in the nows

hey howdy all ye ablations,

Winner of Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize Has Done Been Announced!

Sabrina Orah Mark's manuscript, The Babies, has been selected by Jane Miller as the first Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize Winner, and that's Damn Tooting! Mark investigates generic boundaries through a sensibility rich with philosophical ambition, live leap imagination and a humor of the heights and depths.

Here be a Mark's poem:

The 10 Stages of Beatrice

Stage 1. -- Belonging. In the first stage Beatrice is precisely labeled and timed. She is able to divise complex graphs, answer questions in the order that they're asked, and construct coherent narratives without nostalgia or actual fear. There is no display of loud sobbing, nor are there visions.

Stage 2.-- Happy. Beatrice, during the second stage, believes she is alive. The possibility that she is not alive, in this stage, never enters her mind. This stage is only possible if the spectacle comes to town.

Stage 3. -- Walter B. This stage is also called "the latch stage." It is Beatrice at her most historical and strange.

Stage 4. -- Romance. Beatrice is hunted, captured, and softly strung to a tree. In this stage words are used to intoxicate, supply, and deceive. These words are rarely interesting. Gifts are exchanged that are of no use.

Stage 5. -- Dread. Beatrice is covered in feathers and twigs. She believes she is a nest. This stage, if it occurs in winter, is also called "The Babies."

Stage 6. -- Slice. The sixth stage often appears in Beatrice's hand like a long instrument with a blade at the end. She will eat cake, during this stage, until she has visions.

Stage 7. -- Cryptozoology. In the seventh stage Beatrice wears a green dress with large white pockets in which to store the evidence. If this stage is mingled with the second stage, ecstasy is achieved.

Stage 8. -- Crowded. Beatrice is behind glass. In this stage Beatrice is blurred by the humans who observe her without caution.

Stage 9. -- Poland. Beatrice gathers her grandfather into her arms. She recites him from his memory. The ninth stage sounds like this: tsim tsum, tsim tsum, tsim tsum.

Stage 10. -- Return. In the final stage Beatrice watches Beatrice feed the babies with a spade.


For a more extended look-see at this seriously twisted moustache, this raving mad line of chic, the spun and souling Beatrice and her babies, check out Mark's work at her blog Live Plants, Corsages.

ah ha hurrah, that's it in the nows tonight.