LIBERTY POST!

Today is Independence Day, which means to me that I make a lot of tweets and status updates that are in all capital letters, like the founding fathers would have wanted. Please enjoy below what appears to be the most patriotic picture of all time.

When I was a senior in college, I was in a guys vs. girls competition with the history majors (I don't know how I got picked to do this) that was like Family Feud. The history professors polled the freshmen with questions about the nation, and we had to name the top four or five responses for each question. The questions were relatively simple questions like "Name an amendment" (which I understand is not a question), "Who was one of our founding fathers" and things of that nature. The girls won because we could think like freshmen. The number two answer for "Who was one of our founding fathers" was "Abraham Lincoln." I don't think this reflects poorly on my university in particular, but probably just on eighteen-year-olds everywhere.

That's my patriotic story for the day. But I also have some news unrelated to liberty and blowing things up, except in the metaphorical sense.

I got a poem accepted today by Bluestem Magazine that will be out sometime in September. It is, for your information, one of my many poems about lying on the floor and not wanting to get up. So you can look forward to that.

I also fell into a glamorous position blogging for the brand new Specter Magazine, which will launch its maiden issue this fall. You guys, go and submit awesome things there so that you can help make the internet a magical place.

Now go and eat beef (if you're into that), drink a brewski, and look at people shoot stuff off and blow stuff up!

So Much News I'm Going to Need a Bigger News Bucket

The boring tediums of the day. Adjusting to the new thing that gmail is doing. Getting the mail right after it's delivered, even though I don't want to open any of it. Making lists of things I must do, and making sure I put at least one thing on there I've already completed.

I know everyone knows that it's hot, because the Earth is rotating rapidly on its axis, and it's July, and that's what happens when we get closer to the sun. But it's worth mentioning anyway. I have included a diagram in case it's confusing at all.

Not only because it's July, but also due to an array of other factors, I have some poems up in a few magazines this month. One of my poems is is the current issue of Thunderclap! Magazine, along with an excellent lineup of other writers. You can buy it in print or as an e-book, so you should go get your dirty mitts on it right now.

Yesterday the new issue of decomP went live on the interwebz, in which you can find another one of my poems, along with the poems of several others, including J. Bradley, the PANK interviews editor and inventor of the best poem titles ever.

I'll have several other publications coming out during this summer, which I will make you aware of (dur).

The other bit of news I'm delighted to share is that I've been chosen as the new Poetry Editor of Stymie Magazine. They publish all things sports & games, so if you write sports & games lit, or if you like it, or if you know how to read, or if you like things that are good, you should go check it out. I'm looking forward to when I'll start saying "We publish" instead of "they publish." It'll come soon, I'm sure.

Strange Review 5: Dirk Walker

I meant to post this several days ago, as it is an excellent Strange Review; however, Will and I just returned home this afternoon from a 24-hour car trip from Florida up to Minnesota. Our apartment is a grillion degrees, we bought an expensive air conditioner that we may not be able to actually use, and there's sweat coming out of my body like a faucet. I've been busy. But this review cheers me up.

In this Strange Review, radio DJ Dirk Walker calls me out on the alleged myth of my illustrious mitten wearing. He even uses my full married name. I feel like I'm in trouble!

Exceptional Mitten Wearer

"This seemingly harmless phrase has been hanging out on the end of our Ms. Jenkins-Braun’s email signature for as long as I have known her. Thing of it is, I don’t think I’ve EVER seen her in a pair of mittens. In three years one would think they would see another person who claims to be exceptional at mitten-wearing actually IN a pair of mittens, but alas! No mittens. Ever. I don’t think I’ve even seen her wear a pair of gloves! This is incredibly troubling.

There are two schools of thought I’ve employed to explain the reason why Brett claims to wear mittens exceptionally, but without any empirical evidence:

1- Brett Jenkins-Braun has a long-hidden phobia of mittens.

Hey, who am I to judge? Everybody’s got their quirks and those of you reading this who know me know that I’m most definitely no exception (ask me about my childhood fear of domed ceilings sometime). Maybe by giving herself the credential of exceptional mitten wearer at the end of her email messages she’s helping herself to get over her fear. But, Brett, if you really are afraid of mittens, just ‘fess up! You’re among friends! We love you! I for one will try as hard as I can to help you overcome this phobia.

2- Brett-Jenkins Braun is highly trained in the art of discreet mitten-wearing. Personally, I think this is the most likely scenario. This woman isn’t playing around when she puts on mittens! No funky, kitschy ski resort patterns for Brett; we’re talking mittens that look like real hands and crafted by an order of Franciscan monks on the top of Mt. McKinley or something. Her mittens are so lifelike that nobody can actually tell she has them on!

The choice is yours what to believe, but either way I want to see some cold hard verification to back up Brett’s claim to exceptional mitten wearing. Either you cough up the evidence or I bring in a private investigator, Brett!"

Strange Review 4

Today's Strange Review truly is strange, and comes to you from Master Scott Smith, whose title was bestowed on him from the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College. In his email to me, Scott reviewed his own Strange Review, citing it as " something gawdawful." Please, enjoy it here:

"Brett Jenkins is not fit to be your Prom Queen of interrogative words. She is nowhere close to being the Drag Queen of prepositional phrases. She is, however, a soon to be ex-wife of this reviewer.

When I read the words she has written in poetic forms, I wonder aloud to myself and anyone else at the bus stop: “What kind of sandwich did the author eat while writing? And...what kind of bread was it on? Instinctively, I always answer: a chicken salad sandwich with walnuts, cranberries, and relish on a nine grain baguette. I usually find that the beverage of choice would be an ice cold whisky sour in the left hand and a vodka tonic in the right hand. I then tend to discover I am not at a bus stop at all but rather in a furniture store, farting on all the fine leather chairs.

What I am trying to get across to you here is the following: Brett's poems are very quick to give the reader a few moments to reflect on their own existence in the company of strangers but there are not nearly enough crotch shots or upskirt moments for my taste. As a matter of fact, I am generally appalled at the lack of toothless grins featured in your magazine. For shame! When will America learn that we aren't all as beautiful as Brett is when she wears her best pant suit and frolics around at the rest home on Tuesday afternoons at 4pm. We could learn much from this former Saltan of Western Indiana."

Scott Smith
Writer, Cherry Pie Enthusiast, Tuxedo T-Shirt Guy

Strange Review 3: William Jenkins-Braun

Today I'm posting a Strange Review written by my own husband, William Jenkins-Braun!

"Les Revues étranges, by Jean-Marc Pétard, is a nonpareil classic of French poetic criticism. First published in 1975, it initially went unnoticed by American critics, despite being adroitly translated into English by Herbert Wolters-Reader the subsequent year. By and large, this oversight was due to the massive attention directed at De la grammatologie and its translation, Of Grammatology, which was only then being published in the United States.

It was not until 2010, with the publication of a new translation by Ralph Butts and Simon Gass, that Les Revues étranges began to gain traction in American academic circles. The new translation contained an appendix by Pétard, adapted from an address he gave at Harvard University regarding the developments in Western poetry during the thirty-five years since he first wrote Les Revues étranges. Among the poets addressed therein, we find this assessment of Brett Elizabeth Jenkins:

Ce que m’interesse chez la poésie de Mlle Jenkins c’est les images. On y a des images d’une pureté qu’on ne trouve pas chez aucun poète contemporain, ni chez Bukowski, ni chez Graham. Les images qu’on découvre chez “Hello Moon” et “Message I Left Myself on the Phone” sont telles qu’on ne peut faire que les mettre avec les mieux de Charles Baudelaire. Sûrement, on ne trouve pas ailleurs leurs pareilles, cette clarté frénetique qui se délecte des choses immondes.

What interests me about Ms. Jenkins’s poetry is her images. She has such pure images in her poetry. You can’t find such pure images in the works of any other contemporary poet, neither in Bukowksi nor in Graham. The images you find in “Hello Moon” and “Message I Left to Myself on the Phone” are so great that you have to place them among Baudelaire’s best. Certainly, you don’t find their equal elsewhere; that clear frenzy that delights in disgusting things (trans. Butts & Gass).

It is a telling assessment, one that surely marks a poetic talent worth watching.

Strange Review 2

Today's Strange Review comes to us from Erik Evenson, who graduated with me from the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College. If you don't get the joke here, it's probably because you don't know how to read so what are you doing at my blog and you have stupid hair.


"I've personally collaborated with Brett and I can tell you, his work is amazing. He displays a savage, carnal ability to portray the human male, his throbbing phallus gleaming brighter than all others. His poetry returns us to the brass-knuckle era of Dylan Thomas and William Carlos Williams. I could go on and on, but his name says it all: Brett Elizabeth Jenkins"

Along with today's Strange Review comes the news that three of my poems are up for perusal at Pressboardpress. Please go check them out, along with the other great poets & prosers that have been featured there this month!

Also, I'm not sure who's got Tumblrs these days, as I am quite new to it myself. There are so many different ways of staying in contact with people, it kind of stresses me out. Anyway, I'm not really clear about what Tumblr is for, but like all other social media outlets, I am addicted. I will say that yesterday when Will was trying to find my Tumblr page, he stumbled across this phenomenon. The poem in question was previously featured in The Medulla Review last year.

I guess if you want people to read your stuff, short poems are totally the way to go!

Open for Business

Today's news is brought to you in part by Pew Charitable Trusts (not really), and Bryan Zabala, who designed my excellent new business cards, which you can see the front of here. The back of the card designates me as a poet, so I guess there's no turning back now.

I've begun leaving them in different restaurants and homes around the southern and central Minnesota area, and soon we'll be traveling all across the nation, so who knows where you might be able to stumble across one of these babies.

Also, you know, if you see me or ask me for one, I'd be happy to oblige.

I guess being a poet isn't really a business, but if I had to make a poetry menu, it would go like this:

POETRY MENU
____________________

haiku ................................... $3

tanka ................................... $5
limerick ............................... $5
acrostic .............................. $10
ode ..................................... $10
sonnet ................................ $14
ghazal ................................ $20
vinanelle ............................ $20
sestina ............................... $39
epic ............................... $1,000

ALA CARTE
____________________

monostitch .......................... $1
couplet ................................ $2
tristitch ............................... $3
chef's choice ........................ $4
quatrain .............................. $4
quintain .............................. $5
catch of the day ................ $10


Order up!