part of
  me slaps my own hand, face, and every other part of my skin it can
  make contact with. Then another part of me beats that part up because
  you never know if you don’t try.

  Part of me feels deprived of the presence/friendship of other black
  males. I still want them only and I mean only if they are not touching
  my chest at all. A part of me understands the “personal touch” aspect,
  but then another part of me is not much in favor of this practice. And
  then another part of me sort of gets it a little bit.

  Part of me thinks of everyone in the future having their own personal
  helicopters. But then another part of me believes we’re going to die, all
  of us. Die a horrible, horrible death. And then another part of me says,
  let’s dance, whee, and there’s a fistfight in my mind. And then another
  part of me opens my eyes to see all these beautiful white birds I am
  blessed to have in my life.

--from K. Mohammad's "All of Me" in OCHO #10

Other favs: Emma Trelles's restaurant review and Letitia Trent's sonic gum crystal spark (those blue crystals that electrocute your teeth).

Was that a long blog post for one magazine? Probably. I should've included something practical, like a recipe for sexy avocado tacos. You should Google such a recipe while buying OCHO #10.