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“Humans are essentially narrative beings,” says Travis Cebula in the introduction to his exceptional new work, One Year in a Paper Cinema, explaining how it is that he found gestalt in a year of printed movie listings taken from local fishwrap. I have my own thoughts about how film interacts with the individual and its culture—almost all of them spoken with great insight and unfailingly more eloquence in Travis’ delicate, sometimes whimsical/sometimes insistent/sometimes frustrated days. It isn’t just the turns of phrase (“In the beginning/we made monsters” for instance, reminding of the best of Travis’ turns like “Under the Skies They Lit Cities”), it’s the sense of an artist moving from a jab; a challenge where he speaks of balls and living free, dying hard – all the way to a wry sense of humor in sudden talk of “wieners”. Yet it’s in the moments that he wrings “milk from pearls” that the work truly shines: there are so many dark moments of romantic dalliances and indiscretions, so much momentum in the urgent interactions and secret ministries, that Travis has done something entirely unexpected: he’s reconstituted art from one medium into another, and found truth there in the internal, tonal space between a record, and to record.—Walter Chaw, author of Miracle Mile and Chief Critic at Film Freak Central “[F]rom the belly / of the fever beast” comes Travis Cebula’s procedural poetic journey into cinescape linguistics. Taken straight from the primetime movie lineup found in that now defunct public institution of shared consumer experience (a.k.a. the tv guide), familiar popular culture landmarks naturally abound. However changed, shifted, slanted and askew they may seem, treating “meaning as a hammer / of protection, / protection as a measure / of national life.” And so it is not in the shelter of known referents that the power of these pages is most evident, but in the places where all points of reference fade into the bright black of the room Mr. Cebula has so expertly staged, leaving in their wake the masterfully crafted projections of each page…for you: the inevitable audience. There’s no escaping it. Find your seat and try not to blink. —Travis Macdonald, author of N7ostradamus and The O Mission RepoNobody looks in the newspaper to see what's on TV anymore. For that kind of news, we have to go to poems—specifically, Travis Cebula's pitch-perfect One Year in a Paper Cinema, whose shapely, lyrico-epigrammatic interfaces with a year's worth of TV listings in The Denver Post pull open the gauzy curtain separating "art" and "life" to reveal something at once fresh and recycled, mysteriously stochastic and predatorily pre-programmed. Almost as soon as this book was finished, the Post stopped printing this section. Thank goodness for the celerity of visionary poets!—K. Silem Mohammad, author of Dear Head Nation and A Thousand DevilsTravis Cebula resides with his wife and trusty dog in Colorado, where he founded Shadow Mountain Press in 2009. His poems, photographs, essays, and stories have appeared internationally in various print and on-line journals. He has authored of six chapbooks of poetry, including Blossoms from Nothing, available in 2014 from E·Ratio Editions. One Year in a Paper Cinema is his third collection from BlazeVOX Books. In 2011 Western Michigan University and Charles University in Prague awarded him the Pavel Srut Fellowship for Poetry.Book Information:· Paperback: 394 pages · Binding: Perfect-Bound · Publisher: BlazeVOX [books] · ISBN: 978-1-60964-151-1$18 Pre-Orders Welcome
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ONE YEAR IN A PAPER CINEMA
TRAVIS CEBULA
B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ] Buffalo, New York
One Year In A Paper Cinema By Travis Cebula Copyright © 2014 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza Cover Art by Travis Cebula First Edition ISBN: 978-1-60964-151-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2013950655 BlazeVOX [books] | 131 Euclid Ave | Kenmore, NY 14217 | [email protected]
publisher of weird little books
BlazeVOX [ books ] blazevox.org
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June 21.
purple. the impact on Nora. the secondhand night chronicles her darkness — darkness as friend, as memory keeper, as waiting lust. the dark I want mimics the ocean, that little beautiful. I want a harbor stick in a cool, rocky place.
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June 22.
once upon a distinguished gentleman — in Mexico this was, in the sun — Carlito stood waiting by the water’s edge. I had a run with the wild girl. I had a run.
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June 23.
in the beginning we made monsters. in that measured hell around the corner, the widow prayed for grace and money.
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June 24.
what’s love got to do with Lolita? she wears Prada like the girl next door wears her mother’s diary: alone.
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June 25.
Juliet believes in dark chance. she believes this is no world for cradles — where the spirits of old men rise in a crimson tide, and the grave is but a sequel.
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June 26.
meet the Glimmer Man, with his trophy balls. the champ — on the roof he calls till dawn. live free or die sudden. shall we resurrect America? shall we dance a redline dance into wild extinction?
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June 27.
how quickly he knew too much. 40-year-old Dave sings the blues as flirting waves from the rear window. a Tokyo bus drifts away. it’s just Dave and his decisions now. all those candles die — that can’t hardly wait… that get married or sin tryin’… and then the fast line of exit ultimatum. no family waits at home for the postman. his plainsong wedding is a dead mutant reef of incredible expectations.
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June 28.
Matilda, beware an outbreak of saving from righteous kings. beware the patriot dog soldiers in black; the good witch in the castle twitches, too. she hears meaning as a hammer of protection, protection as a measure of national life — larger than kings or even fair gods.
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June 29.
the grand fool’s made a life of shouting fire inside holes. in the heat, in the dead serious, he pledges the greatest show on okie noodling — the last chance to witness his very own meltdown café.
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June 30.
once upon a time in Moulin Dewey, the blonde action opens on a hostile bunny — her unthinkable hair happens in 3-D. who is running this hybrid city — Dr. Seuss or Beethoven? Paris on pills.
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July 1.
there’s no way out. a predator hunted this gang of 13 high school strangers to the fog of a lake house. they are shouting guns! blood! pretty! and baby! from the chest, from the belly of the fever beast.
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July 2.
midway to the center of the matrix, Troy (the erotic traveler) finds the object of his desire — his heaven — The Wizard of Oz and Carrie caught in a game of frantic twister.
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July 3.
dude, where’s my bunny? analyze that.
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July 4.
the patriot returns, broken. it is a long journey, far from crimson, far from fire and ruins to the more intimate and stranger underworld that is New York, and home.
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July 5.
I now pronounce the breakup. recall independence? recall calm friends? between love and the shaft we learn a death sentence — goodbye cursed with a sweetheart voice to cellular apocalypto, anywhere but here. are we a mess yet? no, we are the wolf. this mask is cut from the road. it is a mockery of ice and sand.
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July 6.
dear diary — I am the click of ice and shots. enchanted by streets, I own night. I step into a ghost town Manhattan.
