O frabjous day! Our new issue has hit the digital newsstand. Its release is a bit tardy, but only because it’s overflowing with hybrid goodness: sound poems by Oana Avasilichioaei and Rachel Zucker, art by Sebastian Mendes, video from Meghan Lamb and Lubomir Panak, words & images from Matthew Cooperman, Marius Lehene, Joseph Harrington, Zuzana Husarova, Francesco Levato, and Martin Ott, plus a triptych with Dayana Stetco - an interview, a play excerpt, and a chapter from her translation of Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu’s “The Dragon.”

I will be leaving the BathHouse editorship in the very worthy hands of Mr. Sean Kilpatrick; if you peruse our pages and think your work would fit our tastes, feel free to submit. Sean and our editorial brigade will be working hard in the fall to put together issue 9.1 for late ‘11 or early ‘12. Consider “liking” us on the facebook, and, please, tell your friends.

Poems on the big screen? Motionpoems.

About the project (in the words of creators Tom Boss and Angella Kassube):

We’re poetry lovers who’ve discovered a passion for bringing poets and filmmakers together. We’ve done this for two years now, with over 22 poems, and the stunning results have landed in online textbooks, in traditional broadcast media … even at film festivals in the US and abroad!

We call these short-short films “motionpoems.” A motionpoem is a hybrid of poetry and film, and our creative model is getting lots of attention as the world of traditional publishing tilts to accommodate digital media.

Our mission is simple: To broaden the audience for poetry by turning great poems into short films.

This year, with your help, we’ll produce 12-15 new motionpoems to accompany Scribner’s celebrated annual Best American Poetry anthology… the 2011 volume. It’s a new pilot-year collaboration that significantly raises the profile for us. It means we’ll be working with a stellar lineup of poets this summer, from emerging writers to multiple Pulitzer Prize winners. The completed projects will be free online for general audiences and educators. The entire publishing industry will be watching. We can’t wait to show you the results!

Here is an example, “Render, Render” by Thomas Lux:

RENDER, RENDER a poem by Thomas Lux from Motionpoems on Vimeo.

Tuesday, April 19th, 7:00
Student Center Auditorium, Eastern Michigan University

On Tuesday, April 19th at 7:00 P.M. in the EMU Student Center Auditorium, Ann Arbor-based production company Lionbelly Media will be showing a trio of spooky short films we have completed in the past year. Admission is free and open to the public, and the event is co-sponsored by the Eastern Michigan University Art Department and the Department of English Language and Literature.

Silo: Micah Kroll returns to his run-down family farm after years away. His sister, Monica, who is taking care of their sick father, is less than happy to see him. And when strange events start to unfold on the farm, she braces herself for the surfacing of a family secret his return triggers. Written and Directed by EMU creative writing graduate student Joe Sacksteder; cinematography by Art Department faculty Jen Seibert.

The Quirk and the Dead: the zombie apocalypse has completely ruined the marriage plans of happy couple Dan and Hannah. When Dan, now bereft of Hannah, meets up with rogue gunslinger, Craig Nolan, the two try to forget happier memories as they negotiate the desolate husk of a former world. Written and Directed by Ken MacGregor.

The Meriwether Device: Chrissie is unlucky in love and has a knack for choosing weirdos. Paul is no exception. But, when they join her friends for a weekend getaway and Paul announces that he has resurrected and perfected a Victorian ghost machine, the weekend suddenly turns into a different kind of disaster. Written and directed by Brian Lillie; cinematography by Jen Seibert.

As an interlude, we will show a music video we shot for Drunken Barn Dance. The films contain some comic violence and a bit of language (think PG-13). We are expecting a full house.

April 13, 2011, 4:30-6:00
Kiva Room (360), Eastern Michigan University Student Center

Join the graduating M.A. creative writing students as we present our final cognate projects. Presenters will be Andrew Powers, Tom Boersma, Jesse Eagle, and me - Joe Sacksteder. Andrew will be presenting a zine authored by one Julian Broadleaf, one of the characters in his novel Panacea: Notes from the Inner Room. Tom’s project includes a “sonnet box” paired with photography that undermines the concept of photography itself. Jesse will unveil his collection of hybrid stories, The Mechanisms of Sum. I will be playing some hilarious tracks from my album, Fugitive Traces, which are sound poems based on the audio commentary of Werner Herzog.

The BathHouse Journal will also have the floor for a short presentation, a kind of belated issue release for 8.1 and a preview of 8.2. Hope you can come!