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Very excited to announce that Eleni Sikelianos selected my poem as 1st Place winner for the inaugural Ping Pong Journal Award (in connection with the Henry Miller Library, Big Sur).

http://www.starve.org/radiofreealbion/vitkauskas.mp3

I’ve been meaning to tell you,I could sense you left my innerspacelast weekend, you burrowed intothe loamy soil, as a sitcom orherring—the transitions stunk. There’s been something wild here,an urgency of bloodshot messes;could Sundays be, again (perhaps)against us in a foggy vacuum,silt & buttresses of limbs,all the elms coveting us? You,       yes, everywhere in my…… Continue reading Poem: Dear White Wolf Spider

James Pate reviews my book, A Neon Tryst, here @ Montevideayo. “These poems are like flashing, oblique messages from a dead or yet-to-be country. From the nocturnal neon tryst between lateness and image. Between static and paranoia. When you read Vitkauskas’ book, it seems like it’s after midnight, and everyone for miles around is asleep.”

What is the title of the book? A Neon Tryst Where did the idea come from for the book? It’s a collection of ekphrastic poems featuring the films L’Eclisse (director Michelangelo Antonioni); Seconds (director John Frankenheimer); and Wild Strawberries (director Ingmar Bergman). Though divided in three separate sections by film, the collection stands as one, cohesive piece, as all main characters…… Continue reading The Next. Big. Thing.

http://www.montevidayo.com/new-books-by-mark-tursi-and-lina-ramona-vitkauskas/

“An Introduction to the Chick Flix series” by Jennifer L. Knox with a poem by Lina ramona Vitkauskas “Tomorrow, we’ll kick things off with Nancy McGuire Roche’s homage to Barbarella. Until then, let’s dim the lights and watch a poem by Lina ramona Vitkauskas. WOMAN OF THE YEAR Wanda & I were in a very…… Continue reading Poem, Delirious Hem, “Chick Flix”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcsHoLstQC0 So I saw this phenomenal documentary about Aussie exploitation films, Not Quite Hollywood. It featured of a variety of nudie, gross-out, horror, and sci-fi/apocalyptic films, one of which was the classic, Mad Dog Morgan, starring the much-missed Dennis Hopper. Horror was never my bag, but I have to say, the films highlighted in this…… Continue reading Ozploitation

  Enjoy Lydia Tomkiw, belle of Chicago’s disjointed poetic collaboration, Algebra Suicide. How true and tragic these turns: “It’s was keeps our glands oiling.” I was also given (to borrow) Joe Soap’s Canoe from the UK (Copyright 1991) which included essays on poems that poets were assigned. Citics/essayists included Paul Violi, Tony Towle, and Simon…… Continue reading Algebra Suicide

A visually stunning movie about a beautiful little Persian girl with a wild imagination who worked in the citrus groves of California in 1913, and who is in a sanotorium/hospital after falling and breaking her arm. She meets a young suicidal actor who tells her tall tales while they are both in the hospital. The…… Continue reading "The Fall"

I tend to tag-team read, that is, I read about 3-4 books at a time. This past week, every morning on the train, I’ve cracked open the Rene Daumal book, Le Contre-Ciel (The Counter-Heaven) that Simone bought me for my birthday. Daumal is a self-destructive 22-year old at this point, one who is raging with…… Continue reading Daumal & Soyinka

  I was first exposed to The Residents in a dark room at 2 a.m. in Columbus, OH. Their music struck me enough to pursue musical research for about a week. Concept bands always fascinate me, so these eyeball men are on my permanent playlist.

1961Alain Resnais The Music Box, Chicago, IL I have to remark that Italian Neorealism, from which Resnais and other French New Wave directors derive some cinematic style, was immediately apparent to me via the elaborate setting of the French hotel/chateau. Another character in of itself, the chateau was unfurled in all of of its stoic…… Continue reading “Last Year at Marienbad”

  Directed by Swede Lukas Moodysson, Lilya 4-Ever is a wrenching story of a girl who is sold into sex slavery. In a post-Soviet Estonian slum, sixteen year old Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) is elated when she finds out her mother’s new online boyfriend is taking both of them to the States. The day before the…… Continue reading “Lilya 4-Ever”

We wrote these on Chinese New Year. I used fortune cookie slips from our meal to title each poem. A collaboration with Gene Tanta, Mirela Ciupag, Larry Sawyer, and Lina ramona Vitkauskas. That special someone loves to see the light in in your eyes. Trees idealize this volatile bliss; inthe stink of farm and old…… Continue reading “Lay down your head to be born”

The Decline of Western CivilizationPenelope Spheeris (1979)  RE: Claude Bessy (Slash editor, raconteur, Catholic Discipline ringleader) Excerpt “From Los Angeles to the Haçienda: The Ballad of Kickboy & Philomena”: “But the segment where a certain he holds court is different; even the hardcore punks look like poseurs next to Claude’s poetically splenetic rants. Claude, whose poison…… Continue reading Which One of You Wrote with the Greasy Lipstick?

Diane Arbus has always been a fascinating figure among those shooting documentary-style photography. FUR examines her life through a fictional lens, utilizing factual components of Arbus’s life and spinning a fantasy tale of a freakish neighbor turned love interest—perhaps a cinematic representation of what may have been the pictures Arbus took with her soul rather…… Continue reading Diane Arbus

This satire on teen suicide really spawned a generation of movies that turned the John Hughes collection onto its head, paving the way for later movies such as “Election”. It effectively captured the clique-infused teen attitude toward a devastating problem. My favorite scenes involve the principal, faculty, and school counselor meetings after each teen dies–keenly…… Continue reading The MTV Video Games

ONTV was the first paid subscription “cable” television we had on the South side of Chicago in the early ’80s. This logo is burned on my brain, as it was the signifier of a treasure trove of “adult” movies such as Ellie starring Shelley Winters and Cheech and Chong’s Up In Smoke. My brother and…… Continue reading ONTV in Chicago

  Like Han-shan in China, Ryokan is loved in Japan as much for his antics as for his profound poetry. Ryokan became a priest at age 18 and took to a life of wandering. He eventually met his teacher, Kokusen Roshi, and settled down to study Zen practice, ultimately becoming his most esteemed student. When…… Continue reading Ryokan

Sample supermarket mavenveteran of persuasion!Her secret life,series of bloody,unrelenting moments of horror There is an unspoken code among those who make a profession of the supermarket sample gig. They are the seasoned experts at creating a moment of enticement–appealing to senses of smell and taste, one spear of toothpick precision to your very core. They…… Continue reading Free Sample

In 2006, I wrote a preface for Denis Emorine’s book, Au chevets des mots (A Step Inside). I remember reading this little book and becoming quite delighted with it…it spurned my desire to quest for that which is unsaid or cannot be said…that is, the pauses between “words” that say EVERYTHING. (Kalinauskaite, previous entry /…… Continue reading Time is Bleeding

  Carefree, AZ. Cave Creek, AZ. Sedona, AZ. Pure vortexes of energy in those stoic, wise rocks that have stood the test of time on the barren landscape. The vegetation–saguaro cacti, ocatillo, pricky pear. Javelinas cross the roadways. Cowpokes and Harley riders. The stretches of long desert miles. The constellation-filled sky–seeing Venus as bright as…… Continue reading Arizona